The first major wave of balance changes — which many are referring to as Season 2 — is finally coming to Street Fighter 6 on May 22. We’ll undoubtedly be seeing changes for every character on the roster, which should ultimately lead to a very different game and landscape.
Before Season 2 hits, a lot of players are releasing their final tier lists and match up charts for the current version of the game, and one of the strongest Blanka players in the world has just put together the latter for the electrifying world warrior. Longtime Blanka player who tied for 49th at Evo Japan this year, Nishikin, has crafted a match up chart that helps further paint the picture of how effective the character is as he stands right now.
Through a quick Google translate of the tweet, we learn that this particular match up chart heavily uses Nishikin’s personal win rates with Blanka in Street Fighter 6 to determine what match ups are good for him and which aren’t.
The categories range from 5.5, which signifies a match up that Blanka is advantageous in, down to 4.5, which are matches Blanka is more disadvantageous in. This is an alternative to the 5-5 match ups or 6-4 match up numbers we usually see, providing some half and quarter points to better show how close things are.
Starting at the top, we see that Blanka has seven match ups he’s more favorable in in Street Fighter 6, according to Nishikin. He has a 5.5 advantage against the likes of Dhalsim, Kimberly, Marisa, Lily, E. Honda, Cammy, and A.K.I.
As far as where he struggles most, Blanka appears to have more issues with the three most popular top tiers in Ken, Luke, and JP. There’s also a surprising character that Nishikin feels Blanka can’t fight quite so well that rounds out the four worst match ups for the character, so be sure to check out the full match up chart below to see who it is.
Fellow top player, Nemo, also responded to Nishikin’s list to offer some of his own thoughts as well after playing a ton of Blanka recently. He noted that the match ups against Ken and Luke, two of the most popular and best characters in the game, are a bit too difficult for Blanka to handle consistently, which seems to line up with what Nishikin has here too.
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