Old Vega Matchup Thread

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
441

viper is a great matchup for vega if you play it right, the name of the game here is pressure, this is one of his few matchups that i play hardcore rushdown, heres what i do and the reason why

stay within cr. mp distance all game use cr. mp, st. fp, st. rh, and cr. mk as your primary pokes, she isnt going to outpoke you but she does have thunder knuckle, but you can always hit her out of it because of its slow start up, so go poke happy she cant stop it, if she begins to FA your pokes use st. rh from a bit closer ( it will hit twice )

feel free to throw out block strings and footsies all day, shes not going to interupt it with anything, use everything you have to get in close which shouldnt be hard, watch for seismos which should be flipped out of so you can dash forward and throw her after she HJCs and trys for a burning kick, also depending on which version of burning kick she does and how far forward she goes sometimes you can do a df. rh combo of your choice

once in keep the pressure on her, she cant get you out of her face without using meter, and by then youve dealt more then enough damage to make up for an ex burning kick, tick throws are great in this matchup ( and every other matchup ), mix up your block strings with cr. lps in different amounts into throw or df. rh cr.lp throw, just vary it and youll land every throw on her

get her to the corner, use cr. lpx3 xx RCF to push her to the wall, if you need to do it 5 times in a row to get her cornered do it, this combo is very safe against viper, she can only jump over the RCF if she blocks, and if she starts doing that jump up after the cr. lps and throw her

ST should be used to end combos in this matchup, all AA should be handled by air throw because of burning kicks ability to change her trajectory, also dont try and st. rh burning kick youll get beat out 9/10 times and you get knocked down

when viper has ultra you need to watch out a little bit, ex seismo can get you in trouble but you can stuff it every time if your agressive, she can land her ultra after hitting you with a j. rh which is scary, or after an ex thunder knuckle ( which you shouldnt get hit by ) basically you’ll be fine if you stay agressive

stay on the offense because hers is technically better, if you dont let her get going she isnt gonna be effective, viper is not a defensive powerhouse and vega has every tool he needs to expose that

442

^Wow, that was alot of extremely useful info all at once, same goes to BeautifulViolence. Thanks, alot.:wgrin: Good to know this seems to be one matchup where RCF can actually be very useful.

443

rcf is great against runaway akuma, if he jumps and air fireballs and you anticapate it you can nail him every time

and its great for pushing people to corners, its risky and shouldnt be used on characters with a dragon punch too often but vega can do work in the corner so i like to use it a lot

444

^Yeah, I’ve also discovered the useful-ness of FADC-ing out of RCF into a grab. Helps alot in tight situations. :wgrin:
EDIT: On a side note, I just noticed how unbearably difficult Abel can be. I was sparring with an XBL friend of mine who mains Abel, and though I managed to win one match out of the 4 we played(and always win at least 2 rounds in a five round match) it was infuriating. Once he scores a knock down I’m basically his little spanish bitch unless he makes a glaring mistake. I managed to catch him with wake up EX Scarlet Terror a few times, but this was the exception to the rule. Generally, he’d stand over me charging FA, I’d try to KKK flip the hell out of there on wake-up. This worked for a while till he caught on, and began to FADC once I flipped and grab me before I could recover. It sucks because it seems like backflipping is the only viable way to get the fuck out of there, but once I did I tended to get punished just the same. If I didn’t backflip, he’d cross me up before I had a chance to do a thing about it. It’s a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Oh, and don’t get me started on trying to topple a good Bison player with the spaniard. :wasted:

445

I am surprised you guys still think vega beats fuerte. I would really love an explanation for that one. If fuerte knocks down vega you’ll never get up again without a pretty healthy dose of luck. The advice for the matchup in this thread is way way off. The bit about using the Kx3 backflip to try to escape is pretty much the exact opposite of what you should do, unless you like to autodizzy yourself. Against weaker vegas all I do is scare them into backflipping so that I can see how many fierces I can fit into one combo after I dizzy them with the first 4. It’s just like punishing bison or dhalsim teleporting away from you, just slower and more obvious where vega is going.

446

Another pretty funny thing about Viper: If you block the initial hit (seismic thingy) in her ultra, you can stop her from doing the rest of it by sliding.

I’m not sure what value that has, but it’s really funny to slide into dust and end up knocking her down since i can’t see her.

447

I have to say, I agree with you. Even without the RSF loop (which I still can’t reliably do past two repetitions), I don’t find Vega to be anything worse than an even match. Backflips really aren’t a threat, and EX Run works wonders in this matchup.

448

i think with all the new fuerte knowledge the match up is probly even

449

%100 truth, I learned the hard way during some heated matches with a Fuerte user.

450

the feurte match up gets ended by one thing and thats st. rh, shuts down his habanero dash all day and then you can do what every vega user is good at and poke him to death

451

i added u online. lets play

452

How about Rufus vs Vega? I’m convinced this one is at a minimum 6-4 in Rufus’ favor because his dive kick spam pretty much stuffs a sweaty, fungusy, fat foot in your mouth all day for free.

453

agreed. but im working on making it even with sum strategies

my vega vs. blanka is even in my opinion.

i jus played a good blanka player and after i knocked him down i was hovering over hi,… expecting him to some dumb blanka shit… and he ultra’d.

in my mind i was like shit ima get raped. but i embraced the power of backdash and escaped to like midscreen and punished his ultra accordingly.

454

I know I’m going to regret this but I haven’t had any problems with Blanka at all - ever since I learned how to fight him it’s been pretty smooth sailing.

J.fierce stuffs a lot of his tricks on wake up and you can always EX wall dive punish a blanka ball - I have issues with his cute little ambiguous crossup rainbow ball but for the most part he seems reasonable.

