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I think the FGC (through tournaments and social media) really projects that you should get as good as possible with a single character, and that switching characters is throwing away the work you've already done. But that's not true. I was very excited to play Manon when SF6 dropped and I was having a lot of trouble doing anything with her. So I stopped playing her for a bit, went to (of all things) Dhalsim, then played Ryu for a bit, and now whenever I go back to Manon I'm a lot more confident because I understand the game a little better and I know what her strengths and weaknesses are, at least compared to two characters.

And don't be afraid to try all the characters. You might find one that fits better than someone you thought you clicked better with. I love Baiken but Millia fits like a glove for me.

Dude you summed up my brain in a crazy way. I usually go (all arounder) + (zoner) SF6 I’m actually playing cammy going out my comfort zone

This is actually how I've always thought of characters and how to help friends find their mains. If a person likes to counter in other games, I'll recommend the more defensive characters or ones with a strong parry. If someone plays Pit in smash I might actually recommend Dizzy or I-no in GG because they're more aerial focused characters. This works like 90% of the time for me. Sometimes people still end up liking something completely unexpected though.

I will always pick characters based on their theme. I can deal with getting destroyed by bad matchups. I cannot deal with being assaulted with bad music over and over.

After 8 years of playing almost exclusively shotos, I played KI against a buddy, and I couldn't open him up for the life of me with Jago. Then I gave Thunder a quick spin for fun. My first thought? "Damn, I don't have to be good at the game to open people up with this guy?! I HAVE SO MUCH POWER" The downward spiral started there. Now I pretty much always plays whichever character in the cast that says DOSUKOI.

Idoms picks in 5 generally just revolved around unfair 50/50s. Laura was a vortex grappler and poison's ex heartraid was +2ob and pulled you right into her face. He likes making his opponents guess and make mistakes. Unfortunately Manon doesnt do this nearly as well

interesting to hear you describe it this way, since I usually do pick 3 characters very close to this method without really realizing it. For SF6 I have Ryu and Guile and I want a third, but can’t settle. Hoping AKI hits the faster type that feels good to me cause her art looks cool!

honestly I really like how you broke this down. I've been a Honda main since release and I've gotten a couple others to Master but no one seems to stick like he does for me. I'll be reevaluating my choices with this in mind. Thanks LK

Awesome, thanks @LordKnight as someone who is just deciding to pick up street fighter 6 as my main competitive fighting game, I’ve been struggling to find a main character so this should really help.

Love these kinds of videos!

i like the approach and i think it makes sense. i actually went through a similar re-evaluation of how i choose characters when i realized i really like manon for some reason i couldnt put my find on at first i eventually realized that i really liked feeling like i could participate in the game, the footsies and the overall strategy, without being behold to long complicated combos. her medal system rewards careful play while also ramping up her damage. for some reason i struggle to add long combos to my muscle memory, to the point where if anything goes beyond like 5 or 6 hits i consider it on the longer side and my mental stack seems permanently preoccupied with remembering combos when i score the first hit and i end up dropping them. ive been playing FGs for years and years and ive never defeated this demon. it's made me realize that i was probably some form of a grappler this whole time but didnt know it

Nice video, I’ve never been good at sticking to one character so now I feel a bit validated lol. In sf6 I’ve been playing blanka, Luke, and dhalsim.

This is similar to my train of thoughts with picking characters to play lately. I tend to rotate around a trio of playstyles with some over lap. I will almost always main a grappler or someone with a powerful command grab, then I'll play a offense focused/rushdown type character for the rougher grappler match ups, and lastly I tend to go with the character that I consider to have what I call "labbing potential" or characters with weird/unique options that allow for some creative set play or pressure sequences like Blanka or Bedman for examples from games I play

Thanks so much for this video LK. I was thinking 1. I need to main and get good with 1 character but yeah trying and understanding more lf the cast is good 2. Looking at characters from the 3 categories. I think for me i enjoy putting people in 50/50s or having tricky stuff. I recently just picked up manon because i love just putting people in the 50/50 blender. I also like speedy characters like chipp in strive and cammy/kim were a little fun as well to play at the start. I quickly wrote of rashid cuz i was sucking with doing some of his combo trials at launch but might give him a second go. Thx LK

