Bronze and Silver in ranked is a looney bin. I went through the same thing when I picked up SFV online. I can't even count how many times I've been hit by a double dash-up sweep, or random low forward cancelled straight into super. It took me something like a year and a half to get out of silver.

One problem I had early on was trying to play reactively/defensively against the random wacko stuff. The problem is that it you can't win doing that - you have to make your own offense. Because if you anti air the guy four times, but he lands a fierce jump in one time for full combo, that's still a net win for him.

So the thing I had to start figuring out is when to throw out my own stuff (not just anti-airs and punishing unsafe stuff). Purist SF strategy says don't random sweep, don't push buttons on wakeup, don't wakeup DP, etc. But you actually need to do those things against the wackos because they're pushing buttons and doing stuff when they don't really have advantage. Aka fake pressure. Is someone doing a double dash up + buttons after knocking you down? Throw out a jab. There's a good chance that they don't really have the frames to do that double dash + buttons. Or is someone relentlessly walking up or dashing up? Throw out a sweep to shut it down. Is someone spamming normals in neutral? Throw out a light DP in neutral. Basically, don't be afraid to challenge their BS. And you'll find out quickly whether it's BS. If you get knocked down, and throw out that wakeup jab and get counterhit, then their pressure is real. If you land the jab, then it's either fake pressure or their timing is shit (either way is a win). You don't need to go full-on Tasmanian devil like your opponent, but you can go a little porcupine.

Another example is how I personally use Young Zeku. I mostly use him against wackos and hyperactive opponents because his stuff is so unsafe, but against an opponent who never blocks, it lands. Sweep, run slide, random shoulder. All unsafe, but they nail hyperactive opponents.

I know you didn't ask for this advice, but bronze and silver is such a madhouse, and I've been there before. I'm still not too far out of it as I'm only in regular gold. But the amount of improvement needed to beat bronzes and silvers 9/10 is not as much as it may seem.

>i feel like a lot of the matches are a matter of me getting
>destroyed by whatever cheesy tactic my opponent is using while
>trying to find the right punish button. i'm constantly
>getting matched up with people with several thousand matches
>under their belt, which seems a little unfair considering i
>just eclipsed 500 matches total (i think). coming into this
>game a little late definitely has a lot to do with that but i
>still feel like i should be facing people of a similar
>experience level up to a certain point. maybe silver is that
>point? that said, i marvel at seeing someone with 10k+
>matches and a 36% win rate. how does that even happen?
>
>very rarely i will get a good match where my opponent is about
>the same skill level and/or experience as me and plays like a
>normal human. mostly the matches are against opponents with
>way more experience and knowledge of the game or someone who
>doesn't know what they're doing. sometimes both
>
>i think i'm slowly coming to the conclusion that i really like
>kolin but i hate street fighter v. maybe i just hate ranked


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