If you’re on the ground you can attempt an airthrow or ,even better, simply backdash and he’ll land in front of you and you can kick him with a df+HK.
Take to the air and throw him.
This is easier if you are jumping back, timing is a bit trickier if you are jumping forward. Or you can simply walk backwards and he will land in front of you. Punish and enjoy!
I can’t remember who posted this originally.
I suppose you have to jump backwards a tad? Because every time I jump straight up and go for the throw he lands the stomp 
you can dash back and throw him when he lands, or df. rh
if you jump prefeclty you can air throw
I posted the original Bison request because I got beaten so badly from the stupid stump before.
I don’t really have a problem with bison lately anymore ha. If i do lose it is when i lose to a superior ground work from a good Bison.
Regarding SHC, good opponent always jumps back and do a roundhouse kick in the air whenever they see me jumping to a wall. Since both fba and shc start off by flying to a wall, his response of jumping back actually takes care of both attacks. If they are aggressive, they can jump forward and attack, which has a chance to be stuff but most of the time, vegas don’t extend claws out half way cross the screen (coz in normal situations if u release claws too early you wont’ hit ground opponent at all and just land to be a sitting duck). Jumping forward with an attack can be stuffed if you know that is what they do and extend claws out immediately after u get off the wall from flying barcelona attack. Jumping back with roundhouse however, cannot be punished at all and always beat your fba as long as he does it right. This tactic wastes all your wall attacks, including ultra and super. it also minimizes the risk of ex-fba because if you hit him with an ex-fba, you are both against the wall and most likely you can’t izuna drop or even claw him.
yeah bisons air attacks are brutal all his air moves have wicked priority and huge hit boxes, my suggestion is to not use FBA outside of its ex version to end combos, you can beat bison on the ground and thats the only way imo but you have to be able to outpoke him and occasionally ramp up the pressure on him
his main poke is st. mk it has slightly less range then your st. mp but it comes out very fast and outprioritizes your moves badly, but if you dance in and out of its range you can punish a whiff with st. mp, also if he gets overly poke happy with it and you can find a time to charge a rh ST on reaction always catches him for good damage
when you need to get aggressive on him cr. lp is your best friend, spammed cr. lps at the right distance reck bisons shit, he cant do anything about it cr. mk doesnt come out quick enough to interupt it and hes left open to tick throws and RCF pushes into the corner, tick throw the hell out of him by mixing up your cr. lp block strings, then when he tries to tech your throw and your jab hits him ex FBA attack for good damage
blocked sciccor kicks can be kara thrown every time also, which is really nice against bisons who like to keep you stuck in long block strings and other bs
head stomp and devils reverse both get handled by back dashing as soon as you see one come out, from their when he lands you can either kara throw or df. rh, a well timed jump will put you over him to air throw his stomp but if he does a devils reverse your screwed
dont jump around like an idiot in this match all of his jumping attacks rape yours, stay grounded and do work
Awesome pointers, I will definitely try to stay on the ground a bit more during this matchup and see if that helps.
Not to mention he can potentially combo you into ultra if you stay in the air a lot.
i find myself doing much better when i am on the offense, so i have been more offensive than defensive than anything lately.
However, I always find myself a bit lack of creativity when it comes to keeping the pressure on since many shotos have such great wake up game that can stuff your attacks. I have been using rcf to keep the pressure on and it seems to be working well. but still upper cut style attacks stuff any pokes. and in many videos i see, it seems like people are generally using poke and st mk to keep pressure on, but is that really all we have.
meaty rcf is good on non shoto characters, its basically free chip on them, but never do it on a shoto cuz youll just get srkd for free
vega doesnt have great options on an opponents wake up but you can always play mind games, walk right over them and df. rh to switch sides and then go into cr. lp if you do it right youll cross them as their standing, you can also df. rh outside of the range were it goes over them and go into cr. lp, ive had some good success with this its not a 50/50 mixup but hell if it works once its doing something
try and bait attacks out, stand over them and mix up between a back dash ( or flip ), a back jumping fierce, or a throw, this makes them guess what your going to do, if they block they get thrown, if they srk they whiff and get punished, if they try and dash to throw you on your flip recovery they get clawed… this forces them to do something which is keeping the pressure on them
for my wake up, I like to:
Fake Grabbing, either Jump back Fierce or Jump straight up RH
Fake Grabbing, sweep
Fake a sweep, slowly walk up and Grab / jb fierce
Make the grab obvious, trying to fool my opponent into thinking I WON’T grab because I’m making it so obvious, then actually grab them
Like Jarekov said, it’s all about Mind Games. Fuck around with some patterns, I destroyed a Gouken today simply because every time he’d get up I’d hit him with what he least expected. Using the Mind Games to your strength makes wake up really great with Vega, what with the inclusion of jb fierce and Vega’s high mobility. Corpse hopping with df. rh also fucks with them even more, Tick throws with Piece of Mercury are also amazing.