Love the new doo you look slick

It was cool to hear you bring up how Dee Jay plays all three roles, because that's basically why I've gravitated towards him so much. It doesn't matter what game I'm playing, I will always love having the ability to adjust how I'm playing on the fly, based on my opponent's character and how they're playing. Like, against Gief I'll start by trying to keep him out with fireballs and pokes, but then if I get a good hit I can start some really nice wakeup pressure. Against Guile I have a few ways of getting in, and I do want to get in, but I can compete in a fireball war if I'm careful about it. And against a Ryu I can basically play however I want, depending on what the particular player is bad against. I really enjoy having such a fluid, adaptable gameplan on a single character. Same reason I liked solid midrange decks back when I play MTG.

Really appreciate the perspective on picking up new characters sooner into the games lifespan rather than later. Sf6 is my first fg that I've sunk time into past a casual level. Only a gold 5 cammy atm...but starting to pick up JP and Marissa to add some variety. Any advice on balancing lab/play time between the three?

I like the trifecta of "Normal" fighting, Fill the screen with garbage, and some kind of shenanigans.

One strat that I used when I picked up a fighting game on release is to have 2 mains and play multiple characters/teams. If you have a strong scene and they don't complain about "Use your main bro" all the time, you can develop faster than most into understanding the game. So fast that you can call the future meta, especially if you're a combination of a theory and scientific player like how I was. I was able to call meta months and sometimes years before it would breakout into the mainstream. That's why whenever I showed up at locals after being on hiatus, people would be hyped to play me and talk to me about what I found. Sometimes word of mouth would get out if I played at a friend's place. Also, you have to be at least a threat and really like the game you play (not just your main squeeze) to be able to do this strategy well imo XD

I haven't been around for that many new releases but sf6 is by far the most I've explored a roster... I really like how they handle ranked for how easy it makes this especially for early on... Jp, manon, Luke, Ken, a little Ryu and zangief After a month I found myself most drawn to jp, I love the amount of routes you get. Ken and Luke are extremely fun and Manon is my favorite personality-wise. But notating jps combos has actually been a fun side project for me and he's just so satisfying. I actually approached early on thinking 'what would idom do' and my prediction was he'd play manon and jp so that was my start lol. Ultimately I think, as of now, I'd call Ken my secondary but jp is pretty well rounded so I'm not complaining. I want to cover bases, basically. Great video!

I have my archetypes. But I choose the characters which feel the best for me. In MK11, I played a mixed selection with Sub-Zero, Jacqui, and Nightwolf.

Over time I've come to realise I just like characters that have good setups, there's something about an intricate sequence of inputs leading to a situation completely stacked against the opponent that I enjoy. Oftentimes the rest of the character doesn't matter to me I just enjoy labbing setups so I've been on Kimberly + Blanka in SF6. However I do play other archetypes, I'll play a bit of everything to better understand the game but I always come crawling back to the setplay characters, I also just enjoy more technical characters which usually lends itself to characters based on setups.

I pick an archetype based on the game engine. Then I get two different versions of that archetype. That way I can apply a similar approach but the opponent has to have very different counterplay. In Tekken, I like all or nothing 50/50 characters because I enjoy creating layering knowledge and tendency checks to shifting my risk/reward throughout the set. So I got Eddy (keepout version) and Anna (rushdown version). Eddy also has good tracking and no sidestep. Anna has a good sidestep but no tracking. In SF, I like hybrid charge characters. So I got Chun (aggressive footsies) and Honda (defensive yolo).

Generally I usually end up trying sword girls so i guess maybe midrange. I also like fireballs that let me approach and cool setplay so idk now.

I been on this shit for years, 3 feels like the most you can balance at a good level. It's always great to hit someone with matchup whiplash mid set, and not having to worry about getting counterpicked super hard.

