A comprehensive writeup of Hugo's clap game: why it's flawed as hell but remains a top tier tool.
anyone who's ever played against a hugo player in 3s will know about hugo's notorious clap move. it is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous and formiddable tools for pressure and mixup in the entire game but is also critically flawed.
what distinguishes a great hugo from an average or worse hugo is very often subtely discernable through the way they are using hugo's clap. it is without doubt the biggest giveaway of a lightweight hugo and a in good hands is often responsible for scaring the shit out of the opponent. the important question is why is this so? also how exactly does the clap game work?
firstly, each different strength of clap has a different startup speed, with fp being by far the slowest. the main quality of the fp clap is it has even faster recovery than the (very fast recovery) other claps. hugo is always able to combo fp clap into lp clap (into ex lariat if the opponent is standing and at close range) and if the opponent is crouching then they are able to combo fp clap, mp clap, lp clap (into sa3 for what is even a 100% stun combo vs certain characters like akuma and remy.
it's important to consider though that due to the varying speeds of the claps, you can find yourself wildly vulnerable to punishes during startup, in particular if you don't use primarily lp clap, although even this is certainly vulnerable to punishes such as ken sa3 during startup!
so what is the primary strategy of a good hugo when using the clap? put simply the most important goal for hugo is scaring the opponent into pressing buttons unsafely and when he learns not to do so in future you punish with mixup options such as his lk meatsquasher, and overheads. naturally from here a hugo is looking to return to exploiting clap only strings again in order to punish any attempt at getting out of predicted meatsquashers. and so it comes full circle.
how does hugo primarily get to land a clap when it has slow startup? traditionally it will be used either after knockdown, a clk, or a jump in (such as jfp, lp clap or splash, clk, lp clap). clap does NOT combo from clk! despite being one of his most typical setups for a clap, it is completely unsafe much of the time. ken can easily sa3 for example in the time it takes for the lp clap to come out so every time a hugo is using this they are taking a gamble, it's as simple as that.
this is where hugo's mixup can come in so important. we all know that once hugo lands one lp clap the odds of him going straight into another are very very reasonable. decent players will often be expecting this and will be readily prepared to either parry the second one or try to punish in the gap. this is precicely the point where hugo's clap becomes such a force. much of the time he can crouch block after a parried clap before the opponent's favoured punish will come out. so if ken goes for parry-cmk-sa3, it's totally possible that hugo will have blocked this and surprised the ken who may cancel into super presuming after his parry that it was an easy follow up.
now we find ourselves in a situation where the defender goes to try a parry into a faster punish. what they often do not realise is that hugo can confirm off am opponent's parry and cancel into 360 or 720. so where are we now? we have a player who is scared to parry any more claps for fear of it working against him!
now hugo gets really scary. with the opponent wary of parrying your lp clap abuse, he is likely to become desperate and search for other avenues out of trouble. he may decide to crouch block and just play the hugo's bluff, expecting a meatsquasher (lk 360) or a dash in to come in sooner or later and either jump out or punish on reaction such as a srk or super. but the claps are much deeper than this. for the sake of speed i may use 2 lp claps in a row which you may crouch block but then i may take a punt on a fp clap or ex clap. this is where their slow startup can actually be their greatest quality. the defender, edge and expecting hugo to mixup from his claps will often see the fp or ex clap but they are not expecting it. for this reason by the time they think 'hey this one has big startup, i'll punish it before it comes out' the clap will likely stuff any button they've pressed due to their being that slight time lag where they notice which strength clap it is.
at this point alarm bells should be ringing because the odds are high due to the range of the claps that the opponent went for a low attack such as cmk. but what is so terrible about this? well check above! when an opponent is crouching hugo can link fp clap, mp clap, lp clap into sa3 for ludicrous stun and damage! if the opponent is dizzied during the claps it actually adds recovery frames to the opponent meaning hugo can often combo into a 4th clap (lp version) without interrupting the dizzy! absolutely crazy.
have we fully explored the clap? absolutely not.
a common option for hugo after a clap is either a sweep, his fk or fp overheads (which do insane stun and good damage) or even a regular mp. all of these will can be used to stuff any pre-emptive attempt at punishing if the player is expecting another clap and tries to do an instant ken sa3 after a blocked clap for example. so now the ken is worried about even trying to go pre-emptive with his punish and is inclined to crouch block more than ever. but a hugo player won't really be concerned if the player insists on blocking all the time because he can either dash in grab or lk meatsquasher at virtually any moment throughout the pressure. so he may go fp clap, lp clap, lk meatsquasher. he may go clk, lp clap, lk meatsquasher, he may do 3 lp claps into dash in 720, he may do lp clap, lp clap, fp clap, dash in- crouch block to bait a punish, etc etc.
