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

level 1 focus is still better than guessing, haha

As for the Honda matchup, patience is most definitely important. Went to the lab a couple of weeks ago to try and find punishes for the cast and the great thing about him are his long range pokes (used at long range) with a 4 frame start up. This is a detriment when you are close though because his pokes at best are +2 on hit, with a couple of exeptions, and with that 2 frame gap, vega is exposed to inv. 3 frame dps or command throws.

Either way, all that to say that if you wait for Honda’s headbutts, you can actually punish him even on block with the exeption of his EX version using cr.mp (4 frame startup and great distance. His LP Headbutt is -9, MP Headbutt is -13, His HP Headbutt is a grandiose -16, and his EX Headbutt is -8. Block and take a small step forward and do a cr.mp. If you go to the lab you will get it consistently, but be careful as Hondas will get anxious and do an EX Headbutt if you get to comfortable with your cr.mp (if you use it 2 times after blocking them.) Mind the distance at all times, obviously the farther you are, the stronger Headbutt they will want to use or they will use lp. Headbutt to close the gap between you and them.

My general strategy is obviously now waiting for headbutts and punishing them with the small step forward cr.mp, waiting for their jump ins and anti air them with Scarlet Terror, Baiting Butt slam and kara grab (or focus, but it’s weird as 1/2 of the time my armor gets broken for whatever reason??) st.MK to zone.

Safe jumps are tricky against E.Honda due to his stupid Buttslam inv. frames and ridiculous hitbox, but Izuna drop, instant cr.MK, immediate jump forward and late HK is safe. Just be ready to punish Buttslam or worst, a command grab. Maybe backdashing will help but its a gamble as you may eat Buttslam… Or jump away and air grab him… like always it’s best to approach the matchup on the safe side vs. Honda as he deals a lot of damage, but Im just trying to picture a better scenario of things you can do as vega with pros and cons.

Hope this helps and feel free to correct me as I know I can be approaching this differently!

instead of walk foward cr.mp, it’s better to do either walk foward far.mk or far.hp. for more damage

buttslam breaks armour because of reversal. even our ex fba and rcf breaks armour on reversal, it’s a universal system

change your safe jump to whiff cr.mp, jump, hp for a 4 frame safe jump, change to jump hk for a 5 frame safe jump (for people that wakes up 1 frame later). you need to plink whiff the cr.mp. the one you’re using is like a ghetto vesion and isn’t consistent.

after safe jump, delay OS cr.hk. reason for delay is so that if he ex headbutts, you’ll block it instead of your OS going through. cr.hk will avoid the buttslam if he does it.

Niah: Wow. You’re right. See after Izunas, I was doing the cr.mp safe jump before but got punished by Honda’s reversals. A lot. So I went ahead and used cr.mk as it has a faster recovery and fished for his reversals instead. But I tested cr.mp again in the lab and with jump in HP and yeah it actually works more consitently. It does wonders lol. I guess I was mistiming it. Thank you for your advice Niah :smiley:

On another note, I am aware of using st.mk and st.hp to punish Honda’s headbutts but while there is a bigger reward in using st.HP with ~150 dmg (not sure) , the risk is also much greater to get punished if you mistime it due to the extremely long recovery. See on reaction, at point blank, if Honda is dumb enough to use the medium and hard headbutts, then yes st.HP would be a no brainer. But you cant assume that, as he will more than likely go for the light version which is -9 on block. That leaves you with 1 frame to take a step and then your 8 frame start up st. HP which is EXTREMELY tight, and that is if he does not follow up with an EX Headbutt. While cr.mp does half the damage (I believe ~70,) the punish is not fabulous, but it’s a guaranteed shot as it begins in 4 frames and you have enough time to punish even the light version of Headbutt on reaction. You start messing with their mind as they realize that headbutts, even on block have consequences.

I actually know what a lp headbutt looks like, so I never really punished it. I should try crmp next time in the lab

So, is my desire to actually kill Abel make me a psycho?
This MU is worse than Cammy. I abhore him.
I’m not looking for pointers for the MU, cause there is none.
I just wanted to put it out there: I want Abel dead. I wish SF had Fatalities.

Can someone explain the T.Hawk Matchup to me?

I really wished this thread was stickied

We are so learning new MUs for Ultra. Let us hope for an easier time.

