First MAJOR - Zeus the God - nerf Claw omg OP

[Vegaman]

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)

That’s basically saying Vega wins the neutral game which is what determines 80% the difficulty of the match up.

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.

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 tagging Vega with a sweep or getting Vega to fall asleep on a jump in.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 tends to get a couple chances at defending the vortex.

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.

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

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.

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 because I correctly predicted your button timing. 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

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.

too lazy to space shit out all pretty like you did.

• Vega does not win the neutral game in absolute terms. He has the advantage in certain circumstances. Vega risks losing the round off 1 KD. Akuma risks (rounding up) 300 damage for a sweep attempt. Vega’s risk is much much higher and his reward is much lower. Yes, Akuma doesn’t have easy mode buttons against Vega. But Vega also doesn’t have invincible footsie tools. Unlike most of the cast, cancelling his normals comes with the risk of not only eating Ultra, but also being KD setting up mix up into vortex. Akuma risks eating combo damage or throw damage from getting hit on startup or recovery.

• You have highly unrealistic expectations if you expect Vega to avoid a single KD 2 rounds out of 3 against a competent Akuma. Akuma’s Tatsu goes over Vega’s cMK and combos into both sweep and SRK. His cMP is unsafe on block unless cancelled or spaced well, which if Focuses didn’t exist I’d agree is fine and call it even. Vega’s moves are long ones making Focuses dangerous to him. Particularly, given the risk of cancelling normals, and the difficulty of dealing with Focuses in the first place. A crouching jab leads to KD. A cMK can lead to KD. A sHK leads to a KD. Getting hit by Air fireball or red fireball leads to KD. It’s not just a matter of not getting KD, but also a matter of not getting hit by almost anything at all, and in come cases not being put into blockstun at all either. What you’re telling me is that Vega beats Akuma by virtually perfecting him. You think this is a likely and reasonable approach to take in the match. I disagree. I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect to never get KD or hit that leads to KD 2 rounds out of 3.

• Everyone that has DP FADC has a safe option against Demon Flip throw, Empty palm anything except block, Demon palm into frame trap. Anything into throw. And cross up tatsu. Look how many options that one move covers. Vega doesn’t have that option. So saying it’s better for Vega because some of Akuma’s best options don’t work on him, is flawed because Vega has nothing to threaten the vortex with offensively unless Akuma goes for a throw. At least every other character can unsafely limit options, and most can safely limit options. Vega can’t. And no I’m not saying that any position in the game is unwinnable for Vega, including Akuma’s vortex. Smart decision making can overcome it. But smart decision making doesn’t expand options. Without options, you’re not really making a decision. You’re just changing which direction you block, backdash, or tech.

• That same argument can be made of any character’s offense against Akuma (or technically any character). Akuma has low health and stun. I’ve addressed this. This doesn’t change the fact that the risk is far greater for Vega than for Akuma, and that Vega’s neutral game isn’t impenetrable.

• I never said Akuma doesn’t take any risk. Re-read what I wrote. I said Akuma doesn’t risk the entire round off 1 poke attempt, walk attempt, or throw attempt. Vega does. The risk is higher for Vega because of this.

• You raise the neutral game to an almost divine factor. The neutral game only applies at neutral. Yes… if Vega can stay at optimum spacing, never make a mistake, punish every attempt to poke, walk, jump, or throw… sure I’ll go with the match being in Vega’s favor. But that’s not because of the character. That’s because of the player. Look at it this way. If I’m flat out better than the Akuma player what chance does the Akuma player have to beat me? Pretty low. Now if the Akuma matchup were advantageous, that would mean that you would go pretty even regularly against a slightly better Akuma player. Why? Because the matchup favors Vega.

So how many people here can legitimately say they’ve gotten away with wins regularly against someone on your level playing Akuma? That you didn’t have to work as hard as the Akuma player to earn your win?

You’re also wrong assuming that I base the fact that the Akuma matchup is bad because of the vortex. No. It’s bad because of the risks that Vega has to take compared to the risks Akuma has to take (both in number and degree) and because the rewards Vega gets in situations is less than those Akuma gets on the other side of those situations. This combined with the options Vega has at any given time compared to the options Akuma has at any given time is why I said it’s a bad matchup. It’s not unwinnable. It just means Vega has to work harder, and take more/worse risks than the opponent to get the win.

