Challenge - Bison is safe on most normals and specials. His ability to keep the pressure on is very thick, especially with his long range pokes and strong normals. Bison’s flame traps are very dangerous as almost any connected hit can become a combo.
Focus - Bison has a slow walk speed. He relies on his specials or his dash to get in. Scissor kick is generally safe, but not positive for Bison. When you block this poke back in case you can get a hit / counter hit. If Bison does any aerial move you can stop it with air to air attacks. j.mk and j.mp are both strong for this. Bison can also go for a dash, as this gives him the best opportunity to close the distance into a mix up. His dash is 22 frames, so you have a lot of time to react to it. His dash has some invulnerable properties so it’s important to counter it right. f.mp has 4 active frames, making it a strong move to grab him out of his dash before he can attack.
Strike - Bison does not have any wakeup options, so when you get him down, keep him there. His best move is to EX Head Stomp to excape, but this is much different then a srk. Resets and mixups can convert to big damage. Beware of his resources though, as a CA can turn your pressure into big damage for him, so watch his meter and bait it out.
OP: I saw in another character discussion they did a thread dedicated to each character match up. I think this is a good idea as we can put our ideas per character in a single place.
So I did some great plays today, and won maybe 9 of 13 matches. 2 losses were to Bison so he’s on my mind…
What can be done about this guy? What’s the strategy, what’s the punishes, what’s the game plan?
Please share.
I think my biggest frustration is I feel I can’t punish anything he does. What are the main openings to look for? Which are the trickiest frame traps to just block / tech through?
If you’re a SFV player, you prob know Bison is stupid strong. He’s safe on HK(and I believe cr. HP or something).
Basic gameplan is to knock him down since his wakeup sucks, even if he v-reversals I think you can just grab him(among other things) out of it.
On wakeup you can pretty much do whatever u want, but f. HP is a good option, as always.
Scissors being punishable depends what strength their using…Heavy Scissors Kick is the most advantageous(WTF???).
Obviously you can grab him out of the air w/ wingless if he’s doing that kind of crap, but a good Bison will sit there and wait for you.
I don’t have a ton of Bison experience but I think ex clothesline is good to try to get in, but he just does SO MUCH DAMAGE and your peaches are very frail. If you don’t guess right you’re dead.
PS: I was also informed he gets some kind of automatic crossup by a bison I was dueling, so there’s that.
It’s also the slowest start-up of his kicks at 19f (-2 on block).
Generally you can consider most of Bison’s normals to be neutral or better on block (the ones that aren’t tend to be difficult to punish). My gameplan (as limited as it is) against dictator is to keep him out. Like most of the cast, he doesn’t have much in the way of ground-to-ground openers, so it’ll eventually boil down to standard footsies once he’s in your face. From longer ranged footsies (apart from slide and scissors) he has s.mk and df.hp both of which are effectively safe on block (s.mk is -2, so there’s room for a challenge).
He’s frame-trap heavy with good links and amazing counter conversions, but his mobility (sans-VT) is either ridiculously slow or very punishable - his dash lasts fully 22 frames so you should be able to get pretty good at punishing raw dash-forward attempts.
As with most floaty characters, your air-to-air tool of choice should be either j.mk or j.mp - Mika’s j.mp is pretty amazing for air-to-air.
I’m working on keeping him out when it’s his turn; my turn is about getting him into the corner. Personally, I find his pressure game difficult to deal with at point-blank (non-corner) and work to keep him having to play at Mika’s s.mk range.
I’ve found great success in countering teleports with irish whip. It has a 6 frame startup and 4 active frames so you get enough time to react and it won’t go through the teleport like some jabs do. And since Mika gets so much from Irish Whip you can punish Bison hard and keep him from doing raw teleports again.
Bisons don’t have much ways to open you up, just block his pressure and punish his dashing and jumping. His walk speed and wakeup is awful so if you get him in the corner with knockdown you can usually do enough damage even if you get pushed out or straight up win. Watch his V meter and you can do st.lp on his wakeup into command throw, it’ll beat V reversal every time (this works on most of the cast btw, even nash with his V reversal teleporting behind). st.lp into regular throw is also good if you expect him to neutral jump so you can AA punish.
