Sean vs Urien

Table of Contents

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• Overview
• Close Range
• Mid-Range
• Far Range
• Okizeme
• Gimmicks
• Super-based strategy
• Hyper Tornado
• Hadou Burst
• Shoryu Cannon
• Aegis Reflector Breakdown

Overview

This match-up is a 6-4 at best or a 7-3 at the worst. Aegis makes this match-up difficult to deal with because of the amount of set-ups Urien has and the pressure he can apply because of it. Once Urien has the advantage, its very easy for him to snowball off with the momentum. Especially if the Urien player can convert stray hits into massive damage combos. 

How Sean can win this match-up

• Learn the escapes to the aegis setups because the chances of winning increase as these punishes can make Urien hurt with sufficient enough meter

• Abusing Urien's lack of wake-up from knockdowns

• Denying Urien an easy parry into Cr. HP (or St. HP)

• Counter poking and playing out the neutral game

• Recognizing the signs of an impending Aegis situation and responding accordingly 

Close-Range

• St./Cr. LP - 4 Frames
• St./Cr. LK - 5 Frames
• Throw - 2 Frames
• Cr. MK - 7 Frames
• St. HP -  10 Frames
• St. MP - 5 Frames
• Cr. HP - 9 Frames
• Headbutt - 7/9/12/9 Frames
• Tackle - 7/10/13/6 Frames
• EX Aegis - 0 Frames

At close range, Urien is slower than Sean generally. When Urien doesn't have meter (or has accumulated near a full bar), this will be the space Sean wishes to occupy more often than not in order to apply pressure. The goal here is play it safe and abuse Urien's slower speed with plus frame lockdowns and shimmies.

Urien St./Cr. LP are standard jabs with most Urien's favoring Cr. LP over St. LP for a few reasons. It can hit stand or crouch, it can be utilized for crouch teching and its fast enough to stop meaty throws. It has the potential of leading into aegis setups which is something to be wary of.

Urien St./Cr. LK aren't used often outside of aegis setups specifically but the usages between the jabs and shorts are nearly similar except Cr. LK is a low which is more important for Urien and more dangerous for Sean. 

Throw is one of the most dangerous tools that Urien has in his arsenal. The range on it is quite large by itself standard and it affords him good damage and favorable screen positioning when properly utilized. Throw plays into his design quirk of moving forward on a successful forward parry. This, when coupled with the fact that crouch normals extend your throwable hitboxes forward x-amount of pixels can make Urien's throw seem like an SPD when one gets grabbed from much further out. This all just means to be careful when applying pressure on Urien in the corner. When talking about Aegis setups, Throw comes into play when the opponent starts to parry and it is insanely difficult to deal with throw + parrying aegis at the same time. The reason being that the instant one parries the mirror, they are immediately vulnerable to throw and with an aegis behind them this could easily be the round (or game). 

Cr. MK is just a standard Cr. MK in Urien's case. Not as strong up close as it is from further away but it can see usage considering its safe on hit and block. There are aegis sweet spot setups that utilize this as a sort of measuring stick to set-up the proper distance when in range. 

St. HP is one of Urien's best normals. Its a high-parry-only normal that has strong level hitboxes through the duration of the active frames which means it will win over a majority of Sean's normals at almost any distance. Its slow to start-up which means that it can be stuffed out. It gets usage in aegis setups from time to time but one wont see it nearly as often as St. MK. It has a quirk where it moves Urien forward a frame or 2 after the animation has completed which isn't a lot by any means but its something to keep in mind. 

St. MP is threatening once Urien has the meter for Aegis but otherwise its not often used up close unless its an shimmy or meaty situation since it doesn't hit Sean crouching. 

Cr. HP is 1 of the main problems that Sean has to solve in order to stand a chance at winning. Launcher is one of a few main damage sources he has and is surprisingly versatile in usage. It can be used in AA's, counter-hits, shimmies, and meaties. By itself, its slow as molasses and lacking in OSHA regulations although this can be mitigated by cancels into Aegis or Sphere (its slightly unsafe though). Similar to Ken, Urien can more-or-less gamble with launcher combos considering that Sean can really only punish him with a sweep or DP (for 2 more damage) meter-less without a parry. 

Headbutt is another important move for Urien which also has many usages. Its airborne on the 2nd frame which will easily beat throws and lead into an Aegis setup. The main variations used with be LP and EX as they are the fastest. Due to their speed, they can be annoying to punish and they can be used to hop over Cr. MK/HK's and punish (especially in shimmy situations) which is further incentive to be patient yet proactive on Urien's wake-up. They whiff on crouchers but can hit in specific instances like whiffing a down parry so be warned. They lack invincibility fortunately but that doesn't mean get comfortable either. 

Tackle is dangerous with meter in almost any range. One needs to be mindful of what they're doing (like jumping out the corner) since a tackle can be done at anytime and lead into massive damage if they can juggle well. Up close, Tackle is unsafe when blocked which is a free Cr. HK for Sean. 

EX Aegis' distinction from the other variations of aegis is that its extremely fast and can hit during the blackout frames of the super flash. Urien can use this as a last ditch effort to interrupt pressure to get some damage on wake-up. It won't hit Sean when he's crouching but that means he's forced into reacting to the overhead which means standing up into the aegis (which fortunately makes it go away quicker but leaves Sean open to lows). There are frame traps/50-50s that happen after it comes out so be aware.   

