Imagine you are Ryu, trained all your life to perfect the hadoken. Then some dude from NY smacks it out the air and before you can react he’s flying at you shouting “DDT” I love Street Fighter
Really no lariat buffs??? Doesn’t sound like an Alex patch to me. Jokes aside this is certainly a great birthday gift for me. Alex is obviously a character I’m biased towards, he’s my favorite street fighter character but even ignoring that I feel like this is legitimately one of the best characters in street fighter currently. Even his redesign I think looks great in bengis’ art and is more symptomatic of capcom struggling to make sf characters look good in 3d, and he’s oozing with character and they didn’t f up his continuity unlike a lot of V characters which is impressive. Add all the love he’s gotten and now I legitimately think this is a character you’ll seriously see people playing a lot after all these years. I hope capcom keeps this foundation forever. 6 is most likely continuing the story from 3 but Luke sorta feels like they made him forgetting all about Alex as he’s also a blonde American rival to ryu with a military background. But after a patch like this I’m confident that capcom is aware there’s plenty of love for the new generation street fighter and isn’t gonna dump him again like they did after third strike. Literally all I could ask for as a guy who’s been playing this character for over a decade is maybe just give him a special cancelable c.mk but if Alex plateaued here going into 6 I could not complain about anything they did with him sans making another ending where after beating ryu in the story mode his ending has him getting his ass handed by ryu.
Weird... Thought I commented... Alex now has a kara Super with VT1 Parry Special Cancel adjustments. Moves him forward, and can link from his longer pokes like low strong/low forward. Also adds the mental game of if you want to challenge him with a walk up grab (this has been patched out, disregard). Alex can link a one-hit AA into a two-hit AA at certain ranges. Can also connect with medium air knee smash. *Edit to add* Choke Sleeper's range from cancelling from flash chop is actually further than from a normal.
I always had some serious problems fighting Alex players, not to be down on myself ofc I just never learn lol, I never knew it was this uphill of a battle for them!
With this Alex won't be top, but he'll definitely be A at best. His defense still suffers but that's the trade off for being a hard hitting character. As Daigo said, his main weakness is that he actually has a lot of gaps in the thing he does, so if you recognize the stuff he does, for example, stomps, head butts etc you can really punish him for that. It's a lot easier compared to say, Laura as she's her specials are a lot faster and harder to react to.
We like to go balls out. We didn’t make a read we committed to our gamble with complete faith for no justifiable reason because that’s just what you do with Alex.
Alex is probably the biggest winner of this patch. After he has been hilariously bad and always been the meme character for several season, I never thought that I would ever say this in the entire life span of the game, but Alex might be the best grappler in the game now.
Alex isn't meant to be played as a grappler. Every time you Power Bomb someone, you're giving your opponent a reset. Alex is most dangerous when making your opponent do stupid stuff to avoid getting power bombed, and eating a more painful combo instead. I've fought countless opponents who keep trying to press buttons after blocking a Lariat because they're more scared I'd Power Bomb than eating a Counter Hit double standing MP canceled into a MK Slash Elbow or better yet, a VT1 activation.
