Street Fighter V
Laura 101
CONTENTS
- General Overview
- The Neutral: Pokes and Counterpokes, Anti-Airs
- Opening your opponent up: Frame traps and tick throws
- Combos
- Resets: How to keep the momentum
- Oki and you
- Useful Resources
General Overview
Who is Laura and why should you play her?
Laura Matsuda is the older sister of Sean from SF3. She is a new character to the Street Fighter series. Laura is a grappler, she has high damage, strong mixups and a powerful command grab. If you like getting in people’s face and making them guess, Laura could be the character for you.
What is Laura’s general gameplan?
Laura’s gameplan is fairly simple to understand but can be difficult to execute. Her goal is to get in your face, put you in a mixup situation and keep you guessing until you die, in a perfect world she does this every single time. Sadly, this is not a perfect world, invincible reversals exist and there are counters to all her mixups, however, once Laura gets the momentum she can be hard to stop.
What makes unique from the other characters?
Laura is unique in many ways, she is:
- The only grappler with a fireball
- The only character that can cancel into their overhead from almost every normal
- The only grappler with a command dash
- The only character with a backwards command dash
- The only character with an EX command grab that is projectile immune
What are her strengths?
One of Laura’s biggest strengths is her mixup potential, able to put the opponent in a guessing situation after one clean hitconfirm, this makes Laura one of the scariest characters in the game when she is in your face. Another strength of Laura’s is her high damage output, she has no difficulty adding huge amounts of damage to her combos with ease. Laura has 1000 health and 1000 stun, making her the only female in the game so far to have 1000 health.
What are her weaknesses?
Surely a character with the high damage output and mixup potential that Laura has is without weaknesses, and Laura’s are quite significant. Her buttons, while they have good frame data, all tend to be fairly short, meaning Laura is not much of a threat at all once she’s out of arms reach. Laura also relies a lot on meter to gain momentum to steamroll her way to victory, so against characters with strong fireball game, Laura will frequently be forced to spend meter to punish the fireball, making her less scary once she’s in because she has less meter to spend.
How difficult is she?
Overall, Laura is not a very difficult character to play, her execution is fairly simple and her gameplan is relatively easy to pull off. I would give Laura a difficult rating of 1.5/5, the hardest part of playing Laura is knowing when to commit and when to back off.
The Neutral: Pokes and Counterpokes, Anti-Airs
Pokes
Laura’s pokes are generally fairly weak, Laura is not a character that can comfortably play footsies for the whole match, if she doesn’t get in she will eventually lose unless your opponent just doesn’t know how to play footsies. That being said, Laura does have some notable normals that make good pokes, such as:
St.mk: 5 frame startup, 4 active frames, safe on block and plus enough on hit to link st.lp afterwards makes st.mk a great poke for occupying space that your opponent wants to enter, not as good for actively poking your opponent down but it’s a button that can function as both a counterpoke and a poke.
Cr.mk: 7 frame startup, hits low, can be canceled to light bolt charge (qcf+lp) for a easy combo and a mixup situation, possibly her best poke just because it can low profile a lot of attacks and is safe even if empty canceled to light bolt charge.
St.hk: Laura’s longest range normal outside of command normals, crush counters, safe when spaced, overall it’s fairly decent, just dont whiff it because you can get whiff punished with ease.
Cr.hk: It’s a sweep, it’s unsafe on block but some characters struggle to get meaningful punishes when they block this at max range, not too good but it can work from time to time.
St.hp: Slightly more range than cr.mk, 1 frame slower at 8 frames, crush counters, and plus enough on hit to link a Critical Art (qcf qcf+k) on reaction at max range without needing a crush counter. Pretty good button, similar to st.hk in that it is easily punished if it whiffs.
Counter pokes
Laura’s counterpokes are very good, Laura has some of the best counterpokes in the game, allowing skilled players to punish minor mistakes and start up their own pressure with ease. Her best counterpokes are:
Cr.mp: Fantastic button, 5 frame startup, empty cancel to medium bolt charge (qcf+mp) for a nice punish when using this counterpoke. Can struggle to hit low attacks due to its hitbox, but it is excellent for hitting normals such as Ryu st.mk or Chun Li’s st.hp.
