This game mixes high level play with high level thinking patterns.
What does that mean? It means that in order to be effective at this game you need an advanced understanding of how to play the game, along with an advanced way of thinking. To truly be good at this game it's not just rush in and get the win, it's more of a strategy, knowing what you want to do but more importantly knowing what your opponent wants to do, countering their every move as best as you can. On this page I'm going to talk about three main things: Option-Selecting, Anti-Airing and the Arcade Stick.
Option-Selecting
If you want to talk about something that will completely take away some ones options and what they can possibly do, you would have to mention option-selecting. Option-selecting is exactly how it sounds; think about it this way, say you go to the store and you have $1. You want something delicious so you can choose to pick from 3 things that is exactly $1 but there is only 1 of each left. Now you have someone over your shoulder who wants to choose those three things and it's a battle! You try to pick #1 but your opponent smacks your hand! You shake it off and make a dash for item #2 but your opponent beats you to it! Only item #3 is left and all the chips are on the table. You make a mad dash for #3 but your opponent yet again has an answer for that and you lose. Option-select without the crazy scenario is basically countering you opponents options, the things they are able to do. It definitely varies with characters but it's a strong tool to have in your back pocket, and trust me, all the pros use it.
I don't expect you to watch the whole thing, just the first 3 minutes.
Anti-Air
Now to ascend in greatness, this is definitely a strategy you have to implement into your overall gameplay. Anti-Airing is very powerful in Street Fighter because it allows you to control the airspace around you, making it extremely difficult for your opponent to 'get in' and deal damage. Since jumping in is one of the best ways to start a combo in Street fighter, anti-airing is the best way to eliminate that aspect of some ones game. Anti-airing is, without a crazy scenario, the act of you pressing your grounded move which has more priority over an air jumping move, essentially beating it.
Arcade stick, Fightstick, Stick
I'm not going to say that it is absolutely necessary to have this piece of equipment. It's expensive, big and it will take some time to get used to it. It won't make you a professional gamer overnight and it won't change the way the game is played, it's just personal preference. What it will do is make inputs easier (in some people's eyes). In the fighting game community 80% of the highest skilled players do use an arcade stick, so it must be good in some ways. I personally use one and I find it to be extremely useful and it has improved my gameplay tremendously. An Arcade Stick is what you would see on a arcade console at any arcade or Laundromat, but smaller and used for in-house consoles. There is also a reason those arcade systems use it also, they are extremely hard to break. There are many different brands of Arcade sticks out there and of course some are better than others, the most popular brand right now being the Madcatz arcade sticks.
This is the stick I personally use
