Hehe ya im all about teaching everyone up here in WA. Unfortunately only like 2 other guys here that wanna play sim and they dont come very often. Everyone else just finding ways to beat my sim haha sucks cause im the only one coming up with shit around like every char but no help really. All good tho =D Sim is top tier in my eyes. Right now there is nobody that completely shuts him out. I have shit on everyone just like ST.
Cole
Yo wat up Cole its me Liston from NYC. I just wanna say I respect ur opinion on the matter of sim vs. gief. Sim has to b very careful in this match and not fuck up cuz of how much life he will lose, but wat every one has to remeber is that they are not playing against the character, they are playing against a person and it’s ur job to get into that person’s head. Being predictable lets gief get in, some times u gotta chill n see wat their trying to do.
Man… This thread ROCKS! Played a Guile player and heard him shout FUCK! in frustration from the other cab as I punished all his jump ins with Back HK and Back SP.
You do have to play Sim in a very different way than I’m used to. He’s my main in CVS2 and I felt lost without his drills till I got educated in this thread.
They move the local cab to another city tomorrow as it was just here for a few weeks for repairs sadly. Cheers Cole and the guys for helping me have a Yoga Blast! 
Ryu: 5-5
Ken: 6-4
Blanka: 6-4
Zangief: 4-6
Guile: 4-6
Honda: 6-4
Chun: 5-5
Claw: 4-6
Boxer: 4-6
Sagat: 3-7
Dictator: 5-5
Abel: 5-5
Viper: 6-4
Rufus: 6-4
Fuerte: 5-5
Akuma: 5-5
Gief’s ex green hand goes through super and ultra, let alone yoga flame (yes, it goes through yoga flame). Lariat goes through all of these too.
I’ve played against pretty much all characters so far and this is my match up tally so far with Sim:
Akuma: 5-5
Abel: 6-4
Blanka: 6-4
Bison: 4-6
Boxer: 6-4
Claw: 5-5
C Viper: 6-4
Chun: 6-4
Guile: 5-5
Fuerte: 6-4
Honda: 6-4
Ken: 5-5
Rufus: 4-6
Ryu: 5-5
Sagat: 5-5
Zangief: 4-6
I’ve only played him a little over a week, but this is what it seems currently. A lot of those matches, I actually have it a point higher, but that might just be me being overly optimistic, so I used a more conservative point tally.
It seems to me, Sim played right either barely wins or barely loses. Since SF4 is a tribute to footsies, he should technically win more. In my eyes, there are no 7/3 match ups with Sim like other characters may have, thereby making them useless.
Maybe my opinion will change when I get destroyed by someone sick, but currently I feel these numbers are right.
Only thing id change in those match ups is:
Ken/ryu: I feel its 6/4 sim. Both shotos have to really work hard to get in. Sim at his lesiure can poke and pressure. They have to guess to get knock downs which is always a disadvantage.
Boxer: 5/5 I think this is like ST. Where if sim is far he has advantage, the second rog gets in, the stats change. It also changes once he has ultra or super. Unblockable does not work on him cause he can headbutt, turnaround punch or ultra/super through it.
Gief is prob right, but when i play sim i feel gief cant do a god damn thing lol. Sure he can green hand…if im a fool and stickin shit out all day and throwing fireballs. He cant EVER cross u up spplash, u get free full screen teleport. He HAS to lock u in the corner and not let u port out. All he has going for him is sim cant do teleport shaninagans. Otherwise im never near him and i can bait lariets all day and green hand.
Everything else i pretty much agree with. Maybe sagat 6/4 sim.
Cole
Man you will not alone for long… I’ll be playing soon…:karate: LOL…
His worst matchups IMO are Rufus Sagat bison chun everyone else can get their ass whooped. But the above mentioned matchups are pretty fucked up
Ryu: 5-5
Ken: 6-4
Blanka: 6-4
Zangief: 4-6
Guile: 4-6
Honda: 6-4
Chun: 5-5
Claw: 4-6
Boxer: 4-6
Sagat: 5.5-4.5
Dictator: 4-6
Abel: 6-4
Viper: 6-4
Rufus: 6-4
Fuerte: 5-5
Akuma: 5-5
I thought Sagat was a really bad matchup for a while, but lately I’ve been doing well enough against even really good Sagats so that now I think it’s basically even. Now that I think about it, I don’t really know why I thought it was all that bad, I think it was mostly me just being too nooby. If he gets in close it’s still really bad, but the thing is that it’s pretty difficult for him to get in considering that your antiairs, limbs, and yoga fires are pretty solid against him. Also, this is one of the few matchups where I use ex fireballs a lot. It’s a good way to stifle Sagat’s tiger shot pressure since it’ll neutralize two tiger shots and neutralize an ex tiger shot, and that’s important since if Sagat throws an ex shot and you have a regular yoga fire out anywhere close to you, you’re gonna get knocked down by the second hit and Sagat’s gonna fly right in with his stupid moving short to tiger knee. It’s also not a big deal to lose super, since you don’t really need it as an antiair and since you’re not about to teleport up to him very often. Also, short slide goes under tiger shots pretty easily.
