Yeah, it’s a 50/50 but feels more like a 70/30 in Gief’s favor.
BTW, how do you guys punish green hands, either ex or regular…on hit, on block?
I always counter that with rock
Eh… scissors, I mean o_O
Depends on distance but… Back throw, st. Mp > ?, or cr. roundhouse/cr. fp > ?? But timing is tight. Cr. lk/cr.mp > tatsu is good too. He needs it to get in and if you block it then it’s an easy back throw… One of the reasons I hate they nerfed the damage 20%.
If timed right Mp and hp palms can beat green hands too but you didn’t hear that from me. 
Meh, its no different from eating chip. It’s plenty viable. Think of it this way. If the gief doesn’t delay it, then its full punish. There’s no one way out of Gief’s mixup game. Thats why its all characters try desperately to avoid it.
Not unless you have a DP, if he don’t block he’s toast. Zangief blocking = No Lariat = being able to back dash. Or for the price of 2 bars you can FADC to safety.
OR do it the easy way and just pick Akuma and teleport whenever he starts that bullshit.
IF I dive kick on Gief I immediately ex flip for the invulnerablilty. Any dive kick above his chest…he has frame advantage and will most likely SPD you. When I flip they’re all like “OHH NOOOO” then they see my kick and say “YEEEEEEEES”, they SPD, while I’m glowing and coming back down with flip throw. Its amazing. On another note, raw flip throw they cannot defend against. The only options they have is back dash or U2. It beats green hand and lariat clean. I abuse…
Ducking lariat beats flip throw, I believe.
I guess I would have to test but I believe he’s too big to duck anything. We can tatsu him while crouching so I’m sure we can grab him. But like I said, I would specifically have to test this.
Because you can DP for free all day every day. Obviously characters with DP don’t have to be scared of the mixup and can walk straight in a grappler face and say “fuck you bitch lets go” just because he has a DP. I really don’t have to explain myself here.
And Gief has OS in corner against Akuma teleport. Akuma has all the tools, but you have to play just as on point as the gief player to win.
Sheeeeeit.
Akuma picks U2 teleports, taps up repeatedly during the teleport and prays that Zangief tries to follow with anything if he does he eats full Ultra2. Akuma has to be careful against Zangief just as anyone else because his health is shit. That match up is clearly in Akumas favor bc he’s so hard for Gief to catch and Akuma doesn’t need dp to get his spacing back.
Akuma’s DP is half shit anyway, but that’s for another thread.
Oh shit, I forgot about teleport to U2. Yea I’ll give you that.
I wonder whats the matchup numbers on that then. Can’t imagine anything less than 6.5 v 3.5 akuma
Back on topic.
Fought some decent Zangief in endless the other day (about 4k pp I think? On PSN, not sure.)
Really, really tough match when they are being extremely patient and doesn’t mind clips. If they don’t take risk to get in, there is not much you can do beside slowly back away. Long as their reaction is on point on block your poke and stuffing your advance and rush down (standing jab pretty much stuff every rush down you got) you have to do something about his advance. I will try and break this down a bit.
As Zangief:
Your MP fb is VERY annoying. It stuffs forward dash, most footish, most jump, really, really annoying. Your palm also make FADC dash in much harder. Experienced Zangief, however, will not FADC dash in unless they have been patiently waiting for you to relax. They will actually walks forward, block all the thing. Then occasionally FADC dash back. This at first, look like they are trying to bait out your palm, but really. They are trying to make you hestiates to palm them so they can occasionally FADC in and catch you off guard. Let’s face it, FADC dash in is not possible to react with a palm. MP have too slow a start up and LP too small a range. So they will use that to their advantage. They MIGHT look like they are just trying to punish you, but in reality their objective is to shove you to a corner.
As Gouken:
Don’t let them get in. You are much more mobile, and you have a decent corner escape ( Air Tatus) that he can’t actually catch if you time it right. Go into training room and practice. There is a specific spacing where his green hand just won’t reach you in time by the time you land. You can frustrates the hell out of him, and even bait him to natural jump so you can dash forward and EX tatus the hell out of him. In this game. The key is to make him try to stop you from escaping. In my opinion, Zangief beats Gouken on wake up game, on mix up game. on footise, and even on rush down. The only thing you beat him is mobility. Once you get close (but not directly in there) to corner, try and get out. They will learn after a few times that they are suppose to stop you. When they start trying to stop you, it is time to make them guess. If they get impatient and jump forward, you can punish his jump in by normal. If they natural jump headbutt, you can just NOT tatus and punish them on landing. If you get out. Well, you get tons of space to chip him again. This lame tactic give you an overall edge.
