Dee Jay has a number of great tools at his disposal in Street Fighter 6. One of his best tools is easily his Jus Cool (sway) maneuver, which sees him swiftly either dash forward or back to quickly traverse the screen and open the opponent up with a follow-up attack.
With the recent release of latest DLC character Ed, Capcom also added a handful of balance changes to some characters on the roster. Dee Jay’s follow up to Sway, Funky Slicer, saw a couple of nerfs, but top level Dee Jay player Xian recently showed how one of those nerfs might in turn actually be a buff.
In Street Fighter 6, Dee Jay can use his Funky Slicer special move after using the backward traveling version of Jus Cool. With the whole maneuver, Dee Jay quickly steps back creating some space between him and the opponent before springing forward again with a low kick that ends up being -3 on block (which is relatively safe).
Before the update, Funky Slicer had more pushback on block, meaning it was even harder to punish due to the fastest normal in the game having 4 frame start up and Dee Jay being out of throw range most times in this scenario. With the latest patch, however, the pushback on Funky Slicer has been reduced on block to make it easier to punish.
As Xian demonstrates, though, now with the reduced pushback on Funky Slicer, Dee Jay can actually pressure even harder when the opponent is in burnout. A blocked Funky Slicer on a burnt out opponent leaves him at +1 frame advantage, which means he can toss out a standing light punch right after and frame trap any 4-frame normal to score a counter hit and open the opponent up.
In the clip Xian provided, we see him use this newfound pressure to pin down a burnt out Juri in the corner. Doing it over and over again not only sees him completely dodge several of Juri’s normals that are put out in hopes of stopping the pressure, but when he starts mixing in standing jab the Juri takes several counter hits without fail.
Deejay nerf is actually a buff. Here’s the new meta pic.twitter.com/1WKPNW7gXq
— Xian MSG (@XianMSG) March 1, 2024
Obviously, there are still counters here as you could use a super that has strike invincibility on start up to try and catch one of Dee Jay’s maneuvers. That being said, even though you should be able to punish a regular blocked Funky Slicer more now (or at the very least take your turn back more consistently), you also should be careful when Dee Jay has you in burnout.