Then someone posts something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtZt8hrB5ag
Yeah. Ricky should’ve won that. He did not punished blocked EX FBA with the granted couter hit EX Snake Strike.
But I would love to see Zuz VS JWong. Seeing Jwong against the so C- character, which by the way is a really, really good matchup for Rufus would be really interesting.
@ 1:44 it looked like Zeus tried to use some secret hidden quick wake up tech against ricky but he stayed down.
edit nvm at 3:03 he does something similar, that’s real nice, how many character does that work on if anybody know?
I noticed it too, tonight after working time I will try testing it
Shame on some of you being afraid that your char gets no buffs because Zeus is so good with him.
Thatr dude just wins the bad MUs too he is so good.
Not every player who plays a top char only wins his good MUs.
Just look at Daigo.
Does Ryu get nerfed because of it? No, and he already was stronger than Vega. 
It’s because Japan is afraid to buff Vega, and now that there is proof of him winning a major they can say he is fine because he beat Cammy. That’s the logic behind it.
I don’t really know who the mighty “Japan”-person is you’re speaking about, butisn’t there already a list of nice changes which were seen on the location tests?
Sure there can still be changes to the changes, but you don’t really think they will totally screw Vega over, because he won a major, where not even japanese or other notable internationals attended?
They won’t. They’d be doing the same thing to Oni or, more accurately, Makoto if so.
On the other hand, Japan seems to hate Vega. But whatever. I do not believe this will have any effect on changes.
Vega is a weird one, there’s things where he passes through people too, against Bison at least anyway.
I’d be interested in a Zeus matchup chart/list on Claw actually. I don’t think he’s bottom like Justin thinks (I did too at one point), but nowhere near top like everyone else…
5-5. Vega blows up Akuma’s neutral game until he gets a knockdown.
Really? 5-5 Akuma Vega? I dunno man…
Doesn’t Matter, vega needs to get knocked only once. but the vega player has to be in complete control for 60+ seconds, and can lose it in less than 10+.
The match up is in Akuma’s favor, even during neutral and only 5-5 can be assumed if Vega player has the better footsie game. The stress a Vega players goes through is a factor that needs to be put into consideration, especially when one mistake can kill you, and Akuma can afford at minimum 3
so that’ one mistake to three. doesn’t sound even to me
[quote=“Vegaman, post:21, topic:166696”]
Then someone posts something like this:
[/quote]lol he bearly won, and that was a single match, not 2 out of 3. don’t go japanese on me now.
Jozher and a few other good Vega players I’ve talked to agreed that the match up was pretty even. You might even be able to fish out some of the older posts of theirs on SRK if you want to see for yourself.
Just because Vega can be vortexed doesn’t automatically make it 6-4. Hell Akuma’s worst match ups the vortex is still an option. But it’s all about how easily you can get that knockdown.
When you consider Akuma’s normal footsie game (Walk Speed, c.HK, s.HK, c.MK, etc.) is minimized by everything Vega has (Better overall walk speed, can punish pokes, better range on pokes, a wonky hit box that causes c.MK > Fireball to whiff more than against other characters, etc.) and Vega isn’t exactly a character you can easily zone out either because again he has tools to deal with Akuma’s fireball game.
And I know some Vega players might try to argue Sweep > U1 makes punishing hard, but compared to other characters Vega has a lot of flexibility in this regard. Because his sweep punish normal is really fast (What 4 frames on c.MP?) you can play timing games with Akuma on a block sweep. You have something like a 4-5 frame window to press the c.MP and still punish, that’s a huge amount of time. It isn’t like Fei Rekka or some Ultra punishes where the timing is fairly obvious. The Ultra has to be pressed second or else the freeze will eat the input resulting in the same or even worse punish. Vega’s options are to press the button immediately, press it late, or not press it at all. If Akuma tries to time it late and Vega hits early Akuma gets hit, if Akuma tries to time it early and Vega was timing it late the Ultra comes out and Vega can punish, if Akuma tries U1 at all and Vega does nothing Vega gets to punish, if Akuma does nothing and Vega does something Akuma then Vega gets a punish. It’s a guessing game for Akuma that doesn’t favor him so throwing out sweep carelessly is a bad idea for Akuma.
Normally Vega’s key weakness in the neutral game is his poor anti-air game, but the problem is Akuma doesn’t have a great air normal game to exploit that consistently. Vega’s buttons pretty much win straight up in the air. Outside of EX air fireball you aren’t going to be jumping in on Vega easily.
