SSF4 AE C.Viper Match-up Thread

[Ryuga]

Told you I’d get it done, heheh. If I’ve missed anything or there are issues, please let me know. Credit goes to the players from the previous thread.

Abel

[details=Spoiler]Abel

-Rolls can be thrown
-His Wheel Kick can be beaten out by HP TK
-Burning Kick can’t be grabbed by Tornado Throw, so light Burning Kick can be used to snuff Tornado Throw attempts from up close.

*When Abel gets within sweep range of you start using your c.MP’s/c.MK’s/c.HP’s and MP knuckles. Use stuff with quick start up and stuff that can lead to combos and zone well. Abel is not Ryu. His footsies are not awesome and his best footsies are all basically light attacks that don’t combo into anything unless he has a lot of meter and can hit confirm them. He isn’t Rog where every c.LP leads to free knockdown and beats all ur shit. Just start throwing at least c.MP’s at him and get some kind of spacing and pressure going. Your c.MP or c.MK does more damage than his c.LP’s or s.LK’s and you can even try to score counter hits. Mainly because if you score a counter hit you can combo your c.MP or c.MK into EX seismo or just generally get more time to hit confirm into MP knuckle. From a distance Viper has more ways to set up damage than Abel. Abel has to kinda play more of a guessing game at longer ranges to set up damage while you actually have real footsie tools to set up damage.

You CANNOT fight Abel without MP knuckle. Sure MP knuckle takes 18 frames to become active but the hit box for it is huge so it will beat a lot of things Abel tries. From a distance it can beat wheel kicks and most of his standing normals. Some Abel players like to charge up focus to bait shit from a distance as well so you can just use MP knuckle to fuck that over too. Since Abel doesn’t have a dragon punch or footsies that lead to huge damage you can just kinda use MP knuckle at will to stop his light attack and focus attack spam. Then if he gets smart and starts trying to roll or jump you can reaction AA him or throw him out of the roll attempt. You can mix this up with feints to scare him into doing risky shit.

Also when you have Abel in the corner use more LK burn kicks. Abel doesn’t have much of an answer for well placed LK burn kicks in the corner. This match isn’t in your favor but it obviously isn’t your worst match either. Its a matchup where Viper can play real solid footsies and doesn’t need to seismo much so you can actually play more like a traditional SF character in this match. Basically set a lot of your C.Viper stuff to the side in this match and focus more on basics. Seismos aren’t bad once in a while for pressure but that’s all you really need them for. Once the Abel player starts rolling just forget them unless you have EX seismo.*-DevilJin01

*Abel is actually an even match for Viper. Neither one really dominates the other. Abel wins if he gets a successful knockdown since Viper is ass on wakeup. But Abel loses to great tk spacing by Viper. Once you space him correctly, it will be easier to jump in on some laggy normal he throws out.

Moreover, try and resist the urge of burn kicking from about half screen to 3/4ths screen unless you’re going backwards. Wheel kicks will stuff you whole around 65-75% of the time, giving Abel an untechable knockdown. Super Jumping straight up and burn kicking can beat it, but the timing is really funky to be practical. Also, EX dp grab will grab you out of all BK’s (high, instant, floating, all of them), so sometimes in situations where you would burn kick, do a meaty forward + mp to bait the EX air grab out then punish with cr. mp xx mp tk/ultra.

Also try to throw all rolls near you on reaction. The are throwable all day, so try and throw as many that you can see. On an untechable knockdown, dash up instant burn kick acts as an auto bait for a roll as you recover in time for throw. Seismo feints can sometimes also bait rolls as well.

Seismo xx tk feint is pretty good in this match as well. Also be wary of when Abel has ultra since you can’t Seismo him as often because of it.* -CoosCoos

*Abel is a slippery guy with useful moves that can counter Viper’s pressure really well. Plus he earns his living off that cross-up jump MK, and we all know Viper has a tough time dealing with cross-ups.

If he knocks down, prepare for some ugly mix-ups: cross-up into crouch HP, into standing HP, into crouch MP into change of direction, land into Tornado Throw, tick into Tornado Throw, EX Tornado Throw…the list goes on, and they all hurt.

Reversal EX Burning Kick can get Viper outta there, though. But if you miss the timing, you’re gonna get hurt.

Standing jab, Puts him right next to you, where you want him.* - The Lone Dragon[/details]

Akuma

Spoiler

Akuma/Gouki

-He can be Seismoed out of his ground fireballs(will not work from max range however.)His landing recovery after an air fireball can be punished with Seismo. Light Thunder Knuckle can go under air fireballs and Ex Thunder Knuckle can go under and punish poor spaced air fireballs from a distance if timed well.

• Forward Jump+Roundhouse can beat his Demon Flips.

-If predicted, his backwards teleport can be punished by a well timed super jump-in combo or EX Thunder Knuckle.

-Light Thunder Knuckle can go under Akuma’s forward+roundhouse(double kick.) Crouch blocking will usually make the second hit whiff against Viper, and can be punished.

[media=youtube]8aTKBVvnO5w[/media]

*"There’s really like no point for Akuma to rush in on Viper. His EX demon flip allows him to safely move towards her in an instant if he ever wants to but if he has a health lead he doesn’t need to do that either. That’s the main reason why the matchup is pretty even for both characters. Akuma does a great job staying away from Viper but if Viper catches him on one mistake she rapes his health hard on even the most basic of her combos. If she gets him in a situation to combo into her Ultra the game is pretty much done. At that point Akuma has zero health and Akuma’s abilities to set up raging demon on Viper are limited due to being able to LK/air LK burn kick on reaction to escape or punish any raging demon attempt. The matchup for Akuma is basically like fighting an extremely mobile Sagat minus having to deal with F + HK and tiger shot fireball wars. Unless Viper is knocked down or he’s planning an attack that will surely knock her down it’s not in his interest at all to go anywhere near her without a clear plan of action.

I don’t have a ton of experience on the matchup but from what I’ve seen it’s basically just stay back and try to MP/HP seismo punish him for his air fireballs from a distance and if he tries to demon flip you backdash out, vertical jump HK or reaction Ultra him if possible. You can also super jump burn kick, dash forward into MP knuckle or EX thunder knuckle air fireball attempts that aren’t super tight in spacing. Viper luckily has a lot of ways to punish air fireball attemps that half the cast can’t really deal with other than to sit there and block or play the fireball game with him.

If you do knock him down and are able to do a jump in on his wake up you have to pretty much assume Akuma is going to teleport or once in a blue moon try wake up demon. You have to be prepared for both and react accordingly to ever open up big damage on Akuma. If you can score knockdowns and then punish teleports or at least stay near him after the teleport he’ll be much easier to deal with. Next time you knock him down he’ll only have DP’s, focus attack and blocking to stay away from you at that point and Viper can take advantage of all of those easily.

I would say probably the hardest Akuma to deal with is one that can footsie well. At Evo we pretty much all figured out that shoto low forward is clearly the best poke in the game. If they’re not afraid to play a poking game with you, you have to be ready to react with the right counter. I’m still learning it all myself but it seems similar to most shotos. If he’s sticking out low forward specifically well timed that beats out a lot of what you have to offer. If he thinks you’re going to go for EX seismo to get him to move or punish a whiff he can just walk up to you and time it so it beats it before it comes out. Viper’s F + MP and LK burn kick I find are good for dealing with low forward footsies and forcing Akuma to do something different since that goes over all shoto low pokes. Then when you have him nervous about throwing low pokes you can set up your own c.MP/c.MK footsies and set up spacing for cross up burn kicks which sets up the knockdown mind games.

Akuma’s F + HK is also difficult since outside of far range Viper doesn’t have a lot to really deal with it other than crouch blocking or LP thunder knuckling under it. If you know it’s coming from a close distance and have 2 meters you can blow through it with HP knuckle and then FADC to protect yourself incase he blocks instead. Otherwise just block and try to tech, LK burn kick or backdash the eventual throw attempt during the block string."*

• DevilJin 01

"When you see them flip jump forward hk/hp or for a late reaction jump back. If they’re cancelling into them from normals can do the same or walk forward under the demon flip and thrw them on land. Also ex bk beats demon flip.-Candeisis[/details]

Balrog

[details=Spoiler]Balrog (Boxer)

-LP TK and low attacks beats Dash Upper and Dash Straight.

• His Ex Dash punches can be thrown out of.

• Reversal Headbutts on wake-up can be stuffed by lows with the exception of the EX Version.

*"Well the way you set up the damaging stuff vs. Boxer is to get him in bad situations on wake up or via burn kick pressure. You have to sort of remember that if you whiff a lp tk, you’re going to be in some hurt, as well as taking improper burn kick angles will get you hurt as well.

Also remember that you can throw all EX punches and TAP as well. This is very important that you practice this since it’s from about a little inside sweep range.

Your burn kick pressure will be useful in this match. The better it is, the easier the time you will have. The reason for this is that because of the constant crossing, it will cause the Boxer to continuously switch sides. And if he is continuing switching sides, that means he cannot consistently keep a back charge which is important. Also, when you have him in pressure, elbows keep him from having a down charge.

Try and not burn kick towards him at about half screen. Good Boxers can and will jump back hp you, or crouching hp you if you did the kick high. Sometimes during seismo chains, you can do Seismo xx lp/mp tk to inch closer to him, but it’s best to do this from about half to 3/4ths screen. About Seismos, if you can get him to land on seismos from when he jumps, it will be a lot of help to you.

Off of a hard knockdown, meaty cr. lk beats all reversal headbutts except EX which will go under it or you’ll recover in time to block IIRC. Also, I find that in this match, I go for a lot of quick rise situations. That’s because this is the easiest way to him into burn kick pressure, and eventually from the burn kick pressure, open him up to the ambiguous j. mk/hk for good damage.

And always respect the jabs. Try really hard to stay out of his jab range, and make sure you block when he’s got you in pressure. The best escapes I’ve found in this matchup are lk bk and hp tk xx fadc. Back dash also works, but do not abuse it. Good boxers will dash punch you if you try and escape.

On a back throw, or a cr. fierce xx ex seismo xx sjc fadc sweep combo, there is a way to set up a burn kick angle where should the Boxer try and escape with an EX dash punch, he will go the other way leaving him close to you for punishment. To set this up, try taking a slight step forward, then normal jump and lk burn kick.

Also, as mentioned getting just outside of of a max range jab dash punch lets you neutral jump and punish for big damage."* - CoosCoos

*"You can’t play a footsie game with Rog…because every button he has beats pretty much all of your buttons. He can pretty much choose a button and it beats what you have to offer normal wise. Jumping at him won’t do you much good because he’ll give you the Rufus treatment and c.HP or jump back HP you out of most anything. If you get knocked down…oh god you are so limited it’s dumb. I noticed what Uryo likes to do is start the round off by moving just close enough to Rog for him to want to dash punch at you and then baiting him insta super jump burn kick backwards and then you can catch him on the recovery with your burn kick landing on his head or if you fall away from him you can EX seismo or Ultra him.

This is one of those matches you can play the “brickhouse” game with though similar to Blanka since Viper does a pretty good job at least keeping Rog out for a while and that gives you time to sit on a health lead and gain momentum for later on to win the fight. The problem is it’s hard to mount any offense on Rog unless he makes a clear mistake or you otherwise knock him down with a seismo or cross up burn kick. Which he definitely has options for those but those options are safer than anything else you could try to do to him.

Once you have the health lead then you realize that there’s no way you’re going to win trying to chip him to death with seismos and Balrog can easily TAP or dash punch through one of your seismos if you get predictable. At this point you’re going to have to play the trade game with him and use your LP knuckles to at least be able to pressure him. Even if you are trading with dash punches if you are in the lead health wise it should give you enough time to move in and throw, EX seismo, or cross up burn kick behind Rog and gain a knockdown which from there you can apply pressure.

Good Rog players will know to use EX dash punch to get out of cross ups and what not but you can mix this up by throwing them out of the dash punches. Scrubby Rogs you can just jump on all day since all they do is EX headbutt and that’s super easy to safe jump and punish on whiff or block." *- DevilJin 01

Dash Upper and Dash Straight can be beaten by LP TK and anything else low.
All Ex moves can be thrown out of.

c.MP beats out Dash Punch and TAP on reaction, so if you confirm c.MP continue with a combo of your choice.
c.FP is no good 'cause of start up and I never beat anything with it, and c.LP has too small of a range to confirm, and very small combobility, he pretty much needs to be in throw range, and that’s never good.
Boxer bait with Seismo Feint xx LP.Seismo xx (SJC Combo) is good, but ONLY if you’re timing is tight, otherwise don’t even try.

*YOU MUST FFF after whiffed Headbutt, because if a good Boxer whiffs 1-2 Headbutt(s), and you FFF him, he’ll stop for good unless he’s comboing or AA.
If you can’t FFF, then go learn JUST for the sake of this matchup, because FFF after Headbutt is the ONLY free damage you’re going to get.

Unless he’s getting really predictable, I wouldn’t even attempt to give him the Viper RUSH because if you make 1 mistake, you’re taking a nice long 5 hit combo, MORE if he has meter, and god forbid he has Ultra.*-jaded805

Blanka

[details=Spoiler]Blanka

-Horizontal Balls can be punished on block by both regular Seismo(has to be a reversal) and Ex Seismo(doesn’t have to be a reversal.) Use medium or fierce version depending on distance.

-Cr.mp(and probably cr.hp too) can beat out Horizontal Balls(don’t know about EX version.)

-Using Focus to absorb Blanka’s Backstep Roll will eliminate guessing which way it will hit you.
After absorbing, dash in, then punish.(note, if the move is done as a reversal, it’ll break your Focus)

-Cr.mp, cr.mk and overhead can beat eletricity from max distance. Cr.lk will beat it up close.

-Ex Vertical Ball can be punished by Ex Seismo and reversal Medium Thunder Knuckle on block. If Blanka does this in the corner, it is highly punishable on block and you can even FFF him. Is also highly punishable on hit in the corner too(cr.mp/cr.mk/cr.hp into whatever and even Ultra.)