@@zone_act_129 when he debuted in Season 1, Alex was supposed to be a mid-ranged character with good pokes and high damage and can cover a lot of distance quickly. He was kind of a unique archetype. But unfortunately Capcom broke his design philosophy when they nerfed him in in Season 2 (crouching MP, his main poke went from 6F to 8F, crouching MK from 7F to 9F, so he suffered tremendously as Alex gets no damage conversion from both pokes without a V-Trigger activation). Alex in Season 3 onwards is meant to be an oppressive, in your face character with very high damage optimal combos, even without meter. Except Capcom refused to fix some major problems with Alex, namely: 1. His normals aren't great up close. They're at best decent (standing MP, crouching LP/LK), but at in your face range where he can land his highest damage combos, many people have better buttons than him, and many characters with 3F jabs can just disrespect his frame advantage, trade hits and come out on top. Alex's mediums and hards were also hugely unsafe on whiff, though not bad on block if spaced correctly. 2. For essentially what's supposed to be a medium ranged footsies based character that hits like a truck, Abigail is much better than Alex for the same purpose when spaced out, with safer normals and higher damage punishes. Abigail has better range to boot. 3. Alex has terrible anti-air and defensive options without V-Trigger 1 parry. Air Knee Smash has small hitbox and LK version is too short ranged to be used reactively, wihle HK version has a whopping 11-frame startup. Crouching HP is 10F startup, and even standing HP which was given an anti-air hitbox in S4 has 9F startup. Without meter to EX DP, Alex's best anti-air was simply standing LP (it was even aimed upward). So when anti air jabs were nerfed globally, Alex was one of the worst affected, if not the worst. 4. Alex has poor BnB combo routes (which was vastly improved in the last two patches), and also poor okizeme (which again, was vastly improved this patch as long as you're willing to spend meter). Before this, the best you could do was something like crouching LP into LP Flash Chop, or on Counter hit, crouching LP > standing MP > MP Flash Chop or MK Slash Elbow. If Capcom would have given him a Target Combo so he could get some form of meterless conversion from hitting with crouching MP/MK, he would at least have a really good footsies game. 5. Alex's moves are very one-dimensional. His ant-air was only useful in combos without meter. If you're lucky you can land one headbutt in a match, then it's useless. LK Slash Elbow is decent for covering distance but if your opponent jumps you're screwed. Flash Chop is only really useful in combos, though with the range improvements it might now be useful as a poke. Power Bomb resets his frame advantage, so you only use it for the damage or when you can stun your opponent. His stomp only hits an opponent on the ground, unlike Bison's. Worse still, it rewarded last-minute reaction jumps by giving them a full jumping punish. Alex may hit like a truck, and has some of the coolest looking, high damage meterless combos in the game, but it means nothing if you can't actually hit your opponent with it in an actual match. He is fun to use though, hence why I've stuck with him as my main even though I don't have to work anywhere as hard to win a match with my other mains Rashid and Dictator.
@@zone_act_129 Definitely a bait and punish character. Alex hits like a Boeing 747 if he makes the right read and has tools for most scenarios BUT he's very linear in gameplay so he's very vulnerable to guessing wrong.
Been waiting for Baf to go over Alex because he might be the biggest winner of the final patch (though Gill and Kage also got some excellent stuff). Release Alex was ass. But Alex mains are dedicated. They can go on for 1 hour explaining the intricacies of every matchup and how Alex lost. Capcom def heard the prayers and yah boi is blessed. Season 5 plus this patch transformed Alex and its great. He might be one of (if not the) best grappler in the game.
If you're ass at DP motions like I am, one new sick thing Alex can do now is parry the jump in and then do EX knee. I think L knee works at some points but EX knee has been most consistent. Also, sick stuff as always Bafael, been a treat watching your breakdowns on SFV the past 6 years.
I might be crazy but with how huge his buffs have been in the last 2 patches I think it is safe to say he'll be in the launch roster for SF6. It just feels far too intentional
I'm not convinced Alex is gonna be much better. It feels like every patch, Alex gets super buffed and then people say shit like ''wow Alex is gonna be high tier this season'' and then he ends up being a middling low tier.
Yeah, people have been saying this for years that Alex was buffed to the point of brokenness. When all of his buffs never fixed his fundamental weaknesses (namely poor mixups, poor okizeme, command throw resets his frame advantage, his best pokes have little to no conversion without V-Trigger, and when we lost global anti-air jabs, Alex was one of the worst affected). People who complain about his standing/crouching HP anti-air buffs forget they're 9/10 frames to start, and he has nothing faster except EX DP.
You're right actually. Alex isn't high tier, but he definitely isn't bottom half like most of his SF5 lifespan. He's probably A at best. Given that pros like Kichipa and Problem X used him in tournaments, he'd definitely became more viable. Prior to that, he was absolutely terrible (as an Alex main). As Baf said, he was a 'hybrid grappler' that was for some reason based around poking with cr.mp when he should've have been a powerhouse character. He had absolutely no oki at all from any of his knockdowns, and all he had was a crappy flash chop that didn't give him oki until season 3~4 would you believe it.
