Kazumi counterplay

Strings

• 3,2 ends in a high. It can be mixed up with 3,1. This is her main whiff punisher, so be sure to punish her for messing up with it. (The tiger afterwards is guaranteed on hit.)

• 3,1 ends in a mid and is -13 on block. It's not very scary (except at the wall), doing only 20 damage.

• ws4,4 ends in a high. Be careful of ws4 on its own, since it's only -3 on block: ws4 into 4 is a common trap against people thinking too much about the high.

• d/b+2,3,4 is three high crushing, -14 on block lows. Can block but not low parry after being hit. Third hit can be interrupted by i11 on block. Ideally you can low parry the first hit on reaction.

Neutral

Kazumi's main plan is to get up close and use her 1,1,2 and CH 4 to get big damage against counter attacks. Because of their speed, attacking into her without a frame advantage can be scary.

• 1,1,2 is i10 and the final hit can be easily hit confirmed.

• 4 is an i11 counter hit launcher.

If you try and defend instead, you need a plan for dealing with her pokes. Backdashing rarely works because her jabs and d/f+1 all have huge forward momentum. This effectively allows her to spam 1 at you forever with the only real counterplay being high crushing moves.

However, outside of the 1 jab, all her moves are -3 or worse on block. If she's spamming attacks after d/f+1 or jab strings, then any i12 or faster move will win, so just counter hit her. Reacting to blocking 1,1 or 1,2 instead of 1 is essential so that you can take your turn effectively.

Because of this, the more common Kazumi flowchart is 1,1 or 1,2 or d/f+1 into sidestep block. The mind game then is that your fastest homing move is probably i15 or slower, at which point 4 becomes a threat again.

Sidestepping

After blocking Kazumi's jab (+1):

• Sidestep right beats 1, 4, d/f+1, u/f+4, and f,F+4.
• Sidewalk right beats 1,1 and 1,2. On some characters sidestep right also beats these.
• Sidestep left can beat 1,1 and even sometimes 1,2. However, depending on the character this is rather fickle, and a step block usually won't evade the second hit.
• Sidewalk left beats d/f+4. It's common to use this move as her “homing” mid in this situation.

Tiger

If a string ends with a tiger, the tiger only comes out on hit, and the move is punishable on block. Can be awkward to can get the timing for punishing some of them. These moves are:

• ws3
• u/f+2
• 1+2
• b,f+2,1,1+2
• f,F+2
• d+1,2