Enough about defense, I want to get in there and do mixups and combos! - Twitter Person 156
There are two reasons why I put the sections on neutral and defensive decision-making before a part on offensive decision-making.
First, large parts of the FGC tends to focus on offense, and for seemingly good reason. If your opponent has bad defense, you can win quite easily with good offense alone. But this only works until you face someone with good neutral and defensive-decision making. By emphasizing neutral and defense, I hope that this document contributes to changing this offense-focused perspective.
Second, and more importantly, effective offensive decision-making depends on the defensive decision-making your opponent. Once you understand the fundamentals of defensive decision-making, you can start to force offensive mind-games that work in your favor.
Acknowledging that most relevant factors are covered in the previous section, here I would like to make three comments that focus on mixups and combos during offense.
A comment on high-vs-low reward
– high vs low reward: see mindgames.
A comment on offensive meter management
– fewer hits vs more damage: balancing your and their meters.
A comment on burst/dead-angle reads:
– burst reads: burst proof combos vs hard baits.
– dead-angle reads: dead-angle safe pressure vs hard baits.