Vega is a very weird match-up.
Elec on him don’t works correclty, so cr.lk xx elec HP will whiff on him on wake up, like cross up mk, close lp xx elec HP, also, he can punish ALL pokes of Blanka like standing HP or crouching MP even at MAX range, so in this match-up, you can just poke him with standing MP witch is not bad on him and stand LP, cr.LP and low, i believe crouching fierce is safe at MAX range but hard to space correclty…
max range st.hp he can’t actually punish, but the range where you can use it is only a few pixels wide.
It’s a very hard matchup to play correctly because the ranges where you can be safe are so small.
I like to try to be a bit over aggressive before he has bar and try to get close and pressure with lots of cr.mk and hope he cr.techs so I can confirm to sweep.
Try to stick to ball combos too, or raw elec.
Other fact really weird vs Vega : cross up combos.
The classic cross up MK, close LP xx Elec doesn’t works on him.
Hello from the Vega forum. I must be honest, I was surprised to see that the Vega match-up is empty in the Blanka forum, which is one of the rare match-ups for Vega in which he has the advantage. And just when I was saying “these people must not have played any good Vegas”, I’ve seen the same comment from a Blanka player.
Vega can punish a blocked h.ball in many ways including both of the ultras. Any blocked up ball means 1/4 of your life. He can also hit your rainbow balls with jump back mp. This is why you can see Makoto use it very much in his Blanka matches. His focus has far range so he can crumple you out of any electricity with only taking and absorbing the first hit. He can manual correct ST to hit j.cross-ups, or auto correct U2. No Ultra cheap damage wins. Although U2’s inv.frames die halfway through the slide part, it strangely punishes your U2 (ground version) from fullscreen. His pokes stop your kkk close gettings.
I must say many Blanka players have even given up doing Ranked with me saying they don’t wanna lose points. And some very good ones pick Honda for the match, thinking he is a counter pick for Vega, only it’s not.
I’d really like to fight you guys to see why you don’t think Blanka has serious troubles in this match. Anyone from EU PC can add me. grosssindecency is my tag.
It was a long time i write that, and now my opinion has changed, yeah Vega is strange to fight for me now, but first of all, you can’t judge a match-up with things like : he can punish random rolls, upball, ultras, hop, elec etc… because if you do that, you don’t analyze well the match-up, you analyze the match-up against a bad blanka with no footsies, which only doing random bullshit. Also, tell me situations where you punish elec with focus.
Btw, things that bothers me vs claw : elec seems to whiff a lot on him, it seems it’s the worse character to fight with elec pressure, even cr.lk xx elec hp whiff on him, so i need to just do elec hp, wihch is bad, also cross up combos seems hard to do on him, and if you ending with ball and he has u2 stocked = U2 on hit. Also, his normals seems to dominate, his cr.mp punish all Blanka greatest pokes even at max range (cr.mp, stand hp etc…) so i only rely on stand mp/lp, cr.mk/lk/lp and it’s not easy.
Oh and Blanka use U1 i believe against Claw, U2 is useless here.
But yes, it’s probably on Claw’s favor, i don’t know enough this match-up so i can’t speak much about it.
I think Vega is Blanka’s 3rd hardest matchup, but the lack of high level Vega players makes it easy to think otherwise.
Vega is fucking horrible (to play against).
I disagree about Vega being third hardest.
True, blanka cannot use low mp, low fp, and low rh. None are safe really, at pretty much any distance (there might be a small possible window…but who are we kidding?)
Also true, blanka cant jump against top tier vega (air throw, vega jump rh/fp).
Nor is sliding really safe at any distance.
Yet, I still dont mind this match one bit, I even find it quite enjoyable. Why? As much as blanka’s normal stuff dont work to well, neither can Vega really do too much to blanka either. Basically, both characters kinda dance around the screen, never really attacking each other…vega staying in low mp range…blanka looking for that one knockdown to start offense.
So, I start looking at this match from a position of neutrality, neither opponent can do much to the other. Then I start asking…what should i do?
Luckily…blanka does have the fastest poke. Standing jab!! (im a broken record here). Though I admit I dont use it too much, focus attack has its uses in this match.
Basically, I see this match as being all about pushing the opponent towards the corner without attacking…just purely by movement. Once in the corner…let the elec spam begin. If blanka somehow gets a knockdown (i admit, i’ll throw out that rh once in awhile, or max max max range slide, which can be safe), more elec spam.
Yes, elec can sometimes whiff in wierd ways, but Ive found as long as its fp elec, it works well enough most of the time.
More overall picture stuff: Vega has to play really on target. If he lets blanka jump in and get close, blanka’s offense can be a nightmare, and vega dont have much of a reversal to stop it.
I only press three buttons in this match, jab, lk, and mk (rarely). (ok, and other buttons to make the elec come out, or for other special moves).
Thats just my gutt. I play a lot of vega. My vega has destroyed a lot of blankas. My vega cant play my blanka 
My blanka has also destroyed a lot of vegas (and they are all pretty solid too).
Ultimately, I dont consider vega to be that scary compared to some others simply because he doesnt have a scary offense. The kara throw/ downforward rh throw game that was soooo good in Super is a shadow of its former self now. Kara throw is good, but blanka standing jab keeps him out just far enough. Low mp is good, but it doesnt do tick dmg.
And see, thats the rub, thats kinda what this match comes down to for me. Tick dmg. Blanka has more opportunities to do it, and when blanka makes vega block, vega is pretty scared, whereas when blanka has to block vega, he aint that scared.
Top Three most difficult blanka matches off the top of my head and with no deep thought at all: Honda, Fei(i would love to play against aserious crazy fei), and Ken (I hope its my inexperience in the matchup, but ive looked for videos, japanese, anybody, and I cant really find any where blanka wins).
