How to deal with scrubs!

You meet lots of scrubs online that are irritating to play against. So how do you deal with them? Playing against average players to a higher level have different strategies and tactics than those of lower levels, AKA Scrubs.

I am writing this for a friend who had a rough time with scrubs when he tried to play with a new character.

First I will show you what characters scrubs mostly use.
*Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Zangief, Sagat, Akuma*
The ones that they rarely choose.
*Cammy, Guile*
And from the new characters.
*Adon, Juri*

Before discussing character match up against scrubs let me explain what scrubs mostly do....

SHORYUUUUUUUUKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!

Well, we get different types of scrubs, but I will come back to that later, one thing they all have in common, the spam.

Usually scrubs have no patience. They have to use the only moves they know, which most of the time is the shoryuken. Now as I said above, some tactics will not work against scrubs, those tactics are the overheads. overhead attacks will NEVER work on a scrub, overhead usually takes more time than other normals. and since scrubs have no patience whatsoever, you will see an EX-Shoryuken Struck up your... face. Never use an overhead against a scrub.

Mix-up tech throw wont work as well, the same reason as the above, they will spam special up your face. Try your best not to mess up your combo, 1 miss and you will eat a shoryuken. If in doubt, stick to B&B moves.

Since they mash all the time, you can take that to your advantage. After a block string, stop attack and just stay guarding, you will see a shoryuken coming. punish it. Keep doing that, scrubs never learn, if they do, they wont be called scrubs.

A very lovely way to bait scrubs is the back dash. After a special that puts both players almost in the same recovery time, try to backdash, you will see your opponent flying in air with fire on their arms but with no opponents in air with them. put your evil laugh on, and PUNISH.

I would say the worst type of scrubs is the one that knows how to throw, this person will be almost random to you. You won't be able to anticipate their next move. For this type of people, you might wanna practice on Option Selecting. I wrote a previous post about OS if you wanna check it out. Basically if you are in doubt, guard down and press jab + short, if they try to throw, you will tech it. Else if they shoryuken, you will stay down guarding.

Now for the most annoying type of scrubs, is the type that does not know that there is a forward or up direction, they just jump backwards, the whole game they're on air. throwing hadoukens or kunais, land do a projectile, then repeat. This type is hard to hit because of their backward jump, they have some form of defense that you can't approach them, so you have to figure a way to hit them. If you get close enough to them, they will sweep. for me playing viper, I try to seismo their ground as soon as they land, and its working pretty well. If you have more health than them, then just don't bother following them, let them fly in their own world in the end of the TV corner. Taunt or do whatever. Since this type jumps a lot, you can almost anticipate any jump coming in, so you can counter with a jumping fierce or jumping roundhouse depending on your character. Careful though if they have an anti-air they will mash it instead. *Sometimes*.

Moving to character specific, I'd say "Ryu, Ken, Akuma and Sagat" are in the same category. The shoryuken spammers. Mostly ken is the most notorious for being a shoryuken spammer. Just bait these shoryukens and you're fine. careful on an ex-srk Ultra I can pop out and you'd eat it if you wont time your punishment correctly. I know I ate it once when I tried to do Fuerte's RSF. For Ryu, his tatsumaki might be spammed, your anti-air normal is ftw here, when he's just above you, use it. For Akuma, he's going to jump a lot. so you can use that to your advantage. You can try to anticipate an air hadouken and dash underneath to punish. Akuma's ultra one can pop out just like a shoryuken. though some scrubs will make it so obvious that they will use the ultra. As for Sagat, thank god he got nurfed, a lucky scrub ex-srk eats 1/3 your bar. The same goes to him as ken's, though tiger knee might pop up instead. and from far, fire balls.

Scrub Zangief is not to be feared! the Lariat spammer! a very easy way to break that. jump upwards and hit with a normal that has priority over Zangief's lariat. I wrote a post about the upward jump, check it out. Zangief's green hand is very punishable, even on hit. so use it to your advantage. A scruby gief wont know mix ups, so you wont have to worry about a random grab.

Scrub Blanka is a pain. Some characters can't punish his ball on block, so it might be a bit difficult. but for some character, like fuerte can run -> slide to punish his blocked ball. Jumping ins on Blanka might not work as they tend to use his electricity. Though sometimes a jump in would break it if you time it correctly.
Blanka's ball can be interrupted by a jab or strong just before he hits you. so you can try that. Blanka's other ball where he goes up and lands on you can be Focus Attacked. So when you see that coming, start charging your Focus Attack and once he land release it. Then punish as desired.

as for Cammy, her srk has insane priority. you will see it a lot, try to anticipate it and punish. her screw move is punishable on block, but try to act fast because mostly a srk will come out after it. Lastly her move where she spins in the air to grab you can be dashed under to avoid it.

I haven't seen many scrubs who would pick guile, but I found someone and he's was so annoying, I wrote about him in my last post. seezar, just jumps backward and sonic boom, if you get close, he would sweep.
For guile, his sweep hits twice, you can try and punish between his two kicks. Mainly for charge characters, you can try and change positions from left to right or right to left to screw your opponent's charging.

for the new characters, Juri is annoying, her air move where she slides on you breaks your FA! I think it's too nooby friendly. You can just block and punish if they do the whole animation. Her legs fan move has too many hits so you can't FA that. usually Juri gonna pick Ultra II, so you can bait that out of them when they get it.

finally for Adon, they will spam his wall dive kick followed by his srk. You can actually punish his wall dive as he's getting to you, or you can wait for them to srk afterwards and punish.

Some other characters scrubs might pick are Balrog (Boxer), they will spam headbutt. If you anticipate it you can hit low followed by any special, headbutt can be easily broken by a low hit. Or you can just wait for it then punish but the punishing window is short.
Vega (Clas), they will keep spamming wall jumps, Focus Attack it and punish accordingly.

If you want to get better you should play against good players. but sometimes only scrubs are available online at a given time. So, yeah..
Enjoy.