What Sean can do in Close Range:

• St. LP - +5 tick that can chain into other lights and confirm into super once stocked. Since its so positive, Sean can lockdown Urien and build meter through abusing plus frames. Typically, Urien can duck St. LP but there are instances where he can't which makes things annoying for him. 
  
  There's a few more things to keep in mind that make this normal annoying for Urien:

• This normal recovers quick enough on parry that Urien cannot Cr. HP Sean which allows for punishment.

• If St. LP gets parried, cancelling into LP Dragon Smash will trade with Urien Cr. HP in Sean's favor. This allows for higher damage on a punish at the cost of a little health (56 damage punish).
• If not willing to sacrifice health, another St. LP will interrupt Cr. HP and can go into LP Dragon Smash x Super (46 damage punish). 

• Cr. LP - +3 tick; Same usages as St. LP but less positive advantage. Urien can launch Sean if he parries a Cr. LP. Sean can mitigate this by mashing Cr. LP or St. LP right after which will deny Urien's Cr. HP. 

• Cr. LK - +1 tick; Same as the other lights but is a low. Urien can also launch this but cancelling into the Jabs will always beat launcher. Since Urien is forced to down parry this, it can be done at a range where Cr. HP will easily whiff which will force him to use Cr. MK or St. HP instead 

• St. HP can also be beaten by the cancel into Cr. LP which can lead into super. 

• Cr. MP - Another +3 tick that can be used to lock Urien in plus frames and build meter on block. If Urien forward parries this at max range, he can launch it due to the forward movement of his parry animation. 

• To favorably trade against Urien's launcher on parry requires late OS'ing a MP Dragon Smash. 

• Cl. MP - Neutral adv. tick; Target combo by itself is fast enough to blow up parry into launcher and since it can be delayed means that the timing to red parry constantly shifts. Can force a trade with this normal on parry like Cr. MP. 

• Cl. HK - Versatile +2 tick ; Sean can Cl. HK from further out than Urien can Throw him which means this button is important at this range. This button gets stronger in this match-up due to it being able to go into DP unlike most other match-ups.

• To favorably trade against Urien's launcher on parry requires late OS'ing a MP Dragon Smash.

• Throw - 2 frames/3 when Kara; Important to get the mix-ups rolling but caution is needed because a misstep can lead into high damage and momentum on Urien's side.

• Throw is a guaranteed punish against a parried light or medium attack but when it is a Kara throw, its only guaranteed against lights. How this relates to Urien is this: 
  
  
• He's able to do crouch tech Cr. LP (to late tech throw) and cancel it into head butt (to go airborne in hopes of ruining a punish).
  Sean has to be careful committing to the punish when fighting against characters who have specials like Urien headbutt but as stated before, Kara Throw is a true punish against lights on parry which prevents the headbutt from even starting up. 
  
  
• Cr. MK -  -4 on block; A long reaching low confirm. 
  
  
• Cr. HP - -9 on block ; This normal at the max range it can hit from at this range is un-punishable for Urien. It pushes out extremely far (right into the optimal range to corner goaltend) and sets up spacing traps for counter-hits into super.

• Cl. HP - -4 on block; Used for the stun it accumulates and late EX DP OS. Urien is one of the few characters in the game that Cl. HP x EX Dragon Smash works on fully which serves as a strong alternative to Cl. HK x EX Tornado since its a good amount of stun and damage with the additional benefit of acquiring a KND. 

Aegis Reflector Breakdown

Aegis Reflector is one of the strongest supers in the game and its versatility in usage is what allows Urien to be effective even at the highest level of gameplay.  It doesn't rely on confirms to be strong as Urien can more often than not just activate it and make unsafe moves safe. Urien's kit and game-plan play heavily into this super and the opponent is forced to make decisions around minimizing the risks they take in order to avoid dying to a near-inevitable aegis setup. 

Let's discuss the ways that Aegis can be utilized against characters and how Sean can deal with them. 

Unblockable Setups

There are common unblockable setups and there are a few lesser known ones that aren't encountered often. The first one to discuss will be: 

The Mid-Screen Setup

This set-up is the most common one that is set-up by Urien dashing forward then headbutting over Sean after being knockdown to the other side of the aegis. He will dash forward twice and then do St. MK to push Sean into the Aegis then do Cr. HP to launch again and repeat the sequence after tackle x Aegis.  

What makes this set-up tough to deal with is that there are 3 main variations of this:

• Dash forward x2 --> St. MK
• Dash forward x3--> Cr. LK
• Dash forward x1, walk up --> delay Cr. LK
• Dash forward x 2 --> delay throw

The escape for the standard mid-screen setup is:

"Down parry, then quickly parry high twice (press back towards Urien)"

Using this method will get you out the main variation but the problem is that this method can be beaten with a variety of different timings of normals and/or throw (as shown above) so be careful. 

When it comes to the triple dash into Cr. LK or dash then walk up Cr. LK variation, instead of parrying high twice the way to escape it is to down parry twice with a normal timing. As said before, timings can be mixed up so be careful. 

Dash forward x2 into delay throw is tough to deal with. There are 2 ways out of this setup:

• Parry then late tech Urien's throw then immediately parry again
• Parry then immediately block to make Urien's throw whiff

For the first escape method, it is absolutely important to remember that Sean has to tech Urien's throw as this will allow the chance to immediately parry because if the opposite happens, it could be the end of the round/match.

The 2nd method is much more doable but the issue is will he? or will he not?. 

In the end, it comes down to practicing escapes and recognizing the setups a Urien player is likely to use which comes from a lot of experience.