Ever since I was an 09er with SF4, playing Akuma (All-Rounder/Mix-Up) helped me feel comfortable in that archetype. Played Fox in 64, Falco in Melee, Strider MvC1, B.B. Hood Darkstalkers, Zappa Guilty Gear. Etc. Etc.

Before watching the endpart: LKs prefered archetype is waifu-mixup-characters

0:37 I agree 😅

I’ve recently come to understand my character archetype as “fast but not lacking anything” which is similar to your “all-arounder but faster than they should be” except I prioritize speed more. I’ve noticed that I never play the “fastest” character because those characters usually lack something like a projectile, hitboxes, or defensive options. I’ve also noticed that I have no problem sacrificing character health if it means I get other things that I want. edit: i also lean in a lot to characters with super strong frame-data and non-commital options and am more of low-risk-low-reward player but that usually comes with more speed-oriented characters anyways

You play a game enough and most people tend to enjoy a few different characters here and there. I definitely trend toward tricky all arounders, more mobile zoners, and the occasional full-on turtle. Soul Calibur always involved a lot of Maxi, Ivy, and Mitsurugi. Darkstalkers was always Lord Raptor, Victor, and Sasquatch or Felicia. Past SF games have been a mix of Guile, Vega, Dhalsim, and Necro. MK games have always been a mix of Kitana, Jax, and Shang Tsung. Just started SF6 and enjoying Manon a lot; reminds me a lot of playing Ivy. Heavily considering Jamie or Chun Li once I'm comfortable with Manon. Then I'm gonna have to dig into JP, Dhalsim, Guile, and Ed when he's released.

I'm a bully so I always love characters like Bison, Adon, Cammy, Birdie, Bryan Fury etc. I love learning new characters but the bully archetype is what I main.

I subscribed, please don’t hurt me. As a casual player I’ve always picked fighting game characters based on the highly scientific method of how cool I thought they or their moves looked. This has lead me to playing different styles of characters, although that wasn’t the goal.

I've been trying to figure out where my characters go on this list. In Strive, I played Potemkin. Now I have Marisa. Are big body brawlers under tricky? They definitely prefer to be on offense, but you tend to think of faster for that role.

Basically everyone in this roster is great and their all fun to learn how to plan them

For the most part, I usually play characters that excel at rushing you down, but lately, between strive and sf6 and not having my character for either, I've been picking more jack-of-all-trades, and adapting to more of a strike-throw game, which will eventually turn into playing patient while l, hopefully, making my opponent nervous at the same time because my characters shits out damage and can turn it on in a blink. Sol and Ken does this. I could do this with Ryu as well, but ken has the sauce. Secondary characters, for me, used to be characters that cover bad match ups, but I want to work during my bad matchups cause it feels that much better when I do win that bad match up. I'm old-school, what can I say lol. Nowadays, my secondary is usually who I find to be the next coolest. In sf6 case, juri. And mainly cause she has the sauce as well with her lv2. It's whatever after that though.

I started playing SF6 with Jamie and I've only played him so far, but I'm learning Rashid now. The three character thing is cool but other than Jamie I only really wanted to try Luke, Dee Jay, and Marisa, who I feel like are all midrange characters. I don't really like defensive characters that much, but I also kind of want to try Blanka and Chun-Li, so maybe I'll try playing one of them with Jamie and Rashid. In general though, I just pick characters whose styles I find appealing, and these usually happen to be midrange characters.

During the early days of SF6’s prerelease content spree via FooTube Infooencers, I was convinced Lily or Gief was my main. On the day of purchase that had changed to Marisa or Gief. Actual play, mostly World Tour, took me on a carousel of mains from Blanka to Chun Li, that may or may not be complete, but I’m finally actually using Gief and loving it. I love how world tour has humanised the cast, and can’t wait to see Akuma’s secret soft spot- maybe he really loves stuffed animals and gummy bears, but people don’t pay attention to that side of him. Regardless- WT is picking my main.

