Also posted this in the general balance thread. But maybe we can discuss it here more in depth
after playing a few weeks with Birdie. This is how I feel about his match-ups. Wonder how much will change in a few months
Zangief 7-3 Gief has so much trouble getting in on Birdie.
Cammy 6-4 Birdie is strong whilst holding down back in this match, his anti air cr. mp makes this match-up hard for cammy. Also squishy with just 900 hp
Ken 6-4 Stubby normals, weak fireball. Birdie can keep him out.
Ryu 6-4 Birdie just has excellent anti shoto-tools
FANG 5-5 Havenāt faced a lot of FANGS yet, this could change. But Birdieās hp is a good counter against poison, and his chains go through FANGās zoning tools
Vega 5-5 Battle of the long normals
Bison 5-5 Birdie can keep Bison out, but Bison is really strong when heās in. Very tight match-up
Rashid 5-5
Necalli 5-5 Same as Bison, but with a c-grab but less strong normals. This could be a 6-4 for Birdie because of his long reaching normals, but I just faced a lot of good Necalli players.
Nash 4-6 Better normals and good zoning tools against Birdie
Chun li 4-6 Better footsie tools, she can really lame Birdie out with mid-range zoning
Karin 4-6 This one could be 5-5, but Birdie is just such a big target for her.
Mika 4-6 Command grabs and frame traps, youāll spend all your v-gauge on v-reversal
Laura 4-6 Even more frame traps! Again youāll spend everything on reversals
Dhalsim 3-7 Birdie canāt pin him down, and has to react to Sim. Dhalsim just dominates this match
I know 7-3ās are a bit extreme but I wanted to show his best and worst match-up on this list.
I am going to only comment on a few of these as I am just not certain about the 4-6 match-ups you have listed here. The issue with all of Birdieās match-ups has to do with rushdown. If you can keep your opponent in Birdieās ideal range, you have a strong chance of winning. However, if you get rushed down/up close which is the worst possible position for Birdie, then you will have a rough time.
Having said thatā¦
Zangief is absolutely NOT a 7-3. It is either 5-5 or slightly in Giefās favor. Once Gief gets in, he can simply abuse Birdie. If the Gief player is patient and walks Birdie down, this match-up turns in their favor. You will not keep out a good Gief the entire game. Peels/Cans will slow his entry, but they do not stop him. If you try revenger against a good gief, you will be thrown or SPD. (Donāt get me started on that move) Giefās cr. jab and his st. hk are tough buttons for Birdie to deal with. A blocked F+HP even at max range gives an SPD.
Ryu is 5-5 and POTENTIALLY a losing match-up for Birdie, IMHO. By now everyone has watched Daigo lose to that very solid Birdie player. What I saw was Daigo being WAY too aggressive and not understanding Birdieās strengths. He let Birdie set up peels and cans. That is not going to happen as the game progresses. He gets hit by revenger for literally NO reason. Those are going to turn into Crush Counters and SRKs in no time. Yes, at a certain range, Birdie has a slight advantage on Ryu. Itās the spot where Ryu NORMALLY dominates which is why Daigo fought in that zone. However, a patient Ryu that chucks Fireballs, plays patient, abuses Birdies lack of a good wake-up, and takes advantage of Birdieās bad mobility will make this a very tough fight. What is the impact of Parry on this match-up? No one knows yet.
Kenās corner game is VERY strong. Yeah, Birdie can out-button Ken at the same range he can out-button Ryu, but Ken can play a lot of the same run-away games as Ryu. (Maybe even better since his tatsu goes to strange angles)
If Birdie ends up being 6-4 advantage over Cammy, I will be SHOCKED. I canāt give an accurate assessment yet. Just not enough MU experience.
I am shit against Mika and Laura. I donāt feel like I am objective enough to give that match-up a fair evaluation. I get rushed down hard and lose to the command-grab guessing game every time. Iād be golden if it werenāt for those two.
Dhalsim feels like a losing match-up. By how much? IDK. 3-7? FeelsBadMan. IF Birdie gets in and can pin Sim down, he should WIN. That tells me itās NOT a 3-7.
Ok Birdie players. How do I deal with Nashs dash -> throw in footsies. Itās as fast as Makotos in 4 aka non reactable, so I basically have to guess between jumping up and landing on a sonic boom or jumping up and punishing the throw. Any tips? Throwing out normals is not an option since they will get canceled out by the flurry of booms. And he gets a free out twice a round with v-trigger as far as I can tell (as long as he does the air one, it seems non punishable). Seems like a hard matchup.