The only range Akuma really controls well is directly in Vega’s face where Akuma has faster Buttons with better hit/hurt boxes for that range.
Now of course if Vega gets knocked on his back or Akuma gets point blank its a whole new game. Akuma can loop his set ups on Vega. Though Vega at least has the fact some of Akuma’s best ambiguous set ups don’t work.
Typically the other characters who have problems against Akuma tend to get zoned out hard, lose the footsie game straight up, or have trouble actually putting pressure on Akuma. Or some combination of all the above. Being able to vortex a character does not actually mean the match up is good for Akuma nor does the lack of a vortex mean the match up is bad.
Overall I think Vega matches up pretty well with Akuma. There isn’t really a situation Vega has trouble avoiding, yes even including the knockdown situation. It’s a polar match and polar match ups are ones that often give people the false impression that they are horrible for their character when they are simply match ups where whoever has the momentum can steam roll the opponent.
Nobody can zone Vega, I dare you to try. Not Akuma,not Guile, not anybody
Someone hit lol on my post saying Akuma is even. On phone so can’t see who, but I stand by it. Not sure why it’s funny.
There are 3 saving graces in this matchup.
-Akuma’s low health and stun
-Akuma’s weak air normals (which you pointed out)
-Akuma’s weaker buttons (though not weak)
This keeps it from being a bad matchup, but nothing more. He still has the advantage on KD and it’s pretty unrealistic to not expect Vega to get knocked down at all in a match with the sheer number of tools Akuma has not only to get a KD but a hard KD at that. However, this by itself wouldn’t be enough to make it a bad matchup for Vega. What makes it bad is the fact that Vega has no safe options during the vortex other than to block, and no damaging way to end the vortex other than landing an unlikely throw or U2. THEN, if you block properly, it’s not a guarantee that Akuma cannot restart the vortex by putting you into block stun and mixing you up while standing.
But flip this around. What exactly is Vega’s offense? He has no choice but to catch Akuma pressing a button or doing something unsafe in order to attempt to gain a life lead (or land a bunch of Kara throws). It’s horrendously easier for Akuma to regain the life lead compared to Vega. Worse, on defense Akuma has the ability to safely beat all of Vega’s offensive options with DP FADC and he can FADC on the 2nd hit of DP making his meter burn reactable.
Akuma has the ability to end Vega’s pressure at any time and can do so safely when he has 2 or more bars. Vega cannot. Vega potentially risks the entire round on every attempt to poke, walk, jump, or throw. Akuma doesn’t risk the entire round in those same situations. Yes Vega has the advantage at mid range in footsies, but his risk is much much much higher than Akuma’s at ALL ranges.
Now in USF4 based on the rumored changes… no Vega has the advantage in the matchup because the risk is severely reduced with delayed wake up, he can’t FADC the 2nd hit of SRK, as well as the fact that cHP gives Vega a reduced risk and increased opportunity to keep Akuma out. Probably as much as 7-3 in Vega’s favor since Akuma relies almost exclusively on his vortex (due to Akuma being overnerfed as opposed to Vega being overbuffed). In 2012 though, I can’t see this matchup as even by any metric.
That’s basically saying Vega wins the neutral game which is what determines 80% of the difficulty of the match up.
That’s the thing, to get knocked down you have to get hit by a sweep or hit for a combo. It’s actually pretty realistic to expect a Vega playing great footsies to not get hit in the course of a round by either because unlike other characters those options are incredibly risky for Akuma to throw out. If you don’t space the sweep 100% perfectly it’s 200 damage on a 850 health character. That’s 23% of his health, practically a quarter of his health! He can only afford 3 blocked sweeps, maybe 4 if he doesn’t get tagged with anything else!
Akuma only “tools” to get the knockdown in this case from a neutral situation is pretty much tagging Vega with a sweep or getting Vega to fall asleep on a jump in.
No one has safe options! Well except maybe Bison, fuck that character. But that’s the whole point of the mix up game is that you are disadvantaged! Even characters like Ryu with a safe 3 frame DP have unsafe options against the mix up game. That’s not how you evaluate your vulnerability to the mix up game. How you look at it is how many mix ups does Akuma realistically have against a character and how rewarding is it to do those mix ups.
It’s a bad situation, but it’s not impossible to avoid it with Vega. It’s not like Sagat where getting hit by a random, well, ANY poke is a knockdown. You only have one button to worry about from your typical footsie range and it’s unsafe for Akuma.