Don’t play Alex, but I like to see characters who have harder times, have a lot of tweaking to their kits to better help them. Go you Alex mains, you beautiful crazy people.
Honestly sad that the game is finished literally as the last patch hits. It felt like half the base roster were missing tools, like Zangief, Fang, Necalli, and even some DLC characters like Alex, Falke and others for the majority of the game's lifespan, but at this point thats just FG culture, just look at Twelve or Sean on TS or SFIV Vega, hoping for a change in SF6
As an Alex main, Alex got a nice slew of buffs this round, but it's hard to say it they actually bump him up the tiers or make him viable in tourneys. I'm really happy the last two patches buffed his bread and butter so he has better combo routes from lights. And his optimal punishes just keep getting better and better, with VS2 really yielding some massive corner carry, high damage combos. The buff to his VS2 only makes it better. I've never liked VT2, but the changes make it genuinely useful in matches where I can't really parry, like against Mika or Zangief, since I'd properly get conversions (and more importantly, okizeme) from hitting with his crouching mediums and cancelling into Choke Sleeper. I also really like that now you can cancel a successful parry into any special or CA. But here's the kicker: Alex generally relies on mediums to get his damage in (crouching MP remains his best poke overall even after being nerfed in S2) , and he has zero conversions from those without a V Trigger activation. Standing LP can be crouched under, while both LK are generally too short ranged (and also slow compared to someone with a 3F poke). And as painful as Alex's optimal corner combos are (he probably has the most painful meterless combos in the game if you bring your opponent to the corner, which is bound to happen in an optimal punish), Alex almost never gets them unless your opponent really screwed up. Pretty much 90% of my damage comes from a spaced out crouching MP/MK as pokes, standing MP or crouching LP/LK. I'm only going to be able to throw out a Lariat if I knock down and get the okizeme, or if I'm fishing for a Crush Counter. Standing HK is suicide to press unless you're using as a meaty. Crouching HP got a very nice buff on the 2nd hit only properties, but the forward movement (even with the db version) and 10F startup makes it hard to use it as a reactive anti-air. You need a hard read to use his standing and crouching HP as anti-airs. Alex in S1-S2 had very few combo routes compared to what he has now, but he was viable then for two major reasons: 1. You could standing LP as an anti-air jab before the global nerf. Even after the S3 general nerf to standing jabs as anti-airs, it was still by far his most reliable anti-air. The S5 nerf basically all but killed it. Everyone was hurt by the global anti-air jab nerf, but Alex was easily the worst affected, because his meterless DP was too unsafe to use as a twitch anti-air. 2. EX DP had full frame 1 invincibility, so you could use it to get out of corner traps. As of S3, it got nerfed to only projectile and air invincibility. So Alex in corner had very few options. People would be fishing for a V-Reversal, and V-Shift doesn't help him much unless you get a hard read. A cornered Alex against fast characters like Karin, Akuma and Cammy is extremely hard to get out of. Those two nerfs really hit Alex hard, and even though he kept getting buffed each season, they never completely made up for the losses because they kept making him better at the things he was already good at, while his weaknesses only received half measures that never made them viable enough to consistent use. I'm glad dP+HK, VT2, VS2, standing LP and crouching HP got some major buffs, but time will tell if they're enough to make him viable enough for defensive play, which had always been his weakness from Season 3 onwards.
I can imagine Alex players using his trigger to repel Luke's projectile with Flash Chop into DDT. Worst case scenario, the Alex player might just have gotten a lot of ground against Luke.
Alex got some massive changes this patch. I almost wish he was this good in 3S, he'd be a much better protagonist there. Also, if you play Alex, I guess it's "fuck Dhalsim, we all hate Dhalsim" now with all the matchup-specific stuff.
