Rasheed is now officially live in Street Fighter VI. As it turns out, he’s such a popular character that many players want to try him out for the first time. However, thanks to those who are good at quickly uncovering the secret spice of newly released characters, Rasheed is starting to look like a real powerhouse.
Going to Twitter today (or X? I don’t know, but I’ll keep calling it Twitter) and searching for Rashid will provide a seemingly endless selection of combo clips, hybrid montages and aerial acrobatics. As posited in the official character demo video released earlier this month, Rasheed proves to be a truly fearsome charge character, capable of closing in quickly and breaching your defenses.
“Good luck friends against Rashid, but the character is not normal,” User TheLolHounds wrote, he posted his findings to the community online. The consensus was that Rasheed looked too crazy to make sense, frankly overshadowing the rest of the cast like Lily and Zenjiv.
Let’s delve into some of the stench we’ve found. First, Rasheed is able to delay his overhead attack after his “wing strike” special move. This allows the player to attack you with a crouched low attack that must be blocked while crouching, or attack you with an aerial heavy attack that must be performed while crouching and standing. This turns out surprisingly quickly, so your best bet now is to hit him while launching from the air, otherwise you’ll have to guess high or low.
#SF6_Rashid Wing Stroke’s overhead can be delayed so that the low jump jab and delayed jump heavy options can hit on the same frame.
Rashid is a pretty dumb NGL. pic.twitter.com/PdVvMTm1OJ
— Diaphone (@Diaphone_) July 24, 2023
iGamesNews
Sonicfox is also testing this character and found some serious offensive tactics. They posted a video online showing Rasheed being able to mix up the direction he hits you with basic combos, and if you guess wrong and get hit, it takes you to the corner. Sure, the walking animation has a little clue, but it’s easy to miss in the heat of battle.
But perhaps the most disgusting of all is Rasheed’s Level 2 glitch, which frankly appears to be unintentional and broken at the time of writing. With some simple set-ups, Rashid could safely take his opponent into the corner thanks to his tornado super, breaking their entire drive in the process. It looks safe, which means your option against it is to… get hit.
The online community reacted to the glitch with laughter, commotion and excitement. London Street Fighter 6 Weekly Tournaments, Fighting Labs has banned the technology outrightwhile legendary players such as Justin Wong had fun and jokingly pointed out Evo’s decision to legitimize the characterdespite all these seemingly insurmountable advantages Rashid possesses.
Interestingly, I spoke to Evo General Manager Rick Thiher about this incident last week and asked him his thoughts on Rashid’s legalization. According to the rules of the Capcom Pro Tour, Rashid complies with the rules, but is that the best for the competitive scene? Note that this answer was given before Rashid was released.
“I think this impacts the game in many ways. It will create a hyperbolic time space for Rashid players and people interested in beating Rashid in the first few weeks of the show. Usually the last few days are spent practicing setups and combos. Now the playerbase’s interaction with the character is imperative. In this regard, Capcom has an excellent marketing opportunity for the character.”
Thiher continued: “I generally prefer a longer time gap between a character or patch release and a match. This hasn’t been the norm for Capcom Pro Tour over the years. They just haven’t released anything that close to the event in a while, so there’s a ton of new players who haven’t heard of the rule, and older players who have forgotten it exists.”
Regardless of what Thiher and the world think of the character, the rules state that Rashid is legal unless Capcom says otherwise! The point of the match is to explore Rashid’s full capabilities and whether a last-minute ruling change will protect the health and wallets of contestants in the near future. For the time being, the wind is undeniably rough.