Act like you won’t get command grabbed with these 3 archetypes

"If there's a time to try out multiple characters it truly is when the game comes out" That's a really interesting concept, not sure I agree. Often the more developed a game's meta is the more likely we are to see secondaries and counterpicks. And this just happens organically across all sorts of fighting games, you mentioned this with an MK example too. From a more casual sense I think I agree, early on it can just be more fun to have many characters without getting clapped As far as the specific three character method of well-rounded aggro defence, there's just no proof of this being effective as far as I know? Who with enough tournament entries to be statistically significant before and after has within the same game even gone from maining one character to a trio of all-round aggro defense? And if these situations have happened, how many of them have seen improvements in results compared to decline or no effective change? It'll be super cool to see you start this experiment if that happens with SF6, or maybe you could even get an aggro character to fill up the trio of Millia and Baiken idk

The only games I tend to play multiple characters in are 3D fighters. So much of most 3D fighters is just playing the system and remembering frame data punishes/checks and while playing a character at high level takes a lot of mastery, at low to mid level you can pick up and play a new character in Tekken or Virtua Fighter WAY easier than in a game like SF or GG.

Ill usually try all the basic/box guy characters in games and only break out of that if I see someone really cool like Valkenhyne in BB

Idk where’d I’d rank em all but currently my Top 3 Most played are Luke, Ken, Marisa. I am branching out into Deejay, Chun Li, and Cammy tho. They’re fun.

I think I can my preferences as: 1. All rounder, easy 2. Kick based moves or long poke move not the dhalsim kind 3. Female

I generally play shotos but for some games like SF6 I'm really enjoying JP. I don't know what it is but it just feels right for some reason.

I enjoy characters that can counter and answer to different situations instead of creating an ideal one. So while shotos are easier for me to use, characters like cammy is so hard. BUT when I look back and think about my most played characters in SFV, they are chun-li and laura. Laura especially is very much a rushdown character so i dont even know what I prefer now lol.

I currently play luke primarily but I want to pick up chun. If chun is speed/all rounder I should go for a defensive character? maybe someone like guile?

I'm mostly a street fighter player, and have always had at least 1 backup character. In sf2 hyper fighting I mained Honda with Blanka as a backup. Super turbo Honda with a Vega backup. Sf4, vega/Honda with a bison backup. gg strive I had no clue who to pick at first. Settled on potemkin just because of damage, but soon landed on Ky. He's one of the most fun characters I've ever played in a fighting game. In SF6, of course I'm mailing Honda, and man is he strong. Haven't landed on a backup yet. Tried Ryu, Chun, Cammy, but may have found a few candidates in guile, Sim, and gief. So I don't really quite know my type, other than I prefer charge characters.

I like to pick characters that have unusual movesets and are as far from shotos as possible, Slayer, Rachel, Jack-O and Manon. None of these characters have a DP and if they have a projectile, they are weird projectiles.

I SEE EDGE, I FOOKING SMASH THAT PICK BUTTON. Ez Kage, Evil ryu, Asura, Elizabeth, Eliza, Chipp, Lei Lei and now i am waiting for AKI

My preference depends on the game but I lean toward speed/movement options, tricky/mixup and I like strong pokes/disjointed hitboxes. But I usually enjoy zoners as it's so different from what I usually main but they usually have those strong disjointed pokes My mains for each game: GG strive:Millia and Testament Street Fighter 5:Chun LI and Karin(I also like Poison) Street Fighter 6:Chun LI Street Fighter4: Poison/Chun LI Mk X: Kitana/Kenshi MK11:Jade/Kitana DBFZ: Android 18, Gohan and Goku black And if there's a fox girl in a game by default I just main that In project L it's obvious who I'll main

"Laura and Poison seem pretty different." I can see two big things they have in common...

I play weird characters that’s allow for a bit of creative freedom like blanka, bedman from gg or bowser jr in smash

It's probably the casual in me speaking but I usually pick characters based on their combo game. I like long/flashy combos and usually gravitate towards the characters I find satisfying to combo with, usually without regard to how the character plays in neutral. Though, this was easier to do in games like BBCF (my goat) due to the higher variance in combo game. A game like SF6 feels more homogenized in that regard, so it is harder for me to find a main. I have never been able to find a main in a fighting game that lived up to how much I loved Terumi/Hazama in BBCF.