I never noticed how big Alex was until I saw him standing next to Ryu in this video. If he makes it into SF6, I can’t imagine how big he will be considering how wide Ryu got.
Okay but somehow I still doubt he's out of the worst 5 characters in the game. Please someone tell me I'm wrong on that. All I've ever wanted for Alex is for him to NOT be in the bottom 5 characters.
Gods I hate his stupid looking idle stance in this game so much with his stupidly backwards legs. Still, I'm glad to see he finally seems like a complete character for maybe the first time ever in not only this game but *any* game sadly.
They finally ran out of ways to buff Lariat and moved on to the rest of Alex
Bruh, why is this statement more than likely the absolute truth. Based logic and you're probably right!! LOL!!
They didn’t get creative enough. It still doesn’t reflect fireballs yet.
@@fissilewhistle That and it should've guard broke.
@@Intrenxic_Dark That and it should give him V-Meter.
@@PLATINUM_Rookthe fact that it doesn't loop into an infinite is crazy.
As someone said before: Alex is finally all warmed up.
and as I said before: he almost died of frostbite
These buff were perfect for a warm up. -rotates shoulder muscle-
we say this every patch
“aS SOmeOnE sAId”
the fact that this one is 7 mins plus tells me hes a problem now
It was really cool of the devs to add Alex to the game on the last big update.
Alex players always downplaying as if the last update didn't make his normal throw and L powerbomb hit fullscreen
@@shiftyshitter348 seriously, alex players' propaganda has been a sight to behold
really, juri players may have a pass for a few years but alex? c'mon
Alex was added 2 updates ago, whatchu mean?
People have said this same thing like 3 seperate times now lmao
Imagine you are Ryu, trained all your life to perfect the hadoken. Then some dude from NY smacks it out the air and before you can react he’s flying at you shouting “DDT”
I love Street Fighter
Karate is actually very low tier in the UFC
Art imitating life
Pretty sure Alex has military martial arts training from his uncle. It's why his flash chops have sonic booms at the end of them.
You think that's bad?
Imagine a dude throwing a rock wearing handcuffs just dissipates your fireball yelling "bingo!"
@@budafuka foster dad/Jean Reno but yeah more or less true.
@@rensten4893 CODY
It says a lot about the state Alex was in when the final update, six years later, his list of buffs looks like an essay compared to everybody else's.
All these buffs, and yet, Alex didn’t get the one thing he really needed. A chiropractor.
I can't believe Alex is finally a character now.
that's been the case since the last patch
@@Eman-vp6ju the Alex down players are gonna be crazy this patch bruh
@@ImHoldingDownBack
We are
Someone at Capcom must have realized: "Oh shit, Alex is like the Luke of SF3, isn't he....? He should probably NOT suck."
It’s been over 20 years since Alex was introduced. And after all this time, he’s finally good.
Real talk. He's been trash since 3rd Strike... he's finally a damn good character!
Tbf he was super strong in Tatsunoko vs Capcom
No, he's not good. He's just not as bad as before.
@@tcchip False
@@tcchip he’s considered an A tier character these days so this could not be further from a smart take if you tried.
Alex players are eating 5 star gourmet this patch
Me watching this vid: "The buffs can't last the full seven minutes can they...? Can they?"
No longer just "Another victory for the Alex Nation"... now... "The Alex Nation won the war." Rejoice, my guy.
It took Alex a couple of years, but he's finally all warmed up.
Actually it took him like 20 considering he was ass in SF3 too
the first SFV DLC character is finally in the game?! 😱 ill go download him right now!
Really no lariat buffs??? Doesn’t sound like an Alex patch to me. Jokes aside this is certainly a great birthday gift for me. Alex is obviously a character I’m biased towards, he’s my favorite street fighter character but even ignoring that I feel like this is legitimately one of the best characters in street fighter currently. Even his redesign I think looks great in bengis’ art and is more symptomatic of capcom struggling to make sf characters look good in 3d, and he’s oozing with character and they didn’t f up his continuity unlike a lot of V characters which is impressive. Add all the love he’s gotten and now I legitimately think this is a character you’ll seriously see people playing a lot after all these years.
