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This is match up where you more fight the player than the character (a lot Hawks are scrubby but your strats change when the player is solid), but there are a bunch of consistent things:
-Don’t try to punish blocked Condor Dives with Cosmic Heel like I do, I get blown up for that habit. Just slide or EX Izuna Drop, I don’t think you can actually reach him with other stuff. Or just Ultra.
-Be careful about anti-airing Condor Dive. It has surprisingly good priority, and Vega has a monumentally bad AA game.
-TRADES ARE ALMOST NEVER IN YOUR FAVOR. Hawk does more damage in single hits and has more health. Avoid them.
-Air throw on reaction if you can.
-Watch out for empty jumps if you think it’s a Scrub Hawk. (Even solid ones will mix between crossup and jumping empty just to make you guess.) They LOVE empty jump > some command grab (regular or Ultra). This is frustrating if playing with considerable input lag (HDTV or online) because you will oft jump on reaction to the empty and then get thrown anyways.
-Safe jump that foo. Tea Hawks tend to be impulsive with the reversals. And I’m p sure only his EX DP is invinc, the rest aren’t. You’d be surprised how many free combos they give you.
-Try to hit whiffed Condor spires with EX walldive or slide on its recovery. Timing can be tricky when trying to punish it with a slide.
-Generally, you want to keep away / play distanced footsies. Offense is for shenanigans or establishing a life lead. You can go in for a safe jump after a combo/back throw tho, because it’s well, safe.
-c.MK brother. c.MK. It’s a great move. Link off of it when it happens to hit. When blocked, mix between frame trap c.MP, kara-throw, overhead or just trying to block the reversal or backdash out of throw range. Really have to be able to read the Hawk’s natural reactions for that one.
-Vega’s s.HK can be really annoying. Breaks focuses (unless they backdash T_T), it’s as fast as a jab, does solid damage, can AA (but for like no damage). However, if the Hawk is smart, he’ll know that it’s -8 on block and punish with a free reversal command throw. Fortunately, I never fought one that good. If the Tea Hawk doesn’t punish it, then kick away~!
-TRY NOT TO GET SAT ON. Hawks, especially scrubby ones, are desperate to hit that U1 if they’re falling behind. If you sense that and you have a life lead, just turtle and keep away.
-Tea Hawk is free to Izuna Drop on wakeup. Just like in the Sagat, Gief and Guile matchups, float right above his head and delay slightly before snatching him. He has to stand up cuz claw is overhead iirc. His reversal will either not come out (constantly crossing over at that spot) or miss you to either side, and you’ll snatch him right after the invincibility ends. If he tries to AA you (with a ground or air normal), you’ll snatch it out of startup. If he tries to Focus, he’s one of those characters that’re so tall that you’ll snatch him anyways. And if he tries to sit and block… you’ll definitely snatch him up.
-Don’t punish with grabs. Since Tea Hawk has great health, you want every punish to do all the damage it possibly can. Generally you want to punish with c.MK > c.MP xx EX Izuna Drop, because you can’t always guarantee that you’ll land s.HP.
-Make sure, when trying to punish with c.MK and he flies over your head with a reversal you baited… switch to stick to the otherside so you don’t do overhead and miss out on all that guaranteed damage like an idiot. Again, careful about those things you can punish that cross you over, cuz you want all the guaranteed damage you can get.
-I get the impression that Tea Hawk has poor answers to you trying to wall jump out of the corner. Can’t really stop you on reaction. (As in jump off the wall, not the special move.) If he tries to jump up with you to AA, air throw him. Air throws actually have insane speed and priority.
-Careful with the Cosmic Heel. It can be a great distance punisher or just for footsies, but if blocked… better hope you don’t get reversal grabbed. That sucks.
-This goes without saying in every matchup, but try to keep your items. Even if the damage boost for no-mask is nice against a character with tons of health… you don’t want to also lose more health. You don’t want to give Tea Hawk ANY ability to come back. And keep claw for obvious reasons. But yea, don’t go get your items if you think it’d cost you health. You always want to play careful and not having your shit gives you even more reason to do so.
-Speaking of items, I tend to end up in situations where I have them knocked down right next to my mask/claw/both. What I usually do there is walk forward to go get them moments before they wake up, then walk backwards. They almost always think I’m going to try to meaty them, or that they can get a free grab on me. And you usually walk out of their throw range (cuz Vega has the 3rd quickest walkspeed) and block their reversals. If they throw out some shit like a sweep in that situation… then you’re fighting a particularly stupid (or smart?) Hawk and you want to be safe jumping him all the time so that he’ll give you free combos.
-s.MK is a good move and has the longest range besides his slide. Annoy him with it sometimes.
-Work on neutral jump punishing command grabs. Depend on the distance, you either want nj.MK or nj.HK. Either way, go into c.MK and not s.HP. Sometimes you get far s.HP instead of close and lose out on a lot of damage, so just don’t risk it. Just get the most damage that’s guaranteed.
-Be aware of the possibility of poking into his throw range. It doesn’t happen often but it does happen and sometimes Hawks plan around it.
-Up to you if you want U2 for the reversal or U1 for the better punish in this matchup.
-After a blocked EX walldive, you generally want to just get away from him instead of try to go in for an Izuna Drop. Sometimes you can get away with grabbing Hawk out of his attempt to AA because he’s a giant, but I wouldn’t risk. This is a matchup where you don’t want to risk giving Tea Hawk ANYTHING unless you’re falling behind.
-instant overhead j.HP works on Tea Hawk, right?
Duuuuude, what taunt is that? I generally turn them off so I never accidentally plink into taunt (sometimes mishaps like that give the game away)… but that’s pretty slick.
