Pokkén Basics Chapter 11 [Final] Immaculate Spacing Guide

The final chapter of Pokkén Basics was made possible by Pokkén Basics Plus members. Thanks for the support.

Thanks for reading Pokkén Basics. Originally this chapter was for people who signed up for my legacy course and the two Immaculate Spacing Guide videos were exclusive to Pokkén Basics Plus. Anyway, here are all the things we learned on this journey:

1. The controls and mechanics
2. The terms and jargon
3. How to approach field phase in its entirety
4. Frame data and its applications
5. An understanding of what neutral is
6. The importance of the wall
7. A thorough breakdown of spacing and footsies
8. How projectiles, jumping, and anti-airs affect spacing
9. Basic offense and
10. Basic Defense

Now we're going to combine all these to create a tournament winning strategy. 

As soon as the first round starts, you need to decide what your goal is in field phase. Do you want to go in and force mixups, or do you want to keep the opponent out? Whichever one you choose stick to that. If you're going in, walk and block to get opponents near the wall. But if they're throwing out lots of projectiles, be liberal with your sidesteps to make them whiff. If you decided to be defensive, walking back and side walking while poking with projectiles will be your game. Make sure to punish whiffed fYs with your own. Remember to own the center of the screen. Whoever commands that space, has the freedom to move and dodge attacks however they want. And whoever is being forced to the corner, has to eat mixups and is easier to hit.

In duel phase, resist the urge to jump and lunge out the gate. Remember footsies - controlling space with the use of grounded attacks and movement. You want your attacks to make contact and you want to make your opponents attacks miss their mark so you can whiff punish. A cornered opponent is easier to provoke into jumping or whiffing buttons. If you want to play for chip damage or a time out, you can be content with poking and moving and then jumping out of the corner if your opponent gets too close. If you want to rack up some damage, walk and block into range to threaten a throw. Your basic mixup is grab or don't grab. When opponents start to try to tech preemptively, whiff punish their moves or just attack them with long reaching normals or jumps. On defense, remember there's no need to ever try to break a throw, if your opponent isn't in throw range. Avoid attacking too much at frame disadvantage. Instead opt for more evasive actions like backdashing. Keep your cool and remember to just keep moving to avoid mixups.

I just explained literally my entire strategy that I use in tournaments. And it transfers across games, I used the same fundamentals to win my first fighting game major, Kumite in Texas 2019 for Samurai Shodown. It's not fancy, it's not flashy, but it's fundamental and it wins games.

Thanks for learning Pokkén Tournament DX with me. If my guides have been valuable, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.