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

[ElMouchoLoco]

Ryu matchup.

Thanks Jozhear and View619 for your ideas about the ryu matchup, i will try my best using those advices.

[elcubanoloco]

ok guys I just got back from a gathering and i got beat by an akuma who just spams st. RH what can I do stop this bullshit haha

oh, man you hella read my mind lol. i have been having A LOT of trouble getting in on defensive Akumas lately; more so than Rufus and Blanka at this point. i almost want to say it’s a 7-3 matchup in his favor. some tips on countering st. RH and getting out of demon flip situations (especially on knockdown since Vega has almost close to zero wakeup options when Akuma is right on top of him with demon flip) so i can do some damage.

oh, and one Akuma i play against setups demon flips by doing a jf air fireball when i’m waking up to make me block and as soon as he lands he goes into the demon flip and from there i have to guess what he’s going to do. it’s so frustrating so please any help would be very beneficial:sweat:

[Melubas]

I think you can kara throw a blocked Akuma st.RH

[MILF]

oh, man you hella read my mind lol. i have been having A LOT of trouble getting in on defensive Akumas lately; more so than Rufus and Blanka at this point. i almost want to say it’s a 7-3 matchup in his favor. some tips on countering st. RH and getting out of demon flip situations (especially on knockdown since Vega has almost close to zero wakeup options when Akuma is right on top of him with demon flip) so i can do some damage.

oh, and one Akuma i play against setups demon flips by doing a jf air fireball when i’m waking up to make me block and as soon as he lands he goes into the demon flip and from there i have to guess what he’s going to do. it’s so frustrating so please any help would be very beneficial:sweat:

akuma=sample Don’t back flip
ryu match up always take advantage of your knock down (bait,hop, focus yes focus out of shoryuken range, wall dive, throw (when he does not have ultra), s. rh, slide, ultra (one the opposite wall), back dash, wall jump etc)
ryu match up for me is 5-5, every body to me is 5-5 except balrog

[view619]

I’m almost certain that you can slide under Akuma’s standing round house. I’ve done it a few times and basically killed Akuma’s footsies for those matches. Maybe you can focus the 2nd kick and counter? Also, crouching forward could be tested against it.

Also, Akuma doing wake-up air fireball can be punished with EX ST. He should eat the full ST if you time it right (i.e. when the fireball is right on top of you and Akuma isn’t far behind it). If it’s a really high air fireball and you’re near the corner on wake up, time it right and it’s a counter ultra. IMO, once you have EX stock/ultra Akuma has to drop quite a few options.

And MILF, please send me some of whatever you’re smoking over there. Clearly, it’s better than anything I can find in JA. >_>

[MILF]

Lol :u:

Ganja :lovin:

Challenge anyone first to five later europe time (night)

[Sasaki]

Vega can track Akuma’s air fireballs and teleports quite well. Most important tools in this MU are slide, df.hk and EX Dive, imo.

[Jozhear]

Meaty izuna which Akuma loses to easily, will beat SRK, c. fierce, if he teleports, you recover in time to walk up and punish w/ sweep. =)

[ElMouchoLoco]

Vs Akuma’s standing hk, if you are crouching a lot of times the second kick fail avobe you and you can punish him hard with d.mp xx ex barcelona.
A lot of akumas like to get close with that hk, but from the usual distance where they will do it, hk looses vs our hk, mk or d.mk or d.mp.

Ex ST won’t go though air fireballs, and that is a shit, you can only do it if the air fireball is really close to the ground when you wakeup. (it will be close to the wall if he wants you to block it and demon flip you)
Ex RCF will, but it will only hit once the airbone akuma, so you really don’t have options.

Vs akuma… go for him, he will lose more life than you with every trade, and your jumping hp will trade a lot with his shoryuken.
Your footsies can stop his ground attack too, and if he turtles and air-fireball you can slide under and hit him.

Just remember:
Don’t ppp EVER. He can recover quicly and standing hk you for free from nearly every situation.
kkk is not a good idea too, he can punish it a lot too. You may use kkk sometimes and not get punished if he wasn’t expected it, but ppp will be punished everytime.

The problem with akuma is the same as with ryu, if he scores a knockdown he will score 2 or 3 more until you guess right. And if you score a knockdown he can teleport to be safe, unless you guess right what side is he going.