ahahahaha and Also I got perfected by a Bison yesterday, I didn’t really care though, he put me right in the corner and basically turned on No Way Out Mode, I couldn’t do fuck all, he just took me to town. lmao, stunned me and everything. I swear, no one puts on the pressure like Bison and with Vega’s shitty reversal game it’s seriously a free victory for the Bison once he puts you in the corner. Jump straight up RH, low pokes + light scissor kick, the occasional unexpected throw… He’d always maintain a good distance, then when he knew I thought it was safe to wall jump out, he’d make me pay. jb fierce is also tough to pull out since Bison’s jumping fierces beat it clean (i think, or at least I get out prioritized since his attack is coming out faster). I guess the key to fighting Bison is; if you put yourself in the corner, you’re dead. STAY AWAY FROM THE CORNERS!!! Stick to the middle of the screen at all times, bait some headstops and punish with throws, and maybe put on a bit of offense yourself (careful with Bisons meter, if he has EX he might EX scissor kick reversal you) Once Bison gets momentum, focus on surviving the block string pressure rather than running away, because if you’re not paying attention Bison will make sure you have no safe way of getting past him, and he’ll just push you into the corner. Also, avoid air to air confrontations with Bison as you’ll eat Hell Attack – EX Scissor or worse, ultra.
sometimes the moment is unstoppable once a character takes control, vega is the same in that regard. I think i have done too many right in their face air grabs unexpectedly they probably thought they had no way out or i was really good lol. But really it was just my momentum rush is at play. when you are in control it seems that they are always following 1 step behind on the moves and getting punished no matter what they do. I just wish vs bison blanka and some other heavy hitters we dont’ dazy so easily so that we still have a slight chance at reverse the situation.
i hear ya, getting dizzied when you haven’t been beaten on that hard really sucks… takes the wind right out of you. then your mask falls off, etc.
I know the thread says the only way to viably punish balrog on a jump in is when he is standing.
I was wondering if anyone has found some good bait moves or other moves to get him to break charge so you can get a jump in before buffalo head has time to charge?
just another note, not sure if this applies to vega, but vs. Gief’s PPP spam, a well placed jump in can actually stuff it. I was using Gief vs a Gen, and he stuffed my PPP everytime with a right in the middle jump in. Seems like if you can hit right in the middle on his head, u wont’ get hit by the lariat. I am wondering if the jump in fierce in the head has the same effect. Or it is character to character basis since every move has different priorty. So maybe theory wise it works but due to that reason, in real fights it is actually different.
lk scissors is neutral on block, would kara throw beat a cr.lk? I’m also skeptical about the range, I usually play abel and if spaced right a jab cmd throw can be out of range.
Yep, I’ve had success with both Jumping Fierce & Jumping Roundhouse. Of course, the 100% safe route for a Lariat is to just hit him with a Slide, but obviously that nullifies the combo opportunity.
I actually love fighting Zangief now. I used to hate him, but once you figure out his tricks and know what to stay away from, the matchup becomes quite simple. The only frustrating part about it is that you have to play near perfect the whole match, otherwise you’ll eat an EX-SPD or even worse, an Ultra and kiss 3/4 your health goodbye.
If anybody is having trouble with the matchup I’m more than willing to help… hit me up.
It is interesting to see how when play style progress some matchups change as well, and many fights which i found to be fair or easy suddenly become harder than before. I guess when you get out of your comfort zone and try new things for a long term benefit, you realized how hard it is to actually implement them into your game play naturally. I used to just stay cr and do scarlet terror and i actually win more than now because I tried to assault and counter than just being completely defensive. Of course vs gief, trying new things usually means death. Lately because of that and also more better gief surfaces, i actually lose most of the fights sigh.
Now if i can incorporate FA better, i think i can push myself toward 4.5k range. oi…
LOL so true.
Honestly though, I find that Focus Attacks really aren’t that useful in Zangief match-ups. Most of the instances where you’d use a Focus Attack, Gief can just counter with a throw. Also remember that he has pretty quick pokes, if needed he can just poke you out of it, which makes it a little tricky finding times to incorporate them into your game.