Overview
Khan is a neutral/footsies/rushdown heavy character with basic fundamentals and some serviceable offensive/defensive tools. Unfortunately he is a bottom 3 character due to his low defense, lack of a varied kit, and his "good" moves being fairly weak in comparison to the rest of the cast. His main strategy is playing lots of neutral and pressuring your opponent until their defense cracks and you capitalize from their mistakes, allowing you to hit them with some basic combos that can do some good damage. Khan isn't really a threat to the stronger characters so you'll need to play a healthy blend of neutral, offense, defense, and a some dirty tactics as well. His neutral is mainly built out of his strong dashes and his premium pokes, and it will be an important part in every Khan matchup. You should usually approach with 2A/662A and j.C since most of the damage will be dealt through them and Khan's BnB combos. Your approach will differ depending on how strong the opponent's defensive options are, so adjust accordingly. Make good use of Khan's situational yet usable tools, like his anti-airs (5S, 5B, 623C, etc.) and in some cases even his Counter, as it can win you a round if you manage to catch a good move, but it may also kill you if it whiffs.
Due to the nature of the rest of the cast you'll find yourself playing dirty as Khan. Surprise supers, tick grab spam, a lot of j.Sing, and abusing Khan's excellent dashes are all necessary in a majority of his matchups. As much as he appears to be a simple character, there's no way he can really win without playing dirty a little. Unfortunately, a lot of Khan's dirt does not work much on experienced players, or even worse, players who know their matchup against you. You need to ramp up the frequency and variety of Khan's tricks and outplay your opponent with the help of some calculated reads, neutral, mixups, tick throws, excellent blocking, smart guard cancelling, and some praying to come out on top versus an experienced player. He may be easy to learn but he is hard to master due to the amount of uphill battles you're going to constantly be playing.
Ultimately, Khan is a fun character who is unfortunately unfinished. Khan is an easy character to pick up, but winning as Khan takes experience and execution. Be happy with every win you garner as Khan, as you outplayed your opponent, you simply had the better neutral, the better game. Call them a noob in the chat as much as you want, you earned it. If you enjoy characters that have to play hard and approach different matchups with a different mindset, you will love Khan. Khan doesn't have consistency because of how weak he is. In the end he bends down to his opponent's character.
Grabs
Tick grabs are a tool you'll frequent with Khan. They're easy and fluid, and they can be done from a fair amount of moves. Unlike certain characters like Rubber Soul, Khan will not be frequenting tick grabs for damage or for vortexing, but for the more mental side of things. He will be using grabs to disrupt the opponent's flow, making them slightly more impatient and prone to mistakes. In terms of damage, yes, this grab is shit, but the mental effects you'll bring on the opponent might actually help you out in the end. You can also use tick grabbing for forcing the opponent into spots you want them to be, for example closer to the corner, since it's really hard to maneuver them into good spots without grabbing as they will most likely not respect any of your tools. Tick grabs are done by hitting the opponent with a move that has a lot of hitstun and then grabbing them quickly after they recover from it. Tick grabs are harder to tech-grab than normal ones, and your fast normals will make it even harder to react to it mentally. You can either use normals to tick grab or you can just empty hop and grab the opponent. (second option is more preferably used in okizeme)
Useful moves to tick grab with: 5A, 2A, 662A, j.B, j.C
You're going to frequent j.C and 2A as your main go-to trick grab options, as they come by quickly and leave even quicker, allowing for you to easily slip in that grab, and the opponent won't even know what's coming until they got grabbed. Unlike other Khan tricks, using this option predictably won't result in your immediate death. Since it's really hard to tech a throw in HFTF and even harder when it's done unpredictably, the opponent will most likely just get grabbed in the end. Worst case scenario is they grab you instead of you grabbing them, however the severity of your mistake depends on who you're up against. If you're up against a character like Rubber then you'll be in for some rough oki, however if you're up against a character like Yojo there's nothing too bad, as you're just going to return to neutral. You can do this option predictably and not get killed, but tick grabbing becomes super strong when you do it unpredictably, as it'll be very difficult to see and punish if the opponent does not expect it.