I personally don’t think they have an answer to that. If you combine with some air Parry to beat his anti-air to force him to block more instead of ANTI-air you everytime on some dire situation, you can get the match slightly in your favor.
I think it is absolutely necessary to dash in and throw him to make him push buttons. Once he is pushing buttons you can play footsies with st.hp and st.mk and c.lk and fireballs.
Regular tatsu is just fine to escape, do it before the corner and jump at him and tatsu over him, 90% of giefs will lariat to AA you as you sail over them. If they stop doing that, then jump in and pressure him.
A bulldogging gief who pushes no buttons will walk you into the corner in no time flat. A bulldogging gief who can react to fireballs with EX hand will walk you there without even taking any chip barely.
It’s essential to dash and throw him to let him know that relentlessly walking backward is not your entire gameplan.
That is a good point. It is certainly necessary to play footise with him. However in general Zangief have better footise ( his standing lp have waaaay more range and faster then anything you have. So is his mp and sweep.) so I think it is necessary to do things to even the odd out.
The key to Zangief is stay away. Any Gouken special other than fireball (including neutral/forward throw) knocks the opponent to the opposite end of the screen. Tatsu, palm.
If I want to be sure he’s pushed away after a green hand, I either ex tatsu, or cr.jab xx lp.palm.
The only trouble I have with Zangief players is when they not only pick Ultra 2, they’re actually good at using it. You can’t even back dash.
Cr.mk xx hk.tatsu…this will beat all green hands on block and does in the neighborhood of 250 damage. In the rare instance that the cr.mk whiffs due to spacing, your tatsu does not come out.
Cr.mk is my new favorite friend in this match. Beats all his jumps except ones outside range (btw: never let gief jump for free…trade is better than him landing into spd), and punishes his green hands mightily. This one move makes his options for forward movement very, very limited. Thanks to this I’ve learned to be more comfortable at a much closer range…INSIDE his green hand range. This is the real key…stay closer to Gief, not further. Ideally, you want to be no more than two training blocks away and you want to bait the shit out of him. Incorporate all the stuff in this thread with your cr.mk punishes and you are going to make Gief very uncomfortable with this match up.
Been working on this matchup in training mode and I think it might actually be in Gouken’s favor. Found out that after any sweep you do, either from playing footsies or in a combo you can dash and do a lk demonflip kick/throw and it beats all of Zangiefs options. The dash lk demonflip kick will stuff both lariats resulting in a full combo. You can also mix it up with demonflip throw. The timing of the dash is perfect enough that you can throw him out of both lariats and ex green hand at most distances unless you’re pointblank range. If he blocks your lk demonflip kick you can make it into a true blockstring by using cl.mk and then backdash. Any other button you can reversal spd you (if you cancel into lp palm he can punish you by jab spd). Zangief won’t be able to ultra II you either as the demonflip kick hits meaty. If zangief backdashes the lk demonflip kick will catch him.
If you decide to use demonflip throw and it sucessfully lands you can do another lk demonflip kick and it will stuff all lariats. If you decide to do another demonflip throw it will be beaten by lariat at this distance. Gief will be able to dash out of the way also.
You can also start a similar offense from forward throw. Forward throw, Dash, cr.lp, mk demonflip kick/throw puts you in the same situation as described above. The best Zangief can do is focus backdash but if you’re hit confirming use cl.mk and it will come out before he can do any reversals.
edit: ex-green hand escapes the lk demonflip kick but will be tagged by the demonflip throw.
I think after these tips, the only way Gief wins is
- if he gets a close knockdown and you guess wrong on wake up too many times
- he baits you rather than vice versa
There is one Gief player out there that comes to mind that always seems to manage to pull off both 1 and 2…bbq camel lips(PSN). Dude just runs over me. Other than him, most Giefs are pretty manageable.