This Risk vs Reward factor is why I get shit thrown at me for saying that the only advantageous matchup Vega has is Blanka. This aspect is true for every other matchup primarily due to the combination of Vega’s lack of options with the opponent’s ability to beat multiple options Vega has with fewer options needed (some with a degree of safety and some without). The reason Vega’s lack of options don’t help the Blanka matchup is because Blanka’s risks are greater than Vega’s, and Blanka’s rewards are less, even though Blanka has more options. Not just in any given particular situation, but overall in general.

By your logic EVERY matchup should be in Gief’s favor due to his neutral game. He DOMINATES the neutral game just inside SPD range on the ground. Nevermind the options Gief has the rest of the match.

Any time you base a matchup on one aspect of the game it’s flawed. If you want a legitimate idea of who has it easier in the matchup, look at the cumulative aspects of Risk vs Reward. Look at the likelihood of Risks and Rewards happening as well as the degree (how rewarding or risky). Look at the options available to evaluate what exactly the risks and rewards are. Do this for both sides. THEN you can get an accurate picture of the matchup without regards to how easy or difficult the matchup is personally. Because If I were to judge the matchups based on personal preference Vega would be 8-2 in most matchups with only Duds, Honda, and Cody as the only bad matchups (being 4-6) and Sim and Blanka as 9-1.

Lemme know if you agree with THOSE numbers.

[LoyalSol]

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.

It sounds nice in theory, but when you actually try it out it doesn’t work well against Vega.

Akuma’s c.MK into fireball is weak compared to say Ryus because of Akuma’s slower fireball start up. Ryu can combo his from practically the tip of the c.MK’s hit box. On counter hit Ryu’s EX fireball is almost always guaranteed to hit. Akuma on the other hand needs to be much deeper in to get the same results. But this puts you square in the range where Vega can control Akuma because you are fighting a collection of 4 frame normals while you only have a single 5 frame normal. Pretty much any spot in Vega’s poke range besides Akuma’s c.MP range or closer is a dead zone for Akuma.

You also deal with the problem that if the c.MK > Fireball doesn’t combo the Vega player can just blow through it even though the c.MK hit. So you aren’t really circumventing risk in that regard.

[Th3_JoK3R_J]

snip

Still sucks you had to explain all this to him.

[Vegaman]

snip

Still sucks you had to explain all this to him.

I see what he’s getting at. It’s almost as if he took the matchup and looked at it as “If both players played perfect who’d win.”

If that’s the view he takes I agree that Vega would win due to the neutral game since Akuma would never get in. Unfortunately it’s just not possible to play perfect without controlling both characters.

[GREEK]

@pedoviejo Idk. you talk to zues, I know he’s got more vega data than alot of other people.

[jebop]

Vega is 5-5 against everyone.

Vega is 10-0 against anyone jumping.

That’s the real matchup info.

[Claw_Strike]

Vega is 5-5 against everyone.

Vega is 10-0 against anyone jumping.

That’s the real matchup info.

totally agree, man !

[chubbyfingerz]

Talked to my local Vega man and she says she’d rather get gangraped by rhinos than face Seth or Blanka

[Haztlan]

lol Blanka.

[LoyalSol]

snip

Still sucks you had to explain all this to him.

I see what he’s getting at. It’s almost as if he took the matchup and looked at it as “If both players played perfect who’d win.”

If that’s the view he takes I agree that Vega would win due to the neutral game since Akuma would never get in. Unfortunately it’s just not possible to play perfect without controlling both characters.

I’m basing it off of what top Vega players have done when I’ve played them.

too lazy to space shit out all pretty like you did.

• Vega does not win the neutral game in absolute terms. He has the advantage in certain circumstances. Vega risks losing the round off 1 KD. Akuma risks (rounding up) 300 damage for a sweep attempt. Vega’s risk is much much higher and his reward is much lower. Yes, Akuma doesn’t have easy mode buttons against Vega. But Vega also doesn’t have invincible footsie tools. Unlike most of the cast, cancelling his normals comes with the risk of not only eating Ultra, but also being KD setting up mix up into vortex. Akuma risks eating combo damage or throw damage from getting hit on startup or recovery.