Ryu: 5-5
Ken: 6-4
Blanka: 6-4
Zangief: 3-7
Guile: 4.5-5.5
Honda: 6-4
Chun: 5-5
Claw: 4-6
Boxer: 4-6
Sagat: 5.5-4.5
Dictator: 4-6
Abel: 6-4
Viper: 6-4
Rufus: 6-4
Fuerte: 5-5
Akuma: 5-5
I’m listing the Zangief matchup as more of a baste again. The thing is, Sim has a harder time of keeping Gief out (and keeping himself out of the corner) than he does with most characters, and once Gief gets in he can just go on retarded autopilot. If Gief gets a life lead he can also just turtle really well, since yoga fires aren’t going to chip him to death, but as effective as that is, I don’t think it’s as effective for him as getting in is.
You guys know how the keep-out game goes. Gief’s jumping forward and fierce beat standing roundhouse, slide and down-back+jab beat jumping forward and fierce, Gief’s empty jump to block-spd beats slide and down-back+jab, standing roundhouse and jumping strong beat empty jump, Gief’s jumping fierce beats jumping strong and jumping forward and fierce beat standing roundhouse, etc. Super beats all jumping attacks, but at most ranges only a few hits of the super will hit, and empty jump to block beats super unless you do it early. And all the while, kick lariat beats or goes through most limbs at most ranges on startup, but you can punish a whiffed lariat with some limbs from some ranges.
But when Gief gets up close, he can just throw thinking completely out the window. Why? Sim can do nothing about meaty kick lariat. Let’s check off your options here. Teleport? If this is midscreen, fine, your put yourself closer to the corner; if this is in the corner, your teleport will land right on Gief’s fists regardless of which teleport you used, and if you teleported out, after you gets knocked down Gief can cross you up and put you right back in the corner. Ultra? Lariat goes right through ultra and knocks Sim down. Super? Lariat goes right through super and knocks Sim down. Focus? If your wake up when the lariat isn’t on an active frame you can start up focus, but lariat beats focus because it hits twice, and if you woke up into an active frame this wouldn’t work at all. Block and then attack? Kick lariat beats Sim’s close standing normals and goes through Sim’s crouching normals (and even beats some crouching normals). Block and then yoga tower? Lariat beats yoga tower. Block and then throw? Gief should be doing this lariat outside of your throw range, so no. Hold up and try to jump out? Works if lariat isn’t on an active hit frame, but if this isn’t in the corner, well, you put yourself closer to the corner, and if it is in the corner, Gief can do punch lariat and beat everything you can do in the air, including beat teleport’s recovery. Block and dash back? Sure, but again, that’ll put you closer to the corner, and if you’re already in the corner the lariat will beat you out of your backdash recovery. Block and do nothing? Yes, that is Sim’s option here, and it is not a good one. But Gief should be using the occasional spd/suplex mixup to keep you honest anyway.
I couldn’t think of anything to do to beat this kick lariat crap, it totally owned me. And I had a chance to use my Gief against the best Sim player in the area yesterday, and he couldn’t do anything about it either. This is a really bad matchup.
That had to be one of the most retarded experiences ever. Sim is totally useless in the corner against Gief. If there was ever a moment where a match seemed hopeless, there it was. Nothing in Sim’s repetoire can stop a lariat which is the saddest thing ever. One move destroys for free.
I was under the impression that there were no matches that were almost completely out of hand, but this has to be one of the worst in the game.
Anyhow, quick update:
Gief: 3-7 (if it gets to the corner, 1-9)
Ken: 4.5-5.5
The other ratings pretty much stay the same.
