When you play s\s, you can totally change the team dynamics and counter setups depending on what type of AA you have. Aside from the top 3, matrix, thrax and s\s\cable, there are also great s\s teams that don’t get much play. Like s\s\ken or s\s\guile. Both of these AA’s are great when used properly but there not going to be like the top 3 s\s teams. However, you do create different attack angles along with different types of priority.
Guile AA for example will hit a flying sent anywhere on the screen as long as your character is grounded. The robot simply can’t dodge it, also it will track fairly well and it has decent priority. His d+fp has god like priority and will beat anything the top tiers throw @ him, normal for normal wise iirc. J+rh rivals sents air game, TK flash kicks for manuvering him into awkward angles, qcb+kk is instant and it dhc’s into hsf. The one con about guile AA is his shitty block stun which becomes a big factor. He’s only really safe on hit and guile will land right in front of the opponent when you call him full screen which is an easy spot for him to get juiced. If he had a little better block stun, he’d be played more I suppose.
iirc, whenever guile AA hits an assist you can reset hail pretty fast. Guile AA on hit doesn’t sent them off the screen like capcom\cable would.
Ken AA is also another great one. Even though it has poor fwd movement, its upfwd angle is deep. Not to mention that ken AA is invicible all the way up which is a big plus. He tracks good, he does much better block stun than guile which storm can follow up and from 25% screen, he will land behind the opponent even when blocked high or low. He covers his own exit when called right. Ken on point with these 2 assists can be kinda of scary. You can lp dp behind storm\sent assits and do somehting invincible into a layered attack string. c.lk+storm, command roll is an xup. Also if you use this as your staple w\ either storm\sent, you instantly protect your assist because its on the opposite side now. DP’s can be cancelled into super, dhc so he can dhc out with an invincible move. Shoryureppa is instant as well which makes for another easy dhc. Against every character but cable, ken can get lucky with dp’s +assists for easy pins. If they try anything to hit you, ken goes through it even assists. The only bad part about s\s ken is the actual sent\ken part. You should probably use ken as an extension of the robot since he doesn’t combo well with the robot because his lack of fwd movement. However using him to counter assists or using him for his invincible angle is god like. ken AA does 26 pts of damage for all 3 hits which is more than capcom and cable. One con is that dhc’s into ken don’t really work well. LA, LS can combo into shinryuken but storm has to be in deep w\ the opponents sprite and nothing combos from hsf right. Other than that, he fits well imo. He’s not capcom\cyke but he does offer something.
if you catch point and assist in this combo, they’re done. c.fp, sj.lk, rh tatsu, you can lp before you hit the ground to juggle assist right above the ground, shinryuken, hail. If the robot is there, samething up to the lp part after the tatsu, shoryureppa, timed hsf and kill from there. The ken into storm is like 99% not exactly a full kill but hey, i’ll take it.
s\s as a duo is just too damn strong. All they really need are AA’s that function well and can provide the type of chemistry needed to be effective. Ken\guile both have great AA’s with nice properties but some minor problems plague them but not enough so that they shouldn’t be played. There AA’s force options that your can use to your advantage. Its not capcom, cable or cyke but there AA are good enough to be used for advantageous opportunities. IMO, I really like s\s\ken over s\s\guile for only a few reasons.