Unfortunately, while hitting a tick grab is very easy, Khan's grab is actually punishable as it gives you 14 frames of disadvantage. Pretty much every character except Rubber Soul can punish your grab in the corner, however your grab might not even be safe if done from midscreen, as some characters can punish it from midscreen range, luckily most times it's a pretty tight punish and it depends if the player actually knows the punish or not. There are some ways around this for Khan to avoid getting punished. Khan's hurtbox disappears during the end of his grab, and there's a 1 frame window where you can input something and the game will register it right before Khan regains his hurtbox, although he has a 6 frame period where he can't do anything before he idles when he gets his hurtbox back, so if you input a move like 5A during that 1f period, the 6f recovery will be carried over and 5A will start up in 9 frames instead of 3. The same thing even applies to his jump. Normally Khan has a 6f prejump. If you input 7/8/9 during that 1f window he will have a 12f prejump, which will open him up to a free punish. If you input S during that prejump he will actually do 5S instead of j.S, which again opens him up to an easy punish. This is all just info, but here's the important part. To escape these grab punishes you will need to roll during that 1f window. Tandems, CCs and other punishes will whiff on this roll, however due to Khan's roll being pretty slow, he can get grabbed from this roll fairly easily if the opponent sees it, and they might even bait this out of you with empty tandems or by simply just doing nothing at all. If you throw someone in the corner, which is highly not recommended, you'll need to learn this 1f roll to escape the punish that's coming. If it's from midscreen, then you'll need to worry about characters with a tandem or CC, along with other characters that have real punishes for Khan's grab. This is some pretty deep stuff but if the opponent knows how to punish your throw then you should try and learn this tech, as it might save you from getting killed.
This is explained more in depth in the video below and in the In-Depth System Info section.
Okizeme
Much like his neutral, many tend to gloss over Khan's okizeme, and for good reason. It's rather limited, and you only need to watch out for 3 things (2A, j.C and grab). However, he has many things he can do to condition the opponent into thinking what Khan's next move will be. His okizeme is not built on getting the opponent to guess, it's built on mindgames, and making the opponent think you're going to do one option while actually doing another. When you've gotten your opponent completely confused about what your move on oki will be, you will reap some serious damage. Outside of IOH j.C, you get to confirm your oki into either 214AA or [4]6B xx 623C / [4]6C. If you want to continue your oki, then just confirm into 214AA or [4]6C. You can change and switch up the things you can do on oki a lot, however I'll give a list on what oki options a Khan would frequent, and some personal ones that aren't done as much, this video below will give you a general idea about what most of Khan's oki is.
Oki Options
Empty Hop: A very frequented option. Empty hopping is the perfect way of catching an opponent thinking you're about to jump-in, however an experienced player will most likely get the hang of this option quickly. This is where mixing your stuff up is important. You can go for an empty hop 2A then IOH j.C, or empty hop 2A into grab. If you have them guessing your empty hops so much, you can even j.C on a jump-in, not even as an IOH and get them with that. This is a pretty important option for Khan, so use it if you're not used to the other ones.
Dash Telegraph: One really strong option that Khan has with oki is telegraphing. He can get the opponent into thinking you're going to do a specific option because of the "tell" you're giving him. For example a dash forward followed by an IOH j.C. This option will work if you condition them right. Just keep frequenting one option until they start blocking it, then mix it up with other less frequented one. Making your opponent guess an option based on a tell you're giving him is quite an underused option here but it's very, very strong if used right.
Bait and Punish: Khan's dashes are really good. You can use that to your advantage. If an opponent is expecting you to IOH j.C / 2A on wakeup, you can backdash out of the attack and then forward dash and punish them with 662A. Alternatively, you can also just 44 669C if they bait you into trying to punish and are expecting 662A, however this gotcha bitch option is pretty easy to spot. Usually you'll stop using this option once the opponent realizes you have an easy way to destroy their wake-up attacks, and they'll just abide to block your other oki options.