Ken can get in too easy to due to f+fk. And Kara throw madness. Sim’s strengths come from actively seeing everything and pushing the opponent out. Since Ken’s f+fk moves in way too quick, it’s a lot of work to stop him and Ken can random DP if you decide to be proactive and hit a button attempting to stop him. Plus Sim isn’t doing enough damage with random pokes to keep Ken out. Teleport doesn’t help much cause then you end up closer to the corner or in Ken’s kara throw range. All in all, an excellent match with Sim if the Ken player isn’t adept at using Kara throws or doesn’t have an excellent ground game. If the Ken player has those two items down, this fight becomes unusually hard.
i dont know, most fights are unusually hard with sim
also
This was always the case before the kick lariat stuff; and sim getting pushed to the corner pretty much meant death even before this discovery, so im not sure exactly what changed. All it does is reinforce my mindset as to not get in the corner vs Gief.
I’d have to assume low slides/sweep get owned up in the cone by this crap too due to the kick lariat invincibility vs lows. Pretty gayy. Still, like I said, anytime Gief gets in, its pretty much autopilot.
Also, I still dont know what you guys are seeing that makes Sagat vs Sim a good matchup for sim. Short/forward slide is HARD to slide thru tiger consistently, especially if they alternate their speed on tiger shots - the window is small to slide thru this and i end up taking damage anyways. Sliding thru a fireball puts me in a good position tho, but if I mess up obviously im worse off.
Can’t match him in fireball fight either. eventually youll have to jump/teleport/evade somehow. EX freball helps, but youre just burning valuable super IMO. he needs his super meter for that big damage in this matchup. eventually youll have to jump or focus the fireball. focusing vs sagat doesnt get u much, jumping slightly forwards puts you at risk of eating sagat f+rh into chunk of your life (of course you can teleport out, but you cant do anything after)
overhead fierce is nice,m but htting him with it puts you at the EXACT range that sagat can tiger spam you from.
any ideas?
Before I figured out the kick lariat nonsense, I’d just do something like crouching whatever into mixups or just wakeup spd, both of which Sim can counter. Sim can’t do anything about meaty kick lariat, it’s a brainless way to win for Zangief. Hopefully our other local Gief player comes to the arcade tonight, I want him to test out whether Sim can do anything about repeated kick lariats in Sim’s face, just like Gief sitting there spinning a couple feet away. I kinda expect that he can’t, and if that’s the case, then this matchup is like 2-8 at best.
The Sagat matchup I don’t think is so bad. Your antiairs work great against him, so he can’t jump in. If he’s like 1/3-1/2 screen away on the ground, you can safely throw a yoga fire, thereby stopping him from doing tiger knee and either taking block damage and getting pushed back (which is great for you), throwing a counter tiger shot (which is fine, and great if you have time to counter with standing fierce before he recovers), jumping toward you (which is great, cause you get to deal free damage), or neutral jumping or jumping away (which is fine).
You can play fireball games with him fairly well, I’d say. It really helps to have an ex ready in fireball games against Sagat, both because you want to neutralize ex tiger shots (since getting knocked down equals Sagat moving half the screen toward you with walking short into tiger knee) and because you want Sagat to have to block and let himself get pushed back every once in a while. If eventually you get forced into a situation where you don’t have time to yoga fire, if it’s a low shot you can slide under (which I only do if it seems like a fast shot), tiger knee teleport in place, jump into drill over it, or jump towards him, and if it’s a high shot just slide under or, if you’re in range, fierce him.
Jumping toward might seem like a bad idea, but it’s really not, as long as you train your opponent to think that you can teleport back at any time. This is gonna dissuade him from uppercuts and knees, especially if you only do the back+kick teleport to keep yourself midscreen where you can punish him for that. You can also jump toward psychically, not just when forced, for the same reason. If you see him throw out a tiger shot just after you jump, you’ll usually have enough time to jumping fierce him before he recovers.
I don’t save super meter in this matchup. In my opinion super should only be saved in a few cases. The first is if my opponent wants to jump in on me, which Sagat doesn’t want to do, because all your antiairs are on point against him anyway. The second is if I want to get close to my opponent either with slides or with teleports, which I definitely don’t want to do against Sagat because his up-close game is so strong against me. And the third is if I don’t particularly expect a jump-in or to be up close, but there’s not really any reason to use exes anyway (like against Viper or something).
Also, jump back instant fierce leaves you at a fine range, unless you did it where either you or your opponent is too close to the corner, because then Sagat can make you land on a tiger shot. But otherwise, you can jump over or slide under any shot he can throw at you.