-Ultra can be punished by your own if you backdash the first part(where he rolls up) and Ultra the second part(where he rolls towards you)

*You have to make him afraid to ball you inbetween the knuckles. c.MP/c.MK to MP or HP knuckle feint will have him more afraid to ball you. Since you are basically even frame advantage wise afterwards if he tries to ball you after a poke and you feint you can block and punish for free. If he’s a smart Blanka player I’m assuming he’s using EX vertical ball inbetween your strings which you can still punish on block with reversal timing EX seismo to burn kick. If he’s using MP/HP/EX horizontal balls then he’s stupid and you can punish that with either HP or EX seismo (EX doesn’t need reversal timing). HP obviously requires reversal timing but saves you meter. Either way you’ve got a strong punish for either ball on block.

Then once you get him to respect your knuckle strings you can go for them a bit more willingly and I would suggest sticking to c.MP to MP knuckle once you start to get in. c.MP after a MP knuckle beats electricity and most of his other attacks free and the only thing left to do is EX up ball which is risky if you’ve been training him right. Plus it’s faster than c.MK which leaves him less room to ball in the first place. I would only use c.MK if you’re trying to knuckle him from a long distance and need something that hits under the electricity hit box. c.MP from a distance normally beats electricity too. Of course you’ll want to block once in a while after connecting or getting a MP knuckle blocked incase he decides he wants to EX up ball inbetween that.

It’s a mind game at that point but it’s always going to work in your favor once you get in especially if you have a health lead. EX up ball does no damage any ways and does nothing for Blanka but reset his positioning. As long as you haven’t been getting your butt kicked for half the round it shouldn’t be an issue. The only other thing you might have to worry about is shenanigan Ultra to try and beat your pressure but again…if you’ve been mixing in feinting and blocking inbetween your strings this will be risky for him and if you catch it you can easily block or backdash the ultra and punish with your Ultra or whatever. The only other things that Blanka can do relatively safely are EX rainbow roll and backdash. Ex Rainbow he won’t really try to use to hit you unless he’s feeling hella risky and will probably do this just to reset his positioning away from you if he’s near the corner. Backdashing is probably his absolute safest option unless he’s in the corner but if you anticipate this you can time your MP knuckle to hit him at the end of his backdash or just walk forward at him to position him more towards the corner. Especially for C.Viper positionally you have the game won if Blanka is in the corner. Pretty much all of his balls are risky to use once he’s in the corner. Even if he hits you/comboes into a blanka ball it’s still punishable if he’s in the corner.

If you wanna get really tricky you can start mixing in f+MP overhead inbetween your strings since that will beat electricity free for the most part and destroys his down charge. Which means no more having to deal with EX up ball for a short period of time. Good for going over any low pokes if he tries as well. Just have to watch out for smart blankas who will try to focus your f+MP. Which of course you can mix in with MP knuckles which beat focus. I like to do stuff like c.MP, MP knuckle…walk up c.MK, HP feint…walk up f+MP to hit him overhead and bait a ball…then walk up c.MP or c.MK feint again and continue the pressure. So many mind games especially if you’re good at cancelling into HP feint which gives you plenty of time to set up more mind games during his block stun.

To continue with Blanka…on wake up he’s a bit tricky to deal with and from what I’ve seen there’s not much point in crossing him up other than to bait stuff out of him like an EX ball or Ultra. Which you can punish both on block or back dash or super jump burn kick out the way and punish. One thing I’ve noticed that isn’t a terribly bad idea is to do a grounded WK burn kick or MK burn kick (cross up) near him on the wake up. It tends to trade or stuff balls/electricity which isn’t bad if you have a health lead.

The other use I found for this is that it seems to be pretty good for baiting Ultra. For whatever reason burn kick seems to be really good at passing through Blanka’s ultra. So if you have Blanka in the corner and he tries to shenanigan escape on wake up with Ultra…if you do WK burn kick you’ll pass through the Ultra and can Ultra him back or hit him out of it otherwise as he’s coming down. If you super jump burn kick cross over him on the wake up and he tries Ultra burn kick will also normally go right through Blanka’s Ultra as he’s in the air. If ur quick you can start up EX burn knuckle just as he falls to the ground and you’ll hit him before he gets to ball away to the other side.

When you guys are at a far distance you want to just play the seismo game with him and don’t really do much to go near him unless you’re about to die and have no choice. As long as he isn’t sitting in crouch blocking position or moving backwards otherwise if you have him near full screen it’s not a bad idea to throw a MP or HP seismo to keep him honest. If he’s trying to walk forward at you or jump you can catch him on anticipation and blow him up. You need to already be in a jumping animation to jump out of seismos so if he isn’t reacting to them immediately you’ll catch him out of a jump as well. This is especially true with EX seismos. If you knock him down you can either walk forward to gain distance or continue to pressure with seismos as he’s waking up.

EX seismo also works well to punish slides from a distance. Viper doesn’t have a super quick focus attack so using your focus attack straight up to punish slides is risky. If he’s abusing them it’s not a bad idea but otherwise I would stick to staying your distance so you can EX seismo them. Focus dash and then throwing him isn’t a bad idea either. Just be careful once Blanka starts to move in closer because although it’s a bit riskier for him to slide at closer range…if he does it from about the closest safe range for him and you EX seismo the insanely long active frames of his slide will beat EX seismo free. Unless you catch the slide right before he starts you’re getting hit.

Once Blanka starts to jump forward and crouch block near you is when you’ll have to start worrying about ball and throw mind games. c.MP is going to be pretty much your most used move in this match because of that threat. If you lose all the time to Blanka…it’s probably because you aren’t using c.MP. If the Blanka player is scrubby he’s just going to HP ball all the time which you can punish on block with almost any seismo basically. If they’re smart though they’re going to mix things up with LP and MP balls since they will stop in front of you and set him up to cross you up or throw you. This is when you want to use c.MP to hit him out of LP or MP ball before he gets to stop in front of you. If he does stop in front of you you can also stick out the c.MP to stop a throw or jump attempt to cross you up.

When he lands in front of you safely he’s probably either going to cross you up, throw you or hit you with a low attack or jab into electricity. If you think he’s going to throw then try to throw tech, hit him out of it with c.LK or c.MP or use LK burn kick to escape the throw. If you think or see him early trying to jump over and cross you just walk forward at him to escape and reset the situation. If ur quick you can try to catch him on trip guard with c.MK to MP knuckle as he’s coming down from the jump. If ur really tricky you can use close s.MK which hits insanely high in the air and will beat him out of the cross up for free if you anticipate it early. You can also use EX seismo feint to pass through the cross up and throw him. Otherwise Blanka will probably just use a low attack or jab into electricity. Just low block if you see he’s going for this and wait for an opportunity to throw out c.LK’s or c.MP to interrupt. If you have 2 or more meters you can use HP knuckle and cancel into focus dash to give you a safe option to hit him and get out of pressure. EX seismo will also work if he’s not timing his attacks to hit you out of it.

That’s what I have for now and I’ll add in some things here and there later that I find out. That’s just what I’ve learned so far from playing against MOD’s Blanka and watching vids.*-DevilJin01[/details]

[Ryuga]

Cammy

[details=Spoiler]Cammy

-Overhead can go over and beat Spiral Arrow from afar.

-Cannon Spike can be punished on block by Seismos, and cr.mk/cr.mp into whatever if you walk up to her. Ideal punishment after a close blocked Cannon Spike is dash in then FFF.

-All Spiral Arrows done from up close can be punished by st.mp/cr.mp/cr.mk into whatever, FFF and Super/Ultra(best done as a reversal) on block Fierce/EX Spiral Arrows done from about medium range can be punished by st.mp/cr.mp/cr.mk into whatever, FFF(timing seems a bit tight) and Super/Ultra on block. Medium Spiral Arrows from medium range can be punished by cr.mp into whatever and Super/Ultra(again, best done as a reversal) Outside of medium range, it’s hard to punish Spiral Arrows.

-Hooligan can be crouched and hit out by moves like cr.lp/cr.mp.

-Cammy has no overheads so blocking low is a good idea against her.

*The real problem with the Cammy/Viper matchup is similarly to the Bison/Viper match, once she is in, there is not much that Viper can do to get out of the pressure she’s applying unless she takes a risk (I know that you could say this about everyone vs Viper, but in these two matches it gets magnified 10 times over). Also, in this matchup she just has an easier time getting big damage than Viper does plain and simple.

Personally, I don’t like the idea of doing F + MP overhead over spiral arrow because it can be hard to do that on reaction, and if you mess it up, chances are you’ll be eating an Spike or a crouching normal. I would say just block them and pay attention to the range it’s being done at. If you know it’s going to be deep, punish with cr. mp xx MP TK/ultra.

Also, pay attention to the ranges of the cannon strikes, and also remember that they can be blocked low. There are some ranges where you can either trade a hp tk, or even make her land on an ex seismo (be wary of this one when she has ex). Also, if she’s doing them for meter, try and make her land on a seismo and either tk cancel or sj focus dash to gain some ground.* -CoosCoos

*Instant dive kick (low to ground dive) gets beat clean by EX burn kick just like Rufus dive kick. Cammy dives coming from higher in the air…just block. ***-DevilJin 01 **

vs. divekick antics I wanna jump out or backdash as soon as possible. block standing for better recovery - if she hits you past a certain height you can backdash out guaranteed, but if she hits you low enough you’ll be stuck in blockstun for a followup cr.lk string and you gotta tough it out. she can counter your backdashing with a cannon drill but at that range you can block + punish with FFF anyway. reversal lk burn kick is safer than trying to tech throws as you won’t get nailed by a big instant divekick combo.-poopclown[/details]

Chun Li

[details=Spoiler]Chun Li

*Viper defintely beats Chun. Your basic combos do a ton of damage to her and her and her having Ultra does nothing to scare you. Especially considering her Ultra doesn’t even juggle correctly on Viper without a super perfect setup. Oh and yeah you never have to worry about EX SBK on wake up. F + MP beats it almost clean, j.HK beats it, LK burn kick with the right timing directly above her beats it (wait till slightly after she throws it out).

The only thing u really have to worry about with Chun is pokes. She can’t even focus attack you much since your MP and LP thunder knuckles beat her focus game. Even if she does go for normals well placed LP and MP knuckles contend with most of them well and if she wants to throw s.HK you can c.MK that or focus dash forward and throw her. Your seismo makes her fireball useless. If you think she’s going to throw a fireball or see her throw one out period just mash seismo. She won’t do it again. The only thing you have to worry about is if you get knocked down and even then good blocking keeps her wake up from being too scary. Don’t worry about reversing unless you can see she totally messed up her DF + HK timing. Just block the right way and the rest is just block and crouch tech. If you wanna get risky or just get the hell out of there you can guess backdash or mash HP knuckle or EX seismo. If you have a lot of health it’s worth the risk any ways.* -DevilJin 01

*Crouch blocking owns chun. Baiting ex sbks owns chun. Chun with no meter owns chun.

Seriously, if you crouch block, all she can do to you is throw, the slow ass overheads or the slow floaty jumpins. All of her damage is off of cr.lk EX legs.* -Flook

*You shouldn’t be afraid of this matchup because Chun is free if you knock her down (Viper has like 5 ways to beat or bait EX SBK on wake up) and you do way more damage to Chun than Chun can do to you. The only way you can lose to Chun is if you make a ton of mistakes. If you hit Chun with j.HK or c.HP 2 times in the match you basically won the match. Especially if you know how to FFF and SJC FADC or burn kick into Ultra. You can still take plenty more risks in this match than vs. some other characters (Chun Li isn’t going to destroy you if she knocks you down) but it’ll add up if you have no idea what’s going on.

You shouldn’t have to worry about Chun EX bird kicking you if you jump in on her. Especially if she’s not knocked down. If she is sitting at a distance away from you on the screen you know that’s what she’s doing. Charging the only thing she has that resembles a dragon punch. As long as you remember to not jump at Chun Li when she’s sitting in crouch block or spamming crouching normals from the other end of the screen you won’t get EX SBK’d.

After you knock Chun down as long as you place your LK burn kicks and j.HK’s right the best she can do is trade and push you away for little damage. Hitting her with a jump forward HK just after she starts the EX SBK usually beats it out or trades. LK burn kick on top of her just after she starts beats it obviously. Another good one is to do F + MP on top of her EX burn kick before it starts. EX SBK actually takes several frames to start up and if you elbow on top of her EX SBK before she starts it up you’ll beat it for free. Smarter players will know to use crouching normals as soon as they wake up to whiff under your LK burn kick and punish you but then you can just mix this up with j.HK which they can’t crouch normal under and that leads to them throwing away the round. Basically once you get Chun to stop throwing EX SBK on wake up she’s free to jump on.

Chun’s high jump is actually a problem for her in this matchup because once you have Ultra she can only jump in at you with a perfectly timed jumping HK (which also flat out beats your HP knuckle). The problem is she has to time this perfectly or anything else she does will get traded or beat outright. The fact that she jumps high means that you don’t need to get your HP knuckle to trade to Ultra her. Just stay on the ground and once you catch Chun Li jumping forward at you just let out the HP knuckle and by the time you land from HP knuckle you’ll be in a perfect position to just throw out the Ultra before she falls to the ground. Free half life combo that required like no execution.

You really don’t need to jump around much in this match up though. On the ground you have solid tools vs. her. LK burn kick beats her spamming c.LK and c.MK at you. Well placed EX seismo kills her sweep. F + MP is also strong for going over her crouching normals and hitting her. LP knuckle or focus dash forward into throw takes care of her s.HK and you can trade or beat s.HP. The only thing you really have to worry about is s.MP which if you see coming you can also EX seismo or just back dash away and super jump out to reposition yourself if you don’t have meter.*-DevilJin01[/details]

C.Viper-N/A

**Dan-**N/A

Dhalsim

[details=Spoiler]Dhalsim

*Don’t be afraid of Sim’s teleports. They’re not really good for aggression except for if the Sim player is totally mind screwing you. If Sim teleports anywhere near your body hit him with a close or far s.MP or close s.HP. You’ll win everytime since you are able to attack before Sim recovers from his teleport. Close st.MP specifically has a surprisingly large hit box that anti airs pretty well (even though it doesn’t look like it at all). If he’s a bit farther away than that you can his st.HK as well. The only time Sim should be teleporting near your body is after he knocks you down for wake up games. If he teleports near you and you are in a standing position…basically press a button and you stop him cold.

