Has the Bipson matchup changed much in Ultra? Just got my ass handed to me by Milligano’s Bison and I didn’t like it one bit. He’s really good, but just need some general pointers for the match up.
I’ve played against a decent Akuma tonight ( not many fo those around really ), and I did REALLY well.
Talked with the guy a bit, he said he had a lot of trouble against Mak these days.
I dunno about your view of it guys, but it feels really easy just to block all his stuff, even if you take some damage here and there, the comeback potential is always a hit away, it’s really crazy. Never one time I felt like I couldn’t win the rounds, even with the biggest life deficit.
Maybe he didn’t have good enough footsies to contest the raw damage, but damn if it didn’t feel easy. 
I dunno man, I played a keep away gouki and it was still a hastle getting in and when I did, he turned up the offense and made my life hell. I admit though, it only takes one hit and a mixup and he’s done!
Shotos are hard period assuming they are good.
I’d rather play against a shoto any day rather than a gimmick character like blanka or decapre. She can’t handle random at all
Whenever I try to random the Mak I play with Blanka he just blows me the fuck up. Maybe you can’t handle random?
I think its just the lack of matchup experience with characters like blanka and decapre, who have very erratic play-styles.
Or perhaps I need more experience against charge chraracters…
man blanka and Honda are like the worst! I got to really lame it out to beat even the scrubbiest of players. then again I suck so…
Blocked Blanka Ball is a free dash + Karakusa. I read that somewhere here on the forums (or, more likely, saw it in a Vryu vid). Once I found out about that, scrub Blankas got a lot easier to deal with on Makoto. Noocta mentioned that s.MP stuffs everything except Amazon River Run (slide). Good Blankas will shenanigan harder with Surprise Hops but if you can keep them out and constantly punish random Blanka Balls, they have no idea how to get in and it creates opportunities to go in and get close and do what Makoto does best.
Honda, on the other hand, is one of the most frustrating match ups in the game for Makoto, personally I’d say almost impossible against any halfway competent Honda. Headbutt/Hands blow up Focus Attacks, Headbutt recovers too quickly and pushes too far to punish with anything I can think of without meter, otherwise you can tag them with EX Hayate then try for a mix up. Ochio Throw blows up grabs and Karakusa (but what doesn’t blow up Karakusa, am I right?). The only useful bit I can remember about the Honda match up is that you can focus random Buttslams and free punish that, but Hondas I’ve seen will poke with Headbutts far more than Buttslams at mid range.
The only solution to the Honda match up is just not to play Makoto if you know what you’re going up against ahead of time, unless there’s something I’m not aware of in this match up.
I think ultra is the most even version of the blanka/makoto match up since she’s been in the game. AFAIK the only guaranteed punish for balls is hp/ex Hayato both on hit/block as long as you don’t get hit by an hp ball. Blanka still has to be on his game though cause of damage output. Needless to say I still have a hell of a time trying to beat lap chi.
forget blanka ball, what do you do about a blanka that does’t use ball and relies on hops, cross ups, max distance slides, and poking into electricity? I mean let’s face it, after u punish ball once or twice they don’t use it any more…
for Honda, I don’t need advice, I just loose and move on! lol
I have a couple of things to say to this thread since it doesn’t seem to be dead.
From my experience the Honda matchup is definitely an uphill battle for Mak… Honda absolutely shines in the neutral game, and it’s not just about that st.HK… his cr.HP beats Mak’s st.MP clean. His cr.LP is extremely good at stunting any kind of offense from Makoto. If not cr.LP, then it’s st.HP, or st.MP, or his sweep. His focus attack shrinks his hitbox a bit… He controls the air space so well. His jump-ins can only reliably be anti-aired with your DP. If he hits you once, he can push you out and play lame. He wins most trades. His command grab range is deceiving, so his offense can be scary if he’s smart. When you get in… kill him as soon as possible. lol #hondalowkeytoptier
Anywayssss… why isn’t much of the updated information on the OP of the thread? Just wondering.
Probably because the guy who started the thread no longer posts here. Also, the thread doesn’t move that fast regardless so it doesn’t take very long to go back a few pages to catch up on Ultra specific match ups.
This thread only seems to get posts when we see a pro level Makoto do work and people break down any footage that has been posted, or when someone specifically asks for match up advice, like this recent Blanka/Honda conversation.
EDIT:
Here’s a match up question, something I’ve been experiencing more and more often the higher up I get in points in Ranked, which seems to defeat the purpose of having more points:
What can you do against people that become so afraid of Makoto that they go full retard? Does Makoto have anti-retard tech? Is it possible for Makoto to go full retard? We’re talking about 100% randomness: constant random jumps, slamming jabs, unpredictable raw Ultras at midscreen.
Is going full retard at moderate to high level play a legitimate strategy, or am I just bad for not being to adjust to someone who I expect to have functioning brain synapses suddenly shitting their pants in a frothing fury? It takes Makoto’s “train the opponent and force them into reads that you can take advantage of” gameplay and throws it out the window because they decided to stop thinking and guessing and instead just start hitting buttons.
