With a move set widely unlike anyone else Blanka has always had a degree or two of separation from fellow Street Fighter roster mates and thus tends to be on the “weaker but weird” part of tier lists.
This fact is a large contributor to his evolution as a “troll” character, (yes, Dan is the biggest troll in the franchise but he’s nowhere to be found right now) one that developers tend to make somewhat strong in goofy ways, but that doesn’t amount to tournament-winning tier placement. Here in Street Fighter 6, however, Blanka might be unironically one of the best in the game and so Sajam has put the feral beast under the microscope to help clarify things.
You can’t talk about Blanka’s Street Fighter 6 performance without bringing up Bandits|MenaRD, easily the most proficient Blanka player on the planet. Though he’s primarily used Luke to climb to the tops of tournaments like Evo, Mena has also used Blanka a fair amount against world class competition, and it’s gone relatively well.
Existing impressions of the nearly 35 year old character no doubt have ushered many towards thinking this is either just a showcase of Mena’s skill; surely Blanka couldn’t be a top tier contender. As we’ve grown to understand the game’s intricacies, however, Blanka does have a lot of useful tools.
One of the most conspicuous things about Blanka’s kit is his ability to manipulate the neutral game with his balls. The innate mix up of his using either heavy, light, or EX ball is a constant juggling pin players must add to their already naturally heavy mental stack.
This might not be the most honest or consistent means of engaging, but it seems much more effective than gimmicks like E. Honda’s headbutt/butt slam game, and being wrong by just a few frames can mean Blanka garners a whole bunch of damage very rapidly.
He’s also got other neutral tools like slide and hop, boasts one of the absolute best anti-airs in the game (both when it comes to utility and conversions for damage) and retains his scariest tool from Street Fighter 5 in his V-Trigger-like Super 2.
His Blanka-chan mix ups in the corner are amongst the most oppressive in the game, and so we can start to see the momentum add up. This is especially the case when one considers how effectively many of these tools gel together, and with all this in mind we can’t help but entertain the question of whether Blanka is higher tier than we’ve given him credit for.
Hear what Sajam has to say on the subject in the full video below and let us know your two cents in the comments after.