Unless you have reason to go for a better option, start the round with a jump back LK, it means that blanka has no attacking option to get close to you, it hits his vertical roll on the way up, everything else he does misses, and if he does a fast horizontal roll he’ll cross under you, you’ll hit him out of it on the ground and can block string or combo into a st.lk, st.lk, st.lk chain and throw him or tag on a standing HK or MK if you’re confident with that chain.
Look for opportunities to get in with headstomp. Stomp is a useful poke in this match but don’t follow up with a skull diver or you’ll eat electricity or a vertical ball.
Crusher beats electricity clean, but just use LP or MP crusher unless you’re certain a fierce wil hit. You can corner yourself really easily, which is not good, and if you’re blocked it’s often a free hit for blanka after you cross over. LP crusher is good as a poke to randomly throw out from distance, it beats a lot of blanka’s pokes clean, it’s fairly safe on block, and you can jump back MP if you’re quick to put space between you. Just use a single j.MP, keep the second one till close to your landing in case he rolls at you to close space, you can use the second punch to anti air him out of the ball.
Meaty crouching forward, crouching forward xx LK scissor kicks is a great wakeup shenanigan. It combos for 4 hits if you time it right on wakeup, it usually stuns, and it’s pretty safe on block. Jump back MP again if it gets blocked.
Standing jab stuffs all of blanka’s vertical balls clean. Blanka’s main aim in this match is to get in on bison and start his jumping short bullshit.He can tick throw really well, and he has a devastating low forward, low forward xx vertical ball combo he can hit confirm into if he gets a low hit. Stopping him from knocking you down is absolutely crucial, because his corner mixups are scary. Look to slide out from under repeated jump in LKs, or jump back LK to anti air him. Bisons diagonal Jumping LK will beat most things in the air if you’re higher than the opponent. Because of it’s hitboxes, and it’s priority you’re fairly safe if you’ve jumped before the opponent or are higher in your jump arc, and regardless it will beat a lot of things clean even if you’re not. It’s one of his better normals and is under utilised IMO.
You can bait his vertical ball and hit him out of it with diagonal jumping forward from the front, your timing has to be good though, don’t try meaty jumps or safe jumps on him, his up ball is active on the 1st frame, he’ll win every time. If you want to bait his up ball, jump later than you normally would, so you’re in mid air above him when he’s waking up. Crossing him up is very risky, i would steer clear of it, because a knockdown from an up ball at that range could be very costly.
Once you can keep him at a distance when you want to, and make him afraid to roll at you he’s completely harmless. If you’re full screen away, a great trick is to spam standing jabs, and particularly standing medium kicks, because those will beat all of his vertical balls, and will mean that he can’t go for a short roll or a short roll into bite, or a hop, to close distance. The only way he’ll be able to get closer and keep charge is to jump. When you see him advancing get ready to use J.LK and particularly J.MP Juggles to catch him out of the air, and try to throw out meaty low forwards, standing forwards or standing roundhouses for him to land on afterwards.
When you get him knocked down, close standing LK tick throws are REALLY effective against him (thanks to maverick and Jigglynorris for that tip). Keep mixing up how many LKs you do before the tick, and he can really only try to guess when to counter grab you.
If he does get a bite on you, you want to try to mash out of it for a bit, but be ready to use jumping MP juggle instantly as soon as you’re free. Blanka will bite you then jump in with jumping short to reset his tick throw trap, you HAVE to be able to escape this. My default action here is mash/wiggle for 1-2 seconds, forget about keeping charge, and then just hold either up+back or up+forward depending on my position and get ready to hit J.MP as soon as i can after landing from the bite. You have to be quick, but there is a small gap that you can use to escape after his bite ends.
Use lots of pokes, especially low forward to build super meter, and keep your super in case you get cornered, don’t throw it out randomly or you’ll waste it, and if blanka throws out his super randomly (which he shouldn’t), DON’T JUMP. Take the block damage if you can, devil’s reverse if you need to do something to get out of the way, or as a last ditch effort, wait for a second or 2 so he has to roll, and then jump forward over him and hope he doesn’t hit you.
Avoiding his bite, spamming standing MK at full screen, using J.MP in the air, and using LOTS of st.LK tick throw loops are the single best things bison can do in this matchup IMO, try working these into your game and you should see an improvement.