Whiff 5C, Followup: This is a pretty sneaky option however it comes with a lot of risk. When you 5C, your recovery time is huge, so your opponent will try to whiff punish you on wakeup, that's when you do the followup to beat their attempt. You can get a free [4]6B/C off of it as well. If they block it, well just hope they don't punish it. Meaty 5C is also an option you have, it's hella risky on block since they can easily hear Khan's rather loud voice when doing the move so stick to more sly options like this one.
Tick Throw: Unlike most of your options, if you frequent this one while mixing up the way you get into the grab it's actually pretty difficult to see. Unfortunately a simple pushblock beats this option clean however if you get them guessing and they don't do the pushblock then go for this option if you still want damage. Again though, Khan's grab kinda sucks, so be sure that you're not near the corner, otherwise you're going to eat a punish. Teching the throw is pretty difficult, especially off of a move like 662A, so don't worry about too much consequences from this option unless you cornered the opponent and threw them.
Cross-Up Dash Hop: This only really works against opponents not named Avdol and Ice. If they have a slow enough wake-up speed you can dash hop over them and hit them from behind. The options you have off of this move is the same as the empty hop option above. If you're up against opponents like the Joseph's or Kakyoin's you can even do a double hop over them on knockdown to mix them up even more. You can also double hop over them if you hit an s.on opponent with 214AA, however again only average/below average wakeup characters apply. You can also look like you're hopping over them but actually land on the same side to get them to block the opposite way, however this only works when you do 2A off of that option due to how fast it is. You need to time your hop so that the opponent's pushbox (the green box) goes from their liedown to standing before you hop over them, as when they are getting up, you won't pass them. It's not hard to time, and once you're done this in tandem with your empty hops you can get the opponent really start to guess on your options.
Grab: On the surface this seems like the least effective option of the bunch but if you've rattled them with your oki enough they're just going to try and block whatever comes their way, thus opening them up to an easy grab. This will also beat opponent who just roll on wake-up, as rolling unfortunately beats most of the options shown here if you IOH j.C. When they're content with rolling on wake-up, just throw them and you're good, just make sure it's not in the corner to avoid a punish.
Neutral
Khan should mostly use short hop j.C, 662A, and in some cases 4B for the neutral game, meaning most characters will beat him in that area due to him simply having less variety of good pokes. However, it may be beneficial to play in the neutral game with characters that are simply too powerful for Khan to risk closing in on (e.g. Vice and Jotaro). Certain normals like 4B should be used with caution as if not spaced correctly it can be punished hard on hit, even harder on block. You'll also frequent his amazing dashes, as they're great at the old bait and punish game, or they're a great way of beginning your approach. If you use all these options right, Khan's neutral is actually pretty strong and also very cool to watch, however it's still most likely going to be nothing compared to the higher top tiers of the game. Still though, mastering Khan's neutral already puts you a big step forward in any of Khan's matchups, as playing perfect neutral is a key component in almost every matchup he has, so it's imperative to learn the moves to learn and when to use them.
The nitty gritty of what to do neutral is not necessarily complex and deep, but it's not simple either. When used right Khan's neutral is very. very effective, even if it’s only built of of his only real useful moves. While it is comprised of very few moves, trust me the outcome will not be so bad if you play your cards right with all those moves. So, this is an in-depth explanation of a textbook way to use most of his key moves in neutral.