Karin destroys me every fricken time. I know v-reversal but I feel like i cant even block this chick, she goes through everything I do. Someone help please?
Iāve only faced like 3 sims but how the fuck do you counter his air teleport mixups? In sf4 im used to just hitting a normal on reaction to swat him out of the air, Iām trying that in V with birdie and jabs are whiffing, bh is too slow, cr mp was getting counter hit. Just seems like you have to block correctly and take the pressure but there must be some way to challenge it?
No they were raw air teleports. The last game I had, which prompted this post, I tried stand jab 3/4 times and every time sim was above me, the jab whiffed as it was too low and I got hit by his j fierce. The cr mp I tried less times but I got counter hit. Iāll watch back the replay in a moment just to check in not going mad, but I saw the jab come out and whiff several times.
Edit: ok Iāve watched it back, it was my fuck up. I jabbed too late and had actually walked a tiny bit under sim making the Lp whiff. The cr mp fails were all due to me being too slow too. Old man reactions :(. It feels much quicker than in in 4, clhk punish with chun was easy.
Cammy is giving me trouble. Im having a hard time anti-airing her divekick with crouching mp. I just try to use armor moves to deal with it but its not always reliable.
This. Having trouble too, dive kicks seem to be cr.mpās worst enemy right now. Pure rush down pressure that only v reversal gets me any space, then It begins again.
Some of my thoughts (as a Super Silver player) on bad matchups:
Iām 1000% free to Nash. I canāt figure that character out. I can beat super scrubby Nashes but a Nash with any sense and Iām done. Iām pretty sure itās at least 6-4 Nash. I have answers to most of his stuff, but things like max range spinning back knuckle annoy me because I donāt have an answer to that.
Not sure about FANG. Itās supposed to be bad but I havenāt played one thatās about my skill level. The only one Iāve lost to was a high ranking Gold player.
Dhalsim seems bad, but if you close the space, Birdie can kill him fast. Iām unsure of this matchup because Iāve only played one really good Sim. At the moment, I donāt think itās that bad though.
R Mika destroys me. I donāt know if itās me personally or the matchup but it seems like her risk vs reward in this particular matchup is insane. Eventually I get knocked down by some Mika YOLO mashing and then I get destroyed.
Cammy is really hard for Birdie IMO. She has a few things that are easy ins for her (+ on block specials including tk ex cannon strike) and her walk speed makes her super hard to deal with esp in regards to being afraid of her throw game which opens up the rest of her game.
Iām not great against Laura either but sheās a million times easier to deal with than Mika. I donāt think this is a bad matchup for Birdie.
im pretty much floundering in gold right nowā¦i go up then go downā¦i have a problem with dealing with presure as of right now especially after getting knocked downā¦its always i block and then get thrown or i attempt to throw break and get counter hit.
Same here. Alot of Karins and Kens. Not too difficult to deal with but I feel like they all play the exact same especially Karin so its starting to get stale.
Iām up to ultra gold and have pretty much exclusively played as Birdie since the betas. I find Nash to be the worst matchup - he has everything he needs to keep Birdie out and by the time you get in youāve lost a lot of health. He can V-Trigger to safety and then carry on booming you for more chip damage.
I donāt have so much of a problem with Sim anymore, the key is to use fwd+HP to get through his limbs, donāt ever quick rise (avoiding his yoga fire mixups) and then when you get V-Trigger activate it immediately so you can use the armour on EX headbutt to get through anything. He doesnāt have much life so he can be taken out quickly with a few well-timed bull horns and EX headbutts.
I feel that the bad matchups are FANG, Nash and Zangief. Maybe Chun Li, but havenāt faced her enough to say.
FANG, I admit I donāt know him enough, but this seems almost unwinnable for Birdie. How can you ever get in? He covers he air completely, he covers himself with his trap. Chain is far too short range to be effective.
Nash, he just has good tools to control the entire flow of the game. He can keep throwing his fast booms, and get to do a setup on you that I have a real hard time avoiding.
Zangief is winnable if you keep him out, but once he gets in? Damn Zangief can destroy Birdie with a few mixups, and considering he has so few tools to get someone off him it seems hard.
Edit: Also anyone have any tips against Necalli? I seem to always get rushed down by him, and canāt really zone him, because his full screen shit punishes my stuff.
