I have a lot to say on the Bison matchup but I didn’t want to post it until we actually got there in terms of order. It looks like order is out the window now so I guess I’ll do the Bison mini-dissertation now.
Victheslik is, in my opinion, among the best Bison players in the US, and he’s definitely one of the best on the West Coast. I’m privileged to have a lot of play time against him.
M. Bison - Slight Disadvantage
In general, I have the same feelings about every match that pits two charge characters against each other: whoever gets put in the corner first or stays there the longest, loses. The Bison matchup highlights this perfectly. Bison’s corner pressure with safe scissor kicks is very good, and he can punish you for pressing buttons. My goal in the match is to keep Bison on the defensive - if you can stay out of the corner and continue to force Bison to lose ground, he loses a lot of his offensive capability.
This is hard to do because of Bison’s really good mobility. He is tied with Chun in walk speed, his forward dash covers a lot of ground, his sweep (slide) moves him forward quite a bit, and basically all of his specials allow him to gain ground. Without meter though, Bison’s approach options are more or less restricted to jump or safe scissor kick. You have to seize this opportunity. df+LK is pretty effective against Bison, and is basically the only anti-air I’m not afraid to use in the matchup. He has buttons which beat other anti-airs (for example, I’ve never seen st.MK win against Bison’s j.HP). cr.HP and cr.MP are sometimes effective but your mileage may vary.
I like df+LK because it sets you up for an EX Legs juggle, which, for me at least, is the crux of my offense. Do the EX Legs safe jump (just hold up-forward). If he has meter, empty jump and LK Hazanshu on landing. This beats throw and will go over reversal EX Psycho. If he doesn’t have meter, then j.HP~HP optionselect HK Hazanshu. This will beat his back teleport. If he front teleports, that’s fine. You are back in the neutral game and start over.
Outside of wakeup situations, don’t jump against Bison. His st.HK is deceivingly good. His cr.HP also functions as an anti-air.
If your situational awareness is good, you can differentiate Headstomp from Devil’s Reverse. When he does Headstomp, he gains meter upon leaving the ground. When he does Devil’s Reverse, he only gains meter upon actually doing Devil’s Reverse in the air.
When Chun gets knocked down, Bison has a pretty surprising number of options. A good Bison player knows the safe jumps that will stuff Chun’s EX SBK. I wouldn’t rely on it as a wakeup in this match against air pressure. Against ground pressure it does just fine. After landing a knockdown or a throw, Bison has really ambiguous jump-ins. If you are unsure which way to block, my natural instinct is to assume Bison wants to put me in the corner and block accordingly. He also has ways to make Psycho Crusher cross up. It has a particular timing though because it will feel late compared to one you block in the front.
Let’s say all of this goes down the drain or he lands a couple lucky EX Scissors and now you’re in the corner. Defensively, I seldom tech against Bison. I’d rather eat the throw unless it’s going to kill me. If you do tech, stand tech, do not crouch tech. Also, Bison has no overhead, so down-back is safe. After blocking a scissor kick in the corner, cr.MP and b+MK are your friends. They are range dependent, but are the most reliable answers I’ve seen to his follow-up pressure. Try not to press a button if you think it will whiff. st.HP and cr.HP work sometimes as well. Bison’s forward dash is also really good, so be aware about sticking out slow normals. In footsies I like to forget that the HK button exists because I have had it FA dash punished so many times.
When pressuring Bison, he doesn’t have a good answer for instant headstomp into crossup j.LK. His anti-airs don’t start up fast enough to hit you out of j.LK at that distance (if he tries he will get stuffed or counter hit) so he has to block, walk back or teleport since he loses his charge.
I pick U1 in this matchup to keep Bison honest. It will punish his Devil’s Reverse (though if he does it full-screen he can fly far enough back that this will whiff), punish EX Scissor and slide if not spaced well. If he does EX Psycho THROUGH you and you block, auto-correct U1 will work as well. That said, I can certainly see the uses for U2 and wouldn’t blame anyone for picking it.