so where is ken now? well it is sometimes possible to jump out of his clap pressure game if you anticipate a slower clap or a meatsquasher etc, but this is also extremely flawed. in particular if hugo stands over your wakeup inside 360 range you have to guess if he's going to 360 or even 720 and the fear of this is huge naturally. you could srk, but hugo might be baiting this with an option parry or block and could 720 you for it. so another option is to simply jump on wakeup. but if hugo has decided to do a meaty clk, lp clap you may find the clk hits, then because it's very fast the defender jumps straight after. this is very bad potentially because if he did a lp clap after the clk then it will hit the defender just as he leaves the floor and leave him completely vulnerable much of the time (especially in the corner) to hugo's forwards fp, which is i believe the highest stun (and perhaps damage) single normal in the game. in the event of this happening the lp clap into forwards fp will have done in the region of 45% stun and if it has dizzied them in the corner, you will often be able to do one of hugo's notirious dizzy juggle combos, such as lp, mp, mp, mp, forwards fp (with the opponent still dizzy and hard knock-down, hugo likely just filled all his meter and did 40% damage even before you get up due to the lack of scaling- so this effectively means certain death when you stand back up.
for players who decide to gamble with parries during clap pressure they may be baited out and punished simply with an ex clap. the great thing about this is it does massive stun, decent damage and can be linked into sa2 with an easy confirm, a forwards fp if the opponent is near the corner (this is approximately 50% stun from memory). the other great quality of the ex clap is it is 3 hits so unless the defender simply guesses well or has good reactions to parry all 3 hits, it's very common for a player to parry the first hit, press any button and eat the second and 3rd hits (which still launches as before).
but wait, there's more! for some pretty horific extra mixup hugo can use a uoh after a clap to hop over any incoming low attack and give himself a free 720 window. what makes this extra good is that due to positioning, pushback, the number of claps used etc, you can make nit particularly ambiguous whether the uoh is designed to hit (which makes a great tick into grab). if they block the uoh they may see a grab coming and jump but if hugo goes for clk, lp clap the same scenario can happen roughly as above with the clap hitting them on the way up, forwards fp etc. on the other hand a uoh in this mixup game may be designed to whiff. for good parriers who expect this you will often see them react and try to parry the uoh but you land into a grab before they notice that the uoh whiffed and the parry never came out. alternatively hugo may opt for a complete mindfuck with sometihng like a clap, linked into clk into lk meatsquasher.
a good hugo is adept at mixing up all these options to work regularly in his favour, used in conjunction with punch 360s to bait mistakes, hugo's clap game is exceptionally dangerous. you will also see hugos using lp claps from half screen to pre-emptively stuff dash ins and if the opponent is clever enough to use ken's sa3 from 1/3 screen as a punish to the startup of a clap, you can often use lp clap from such a range that if he tries to super you will recover before he gets you and block it- 720 etc.
another killer tool is to use a clap a couple of frames early on an opponent's wakeup. the ultra fast recovery enables hugo to do it highly ambiguously, the defender may opt to parry or block when he sees this and hugo can 360/720 him effectively instantly.
i hope this demonstrates why the clap game is so deep and so dangerous. it can be particularly risky for hugo to abuse because at any given moment the mixup used is easily punished. what makes it so deadly is it requires the defender to guess very frequently with the odds usually stacked in hugo's favour because the defender is more worried about the pay-off for a bad guess than the reward for a good one much of the time. this is why at top level play claps so often get respected and just blocked because players are worried that the hugo will be one step ahead and punish you very very heavily for a simple error of judgement. that said there's is nothing stopping a hugo preying on a player who loves to block and has good reactions by either using the clap as a tick setu[ at close range for a punch 360 or even using a clap to partition a walk forwards 720 etc. in other words very little is certain when defending clap pressure and without awesome reactions and a bunch of good guesses the only way to be exempt from the fury that is hugo's clap pressure (especially in the corner) is simply to avoid the situation like the plague with a combination of quick rolls on wakeup and very very careful zoning. but by all means respect the clap because even a reaction EX srk on wakeup will trade badly to a clap timed frame perfectly to be meaty.
thanks to anyone who has bothered to read this, i hope you find it insightful. even if you still struggle to deal with claps, at least now you should understand them quite comprehensively.
*special note, any form of clap always has good frameadvantage on hit or block, without being punished during startup (not neceesarily possible if it's meaty) or if it's punished after a parry. this though depends on hugo often not blocking after the clap. finally this leaves an invincible fast startup option like ken's sa3 as the only certain way he has of completely punishing the clap even if it's meaty, however this depends on the hugo not using the clap ambiguously early and block after or even option parrying!*
anyway that's all for now
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