Okay. Considering Adelheid with her S-kill has been at the top of the Steam leaderboards for a while now I figure this post needs to be made. Actually she was just recently bumped to 2nd by Kerahime so even more so this info needs to be divulged since she will soon be playing again to get back on top. I don't think an S-kill should be that high on the list considering his major weaknesses.
disclaimer: I am not that great at this game so take it with a grain of salt. I will also be talking out of my ass about her thought process and playstyle.
Two days ago I managed to beat Adelheid in a single ranked match. Normally a single match wouldn't mean much but considering she's at 201/42 with a 16 streak and after I player her (I think) she was at 41 loses, I'd say that's a pretty big deal. I felt I was reading her movements but also I happened upon a happy accident.
But before we get into that there was something I didn't bother posting that happened earlier that day: I played her in unranked. And she was exclusively playing Kenny. If you don't know, in tournaments and Ranked Adelheid only plays S-kill. She even plays cross-handed (dunno why, to be in character I guess). So why in unranked was she playing Kenny? I believe she was attempting to speed train with all the characters. What better way (in theory) would there be to speed up the process of learning characters you don't main? And why would she even resort to training in unranked? She's proven that her playstyle is quite dominating. Except for those 42 loses. The moves, strategies, and general unpredictability of new and even old opponents probably won those matches. If you don't actually play those characters you'll never know what they're fully capable of... until they use them on you in high stakes Ranked matches.
During our unranked matches I noticed a general lack of understanding/ability to adjust to the stances she was assigned and capitalized on it. I think I was playing Dive or maybe Markman? We played 4-8 games (my memory is terrible, we probably played 5). The split was about 60/40 in my favor (or maybe hers. Again, terrible memory). She quit. I wanted to go a few more rounds with a well known player but hey can't have everything.
Surprise surprise. Later that day I run into her in Ranked, maining S-kill of course. Not really knowing a good counter I go on a hunch that Kung Pao's long horizontal kick would be good against S-kill's lack of aggressive kicks. I chose kick gem to give it just a little more speed, don't remember what she chose. The match starts and I play as I normally would. Hang back a bit. Just stand there for the hell of it, doesn't really matter considering S-kill has NO aggressive attacks beyond the air special. She may have tried to parry a kick I was supposed to do but again I just stand there. If she did get at an angle where she could kick me I jumped back. Kung has a great kickback which will easily clear S-kills angle and you can even punish after the whiff kick. I manage to take 1 or 2 rounds with good reads on her standard kicks. She also takes 1 or 2 but at the same time she's building up meter for the all powerful teleport headshot technique. I think she get's me once or twice with it, I had no clue what to do after all. But during one of her air special attempts I manage to escape with random jumps. What? It's possible to escape the headshot? Yes. Right before S-kill does the the final teleport just jump straight up. You will be going up and S-kill will teleport to you but because of the height you're getting and Kung's hitbox (I guess?) S-kill's mighty insta-headshot will whiff. I'm not sure what distance you need to be at or even how exactly S-kill's air special works but I've managed to replicate it in other matches. Moreover, in those other matches I discovered another powerful counter: You can kick him as well. Right when he teleports in just kick. I need to play more to verify how and when this happens but it's possible and completely turns around the only aggressive move S-kill has. Anyway I take the match against Adelheid 5-3(+- 1, don't remember).
So yeah. Tell me what you think about this strategy, poke holes in my theories, and be prepared for when you face Adelheid! S-kill may be at a disadvantage, but Adel didn't get to the top with luck. Her playstyle pretty much has to ride entirely on her ability to read and trick the opponent into presenting an opening. That in itself is quite amazing, but not unbeatable.
(And now I wait with anxiety the inevitable rematch where she frauds me.)