It was just a few days ago that we saw what has to be the dirtiest Drive Impact set up we’ve ever seen in Street Fighter 6. This strategy is one that, on paper, probably shouldn’t work well, but despite this it was used in an actual tournament match successfully.
Content creator and top player Broski, who often breaks down and analyzes the latest Street Fighter 6 tech, felt similarly in that this set up just shouldn’t work and is most likely just a gimmick. As a result, in his latest video he went into ranked matches to try the “Dirty Drive Impact” himself to test it and see how effective it actually is, and the results were surprising to say the least.
To quickly explain the Dirty Drive Impact, it essentially works like this. After a knock down in the corner, it is a very common strategy to fire off a meaty Drive Impact that hits just as the opponent is getting up.
This is done to catch the opponent off guard, and having little time to react, the goal is they either challenge with a normal and get smashed for it, or they block and get hit with a wall splat and opened up anyway. Higher level players are very aware of this strategy, so the counter play to it is to either counter Drive Impact on wake up or tap parry to try and perfect parry it so that they can turn the tides.
With the Dirty Drive Impact, though, if the player who knocked down their opponent is at at least a +38 frame advantage after sending their foe to the ground, they can essentially toss out what looks to be a meaty Drive Impact.
The trick here, though, is that the pseudo meaty doesn’t actually connect, but instead narrowly whiffs against the opponent, and with that +38 advantage the player attempting the set up is given enough of a window to counter the oncoming counter Drive Impact from the opponent waking up, or throw them for a punish counter should they tap parry.
The downside to this, though, is that should the opponent simply block and do nothing, the player going for the dirty stuff is left at a staggering -25 and at point blank range. In layman’s terms, they are left wide open to a major punish and will undoubtedly take on massive damage if the opponent is ready for it.
With all of that having been said, Broski wanted to test the Dirty Drive Impact in real matches to see if it’s just a silly gimmick or if it actually ends up being effective. He goes for attempts wherever he finds the openings and charts how many times it succeeds and how many times it fails.
We won’t spoil the results because this video is a really fun watch, so be sure to check it out below to see how Broski did.
Source: Event Hubs