Hi all, I was wondering what your thoughts/experiences were so far for our matchups versus the new characters. I suppose I can start off with my initial impressions—

Hugo
Seems pretty free for Vega, though I sometimes get blown up by his armored standing fierce—most likely just due to inexperience with the matchup. I’ve been approaching Hugo the same way I approach Gief: zone at s.mk range; do everything in my power to not get knocked down (meaty hand-clap has been fucking my day up); dance in and out of his st.mp range and punish with st.mk; I know I’m too close if I can hit him with far st.lk. I quickly learned that doing empty wall-dive for meter build is dangerous since he can punish with his anti-air grab if timed correctly. Also still have to get used to ex.meat squasher -_-. Not used to the crazy infinite armor on that thing yet. Improved Cr.hp works wonders to anti-air Hugo’s fat ass.

Elena
Elena players who know what they’re doing are destroying me with long-range overhead mixups. Once again, this is probably mostly due to inexperience since I’m having a hard time distinguishing some of her moves from one another. When trying to walk in and out of poke range, I tend to get hit with slide (much like how Bison uses it). If I notice that the op is abusing slide, I’ll try to walk in, crouch block and then immediately block high and go for st.lk; PoM also works to go over slide. Also have to watch out for her ridiculous focus range vs our s.mk and cr.mp; poking with roll seems to work ok here—I normally like to use s.hk as an all purpose poke versus focus-happy players, however, I don’t like getting into hk range vs Elena. Anti-airing this chick is easy mode: nj.hk with airthrow option select seems to go a long way.

Poison
Not too bad at all—a lot like the Ryu matchup but not as bad since she doesn’t have as good air-to-air normals or tatsu. Most likely in Vega’s favor. Just like how I like to fight Ryu, I stand right outside her st.hp st.mk range and counter poke all day until she throws a fireball and then hit her with the jumping fierce. She can be a bit of a problem when she gets in since her lights and overhead are pretty good but her frame trap game seem to be mediocre. Baiting out her terrible dp with wall dive is pretty fun against scrubby players but is stupidly risky otherwise lol. Going for crossup lk into s.mk frametrap has been fairly effective for me cause her dp is so bad—could also be cause online is laggy as fuck. Catching a poorly spaced fireball throw with ex roll works awesome as well—way better than ex.shc which just seems useless at high level ;_; .

Rolento
Also probably in Vega’s favor. We can outpoke Rolento pretty freely with cr.mp and s.mk and anti-air his wall jump shenanigans with cr.hp. His late/cross-up j.mk causes some problems, but I guess just treat it like Ryu’s and block or focus backdash. A lot of characters are having issues with blocked roll and blocked ex.roll, but not Vega! Ex.fba or cr.mp xx Ex.fba his ass promptly after blocked roll. Jumping in on Rolento seems pretty easy since he doesn’t have a great anti-air option against Vega’s j.hp; cross-up j.lk works wonders as well. I’ve been trying to make it a priority to get Rolento to the corner with j.Hp, s.Hp xx mp.rolls and then hitting him with s.lk / PoM / kara throw / lp.roll pressure; Rolento seems to crack hard under corner pressure. Don’t raw wall dive on him since he’ll just backflip and punish. Also, don’t let him get in close because his lp pressure is fucking annoying.

Decapre
This is a weird one. Sometimes I body her and other times I get bodied. Decapres who abuse lp.hands are the ones who give me the most trouble since they get me to the corner pretty fast and then proceed to run ex.dive kick and instant-air spiral arrow pressure. Her Cammy-esque frame traps are annoying as well, but at least she doesn’t blow up throw tech so easily. Unfortunately I still have to stand tech in most situations because 4 frame crouch tech gets blown up a lot. Much like in the Cammy mu, her st.hk is a pain to deal with since it does so much damage; I’ve been counter poking it with s.mk. Jumping in on her is a terrible idea since her st.hp and cl.mp are very good anti-air normals and her dp does a crapton of stun and can combo into ultra. I’ve been trying to stay around Vega’s f.st.lk range and going for grab mixups or trying to counterhit her cr.mk with cosmic heel or PoM. Watch out for her overhead because at max range, it links to cr.lp into cr.mp into dp which hurts bad. Her overhead also goes over lows but can be jabbed. Giving Decapre space seems like a generally bad idea since she gets more space control than Vega at full screen and can build meter faster by canceling her teleport a bunch of times; I’ve tried to ex.fba her teleport recovery at full screen to no avail (stupid little girl hurtbox). Also like Cammy, when trying max range cr.mp xx ex.fba, ex.fba will sometimes miss ;_;. Overall, seems in Decapre’s favor, but not as bad as Cammy.

