I pretty much get grabbed all day and I can’t do anything, can someone help me with these matchups?
Hey. Still ironing out the T-Hawk match-up but Gief is a straightforward match up for the most part. The obvious part of the Zangief match-up is don’t get grabbed and stay the hell away from him. Now, that being said you actually have a lot of tools to control him.
Your best friends in the Zangief match-up are standing roundhouse, rocks, fake rock, back MP, RH and MK ruffian, standing MP, standing LK, and EX-criminal upper. Your Ultra of choice is U2.
Your basic strategy is going to be to use rocks to keep Zangief out along with standing roundhouse and roundhouse ruffian. You optimally want to keep him at the tip and outside to full screen of your standing roundhouse range. If he walks forward you check him with stand RH to the jaw. A good Zangief will try to inch forward and control space but eventually they will have to jump due to your rocks and roundhouse. This is where you have to tag him with one of your anti-airs and reset him to full screen.
Good rock timing is important. You want to fake rocks and be ready to anti-air when he jumps. Also, charge down the rock to delay the tosses and try to read how he’ll jump. Beware of max range down jumping LK from Zangief as it may make you miss a back MP and get LP SPD’d or worse.
Now, when he’s on the tip or inside of standing roundhouse, he might start fishing for EX-greenhand or throwing out normals. The one you want to beware of the most is Zangief’s cr. RH. Everything else you can check with Standing Rh when he’s at the tip range and using stand normals or just inside. Once he gets past that or insists on crouching use standing MP or standing LK, or cr LK XX MK ruffian. Or even a jab rock if you want to push him a bit. You can bait with fake rock from there. If you fake and/or block an ex-greenhand, you punish with cr.lk xx MK ruffian and put him back full screen to wash-rinse-repeat your far screen strategy.
If you have ultra meter, you can punish ex-greenhand with reversal U2. And if you’re in a mix-up and dodge an SPD with a neutral jump or backdash you can U2 every time free.
If you’re in a bad mix-up or wake up situation, EX-criminal upper will snuff out SPD and Ultra 1 as well as mis-timed crouching shorts. It’s your answer to getting out of Zangief’s guessing game and putting you back in control. This is important. Also, good blocking and reading if you don’t have meter. We all know how bad Cody’s wakeup is.
Also for the mid-screen, this is a risky tactic but good to throw out once in awhile: toss out an MK ruffian if you sniff he’s going to press forward just ONCE in awhile. (Disclaimer: This is risky.) It’ll make him afraid to inch forward so you can stone his forehead a bit more.
A good Zangief is going to play footsies with you and make far more educated jumps while walking you to the corner. You’ll have to have better control with footsies, standing LK, RH, MP.
I used to think this match was bad, but it’s actually in Cody’s favor, though you can get into a lot of hot water if Zangief gets in on you. Don’t panic and react carefully.
I think it was BJ unchained who said that you can punish an FADCed Ex greenhand with ultra 2 (both forward and back dash) but I haven’t tried this out yet to confirm it.
I know you can punish it on block and fadc backdash, not sure about forward dash though, but it looks like it would work.
^ Yes, blocking standing or crouching, once Gief commits to EX Greenhand, if he doesn’t hit you, it’s U2 time.
To add to what Aulord said, Gief can whiff punish your st. HK pretty well with his own st. MP so if he starts catching your recovery you need to create more space or incorporate more buttons.
Believe it or not, the knife is pretty fantastic in this match (imo). Especially if he’s really locked down your rocks game. It’s not something you can rely on, but Cody’s knife st. MP will handle anything Gief throws at you, and you still don’t lose your st. HK, st. LK or st. MK.
I did a rundown of the Hawk match-up on a different forum. Not gonna post it here because I’m sure SRK wouldn’t like it. I’m actually doing a match-up thread in general, so if you want a link, just PM me.
Is the U2 guaranteed, as in, can you mash it out?
^ I see you have been playing Helnova a lot these days. I’m a friend of his, from the other forum he mentioned to you.
Guaranteed to a point of course. The only thing Gief could be able to do is hold his focus a moment and then back dash, catching him in his airborne frames, which is no different than any other focus back dash you’d try to punish using U2 (i.e. Guy). But yes, essentially, you can just mash it out.
You could always wait just a moment to see if he does that before you let it rip of course. If you know the dust will finish him, then it obviously doesn’t matter.
Some matches from recent memory
@Ramma Oh cool, Helnova seems like a very nice dude!
I personally hate the Gief match-up, so random. It will be for sure nicer to play it in Ultra, less bullshit. Always nice to be spd:d from a range where cr.hp whiffed, that’s my favorite. “Why don’t you just move out from the range of the spd?” Great question, and now try walking back with Cody and see how that works out for you.