Sim’s only safe aggression against you is in the form of well placed slide to throw/s.LK games. Basically just low block and mash on LK Burn Kick to keep yourself safe from throws. You can try to outthrow him or react to his throw setups with a tech but that requires a bit more risk. LK Burn Kick will keep you safe from a slide unless he does it right next to you and the resulting damage should he actually hit you with a slide is pretty minimal (unless he has super I think). LK Burn Kick also option selects any throws since it puts you airborne from frame 1 and smacks him away for trying a throw.
Viper can basically do most of what Dhalsim can and do it better with higher damage output. So Dhalsim effectively is fighting a better version of himself in the matchup and it can make it can make things difficult for Sim. Outside of Chun Li…Dhalsim is the only other arcade character that Viper has a clear advantage over.

Which then coincides what Flash said about the matchup which is basically to act like Dhalsim. Get a health lead and turtle your ass off with it. Dhalsim has just as hard of a time getting to you as you do getting to him. If you’re at a health deficit against Sim then you have to try and option select his teleports and backdash down and that doesn’t work in your favor with your low health if his spacing is on point. Just try to outturtle him so he is the one coming to you. He can’t throw fireballs because of seismo/EX seismo so that limits his range game a lot.

The only things you really have to worry about against Sim are his jump back HP, st.HP, command slide and probably most important his jumping MP. Jump back HP and s.HP can both be beat by well timed HP or EX seismos. You can bait j.HP out by randomly super jumping forward and hitting HK to catch him out of the air and make him think about using it. LK Burn Kick from max range or HP knuckle can also beat s.HP. If you’re at close range you can focus dash in on a s.HP or j.HP and punish accordingly. Slides can be punished with EX seismo, well timed LK Burn Kick or focus attack (let go of your focus attack so that he gets hit as he recovers). Jumping MP is probably the biggest threat to Viper in the matchup because it’s the only thing that really stops her from randomly super jumping and attempting to take big health off of Dhalsim. It stops a lot of your aerial attacks and hits at an angle that is safe from most of your grounded attacks. Your best bet against this is just to wait it out and walk yourself closer to Dhalsim so it’s more risky for him to throw this. At the right spacing and distance it’s very safe for him to use so it’s not something you’re going to be able to out right punish. Luckily it also does no damage so if you have the health lead he won’t necessarily be using it a ton.

Other than that Dhalsim is obviously not going to throw fireballs at you ever like said earlier. He wants to save the meter for his super because that’s the only way he can reliably keep you from randomly jumping in outside of j.MP. If you knock him down on the wake up he can be tricky since he can use his solid backdash or teleport to get away. Best bet is just to option select with j.HK to MP knuckle or EX seismo. Don’t use Burn Kicks too often against Dhalsim on the wake up. His slide goes under Burn Kicks for free. I would only use them after you condition him to stay in place and block or get hit by j.HK (he can’t slide under j.HK knee).

This is also one of those matches that I would suggest not trying to knock down too often in if you can. As in if you are going to use a combo don’t use a combo that ends in an EX seismo or anything that knocks down. Dhalsim is one of those characters looking to whore the universal backdash or teleport to SFIV reverse his ass out of any kind of pressure situation. If you knock him down you basically give him free incentive to just run the fuck away from you again. You want to use strings that keep him standing so backdashing is risky. Such as c.MP x 2 to MP knuckle or FFF/FFM to knuckle. Anything that forces him to react immediately and gives you frame advantage afterwards to immediately counter a reversal situation. Dealing with him on the wake up can be too much of a guessing game and incentive for him to get away from you. Especially when even his slide is a viable runaway move on the wake up.

When and if you don’t have the health lead and have to move in just remember his most used moves that I listed above and react accordingly to move in and score damage. Random insta SJC’d burn kicks aren’t a bad idea to keep him from backdashing or teleporting. Only do it enough to keep him on his toes or otherwise he’ll catch on and focus attack/dash them. Random seismos and well placed MP knuckles keep him on the move at closer ranges as well. If you’re not sure what do and he’s pressuring you with normals…just wail on EX seismo if you have meter. *-DevilJin 01[/details]

E.Honda

[details=Spoiler]E.Honda

-Honda’s Fierce Headbutt can be punished by Medium Thunder Knuckle and LP Super on block.

-Overhead can go over and beat out Headbutts.

-Cr.mk>Medium Thunder Knuckle can unfortunately be interrupted midway by Headbutt and Ultra.

*Matchup is difficult but winnable. You’ve lost the match if honda feels he doesn’t need to move or take any risks to win. Uve gotta make him move while not unnecessarily putting urself in harms way and that’s difficult to do against a character who’s normals alone will rape ur health. Like said above honda can’t do much about a LK burn kick right on top of his head except ex buttslam which won’t even hit u (just gets him free). Which is kinda the matchup in a nutshell. Don’t get too risky if honda is playing defensively. If u already have the health lead its on him to make moves. Though u do eventually have to make honda dance or he’ll just walk in ur face and destroy u with his command throw and normals. When at a far distance try to throw a couple seismos at him just to get him to move. If he jumps from a long distance u can time ur seismo so it hits him as he is landing. When you get close watch for neutral jump hp and punish any whiffed ones with hp knuckle into ultra if u have it.

Once u can get close to him and keep him grounded (he’s standing not jumping in the air) u generally want to do 3 things. Hit him with F + MP overhead since it causes him to lose his down charge and keep him from splashing u. Then mix that in with cr.MK to whatever since that has to be low blocked and will create a high low game. The last important thing would be to insta cross up burn kick him. This is very important since it causes him to lose his back charge and will keep headbutt from being a defensive tool 4 him. When u get the knockdown try to stick to lk burn kicks on his head so he can’t hit u with physical attacks. Crossing up with mk or hk burn kicks when he is knocked down isn’t always the best idea since if it doesn’t hit him u freeze when u land and are open to attack. Its better to learn how to safe jump with j.HK (air knee) since that will net you big damage if it hits and if it doesn’t u can recover and block or try a new mix up. Tru to get the knee to hit the center of hondas body on wake up. That makes it very difficult to block. U want to do this so the honda player gets anxious and starts to waste meter on ex buttslam which won’t hit u as long as u are doing those 2 things correctly. Which honda is a bit easier to manage when u don’t have to deal with ex head and butt.

The jist of the matchup is basically to try and cross Honda up when he’s walking forward at you with super jump burn kicks and jump back and throw seismos/seismo feints to bait headbutts and move him closer to you. Don’t spam seismos or feints from anything inside of max screen distance unless you know exactly what he’s doing. Eventually if you get him to do that enough you can get him to actually get hit by the seismos and then if you get a knockdown cross him up to land damage. Try to safe jump your cross ups to ensure you don’t get slammed by EX headbutt. Either way if he wants to use EX headbutt he’ll escape unless you catch on reaction and punish him on the way down. Long as you don’t get knocked down ur straight but the problem is everything Honda has knocks you down.

Jump back anything beats headbutt. Jump back HK, jump back MK…you can pretty much just pick one. Timing a LK burn kick to hit him in his back/legs as he headbutts at you works as well. You can also jump straight up or back and bait the headbutt then as he flies under you, you can low forward to medium punch knuckle him or if you’re close enough you can ultra him. Well timed f+MP will also beat headbutts and if he tries to headbutt on wake up you can stand right next to him and then do f+MP and your elbow will hit him in his legs and hit him out of it.

Buttslam is a bit tough to deal with but there’s options. Buttslam is another one of those things that Viper does have options for but generally once Honda gets in the risk reward is hugely in Honda’s favor due to Viper’s half assed AA options that do no damage to Honda even if they hit. Basically if Honda has you knocked down and wants to start to splash stuff you just have to guess your way out. Use backdash or focus one of the hits of the buttslam and back or forward dash out. If you have meter use EX burn kick. I wouldn’t recommend EX seismo unless you know for sure that it’s going to hit since Honda recovers almost immediately and can pretty much just sit on your EX seismo. If you get up off the ground before he starts it you can try HP knuckle or jump up in the air and hit HK to beat out the start up.

If he’s at a distance or you have him knocked down it should be a bit easier to deal with. If you knock him down and he tries to go for headbutt/ex headbutt one of the better things you can do is jump forward at him and try to center yourself right in the middle of him and hit HK (knee) at the top of your jump just before he wakes up. This way when Honda wakes up your knee hits him out of the headbutt start up. This beats all wake up headbutts on wake up. Then when you get Honda to stop throwing headbutts on the wake up you can do LK burn kick or cross up burn kicks deeper on him on the wake up since those will stop headbutts and other reversal attempts.

From a distance you have more options like being able to punish him for a whiffed buttslam from a distance with EX seismo or hitting him with low forward as he comes down. If you got meter you can trade AA and then Ultra him if you’re close enough.*-DevilJin01[/details]

[Ryuga]

El Fuerte

[details=Spoiler]El Fuerte

I think Viper has no control in this fight is when she gets knocked down. Then it’s up to backdashing and random reversals. Other than that…Fuerte has shit for pokes and is basically trying to do what you do with less solid ways to land big damage. There’s things to watch out for but the fact that he takes damage so badly compared to say Rufus or Abel makes him much more manageable for me. He pretty much has to rely solely on his ability to move around the screen quickly to deal with Viper since the priority on the majority of his attacks are pretty low. Random MP thunder knuckle deals with a lot of his crap. You have to watch what you whiff carefully when he has Ultra but as long as you don’t give him an obvious chance to use it he’s struggling for big damage most of the time.-DevilJin 01

*This has got to be in Viper’s favor. Fuerte’s wake up game is about him guessing right with his mix ups. Back dash gets you out from most of his wake up games while well timed EX Seismo’s beats out the rest. The only time Viper is hurting on wake up is when she doesn’t have bar to do an EX Seismo when needed. Just keep in mind that meaty slide kicks will beat out reversal EX Seismo.

You have to be more careful with your air approaches as his EX AA throw (Sorry, I’m not at familiar with the names of his specials) has some incredible range to it. Keeping grounded and poking him with Thunder Knuckles work well as he doesn’t have a reliable reversal against it. Burn Kick mix ups on his wake up is less effective as he can do that move where he runs back then does that command throw (Tortilla/Fajita Buster?) to reversal the Burn Kick altogether. In the corner on the other hand Burn Kick mix ups are more effective as that tactic doesn’t get him out.

Avoid getting RSF’d as Viper can’t handle that damage output and it has a good ability to stun Viper for game.* -**Killey **

*Don’t chase him. Most people who can’t fight Fuerte try and chase his ass down and just get crossed up and hit before they can get near him. Fuerte can’t touch you if you’re not near him and anything he does from a distance you can react to. He only looks fast when you’re forced to chase him around when he has a large health lead. Other than that he’s a close ranged fighter and you can pretty much sit in a spot and neutral jump to take care of a lot of his random shit. Fuerte is one of the few characters in the game that you don’t have a maneuverability advantage over so keep yourself in more defensive baiting position to make the match easier at the start. Fuerte wants you to move at him because he knows he can move out of position of most of your attacks once you commit to them.

I’ve been playing against Skisonic’s Fuerte (probably the best Fuerte on the east coast currently) and you basically only lose this match when you do dumb stuff. If Fuerte can’t force you to chase him there’s nothing to fear since your basic combos destroy his health bar whereas his don’t. He has to catch you in specific situations to do anything high damage to you and with that he has to get a big mistake out of you. You pretty much hit him with a jump in or a couple c.MP, knuckle combos and he’s bleeding. You should almost never lose to an El Fuerte who can’t infinite since he does no damage on anything outside of Ultra unless he gets that infinite in. Even C.Viper can take hella hits from a Fuerte without a strong RSF game. Even if they can as long as you keep your blocking game solid and don’t jump in on him or dash at him unnecessarily you’re good. One way Fuertes love to get you with RSF is catch you dashing or jumping in and then use his strong focus attack and then half life gone.

Sit in place and throw out HP knuckles to beat flying attack moves from a distance. You can also just straight up and hit HK. That beats a lot of air stuff as well. If you get knocked down just block until he starts going for throw mix ups. When he mixes up with throws backdash out as soon as you get up.

If you knock him down just pressure him and watch for wake up EX throw. Mix it up so he’s not sure what to do. Just be careful when he has Ultra. If he does don’t do anything that makes you sit in place like an air WK burn kick or EX seismo. You’ll get grabbed. Make sure if you do something that it moves you forward/backwards or allows you to move in some direction (usually backdash is good) if he tries to go for it. Getting good at baiting the Ultra will make Fuerte a lot less dangerous. Without RSF that’s the only other thing he has that can do damage to you. Stick to basics when he has an Ultra and if you can bait it out and force him to miss and lose it…then you can get more aggressive again. Especially with all the recovery he has on the Ultra you should have time to get in and punish and get a health lead. Even if he has the Ultra you can still play that into your hands since he can’t use it unless he forces a big mistake out of you.*-DevilJin01[/details]

**Fei Long**-N/A

Gen

[details=Spoiler]Gen

*First time i got some actual games against a seasoned Gen, I wanted to throw my stick, basically because everything got stuffed. I’ve gotten alot more experience in the match, and I think it’s 6-4 now. Just can’t do seismos at any range inside your HP seismo range, as his jump is so quick, and it requires on point blocking because of that retarded Crane jumping mk, as the hitbox on it is the entire area between both feet. Probably the best tool early on I’ve found is LP TK right outside of his mantis standing mk range, which is his fishing poke, and cancels into his fingerpoke combos/shenanigans. Once you get that first knockdown, or get inside, the geezer’s done, though, like most of the cast.

[media=youtube]0b7dU4FCqPs[/media] Pretty much sums up the match. Don’t get hit by crane jumping MK when he has ultra, don’t get hit by mantis standing MK, and once you’re in, he’s stuffed and has to burn meter to escape (as well as charge down for the Oga). Even if he gets his Gekiro on you, it does ass damage.* -Flook

*First thing, you want to stay a bit more grounded in this match and not try and burn kick the world. Gekiro beats all burn kicks that hit in front of Gen period. From this knowledge, this eliminates spaced EX Seismo to burn kick, as well as any quick rise mixup involving sj burn kick. The best way to set up burn kicks in this match up is either from a hard knockdown or surprisingly enough that I find, from any situation where you can normal jump or dash up toward them after a quickrise. Try and taylor them to cross up if possible. Keep in mind that Gen can also dash under poorly angled burn kicks as well as go under them via a crouching normal as well.