Sorry for the wall of text.

TLDR: Hugo is free, Elena is probably even but maybe in Vega’s favore once her gimmicks get figured out; Poison and Rolento are managable with good footsies; Decapre is inconsistent but will probably be a major hassle once she gets figured out better.

What do you mean by no anti airs exactly? Doesn’t Flash Kick beat everything Vega has?

Also, how would you recommend pushing him to the corner? What if he SBs and advances wit ha jump or walk? Or just spams them? How can I get in?

he can’t flash kick you after he throws a sonic boom, he has no charge.

advance by walking and blocking the SB at the last possible moment. the problem with slow projectiles is that you can walk pretty far before blocking. if he’s able to walk, it means he threw the sonic boom from far away, just block the sonic boom and poke him, he can’t do shit. ex rcf just before the sonic boom hits you works as well. don’t be predictable with this though, he can just grab you out of it if predicted and you’ll have to gain back space all over again…

as for jumping, i would just block it, his pressure is weak, he’ll just push you back with a couple of block strings and sonic boom again, and that’s when you jump at him. he pretty much killed himself by jumping in. or i you have charge, ex ST him, it goes through the sonic boom and hits him. sometimes i do that when he sonic booms and walks forward as well.

Any rolento roll blocked crouching can be punished.

At worst u can do far lk into crmp.

Crmp xx ex fba. And U2. Should be the standard.

Or sthk does punish all. (Rfocus it if u have meter into whatever to end the round.)

Thanks. By the way, can you recommend any good match videos where a vega dominates him?

P.S. Guile’s Air Grab still beats Vega’s right?

Not dominant exactly a dominant performance per se, however, Zeus vs. Dieminion is good representation of the match up since they’re arguably the two best players of their respective characters in the US:

Yes, Guile’s air throw has slightly more range, although timing—whoever throws out their throw first—probably matters more than range.

I know it’s probably mentioned somewhere in here… Anyone have any sort of advice on playing Sakura? A Sakura straight up ruined my day yesterday… It was particularly annoying because they didn’t seem to have any particular strategy or mix-up game whatsoever… It was cross-up kick after cross-up kick, which I don’t know if I was getting frustrated or if she has true unblockables on Vega, but it sure seemed unblockable (that first hit)… I could occasionally use a quick L RCF to escape to only be right back in the same situation again.

YES! Even worse than the standard cheap-ass grappler. I have respect for people who have made the grappling game an art form – but at the same time I hate playing them. Sometimes it seems like such a cop-out way to win like “I don’t feel like training for months and learning complicated and sometimes character specific combos… so I’ll just abuse command throw instead!” But a lot of that feeling probably stems from the frustration they bring me. Abel is a bit different, though. His tornado throw doesn’t start up as quickly as a normal command throw and he can’t revolve his game around it but rather pepper it through his gameplan. He’s a more interesting and technical player and I give props to those who have mastered him… but ugh! Something about Vega just unleashes a monster within him.

I have been training with Vega, Guile, and Decapre since Ultra came out… Abel does not give me any trouble with Guile, and only a little with Decapre; and with Vega it is a nightmare. I don’t have much trouble fighting Cammy as Vega or Guile but she really tests my patience as Decapre. Playing Vega as Guile seems fairly easy, but at the same time playing Guile as Vega does as well.

One thing I also find particularly enduring is a Vega vs Vega mirror match. I need to practice this, a lot.

to block ambigous stuff, just duck, wait for them to crossup, then just block crossup. this applies to everyone except for ambiguous dives like evil ryu. in which cause you can escape with cr.mk

Any advice for the Guy matchup? More specifically his elbow drop pressure. I can’t seem to anti air or escape it at all. Air to air seems to always lose to his air command throw. Cr. Fierce is worthless because he is too close because it whiffs. Standing Roundhouse I get command thrown out of and I can’t walk under him he is too low. Sliding under he recovers faster to punish. Kind of at a loss here. Any help would be much appreciated.

Now, I could be wrong but I’m almost certain that every single elbow guy will EVER throw at you can and will be beaten by Vega’s cr.mk. Someone more technical feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I unno.