First, his dashes. His dashes are a very important part of his neutral, as you are able to move around a lot and get out of the way of the opponent's pokes. First, his backdash. A very useful dash, it travels a long distance and is very quick, and when in tandem with j.S you can travel insane distances away, mainly used for escaping any dire pressure, since you absolutely need to make sure your abysmal lack of defensive options is not taken advantage of. In neutral, backdash is used to mainly bait the opponent into an attack and coming back to punish them, as it can be used in backing away from any pressure you might predict or are in, or reacting to an attack you're in the range to get away from. For example, baiting a Jotaro to do s.5B and backdashing out of the way to whiff punish with 662A is a good example of the backdash, or j.S backdashing away to get out of DIO's preferred 66C range. The actual frequency of using this bait-and-punish type dashing depends on who you're up against and exactly what type of attacks the opponent uses, as attacks that are fast and have range can't really be whiff punished so you have to just backdash out of them without the whiff punish. For characters with slower attacks, whiff punishing via the backdash is really useful, especially against characters who use really easy to punish attacks in neutral like Oldseph. Against characters like Mariah you're not even playing much neutral so your backdash is not nearly as important as say against DIO where you can bait a 66C and whiff punish. The backdash is super useful, one of the better backdashes in the game, definitely abuse it, as it gives you a much stronger neutral game.
The forward dash isn't really all that special. It's going to obviously be the thing you do to begin your approach, whether it would be dash hop j.C, or a 662A, your forward dash is going to be the main offense starter for you, so of course it will be a very important thing in your arsenal. In just about every matchup forward dash is a key tool, and it's a pretty fast dash too so you can cover a good amount of distance. It also has very flexible cancelling, as pressing 44 around 5-6 frames into the dash immediately cancels that forward dash into a backdash, so while this dash is not instant cancellable, you can cancel it pretty much instantly. This makes Khan's bait and punish game very effective in tandem with his amazing backdash. Forward dashing is also a pretty good tool for closing in from distances that 662A or low hop j.C will whiff on, as it travels insane distances that will without a doubt be able to get you into range that your attacks will be able to reach if you don't cancel the dash. Even holding out the dash for a slightly longer time won't exactly hurt you as long as nothing is in your way, so that extra distance is going to really come in handy. Overall, while forward dash may not seem as good as the backdash it has the same if not even more value in practice as it.
Of course, his attacks are also a very important part of his neutral, first the 2A. Basically it's Khan's most important tool in neutral outside of his dashes and j.C. It's incredibly plus on both block and hit meaning you can get away with them scot free. It's your go-to grounded approach, as 662A can be serviceable at very high ranges. Preferably half to 3/4 screen is where you'd want to do it, as when you're up close neutral is going to be an afterthought. 662A will also be your go-to option to whiff punish any slower moves that you've either reacted to by backdashing out of the way or baited successfully. Since it has a very high range, you will most certainly be able to hit the opponent, however depending on how fast the attack is, your whiff punish might get blocked, however 662A is very plus on block so you can get a tick throw or an IOH j.C if you want to go that route. There's no real risk to using 662A other than it being beat out by big pokes like Ice s.2C or low hop aerial moves. Your approach tool in 662A is also going to be a good example of why you should 100% absolutely learn the 662A 2A 1f link. It's super important, almost required for you to really master Khan. If you've gotten an opponent clean with your 662A approach, you can't follow it up properly unless you have meter and want to cancel into 214AA. When you can properly link 662A into 2A consistently this makes Khan an actual kinda dangerous character from high ranges. However, while 2A is good and all, you should not be so approach happy with it, as pokes exist that can very well beat it out. Jotaro s.5B is an infamous approach stopper, and it will also be able to stop 662A clean as well without much fail. When the opponent sees that 662A and has an option that beats it clean they won't hesitate to use it. This is why dashing out of the way is very important as you can bait it and punish with that same 662A. You can even punish with j.C if it's slow enough. When you've successfully gotten in with that 662A, and followed up with say [4]6C or 214AA, then your oki begins, but that will be explained later. In short 662A is your go-to grounded approach, and also your go-to whiff punish tool as well, and if you can follow it up right, you're set on that department, and you'll be quite comfortable in the neutral with a move like 662A.