Ok saying you will lose the game off a single knockdown is an exaggeration in practice. You have to guess wrong 3-6 times in a row to lose Akuma as Vega. If that’ happening consistently the Akuma player has you read like a book.

• You have highly unrealistic expectations if you expect Vega to avoid a single KD 2 rounds out of 3 against a competent Akuma.

Actually it’s not as unrealistic as you might think. I play with people who have characters with worse problems against Akuma and they are still pretty good at avoiding the sweep. It’s possible to limit the number of KDs to a manageable number

Akuma’s Tatsu goes over Vega’s cMK and combos into both sweep and SRK.

Why would I be banking it all on punishing a c.MK? You do nothing and I eat a max damage punish. By the same token you can blow up a sweep with DF+HK for 200 damage.

His cMP is unsafe on block unless cancelled or spaced well, which if Focuses didn’t exist I’d agree is fine and call it even.

It’s -4 if the SRK AE wiki is right which means for all intensive purposes unless you do it right in Akuma’s face it is safe against him. 5 frames is the best Akuma can do from range. Akuma sucks at punishing anything from a distance.

Vega’s moves are long ones making Focuses dangerous to him.

Particularly, given the risk of cancelling normals, and the difficulty of dealing with Focuses in the first place. A crouching jab leads to KD. A cMK can lead to KD. A sHK leads to a KD. Getting hit by Air fireball or red fireball leads to KD. It’s not just a matter of not getting KD, but also a matter of not getting hit by almost anything at all, and in come cases not being put into blockstun at all either. What you’re telling me is that Vega beats Akuma by virtually perfecting him. You think this is a likely and reasonable approach to take in the match. I disagree. I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect to never get KD or hit that leads to KD 2 rounds out of 3.

I’ve already told about how most of those are not going to lead to a knockdown against a Vega who is keeping their spacing. A lot of those tactics I would never use against Vega because they are asking to get hit or have to use them sparingly.

I’m not going to throw out s.HK on a character who it doesn’t connect twice (two hits from a practical range at least) against unless you are being too predictable with something. And again to actually link a combo from it against Vega you got to be within Vega’s poke range when using the s.HK.

What I’m telling you is it is possible to beat Akuma without doing anything extraordinary. Learn how to counter each neutral option Akuma has and learn how to deal with the vortex as best as you can and you’ll find Vega does well against Akuma. Everything you listed has a reasonable counter to it from Vega.

• Everyone that has DP FADC has a safe option against Demon Flip throw, Empty palm anything except block, Demon palm into frame trap. Anything into throw. And cross up tatsu. Look how many options that one move covers.

Vega doesn’t have that option. So saying it’s better for Vega because some of Akuma’s best options don’t work on him, is flawed because Vega has nothing to threaten the vortex with offensively unless Akuma goes for a throw. At least every other character can unsafely limit options, and most can safely limit options. Vega can’t. And no I’m not saying that any position in the game is unwinnable for Vega, including Akuma’s vortex. Smart decision making can overcome it. But smart decision making doesn’t expand options. Without options, you’re not really making a decision. You’re just changing which direction you block, backdash, or tech.

It’s not about beating it. NO CHARACTER CAN BEAT IT except maybe Blanka (Irony at its finest) and DJ. Every character has to deal with some 50/50 mix up that is unsafe. Vega is not unique in this regard and I don’t think you guys understand when I talk about Akuma’s ambiguous stuff doesn’t work on Vega that basically makes the palm/throw mix up weak because the damage output is pitiful. The best mix up on Vega is Dive Kick/ Cross over because it’s the only one with a pay off that you can actually make ambiguous. The same mix up that works on Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Oni, E.Ryu, etc.

You know how you deal with palm/throw? If you think he is going to throw jump back HP. This does two things, one if he does go for the throw you punish him for a small chunk of damage. The other thing it does is if you guess wrong you are only hit by the palm for 100 damage or barely anything. The alternative is get OSed by U1 or something similar. Once you know that trick you can limit the risk of trying to escape to 100 damage a pop. All other mix ups have to be done with a different jump arc which makes it easier to read. Also Vega’s reversal can still beat palm even though there is no invincibility on it because of how the hit boxes interact.

Cross up Tatsu can be beat by Vega’s c.MK. In fact that’s what the shotos do against it.