Well, he sorta can. If you wait until the very end of the kick lariat, during its recovery phase, you can hit him. You have 17 frames at the end of the kick lariat after it stops hitting and before Gief recovers to attack him, so you have time to put out any one of your normals (although for some reason every time I tried down+roundhouse or down-back+roundhouse, they whiffed). But if Gief sees that kick lariat didn’t work on your wakeup he’ll start steering his lariat away from you, so while you can usually hit him with back+forward and down-back+forward, you can’t combo into flame because he’s too far. You can cancel into yoga fire, but that’s ex green hand bait. If he steers all the way back, you have to hit him with a far attack.
Anyway, so you can’t do anything about kick lariat on wakeup, but you can punish it with a normal attack. Unfortunately, that still leaves Zangief in a pretty good position and your down-back+forward takes off less than 6% of Gief’s life, so this kick lariat thing is still great for him. And it means that all you can do against the lariat on wakeup is block, which is really bad for you because he can mix up between meaty kick lariat and spd so easily.
Basically, on your wakeup v Zangief in the corner, you have a bad decision to make. Block in expectation of lariat and barely punish Zangief at all, or backdash, jump, tower, or teleport in expectation of spd, which can actually lead to real punishment for Zangief in the form of both good damage and good positioning for you.
Ryu: 5.5-4.5
Ken: 6-4
Blanka: 6-4
Zangief: 3-7
Guile: 4.5-5.5
Honda: 6-4
Chun: 5-5
Claw: 4-6
Boxer: 4-6
Sagat: 5.5-4.5
Dictator: 4-6
Abel: 5.5-4.5
Viper: 6-4
Rufus: 5-5
Fuerte: 5-5
Akuma: 4-6
Just thought I’d write some stuff about the Claw matchup. Claw’s jumping toward fierce and roundhouse beat all of your antiairs, literally. If he does them early, they beat standing roundhouse; if he does them with normal timing, they beat all your other regular antiairs; and if he does them late, they beat slide. The only thing they don’t beat is jumping strong, and his jumping strong beats that. If you’re up really close, you can try a jump back immediate back+strong/fierce/roundhouse too. And of course focus works as well, but that’s only good if you start charging just as he jumps. When in doubt, just block. Not having your usual antiairs be as effective as usual hurts your game a bit, but jumping strong, slides, focus, and block are still pretty effective, and it should still be hard for Claw to get in.
When he does wall dive, get ready to do a slide, but don’t do it immediately. He can vary when he gets to you, and if you do the slide too early, you’ll get popped. Wait until he gets a little ways off the wall and then press down+forward (not down-toward+forward, since if he crosses you up you won’t get a slide that way), and you’ll go right under any walldive, including the punch dive (sky high claw). When you recover, just press fierce punch, and you’ll always hit him.
If Claw gets close, if you block most of the time, he can’t really deal big damage. Err on the side of caution, because getting crouching short xx ex walldive/flipkick deals really good damage and gives Claw great positioning, so you don’t want to risk that. At mid-range, your back+forward, down-back+strong, down-back+fierce, and forward kick slide are pretty decent footsies, as usual.
You have to watch out for ex walldive even if you’re far away, since Sim is tall enough that he can get hit even from like 3/4 screen and it’s too fast a move to react to. So instead of standing there throwing out yoga fires or just waiting to react to whatever Claw does, you really have to be crouch blocking a lot.
And ideally that’s about where you want to stand, at like 3/4 distance midscreen. From there your jumping strong is a good on-reaction antiair that leaves Claw still pretty far away from you, and if you don’t think that’s going to work, you can standing roundhouse and slide from that range too. You can react to walldives well from there as well. If Claw tries to just walk up, obviously you can shut that down with fierces, forwards, strongs, low punches, you know, the usual fare.
UltraDavid, good looks on the sim/sagat matchup, tried your advice and it was enough to get me the W in tourney. EX fireball is pretty crucial in this match, since it keeps the momentum going and it allows sim to advance a little bit. midscreen, stand fierce is good for stuffing tigers or trading with them. i just get fucked up once he gets in on me, have to look out for the random jumpins
Sweet, good job dude!
Ryu: 6-4
Ken: 6-4
Blanka: 5.5-4.5
Zangief: 3-7
Guile: 4.5-5.5
Honda: 6-4
Chun: 5.5-4.5
Claw: 4-6
Boxer: 4-6
Sagat: 5.5-4.5
Dictator: 4-6
Abel: 5.5-4.5
Viper: 6-4
Rufus: 5-5
Fuerte: 4.5-5.5
Akuma: 4-6
Alright, I agree, Dhalsim beats Ryu. I’m also listing Fuerte as having a slight advantage v Dhalsim now. It’s a really weird and tricky matchup for both players, but I think Fuerte comes out slightly ahead.