I hope capcom keeps this foundation forever. 6 is most likely continuing the story from 3 but Luke sorta feels like they made him forgetting all about Alex as he’s also a blonde American rival to ryu with a military background. But after a patch like this I’m confident that capcom is aware there’s plenty of love for the new generation street fighter and isn’t gonna dump him again like they did after third strike. Literally all I could ask for as a guy who’s been playing this character for over a decade is maybe just give him a special cancelable c.mk but if Alex plateaued here going into 6 I could not complain about anything they did with him sans making another ending where after beating ryu in the story mode his ending has him getting his ass handed by ryu.
The Capcom being aware of the love for non 2 characters section really aged like milk lol.
Weird... Thought I commented...
Alex now has a kara Super with VT1 Parry Special Cancel adjustments. Moves him forward, and can link from his longer pokes like low strong/low forward. Also adds the mental game of if you want to challenge him with a walk up grab (this has been patched out, disregard).
Alex can link a one-hit AA into a two-hit AA at certain ranges. Can also connect with medium air knee smash.
*Edit to add*
Choke Sleeper's range from cancelling from flash chop is actually further than from a normal.
That’s sick af. cHP should have done this back in third strike let alone launch V Alex.
It's time for the Alex trailer to come out now.
Another year of Alex players uploading a Twitter clip every time they hit a combo. Great!
It took six years, but he's finally all warmed up
6 years later and he's still fixing his car
I don't even have SFV, but I love watching your content.
Alex finally became the hero he was supposed to be in 3.
I always had some serious problems fighting Alex players, not to be down on myself ofc I just never learn lol, I never knew it was this uphill of a battle for them!
With this Alex won't be top, but he'll definitely be A at best.
His defense still suffers but that's the trade off for being a hard hitting character.
As Daigo said, his main weakness is that he actually has a lot of gaps in the thing he does, so if you recognize the stuff he does, for example, stomps, head butts etc you can really punish him for that. It's a lot easier compared to say, Laura as she's her specials are a lot faster and harder to react to.
We like to go balls out. We didn’t make a read we committed to our gamble with complete faith for no justifiable reason because that’s just what you do with Alex.
@@Neogears1312 with a mentality like that no wonder Alex players suck
@@bryanleeyf87 won't be A, neutral still subpar against most of the cast
Now after so many years, Alex is finally ready.
the poster boy SFIII deserved but never had
Alex is probably the biggest winner of this patch. After he has been hilariously bad and always been the meme character for several season, I never thought that I would ever say this in the entire life span of the game, but Alex might be the best grappler in the game now.
Alex isn't meant to be played as a grappler. Every time you Power Bomb someone, you're giving your opponent a reset. Alex is most dangerous when making your opponent do stupid stuff to avoid getting power bombed, and eating a more painful combo instead. I've fought countless opponents who keep trying to press buttons after blocking a Lariat because they're more scared I'd Power Bomb than eating a Counter Hit double standing MP canceled into a MK Slash Elbow or better yet, a VT1 activation.
Alex isn't a grappler.
But really tho what character archetype is Alex supposed to be?
@@zone_act_129 when he debuted in Season 1, Alex was supposed to be a mid-ranged character with good pokes and high damage and can cover a lot of distance quickly. He was kind of a unique archetype.
But unfortunately Capcom broke his design philosophy when they nerfed him in in Season 2 (crouching MP, his main poke went from 6F to 8F, crouching MK from 7F to 9F, so he suffered tremendously as Alex gets no damage conversion from both pokes without a V-Trigger activation).
Alex in Season 3 onwards is meant to be an oppressive, in your face character with very high damage optimal combos, even without meter. Except Capcom refused to fix some major problems with Alex, namely:
1. His normals aren't great up close. They're at best decent (standing MP, crouching LP/LK), but at in your face range where he can land his highest damage combos, many people have better buttons than him, and many characters with 3F jabs can just disrespect his frame advantage, trade hits and come out on top. Alex's mediums and hards were also hugely unsafe on whiff, though not bad on block if spaced correctly.