LK GOATED!!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥⛽️🔥

If you want to play on hard mode, pick Chun-Li. She really forces you to earn your wins unlike other characters who can gimmick their way to victory

I wish I could play multiple characters but...I'm not very good at FGs and just keeping one character in my head per game is tricky enough. I do tend to try and even enjoy multiple characters but there tends to be only one I do well with. Well...when I say well, I really mean less poorly XD

is the range isnt accurate on SF6? I main Jamie and Ken but dont see how Jamie is mid-range with no fireballs.

I like all arounders I play so many shotos

Idom mains characters that are grapplers but can do combos and have mix ups. Then he plays another character to offset any weakness his main would have in a bad matchup.

LK hits the R in Ryu on some 上何だみんなエ～ールケイでーす shit

I've actually been doing this since i got into fighters -- not in the same way, but for example, when i got into strive, i chose testament as my main, and bridget (partly because they're both trans and also because bridget had just come out but-). I always like to have a character i love, and then a character that i really like to fill in the gaps, plus, having 2 characters means i can switch off of one if I'm getting bored or don't feel good with them and either learn another character with thw one in my pocket or wait till i feel better with the old one. Also, having one character to play ever is boring (unless yhur like me. And play asuka exckusively now cuz he's a weirdo but v fun lmao)

I've always been a bitch for aesthetic, so I've always typically picked characters who quite literally looked appealing to play. Typically this turns out to be more female characters or characters that have a bit more of a technical playstyle to them.

I've noticed over the years that top players I share a main with in one game will also use my main in other games. I think there is something to this. Not sure if it boils down to the same categories, though.

Brain, heart, body? Never heard of such system. I always thought it was boobs vs thighs vs feet.

I main cammy may and litchi

Started out with luke since 5, played manon and was destroying people with her, picked dee jay out of curiosity and never went back to neither one 🤷..shit happens lol..

I'm a simple man. I see Mitsuru, Katalina, Millia, or Mom-I mean Baiken, I smash like button.

I can’t play the game without a fast character

I picked Luke because I'm from Memphis, and I'm not the right guy to mess with.

Dhasim, Cammy. No idea what could be my rhird choice, maybe DJ

My archetype is women. i discovered. since Soul Caliber 2, I have only mained female characters. I tried looking this up online and people said i want to be saved by a female hero.

Wow… I’ve literally come up with this JUST for this game. Crazy how you came by the same exact thinking. My 3 characters are ryu/sim/cammy I’m thinking of putting chun/deejay in ryus spot, keeping sim, then putting Rashid in the speed spot.

2:12~2:17 Boi you sure struggled with the term *GRAPPLER*

LK...I'm a Manon main...but all my folks hate me for siding with a grappler...wtf

What matters most to you when choosing a character to main; 1. Fighting Style 2. Moveset 3. Archetype 4. Personality 5. Backstory 6. Character Design 7. Race and Nationality 8. Gender 9. Theme Song 10. Personal Stage Design

Haven't watched an LK video in a while but holy shit what happened to his hair. Looks like he aged 50 years

I like the “Ken” of the game. A tool for every situation and range with an emphasis on aggression I like having a projectile for space control, an anti air and the ability to create strike/throw situations when I score a knockdown

i chose to main Zangief because i hate my life

I always pick the scumbag, so JP was the obvious choice.

I always go by the classic archetypes in all games: Power, Speed, Range (Magic), and Balanced. In an RPG you would think of them as Barbarian, Theif, Mage, and Cleric. Some multi class, but in general, these archetypes are universal to those themes. My Manon is kinda my multi class in Barbarian and Cleric.😂

Your method lacks crowd pleasing grappler

What type of character is Blanka?

I don't have a main in any game. To be honest, I don't like the idea of playing just one character and ignoring the rest.

Not related to fighting games but damn Lordknight you look beautiful with facial hair

I understand the want to make good FGC content. But please, stop giving people tutorial videos when 90% of casual players give up anyway. Its a lost cause and the most important thing is having fun, not winning, or starting to win.