Seismo xx tk/seismo feint is great in this matchup due to Gen’s jump arcs + gay ass mantis super/ultra. Be sure to mix these in to give you more opportunities to chip em with seismo chains as well as to help you pay attention to when he’s wanting to jump or punish your seismo strings. Also, Gen does have some laggy normals that you can punish with EX Seismo from a distance. Look out for those since they escape me at the moment.

Most of the time on knockdown vs. Gen you need to try and block his jump ins. Don’t get cute, or else you’ll lose a third of your life within the blink of an eye. Also, hp tk trades more than usual in this match, giving you easy dash up follow ups. Sometimes though if you get a traded hp tk, it’s better to super jump burn kick after wards so that it leaves you in a position to do more to him on wake up. Also, if you get a clean hp tk anti air but no ultra, sometimes it’s better just to do that one and then normal jump afterwards for the quick rise. This will allow you to do a safe jump hk or a cross up bk against him. Also, while burn kicks are lame in this match, hard knockdowns + safe jumps wreck this fool. Also, remember you can throw him out of gekiro on wake up as well. That’s very important to remember.

Oga kicks can be punished on block by cr.MP xx TK/Ultra. Also, if you can spot where he is going, you can SJ HK him out of stuff too then do dash under mixups.

If you can’t block, this match is impossible. If you can though, as well as stay grounded, it should not be a problem spacing him out and getting that knockdown to wreck him from there.* -**CoosCoos **

Gen’s an annoying match, but I think it’s 6-4 overall because his wakeup options usually aren’t good and Viper can do a lot of stun and damage with her wakeup mixups. c.mk beats wtf kick on wakeup, and once you get him to stop doing that, you can go to town on him with wakeup shenanigans. hp tk trades with his jump ins a lot, but since you’re both low health, it often trades in your favor since you score a knockdown and can dash in and follow up.-LostFragment[/details]

Gouken

[details=Spoiler]Gouken

-Rush punch can be punished by cr.mp.

-His counter doesn’t work against Thunder Knuckle since it armor breaks.

*I would say personally from my experience the matchup is pretty even since Gouken basically has just as good or better pokes than you do but Viper’s knuckle game kills Gouken’s counter game. They both can do big damage to each other although Gouken is obviously going to take the damage a bit better than Viper will. I think the lack of solid reversal options from Gouken allows Viper to take advantage offensively pretty easily though. Especially if she gets a knockdown. Gouken’s fireball zoning is a threat too but you can always seismo poor fireball attempts. *-DevilJin 01

*Be careful when 3/4ths screen since mp/hp fireball hits you out of the air and combos into palm.

Smart Gouken players will want to get to the corner, or get you into a back throw, sweep/ultra, demon flip throw, or cr. fierce xx ex palm, dash up sweep/fadc ultra. Do not get in these situations because if you do, he gets a safe mixup using meaty dive kick. Plus, if you get in the corner, well he has a shit ton of things that he can do to you there.

Take advantage of the fact that you can interupt his normals xx specials on block. Look to reversal hp tk every blocked normal xx special move. Should you have ultra, means that in most cases you get point blank EX Seismo, Ultra. Usually, this is probably the best way to get him off of you when he’s in because you lose lk burn kick in this match because of counter(and good Goukens will counter this on reaction), but that loses to hp tk.

Also, Gouken’s reset game is great vs. Viper because of her slow ass reversals. Block haha. Sometimes at some angles you can EX burn kick his demon flips. Super jump roundhouse is less effective in this match up vs flips because of the absorb in his flip. *-CoosCoos[/details]

Guile

[details=Spoiler] Guile

*She has multiple ways to get under or over booms and Seismos can keep him from mounting the fireball pressure he normally can against other characters. Flash kick is only good vs. grounded moves. If you can get a burning kick over his head and get a knockdown…you can run all over him. That’s pretty much the match. Trying to get in and then confusing the hell out of him wit cross up burning kick shenanigans. LP thunder knuckle is a constant threat vs. Guile around footsie range. He can’t throw a sonic boom once you get within poking range of him. If he does…bam. If you got super…GG’s. Even if you don’t it allows you to gain ground and get ready to cross up burn kick him or set up thunder knuckle combos.

Basically if you knock him down and aren’t cross up burning kicking the crap out of him…you’re messing up the best part of the matchup. You should almost never be afraid of Guile on wake up as a Viper player. That’s exactly where you want him. Even before the burn kick you can just bait the hell out of a EX flash kick or EX boom on wake up with your feints and then punish. Just like in ST if you can get behind the flash kick it’s useless. You really don’t even need to do that since flash kicks have very little aerial priority in IV as well. As long as you’re aren’t throwing a ground poke at Guile on wake up you’re good.*-DevilJin01

*throwing j.FK (towards) a little early stuffs FlashKick but not EX Flashkick. *-Slide

*When Viper is more then full screen away from Guile and you want to get in, you should constantly throw FP Seismo feints to scare Guile into throwing a Sonic Boom. The FP Seismo wont hit if Guile is exactly the furthest distance away. The FP Seismo will hit if he throws a Sonic Boom, or walks forward slightly. I think this method is the safest way to corner Guile and maintain pressure at the same time even though your full screen away.

-If Viper guesses right and throws a real seismo to hit guile, SJC and your in. If guile quick rises, throw out your hk and continue pressuring him.
-If Guile keeps walking or jumping backwards and you think he wont throw a Sonic Boom, slowly creep your way in by walking foward a bit and Seismo feinting.
-Make sure when your feinting, that you keep in mind that his EX sonic booms are very fast and try your best to jump over them.
-If you miss your hp Seismo, Guile can EX Sonic Boom so watch out. If you put him in block stun, guile can’t do anything, SJC from the blocked Seismo into anything you want*

-When Viper is more then full screen away from Guile and you want to get in, you should constantly throw FP Seismo feints to scare Guile into throwing a Sonic Boom. The FP Seismo wont hit if Guile is exactly the furthest distance away. The FP Seismo will hit if he throws a Sonic Boom, or walks forward slightly. I think this method is the safest way to corner Guile and maintain pressure at the same time even though your full screen away.

-If Viper guesses right and throws a real seismo to hit guile, SJC and your in. If guile quick rises, throw out your hk and continue pressuring him.
-If Guile keeps walking or jumping backwards and you think he wont throw a Sonic Boom, slowly creep your way in by walking foward a bit and Seismo feinting.
-Make sure when your feinting, that you keep in mind that his EX sonic booms are very fast and try your best to jump over them.
-If you miss your hp Seismo, Guile can EX Sonic Boom so watch out. If you put him in block stun, guile can’t do anything, SJC from the blocked Seismo into anything you want.-Shigz[/details]

Ken

[details=Spoiler]Ken

-Overhead can hop over Ken’s f.mk and beat it out.

-Forward+roundhouse, overhead and Burning Kick hops over cr.mk and sweep and beats them out.

-However, Ken can use cr.mk to lower his hitbox and make your Burning Kicks whiff.

*Ken match is pretty much even. Ken rapes you if you let him in but Viper has a lot of tools for keeping Ken out. Both characters are pretty even as far as damage output is concerned. Ken gets in on you he’ll do big damage. You hit him with a hard attack or EX seismo…big damage. The key difference between how they do damage though is that Ken can do really solid damage to you off of light attacks while you need to hit him with a hard attack or a special move to do anything that is going to really make him scared. This is why good Ken players are gonna try to hard to get within jab and short range so they can mix you up with damaging 50/50 EX hurricane combos and end the round quickly. That low health is appetizing for a character that normally has to do a ton of BNB’s to win a match. So without explaining too much more the jist is both characters can be equally as scary for each other so it’s just a matter of who comes out on top.

Kara throws are annoying but they’re kinda like your punishment for letting Ken get in too close. You wanna space him with your MP and LP knuckles and backdash on occasion to get him to whiff things so you can seismo or EX seismo them. You kinda wanna play a baiting game against Ken on the ground where you get him to whiff a poke so you can c.MK/c.MK, MP knuckle or EX seismo it. Then when you get the knockdown pressure accordingly. You don’t want to let Ken get in because if he gets in there’s not a whole lot you can do reliably except guess escape with LK or EX Burn Kicks (beats throws most standing attacks/kara throw), backdash when you get out of block stun (which he can bait if u do it too much) or HP knuckle (beats most ground attacks but will die to throw/kara throw).

It’s not like fighting Ryu where eventually his blockstun on his strings will push him away. Once Ken gets in he has like 90 things he can do to stay in so you don’t wanna ever let Ken get in. You can take the risk once in a while against Ryu since his mix up game isn’t as strong and he’s mainly trying to c.MK or shoryu FADCD you to death. If Ken gets in you better have meter or you have to play russian roulette until you escape or you’re dead.

Well from watching videos and what I learned myself…once Ken gets in you’re already in a bad situation. You have to be careful with using HP knuckle to escape because Ken can kara throw you out of your HP knuckle. I would say your best bet is to just start looking for an opening to backdash before he gets in range to throw you. Backdash will beat throws and predicted low forward or f+MK. Then when you back dash out mash EX seismo to beat his next inevitable move. From what I’ve seen in videos you just want to block long enough to look for an opening to EX seismo or LK/EX burn kick. Use EX seismo if you just don’t know what else to do but if you’re smart you can use LK or EX burn kick to beat kara throws or f+MK (LK burn kick for throws/EX burn kick for f+MK). Otherwise just block and backdash out. It’s definitely a match that you want to try to win from a far if you can. Ken has an easier time rushing you down than you do rushing him down. Force him to make offensive mistakes and punish. I would only really try to put pressure on him after you’ve knocked him down.

Actually now that I think about it I believe LP thunder knuckle also beats f+MK if you start it early before he starts the f+MK. So the jist is to use your backdash to stay out of f+MK range and try to beat him to his pokes with LP/MP knuckle and c.MP/c.MK and EX seismo.*-DevilJin01[/details]

[Ryuga]

M.Bison

[details=Spoiler]M. Bison (Dictator)

-Devil Reverse can be Seismoed on its landing recovery. If Bison decides to try and hit you with it, you can either Ex Seismo or Ultra it.

• Walk/dash backwards or forwards to make Headstomp whiff and punish.

Air-to-Air Dictator wins against C.Viper unless you straight jump RH but anything else will get stuffed and whats worse is that you could eat a double j.mp into Ultra. (Killey)

*Bison is tough though since his pokes are very solid and you have to get aggressive and fake a lot on the wake up against him or he just gets away and resets his positioning. If you can stay on top of Bison and get momentum going after a knockdown he’ll have a hard time winning from there. Scrubby Bison’s abuse his flying specials all day and that’s easy to beat. It’s the better players who know that Bison’s ground game really messes with a lot that Viper has that are tough. Bait out scissors with seismo/knuckle feints, punish whiffed s.HK’s with jab thunder knuckle. *-DevilJin 01

*Stay out of short scissor kick range. Very important to not let him get into his post mix up game after that. He can st.roundhouse jumps, EX scissor kick back dashes (punishable on block with a quick low strong -> knuckle though), EX psycho crusher if you try to walk up grab/press anything, and he can just short scissor kick again if you do nothing.

Stay out of the corner, Extremely important, him putting Viper in the corner is a nightmare, same reasons as above, but his options are much dirtier since you can’t back dash.

Less jumping around. Bison can abuse his j.strongs and EX stomps a lot, so jumping is not really an option here. I use it sparingly if I walk back and make a poke whiff, because this is the time where he doesn’t have a down charge, and his st.roundhouse will come out late if he presses it.

Don’t challenge his pokes with yours. Seriously, even with low strong…it’s not happening for Viper.

Meaty overhead, then walk back and block option select on his wake up. If he wakes up with EX PC, it’s slow and you can block. If he wakes up with EX stomp, you walk back and low fierce into punish it. If he wakes up with EX devil’s reverse (looks like EX stomp but then he reverses) you can EX seismo it. Really hard to get used to this option select but it becomes useful.

Meaty jump roundhouse, then walk back. Same option select as above, if you have more time this one is a good option.

SJ short burning kick. Well it loses to EX stomp and earns you losing a lot of life bar if he does that. But, you can kick him out of EX PC. So the way I use that is…find out which wake up works for him when he gets away. Then for example…if it is EX PC, I’ll burning kick it once, then the next time try and catch the stomp.* -MagnetoManiac

With Dictator, burning kick mixups work well when he does not have meter. When he does have meter, he can escape fairly easy by an EX move of his choice. Also, remember that you can either st. lp or lp thunder knuckle under his st. hk at certain distances. Also, if you sniff out a devil’s reverse, figure out where he lands and use the correct seismo to hit hin and gain ground. Also remember to dash back and punish headstomp attempts. -CoosCoos

*Bison lacks reliable anti air, but he has a few shenanigans. On wakeup :

• reversal Back teleport, he has pretty long recovery on this, answer with Seismo. If you see that he couldn’t travel far enough and hit the screen corner, you can try another jump in.
• If you dont crossup and he sees it, things can get ugly. Ex headstomp will hit you (he is invincible on the way up so you will land through him). Ex scissors and ex crusher will hit you if you are too deep, and if he has great timing, he can even nail anti-air ULTRA.
• If you crossup, ex headstomp will land him right next to you, so you can punish freely. ex scissors will act as a good escape tool, as they are invincible for a bit. Ex crusher/devil reverse do the same but can be punished at the end by seismo, as they take much longer to finish than scissors. On very rare occasions (skill or luck), he will attempt anti-air ultra and will auto-switch side (damn this). Then you’re fucked.

Most bisons won’t attempt anti-air ultra, it is really difficult to land.

I would not jump on bison if not on wakeup or very short distance to mix up. If he is sitting on his charge, anti-air ex headstomp will hurt you a lot, especially if counter hit. And if he has revenge meter, j.mpx2 will link very easily with ultra.