Khan's air control isn't anything special either. He has two moves that are pretty decent in the wide scope of things when in the air. His j.B and j.C both work well in neutral. However in neutral j.C is mainly going to be useful as a jump-in off of a short hop. j.B will be useful for beating out attacks on both the ground and the air due to the massive very favorable hitbox it has. Your frequency of both these options should vary, as there are different situations where one will be better in practice than the other. j.C is going to be effective as your aerial approach. When your opponent finds ways to beat your grounded approach, you can mix it up and approach with j.C. If that option is down on it's luck your last resort is jumping in with j.B. It has less hitstun and is slightly harder to combo into 2A however it's disjoint gets the job done against moves that can beat out j.C clean. If your opponent has ways to beat all of those options chances are you're probably playing against Jotaro or Ice and you're kinda fucked on that front. If your opponent is in the air and your j.C in neutral can't beat them, you will be using j.B if you see them in the air as most likely if they're not playing Rubber Soul they won't have a move that can challenge your j.B in the air. If you do beat them clean in the air cancel into j.S for extra damage, however if they choose to downtech you are open to a free punish, so don't frequent it when they start to try that. Speaking of, there is j.S in neutral. If you are trying to either A) approach far distances in the air, B) get around to a more comfortable position (i.e. closer to the screen if the screen is zoomed out) or C) get away from big attacks via using 44S, then j.S is your go-to. If you hyper hop or dash hop into j.S the speed you travel at is crazy high so you can get on them easily. You can also use j.S to get into more easier positions like 1/2 screen if you're not going to use grounded movement. That's about it for his aerial bits in neutral, it's mainly just the same as his 2A but in the air, however if you find anti-airs that consistently shut it down, mix up your pressure so you are able to safely approach on both the ground and the air in order to gain a little bit more comfort and room for error in the neutral. Just make sure you know what moves to use in the air is so you don't end up ruining that approach and you'll be fine.
Now there's the rather hit and miss button that is 4B. 4B on paper is a good poke, with long range and a pretty decent startup, allowing for some decent whiff punishing and long ranged neutral. Unfortunately, it's not really that strong if you don't use it perfectly. What I mean is that if your spacing isn't anything short of absolutely stellar, 4B will not be a thing you would use. If you hit it up close, you will get punished hard for using it. Not only on block, but even on hit, as it is -11 on hit. Most characters with a fast d.2A like Ice or Khan will fuck you over for using that option. As an anti-air, you could use it, however you'd need to just pray that your opponent's jump-in is a shit one, as it will 100% beat out that 4B. If you whiff 4B, then you're just as fucked, as it has an abysmal recovery. If you hit 4B, then make sure you have enough charge to hitconfirm into [4]6B or [4]6C since naturally you wouldn't be content with only just whiff punishing with 4B, you gotta follow up with something else to make it better. In short, while 4B appears good, it's only used if you have really good spacing and know exactly what range you're at to be able to use it, otherwise you might eat a punish for getting it blocked, hit or whiffed. Not a bad poke, but it will be bad if you don't use it right.
Anti-airing is unfortunately something Khan struggles with. He has three anti airs. 5B, 623C, and 5S. He has some other situational ones like 4B and j.B but those three mentioned earlier are going to be your go-to ones. Their use varies and it's effectiveness also has inconsistencies, a theme you'll be seeing a lot with Khan. 5B has a slow startup, and doesn't really work as a way to catch short/hyper hops, as it will most likely be beat out by the jump-in. Also like 4B it requires some really good spacing in order for it to actually land since Khan moves forward a lot, so you need to know where that hitbox will be once you've actually pressed the button. For example, Hol's air glass requires very good spacing to punish it with 5B, as you actually need to either hit him while under the glass or dash behind him, cancel the dash and press 5B at the perfect moment to hit him. It only really works when the opponent is jumping in from a large distance where 5B's startup isn't an issue, overall only use it if you're anti-airing jumps that are fairly high and you have good spacing. Then there's 623C. 623C is an anti-air by nature since it's a DP, however it's air blockable, so the whole part of it being an anti-air is kind of thrown out the window there. This option is almost never frequented unless the opponent is doing an attack and can't block the attack, so say if you come in contact with Chaka's j.C and you land on the ground first then you can use 623C and hit him since he cannot block afterwards. Outside of that unfortunately it's a rather situational anti-air that is easily punishable if it whiffs. 5S is surprisingly a pretty solid anti-air, it does its job as expected. Most times it is going to be your most consistent anti-air, since it has fast startup and stays in the same spot every time. When done in tandem with 5B it's a pretty neat anti-air, just don't expect too much follow-ups or damage since you'll only really hit the opponent with 5S around 3 times at most, and it does not do much damage, it just gets them off you. If you're not good with 5B, definitely use 5S as your go-to anti-air. Due to the way jump-ins are in HFTF, Khan still struggles to anti-air those moves with 5S. Overall anti-airing is pretty hard with Khan simply because these anti-airs will either get beat out clean or are too situational to have any significant match application.