[JDH_the_Auditor]

The Gief Match up has been giving me trouble lately.

I have to work on punishing his jumping normals.

[System_1]

I just learned that a wall dive is never safe against tatsu, he could punish me from across the screen every single time no matter where I landed on the ground. How do I beat Vega so frustrated!!!

[System_1]

If you see an Akuma do an Air fireball, two Slide Kicks are usually more than enough to let you reach them in time and sweep them.

[Kei_Kun]

How do you get Sagat to f— off? T_T For most cases, when Sagat gets in, you’re screwed. Atleast to my experience.
I know if you’re cornered and they use tiger knee strings to pressure you, you have to block while standing up to make him move back further but, is there really absolutely no way to get out? I know you can get out of corner by sliding on a tiger knee but that would also mean I have to sacrifice some hp as he doesn’t recover fast enough.

[Sasaki]

There’s a nice note Destin wrote me about this:

Q: How did Makoto escape the TK blockstring with a st.rh?

I had to find my own post to see what you were talking about. The tiger knee, depending on spacing, can be anywhere from slight advantage to slight disadvantage. Now, vega doesn’t have 3 frame moves outside of throw, so if it comes out even, sagat has a reasonably big nash equilibrium advantage (all things being considered, his options out of that are much scarier than yours).

But, often sagats place a crouch lk afterwards, which gives good frame advantage on hit/block, and is a low, but is actually slower at around 5f IIRC. This is a big difference from the 3f crouch jab, but because the crouch jab only allows for further crouch jab 1f links, as opposed to the easier 2f links on the cr.lk, I usually see sagats using crouch lk. Either way, if the sagat is being risky enough to throw out crouch lk, he needs more frame advantage from the tiger knee to cover up the increased start up.

Tiger knee is anywhere from -7 to +5 based on when it hits. Obviously, if he spaces it perfectly, there is little you can do (although I don’t know of any strings that can do this, as it might lead to an infinite blockstring). But if it falls somewhere around 0 to +2, you are suddenly given options. If often does fall in this area as well. I myself was confused with his usage of stand hk over crouch lp, both being 4f, but then I thought perhaps he was going for the trade, or counting it as a possibility. See since Stand HK has a significantly larger hitstun than crouch lp being a harder attack (not a rule, but generally true), the trade would lead to greater damage for vega and he would get to act first when both come out of hitstun.

It is also possible he went for a kara throw, which should be a better option because both come out at 4f, but the throw will beat the strike attempt. Then again this could be tempered by the fact that you cannot p-link the kara throw or crouch lp, but you can p-link into stand hk, ensuring you get your kick off closer to that very important first frame.

Throw, at 3f, should also be a very strong option, requiring sagat to have at least +3 to beat you if he is going for that crouch lk after tiger knee, but sadly when TK has good frame adv, it is usually spaced out of throw range.

So there is the breakdown I suppose. Honestly I will still be accepting the chip damage with safe option selects some of the time, backdashing the first hit post TK some of the time, and then a small minority of the time going for p-linked hk. It is a fairly dangerous option for a mixup that didn’t scare me all that much when I was playing.

Now sadly, I find most people have been using cr.lp for blockstrings. Really the only thing I do is block. If you somehow see he is using cr.lk, you can go for the throw or whatever. If you get thrown in the blockstring, the player will try and catch up with a knee, then meaty you. If he somehow does it wrong or crosses you up, focus backdash gets you out.
Never ever mash. Especially not in the wrong place. Good Sagats will provoke this with a TU, and should you get hit, you’re really screwed. You know how much damage a CH TU does, especially without mask on?

[Chritorisu]

This is probably one of the most annoying things about Sagat. That’s a lot to think about while he does that block string…

Good to see some numbers though. Thanks for the info

[Humpski]

What can be done about dive kick spam? Especially on wake up?

[Vegaman]

Best bet is simply to try to avoid the knockdown… otherwise anticipate and air throw or jHP

[Humpski]

Well that’s usually how it goes. I play keep away and keep ticking away at his life until he’s three quarters dead, then he gets a knockdown and it’s pretty much over from there. I can’t escape.

[view619]

Block the falcon kick and look for an opportunity to back dash out. Usually works well for me.

[Humpski]

I’ll try it. But I don’t see it happening. The kicks come so quickly. I’d think I’d get hit upon back dash. I’ll try it though.