Finally, if he doesn’t have ex meter, jumpins are FREE ! (and definitely the way to go)*-kraal[/details]

Rose

[details=Spoiler]Rose

*It’s not bad to stick to ground basic mix ups + instant burning kick. Safe jump roundhouse really messes with Rose, since all of her reversals have a good amount of start up.

If they soul spiral too close it’s punishable on block. Look for low strong -> knuckle since it’s fast and reliable, haven’t tried to fierce and full combo it yet.

Her soul spark is so slow, you can easily seismo it on reaction even online and jump the hit, or even feint to recover.

You can usually reversal short burning kick slide gimmicks, but if the slide is really deep you may take a hit and get reset. Optimizing before use would be good.

Also, since Rose’s main anti air is low fierce (her EX soul throw is situational due to the angle and meter) … you can easily footsie then jump a poke and land some pain. *-MagnetoManiac

*This is easily in Viper’s favor and the only thing that makes this match up difficult is the lack of familirity with fighting anyone that is really competent with Rose. There’s a few things you need to understand about Rose for this match up:
-She’s got a really fast dash that covers a good amount of ground like 2 quarters of the screen away and she can double dash and be right in your face. If you play the Seismo game incorrectly she can double dash and just toss you.
-Her throws do more damage than most other characters and has deceptively longer range than others. It’s very awkward at first because you feel that you have to make adjustments to your teching but you don’t. You just have to be aware that her throws have a more distance then other characters.
-She has really good poking capabilities as the majority of her normals have good range on them giving her a good footsie game against Viper. The main reason for this is that Viper’s normals have long start up frames though the majority of Roses normals have comparable long or longer start up frames as well. What gives her the edge from mid screen is the range it covers.
-Her normal game primarily consist of this:
-df+forward (slide) = 7 frames - This move covers good distance and shrinks her hit boxes considerably. This is her go to move to get under Viper’s Burn Kick game. It’s pretty bad up close and puts her at -3 on hit but if she spaces them correctly they are safe. It’s part of her mix up game as it hits low and puts her in optimal range for her throw. This move causes a lot of confusion at first in combination with her throw because the throw range is decieving.
-far s.RH = 9 frames - This is one of her better pokes from longer distances. It covers a lot of range and can act as an anti-air at the right distances. Due to it’s start up though she really has to through these out in anticipation to stuff out your offense.
-c.Strong = 4 frames - This is the equivalent to Viper’s c.Strong but hers comes out 1 frame faster then yours and is part of her rush down game similar to Viper’s rush down game.
-c.Forward = 7 frames - Equal to Viper’s c.foward but actually has proper hit boxes and covers more range then Viper’s.
-c.Fierce = 6 frames - This is her other anti-air option.
-She also has a 3 frame c.jab that is generally used to stuff Viper’s offense much like Rog but at least hers doesn’t combo into fucking headbutt->Ultra

The match up is really about understanding the range and maximizing punishes off of Rose’s attacks to take control of the footsie game. There’s a lot of things about her normals that can be disorienting allowing her to get an early advantage landing you into her rush down game. This is actually one of the matches where Rose will want to rush a character down due to Viper’s overall bad defensive options. The best strategy for this match up is stick to the ground and work Rose with your Feint mix up options up close. You can’t really do Burn Kick mix ups on Rose after a knockdown because she can auto correct her Soul Throw really easily and it will beat a lot of your BK mix ups. She can Soul Throw BK’s on reaction as well so don’t be careless with them. Only a BK on top of her head will beat it so either jump directly on top of her and do a late short BK or a super jump short kick directly on top of her head. If she blocks she can mash c.jab to stuff follow up options so it’s not something I want to using very often. Safe jump RH owns her and throw in some OS Strong Thunder Knuckle to stop her back dash attempts and force her to block your pressure game. You just have to be careful with OS TK when she does EX Soul Spiral. If you saje jump her Soul Throw you get a free FFF punish. You have to keep in mind her Soul Throw puts her on the opposite side of you so you have to walk forward to get FFF in. If you react too late then just c.forward into Strong Thunder Knuckle.

Her ground rush down game is very similar to Viper’s in that it’s mostly c.Strong to Soul Spiral. Soul Spiral up close is punishable with c.strong/forward into Thunder Knuckle. I feel that certain versions of Soul Spiral can be punished with FFF and I have nailed it once or twice but I’m not if it was just the other person trying to do something afterwards. This is where understanding the punishing distance is important because she can make Soul Spiral safe from about mid-to-max range off of c.Strong. This allows her to either block, back dash, or EX Soul Spiral to frame trap you. If you feel she’s going to back dash then Strong Thunder Knuckle to stuff her on her back dash. If she gets the maximum distance off of Soul Spiral she can go for the slide to throw you off course and go for a tick throw setup. Her oki game really just consists of her cross up jump forward, abusing her throw range, and neutral jump Fierce. Block the cross up and get ready to avoid a tick throw situation. She can’t really frame trap you like a shoto can but she can use the the slide to mix you up and reset you. It’s best to stay calm under these situations and not to mash on crouch tech too much. As she can try to frame trap into a Soul Spiral combo. If you are good at teching throws then you will have no problems dealing with her throw game, however, if you have troubles teching her throws (and they can be annoying at first) then when she goes for neutral jump Fierce it can be an annoyance as it leads you back into the tick throw game or if she hits you then you eat a soul spiral combo. If you feel Rose is abusing the throw game too much then EX Seismo or Short Burn Kick to just beat out the attempt and force her to play smarter. The neutral jump is really just to bait out a wake up crouch tech or EX Seismo and nail you on the way down. If you anticipate on the neutral jump just FTK->Ultra or FTK, FTK her.

Her Ultra is pretty garbage and she doesn’t get many chances to land it unless you whiff an Ultra, eat a Focus Attack or do a bad jump in attempt. You can try to bait the Ultra by safe jumping against her or do a super jump and Burn Kick just slightly above her head. If you jump and Rose does the Ultra to catch you from the air if you are above the scarf you can just BK and avoid it altogether. If you are below that scarf then hope you will land in time to block. If you block the Ultra at point blank range you can punish with c.Fierce, EX Seismo, SJC Burn Kick, Ultra or whatever rendition you want to use. If you are a little bit farther away then Seismo SJC Burn Kick Ultra/SJC FADC Trip or Ultra/etc…

With just some solid ground games and the occasional BK mix up Rose really doesn’t have anything on Viper.

Oh, I should append one more thing to Rose’s Ultra. She does have that unblockable setup so it’s pretty imparitive you don’t get back thrown from mid screen but I think the best escape at that point is to back dash and eat the fireball. Viper’s back dash puts her off the ground so when she gets hit by a fireball the Ultra won’t connect.*-Killey

*For the rose match up I find myself holding down-back a lot due to her weak mix-up. The main thing you have to watch for are slide/back dash/throw attempts and the occasional soul spark FADC cross up attempts.

Slide gimmicks: Block, Tech throw attempts, If they back dash a lot after slide dash towards her (this option surprises people a lot and often leads to a free knockdown)

Soul Spiral: Unsafe spiral block strings can be punished with ultra on reaction

Soul Spark: Easy to get around I mostly used jab TK, you can also elbow if you want

Wake up game: Rose has a weak wake up, just safe jump RH, strong, short, and jab will beat every wake up option she has for the most part. Her main tool to use on wake up is EX Soul Spiral, or Soul throw meaty grounded wake up options or safe jumps destroy her wake up game and force her to block on knock down making it much easier to handle her.*-Flook
[/details]

Rufus

[details=Spoiler]Rufus

*Let him have it until he has 1 EX bar. After that, you really have to be careful because EX Messiah Kick really bails him out of everything.

Keep him honest by doing a lot of TK and Seismo feints. Otherwise, he’ll definitely control the offensive tempo.

Have the mental discipline to never jump at him. His 2-hit jumping roundhouse to EX Jumping Hand Slaps automatically take off 1/3 of your life. *-Kunai

*Rufus dive kick rushdown gets snuffed out by ex burning kick. dunno what else helps against that crap, it really makes Rufus back off which is always a good thing. *-Lime Green Ninja

*Rufus isn’t necessarily easy either yeah. He really takes advantage of Viper’s so so wake up options once he knocks her down. It’s easy for her to get overwhelmed if her blocking and reaction isn’t good. Plus his air game overall is stronger in the matchup simply because j.HK or EX snake strike hitting you out of the air = peaced out Viper. I still think Viper has options vs. Rufus though. Her ability to use cross up Burn Kick to beat EX Messiah allows her to play with Rufus on the wake up a bit more than some other characters.

It’s just when it comes to footsies and the air game it’s tough for Viper to keep up since she has to stick to some basic normals and vertical jump HK for spacing. Anything else gets pretty risky. You can try to beat him air to air if you see an opportunity as he’s landing from a dive kick or jump in but generally Rufus seems to have the advantage in the matchup as far as spacing and damage. Just another one of those matches where you really gotta take your time. *-DevilJin 01

*Playing too defensive against Rufus is what he wants, because Viper’s anti-airs are not solid. He will dive kick you all day and harass you if you let him. It is especially hard to stop him once he has half a super bar and an Ultra stocked.

Best bet is to make him waste EX bars using EX Messiah Kick. Ways to do that are foward + MP or varied air attacks that will either hit him before he attempts a move (like jumping WK)… or will help you drop to the ground w/o much damage if he tries to do EX Messiah Kick. Rufus totally hates foward and MP because of the relative safeness forward + MP has against EX Messiah, and it sometimes hits him out of dive kick attempts if he is too close to you.

Knockdowns on Rufus when he has no meter is what you definitely want. He will have no way of stopping you and you can play jumping HK or Burning Kick cross-up games all day with him. If he has 1 EX bar, he will definitely do EX Messiah Kick or the EX Jumping Hands to kill your momentum and take away a lot of your life.

Some of her higher priority air normals are u/uf+LK, u/uf+HK and uf+MK. At Final Round one of the things I saw Kensou using a lot of was straight up j.LK. He especially seemed to use this against one Rufus player on wake up and it was quite annoying for him to deal with. Main reason being it’ll stuff or trade against EX messiah kick and since you are airborne and above Rufus you won’t get hit by much of or any of the Messiah Kick.

I’ve learned that using f+MP on wake up against Rufus is pretty solid as well. If he sits there he’ll get hit by f+MP and if he decides to go for EX messiah you’ll reset out of the air and only get hit by one hit of the kick. Meaning you want the f+MP to hit from a distance so he’ll be forced to hit you with EX messiah while you’re still airborne during the f+MP. Only when he has Ultra does it really get risky to do and you can make it ambiguous and use it sparingly enough where it’ll work more often than not.*-Kunai

You just cant let Rufus get in basically you gotta keep him out and kill him asap.-FlashMetroid[/details]

Ryu

[details=Spoiler]Ryu

-Overhead and Light Thunder Knuckle can be used to go over and under fireballs.

-Can be Seismoed out of fireballs.

-Forward+roundhouse, overhead and Burning Kick hops over cr.mk and sweep and beats them out.

-However, Ryu can use cr.mk to lower his hitbox and make your Burning Kicks whiff.

-If Ryu player knows option select DP([media=youtube]nL2zpySSymE&feature=related[/media]) it’s best to just block.

-Is possible to use Burning Kick to beat out wake-up reversal Shoryukens.(see below)

[media=youtube]79Q7tfP3U7Y&feature=related[/media]

[media=youtube]DyeUKVbXVVc&feature=related[/media]
[media=youtube]XEt6BB5zpmQ&feature=related[/media]
[media=youtube]zklg_t7wxdM&feature=related[/media]

Get him to throw special moves or whiff normals. That’s the jist of the matchup. Another very baity matchup. Make him burn meter or whiff his shoryu when he has 2 meters and an Ultra. Otherwise you’re looking to get FADC Ultra’d soon. The match is in Ryu’s favor so don’t get too discouraged about losing. He already beats the crap out of your normals and on top of the move he uses when he doesn’t know what to do (LP shoryu) trades into Ultra and if he really doesn’t know what to do he can make his shoryu safe with FADC Ultra. Basically Ryu doesn’t have to respect your mix ups all the time like other characters.-DevilJin01

i tend to counter whore-ible (see what i did there?) Ryus by walking back and forth right at the edge of their c. mk range.-Flook[/details]

[Ryuga]

Sagat

[details=Spoiler]Sagat

-LP TK goes under Tiger Knee and st.roundhouse

• Tiger Uppercut can be beaten out with Burning Kick like Ryu’s Shoryuken; [media=youtube]79Q7tfP3U7Y&feature=related[/media]

Try to keep his Tiger Shots under control with Seismo’s.

Up close you can contend with him poking wise but still need good blocking or you can end up losing your bar.

Easier to cross up because of his larger hit box. Still can’t be predictable or reckless with jumps because one DP can net him big damage.
It is my belief that safe TK strings give any Viper the most heirs. Once he gets a correctly spaced Tiger Knee, he has a counter for everything Viper can do to escape.

Though, Viper takes away the threat at times of the kara Tiger Uppercut.Because of the different jump arcs that she possesses, it’s hard to for the Sagat to reaction kara TU her on reaction. The only real use for it is if he hits the Viper with a jumping hard punch away from them then kara TU to combo. Also, from about half screen or so, if the Sagat has great reaction time (and most good ones really do), it is not out of the realm of possibility to kara TU Viper out of a Seismo/either feint. Kind of reckless for him though to do, but the reward can be huge.

I know that Sagat can’t exactly set up the meaty LK Tiger Shot then kara TS trap on Viper I think either. I know when he does, it’s a lot of trouble for Viper since IIRC he gets and option select off of it that will stop jump ins.