All air fireballs are countered by slide. I’m not exaggerating either. Slide can get under fireballs launched from any forward jump attempt for 100 damage minimum.

The two mix ups I use against Vega are generally Dive/Cross or Jump/Empty jump because all the others are easy to escape or just do so little damage that I have to mix up Vega 7-8 times. You can identify most of those mix ups by the jump arc which is why I don’t use them against good players because they’ve trained themselves to identify the arc.

If you want to see truly messed up try playing Chun against Akuma. He has a mix up that he can safe palm or empty palm from the exact same timing! When he presses the palm in the air determines which side he lands on. Aka there is no visual cue, you have to strictly guess.

The vortex isn’t easy to get out of, but I think Vega players don’t understand they really don’t have to deal with the full force of the mix up game which makes it possible to get out if they practice against it.

• You raise the neutral game to an almost divine factor. The neutral game only applies at neutral. Yes… if Vega can stay at optimum spacing, never make a mistake, punish every attempt to poke, walk, jump, or throw… sure I’ll go with the match being in Vega’s favor. But that’s not because of the character. That’s because of the player. Look at it this way. If I’m flat out better than the Akuma player what chance does the Akuma player have to beat me?

I raise the neutral game high because the neutral game IS 80% the match up. The vortex situation is only one part. If you control the neutral game you can avoid crappy situations and that’s a huge factor. Most bad match ups come from the neutral game.

Pretty low. Now if the Akuma matchup were advantageous, that would mean that you would go pretty even regularly against a slightly better Akuma player. Why? Because the matchup favors Vega.

I said it was even. Vega wins the neutral game and is vulnerable to being rushed down.

I find most Vega players don’t play the match up correctly which is why they get put into vortex situations too often, but some of the better Vega players it’s really freaking hard to get that knockdown. Akuma probably has to work for it more against Vega than any other character outside of maybe Cammy.

[LoyalSol]

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.

You can never discount the neutral game because that’s the most important factor at a high level. When both players are good at playing safe and solid the neutral game is where you get to open people up.

[pedoviejo]

Talked to my local Vega man and she says she’d rather get gangraped by rhinos than face Seth or Blanka

Then she can’t space or react to shit then. but that’s ok, she’s a woman. loooolllllllllllll

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.

You can never discount the neutral game because that’s the most important factor at a high level. When both players are good at playing safe and solid the neutral game is where you get to open people up.

here’s the thing. Vega can’t really open people up like say Rufus. there’s the trade off. The ability to capitlize or force mistakes is inversly proportinal to your ability to footsie. I literally have to play footsies for the entire match. YOu don’t, once you win the footsie game, its game over, reletively speaking of course

[LoyalSol]

here’s the thing. Vega can’t really open people up like say Rufus. there’s the trade off. The ability to capitlize or force mistakes is inversly proportinal to your ability to footsie. I literally have to play footsies for the entire match. YOu don’t, once you win the footsie game, its game over, reletively speaking of course

Having a good Kara throw immediately gives you a tool to open people up.

I think you guys underestimate the game Vega can play against Akuma. I understand what you guys are saying, but the thing is as Akuma you are going to get hit in the process of getting that knockdown against Vega. Akuma is not a character who can be nickled and dimed.

[jebop]

Blanka? Lol what is there to fear about Blanka?

I find there’s only 2 reasons to really fear him.

1. You main T.Hawk.
2. You’re in a ranked match, and have over 3k PP since brain dead Blanka is broken online.

Edit: Played online, kara grabbed my friend 4 times in a row. He rage quitted haha. I guess it didn’t help I played Ken/Oni/Evil Ryu/Rose before, cause I abused Kara grab then too.

[nicfurious29]

Having a good Kara throw immediately gives you a tool to open people up.

I think you guys underestimate the game Vega can play against Akuma. I understand what you guys are saying, but the thing is as Akuma you are going to get hit in the process of getting that knockdown against Vega. Akuma is not a character who can be nickled and dimed.

Not sure what you mean by “nickled and dimed”, but after reading Vegamans response to your opinion over the Akuma match up and seeing you pick apart everything he said, I realized that you don’t understand what people are saying.

I frankly do not have the energy to respond like Vegaman did. Plus, I would only be repeating things he already said, because he pretty much summed up exactly why the match up is in Akuma’s favor.

