Neutral is when both players can act freely. The term is used in contrast to situations where there's a frame advantage[wavu.wiki] or okizeme[wavu.wiki]. It's usually not used in contrast to a health advantage, resource advantage, or positional advantage from the wall[wavu.wiki].

Neutral most often occurs when both players chose a movement[wavu.wiki] option in pressure[wavu.wiki]. Since these options are strong, this happens a lot, so being comfortable in neutral is a key skill.

A backdash cancel[wavu.wiki] (bdc, also known as korean backdash or kbd) is a technique for moving backwards quickly.

See also: Movement[wavu.wiki]


Without being cancelled, a backdash must completely finish before another backdash can be done, which makes it difficult to create much space between the opponent. Thus, the backdash cancel is an essential technique for any Tekken player to learn.

However, the value of the technique is in how it is applied to an already comprehensive game plan. For beginners without a solid grasp of their own moves, a bit of extra backwards movement is not very useful.

Input
The input for a backdash cancel naturally begins with a backdash, b,b (i.e, b,n,b). From here, every extra backdash can be done with db,b,n,b, with the db being the cancel into crouch.

It's also possible to cancel with a sidestep (u~n or b~n), but this is both slower and breaks your guard during the sidestep so is not recommended.

Method
While the input to be done is simple, the way to perform it quickly and precisely can be quite complicated and depends on the input device being used.

Stick

Move stick to B, release to n, move to b, move to d/b, release to n, move to b, move to d/b and repeat. With the stick due to how most (square-gated) sticks operate, releasing the db to n creates a b input as it travels through b connector to reach n. This makes it so you can move stick from db to n to b to db for the backdash cancels.

Pad

Wiggle ur thumb.

Keyboard
With SOCD cleaning
Tap b
Press and hold b, then
Tap d (db,b)
Tap f (n,b)
Without SOCD cleaning
Tap b
Press and hold b, then
Tap d (db,b)
Release b (n)
Press and hold b (b)

Goal
The goal of neutral is to enforce your mixups and prevent your opponent from doing the same. To do this you have to:

Interrupt your opponent's attacks with your own.
Use movement to make your opponent's attacks whiff, then whiff punish them.
Use movement so your attacks will connect.

Flow
The simplest way of thinking about the flow of neutral is as a rock-paper-scissors between three options:

Whiff punisher
Ideally a fast, long range move with good reward on hit.
Keepout
Ideally a safe move with good reward on hit or counter hit.
Mixup
A combination of a low and a safe-on-block mid, both of which ideally have good reward on hit.

Things get more complicated when we start considering pokes[wavu.wiki]. Unlike more high reward options, pokes can be thrown out into empty space without the risk of being whiff punished, which allows them to largely dominate all of the aforementioned options. Waiting around won't punish them, and attacking gets interrupted.

The big weakness of pokes in neutral is that despite being faster than higher reward attacks, they don't always win. It's possible to throw a poke out at an unfortunate timing and have it be interrupted by a slower attack or incidentally whiff punished by a keepout move (i.e. not whiff punished on reaction[wavu.wiki]).

As such, even the safest attacks carry an inherent risk in neutral. Although pokes win more often than not, their low reward compared with this inherent risk may not be worth it. The degree to which pokes are dominant largely depends on how well players are able to lock out other options with whiff punishment.

Although the broad flow of neutral is similar for all characters, the details change based on their moves' properties.

Whiff punisher
Ideally a whiff punisher is fast and doesn't require a motion input, is mid, safe-on-block, and has long range and big payoff on hit. Of course no whiff punisher is all of these things, so you must take care to consider and account for where each of yours are lacking.

Slow whiff punishers don't work against faster recovering moves.
Motion inputs slow down the move, even for the best players.
High whiff punishers don't work against crouching whiffs.
Unsafe whiff punishers are dangerous if you misjudge the whiff.
Shorter range whiff punishers require finer care and attention to spacing.
Whiff punishers with lower payoff won't discourage opponents from whiffing as much.
Keepout
There's a blurry line between what makes something a poke, mixup, approach, or keepout move. In the context of keepout we're throwing these moves out into the wind. There's a chance they'll whiff and a chance they'll be interrupted—but also a chance of the same in your favor. The qualities we're looking for with these moves are:

Ability to win duels
If both players attack at the same time, who wins? The most influential thing here is the startup speed, but high crushing and not being a high (i.e. evasion, states, and hit levels) are also valuable.
Payoff on wins
If the move hits or counter hits, how much damage do you get?
Chance to whiff
When the move is thrown out, how likely is it to whiff? This is influenced by its range and tracking, i.e. the quality of its hitbox.
Difficulty to whiff punish
If the move whiffs, how likely is it to be punished? This is primarily influenced by the total time the move takes, i.e. startup plus recovery, but is also influenced by where and how the move recovers. A move recovering in crouch can't be whiff punished by highs, and a move recovering further away can only be whiff punished by long range moves. You can also make things tricky with cheese by e.g. whiffing a move with string extensions, making your opponent's job of reacting properly harder.
Moves with more than one of these qualities are particularly strong. For example:

