Online Ken’s have a distinct advantage to other characters, except perhaps Ryu and Evil Ryu. People do not take them seriously. It is assumed that these characters are played by people who mash or are not very good players.

The mind games that are at the heart of street fighter take a nose dive at this point and the Ken is in control of the whole match. If you rush them, of course they will DP. They will DP during block strings, which i might add, if you are getting hit by them, you are not doing safe block strings anyway and a GOOD player would mash an upper cut through them as well.

You have to play safe, you have to stand at just the right ranges, you cannot cheese them with unblockable setups on wakeup, you cannot use high low mixup, you just have to play very tight and well. The mind game becomes, can i make him wiff a step kick so i can punish him? Can i bait a DP during this safe block string? But unfortunately for many of us, because we are stuck thinking the player is just another “online” or “everyman” Ken, we don’t do these things. We rush needlessly and end up holding that loss and the salty rage that follows.

The message here is respect. Show respect to the Ken, be tight, safe and defensive. If they are a bad player, those anti-airs will start to build you up to victory, if they are a good player well, then that’s the fight you were looking for all along wasn’t it?