My advice to you, if you main Vega, play higher level Akumas. (the amount of shitty Akuma players are staggering) Once you do, you’ll learn why we fear the KD, and also learn how UNREALISTIC it is to believe you can avoid one every single match.

If you main Akuma, go to the lab and practice your setups and mixups. You have numerous tools at your disposal to achieve a KD on Vega.

[Prof]

I feel bad about seeing Akuma arguments in my Vega boards, but not as bad as I do about agreeing with Sol. Well, mostly.

The matchup is even.

Setups and mixups are to be used after a kd, not to achieve them during the neutral game.

[Prof]

Also Chubby if your chick has trouble vs Blanka she needs to do some hw. That’s 6-4 Vega.

[Vegaman]

snip

Still sucks you had to explain all this to him.

I see what he’s getting at. It’s almost as if he took the matchup and looked at it as “If both players played perfect who’d win.”

If that’s the view he takes I agree that Vega would win due to the neutral game since Akuma would never get in. Unfortunately it’s just not possible to play perfect without controlling both characters.

I’m basing it off of what top Vega players have done when I’ve played them.

too lazy to space shit out all pretty like you did.

• Vega does not win the neutral game in absolute terms. He has the advantage in certain circumstances. Vega risks losing the round off 1 KD. Akuma risks (rounding up) 300 damage for a sweep attempt. Vega’s risk is much much higher and his reward is much lower. Yes, Akuma doesn’t have easy mode buttons against Vega. But Vega also doesn’t have invincible footsie tools. Unlike most of the cast, cancelling his normals comes with the risk of not only eating Ultra, but also being KD setting up mix up into vortex. Akuma risks eating combo damage or throw damage from getting hit on startup or recovery.

Ok saying you will lose the game off a single knockdown is an exaggeration in practice. You have to guess wrong 3-6 times in a row to lose Akuma as Vega. If that’ happening consistently the Akuma player has you read like a book.

• You have highly unrealistic expectations if you expect Vega to avoid a single KD 2 rounds out of 3 against a competent Akuma.

Actually it’s not as unrealistic as you might think. I play with people who have characters with worse problems against Akuma and they are still pretty good at avoiding the sweep. It’s possible to limit the number of KDs to a manageable number

Akuma’s Tatsu goes over Vega’s cMK and combos into both sweep and SRK.

Why would I be banking it all on punishing a c.MK? You do nothing and I eat a max damage punish. By the same token you can blow up a sweep with DF+HK for 200 damage.

His cMP is unsafe on block unless cancelled or spaced well, which if Focuses didn’t exist I’d agree is fine and call it even.

It’s -4 if the SRK AE wiki is right which means for all intensive purposes unless you do it right in Akuma’s face it is safe against him. 5 frames is the best Akuma can do from range. Akuma sucks at punishing anything from a distance.

Vega’s moves are long ones making Focuses dangerous to him.

Particularly, given the risk of cancelling normals, and the difficulty of dealing with Focuses in the first place. A crouching jab leads to KD. A cMK can lead to KD. A sHK leads to a KD. Getting hit by Air fireball or red fireball leads to KD. It’s not just a matter of not getting KD, but also a matter of not getting hit by almost anything at all, and in come cases not being put into blockstun at all either. What you’re telling me is that Vega beats Akuma by virtually perfecting him. You think this is a likely and reasonable approach to take in the match. I disagree. I think it’s completely unrealistic to expect to never get KD or hit that leads to KD 2 rounds out of 3.

I’ve already told about how most of those are not going to lead to a knockdown against a Vega who is keeping their spacing. A lot of those tactics I would never use against Vega because they are asking to get hit or have to use them sparingly.

I’m not going to throw out s.HK on a character who it doesn’t connect twice (two hits from a practical range at least) against unless you are being too predictable with something. And again to actually link a combo from it against Vega you got to be within Vega’s poke range when using the s.HK.

What I’m telling you is it is possible to beat Akuma without doing anything extraordinary. Learn how to counter each neutral option Akuma has and learn how to deal with the vortex as best as you can and you’ll find Vega does well against Akuma. Everything you listed has a reasonable counter to it from Vega.

• Everyone that has DP FADC has a safe option against Demon Flip throw, Empty palm anything except block, Demon palm into frame trap. Anything into throw. And cross up tatsu. Look how many options that one move covers.