Cr.hp: The big brother to cr.mp, 7 frame startup, leads to much more damage than cr.mp and hits lows much more reliably. You can empty cancel to medium bolt charge or cancel on reaction with good reactions.
St.lk: 4 frame startup, hitbox extends past the hurtbox, empty cancel to light bolt charge for a nice quick punish, really good up close, really bad at long range, half decent midrange.
St.mk: While this is not a dedicated counterpoke button, it’s ability to sit out and occupy space means you will frequently counterpoke normals by accident with this normal so I included it here.
Anti-Airs
St.mp: Nice and tall, 6 frame startup, 5 active frames so it’s easy to time, can cancel to command dash for some mixups, probably her go to AA, easy to do on reaction. Overall, pretty good.
Hard Bolt Charge: One frame slower than St.mp, but provides a knockdown into a meaty which is nice and does more damage than st.mp, harder to do on reaction than st.mp but a higher reward, sometimes trades. Overall, pretty decent.
Vskill command dash: While not a true Anti-Air, command dashing under close jumps can help you escape the corner or stop you from having to block a potential ambiguous crossup, don’t miss time it or you’ll get counter hit.
J.lp/lk/mp: All three of these are used for the same thing, do them from a neutral jump or a jump back to stop crossup attempts. Pretty decent. J.mp is really good at catching divekicks and some special moves such as Claw’s (Vega) Flying Barcelona.
Opening your opponent up: Frame traps and tick throws
Frame Traps
Laura has some very strong frame trap options, and correctly using frame traps is very important with Laura. The main purpose of frame traps is to catch the opponent pushing buttons or trying to tech a throw, allowing you to get a punish combo. Here is a list of Laura’s notable frame traps:
2 Frame gap:
- Cr.lk st.lp
- St.lp st.lk
- St.lk cr.mp
- St.lk st.mk
3 Frame gap:
- St.lp st.mk
- St.lk st.mp
- Cr.lk st.lk
- Cr.lp cr.mp
4 Frame gap:
- Cr.lk st.mk (does not combo on counterhit)
- St.lk cr.hp (does not combo on counterhit)
- St.mp cr.hp (does not combo on counterhit)
- EX Thunder clap cr.hp (True blockstring in V-Trigger)
You can also do things such as cr.lk st.hp to catch a delayed throw tech, but this leaves you very open, so only use frame traps like these when you have a good idea on your opponents tech timing.
Tick throws
Tick throws are very potent with Laura, both her throws give her good oki, and allow her to go for a mixup afterwards. Your pressure should consist of assorted tick throws and different length frame traps to always keep your opponent on their toes. Laura’s best tick throws are:
- Cr.lk throw
- St.lk throw
- Cr.lp throw
- St.lp throw
- EX Thunderclap throw (requires a walk midscreen, throw must be delayed in V-Trigger
Laura can also do things such as st.mp dash throw to catch the opponent off guard, but this is risky.
It is important to make good use of frame traps and tick throws because they force the opponent to commit to either blocking or teching, allowing you to get command grabs in and hit your opponent for big damage because they tried to tech a throw.
Combos
(Damage, Stun) Bolt Charge = QCF + P Thunder Clap = QCB + P xx = Cancel CA = QCF QCF+K
Hit confirms
Cr.mk xx light bolt charge (104, 180) NOTE: Not technically a confirm but safe on block so it’s fine to throw it out here and there.