I don’t recommend doing many command throws on him in the beginning. Since he has no wakeup options besides V reversal he’ll be looking to get a neutral jump in on a whiffed command throw. Use regular throws and meaties until you have a feel he won’t neutral jump, or punish it if he does to keep him grounded.
I played a bison in my last tournament but it was off stream, otherwise I would’ve posted the match. I really don’t feel any threat playing bison in this because he has no EX psycho to worry about now.
Alright so I’ll practice wake up jab timing, so I can put him in wake up tick throw.
For his normals - you’re basically saying don’t bother contesting his buttons. Just wait that part out and either try to punish a dash or look for some other way to just get in yourself, such as your own dash in f.mp or something.
Just set up a dummy to practice against, but as @MrRoflRofl said, f.mp/b.mp is a good option due to the number of active frames. He’s only invulnerable during the middle of the dash.
That’s my plan - let him have his turn and just be wary of his knock-down mixups when he gets to his maximum footsie range.
He has nothing to stop a deep cross up j.lk so cross up j.lk, st.lk~mp, medium peach or j.lk, st.mp, f/b+mp works nicely. or if he blocks the cross up jp.lk you can just command grab him. or tick with j.lk, st.lk, command grab.
once you scare them they will usually try something reckless to get out of the corner or whatever situation you have them in, thats usually when the bison player will put themselves at full screen and try to keep you out with safe scissors, dash grab mixups, and what not. when that happens i just sit back and keep him away with st.mk.
where i have trouble is seeing his dash grab mixup i get bodied by his throw game -_-
Bison’s jump back mp (hell attack) is pretty nasty vs mika j lk as far as risk reward. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do j. lk EVER but it hurts. He definitely has something to stop a deep cross up. Unless you’re talking about a crossup so deep that no one can counter it i.e it’s near the ground because they are standing up into it. I train against many Bison players and I’ve learned to stop trying to jump over them with crossup lk because jumpback mp stuffs me many times.
Bison’s dash is sloooooooow. Stick Mika’s jab out there in his face. Mika has imo the best jab in the game. Not only is it 3 frames but it has a good reach. You don’t need to deal with his dash/throw or dash/s. hk bullshit. Just swipe your hands out. In fact, stuff him with a jab then command grab sometimes, he won’t expect that and will eat it. Kinda like sf4 Zangief when you s. mp a Balrog out of a dash punch then SPD them.
Further to this, I think there’s some merit in f/b.mp against his dash due to the horizontal coverage of the hitbox and the number of active frames. Obviously, it requires an earlier reaction than s.lp.
Absolutely. In fact if you have the reactions for that you might as well just do s. mp, f+mp since he’s dashing right into you anyway and get the big punish. Only thing is there is that even though his dash is slow, there are those invuln frames as he disappears/reappears in the middle of the dash, whereas just mashing jab won’t have that problem.
IMO this is one case where just mashing jab is a good idea. It’s pretty easy to confirm it too. I’m not the greatest at s. lp, s. lp x qcf+lp (qcf+pp) confirms but I do it against bison dashes pretty often. Since I seem to run into Bisons so often I’ve actually done s. lp, s, lp xx super in response to dashes more than once and surprised myself.
You might have that problem, depending whether you were mashing jab at the right frequency lol. The reason I like f+mp better for this is because it’s slower than s.mp (actually preferable because it’s less likely to whiff through invuln dash frames) and has more active hit frames.
s.mp is 5 startup, 3 active, so you’re threatening an active hitbox on frames 5-8, and then nothing from there forward. Also, even if s.mp hits, there is a chance the spacing is such that you can’t link into any other normal follow ups, and are only at options to link EX Peach or CA.
f+mp, on the other hand, is 6 startup and 4 active frames, so you’re threatening an active hitbox on frames 6-10. You get one more active frame, and the frames are later in the move, meaning invuln is less likely to be an issue. Also, spacing is not an issue anymore because you’ll go straight into the PP follow up on hit and be in a great position.
I think f+mp has better properties for stopping the dash aggro, and also gives a better reward if successful. However, f+mp’s advancing forward movement can be a blessing and a curse. If the Bison has the read on your f+mp spacing, it’s a little easier for them to whiff punish you or try for a CC. s.mp is a lower risk button, but is less effective at stuffing the dash and potentially also less rewarding.
