Cervantes GI Game

Cervantes' GI Game is immensely strong. Any guessed GI and you have opened the possibility for massive damage. Enough to cause tension on the battlefield.

With a GI game so strong I believe there's no reason to not do a study about it. So here we go.

I'll try to cover as much as I can about the subject in order to give new and veteran players a very detailed information about it. I'll start now.

Last time updated: Never


Basics

When to Apply Auto GI's:

-When you are sure you have your opponent's patterns read.
-During obvious strings and/or patterns.
-When you are aiming for guaranteed damage or RO attempts.
-When you are good in making them attack the way you want to.
-You depend on GI but not have bar.

When to use standard GI's instead:

-When your opponent is good enough to vary patterns and/or strings.
-When you need to make them reGI on purpose to waste bar. In some cases this is crucial for ex. Xiba's random GI CE attempts. With this you kill his CE GI game and avoid eating random 100+ CH DMG etc.
-When you are unsure what's coming next and your life depends on it.
-When in the verge of Guard Burst.
-If you are going for massive damage.


GI's Pros and Cons

aGI's (A+B/B+K)

Pros:

-Damage is guaranteed on successful impact.
-Come out fast.
-No meter required.

Cons:

-Damage is low compared to the risk of missing it and standard GI's.
-A+B only impacts horizontals while B+K impacts Verticals.
-Max range A+B sometime misses under some random circumstances.

Standard GI's

Pros:

-Immense damage potential.
-Covers all attacks except Throws, UB's and some CE's. As long as it was timed correctly.
-The impact window is slightly bigger than the aGI's.

Cons:

-Nothing is guaranteed after successful impact if the opponent has bar.
-Requires one meter bar.


Post-GI Mixups

As we know since ever, nothing is guaranteed after a standard GI. The opponent is able to GI back if he/she has bar, throws aren't guaranteed and you can just guard UB's. And now the high/low mixup that was there since SC1 is gone due to the fact that standard GI's now impact everything from low to high if timed correctly. This, however is remedied by mixing it up with two different timed and damaging launchers.

The standard plan is to always start with the fastest launchers until they learn and start GIing back, that's when you start mixing them up with his slowest ones. Both options are high damaging so one successful guess means big damage.

Cervantes has many launchers but I'll just list his most practical/useful/damaging ones:

Fast Launchers:

3B (Most reliable/least unsafe)
iGDR

Slow Launchers:

44A+B (Most damaging/risky)
GDR


Post-GI Maximum Damage Output

3B

3B, iGDR, CE, 9B+K = 122+ (Meter + Tech Trap)
3B, iGDR, iGDR = 92 (Meterless)

iGDR

iGDR, iGDR, iGDR = 102 (Meterless)
iGDR, iGDR, 2A+B = 90 (Meterless)

44A+B

44A+B, 8B+K, iGDR, CE, 9B+K = 142+ (Meter + Tech Trap)
44A+B, 8B+K, iGDR, iGDR = 120 (Meterless)

GDR

GDR, iGDR, CE, 9B+K = 137+ (Meter + Tech Trap)
GDR, iGDR, iGDR = 110 (Meterless)
GDR, iGDR, 2A+B = 102 (Meterless)
GDR, Fall Damage, *BT B+K, iGDR = 98 (Meterless + Strict Timing)
GDR, Fall Damage, *BT B+K, 9B+K = 96+ (Meterless + Tech Trap? + Strict Timing + Ambiguous)

*Must hit during a certain point when the opponent is taking the fall damage to cause the facedown tech trap stun. (The one achieved by landing the perfect height CE on airborne opponents.)


Character specific GI list in the spoiler below.