Usually when that happens I slow down and attempt to corner them. Doing this makes their ‘full retard’ play very dangerous, if they notice it immediately. If they do not notice it immediately then I tend to use a move that stuffs out their habits. An example of this would be Ken jumping away from you spamming shoryu when you get close. In that situation I would attempting to land j.HP or j.MP to air-to-air him then if he goes for the DP I punish him, if you keep to this routine it essentially smacks the retard out of em.
Also in situations in which you have the life lead would chasing a sporadic character even be worth it? I believe it would be better to smack the ground with the oroshi to build meter to force them to come to you and make a mistake in their approach which also tends to happen in ‘retard play’.
Anyways I hope that helps. 
It does in a sense, thank you, ThirdofOne. I had a set of matches in particular with a Dudley. I beat him the very first match we did, but I like to give people online best out of 3 matches, like in a tournament. So the next two matches he just goes full retard, spamming jabs, tagging meter building with full screen EX Musheengun Bros. Got blown up because what was a well organized Dudley that got outplayed in the first match turned into a slobbering idiot smashing his face into his arcade stick. As a side note, I don’t find it fair that EX Musheengun Bro actually goes full screen yet EX Hayate doesn’t, but Capcom has a huge hate boner for Makoto so what can you do about it.
In other news, why is it okay for Zangief to have a normal that deals 600 stun? This match up is the bane of my existence. I don’t have a problem with Hugo, T.Hawk is eh, but Zangiefs just run a train on me. It’s literally one of the only match ups in the game where if I don’t play an absolutely perfect neutral game, I’m one SPD away from a vortex into stun then KO.
- s.MK and s.HK to beat out his jump-ins depending on angle.
- Punish meter building Lariats with sweep.
- Neutral jump HK Tsurugi to beat wake-up Lariats.
- f.MK > HK target combo to catch him walking forward if you’re a madman. Tick EX Karakusa after f.MK if you’re an even crazier madman. HK portion pushes him out of reversal SPD range.
- Punish blocked non-EX Green Hands with backthrow, maybe Karakusa or f.LP/s.HP into BnB if your reactions are good or you think he’s not churning butter (Spoiler Alert: They always churn butter).
- Hold up or backdash when blocking EX Green Hand.
Eat a hard knockdown, though, and suddenly all of my hard work is gone. His mix ups on wake up without an invincible reversal of my own is pretty much a death sentence.
- Jump on wake-up, eat a 600 stun headbutt.
- Back jump on wake-up, eat a 600 stun headbutt.
- Backdash on wake-up, eat jabs/Green Hand in the dick.
- Block on wake-up, eat Zangief’s pubes as he SPD/Suplexes you.
I can’t think of anything else I could be doing besides playing a different character at this point. What am I missing? And thank you in advance to anyone who responds.
Playing the Gief matchup is a lot like what people experience when playing against Mak, he can still win regardless of his life if he gets in.
You just have to play a good keep away game and abuse max damage combos.
You seems to know what you’re doing in the match up, you just have to guess right when he knocks you down, thats’ the way of things. Backdashing is often the safest options, as he doesn’t get too much from it beside another guess situation.
A little trick I like in this MU : bad safejumps on purpose to b ait anti air lariat, and then doing a very high HK axekick to beat it clean.
Not safe at all, since an xekick that high can just be blocked into SPD, but I find that it works quite a lot before they learn about it.
I find Gief a lot easier than Hawk personally. I feel like Mak has the buttons to keep Gief at bay if you play super patient, but good luck against Spire shenanigans.
I’ve resolved to just play Juri for grappler match ups if I know ahead of time what I’m getting myself into. Grapplers and Makoto have the same exact game plan; grapplers just have arguably better tools for executing that game plan. It’s not worth the uphill battle in my opinion when you’re able to play a hard counter to those characters.
To Killer_Jigglypuff, yeah you’re right, I said T.Hawks were meh. They are not meh. Got knocked out of a local tournie here last night by a T.Hawk that was somehow OSing SPD/DP on my wake up, or maybe just had perfect reads. I played dumb, probably should have backdashed more like Noocta suggested but I wasn’t thinking about it because I was flustered. Didn’t switch to Juri after the first match either because reasons. I did better against that same guy in casuals as Makoto but ultimately he beat me in a FT5. Just a very unfun match up for me.
c.MK goes under spire and t.LP stuffs it. Use either on reaction.
This is pretty much it, imo as well. It’s not necessarily “shenanigans” but it’s the fact that Condor dive exists that makes the matchup slightly harder, and his knockdown game revolves around being right in your face with a practically safe setup every time, while Gief can keep pressure going, but it’s not as scary or consistent as T.Hawk.
The most common thing to look at (And Noocta slightly touched on this) is if you backdash vs Gief after an SPD, the best he can do is follow you with a green hand and you’re back at advantage after taking some damage. With T.Hawk though, you have to guess the backdash side, and if you’re wrong, you’re eating 300 damage instead. A lot more painful and difficult to deal with.
After playing with Snake and Hungbee enough, I’m basically terrified of Gief’s footsie game, and terrified of T.Hawks knockdown game. And we all know one of Makoto’s biggest weaknesses is being knocked down.