Vega doesn’t have that option. So saying it’s better for Vega because some of Akuma’s best options don’t work on him, is flawed because Vega has nothing to threaten the vortex with offensively unless Akuma goes for a throw. At least every other character can unsafely limit options, and most can safely limit options. Vega can’t. And no I’m not saying that any position in the game is unwinnable for Vega, including Akuma’s vortex. Smart decision making can overcome it. But smart decision making doesn’t expand options. Without options, you’re not really making a decision. You’re just changing which direction you block, backdash, or tech.

It’s not about beating it. NO CHARACTER CAN BEAT IT except maybe Blanka (Irony at its finest) and DJ. Every character has to deal with some 50/50 mix up that is unsafe. Vega is not unique in this regard and I don’t think you guys understand when I talk about Akuma’s ambiguous stuff doesn’t work on Vega that basically makes the palm/throw mix up weak because the damage output is pitiful. The best mix up on Vega is Dive Kick/ Cross over because it’s the only one with a pay off that you can actually make ambiguous. The same mix up that works on Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Oni, E.Ryu, etc.

You know how you deal with palm/throw? If you think he is going to throw jump back HP. This does two things, one if he does go for the throw you punish him for a small chunk of damage. The other thing it does is if you guess wrong you are only hit by the palm for 100 damage or barely anything. The alternative is get OSed by U1 or something similar. Once you know that trick you can limit the risk of trying to escape to 100 damage a pop. All other mix ups have to be done with a different jump arc which makes it easier to read. Also Vega’s reversal can still beat palm even though there is no invincibility on it because of how the hit boxes interact.

Cross up Tatsu can be beat by Vega’s c.MK. In fact that’s what the shotos do against it.

All air fireballs are countered by slide. I’m not exaggerating either. Slide can get under fireballs launched from any forward jump attempt for 100 damage minimum.

The two mix ups I use against Vega are generally Dive/Cross or Jump/Empty jump because all the others are easy to escape or just do so little damage that I have to mix up Vega 7-8 times. You can identify most of those mix ups by the jump arc which is why I don’t use them against good players because they’ve trained themselves to identify the arc.

If you want to see truly messed up try playing Chun against Akuma. He has a mix up that he can safe palm or empty palm from the exact same timing! When he presses the palm in the air determines which side he lands on. Aka there is no visual cue, you have to strictly guess.

The vortex isn’t easy to get out of, but I think Vega players don’t understand they really don’t have to deal with the full force of the mix up game which makes it possible to get out if they practice against it.

• You raise the neutral game to an almost divine factor. The neutral game only applies at neutral. Yes… if Vega can stay at optimum spacing, never make a mistake, punish every attempt to poke, walk, jump, or throw… sure I’ll go with the match being in Vega’s favor. But that’s not because of the character. That’s because of the player. Look at it this way. If I’m flat out better than the Akuma player what chance does the Akuma player have to beat me?

I raise the neutral game high because the neutral game IS 80% the match up. The vortex situation is only one part. If you control the neutral game you can avoid crappy situations and that’s a huge factor. Most bad match ups come from the neutral game.

Pretty low. Now if the Akuma matchup were advantageous, that would mean that you would go pretty even regularly against a slightly better Akuma player. Why? Because the matchup favors Vega.

I said it was even. Vega wins the neutral game and is vulnerable to being rushed down.

I find most Vega players don’t play the match up correctly which is why they get put into vortex situations too often, but some of the better Vega players it’s really freaking hard to get that knockdown. Akuma probably has to work for it more against Vega than any other character outside of maybe Cammy.

• I didn’t say will lose off a single KD, I said Vega risks losing the entire round. Though rereading what I wrote I can see where’d you’d get the idea I was saying that.

• You’re making it look like sweep is the only thing that Akuma can do to get a KD. And that sweep isn’t exactly slow. The issue with Vega’s neutral game is the length of his moves. Yes Vega has 3 4-frame pokes to consider. of those only cLP is unreactable (excluding focus release) to a counterpoke. And without downback charge, no poke can lead into any significant damage except CH. It’s like playing a ghetto Sim.

