OVERVIEW
Akali is a movement-first rushdown character whose entire game is built around one resource: smoke. Get it on the screen and she gains a command grab, better plus frames, and mixups that are extremely hard to sit still against. Without it she is a fast character with an average neutral.
Her other defining trait is corner carry — some of the best in the game. Learn a couple of routes and almost every touch ends with the opponent in the corner, which is exactly where her smoke setups are strongest.
Tip
The whole character reduces to one habit: end your combos with limit strike so you can put smoke back up. Smoke is the win condition, so any route that leaves you without it has cost you more than the damage it gained.
SMOKE & MOVEMENT
Charging S2 summons the smoke. Press S2 and release immediately instead and you get a three-hit string that also ends in a smoke setup. The regular hit version of S2 is a combo starter in its own right.
Once the smoke is out, her options change:
- Charge S2 again and it becomes a command grab — and it is a full combo launcher, not just a knockdown
- S2 in the air while in smoke gives you a limit strike
- Your plus frames improve noticeably — a blockstring that sits around +38 without smoke can be closer to +42 with it
- Smoke pulls the opponent out of the corner slightly, which lets you run through them or teleport past them
There is also a route worth knowing that has nothing to do with S2: the ending of her S1 super places smoke on the screen. Using it mid-combo is a clean way to guarantee smoke for your oki afterwards.
Tip
Getting smoke out in neutral is risky on its own. Cover a charged S2 with an assist, or land a regular S2 as a mid-range poke to enable the smoke and take the oki from there.
Her movement is the other half of the character: a double jump, a good back dash, a very fast run, and teleports. That package, not her specials, is what actually wins her neutral. Bait anti-airs with a double jump or a jump into smoke, and punish whiffed anti-airs with a double jump into kunai, which hit-confirms into an assist.
NEUTRAL GAME
Abuse the movement. Double jump, back dash, run speed and teleports give her more ways to be in an unexpected place than almost anyone, and that is the honest core of her neutral rather than any single button.
S1 is a neutral skip, but not a great one. It is not fast enough to be used raw against attentive opponents, and if it gets blocked you have given up your turn. Have an assist ready to cover it so a blocked S1 does not become a punish.
For approaching, your reliable options are air buttons backed by an assist, or simply dash up light. Neither is flashy, and both are more consistent than trying to force something with specials.
Against a zoner, throwing smoke from full screen is fine as long as you cover it — otherwise you lose the neutral for free while they run at you during the recovery.
CORE COMBOS
Button Legend
Always end with limit strike where you can, because that is what buys back the smoke. A slightly lower-damage route that leaves smoke on screen is worth more than a bigger one that does not.
Note that heavy into heavy consumes your ground bounce and extends the combo — useful, but spend it knowingly rather than by habit.
Because her corner carry is so strong, it is worth investing time in corner-to-corner routes with your specific partner. Landing one of those means high damage, a limit strike, smoke back on screen, and a mixup waiting — often without spending any meter at all.
Her kunai are also a genuine combo tool: kunai tosses into a mixup, then straight into S2 for a ground bounce and a full combo.
ADVANCED TECH
Corner oki is where she is most dangerous, and every setup starts by summoning smoke. Because smoke pulls them slightly out of the corner, you gain options that do not exist elsewhere — most importantly, teleporting past them so they have to solve a side guess on wake-up.
Your basic branches from there:
- Run forward and press — simple, and it beats several wake-up options outright
- Assist plus teleport — the standard mixup, and hard to react to
- Call assist and hold down-back — the respectful option that still keeps you safe against a reversal
Be aware that some of these lose to a wake-up attack and some beat it. It is a genuine rock-paper-scissors rather than a true blockstring, so vary it.
The lockdown mix. When you have them held with 3H, call your assist and whiff a double jump into jump light, then falling medium — which hits twice — or simply empty jump into a low. Same start, two very different answers required.
For block strings generally, aim to set up a strike/throw and confirm it straight into her smoke super, which puts you right back into the loop that makes her strong.
TEAM COMPOSITION
Akali needs an assist more than most characters, and for a specific reason: several of her best actions — charged S2 in neutral, a blocked S1, her teleport mixups — are only safe when something else is on screen with her.
Be honest about her own assist, though. Her kunai assist has effectively no range, which limits what she offers a partner from the back. If you are building a team around her, expect her to be the point character.
What you want from a partner:
- An assist that covers a charged S2 so you can place smoke in neutral without being punished
- An assist that lets you convert off a smoke hit. On her own, landing S2 gives smoke plus oki and a mixup, which is already good — but with the right partner the same hit becomes a full combo
- Something that supports her corner-to-corner routing, since that is where her damage and her setups both live
A useful way to think about it: on her own, an S2 hit gives you a mixup. With good synergy, that same hit gives you a full combo, the corner, a limit strike, and smoke back on screen — the entire win condition in one touch.
VIDEO RESOURCES
No Akali video breakdown on the channel yet — when one goes up it will be embedded right here. In the meantime: