Street Fighter 6: Ed Guide and Overview

Street Fighter 6 Character Guide: Ed

Ed is the first boxer to join the roster of Street Fighter 6! He fights with just his fists and Psycho Power imbued special attacks.

Compared to his SFV version, Ed is getting a complete overhaul with his SF6 debut. For those who’d tried Ed out in SFV, you’ll remember he had a unique set of multi-button and charge-button inputs instead of having any of the quarter-circle inputs standard for most Street Fighter charactes.

For Street Fighter 6, Ed has been updated to use a combination of quarter circles, Z inputs, and holding buttons to charge and alter the properties of his special attacks.

Additionally, Ed no longer has any of his kick attacks from SFV. Instead, his kick buttons are now Flicker punches! His fighting style in many ways looks much more similar to his mentor Balrog or like Steve Fox from Tekken.

Modern vs Classic Inputs for Ed

Many of Ed’s strongest abilities, such as Psycho Flicker, require holding down buttons to build charge and alter the properties of the ability. These charge attacks negate the biggest benefit of Modern, which is usually the speed single button inputs give your reactions.

Ed has multiple anti-air attack options so Modern could still be feasibly strong. We’ll have to see which normals are left out of his kit to determine if Ed is a viable modern option.

Strong Moves and Unique Abilities

While we are waiting on The official Street Fighter Website to add Ed’s complete command list. We have two partial versions from the Japan PlayStation blogs.

Psycho Spark

Psycho Spark functions like Juri’s Fuhajin in the way both cancel out with opponents’ projectiles. Additionally, Ed can follow up with a Psycho shot (fireball) to first cancel his opponent’s projectile and respond with his own.

OD version wins trades against most other OD projectiles in SF6. OD Psycho Spark leaves Ed in advantage even at point-blank distance. Be careful not to get caught pressing buttons after a blocked or parried OD Psycho Shoot.

Psycho Flicker

Psycho Flicker is one of Ed’s most important tools. Both OD and regular charge versions are plus on block, and pull his opponent close to Ed.

When opponents are trying to play reserved or trying to zone out Ed, charged Psycho Flicker can safely close the gap. Drive Impact is not a very reliable counter since Ed’s max distance won’t connect with Ed and Ed can cancel on into SA on reaction. On a landed hit, Ed gets a huge combo juggle follow up.

Light, medium, and heavy strengths change the angle of attack and can be used as a really strong anti-air covering close approaches, and near full screen back jumps.

Kill Rush

Kill Rush is Ed’s movement ability. In his boxer-like stance, he either quickly sashes forward or backwards. Ed can cancel out of his charge stance into Kill Rush to safely distance himself or bait out a punishable attack from his opponent. Similar to Ken’s run, Kill Rush also opens up new combo extensions to Ed.

Psycho Uppercut

A highlight for everyone from the first Ed trailer was the moment when Ed’s OD Psycho Uppercut beats Ken’s wakeup OD Shoryuken.

The reason this exchange is possible is because Ed’s OD Psycho Uppercut has a significantly longer start-up animation compared to most invincible DP’s in SF6.

Consequently, Ed also has more invincibility frames than Ken here, and the hitbox of Psycho Uppercut comes out after Ken’s invincibility frames have ended.

For Ed this is a double-edged sword! Be careful waking up with an OD Psycho Uppercut because some opponents’ fast recovery meaty attacks may allow them to block before Ed’s wakeup DP connects giving the opponent a massive Punish Counter

Flicker Punches

Undoubtedly the greatest strength unique to Ed is his Flicker kick buttons. Ed’s kick buttons are the pictured flicker punches. They have an incredibly good range for how fast they come out.

The craziest thing is that both his normal and Psycho Flickers DO NOT have a hurt box. Ed of course still has a hurt box that moves slightly forward during these attacks but the animation and hitbox that damages his opponents do not represent where Ed can receive damage.