St.mk st.lp xx light bolt charge (135, 243)
St.mp/cr.mp xx EX thunder clap cr.hk (213, 301)
St.mp CA (375, 100)
St.hp st.lk xx EX bolt charge (212, 358)
St.hp xx Medium bolt charge (190, 315)
Cr.hp xx Medium bolt charge (200, 315)
St.hp xx EX thunder clap cr.hk (233, 351)
Cr.hp xx EX thunder clap cr.hk (243, 351)
Cr.hp xx CA (405, 150)
St.hp CA (395, 105)
F.hp st.lp st.lp xx light bolt charge (173, 309)
F.hp st.lk st.lk xx EX bolt charge (222, 364)
F.hp hp xx hard bolt charge (254, 370)
F.hp CA (395, 120)
The following combos only work in the corner or in V-Trigger:
St.mp/cr.mp xx EX thunder clap Hard bolt charge (261, 341)
St.hp xx EX thunder clap Hard bolt charge (281, 391)
Cr.hp xx EX thunder clap Hard bolt charge (291, 391)
F.hp hp xx EX thunder clap Hard bolt charge (311, 422)
Light confirms
St.lp st.lp xx light bolt charge (105, 213)
St.lk st.lk xx EX bolt charge (162, 278)
Cr.lk cr.lp xx light bolt charge (95, 213)
St.lk st.lk CA (337, 133)
Cr.lk cr.lp CA (327, 133)
Counterhit confirms
St.lp st.mk
St.lp cr.mp
St.lk st.mp
Cr.lp st.mp
St.mp cr.mp
St.mp st.mk
St.mk cr.mp
F.hp st.mp/cr.mp
F.hp st.mk
Punish combos
St.lp xx light bolt charge (84, 160) 3f punish
St.lk xx EX bolt charge (149, 239) 4f punish
CA (350, 0) Max damage 4f punish
Cr.mp xx medium bolt charge (170, 265) 5f punish
Cr.hp xx medium bolt charge (200, 315) 7f punish
V-Trigger
Laura can cancel st.mp, cr.mp and st.mk into V-Trigger and link cr.hp afterwards.
Laura can cancel cr.mk into V-Trigger and link cr.mp and st.mk afterwards.
Laura can cancel st.mp mk, st.hp, cr.hp and st.hk and link st.hp, cr.hp and cr.hk afterwards
In V-Trigger, EX thunderclap hard bolt combos midscreen, making it a significantly improved option for spending 1 bar in combos.
All of Laura’s combos do extra damage in V-Trigger.
Crush Counter punishes
St.hp xx V-Skill forward cr.hp xx medium bolt charge (274, 460)
St.hp xx V-Skill forward cr.hp xx EX thunderclap cr.hk (312, 492)
St.hp xx V-Skill forward cr.hp xx EX thunderclap hard bolt charge (354, 527) Only works during V-Trigger or in the corner
Crush Counter confirms
St.hk st.hk (189, 315)
St.hk medium bolt charge (218, 345)
St.hp cr.hk (177, 315)
St.hp medium bolt charge (206, 345)
St.hk xx V-Trigger f.hp,hp xx hard bolt charge (322, 496)
St.hp xx V-Trigger f.hp,hp xx hard bolt charge (310, 496)
Post-Stun combos
Fully charged hard thunder clap f.hp hp xx hard bolt charge (345, 448)
Fully charged hard thunder clap st.hk thunder clap hits f.hp hp hard bolt charge (394, 544)
Post stun from a command grab in the corner: Fully charged medium thunder clap cr.hp xx light bolt charge j.hp cr.hp xx medium bolt charge (415, 616)
Resets: How to keep the momentum
Resets
A reset, is the intentional ending of a combo in a way that allows you to go for an immediate followup combo. Laura’s resets are very strong due to her high damage output and strong mixup. After every reset, Laura has the option of going for a throw or command throw instead of a button. Here are some of Laura’s basic resets:
Midscreen
EX thunderclap st.mk xx V-Skill forward. Switches sides, immediate st.mp hits meaty after the V-Skill
EX thunderclap st.hp xx V-Skill forward. Stays on the same side, immediate st.lk hits meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap st.mk xx V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, can link cr.mp after on reaction.
EX thunderclap st.hp xx V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, can link cr.mp after on reaction.
Corner
EX thunderclap st.mk xx V-Skill forward. Stays on the same side, immediate st.mp hits meaty after the V-Skill
EX thunderclap st.mk xx V-Skill back xx V-Skill forward. Switches side, immediate buttons are not meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap cr.mp xx V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, can link cr.mp after on reaction.
