Why don't I see any prominent Ibuki players in tournaments?

Question

i'm being playing Super Street Fighter IV:AE and I love Ibuki, I'm watching a tournament, and I don't see anybody play Ibuki, is it because Ibuki is bad? and if I want to continue with Ibuki, what is a good strategy for her?

Answer 1

Ibuki is very good in SSFIVAE and there are some Japanese players that use her (e.g. Sako, Momochi has also a quite decent Ibuki). See SSFIVAE 2012 Tiers for reference.

She is considered a rush down character with an awesome vortex. Basically you try to get a hard knockdown and then you go for ambiguous crossups with option selects.

If you can execute this perfectly then some characters, like Ryu cannot escape this without getting hit or having to block correctly. Crosscounter created a quite good free guide that explains everything.

Now here is why so few people choose Ibuki:

• She is considered one of the hardest to play characters in the game execution wise. Some of her good combos require super jump canceling into Super which you have to buffer extremely fast.
• Her vortex is very hard to learn compared to other characters BnBs.
• She depends on a knockdown
• You need to know how to execute 1frame and 2frame combos with plinking, double tapping, option selects and super jump cancels for her to be actually good. This means she is not a character for a rookie.
• Her play style is not considered "natual" like Ryus, Akumas or Fei Longs.
• There are no "similar" characters in other fighting games.