You can’t play your normal zoning game against Fuerte, it just doesn’t work. Fuerte’s run into max range fierce grab has about the same range as your standing fierce, aka like 3/4 of the screen, his ex run into whatever beats whatever you have out except an ex fireball, he can get around fireballs super easily, and his jumping fierce trades with back+roundhouse. At the same time, he can’t really play his normal meaty ST Claw walldive bs because if you teleport either back or behind him, you’re pretty much safe if he goes for a splash, slide, or run-grab. His objective is still to get in, and your objective is still to keep him out, you just both have to try to accomplish your goals differently from how you usually do.
Basically, I try to run away to a range where I can react to his running. If I’m at full screen I’ll start throwing yoga fires, but if I’m much closer than that it’s too risky to do that considering that his run into splash and run into grab can both make you pay. React to run with jump back or up into fierce, but watch out for run into stop into air grab. Try to harass him with standing strong, crouching strong, and standing fierce when you guys are just standing there and you don’t want to risk a yoga fire.
If I get a knockdown, I start pressuring him, since you can actually hurt him a lot with meaty games considering his low health bar. On his wakeup, pressure with deep meaty crouching strong all day, even if he has ultra. If he does ultra, you recover in time to do instant air teleport in place into combo, or even full neutral jump into combo. Going for throw or crouching fierce or whatever will get you eaten by ultra. The only time you should be wary about pressuring him on wakeup is if he has super, since his super goes right through all of your meaties. If he has ultra, be aware that jumping with attacks and doing things like standing or crouching strong can get you ultraed free on reaction.
Random list of what beats what and what loses to what:
–Fuerte’s splash beats all of your antiairs, don’t even bother trying
–run into grab grabs you out of all your antiairs, including slide and back+strong
–standing roundhouse if you see him run and think he’s going airborne for splash or throw
–crouching strong if you think he’s going slide
–better yet, jump up or back, wait a sec, then fierce
–unlike in 3S, where you could tech air throws even if you didn’t have an airthrow yourself, nobody can tech air throws here, not even if your character has one, so watch out for Fuerte’s
Heh, nice writeup. I’ve only played a handful of El Fuerte’s in Japan, havent plaeyd any here, and I remember he was really annoying caues of his mobility. If he got in, I got fucked up obviously. Basically if he tried to go for splash/grab mixup, teleport your ass out of there, and tried to zone fullscreen with fireball into far jump strong if he tried to triangle jump off the wall. Midscreen, I can’t really do too much fb spamming cause of his ultra, so I need to be careful.
Well, NEC is coming up this weekend. Matchups I’m worried about:
Sim vs Chun
Sim vs Rog
Rog storing headbutt nerfs a lot of sim’s teleport setups bad post knockdown - TAP is also a bitch do deal with as well since it goes thru fireballs. Scared to pressure him as well cause of the armor on his EX rush punches. EX fireball of course beats the EX rush, but once I don’t have meter, not sure what I’m doing. Hard to antiair him as well from certain ranges.
Chun makes me change my gameplan once she has ultra, and it’s touch to deal with her fireball game as opposed to standard shotos. It’s hard to punish walkback-> fb from full screen vs her. Of course I can slide that from half screen, but if I start looking to punish that, I stop thinking about punishing random jumpins. Full screen FB into chun walkup pressure is difficult to deal with as well, cause once she gets in, I have to make sure not to flinch with her jab/short attacks into grab mixups. It’s hard to jump back in that situation either, cause I’m scared of eating j fierce combos which hurt a ton - and that pattern forces me to walk back in a lot of situations. It’s hard to antiair her j. rh from specific ranges as well (specifically from far away, it trades a lot)
Prob need to play more, been slacking the past 2 weeks or so.
I also agree on the Akuma matchup being 4-6 right now, His air FB game and demon flip mixups/teleport give sim a lot of trouble - can’t handle him like a traditional shoto match. How are you dealing with demon flip pressure? his 2 hit RH makes me pretty uncomfortable as well due to the range it covers/combo potential.
Rog does have a million ways to limit sims keepaway to shit and he can get in easily since jump in fp stuffs limbs if he jumps in from max distance. I think akuma, rog and bison are this worst matchups.