Dance with the Claw: Vega Match-up Guide/Discussion

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
2261

nice tips on rose, l like that mp roll after throw, and cr.mp xx kkk flip

as i play against my country’s best juri player, i have to say, juri vs vega, i feel it’s in vega’s favor. just because it’s not that hard to get in on her. and start your own pressure.

when she charges up fb, it’ll most be a ground one. start jumping. she can’t anti air when she’s throwing them (guile tactics). watch out when she starts charging 2 of them though. one could be the anti air one. there are times you could jump over that, but not something you want to risk. slide under those high fb.

pokes used at midrange, i would be using cr.mk. like haz said, her cr.mk just goes under everything…

i feel playing against juri, you really need to download the player. and watch out for their patterns. our juri loves to activate feng sui engine after a knockdown or after a blocked fb. i know he’ll just dash after activating that ultra and expects you to block the fb. when ultra flashes, you have charge to do ex roll.

watch out for fuzzy guard jumping mp. watch out for cl.mk baiting techs.

what makes this match easier for me is the ambiguous setups in mid screen and corner. that izuna drop, dash, wait, jump hp one. works the same in corner as well. the mix up is which side you’ll land, but it’ll always hit front

2262

Can someone link or explain the Izuna vortex? Specifically for Sagat, is it just because his reversal is slow + the big hurtbox that you can pressure him so much with it?

2263

I’m unsure if the Izuna vortex is actually still valid for Sagat - I’m sure I saw Emersion say a while back there’s ways for him to get out of it.
But if we assume it still works on him, then yeah - his reversal is slow, it’s easy to cross up, and it’s not invincible to airgrabs, so with that big hurtbox you just pull him right out of it. If he tries to block, he’ll get grabbed. Not sure about Tiger Knee, at the very least it’s getting hit by the claw attack.
I’m not sure exactly which characters the vortex is known to work on, to be honest. Seems like there’s a lot of conditions to it actually working - pretty sure Juri can low profile it with cr.mk but anything else she tries would get grabbed.

2264

If thawk didn’t know that df+lp can hit Vega out of the izuna, you can do it on him as well from mid screen

2265

Someone showed me how Sagat gets out of it the other day and it really fucked me up lol.

A well timed Angry Scar. Forced me to mis-time my grab and ate DP FADC step kick Ultra for my troubles.

2266

Sagat has multiple solutions for the vortex, because of the easy and lenient DP input in SF4 mashing both corners (from downback to downforward) and doing a late light tiger uppercut is the easiest most universal option.
This is, because unlike ken/ryu/akuma/others his light dp has little to no horizontal movement at all, thus you cannot avoid it with steering since it also auto corrects good enough as well.

In the case of Ryu, this same tactic can work if Vega’s flightroute is bad, but against Ryu you can steer yourself so you still grab or slash Ryu’s back as his DP is whiffing, because Ryu is moving forward. Not the case for Sagat.

The izuna vortex is very risky to impossible against some of the cast, I actually have a chapter on it in my Vega guide, wich I will continue as ultra hits.

EDIT:
To add to xavierz question, this above is ofcourse only when the sagat is aware that he can do this.
When a sagat is not aware he can do this , than he is easily izuna vortexed, because of his hitboxes.

What im trying to say is that you don’t need to totally stop using izuna vortex against sagat because YOU know sagat can stop it.
The sagat player has to know how to stop it, let him show you that he can, before you stop using it. completely.

As to how to do the vortex I will try to quikly and sloppily expain it…

It only works if you Izuna drop someone in the corner.
You immediately do another walldive to try and izuna drop him again from his wake up.

It’s important that you izuna drop the opponent away from the corner so vega is to the wall as fast as he can. Each izuna drop will drop him away from the corner more and more, making each izuna drop in sucession less viable because of the time it takes to get to the wall and then a good position on him afterwards.

After 2 or 3 of them it becomes very risky, because the flightpath becomes more difficult and its very obvious to the opponent as to what you are doing. A dangerous combination.

2267

I’m now feeling paranoid that Sagats will come and see your post and we won’t be able to vortex any Sagat players. You have given away one of our weapons :smiley:

2268

Continue it now! I need the info before Hypespotting! :wink:

2269

The matchup against Blanka. Need. Help. Supposed to be a really easy matchup but I find myself always scraping the barrel when I win. Not sure what to do to win him efficiently.

2270
2271

Much appreciated. Just what I need for my next tournament too!

2272

Mostly, turtle and punish. Just be careful of that hands slide (amazon something). And pay attention to backstep rolls if they are reversals or not. You can focus them if they are not.

2273

What is the Claw vs Honda MU like? Having a bit of trouble anti airing.

2274

I think that out of the 39 MU of the game, Honda is the one that requires the biggest amount of pacience.

The general idea is to be around max crMP range. There you can stHK, (EX) ST, U2, njHK or bjMP/HP/HK/air throw. A little further away than that crHP may be useful. A little closer than that you can’t AA him unless you react early enough with an air to air. If he tries to cross up with body splash… slide under may be an answer.

But the MU is generally in Claw’s favor. But I won’t argue if you want to say that its even.

2275

body spalsh can also be countered with focus. you can reach to level 2. you’ll always face the right way, so it will always work, unless your reactions are too godlike. spend a bit of time in training room first to get a feel for it though

2276

If it is a Honda player that really plays the char with comboes and all, the MU is even.
If it is an online Honda that spams Sumo splash over and over, the MU is in his favor as we don’t have any “gett the fuck off me” move.
So we can’t punish them like Semy in this video:

2277

By “Body Splash” I actualy meant jiMK, not Buttslam.

2278

Now you tell us, haha

2279

It seems like st.mk is claws best poke against him I dont have hitboxes but it seems like he doesn’t stuff it with cr jab often.

2280

I was expecting they would make him have more recovery on Sumo Splash as he is -2 on block (-3 on hk) and invincible for 12 frames during start-up. Focus is the only answer if they spam it, and you have to release it very quickly but cannot reach level 2 if its on your wake up.
I hate that move.