Charging is an option you have in neutral, [4]6B into 623C is often Khan's best option of whiff punishing big attacks and can open the way for Khan to start comboing. A nice trick is to [4]6B underneath your opponent if they jump high and 623C in the other direction to catch them in an air cross up. However, using this to catch an opponent on the ground is VERY risky and shouldn't be frequented. If you whiff your [4]6B or it gets blocked, it's game over. It's far too unsafe. If it gets blocked, you can intentionally delay your 623C and wait until an opponent tries to punish you and then do the 623C. This is also pretty risky, as 623C has no i-frames, meaning that if they do a move that can beat it clean, you're screwed. Doing a charge accidentally may cost you a whole round. Some opponents may use this trick against you. They could preemptively bait you into trying a charge, and then they could block and punish you hard for it. For example crossing you up while you are holding back or down back so you let out a charge after trying to reach to the opponent. Another example is by simply rolling, you try to grab the opponent by doing 6C and end up doing a knockdown charge which results in you being open for a punish. To avoid this, simply do 4C instead of 6C to not a get a charge and grab the opponent. It will take a while to get used to if you're used to always doing 6C to grab. In short it's really risky to try his charge moves in neutral as if they whiff or get blocked you're without a doubt going to get fucked up. You should only really try it as an odd but niche anti-air and confirm into 623C or whiff punish any super big attacks if you're not content with using 662A as your whiff punishing option.
If you find yourself getting charge completely by accident, which is understandable since you need to hold back for 30 frames to get the charge, there’s a couple methods of preventing this from happening: First off, don’t hold 4/1 so often. If you’re approaching, it’s best to just lay off holding back sometimes, as when you attempt a 662A, you get the charge move. If you’re trying to do 662A after blocking a move, you should first let go of back and wait a moment so the charge you built will be negated, then you can safely do 662A. That way you can actually get a valuable punish instead of a charge that might not even connect. Another thing, just block moves on reaction if need be. The less you are holding back to failsafe the blocking the better. Chances are if you are holding 4 or 1 a lot and attempting to use 662A since you use that move 10,000 times you get charge. Also when side switching, if you’re trying to block the other way then attack, you will also get charge. Just try to not gain charge at all, since it can be transferred through crossups and dashes. Again, this comes back to holding 4/1 to bypass blocking on reaction. If possible, keep the holding 4/1 to a minimal so you don’t misinput charge. Khan can make few mistakes, and it’s best to avoid mistakes as stupid as this one.