Lee's b+4 has massive payoff on wins with a nasty counter hit combo. Its fast recovery and option to fall back with the HMS transition make it incredibly difficult to whiff punish. And its great hitbox makes it unlikely to whiff, unless the opponent stays so far away that they can't whiff punish it anyway.
Generic d+4 is fast and high crushes, so it almost always wins duels. It also has good range and tracking, so it's unlikely to whiff. And it also has fast recovery and recovers crouching, making it hard to whiff punish.
While there's nothing inherent to moves done from a dash or run that makes them better than any other move in neutral, these moves are often strong in their own right, but their input limits their usefulness to this context. You can just as well complement a dash with any other move.

Keep in mind that if all of our keepout moves are mids, then an opponent can approach very easily with a dash block. Having lows that also work well as keepout buttons can address this. To some degree we want to do keepout and mixups at the same time. For example, generic d+3 (such as Kazumi's) might look pretty unassuming, but it has a lot of the above qualities: wins duels with its speed and high crush, okay payoff on wins (12 damage), unlikely to whiff due to its range, and hard to whiff punish due to its low recovery.

Mixup
A move used primarily for mixups is intended to be complemented by movement. So rather than being concerned with the chance to be interrupted or whiff, the chief concern is how good these options are against guard. (Of course ideally you'd have full-screen, impossible to interrupt or whiff punish mixups, but you won't find many moves that fit the bill there.)

As such, the moves to consider here can be narrowed down a lot. Find the lows and safe-on-block mids with the highest payoff on normal hit. For characters with good throws or mixup stances consider those as well. Think of these as the end goal of neutral.

A wavedash (diminutive wavu wavu) is a technique performed by certain characters by chaining together multiple dashes and crouch dashes. Its main purpose is to approach the opponent while constantly re-aligning with them so they cannot backdash or sidestep out of your pressure. It also gives quick access to crouch dash and while standing moves while also having high crush properties.

Characters that can perform a wavedash: the mishimas, bob, armor king, king, jin

How do I do a wave dash?
To perform this technique, first make sure you have a consistent crouch dash motion (f,n,d,d/f) as this will be the basis of the wave dash. To do the actual wave dash do the crouch dash but end with a f after the d/f (a helpful tip is to think of it as doing f,n,qcf), then simply rinse and repeat, making sure to return to neutral in between. So your command history should look like f,n,qcf,n,f,n,qcf,n,f,n,qcf... so on and so forth (see photo for command history). Sounds simple enough, but getting a consistent, fast wave dash is something that takes substantial practice for most players, and don't forget you should be able to do it on both player 1 and player 2 sides.


How is this even possible?
The reason wave dashing works is because hitting forward during the crouch dash cancels into a regular dash (you're buffering the first forward from doing the qcf so you only have to press it one more time). Then you've already hit forward so now you just have to do qcf to get the next crouch dash.

Stick
With the stick due to how most (square-gated) sticks operate, releasing the d/f to n creates a f input as it travels through the f connector to reach n. This makes it so you can move stick from d/f to n to f to d,d/f for the crouch dash loops.

Is it just for styling on people?
Although it is indeed great for styling on people, wave dashing has different practical uses depending on the character. There are also some universal properties of wave dashing that are good to know, such as it high crushes on certain frames, it will realign with sidestepping opponents, giving normally linear moves some pseudo tracking, and how fast you wave dash will determine how much ground each individual crouch dash covers. You can cover almost the entire screen space in about 3 wave dashes if they are done slowly. Wave dashing allows for a unique and effective way of closing distance and gives easy access to f,f moves since you are constantly buffering a dash.

Character specific applications
Like mentioned before, how and when you wave dash will often depend on what specific character you are using. For some examples, Mishimas and Jin will often use it together with electrics and other key moves to control space in neutral and will use wave dashing after a knockdown to setup a 50/50 mix up. King and Armor King get access to their threatening chain throw mix ups from crouch dash and wave dash, and will use that to their advantage to make people panic and duck. Research and experiment to see what uses of wave dash are best for your character.

General tips and strategy
Unfortunately, most players won't immediately respect you just waving in their face over and over since you cant block plus wave dashing actually pushes the opponent's back to the wall, they need to be conditioned to sit still. One of the best ways to do this and overall one of the most important techniques involving wave dash is wave guard. You can cancel your crouch dash/wave dash into a block by quickly pressing back after the crouch dash input. This will allow you to block and punish common panic moves like hopkicks and even if they do a safe move as keepout for a example a d/f2 you still get free frame advantage. The players you need to be careful doing this on are those that will try pressuring you every chance possible as you are basically letting them run their offense for free, so don't forget to throw out a keepout move of your own every once in a while. Once they respect you and aren't pressing as many buttons, you can start mixing them up however you want.