The thing to keep in mind Akuma can vortex the living hell out of Cammy, more so than Vega. But Cammy is Akuma’s worst match up because getting that sweep is insanely difficult because Cammy flat out dominates the neutral game. Akuma has to play off his back foot against any Cammy. He has to do that too against Vega, but not to the same extent because Vega’s damage output and mix up game against Akuma isn’t as strong as Cammy’s.
True, but at the same time Akuma only tends to get a single chance to mix Vega up with a ground string before getting pushed out to a range Vega dominates. Once Akuma leaves jab range he loses his speed advantage and from there Vega can pretty much poke Akuma back out to neutral.
Vega’s offense is incredibly dangerous against Akuma. He plays at an ideal range that is difficult for Akuma to deal with because it is the character’s weakest range. Vega can make Akuma guess all day long with a huge penalty for messing up. That kara throw is a major advantage
If you are playing at the correct range on offense, there is nothing safe about Akuma’s DP against Vega. It will either whiff or connect. If it whiffs you get to walk up and do your best combo. So that situation still favors Vega in the risk reward category. Characters like Bison steam roll Akuma from this range if they get him cornered. And unlike Bison, Vega can actually do some serious damage to Akuma.
And no it’s not true Akuma has to avoid taking risk, Akuma has to take tons of risks! If you are trying to open Vega up everything is a risk! Throwing out sweep is a risk every time you do it. Jumping in on Vega is a risk. Throwing a fireball is a risk. Pushing a button is risk! There is nothing you can do against a standing Vega that can’t get punished. So yes Akuma takes risks! The neutral game is heavily in Vega’s favor and that’s a massive factor!
The only scenario that is truly bad for Vega is when Akuma gets in his face, but that’s a scenario you can avoid with solid play.
The common flaw in thinking I constantly see with regards to the Akuma match up is “I can get vortexed, therefore it must be bad” But the question is not does a crappy situation exist, it’s how often does that crappy situation arise? I mean Gief can body Akuma if he gets Akuma to the corner, but that situation doesn’t arise often because Akuma can stay out of that situation consistently. Vega is the same way with the knockdown situation. It sucks, but it is possible to stay out of it enough that over the course of a match he can pull ahead in damage. Chun Li has a bad match up because in addition to being able to put her in the vortex, you can zone her out hard. She loses the neutral game AND has a crappy situation you can put her in.
The thing I keep telling people, you can’t have a bad match up if you win the neutral game because that’s one of the most important aspects of a match up.
zues thought claw was top 10 about a year ago, I think, probably thinks better now. He DOES use vega very well and can give good insight.
I think we need more people like zues to give their opinions on tier placement for their character since they definitely know them more than everybody.
people pooing out false information, at the end of the day vega aint top
lol
this sort of talk puts said individual and anybody who agree’ with them in a very interesting spot.
IF he is top 10, why aren’t you winning. HE relatively an obscure character, there shouldn’t be an excuse. there’s no match up experience out there. so then that leaves two things
- said people are wrong and Vega is the limiting factor in their quest for dominance
- said people are all very shitty players or inferior players to the top, therefore they themselves are the limiting factor for success.
I’ve seen many Vega players play, and people really need to stop fooling themselves. Vega is a great character, but chance is against you in a chance heavy game. So many great players being murdered, not becuae they where outplayed, or outsmarted. They where simply overpowered. Anybody can grab a shit ton of dynamite and bring a building down, but not everybody can use limited amount of it and bring it down with grace. In a mix up heavy game with quick but massive damage, not being able to respond to dominance hurts a lot, so much that even if he is in theory a top ten character, human inconsistency and chance itself are simply to OP for players to overcome every time. Granted there are exceptional players, and exceptions, there aren’t any right now. Zues is a good player, and I can see him being a top 8-16 player everywhere he goes, but I don’t think he will achieve the success of say other players who use much more powerful characters.
rather than fishing for sweep or landing a strong knock down combo, can’t you simply do an FADC combo that does significantly less damage, but gives you what you want. Im sure, cr.mk xx hado xx fadc xx modifier exists, and should give you what you need if the other player won’t give you an opening large enough to land something big. FADC tap makes any sustained block string a liablity for a Vega player.
I know that Akuma has ways that lead to that knockdown at the cost of damage, and the reward for fore feting max damage to put Vega in a position he has no answer too is worth the trade off.
I have to disagree with the last statement there. So what if I win the nuetral game, Vega can’t take advantage of winning the neutral, therefore it’s always a tug of war. It’s true you can’t have a bad match up if you can’t lose the neutral game, but only when a character has the tools to close the curtain as quickly as possible and as cleanly as possible. Vega doesn’t have that.