Unfortunately, Khan's defense is abysmal. He has no defensive options, so he only has to really rely on making calculated pushblocks and desperately try and find any openings to escape if he finds himself under some heavy pressure. Both his roll and guard cancel are average meaning Khan will most likely get fucked for trying them. His GC, while being only one of the two untechable GCs in the game, is still at best just average as it's a big victim of GC baiting, and using it to escape blockstrings only really works sometimes as tandems will fuck it over. Khan's roll is also really slow, not to mention he also has a laughing voice clip completely unique from the rest of his voice lines, so it's super easy to spot it and grab it. If you're being heavily pressured and suffocated, especially in the corner, your best chance of surviving is to try and pushblock any move with a large recovery and try to find any available openings to j.S out of there, since you really have no chance of outright countering any pressure that comes your way. When j.S is done off of a dash hop or super jump it takes him far away, easily getting him out of the way of any dire situations in the corner. However, you can get clipped out of the air fairly easily if you're too high by really good anti-airs (e.g. Jot's s.5A or Ice's s.6B). If your opponent is content with going full aggro on you, there's only so much options you can do, but my best advice to you is be patient. Don't get eager to escape, you'll just make a bad attempt to get out and you'll get shit on for it. As explained earlier, it's best to make a calculated pushblock, usually off of a high startup move, then find the opportunity to hh j.S out of there safely without being anti-aired. Don't try to get out predictably either as the opponent can easily bait that j.S if they understand what moves you'll pushblock and try to escape from afterwards. Like with other aspects of Khan, the opponent knows what you're going to do, you just need to make sure they don't know when you'll do it. Yeah I know that's a lot of work to just simply escape out of some stagger pressure and some blockstrings, but that's the Khan life.
In some rare cases, his Counter (214x) can be very useful. Landing it is difficult, but if you tag the correct move (e.g. Shadow DIO's 5S or Khan's 2A) you will really slow them down and sometimes it can slide the game in your favor. Still, it's a really risky tactic as the counter has abysmal recovery if it doesn't work, not to mention the low amount of active frames it has, making it incredibly difficult to hit. Only really use the counter if you are 100% sure you've read the opponent, as Khan's counter only really works as a hard read.
Not to mention that Khan's Counter is actually punishable on hit by some characters with fast wakeup speed, because Khan doesn't get any i-frames during his taunt like the other Anubis characters. Due to counter's high risk - slightly lesser reward situation, it's in your best interest to use counter only when you know when the opponent will do a specific move, if you don't think you've exactly cracked their code, then lay off the counter since it's far too risky of a move to use if you haven't fully read your opponent.
That is pretty much it for all of Khan's neutral. Again, it's not deep, it's not rocket science, however it's not 1+1 either, so there's still a fair amount of moving parts to it that, when mastered, makes Khan a feel a lot more like a "character" if you get that. You won't be able to completely master it all at once, but if you learn it all right, you'll start to enjoy how simple and useful Khan's neutral is, as it's a key part of his game.
Mobility
Khan's mobility is pretty much the only definitive strength he has. Sure, you could say all you want about his pokes and neutral, but it can get invalidated by the stronger characters in the game. His mobility will always be useful in any matchup he plays, as either slower characters will have a hard time keeping up with his movement or faster characters will need to play smarter to hit Khan clean.
Khan's j.S offers him near unrivaled mobility in the air, only contested by Kak and Ice IAD. The speed at which the j.S travels is determined by the speed of his jump, so a normal jump is slow while a hyper hop can take him across the whole stage. Air teching into j.S is also great as it can be helpful in safely escaping from tech chases. j.S can also work as an anti-air if Khan and his opponent are at the same height, however it will not work at all if they're lower than you and somewhat if they're higher than you. Most times you're using j.B as an air-to-air and keeping j.S as a mobility tool and hitconfirm from j.B/j.C. Not only that, but j.S can also be a massive help in escaping pressure. As explained earlier Khan's defense is hotdog water. When he gets pressured he's going to have a really hard time trying to come back, however what you can do is find a slight window in your opponent's pressure, then hyper hop j.S. You'll be able to safely escape the pressure and return to neutral, which is a far better situation to be in. j.S can do a very good job at covering up Khan's defensive ineptitude however if the opponent is baiting that j.S out of you in pressure you can be sent right back into the pressure and you'll need to try again. It's another one of those cases where Khan has high risk low reward options that only benefit him slightly. Still, if you manage to find any cracks in the opponent's pressure after a pushblock then j.S out of it and go back to neutral.
