Tatsunoko vs Capcom/Karas

From SuperCombo Wiki

Introduction

TvC says that Karas originated from the Karas anime (which is true). Karas is thought to be one of the strongest characters in TvC due to his very strong rushdown games, however, some people claim that his lack of mixups hurts him in high level play, as knowledgeable and patient characters can wait out his pressure strings and punish at the appropriate time, hardly ever taking the stick out of the down back position. Regardless, Karas remains one of the most popular characters for tournament play due to the strength of his rushdown game and his ease of use.

Moves List

Normal Moves

  • F+C - Karas takes his sword and swipes at the enemy. You can charge this normal move that turns into an unblock able. Non-charged version causes knockdown while the charged version causes the enemy to go and fall right on the spot (enemy looks fatigued).
  • Forward and back ground dashing (tap forward, forward or back, back)- Karas has the ability to pass through his enemy. If you are familiar with Guilty Gear's character Slayer, Karas' ground dashes are similar to Slayers from Guilty Gear.

Special Moves

  • Charge back for a few seconds, then tap forward+A/B/C - Shoulder Tackle - Karas lunges at the enemy with a shoulder tackle. Each version travels its own distance across the screen. A and B versions travel a little over half way across the screen, and C version travels almost all the way across the screen. You can use this in a combo. There are 3 additional follow ups that follow after Shoulder Tackle:
    • QCF+A/B/C - Karas takes his sword and swipes at the enemy.
      • F+C - Karas does a jumping flip and slashes the enemy right in the face. This causes wall bounce.
      • Tap back then forward+A/B/C - Karas does a quick slash right through the enemy's body. This causes a knockdown.
  • DP+A/B/C (Can also be done in the air) - Karas takes his sword and does an uppercut on the enemy. Both ground and air versions do a different number of hits. Ground and air A version does 1 hit, ground and air B version does 3 hits, and ground and air version C does 5 hits. This can be used in a combo or in an air combo.
  • HCB+A/B/C - Chain Rope - Karas shoots a chain rope at the enemy. The enemy will freeze for a second, giving you the opportunity to do one of the 2 follow ups:
    • After Chain Rope, QCF+A/B/C - Wall Corner Slam - Karas travels at the enemy with a straight (horizontal) kick. Once it hits the enemy, Karas travels across the screen and does a wall slam, followed by a powerful head slam with his sword. This causes knockdown.
    • After Chain Rope, QCB+A/B/C - Pull In - Karas takes his chain rope and pulls the enemy towards him. Each version has its own pulling distance, A version will pull the enemy all the way across the screen (right in from of Karas), B version launch them in the air, and C version will throw the enemy behind Karas, resulting in a wall bounce. You can combo with B or C versions.
  • QCF+A/B/C - Spinning Sword - Karas takes his sword and spins it in front of his enemy. If the sword hits, the enemy will stagger backwards. There is a follow up to this special (the follow up is a super).

Super Moves

  • During Spinning Sword, QCF+AB - Traveling Spinning Sword - Karas leaves the screen and his sword travels all over the screen, hitting his enemy. At the end of the super, Karas returns and slashes right through the enemy. You can use this in a combo.
  • DP+AB - Counter - Karas goes into a stance, holding his sword in front of his enemy. If the enemy hits, Karas will slash at his enemy with an explosion (you'll see a Japanese symbol).
  • HCB+AB (Level 3 Super) - Karas Crow - Karas shoots out a crow shadow at his enemy. If it hits the enemy, the enemy will be tied to various shadow lines. A cut scene appears. You see the enemy in front of the moon. Karas then jumps out of nowhere and does a powerful slash at the enemy. You can combo this into his normal throws!

The Basics

Playing Karas is all about knowing how to apply pressure on your opponent constantly, and knowing how to turn that pressure into an infinite if anything hits. Karas' basic infite looks like this:

(charge4-6B, 2C) loop.

The execution will actually go (1C,(wait for a split second)6B), in order to get it to work correctly. This infinite is useful because it's fairly easy compared to some of the other infinites in the game, it does decent damage, it forces a megacrash, and it combos off of most of his normal moves. However, this infinite won't always work in the corners, so what you can do is go into one of his corner megacrash comboes, which you can do off of the normal infinite by canceling the 2C into his DP, and baroquing. The corner megacrash comboes look like this (on a launched opponent)

(5a)x3,5b,2B,5C,3C,jump,j.A,j.A,j.B,j.B,Megacrash,(while falling, close to the ground)j.B

This not only does large damage over time to the opponent (once you run out of megacrash meter you can end with a DP instead of Megacrash), but it also generates a lot of red life for baroque, which can be used in resets. The most common reset is to, after the falling j.B, call an assist that will hit the enemy's block on the ground, and meanwhile charge Karas' unblockable, which can then be baroqued back into the corner megacrash combo with large baroque damage depending on how many times you megacrashed.

Pressure strings: There are a few moves that are extremely useful in pressure strings. Try not to become too predictable.

First off, the infinite can be used as a pressure string, but can be escaped fairly easily with pushblock.

2A, this move hits low and beats out just about anything at point blank range, feel free to spam it a few times if you're in someone's face to bait comboes or create space for yourself.

5B, covers a ton of space, reasonably fast and hard to get away from.

2B, really long range, low, easy to combo off of.

5C, Not quite as useful as some other things, but can be good if you want to get a whole magic string on somebody's block.

2C, This recovers space beautifully, but is somewhat unsafe, be ready to do something to cancel its recovery, potentially on reaction. You can use a baroque, or a cancel into special or super.

Advanced Strategy

Match=Ups