Sure I lose sometimes but it’s nothing like the rape I usually get - but something tells me I’m playing really scrubby Blanka’s who shouldn’t even be that high up on the BP and that’s why he doesn’t seem so bad.

A lot of the top characters get high up on char strength alone and don’t have a lot of skill - my biggest ass whoopings come from irregulars like Guile, Chun, Cammy, Gouken, etc.

I may lose to Gief/Shoto/Fagat but it’s never because they just straight up outplay me - they’re usually pretty typical and I mess up.

455

Jump straight RH and Jump back FP are your friends. As per Dreadz.

Jarekov posted some good info round here someplace for Rufus…

http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=182746

Post 22.

456

Ok I read all that and it was basically “get ready for a sweaty fist shoved up your ass, Rufus rapes you” :lol:

457

Abel’s currently my toughest matchup, it can get insane. Though I already covered that in a previous post.

458

lol, actually i think vega is probably even in this matchup, vega has to worry about 2 things one is making mistakes that can be punished with a combo, and two is cr. fp which shuts down your poking game, but you can FA cr. fp and crumple him which will make him stop using it

so the only thing you have to worry about is making your own mistakes, his overhead isnt comboable so your play determines the winner

also, i have some new insights on matchup since my vega knowledge has gotten much better since i posted that

Air throw is your best tool in this matchup, rufus starts his best combos off of falcon kicks and j. rh rh, rufus is going to jump alot because on the ground he can NOT get in, so always watch for his jump and be ready to jump up and air throw, triangled falcon kicks can be hard but you just need to throw earlier, and really close to ground triangled falcon kicks you can just block or hit him out of with st. rh

ST beats jesus kick clean every time ( use lk version ill explain why later )

poke him every time he galactic tornados youll hit him out of it, hes going to try and do GT to get in after you air throw him 10 times in a row when he jumps and when you stuff all his GT’s he gonna try to do df. mk ( the rufus roll ) block it and throw him if he starts teching your throws then cr. lpx3 RCF his fat ass

use footsies alot when youve got him thinking “im not gonna jump on vega”, easiest one that fits this gameplan is cr. mk st. rh your gonna use this because of the stun value

watch for him to cr. fp, this beats almost all your pokes and you want to be reactive with your poking in this match because of it, when you see it FA and crumple, if he gets crumpled twice i dont think hes gonna use it again, on crumple if you have meter go for df. rh lk ST ex ST ( once again for stun value ) if you dont have meter df. rh into lk ST is fine and still deals good stun

only scary thing rufus can do is EX jesus kick, its got wicked priority and can lead into his ultra if he has 2 bars left over, so be careful with your spacing, you can flip out of second hit to punish with throw or ex flying barcelona

rufus does not have any tools without meter to keep you out, so when he doesnt have meter use the above strategies to go for a dizzy, thats right rushdown rufus when he doesnt have meter, just trust me on this ive dizzied rufus’ almost everytime they dont have meter one FA df. rh lk ST ex ST is worth 700 stun add that in to patentes footsie combo twice and you have a stunned and dumbfounded pig tits

thanx to patente for the footsie combo

now fellow vegas go out and beat the hell out of everyones favorite fatty

459

I played a couple matches vs some good Abels. It was pretty even because I didn’t know the matchup, and basically got romped on the first 2 rounds, and then adapted for the last 3.
Rushdown doesn’t seem likea good idea because of Abel’s EX’s. Grab will catch you similar to gief, punch will absorb a poke, roll will get him away. Even then, Abel is a CQC-type character anyway, so getting close to him will go in his favor. I haven’t been outpoked by him, but on the rare occasion I get traded, I’d take pretty much all the chip I accumulated from my rushdown.
I think slow and steady is the way to go vs. Abel. Stay around mid range, but keep him on guard. Sort of like a rushdown tactic with more emphasis on spacing. You’ve got the reach advantage.
If he EX punches, block and punish/continue rush, but grab if he stops early.
If he rolls, just grab him out of it.
Try to keep db charge as often as possible, scarlet terror is actually very useful in this match, as I’ve been able to beat Crack Shoe, poke, punches, and jump attempts with it. And if you can keep this up and leave him out of range, he can’t do much against you. Definitely easier said than done though.

460

with abels change of direction if you block it you can FA before second hit for a crumple stun every time, but good abels wont throw it out randomly, but good abels might mess up a combo here and their so keep that in mind

ST is huge in this matchup as rizhall stated, if you can hit him with it and hes trying to do something its always safe to use it and you will always nail him

really good abels take advantage of his nasty resets, so be alert when fighting him because alot of his combos can be ended in cr. hp cr. lp reset tornado throw, watch for the reset and be ready to flip out of it when you land, mix this up with jump back fierce to catch him chasing your flip

thats the beutiful thing about vega in this match his resets are a lot less effective due to flip and jump back fierce

all your pokes should be beating his with ease so mid range is a nice place to sit

if abel marsailles rolls in front of you sweep, sweep has alot of active frames and unless he EX tornado throws youll knock him down, if he rolls behind you back dash to avoid the TT or COD, if he keeps rolling around to build meter, just j. fp where he lands and start sweeping him

most of his offence comes from cr. mp so your most important normal this match will be cr. mk, use it alot and if you have charge and it hits use ST if not then st. rh works well too and is better so you can stay mobile and bait out pokes

overall be carefull here and stay in your sweet spot, which is midrange where a ST can connect and beat everything he has

this match is probably considered even but i think vega can take it 6-4 all day because he really shuts down resets unless abel guesses right every time, and abels damage outside of TT is piss poor, and i dont see him landing it on a poke happy vega unless its off a reset