What is a Touch of Death?

Bison's greatest strength in Super Turbo is his ability to win a round off one mistake (or one guess for that matter). This is because of his incredibly match-practical Touch of Death (ToD) combos.

A Touch of Death combo is defined by SFDojo founder zaspacer Super Turbo guru NKI as: "A ToD combo is one that, once the initial hit connects, there is nothing the opponent can do but sit there and watch his character die. ToD combos are typically combos that do 50% damage (or more) and dizzy, allowing you to repeat the combo and kill the opponent."

Now, Bison actually has more than one ToD combo, but they are all variations on the same basic idea. This being: j.RH, s.LK, c.MK xx Knee Press (repeat). This is not necessarily the one you may be using though, as your options to do the remaining portion of your opponent's life after the initial combo are varied. Some of these are:
- j.RH, s.LK, c.MK xx Psycho.
- (Crossup) j.RH, s.LK, s.LK, c.MK xx Psycho.
There are others (involving super for instance) that you can use, but those are most reliable in my experience.

How does one get in position to land one of these combos? There are several ways depending on what character you are facing. Against fireballers with less fast recovery time (Ken/Ryu/Sim/Sagat), if you predict an FB and jump over it, the round is yours. This is very unlikely against good players, as they should be masking their fireball intent and have you jumping into their anti-air of choice. A much more applicable method of landing one of these nasty combos is off one of Bison's strong crossup options.

Note: I will not be touching on exactly what a crossup is. I feel that it should be something the reader should know on their own. I will link to Majestro's SF Terms Definition Guide for those who may not know however.

Bison's crossup options are quite effective, due to their nature as being ambiguous crossups if spaced properly. These crossups are: j.RH, j.forward and j.jab. I wholeheartedly recommend learning the first two and incorporating them in to your game, they are game-winners. In fact, I guarantee that if you land one and your combo execution is on-point, you will win the round, you should be able to tell your opponent to lay down their stick or pad/put in their next quarter if you land one. That's how valuable they are. I will touch upon them in a later article showing the best spacing for landing them and keeping them ambiguous.

Video References:
Yuuvega Vs. Muteki. Guile has a somewhat substantial health lead on Bison, Bison attempts a jump-in while Guile has no downcharge, having just thrown a boom. Bison j.RH stuffs Guile's c.HP, and follows up with s.LK, c.MP xx Psycho for the ~50% damage and stun. This is a microcosm of what a ToD does for Bison in a match. It completely turned the result on it's head. Muteki had the match going in his favor until Yuuvega predicted the boom and decided to test Guile's non-charged anti-air.

Yuuvega Vs. Muteki (Same Video). Bison knocks Guile down with a scissor kick, takes a step to get in proper position. He then hits Guile with a crossup j.RH, s.LK, s.LK, c.MK xx Psycho for the dizzy, which turns easily in to a perfect from there. That is an example of how powerful a properly spaced crossup can be for the Dictator.

j.RH, s.LK, c.MK xx Scissor video. Straightforward enough, simply showing what the combo looks like, to anyone who may be curious. For what it's worth, a Psycho would dizzy/do approximately the same amount of damage there. As I recall, Scissor does a bit more stun/damage though, but the difference is miniscule.

That's about it for my initial strategy post. I will be touching on this subject in other detail at a later time. I look forward to reading any comments that may be left on things I should've mentioned, matches I should've shown, and any other comments or criticism.

The purpose/origin of this blog.

As to assist zaspacer in his efforts at http://streetfighterdojo.com, I've decided to follow the lead of SRK's Fatboy and his Dhalsim blog and do the same for my character of choice.

I've been playing Dictator since approximately the same time GGPO initially got ST. It took me a little while to handle some of the nuances of playing a character who's defensive options are nonexistent (to most players) and limited (to good players lol). I do feel Bison is a very competitive character who's offensive power overcome his defensive shortcomings by a considerable amount.

In this blog, I hope to address matchups, general strategies, situation specific strategy and gimmicks (I love gimmicks). And to help with those who may look to pick up the Dictator with little charge character experience, I'll attempt to address some issues that newer players may have with playing charge characters (like, maintaining solid positioning while not having/while having your charge).

Now, enough of the introductions, and onto trying to make the next Yuuvega/Taira!