*Also, most of the time, Sagat on wake up will do meaty cr. lk. This is because this nullifies wake up hp tk for Viper. You see, Sagat’s cr. lk recovers in 6 frames, while Viper’s hp tk hits on frame 7. So Sagat will be able to block it in time. I believe that this also applies for EX Seismo and lk bk too on wake up. *-CoosCoos

I personally think Sagat is solid for Viper just because it’s so risky for him to do anything to Viper if he gets knocked down. Well placed burn kicks and j.HK’s are risky for him to react to because the only real option he has to get out is a slow FA’d backdash or an uppercut. Both of which are easily baited and lead to big damage FFF and EX seismo combos. I don’t personally think the match is in her favor because the Ultra system allows Sagat to clean up any big damage she did very quickly on one guess and he has access to basically the best defensive tool in the game (FADC Ultra). You have to be extremely careful what you throw at Sagat once he has FADC Ultra because it shuts out anything offensively that you do in front of him. It is also one of the matchups that Viper actually has a strong poking game versus but Sagat can option select Viper too easily and override her damage too well with his own to consider it in her favor. If the Sagat player has no idea what you’re doing…then yeah it can look like it’s in her favor. Once Sagat has any idea what is going on his toolset is just going to turn things around. -DevilJin 01[/details]

Sakura

[details=Spoiler]Sakura

Sakura is kinda free for Viper. The Sakura player can win but she has to be playing pretty on point. If you knock Sakura down there isn’t much to fear. Her dragon punch only hits grounded opponents so burn kicks are extra free on the wake up and the only thing you have to worry about is her small hitbox. Once you get that down she’s cross up city. Her s.HK can be a bit of a pain but you can LP knuckle under that. Other than that once you gain up some meter she can’t play her ground game quite as effectively due to that and EX seismo.

One of the reasons why Viper wins this matchup is that any air based attack she chooses on her wake up beats Sakura. If Sakura goes for EX SRK on wake up an air LK burn kick will hit her out of it. There’s no aerial hit box for Sakura’s EX SRK so you can basically use it for free on Sakura’s wake up. EX SRK takes a long time to go through its full animation so it can’t really get her out of mix ups. It does start up fast but Sakura stays doesn’t really travel too far efore she even goes up in the air giving you all day to punish. If you see Sakura flying away with an EX SRK (if she is somehow able to do that in the first place) then if you meter you can just EX seismo her as she falls in the other direction or dash up and punish her.

Neutral jump HK is annoying but if you just block it won’t kill you. Viper can c.MK at a distance to beat s.HK or LP Thunder Knuckle under it. If she’s getting predictable you can go with EX seismo as well.- DevilJin 01

Personally, I don’t have the greatest Sakura matchup experience, but I have gone against Steve H.'s Sakura plenty of times (and his Sakura is amazing). Sakura is just one of those matchups that Viper has where Viper does perfectly fine until Sakura gets in. Sakura’s pressure is fantastic. So, just don’t let her in :P. It wasn’t until I played Steve H. until I realized that Sakura can keep a character in almost completely blockstun with her pressure. Surely, there are a few frames between each normal she throws out, so you can try to:

[LIST]
[]Backdash (hold back on the second pressing of back, because if the backdash doesn’t come out, then you should still be blocking).
[]EX Seismo (a bit risky, because if you mistime it, you’ll get hit hard by a long combo).
[]Fierce TK (a mix of risk is involved in this. If you mistime it, you should still be holding back anyway since it’s a qcb motion. If you are worried that the motion and timing might not be perfect so that a standing fierce could accidentally come out, you can just hold fierce while you’re on the ground or in blockstun and negative edge the fierce for the TK motion. However, the risk comes into play if Sakura is crouching, thus making you whiff and getting destroyed. More risk comes into this if she reads that you’re going to try to TK yourself out of trouble, so she might block. In this case, you’re basically obligated to FADC backdash unless you want to eat a combo into ultra. FADC backdash is important here because if you forward dash, you’re putting yourself in the exact same situation you were trying to escape).
[]Fierce TK feint (The invincibility in this can make one of her normals whiff if timed correctly. Yes, this requires quick fingers obviously. If this succeeds, you won’t have much time to do something. Since Viper’s normals are really slow, your only real options are going for a throw or backdashing.)
[]Short Burn Kick (Probably the least viable option. This is a safer alternative to using EX burn kick in the sense that you’ll just get hit out of the air instead of getting punished for the massive recovery EX burn kick has, but short burn kick may not work as good as you think. This will work if Sakura tries to go for a tick throw or a crouching normal, but this will actually lose to standing normals. I can’t remember if it’s Sakura’s crouching strong or crouching fierce that looks like a crouching uppercut, probably the latter, but I’m sure that hits Viper out of her short burn kick too.)
[]EX Burn Kick (A lot of Sakura’s awesome normals are her standing punches, and EX burn kick will hit standing opponents, but will leave you wide open if they crouch. This is definitely a super risky move, but if you are confident they are gonna pressure you with a ton of standing normals, then go for this. Be aware of any patterns she might use for normal pressure, especially after a blocked tatsu. Her arsenal doesn’t only include standing normals, as her crouching ones are very good too.)
[*]Throw (This is also risky, because Sakura has to be in your throw range, which isn’t always the case. You might be able to do this after a blocked short tatsu, but I’d have to test that. If you mash out a throw [3 frames] the moment you come out of blockstun, you will throw Sakura out of anything she throws out [likely a 3 frame normal] if she’s in throw range, because when a throw’s first active frame and a normal’s active frame both start on the exact same frame, throw will win 100% of the time).
[/LIST]
Incredibly important paragraph: Sakura’s normals are not only great for pressure, but so is her short tatsu. Her short tatsu pressure is the heart and soul of her lockdown. This is for the fact that her short tatsu will leave her at 0 frame advantage on block, which means Sakura will beat Viper with about 4 or 5 practical normals that Sakura would use that are at least 1-2 frames faster than any of Viper’s practical normals or specials. So unless you go for a reversal special with invincibility, then you’re gonna get counterhit to death. Your only other options are to block or backdash.

Now, I’m sure players will disagree with me on this, but I think you are almost obligated to find an escape to her pressure rather than just blocking, though you don’t necessarily have to do an action immediately to get you out. Delay it and be spontaneous, otherwise you could get read and destroyed. Using EX seismo or fierce TK to interrupt her pressure can make her think twice about her relentless pressure, which might make her use a few pauses in her pressure (this would be a great time to backdash or walk-up throw). Trust me, I know top players insist that blocking, especially with Viper, is important (and I agree entirely). But Sakura can lock you down really well to the point where she could just pressure you all day, unless you do one of the things I mentioned above. I guess if your blocking and reading is really good, you can just block until she tries to go for the tick throw, tech it, then backdash away (but if she reads that, she could just SRK you. Ahhh, the mind games and reading). However, backdashing in the corner might make you dodge a normal, but not the situation and pressure. Don’t forget, Sakura has her flower kick overhead, so you really need to focus.

However, if Sakura isn’t in on you, just play a zoning game. Her fireballs suck when she has to deal with your seismo’s (just seismo on reaction to her fireballs). In fact, the fireballs shouldn’t even trade, because you can just seismo -> sjc right over them. If you can hit a burn kick while she gets launched from the seismo, then do it. If the burn kick won’t reach, then sjc so you clear the fireball, use a short BK so you stop yourself from traveling further, then back dash right back into the same place you were to reset the situation, making her start back at square 1. From here, she’ll try to get in, so at this point you just need to be careful of her cr. forward, since that got buffed in AE. Beyond that, just play the AA game if she tries to jump in.

*Rushing her down with your pressure isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but playing the zoning game is probably a better and safer option. Since Sakura is small, sometimes Viper’s burn kicks will whiff at heights and ranges that don’t normally whiff on most of the cast, so that’s kind of annoying. As a side note on that, I personally use roundhouse burn kick for crossups and such, but roundhouse BK seems to whiff more on Sakura than forward BK does. Just a personal suggestion to use forward BK, though.**-***TheFragile[/details]

Seth

Spoiler

Basically the jist is to not be afraid of Seth. U have one of the best characters in the game for dealing with j.hp. just hp seismo the shit out of him until he lands on one. Ex seismo will also beat j.hp for free from nearly anywhere on the screen. Basically if his j.hp comes in contact with your body and u do ex seismo he gets smacked.

Outside of that your character can basically fly as well. If he wants to do j.hp just chase him with super jump hk. J.hp only hits downward so if u rush him down with super jump hks he has to switch up to a different normal or losing health for free. U wanna be aggressive and build meter and make j.hp as useless as possible. He can’t even throw seth booms at u because seismo beats that free especially with the longer recovery frames. All u need is one or 2 real combos to end the match so get those 2 combos in and j.hk or seismo everything else. Obviously start blocking if he gets offensive on you but don’t be afraid to try and randomly press buttons or trade with him. Any trade will be in ur favor-DevilJin01

Viper has the advantage here.

Seth players will use the JP FP and Standing FP to poke you to death. They will also teleport behind you to trick you into a grab/shoryu.

The key to this match-up is that Seth has weak defense and Viper is very fast in mobile.
What you want to do is dash/SJ close to him and play your game from there.
SJ to Heavy BK is incredibly useful when you see that he is in the air.

You can punish his blocked ultra with EX Seismic Hammer giving a certain distance if I remember right.
Viper has BK to avoid his Ultra so use this.

basically he has no real advantage in the match he is forced to play out of his element and he doesnt win in random factor…its just the worst of both worlds-FlashMetroid

His shoryu is pretty unsafe and last a while so you can bait it. Up close Seth is not that big of a threat while Viper is a big threat up close. Up close you can swap between blocking and BK shenagins. His damage isn’t too good up close so you can take more risks.

Seth specializes in Zoning/keep away tactics. So try to close in fast as possible.
Be aware of his Super which is his strongest move. If he has a super, don’t jump in or SJ and get BK ready for usage.

Teleporting is a big issue with Seth vs Viper. If they teleport behind you go for LP, a quick attack, or BK. You can also predict their teleport and proceed to combo from there.-k4polo-[/details]

Vega

[details=Spoiler]Vega(Claw)

-Vega’s Flying Barcenola can be FA’d(but can be thrown out of FA by Izuna.) can be Ex Seismoed/Ex Seismo feinted to either hit or make them pass through you. They can also be vertical jump roundhoused from afar.

Bait his hop backs and walk up throw (I have personally walked up and hit him with combos but he might have been hitting buttons)
I’ve started learning to actually use Viper’s focus in certain matchups and Vega is one of those matchups. Since on the ground he can mainly only hit you with one hit pokes to back you off its in your favor if he gets predictable to move in and focus attack his cr.MP/cr.MK or focus dash them and throw him. This again learned from watching the couple Claw vs. Viper match vids out there. You can also focus dash his wall dives as long as he’s going for the attack. Just have to be careful for the mix up because then you’ll get caught with the izuna drop throw. Try to capitalize on any knockdowns you get vs. Vega because he can’t do much about them other than low blocking or trying to catch you with a psychic EX scarlet terror (his dragon punch flip kickish move). Which you can easily safe jump (time ur jump so you can block if you don’t land an attack on him) and punish. If he tries to go for backflip anticipate and dash up and punish with whatever. There’s like 6 frames of recovery on it.

Against Claw’s wall dives either focus that shit and punish, or SJ MP/HK his ass. Pretty much all you need is one knockdown and then you can go to town with various cross ups with burning kicks, and normals and stuff. If he flips away, just either dash up and punish, or just wait until he lands then EX siesmo that shit. -CoosCoos

Vega is easy, jump in roundhouse on his wake up and he can’t do shit about it. If he backflips on reversal, just EX seismo it when he’s about to recover; he won’t be able to block it.

The main thing you want to do is abuse his low stun and weak wake up options. Getting there may be a problem against good players, but his anti air options aren’t the best either. Look for something on the ground, you can EX seismo his pokes. I usually catch them trying to low strong me after a blocked medium knuckle, which I then EX seismo and that’s all it really takes to end the round.

What you DON’T wanna do is run into his pokes and roundhouse. That’s pretty much what he relies on. People don’t respect him and then before they know it…they have chunks of their health bar missing from running into shit. As long as you move in with smarts, you should be sitting fine.-MagnetoManiac

When you realize that Claw has no reliable anti-air to keep you out, especially when he’s not crouching and blocking… he’s pretty much dead meat to Viper. Guessing games with air Burning Kicks and making sure he’s pacing around instead of sitting there and charging will make your Vega match-ups much easier.-**Kunai **

[Ryuga]

Zangief

[details=Spoiler]

Zangief

-All versions of regular Banishing Flat/Green Hand are punishable on block. Ideal punishment on block is st.mp, cr.mp>Medium Thunder/Ultra. It is also punishable on hit but the timing is tight. For the EX version, the same applies on block and you can also reversal Ultra it on block too.(haven’t tried the regular version but you can probably do the same?)

• How to punish Lariat by UltraDavid: Quick tip: Lariat is safe on block only if Gief spaces it perfectly and then times it to hit perfectly. Recognize this range and if you think you’re at it, backdash. Otherwise the lariat is extremely punishable. If you block it at any other time than the end of it, you get a free immediate punish. Almost any punish here that says wait also applies to blocking at a bad range.

EVERYONE

• Wait until lariat’s very significant recovery, then do WHATEVER YOU WANT

Viper

• far HK
• cr.MK xx Thunder Knuckle
• Seismo xx combo
• Ex seismo xx combo
• Jump HK combo
• Wait, cr.HK
• Wait, Ultra
• Wait, Super
• Throw (Ultra David)

-f he jumps FPTK / Neutral j.FK (when doing FPTK buffer in forward dash to get the 2nd FPTK or Ultra in case of trade)

Don’t mp/lp thunder knuckle at all when he has super/ultra on block he can punish it.-BZB

*Gief sucks ass. The guessing game works so well in his favor too because he can take your hits like a dayum champ and you’re limited as far as the things that you can hit him with reliably in the first place. I respect very few American Giefs because there are very few that play him technically. Most just willy nilly on the stick and react to things randomly and act like they know something. There’s no reason for a Gief to “play on point” against Viper…that’s the only way she can control him. If the Gief player plays like an oversized El Fuerte he’s basically shutting out any way for you to attack him without a ton of risk. He takes damage way too well and can kill her too quickly to not just go balls out like a fucking idiot. If he didn’t take damage so dayum well it’d be a bit more manageable. If you get knocked down luck is like your only prayer to get out. Which is kind of the deal with Gief in every game but retarted lariat hit boxand german suplex that keeps him right next to you means you’ll be playing the guessing game virtually forever if you don’t luck out. It doesn’t help that you can be thrown out of your most viable option to escape Gief’s crap on wake up. *

Vertical j.RH works until they are in range to hit you with a lariat trade into EX hands. Good Gief players know that the start up of their lariat will always trade with your j.HK and then they’ll EX hand for free knockdown.(DevilJin01)
Basically you just have to deal with the fact that this is probably the only matchup in the game where Viper’s high damage output means nothing. The biggest issue is it has NOTHING to do with the fact that Gief has the most health in the game. If you could actually hit him with anything that leads to high damage without putting yourself in a ton of risk that wouldn’t be a problem. The biggest issue is that ever setting yourself in a position to do anything high damage to Gief leads to situations where the odds are you are going to get destroyed for trying. So not only does he have huge health…but he can keep himself out of the majority of your setups into high damage any ways.

