u/Bearao

I am relatively new to fighting games, and started taking SF6 seriously around last year, primarily main-ing Luke. I have a desire to actually understand how to play 'properly', so when I picked the game up I sunk a lot of hours into watching pros play, as well as education videos regarding SF6. From this, I saw quick progress, hitting Masters just after roughly ~60 hours of gameplay? 20 hours in ranked, and 30ish in casual. I believe this is rather quick, so, from that I lack more character specific knowledge in matchups. Regardless of that though, after hitting masters, I fell into the trap of not wanting to sink my MR, so I dropped the game.

Well, I am picking it back up after a year. As of last week, I have began relearning everything. Overall, I can win games in casuals against other Masters, however, when I play ranked I just seem to always lose - though the games are almost always close so I am not that disheartened by it - especially if I feel like I am improving. It does suck still, however, I just brush it off as I know you have to lose to get down to your actual rank, but now I seem to have sunk enough in lp that I am playing against people that just...button mash? Or just play frantically? Which this is completely different from what I have played against in..a while..as normally its just punishing unsafe moves, footsies, etc. I have been seeing this more and more the more I sink, and I just always lose, 2x harder than when I was just at 1500 Masters.

What do I need to look for? How do I punish this and improve as a player? I understand people that play like this are using unsafe moves and I can punish them, and maybe its just inexperience of not knowing all those moves for every character, however, it's a bit disheartening if that is the only answer of beating players just rolling their face on their controller.

Please note that I know there is a lot I can already do to improve. I use my drive gauge in stupid ways and burn myself out really quickly, and use unsafe moves. I am working on improving that, however, in games like this I do it worse because I have no clue what to expect, or what is going on in this persons head

EDIT:

I meant to mention that this was a rematch as I lost previously - so I was a little more prepared for the overall playstyle.

EDIT 2:

Thank you for all your responses, advice, and critiques. I appreciate every comment and will apply a bit of everything everyone said. I don't post to reddit often, and when I do I don't really get many responses, so waking up this morning I was a bit surprised and pleased at what everyone had to say