2. For essentially what's supposed to be a medium ranged footsies based character that hits like a truck, Abigail is much better than Alex for the same purpose when spaced out, with safer normals and higher damage punishes. Abigail has better range to boot.
3. Alex has terrible anti-air and defensive options without V-Trigger 1 parry. Air Knee Smash has small hitbox and LK version is too short ranged to be used reactively, wihle HK version has a whopping 11-frame startup. Crouching HP is 10F startup, and even standing HP which was given an anti-air hitbox in S4 has 9F startup. Without meter to EX DP, Alex's best anti-air was simply standing LP (it was even aimed upward). So when anti air jabs were nerfed globally, Alex was one of the worst affected, if not the worst.
4. Alex has poor BnB combo routes (which was vastly improved in the last two patches), and also poor okizeme (which again, was vastly improved this patch as long as you're willing to spend meter). Before this, the best you could do was something like crouching LP into LP Flash Chop, or on Counter hit, crouching LP > standing MP > MP Flash Chop or MK Slash Elbow. If Capcom would have given him a Target Combo so he could get some form of meterless conversion from hitting with crouching MP/MK, he would at least have a really good footsies game.
5. Alex's moves are very one-dimensional. His ant-air was only useful in combos without meter. If you're lucky you can land one headbutt in a match, then it's useless. LK Slash Elbow is decent for covering distance but if your opponent jumps you're screwed. Flash Chop is only really useful in combos, though with the range improvements it might now be useful as a poke. Power Bomb resets his frame advantage, so you only use it for the damage or when you can stun your opponent. His stomp only hits an opponent on the ground, unlike Bison's. Worse still, it rewarded last-minute reaction jumps by giving them a full jumping punish.
Alex may hit like a truck, and has some of the coolest looking, high damage meterless combos in the game, but it means nothing if you can't actually hit your opponent with it in an actual match. He is fun to use though, hence why I've stuck with him as my main even though I don't have to work anywhere as hard to win a match with my other mains Rashid and Dictator.
@@zone_act_129 Definitely a bait and punish character. Alex hits like a Boeing 747 if he makes the right read and has tools for most scenarios BUT he's very linear in gameplay so he's very vulnerable to guessing wrong.
I think without a doubt he's the best grappler in the game now. From trash to treasure in 2 major balance patches. Wild.
Been waiting for Baf to go over Alex because he might be the biggest winner of the final patch (though Gill and Kage also got some excellent stuff).
Release Alex was ass. But Alex mains are dedicated. They can go on for 1 hour explaining the intricacies of every matchup and how Alex lost. Capcom def heard the prayers and yah boi is blessed. Season 5 plus this patch transformed Alex and its great. He might be one of (if not the) best grappler in the game.
Nice work dude. I'm so glad Alex is finally the monster he truly is. This character is like a love letter to when wrestling was good.
Man Alex is such a cool character. I wish I didn't hate charge moves so much that I can't play him
You can mostly play him without the charge moves. You only really need them to get around fireballs
Majority of his kit is not charge moves. And Elbow is a back charge which is easy to do while you're flying through the air with his other moves.
They’re pretty much for utility. They’re there to approach so when you’re doing stuff in neutral they help.
They finally made Alex a real boy. I’m all warmed up now
Alex was _awful_ since his release, but he's finally coming together at the very end, as people said, he's done with the warmup.
So glad they finally gave him the 2nd half of his season 5 buffs
If you're ass at DP motions like I am, one new sick thing Alex can do now is parry the jump in and then do EX knee. I think L knee works at some points but EX knee has been most consistent.
Also, sick stuff as always Bafael, been a treat watching your breakdowns on SFV the past 6 years.
You could parry a late jump in and cancel into power bomb for the landing as well, if you're so inclined.