So he gets to make mistakes FOREVER and you have to make him make mistakes FOREVER in order to win. If he guesses right on one thing that causes you to fall down on the ground and he is next to you…you have to basically pray or die. I mean there is a bit of strategy to getting out of wake up situations against Gief but the issue is Gief has too many mix ups on the wake up. You could easily guess wrong and die. If you get knocked down the best tool you have is HP Knuckle and 2 meters to FADC backdash if he blocks it. Which still kinda sucks because if Gief guesses that you are going to use HP knuckle you will get regular thrown, german suplexed or SPD’d out of it. Gief can also time his lariat so the very beginning of his lariat hits your HP knuckle which will either beat it out or trade greatly in his favor. If Gief tries to cross up splash you on the wake up if he’s still a bit high in the air when you wake up you can EX burn kick out of the wake up to simply get away. Backdash or FA backdash works decently as well if you know you’ll be able to get out with either. Basically you have to do something whether it’s attack or movement based. If you just sit there you die.

From a distance you obviously just want to heave seismoxxxseismo at this guy. Chain your seismos to make a land mine of explosives to make it more difficult for him to get in. Make sure you use seismos from a distance. Once he starts to close the gap more than half the screen length against you you don’t want to throw anymore seismos. One random jump Gief does when he has Ultra and you will lose all your health. Once you start making Gief jump you can then AA him with far HK, make him land on an EX or regular seismo, LP knuckle (LP knuckle beats a lot of his stuff actually), HP knuckle if he is closer etc. Good Giefs know how to play around wit their air normals and use his short jump to make it more difficult to AA him but this can only be worked out through trial and error in the matchup. Most online Gief you can basically just throw an AA when they jump and they fall back down to the ground.

If Gief gets withing close range to you and you are both standing this is the trickiest part of the match. You have to realize that Gief has the advantage overall here but if you panic you are just going to make things worse. You basically just have to act like you aren’t in a crap situation and deal with what you have. The overall safest thing to do is just sit in crouch block when he is within a character length of you. At this range good Giefs are gonna want to throw s.MP at you, s.HK to SPD you or if they have a lot of meter try safe EX hands and backdash if you block. Which against all of these options if you aren’t blocking first you are going to get smashed. As long as you can stay just outside of LP SPD range you should be good. If he tries s.MP you can c.MK or LP knuckle under that. If he tries s.HK you can do the same or throw EX seismo at him to blast him out of the SPD attempt and super jump or SJC FADC backdash away. If he tries for EX green hand and he doesn’t have meter you can just block and punish with HP knuckle or close s.MP, c.MP, MP knuckle (or just c.MP to MP knuckle). I believe EX seismo starts up too slowly to punish with that. If Gief has meter he will just try for safe EX hands (backdash/forward FADC after EX hands). If he tries to forward dash just HP knuckle immediately after the dash or backdash away. If he backdashes your spacing is reset.

You can also guess he is going to do EX hands and punish by jumping backward so that if he starts the EX hand while you are airborne you can hit him with ub+HK knee into c.HP into whatever. If the Gief tries lariat you can just look for it and punish accordingly with c.MK, LP knuckle or EX seismo. Actually if you hit. Gief with a c.MP or c.MK at close range you should always use LP knuckle. It’s safer than MP knuckle on block incase you don’t combo it and it goes under a lot of Gief’s stuff. You just have to watch out for Gief’s that will mix things up with kick lariat which has lower body invincibility.

Burn kicks are almost useless for actually hitting Gief. Majority of the time you are just going to be using your burn kicks for movement. Like if Gief gets close you can super jump behind him and then do a burn kick in the reverse direction which allows you to move farther across the screen. For whatever hit box reasons all the active frames of Gief’s lariat beat all the active frames of Viper’s burn kick. So you can’t do stuff like splash cross ups with Fuerte to counter Gief’s lariat. Lariat is just always going to be a threat in this match once you get close to Gief. The only way you can really mix things up with burn kicks against Gief is if you are pressuring him with LP knuckles at a close range can guess that he isn’t thinking about lariat. You can insta super jump burn kick on the other side of him to cross him up and reset your positioning if you just happened to be closer to the corner.-DevilJin01[/details]

Makoto

Spoiler

(insert info here)

Dudley

Spoiler

(insert info here)

Yun

Spoiler

(insert info here)

Yang

Spoiler

(insert info here)

Oni

[details=Spoiler]*1) Her LP TK goes under Oni’s f.hp, f.mk and f.hk. Viper can also go over his cr.mk with f.mp and f.hk like all the other shotos can. *

*2) Oni’s cr.mk goes under BK. His st.hp and cr.hp can beat out your BKs. *

*3) Oni EX DP all of her reversal options, and they will all lose. HP TK(Thunder Knuckle), all forms of BK(Burning Kick) including the EX version and EX Seismo will all lose to EX DP. EX Seismo feint doesn’t recover quick enough to enable Viper to block the EX DP in time, so that loses too. Backdash loses to EX DP. Admittedly, I haven’t tried HP TK Feint yet. *

*4) I think it goes without saying, from a distance, you win due to Seismos. Viper can get around fireballs anyway with BKs, LP TK and so on, plus Oni’s fireballs don’t even reach full screen lol. He’d ideally want to stay at mid range where he can poke at her and take the fight to her. LP TK goes under a good amount of pokes, like f.mk, f.hp, and f.hk. His normals are a lot laggier than they appear, especially his f.hp. I’ve seen Air’s Ryu whiff punish Oni’s f.hp with Ultra, that’s how laggy it is. *

*5) Oni can avoid Seismos using Sekisei Jiraiken(jump stomp.) He can sorta avoid and punish Seismos using Rankan Dantojin(cross-up move)but it has to be done pre-emptively, like, you do the special before her Seismo comes out so it’s not that practical. Finally, he has airdashes as an extra form of mobility, which could throw off her Seismo zoning. But that move has bad landing recovery. If he airdashes backwards and you’re not too far away, plant a Seismo underneath him. In general, plant a Seismo underneath him if he airdashes and he’s not near you. *

Oni wants to knock you down, that’s pretty much his one shot. He’s got cross-up Tatsu and cross-up Rankan Dantojin for mix-ups, but HK Rankan Dantojin can be blocked fairly easy and is punishable(I think -8) All versions of Rankan Dantojin are unsafe except the light version which goes the shortest distance, which leaves him at -2. If he ever tries to use any of the regular Rankans in resets, press buttons and hit him out of it. You can grab him too. EX Version, he glows bright yellow and he always crosses you up, so block the other side. That’s also punishable too. If you knock him down, the usual mix-ups work, Viper can use BKs to make his options whiff/get beaten out. He also can’t FADC his Shoryu.

*6) When Oni’s on the offensive and has you blocking, he’ll use normals like b.mp, st.hp st.mp and stuff like that during frametraps, which’ll stuff reversal LK BKs. Oni wants you to press buttons so he can hit you with a large combo. If he has *
*two bars and catches you with a counter hit, you’ll eat massive damage and stun. Watch out for gimmick aerial Raging Demons when he’s in the air. He can also kara his f.mp into Demon too and maybe his f.mk, can’t remember. *

I believe Viper definitely has the advantage in this MU, Oni’s a pretty weak shoto variant so far, but Oni can hit you very hard.-Ryuga[/details]

Dudley

Spoiler

(insert info here)

Cody

Spoiler

(insert info here)

Adon

[details=Spoiler]Adon is a bastard. From what I’ve tried to learn (and I’ve spent at least a good hour and a half or two hours in training mode focusing on Viper vs Adon), this is what I know:

There’s not really much you can do about his jaguar kick. It’s possible to beat it with a extremely well-timed fierce TK, but the risk-reward is bad due to the fact that if your spacing and timing are not super precise, he will beat you clean. If I also remember right, you cannot beat short kick version of his jaguar kick (the far-traveling horizontal one). Just block and deal with it.

You can beat his jaguar tooths with a jump, well-timed EX seismo, or fierce TK (the timing on this isn’t as strict as it is to beat his jaguar kick):
[LIST]
[]If you are trying to beat it with fierce TK, you need to hit him either really early (the fierce TK hitbox hits the tip of his foot. This is really pre-emptive, because you basically have to do this when you see Adon leap up against the wall.) or really late (so that his foot will touch your body right as Viper becomes invincibile from the fierce TK). The only problem with using fierce TK here is that if he baits you (in example, if you’re full screen and you attempt a pre-emptive fierce TK when he leaps up at the wall, you’re wide open if he does anything but roundhouse or EX jaguar tooth). Also, the timing for the early and late fierce TK vs the roundhouse jaguar tooth is completely different if he does an EX jaguar tooth, and there is no way to tell which version he is using until he darts off the wall. If you guess wrong, you lose.
[]A fairly safer move to this is EX seismo as long as his kick gets nullified by Viper’s invincibility. The EX seismo invincibility, if i remember right, seems to last long enough that it should beat roundhouse and EX jaguar tooth (and probably even forward jaguar tooth as well). Only issue with this is if he does a short jaguar tooth, he’s gonna bait you into wasting meter, and Viper without meter isn’t fun.
[*]Jump back or jump straight up. Jumping back is probably the safer option in the sense that you avoid the kick completely. However, if Adon and you are 100% maximum full-screen away and he goes for a roundhouse or EX jaguar tooth, you can jump straight up and do an aerial roundhouse into whatever you want (don’t forget that you can do aerial roundhouse into ultra 1). If you are not 100% full-screen away by even the slightest, then he will land under you and on the other side of you. This means if you try to roundhouse, you will be kicking the air and he can punish you with whatever he pleases. If he does land on the other side of you, you can try to do a short BK, but I haven’t tested this. Otherwise, jump back if you want the safe option here. Even better, if you’re cornered, then you can definitely do jump back and he won’t land on the other side of you. This is one of the only matchups where I don’t mind being cornered because if they get too antsy and/or try to do EX jaguar tooth into ultra, they might try a jaguar tooth to get in, but Adon ends up losing half of his life in the process. To be clear, jumping back at any point on the screen may not make you land on top of Adon for a punish, but it lets you avoid it completely if you’re full screen or at least a decent distance away. If you jump back up close or mid-range, you might be in trouble if you jump (and in that case, you should either block or attempt a pre-emptive fierce TK).
[/LIST]
Adon’s knee dp is a mixed can of nuts to me. Safe jumping his forward or roundhouse knee dp isn’t too hard and is ideal since it’s a 5 frame startup, but his short knee dp goes super far and starts up in 4 frames. To be honest, I can’t remember if he lands on the opposite side of you if he tries a short knee dp and you block it, but I remember it being annoying while I was in training mode.

All in all, this matchup isn’t fun. I’ve toyed with a lot of stuff in training mode, and mostly all I found is how to minimize / avoid the damage he deals to me, but not quite ways for me to deal more damage to him. Burn kick crossups should probably piss him off, but be careful of his knee dp. Do ambiguous BK crossups on his wakeup as if you were doing it at that safe height/positioning vs a shoto.-The Fragile[/details]

Guy

Spoiler

(insert info here)

[Ryuga]

Reserved for missing match-up sections.

Ibuki

[details=Spoiler]Ibuki seems pretty even to me. Not that I’ve played against a ton of other Ibukis yet myself but the jist is basically to keep her out and scare her with MP knuckles and MP knuckle feints. Especially if you fight against the focus attack happy Ibuki player since her focus attack level 1 has pretty quick start up. You wanna feint electricity at her to make her think twice about throwing it out so u can work in your c.MP and MP knuckle game. The jist is basically to knock Ibuki down because if u knock Ibuki down she is horrifically free on wake up. Like Viper actually has solid reversal options compared to Ibuki it’s sad. LOL. The only reversal she has is EX kazekiri (DP) and that starts up in 5 frames. Meaning it’s easy to safe jump and the biggest problem is that her EX DP moves her forward so if you cross her up she basically pushes herself forward behind your cross up. Meaning even if u don’t safe jump your cross up against her she’ll probably still fly far and away from you and u can punish when she lands. Balrog is notorious for being able to force Ibuki’s EX DP to fly under him during jump ins. Which is why it’s best to try to make her EX DP whiff because if it whiff she can’t throw a kunai after and she’s dead. Even if u block the EX DP all u have to do is start charging a focus and when she throws the kunai just absorb it and dash forward at her for a free punish. If she doesn’t throw the kunai immediately u can just dash forward and punish.

Probably the only real seriously annoying things u have to deal with in this matchup that I’ve seen so far (from playing other people and what I know about Ibuki myself) is that she has a 3 frame s.LP that combos into anything, a 4 frame c.LP with a nice hit box that combos into everything, a s.MP that executes in 5 frames and has a deceptively large hit box and can force counter hits easily and combos into sweep. Now the problem with all of this is that at close range she’s going to be like fighting another Sakura, Balrog etc. She has combos that allow her 3 frames to combo a neck break afterwards.

