Actually, it’s a combination of the two strategies that you should use, in general. When I first started playing, I was scared to death of Tager. lol. Looking at the general ratios, I thought the more experienced Rachel players that were posting them were batshit insane. However, quite a bit of practice (especially against Tagers with GTs: AxisTheBeast, CommanderofTroy, and Tofu Demon) - and I do mean a bit of practice, the basic ideas given as strats in the Rachel v Tager match definitely hold up.
What I tend to do is pressure > zoning, though depending on how you play you can do the reverse. It’s true that Tager can sledge through your projectiles - whether they be pumpkin or lobelia in nature. So, when you are playing the zoning game, only use your wind + pumpkin to bait and/or punish. J236a is your friend from full screen distance; super jump 214b followed by 236a/b/c depending on where Tager is will help you still play some zone while being too high to get hit by Sparkbolt.
When you are on the ground and have summoned your pumpkin (whether you keep the pumpkin at ground level or jump and summon it first) just let it float there and use your lobelias to bait sledges. Depending on how close the Tager is, you can either punish the sledge recovery with a winded pumpkin + rush in combo or, if he’s close enough, fork (6b) counterhit for even better damage.
I use the above only after pressure combos that leave me at a distance from Tager, though. I usually start the match with IAD ja, ja, jb, j2c, jc - which is usually blocked - and then a super jump air dash, j2c, jc to continue the pressure/land cross up and combo. If Tager is blocking, you work his guard libra. If he starts back dashing to avoid your ground strings on follow up, keep the pressure up as long as you can with air dashes and delayed ja or j2c,jc.
Remember to delay your 236b lobelia on the ground against Tager so that you have a chance at sword iris or BBL upon hit.
Ahh… following that, you can throw out George for fun, or jump/super jump 236a to force the Tager to deal with yet another seed flying in his face.
When he’s across the screen and has Sparkbolt, do your best to either bait it by playing run away, or stay up in the air to hopefully get him jittery and send the nasty projectile under you.
Be very wary of Magna Tech Wheel during pressure, though! That’s what always gets me killed vs. Axis. Too much pressure when not paying attention to a Tager meter is a bad thing. ^_^;
If you get him in the corner from one of your combos, you can actually frog combo him to some extent with a dash in 2b or 5b, 236a, but I tend to prefer letting him fall and delaying the frog to go for IAD/super jump IAD j2c,jc cross ups.
It is definitely a good match up for Rachel… you just have to play her smart. =B