Good lord, ya Capcom did french fries hair a solid this patch. Can't wait to play him some more.
I might be crazy but with how huge his buffs have been in the last 2 patches I think it is safe to say he'll be in the launch roster for SF6. It just feels far too intentional
DemonDan and I were both saying that not too long ago! He got way too much stuff this last patch to think he won't be in 6 at launch!
god i hope you’re right🤞
About that...
@@nebiyuesayas5600 Too soon
I'm not convinced Alex is gonna be much better. It feels like every patch, Alex gets super buffed and then people say shit like ''wow Alex is gonna be high tier this season'' and then he ends up being a middling low tier.
Yeah, people have been saying this for years that Alex was buffed to the point of brokenness. When all of his buffs never fixed his fundamental weaknesses (namely poor mixups, poor okizeme, command throw resets his frame advantage, his best pokes have little to no conversion without V-Trigger, and when we lost global anti-air jabs, Alex was one of the worst affected). People who complain about his standing/crouching HP anti-air buffs forget they're 9/10 frames to start, and he has nothing faster except EX DP.
You're right actually. Alex isn't high tier, but he definitely isn't bottom half like most of his SF5 lifespan.
He's probably A at best. Given that pros like Kichipa and Problem X used him in tournaments, he'd definitely became more viable. Prior to that, he was absolutely terrible (as an Alex main). As Baf said, he was a 'hybrid grappler' that was for some reason based around poking with cr.mp when he should've have been a powerhouse character. He had absolutely no oki at all from any of his knockdowns, and all he had was a crappy flash chop that didn't give him oki until season 3~4 would you believe it.
Don’t play Alex, but I like to see characters who have harder times, have a lot of tweaking to their kits to better help them. Go you Alex mains, you beautiful crazy people.
Alex mains be eating good this patch
Honestly sad that the game is finished literally as the last patch hits. It felt like half the base roster were missing tools, like Zangief, Fang, Necalli, and even some DLC characters like Alex, Falke and others for the majority of the game's lifespan, but at this point thats just FG culture, just look at Twelve or Sean on TS or SFIV Vega, hoping for a change in SF6
Damn he just got a whole ass laundry list of buffs
Man he was solid last season this season he looks like he could be really up there.
He really didn’t need that parry buff🧂
This isn't eating glue anymore, this is fine dining!
As an Alex main, Alex got a nice slew of buffs this round, but it's hard to say it they actually bump him up the tiers or make him viable in tourneys. I'm really happy the last two patches buffed his bread and butter so he has better combo routes from lights. And his optimal punishes just keep getting better and better, with VS2 really yielding some massive corner carry, high damage combos. The buff to his VS2 only makes it better. I've never liked VT2, but the changes make it genuinely useful in matches where I can't really parry, like against Mika or Zangief, since I'd properly get conversions (and more importantly, okizeme) from hitting with his crouching mediums and cancelling into Choke Sleeper. I also really like that now you can cancel a successful parry into any special or CA.
But here's the kicker: Alex generally relies on mediums to get his damage in (crouching MP remains his best poke overall even after being nerfed in S2) , and he has zero conversions from those without a V Trigger activation. Standing LP can be crouched under, while both LK are generally too short ranged (and also slow compared to someone with a 3F poke). And as painful as Alex's optimal corner combos are (he probably has the most painful meterless combos in the game if you bring your opponent to the corner, which is bound to happen in an optimal punish), Alex almost never gets them unless your opponent really screwed up. Pretty much 90% of my damage comes from a spaced out crouching MP/MK as pokes, standing MP or crouching LP/LK. I'm only going to be able to throw out a Lariat if I knock down and get the okizeme, or if I'm fishing for a Crush Counter. Standing HK is suicide to press unless you're using as a meaty.
Crouching HP got a very nice buff on the 2nd hit only properties, but the forward movement (even with the db version) and 10F startup makes it hard to use it as a reactive anti-air. You need a hard read to use his standing and crouching HP as anti-airs.