Basically what that means is if Ibuki hits you with a jab or a medium u are basically almost guaranteed to be put in an untech knockdown situation immediately afterwards. It also means if u let Ibuki get in your face there isn’t shit much u can do outside of blocking or backdashing. Mashing on burn kicks will get killed by c.LP and s.LP, your thunder knuckle takes too long to come out to reliably use against smart jab spacing and since her s.LP hits crouching people like Sakura she can basically mash on s.LP in your face for free minus EX seismo or guess HP TK. Though like Balrog or Ryu if she’s in your face and mashing c.LP the hit box will meaty out your EX seismo free so good Ibuki’s will just mash c.LP at you once they get close to you. On wake up it’s the same deal. She can just option select with c.LP or simply mash c.LP and she’ll beat EX seismo free. Generally u don’t want to ever get hit by Ibuki’s light or medium attacks because all it takes is one landed LP or MP and u can see yourself in a vortex situation. Once Ibuki is in your face she can pretty safely fish for counter hit focus attacks with her solid focus since all of your armor breakers start too slow to risk using on reaction outside of flat guesses.

If you get knocked down by Ibuki the best thing to do is just learn to block the right way. You have to block the kunai vortex depending on where she was when the kunai was thrown. If she was in front of you when the kunai was thrown block it as a regular jump in. If she got slightly behind u before throwing the kunai block it as a cross up. A little bit easier said than done because she can make it pretty ambiguous but u just have to have an eye for it. Good Ibukis will tend to mix up her vortex with safe jump LK’s since that’s probably her best cross up. j.MK is ok but it has a small hit box for crossing compared to 3S.

Viper actually has a couple pretty decent reversals against Kunai vortex depending on if the opponent does them meaty or not. Like Ibuki’s kunai will kill different things depending on if she does it so it hits you high or real low and meaty. If she hits you with a kunai real meaty (which is good for killing most quick starting non EX reversals with ease) Viper has a lot of ways out (the type of meaty kunai that almost touches the floor before it hits u). EX seismo feint will get you out for free. LK burn kick will hop you over the kunai and force Ibuki into a situation where she has to block your burn kick. Even HP Thunder knuckle will hit her out of it since Viper is invincible until just before she goes into the air and Ibuki is still recovering from the landing of the kunai. Just don’t try to backdash since a meaty kunai kills the start up of backdash. You can focus backdash out but since it’s a meaty kunai the timing to do this is pretty strict and if u mess up you basically get blown up again with the vortex. It’s probably not a bad idea to try focus backdashing out with Viper since Viper’s backdash is really good and if she does get it right she’s out for free basically. Though of course if u mess up u go right back to eating pain and untech knockdowns.

If she goes for a kunai that hits you a bit higher and early on your wake up… because of your slow start up frames on all your reversals u basically can’t get out with much as far as reversal specials are concerned. Normally Ibuki wants to hit with a super meaty kunai to limit most reversal options but Viper’s reversals are so slow she can do an earlier lazy kunai to kill most of your special reversals. EX seismo will completely whiff and you’ll get punished. EX seismo feint will get stuffed because it forces Viper to stand during recovery making her hit box real big and u get comboed for free. EX burn kick starts up fast but the recovery is so slow she can just land and HP neck break you again during the recovery and you’re back in the vortex. HP thunder knuckle makes her hit box real big and starts up slow so she’ll get hit for free. If you time a focus attack at pretty much reversal timing on the wake up u can do that and then dash out. Though the timing is strict and if u mess up u will get hit. Mashing backdash or LK burn kick isn’t terrible against this type of kunai vortex since it just puts you in an airborne juggle state but Ibuki can just juggle u with Raida afterwards which puts you in an untech knockdown situation then u have to deal with cross up again any way. Though if she doesn’t juggle anything then it’s kind of an escape.

So basically u have different options depending on how the kunai lands on you but unless you have a super good eye for it the best thing to do is just learn to block the right way and zone Ibuki out so u don’t get knocked down. Ibuki has a serious seriuos wake up game because she can basically force u to have to block or do something incredibly risky that can work in her favor if u don’t know what you are doing. Which is why most good players just block because unless u see the exact kunai situation coming at you it’s just not worth the risk to try and get out with something other than a block. -DevilJin01[/details]

Juri

[details=Spoiler]People say Juri wins this, Viper can’t Seismo as effectively as Juri can stop this with her Shikusen dive and Kasatushi counter. Juri can use cr.mk to lower her hitbox enough to make Burning Kicks whiff, similar to shoto cr.mk. Juri, on the whole, has better normals than Viper, but in my opinion, not by much.

My opinion is that if they come across a Viper who makes use of her normals and walkspeed, they’ll change their tune. Juri may have better normals than Viper, but Viper has much better walkspeed than Juri and, in my opinion of course, can easily move in and out of range to whiff punish Juri or get a counter hit with cr.mp. I believe Viper can get better results keeping the fight on the ground as Juri has a lot of normals that can AA, though similar to Chun Li, they are situational. Juri’s will tend to avoid using Fuhajins from far away due to Seismo, however, Fuhajin fireballs are versatile and are great up close offensively, either for blockstrings or for combos. She can also combo sweep off a fireball mid-screen depending on the distance.

Viper’s normals are slow to start up and Light Pinwheel has some disdvantage, but not enough for Viper’s normals to punish, so some of the Juri players over at SRK think if they space it correctly, they can get away with abusing it. Well, they can’t lol, because all Viper has to do is block low, like mentioned before and one of the kicks in the rotation will whiff, making the move much more unsafe. And if Viper gets a knockdown, it can be game over. I also think Viper can use Ex Seismo to beat out Shikusen dives, similar to how she can stop Adon’s Jaguar Tooth(?) with it; using the invincibility of the Ex Seismo to beat it out.

Juri’s corner game is very strong. Once she has Viper in the corner, she can really pile on the pressure. She can start doing blockstrings into Fuhajin store, which leave her relatively safe. Once that happens, she’s got a fireball stocked and can start building up a big offence. She can release it, if blocked, it puts her at good advantage frame-wise and she can follow up with throw, providing her with an untechable knockdown to store another fireball, frame trap into more blockstrings into Fuhajin store or sweep to give her an untechable knockdown. If it connects, Juri gets to combo off it. She can mix it up with her overhead too to get you to loosen up your guard. I’d rather eat the overhead, it won’t lead to anything unless it’s a counter hit…or she’s in Feng Shui Egnine. If she manages to store to store two fireballs, no matter what, don’t get hit lol. If she has Feng Shui activated, Juri becomes a lot more offensive. I’ll post more on this later in an edit as well as more on how to be on the look out for Fuhajins in the corner.

However, if Viper gets Juri into a corner, Juri’s equally screwed in my opinion. Juri’s defensive options are, in some cases, worse than Viper’s. If you knock her down in the corner, Viper can really mess her about. In the corner when she’s knocked down, Juri’s only really got three options to get out; block and tech and find an opportunity to get out, Kasatushi counter and Ex Pinwheel.

Regular Kasatushi has some start-up and can be stuffed on wake-up, but if they get the counter off, it’ll be the light one which makes Juri dash forward and phase past the opponent. If the Juri player has meter, chances are if they’re going to use the counter, it’ll be the Ex one as that one has less start-up. With the Kasatushi, they’re looking to swap positions, so that you’re in the corner and they’re out. The Ex one can be also be manually controlled and a trick Juri players have been using lately is to control the Ex counter so that they leap into the air, but move forward in the air slightly and cross up with a neutral jump roundhouse. There’s a video example of this, I’ll need to find it but regardless of whether it hits or not, they’ve swapped positions. Viper could probably predict this and AA with HP Thunder Knuckle, but I’m not sure.

EX Pinwheel is the get-off-me move. Except, it’s actually not that great. Highly punishable, can be stuffed by cross-ups, and can trade. Both EX Pinwheel and Kasatushi can be thrown. Yup, EX Pinwheel is not throw invulnerable haha. Counters are not immune to focus breakers, but can escape multiple hitting moves and can escape chip damage situations because she doesn’t suffer any damage whatsoever during the counter. So, the safest option would be for Juri to block and ride it out while looking out for an opportunity to escape.

Tool wise I think viper beats juri pretty convecingly. Juri cannot zone viper simply because of seismo, Lp tk, her over head, and f.rh. It done correctly f.rh will hit juri after a short fb release and will dissapate before connecting with viper, and her over head will go over lp fb and nail juri. Her forward fb will get beat every time by lp tk, and you could possibly counter hit her with c.fwd xx lp tk for some decent damage. Her rh fb is mostly just for aa uses and I don’t think it will tag viper from her over head. Juri has armor counters just like gouken so of course good juri players will limit the amount of counters they use in this match up, but if your playing someone who likes to abuse her counters and ex counters strong tk will teach them to stop that shit. Counters has a good amount of start up so they won’t be used much unless in this match up just be careful and mix up with your seismo game and don’t abuse bk to much or juri players will start doing anticipatory counter and baits for incoming bks. Ex counter, ex pin wheel, and cl.fp are her best wake up options, just option select rh the first two then punish, and her c.fp can be a bit tricky it’s mostly a AA and a grab OS just make sure your rh is meaty and for the most part you avoid this option all together as it usually nets you a free rh. As you all know juri has a dive kick which can be made safe if hit below the waist, well I believe one poster mentioned that c.stng can hit her out of it if that’s so then Lp tk should be the same it’s already a very strong AA might be worth a shot. I haven’t messed around with dive kicks much as there very punishable so basically if it’s not a tk dive punish that shit or better yet AA it. Basically juri should only use her fb for block strings vs viper, after the first initial hit of the fb you can press buttons the release is very slow. Viper really doesn’t need to play footsies but you can if need be I actully find insta bks very useful in this match up if they get real footsie happy. Juri has abnormal normals I would go in depth about the whole normal set but I can’t play the game ATM to give full 100% accurate feed back and I don’t feel like spoon feeding so ya.

P.S: I forgot to mention insta bks would most likely absorb short fb’s as well, and of course you can just frame the others if your feeling your self.- Tr@pzt@r[/details]

T-Hawk

[details=Spoiler]btw I don’t think the hawk matchup is bad at all. I’m confident that it’s gonna turn out in vipers favour, actually.

- he doesn’t really have any cr.lp combos that knockdown, so you’re only scared of him ticking into a 360. unlike gief where you’re gonna eat EX greenhand combos and get put into another mixup.

- at first he seems dangerous after a blocked condor spire, but he has no safe / consistent options to chase you down if you learn to backdash or jump away.

- mp knuckle can’t be reversal 360’d (AFAIK from testing it in training mode).

- feint all day and punish his attempts to condor dive your seismos.

- gief can stop bks over his head with a lariat. hawk will try AAing with his DP and be beaten out or he’ll block and get frustrated as you walk all over him.

- whiffed condor dive / condor spire into 360 is gimmicky stuff. not a consistent way for him to land damage.

time will tell but it’s not looking good for hawk so far imo**-PoopClown**[/details]

Dee Jay

[details=Spoiler]treat this match like ryu to a certain extent. don’t allow DJ to throw fireballs, you should be able to punish them with either sjc bk on reaction, or seismos at full screen.

slide is not safe on block at close/med range, punsih w/ med punch to med tk.

HIs ex ‘flash kick’ is really good, the only thing i’ve found to compete is a forward jump short will trade (not in your favor obviously). Try to bait it with safe jump, and just be patient.-subzero44

Dee Jay has no answer to low short (not just Viper’s…like everyone’s) on his wakeup; all of his reversals whiff or get blocked. It’s pretty comical, unless you’re playing Dee Jay.-Frank the Tank

For Dee Jay, supposedly if you empty jump cross him up on wake up his ex up kicks will go the wrong way allowing for a free punish. I’ll test it out later though to make sure.(confirmed by subzero44)-imac90[/details]

[JammyBoo]

Ooooh shit. Ryuga I love you.

Can we get this stickied and have the other one put aside or something?

[Ryuga]

Haha, no prob JammyBoo.

A lot of the sections are wordy, but I decided to leave them as they were because they offered detailed breakdowns.

[Warlike]

Wow this is great, very apreciated

[Tsumuji]

Someone please sticky this, this is freaking amazing!

[Ash2k4]

Very nice inside on her matchups here this will definetly help me out in her tough matchups thxs

[Lost_Fragment]

Nice work, Ryuga.

[RawrImALion]

Simply amazing, Thank you very much Ryuga.

P.S. STICKY

[Face112]

great work :clapdos:

[hehwat]

I cant read but good stuff

[System_1]

Thanks for tidying up the match-up thread, Ryuga. Love the abundance of condensed info we finally have. The only character you’re missing is Guile, but it’s no biggie. Great job! :tup:

[DevilJin_01]

Guile is easy any ways. Just seismo his ass until he stops throwing booms. Keep the health lead and walk up to him and LP knuckle under sonic booms and just hit c.MK to beat any of his footsies that don’t hit low.

Actually he’s also missing Fei Long but that’s only because NOBODY plays Fei Long even in tournaments. At least where I live I’m more likely to run into a Rose player at a tournament than a Fei. Like Justin is the only person I know really reppin Fei in tourneys. I guess everyone else just sees him as too gimped to care. He’s basically another completely footsie based character with limited options to do big damage. The only thing that I find difficult about fighting Fei is how he can mash HK chicken wing to basically be invincible for an insanely long period of time on wake up. I guess you just have to deal with that Dictator style and just find an option select or whiff punish it.

[Ryuga]

LOL, thanks, I totally forgot about Guile!

And yeah, no info about Fei Long, hardly anybody uses him. Also missing Dan, but then again, nobody uses him either, haha. Gonna add Guile, again, thanks for spotting that.

EDIT: Done! And no prob guys, glad everyone’s happy. As for Fei Long, there was something he mentioned in the Punishment Bible about Chicken Wing. I’ll have to dig it out tomorrow.

[Ladon]

For FL-

LP TK beats rekkas clean due to rekka hitboxes, EX CW on wakeup can be beaten by ex BK, if you ex seis a normal flame kick and don’t cancel you can still punish before he recovers with FFF-anything, I’d say the most dangerous part of this fight is watching his focus and knowing his pokes are probably going to beat yours if you’re not careful. Also if you can bait a EX CW with a canceled seismic, go immediately into ex seis, it can catch the last hit of CW and go into a decent punish. keep in mind reversaling with F TK is terrible, fei’s pokes are usually too low or out of range to hit unless they’re in your face doing an unsafe blockstring. Watch out for his mid, smart FL players know you really don’t have a good reversal option and will land a good amount of mid hits.

hope this helps, I’ll probably edit if I think of anything else