Thrill Kill/Judas/Introduction

Overview

Judas is an odd one. He is a conjoined twin, with one half being the legs and the other half dishing out the punishment. One half represents your two punch buttons, and the other represents your two kick buttons. This means Judas's move list is split between these two stances, simply known as punch stance and kick stance. If you press kick while in punch stance, you'll perform a stance change move. Same with pressing punch while in kick stance.

In punch stance, Judas has access to his insane damage. If you've ever faced against him in Arcade Mode, you'd be familiar with his string that deals 30% that the AI loves throwing out. This string can be optimized by inputting instead, and with a follow up juggle extension, can lead to a 68% combo off of a 6^f jab. If your opponent loves throwing out risky moves and dash attacks that are easily punished, Judas will eat them alive and look completely unfair and unstoppable in the process. However, punch stance lacks any good mixup options or good mids, meaning that you often sit and wait for your opponent to mess up so you can punish them while in the stance, as your other options for pressuring your opponent are either crouched or are very lacking.

Kick stance has very useful moves that can actually pressure opponents in neutral, however your damage is absolutely woeful in comparison. Kick stance can't properly string into its launcher, the hard knockdown move only does 4 damage, and your best juggles involve just switching back to punch stance and converting from there. That said, all your good mids and lows are here, allowing you to be proactive in neutral rather than reactive.

While a cool gimmick on the surface, Judas's big issue is that it effectively means you're playing with only half a move list at any one given time, and if you need to use a move from another stance, you cannot quickly change stances without opening yourself up to a punish from your opponent. While you can be sneaky any use crouching moves or grabs to change stance, it's ultimately an additional chore for you to manage during a game.

At a glance:
Pros	Cons
Mid-Stage Damage: Judas's 68% high punch string means that if your opponent makes a mistake you can punish with your jab, you can make them really pay for it. Great Grabs: Each of your grabs do amazing damage and act as an easy way to change stances.	Restrictive Move List: Your move list is split in half, meaning that you have very limited options at any one given time, and switching stances can sometimes be a huge vulnerability. Slow Attacks: Judas shockingly doesn't have a lot of 5^f moves, making punishes much harder than they should be. Kick Stance Damage: All the incredibly useful moves in kick stance deal almost zero damage.