Due to this hurtbox manipulation, Ed is incredibly strong at footsies since his Flicker attacks have great range for punishing opponents, and extremely tiny hurtboxes making it very difficult for Ed to be whiff punished.

Level 2 Super Art: Psycho Cannon

Ed’s Lvl 2 Super Art, Psycho Cannon, is essentially his V-trigger 1 in SFV. Having a projectile summon Super Art for a level 2 has already proven to be an extremely powerful tool in SF6.

We’ve already seen both JP and Rashid players utilize their Lvl 2 SA’s to the extent that a Lvl 3 SA from either of these characters is quite rare due to the power and lower Super gauge cost of their Lvl 2. Expect to See Ed players optimizing combos, setups, and extensions with Psycho Cannon in similar fashion.

Tips for How to Play Ed

Ed’s basic gameplan is a mix of rush down, baits, and anti-projectile. He looks to have good matchups against the entire cast. His only real weaknesses are some attacks having long startup animations, and the need to spend time charging some of his best offensive attacks.

We’ve seen Rashid performing extremely well despite the need to charge his Whirlwind Shot, so don’t expect this to be a major weakness for Ed. (Gachikun just won $200,00 after placing 3rd at Capcom Cup X while playing only Rashid).

In neutral Ed can basically spam his flicker attacks and abuse their range since they cannot be easily whiff punished. When opponents try to jump on to close the gap, Use Psycho Flicker to easily anti-air, or if you are prepared, hit them with a Heavy Psycho Uppercut because it places Ed’s opponent into a juggle state for max damage!

Players will want to take full advantage of Ed’s multiple safe-on-block attack options, to keep their opponent on the defensive for the majority of the match.

Utilize Kill Rush similar to Dee Jay’s Roll Through Faint and Jus Cool in order to bait out pokes from your opponent which you can then punish counters. On a cornered opponent, Ed has high-damage juggles and can use OD variations of Psycho Flicker and Psycho Spark to safely meaty opponents when they choose to block.

Psycho Flicker is considered a Projectile, so if Ed’s downed opponent doesn’t have a projectile invincible wakeup attack available, a meaty charged Psycho Flicker is 100% free.

Tips for How to Beat Ed

In order to win as many games against Ed, our biggest recommendation is to start by learning his attacks, so you know what his options are, and secondly, find one of the many people playing the new character and running a few sets with them. Experience will be the best teacher.

What you’ll want to be looking for is Ed’s using high commitment attacks such as Psycho Blitz which can easily be punished on block or on whiff. When Ed tries to zone with Psycho-empowered Flicker punches, any forward-moving move like Kimberly’s Shadow Slide, or Honda’s OD Headbutt, will catch Ed in the charge animation.

Additionally, if you see Ed using horizontal Psycho Flicker repeatedly, you can jump over it and have time to land a max damage jump-in Punish Counter! You need to watch out for baiting jumps, however, since Ed can cancel out of his charge stance into Kill Rush, or if he predicted the jump beforehand, his light variation hits airborne opponents.

Ed is very strong, and your best bet for beating him is getting into a guessing game with your opponent to see who can out “bait-and-switch” the other. Each of Ed’s baits (charge cancels, Kill Rush, Psycho Flickers etc.), can be punished, so try to start by testing your opponents’ reactions and bait habits to gain information before fully committing to your offense.

Ed Tier List Placement in Street Fighter 6

Ed has good anti-projectile tools, safe on block pressure attacks, baits, whiff punishing, and active projectile Lvl 2, and busted hitbox data on his flicker attacks.

Compared to the previous DLC character A.K.I., Ed is completely OP. We’ll update you with more data and analysis once we’ve all had a chance to play Ed and see how the pros optimize his kit.

By our estimations based on Ed’s kit in comparison to the rest of the roster, Ed is going to be a high-tier pick and very competitively viable.

Our tier placement prediction is S tier (just below Chun-li and above Cammy on our list).