What has changed for his df hk ?
Only that it is -3 frames at worst now. Noone ever does it point blank so it is not a real nerf really.
Sorry Josh, but your points are not really that valid. Vega has much more combos and so much more ways to punish Blanka, where as Blanka lacks combos generally and so what he does in the name of punish will mostly be single hit attacks without super or ultra. It is also a match up where you cannot use none of your special moves without being sure they will land as Vega can punish all of them (except lp and ex h.ball). And in footsies, he is a god. Yes, the corner is Vega’s worst situation but it is valid for every opponent vs Vega, but unlike most match ups, my opponent also is very weak when he is in the corner. Every special of Blanka becomes even more punishable when he is in the corner. A more than decent Vega will not fall for the wake up tricks of Blanka. We have seen (and suffering) from Akuma. Remember that as he lacks an anti-air, Vega players are generally forced to be better at blocking and the suitable usage of backdash than other characters’ players.
You kinda missed my point.
I wasnt saying the match was easy or anything, just not top three worst.
And the overall thrust of the argument was to not do anything that is punishable. No ball combos, no unsafe pokes, etc. Literally, just walk around, using your movement to push vega to where u want him to be.
Of course vega’s combos hurt more, but unless you do something stupid and punishable, its not that easy for vega to hit blanka with combos, just like its hard for blanka to hit vega with them.
And in terms of offense, once blanka gets any kind of offensive advantage, from a knockdown or just + frames, I think blanka is pretty scary to vega cuz vega just has to block, watch out for frame traps, etc. Blanka has wayyy more frame traps than vega does, and should be used accordingly.
And if vega is backdashing a lot, he is gonna lose, because it can be option selected with slide, leading to more blanka offense.
In the long run, this match is a snooze. Lots of blocking and very little offense, if played correctly, at least until blanka gets a knockdown. Hence, my point where blanka does more tick damage becomes even more relevant, because those couple electricity ticks blanka is gonna get, versus the no tick dmg from a blocked vega strong, gives blanka a slight advantage in the long game. And rolling crystal flash from vega as tick attempt doesnt really count, because its easy to see coming and even easier to interrupt (i.e., never a true block string).
And compared to super, the df rh has been severely nerfed. The whole point of df rh was to mix it up with kara throw. Meaning that Vega kinda wants to be at a little closer than max throw range when he throws out the df rh. So if you try to tech a throw, you get hit by df rh, or if you expect the df rh and dont tech, then you get throw. Mix repeat, especially since df rh leads to about 315 dmg.
That was Vega’s major offensive gameplan in Super, and it made him REALLY REALLY SCARY. On block, df rh was -1, whereas now its -3. Might not seem like much, but it really makes a difference because vega just cant use the move in the same range anymore, and it kinda loses the offensive scaryiness. Vega forums, when this move was nerfed, were all about how pissed they were that their major offensive throw game/punish was just trashed completely, and they had good reason to be. Perhaps it was a little too good, but now it just dont work like it used to.
Hence, vega just not that scary offensively in 2012, and its much easier to block and break throws than it was.
Vega kinda has a dhalsim/blanka problem in that you can really just block him all day. What’s he gonna do? Vega has a decent overhead, but its not so fast that its impossible to block. Hell, even blanka has an overhead now, though its used for different purposes. Hence, when vega and blanka just block each other all day, the person who makes the first stupid mistake loses.
My friend, you really underestimate the power of karathrow.
First of all, all versions of rolling crystal flash are true block strings. Medium version was not in Vanilla, but it got fixes. The one that will seldomly used as a poke will be lp version which is not really that easy to see. And you also cannot interrupt it when done after a cst.hp too. So, saying “they don’t count” is really unfair. The tick dmg you mention will also be more than compansated with overheads and karathrows.
Anyway, this is no contest. It is possible to see this match-up as not top three worst. Not everyone can agree on match ups anyway. As you said, I thought you were thinking this is an easy match-up, but I was wrong. Cheers.
Unless vega is really really close to the opponent, lp~RCF, or mk~RCF are not true block strings and can be interrupted. That was my only point there. Once you start blocking the RCF, yea, its a block string, but my point was to hit it before you had to start blocking.
I think one of the issues with frame trapping Claw is that electricity has this huge tendency to whiff on him when he’s crouching, so walking electricity is kind of eh vs. him and he can more easily scout the other options, and it’s not like you can frame trap into a heavy reliably like vs. 90% of the cast.
Claw cr.mk frame trap is far and away better than any of Blanka’s frame traps that aren’t elec, and elec is just not reliable vs. crouching Claw at all.
Claw’s kara throw + walk speed > Blanka’s. Plus he has good normals to hit at st.jab range like roundhouse which makes footsies even harder to play and in the event of a trade he can combo off of it.
How Claw frame trap you with cr.mk (start up 6 frames), he doesn’t have any normals with enough frame advantage to trap you ? Elec can be reliable on meaty if you do it without normal canceled but yes on standing Claw, stand lp xx hp elec whiff sooooo much… horrible. The fact you can’t use sweep safely is a hugh weakness, no more trap to kd, sad.
Yeah this match-up seems very awkward.
Cr.mk and st.lk are +2 on block. Cr.lp, cr.mp, st.hk after them will stuff any normal the opponent throws as these have 4 fr.s start up and noone has any normal starting in 4-2= 2 frames.
Raw elec is vulnerable to backdash or focus backdash. Claw can backdash elec cleanly and punish.
Yes right, i didn’t think about that… and thanks too for the traps info, nice to talk with a Claw player, now need to play against that Claw. =)
You’re welcome.
I’m on PC. Send inv if you are. grosssindecency