• Because you make a read. You KNOW Vega’s going to poke at that range, you just dunno when or with what. Any Vega worth a damn is going to be hesitant on using cMP to poke due to the risk it carries (inability to recover in time to react to a jump in). If he’s crouching that pretty much leaves cLP and cMK as his go-to normals (assuming Akuma is at max cMK range). cMK is going to be the more likely choice since it leads to cMPxx EX FBA damage if he catches Akuma walking and U2 if Vega lands a counterpoke. And Vega can NEVER safely poke 2 consecutive times. He has no blockstring and relies heavily on frame traps. Suspect a frame trap, DP or Demon. Is it risky for Akuma? Of course. But at least Akuma has that option. Want to get in safer? Focus dash in or crumple. See once Akuma gets inside cMK range he’s at ambiguous crossup range. It shuts down cMP almost completely as a poke. Vega is forced to give up space to effectively regain the limited use fo cMP as a poke or deal without it holding his ground. sHK then replaces it as the occasional poke, but due to recovery is very risky to do. sLK use goes up which is effective, but he still won’t have a blockstring and tends to leave Vega open to sHK.

I’m not debating that Vega has the advantage at neutral. But he still has to take much larger risks than Akuma. It’s not that hard to get a KD if you properly weigh risks vs reward and do a little bit of thinking in the match.

• jump back fierce in the corner (a fairly common situation in this matchup) is both unsafe on hit and leads to a KD, not just 100 damage. If palm lead to a reset I could kinda go for that argument. If palm didn’t break focus, I could go with df palm being weak. If Vega had invincibility on ST, sure… I’d call it even. The fact is that Vega dies pretty quickly and easily on KD due to lack of options. Oh and I went and tested ST vs Demon Palm. Just as I expected, Demon Palm beats it clean. Best I could get is a trade if palm was done slightly early or DF was delayed by a frame or 2. Beyond that… Yeah ST can beat it but then you’re doing a very unsafe DF palm to begin with. Again, no Vega worth a damn is going to be sitting there trying to reversal ST anything in the vortex at all. And due to downback charge, Vega can’t even ST empty palm throw attempts.

• Yes I’m aware of Vega’s counters to Akuma’s tools. The issue isn’t me beating Akuma. If the matchup were based off my win/loss ratio it’d be 8-2. I’m not winning because my character is carrying me through the win. I’m winning because my opponents suck.

• You can also identify jump type by the sound Akuma makes but hard to do in a tournament.

• I was under the impression that you saw the matchup in Vega’s favor. If that’s not the case then there really is no argument as arguing between a 4-6 and 5-5 is pointless.

[LoyalSol]

Not sure what you mean by “nickled and dimed”, but after reading Vegamans response to your opinion over the Akuma match up and seeing you pick apart everything he said, I realized that you don’t understand what people are saying.

I understand what people are saying perfectly. I just think they’re wrong on some accounts.
When I say nickled and dimed I mean random hits add up fast on Akuma.

My advice to you, if you main Vega, play higher level Akumas. (the amount of shitty Akuma players are staggering) Once you do, you’ll learn why we fear the KD, and also learn how UNREALISTIC it is to believe you can avoid one every single match.
If you main Akuma, go to the lab and practice your setups and mixups. You have numerous tools at your disposal to achieve a KD on Vega.

I understand those set ups better than 95% of the players on this board. I’ve been playing Akuma for 4 years now, been regularly posting Akuma tech on SRK, and lastly I’ve applied them at majors to place high in the tournaments. I know quite well what those set ups are capable of and also what beats them.
It’s because I understand those set ups that I’m telling you guys Vega doesn’t have it so rough on KD compared to so many other characters. Vega doesn’t have a good reversal, but then again he’s got a lot of other things going for him on defense. Is it easy? No, but it is possible to limit the effects of a KD by finding smart ways to challenge the vortex.

Once you do, you’ll learn why we fear the KD, and also learn how UNREALISTIC it is to believe you can avoid one every single match…

If Akuma players can keep Cammy out to win, you guys can avoid getting swept.
The idea is not to have a 100% avoidance rate. The idea is to make it so you limit the opportunities to get knocked down. The longer Akuma stays out the more damage he takes.

[Moonchilde]

Vega doesn’t have a good reversal, but then again he’s got a lot of other things going for him on defense.

Besides blocking what does he have? Anything else can be punished on recovery if you think back slash or dashing will work.