Street Fighter 6 How to Rank Up

In Street Fighter 6, increasing your rank shows your success in the game and gives you an advantage in your progress. Check out the information in this guide and apply the tips to improve your rankings!

How to Rank Up

Here’s a consolidated checklist of tips, terms and resources to help you rank up in Street Fighter 6 (SF6).

Where to Start

Block.
Anti-air.
Jump less.
Stay out of the corner.

Psychology

Do not feel overwhelmed.
Pick one thing at a time to focus on and improve.
Take breaks.
Manage your mental stack when playing a set.
You don’t need to learn everything.
Be deliberate, purposeful, patient and consistent.
Learn to enjoy losing. Don’t get tilted.
Have fun.

Big Picture

Manage your drive meter. Avoid burnout unless it could lead to K.O. or you can manage burnout.
Avoid mindlessly repeating actions or reactions.
Avoid thoughtless pattern or flowchart play.
Win neutral or skip it → hit → trade your drive meter and/or super meter for 20% to 60% of opponent’s health bar → repeat to K.O.
Corner your opponent.
Decide whether to have a matchup gameplan or play by gut feel or reactively or a mix.

Playing Ranked

Ranked is a good way to match with similarly skilled players. Not caring about rank / LP / MR is common advice to deal with ranked stress. If you want to rank up though:

Cut short your losing streaks.
Keep on your winning streaks.
Return to training mode to practice and calm between ranked sets.
You do not have to hit ‘Request Rematch’ after you lose to 20 win streak smurf. (However, rematches vs stronger opponents can be good learning opportunities when you’re not actively trying to rank up.)
Limit your ranked games per session: time limits, imaginary tokens, number of wins/losses.
Identify fatigue and stop ranked when tired.
Win streak LP bonuses end at platinum. Leverage win streak bonuses to push you up. You gain more when you win vs someone above your rank or MR.
You cannot derank from gold or masters. Platinum and diamond you can derank. Every phase (3 months) MR resets. It’s common to derank after crossing league boundaries (gold to plat, plat to diamond) before gaining it back.
Matchmaking seems to target around a 50% win rate. Rank up happens quickly until your win rate is 45%-55%. Improve your play to continue ranking up.
Timing your play sessions matters. Ranked matchmaking works best with a large supply of players. Play when everyone else plays in your region (weekends? night?).
Compare to your past performance not others. Take a longer term view: weeks or months.

Training

Use training mode for practicing combos, replicating fight situations, labbing weaknesses, counters, understanding frame data, etc.
Understand how inputs work (more input tips below).
Watch replays, both yours and pro / master legend. Understand wins and losses. Enable input history and frame data.
Program the training dummy to beat you with moves (multiple slots, random) that you are weak to. You’re only allowed to counter (no preemptive attacks). Learn to beat the dummy. Do it again using only normals.
Write down your mistakes, work on them one by one. Focus on the one most important thing first, even if you have a long list. Note why you got hit, dropped a combo, failed to add damage after a successful poke, etc.
Fight with players much better than yourself. Higher rank players will help limit your bad habits as you climb. Find them in Battle Hub, through clubs, Discord or coaching.

Combos

Build a combo toolkit and muscle memory. Start with a few short, easy execution BnB. Then add combos for common situations: no meter, punish counter, corner wallsplat, drive meter burn, juggle.
Optimize combos and add more situational combos later, when needed, usually around diamond or master.
Set the training mode dummy to Block After First Hit to expose combo drops and missed links.
Practice combos 10 times on each side with no drops.
Poke and hit confirm into combo. Cancel normals into combos.
Each time before starting ranked, refresh combo muscle memory in training mode.

Tactics

Poke with normals. Learn best normals.
Only jump when it will work (escape corner, punish fireball, etc.).
Know when it’s your turn. Learn how to take your turn back.
Learn how to stop shenanigans with jabs / fast normals.
Don’t walk back or jump back into the corner. Avoid being cornered. Corner bad.
Don’t raw DI in neutral. Don’t DI on wakeup. Don’t DI into opponent’s jabs or cancelables.
Counter DI. Counter / check DR. Counter hit.
Know when to use DR (drive rush) and DR (drive rush cancel) and the 4f advantage. Avoid DR from too far when it’s easy to check (unless baiting).
Learn when to parry and how to perfect parry.
Know when to wake up reversal (dragon punch, super etc.).
Whiff punish. Corner and punish. Bait and punish.
Learn corner pressure and your character’s best corner carry routes.
Learn how to escape the corner. Practice corner back dash, perfect parry, jump out, delay throw tech, etc.
Sometimes doing nothing (block and wait) is the best option.
Mixups: high / low / throw mixups.
Character specific mix ups, gimmicks, rekka and knowledge checks.
Gain matchup knowledge. Prioritize your main vs popular ones first: Ken, Luke, Cammy, Juri, Deejay, Ryu.
Know which moves can be reacted to vs what requires prediction.
Identify and test the opponent’s weaknesses.
Learn conditioning and mind games.

Tech, Mechanics

Know oki, meaty attacks, frame kill, spacing, shimmy, throw tech, option selects, safe jumps, blockstrings, microwalking, frame traps and other fighting game mechanics.
Understand damage scaling on combos, parry, punish, DR during combos etc.
Learn SF6 mechanics: delay tech throws, juggle state, limited juggle, shimmy, option select, input buffering, cancel into super, backdash, backrise, cross ups, jump back anti-air, counter hits, knockdown advantage frames, drive rush cancel, perfect parry, parry recovery, drive reversal and parry / drive reversal option select, DI, DR, DRC etc.
Learn your character’s best oki setups mid screen and corner.
Learn DI lock, blockstun gaps and DI counter with super in burnout.
Copy or adapt tech, combos or playstyle elements from pros / masters. Find what’s missing from your kit and add it.

Input

Learn numpad notation.
Learn about the 5 frame input buffer (1f perfect input, 4f buffer).
Learn special move input shortcuts.
Map buttons to DI and parry.
In settings, turn vsync off and input delay reduction on. Try button release input on and off (negative edge input) to see which gives you cleaner inputs.
Understand cancel, link, chains and immediate input timing.
During DR and parry hold an attack button to buffer it onto the next available attack frame.
Attacks executed during blockstun will not come out but you can buffer a move for when blockstun ends.
If your inputs are dropping a move, try slowing down your input and/or holding the final input buttons e.g. 214LP hold down 4LP a bit longer at the end and be sure you released 2 and 1.
Study pro / master legend replay inputs to learn the frame timings.
Review your input history whenever you drop a move to see why.
Use 50% game speed in Environment Settings if you can’t make a link or cancel work so that you can find the right spot in the animation to hit buttons. Build a slow muscle memory, then do standard speed. Some cancel windows are very short.
Returning to neutral (5) is required for some inputs e.g. 22HK is more like 252HK.
Learn to DR with dash+parry (forward, forward+parry).
Consider going levelerless for cleaner inputs. Flatbox clones are affordable.