Then there's the option of using j.S as a laming tool. Khan's j.S in tandem with his backdash offers some very good laming. In some matchups characters can't do nothing but cope and seethe at the sight of Khan's laming like B.Pol. Other times it's going to get you killed against characters like Jotaro. The effectiveness of using j.S as a laming tool comes down to who you're up against. Most times you should use it sparingly as using it too predictably will open you up to some pressure and punishes. j.S laming is mostly effective against passive characters however of course characters like Hol Horse or Mariah can just stop you from your laming easily so just know who you can lame out safely and who you can't. If it's against anyone in A or S tier, then you probably can't.
Often your opponent thinks they can simply zone out Khan with good normals and projectiles if they have any, but as soon as an opening appears in their zoning, Khan can nearly teleport into their face with a well placed j.S. This will end up making the opponent have to react to an up-close scramble situation, usually they'd use their best up-close normal like a jab or they would roll. If Khan knows what's coming when up-close, then he can punish accordingly with a grab or other available punishes. Using j.S as an offensive tool is very much available to you, just know what you're doing so you won't get anti-aired easily.
j.S can avoid being anti-aired as well against certain moves. You can control the speed by holding either forward or backward. Naturally, you want to go as fast as possible in most cases so you would hold forward, but if you see your opponent preparing an anti-air you can switch to holding backward, the anti-air then misses, and then punish accordingly once you land if they are still recovering. The only problem with j.S is its recovery after you hit the ground. If you hit the opponent 3 times while still having quite a long distance to the ground, you'll put yourself at a disadvantage. Thankfully, j.S is plus on hit when hit close to the ground, even guaranteeing some follow-ups if it hits deep enough, which is prevalent in his advanced combos. Note that you should not get too predictable with your j.S movement. While you can avoid being anti-aired, there are some moves that j.S will get killed by, like Jotaro's s.5A or Ice's s.6C. Yes, teching into j.S is a very useful option however if you do it too unpredictably you will get struck with an anti-air and you'll have to tech again. Using your j.S in an unpredictable manner will be a big help as you will avoid any incoming anti-airs, and it can get you to good spots as well.
Khan's dashes are another reason why his mobility is amazing. First, the backdash. Similar to the ones in KOF, his backdash covers little vertical ground but a lot of horizontal ground. This makes his bait and punish game very good, as he can easily get out of the way when he sees certain pokes that he can escape from. This backdash can be used repeatedly to run away from any pressure that might be coming at you. One thing about backdash that makes it even stronger is that you can do j.S while backdashing, not only making you cover more ground, but also giving you some slight protection as j.S can still hit opponents off of a backdash. Unfortunately you outside of j.S you can't cancel backdash into anything else (you can cancel into his learning counter at a specific point during his backdash however unless the opponent is mindlessly approaching you'll get punished hard for using this option), so there's no real protection you have outside of using j.S, however you won't really need any since his backdash is super fast in terms of it's duration, as it lasts a total of 22 frames, and considering the distance it travels, nobody is going to visually react to it and punish. Outside of getting out of some dire situations like pressure or getting out of the uncomfertable spots and playing the bait-and-punish game that's all that the backdash has to offer. Despite that it's still a super useful tool and should definitely be used to it's full potential.
His forward dash is also a really amazing tool. It covers more ground than the backdash when not cancelled, and can travel across the stage fully when the screen isn't zoomed in, and of course you can do your most useful stuff off of it like 662A, j.C and j.S. The bait-and-punish game with the backdash is good, but it wouldn't happen without the forward dash. You can cancel his forward dash into anything 5 frames into it's duration, so while it's not instant, it's still super flexible and you can cancel into his backdash or other movement options very easily. Due to the forward dash's high speed and distance, pokes like 662A can land from ludicrous distances, making Khan's approach fairly flexible from most points on the screen. However unlike the backdash there's a good chance you might just run into a moves like Jotaro's s.5B or Hol's 236C when dashing so be mindful when using his forward dash., as it can be seen easier than the backdash. You'll be using the forward dash more than the backdash in more matchups however both dashes share equal value.