Midscreen V-Trigger
EX thunderclap walk forward cr.mk xx V-Skill forward. Stays on the same side, immediate st.lk hits meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap st.hp xx V-Skill forward. Switches sides, immediate st.mp hits meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap f.hp. Stays on the same side, immediate st.mp hits meaty after the f.hp.
EX thunderclap dash cr.mp xx V-Skill forward. Switches sides, immediate st.lk hits meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap dash cr.mp xx V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, can link cr.mp after on reaction.
EX thunderclap V-Skill forward level 3 hard thunderclap V-Skill forward hold for V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, thunderclap hits immediately after, can link out of the thunderclap on reaction. Unsafe if they quickrise.
EX thunderclap V-Skill forward level 3 light thunderclap delayed V-Skill overhead. Overhead whiffs and switches sides, can link out of the thunderclap on reaction. Unsafe if they quickrise.
EX thunderclap V-Skill forward level 1 hard thunderclap V-Skill forward hold for V-Skill overhead. Switches sides if they don’t rise, covers quickrise and backrise, don’t do the V-Skill on quickrise. Can link out of the thunderclap on reaction.
Corner V-Trigger
EX thunderclap st.hp xx V-Skill forward. Stays on the same side, immediate st.mp hits meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap st.mk xx V-Skill back xx V-Skill forward. Switches side, immediate buttons are not meaty after the V-Skill.
EX thunderclap dash cr.mp xx V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, can link cr.mp after on reaction.
EX thunderclap f.hp. Stays on the same side, immediate st.mp hits meaty after the f.hp.
EX thunderclap V-Skill forward level 3 light thunderclap delayed V-Skill overhead. Overhead whiffs and switches sides, can link out of the thunderclap on reaction. Unsafe if they quickrise.
EX thunderclap V-Skill forward level 3 light thunderclap V-Skill forward hold for V-Skill overhead. Overhead hits meaty, thunderclap hits immediately after, can link out of the thunderclap on reaction. Unsafe if they quickrise.
Oki and you
Laura’s meaties are very strong, because most of her knockdowns cannot be backrised, and her mixup is very good, causing lots of people to get hit on wakeup for big damage. Here is a list of Laura’s knockdowns with framekill setups to cover all the different wakeup options:
Medium bolt charge:
Forward dash st.lp, +2 on block, +3 on hit, catches quickrise.
Forward dash st.lp st.hp st.mp, +7 on block, +8 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
Hard bolt charge:
F.hp, -1 on block +5 on hit, catches quickrise
F.hp st.mk st.mp, +7 on block +8 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
EX bolt charge:
Forward dash st.lp, +2 on block, +3 on hit, catches quickrise.
Forward dash st.lp st.hp st.mp, +7 on block, +8 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
Sunset wheel (no trigger):
Light punch bolt charge. -1 on block, +3 on hit, catches quickrise.
Light punch bolt charge st.mk st.mp. +4 on block, +5 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
EX sunset wheel:
Light punch bolt charge.+1 on block, +5 on hit, catches quickrise.
Light punch bolt charge st.mk st.mp. +6 on block, +7 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
V-Trigger sunset wheel:
Light punch bolt charge.+1 on block, +5 on hit, catches quickrise.
Light punch bolt charge st.mk st.mp. +6 on block, +7 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
Cr.hk:
V-Skill forward st.mk, -2 on block +3 on hit if they quickrise, +0 on block +5 on hit if they backrise.
V-Skill forward st.mk throw st.mp, +6 on block +7 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
Forward throw:
F.hp, -1 on block +5 on hit, catches quickrise
F.hp st.mk st.mp, +7 on block +8 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
Back throw:
F.hp, -2 on block +4 on hit, catches quickrise
F.hp st.mk st.mp, +6 on block +7 on hit, catches them if they do not rise.
Useful resources
Laura player discord: https://discord.gg/0pgnkd5WoeGroSto
Rocwell’s youtube channel, has lots of cool tech and setups: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCY6ZtRmfEYMCHKjWQvdioTg
Taniyan’s youtube channel, lots of really interesting setups and bits of tech: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCcxsPJWL8gXdc8S1TfgLgDA
Thanks for taking the time to read through this whole document!