>>1926I guess the main takeaway should be that you shouldn't be picking the same option 100% of the time. In general there's never a "correct" option in a fighting game, there's never one choice that will always win an interaction for you, at least if the game is even remotely balanced. Even the safest options will lose if your opponent catches on to them. That's why it's important to always mix up your options, no matter how small they may seem. Are you airteching or not? If you do, are you doing it as early as possible or are you delaying it? If you don't, are you waking up in place or tech rolling? If you tech roll, or you doing it forwards or backwards? Once you do, will you block or mash? Or maybe just high jump out? None of those things require pretty much any execution, yet if you mix them up often your opponent is bound to mess up at least once. And that's before you even get to blocking.
Also, when it comes to blocking vs mashing, obviously you can't win while blocking all the time because you simply won't do any damage. But mashing the entire time will probably get you killed extremely quickly if the opponent is paying attention and putting effort in timing their oki/frame traps/etc. In this game specifically, mashing melee normals loses really easily to bullet spam, so if someone decided to lame you out there would be little you could do against that. Obviously, if they do neither of these things, then you can get away with that game plan. Just like there are no "correct" options, there are also no "wrong" options. If your opponent is losing to that then there's no reason to change it up. But if it stops working, it's at least good to know why it doesn't work so you know what to change.
>Some players can dish out attacks so fast that I struggle to find an opening to escape or fight back. How do you avoid that pitfall?An easy option is to bring tons of defensive cards in your deck, i.e. lots of bombs, hangeki, coins (although those are a bit harder to use well), reversal skills/spells. If you get caught blocking you can mash them during block frames to buffer them and hit the opponent if they leave even the tiniest gap. Reversals skills/spells require you to stop holding block though, so you have to make sure you are buffering them fast enough. And keep in mind these tools are like training wheels for defense. Like I said earlier, there aren't any options that will always win an interaction for you. Good players will notice those cards and bait them out, then punish you for abusing them. Then again, baiting them out implies they have to leave gaps in their offense, which will open up the chance to escape without having to use anything at all. And that's a matter of you eventually becoming able to recognize those patterns and taking advantage of them