Alex in S1-S2 had very few combo routes compared to what he has now, but he was viable then for two major reasons:
1. You could standing LP as an anti-air jab before the global nerf. Even after the S3 general nerf to standing jabs as anti-airs, it was still by far his most reliable anti-air. The S5 nerf basically all but killed it. Everyone was hurt by the global anti-air jab nerf, but Alex was easily the worst affected, because his meterless DP was too unsafe to use as a twitch anti-air.
2. EX DP had full frame 1 invincibility, so you could use it to get out of corner traps. As of S3, it got nerfed to only projectile and air invincibility. So Alex in corner had very few options. People would be fishing for a V-Reversal, and V-Shift doesn't help him much unless you get a hard read. A cornered Alex against fast characters like Karin, Akuma and Cammy is extremely hard to get out of.
Those two nerfs really hit Alex hard, and even though he kept getting buffed each season, they never completely made up for the losses because they kept making him better at the things he was already good at, while his weaknesses only received half measures that never made them viable enough to consistent use. I'm glad dP+HK, VT2, VS2, standing LP and crouching HP got some major buffs, but time will tell if they're enough to make him viable enough for defensive play, which had always been his weakness from Season 3 onwards.
I can imagine Alex players using his trigger to repel Luke's projectile with Flash Chop into DDT. Worst case scenario, the Alex player might just have gotten a lot of ground against Luke.
Alex looking strong this season
No excuses Alexbros
holy fuck alex bros we're going home
Now that we have dan, they can finally buff alex
Mmm still gonna wait for the trailer before I try him I think
As a Zangief main, I think I'll try Alex this season.
looks like ALEX NAYSH may not be a joke anymore
Be careful who you call "Asslex" in high school
Much appreciated as always, boss
First Alex patch that did more thsn buff lariat. I was already expecting lariat to have some new buff again.
People are still probably gonna put him in low tier anyway.
You know he's gotten buffed because I went from hardstuck Silver to Super/Ultra Gold without ever touching the lab lmao
7:28 this gonna be good
alex can actually anti air with air knee now!!!
I don’t even recognize this version of Alex
it's finally here
Alex got some massive changes this patch. I almost wish he was this good in 3S, he'd be a much better protagonist there.
Also, if you play Alex, I guess it's "fuck Dhalsim, we all hate Dhalsim" now with all the matchup-specific stuff.
Twisted eating good rn
Alex Bing Bong.
Delicious EX Chop
I never noticed how big Alex was until I saw him standing next to Ryu in this video. If he makes it into SF6, I can’t imagine how big he will be considering how wide Ryu got.
Alex is 6'6". Ryu is 5'9". Alex could easily be twice of Ryu's weight.
This list of changes, god damn lol
I can’t with these comments really downplaying and acting like Alex was trash.
LET'S FUCKING GO
All warmed up
2 more weeks max before Alex mains will start complaining again.
I'm sure he still isn't top tier, but at least Alex players don't suffer anymore (besides picking a different character
Hell yeah dude
LET'S GO
Dang he's nasty bre
7 and a half minute video
7 and a half buffs
why are your videos so blurry? it bugs me a bit lol
Cody
Okay but somehow I still doubt he's out of the worst 5 characters in the game. Please someone tell me I'm wrong on that. All I've ever wanted for Alex is for him to NOT be in the bottom 5 characters.
I can’t believe I’d see the day where Alex might be considered high tier ;-;
Alex Nation finally EATING LESSGOOOO
5:04 right
6:16 huh
6:27 bruh
too bad it took 6 years to fix him
Gods I hate his stupid looking idle stance in this game so much with his stupidly backwards legs. Still, I'm glad to see he finally seems like a complete character for maybe the first time ever in not only this game but *any* game sadly.
Cr.Lk still poopy tho 🤣
I am glad I deleted this game lol
Loved Alex in 3s, but his visual design is terrible in SFV. He looks stupid
Yeah, I always end up picking his 3S costume so I dont have to see his awful new costume.