When it comes to Sagat’s tier ranking in Remix, I always say that there aren’t enough top level Sagat players using him in tourneys or online, to figure out his ranking yet. Consider this: John Choi, arguably one of the best O.Sagat players in the world, did not even use him once in EVO09 (correct me if I’m wrong please). And when I played John Choi on PSN, I faced his Ryu, Ken and Guile, but not once did I face his Sagat. Not to mention Alex Valle, who pretty much MAINED O.Sagat in ST tourneys and previous EVOs, doesn’t use him as often anymore either. I think that tells me more about R.Sagat than anything else. While I hope he still is a top tier or top of mid tier character, I’m beginning to doubt it.
I hardly play sagat, but what is the general concensus on which characters give sagat a hard time and which characters does he have advantages over?
R.Sagat is as bad as New Sagat
Ask/look in the sagat thread, all this talk of sagat yet the place to talk about it no one posts in anymore lol.
Here’s what I had last time:
Bal Dha Veg Ryu Sag Dee E.H Chu M.B Ken Gui Cam Bla Fei T.H Zan Total
Balrog - 5 5.5 5.5 6 6 5 5 6 6 6 4 6 6.5 6 4 82.5
Dhalsim 5 - 4 6 7 6 4 4 5 6 6 3 4.5 5.5 6 6 78
Vega 4.5 6 - 6 6 5 4 5 4 5.5 6.5 5.5 6 6 7 6 83
Ryu 4.5 4 4 - 5 6 7 6 6 6 5 6.5 6 6 5.5 5 82.5
Sagat 4 3 4 5 - 5 5.5 5.5 5 5.5 6 5 5 4.5 6.5 7 76.5
Dee Jay 4 4 5 4 5 - 6.5 5 6 5 5 6 6 7 6.5 6.5 81.5
E.Honda 5 6 6 3 4.5 3.5 - 4.5 6 3 4 6.5 6 6.5 8 7 79.5
Chun Li 5 6 5 4 4.5 5 5.5 - 5.5 5.5 5 5.5 5.5 5.5 4.5 7 79
M.Bison 4 5 6 4 5 4 4 4.5 - 4 5 6 5 5 5 6 72.5
Ken 4 4 4.5 4 4.5 5 7 4.5 6 - 4.5 6.5 6 6 5 5.5 77
Guile 4 4 3.5 5 4 5 6 5 5 5.5 - 7 3.5 6 6 7 76.5
Cammy 6 7 4.5 3.5 5 4 3.5 4.5 4 3.5 3 - 5.5 5.5 7 7 73.5
Blanka 4 5.5 4 4 5 4 4 4.5 5 4 6.5 4.5 - 4.5 6.5 7 73
Fei Long3.5 4.5 4 4 5.5 3 3.5 4.5 5 4 4 4.5 5.5 - 6 7 68.5
T.Hawk 4 4 3 4.5 3.5 3.5 2 5.5 5 5 4 3 3.5 4 - 5 59.5
Zangief 6 4 4 5 3 3.5 3 3 4 4.5 3 3 3 3 5 - 57
I don’t even remember where I got the Sagat numbers from, for the most part - he seems to not be a very popular character for some reason. Feel free to offer corrections.
That doesn’t make sense :looney:
Maybe his reputation soured a little from O.sagat, and O.Sagat players see him being weaker?
R.Sagat is alot like R.Hawk, nobody plays them. I can name like two/three good people for each character.
I enjoy playing both of them though.
Maybe I’ll try and use him some.
We live on different planets. I can live with that.
Shaffer is the one who used the term agressive turtling (and he was using Sagat as his secondardy, Blanka his primary), so if you have an issue with the semantics of that phrase vs the term “zoning” … then your issue is with him. I am only using it in the SAME context he is. Sagat can’t zone for shit in this new version. Why I said earier that his game plan is now MUCH different than it used to be. I think he has to mix up sparse FBs with more mid range mindgames (knees/jump-ins)
BTW popularity of a char IS indictitive (aka an INDICATOR) of whether or not someone will play the same char in a different game. Your telling me all the people who love Ken don’t just LOVE how user friendly and how seemingly powerful he is in HD and that isn’t a sign of how popular he is? Or the guys who MAIN Balrog in SFIV AND on HD remix because he’s good in both games? Dude you gotta be kidding me here. Sagat’s popularity in general would have garnered a bigger audience than he currently has IF they thought it worth the time to learn him. It’s not worth the time.
Again, we live on different planets 
Sagat is good. Although he’s no longer a dominating tiger shot machine (even so, he can still match projectiles with Ryu), the tiger knee juggle is a damaging poke and effective at moving the opponent to the corner.
Justin Wong still mains him when he enters HDR tourneys and even though it doesn’t seem as simple anymore, he still has no problem beating down most players and performing pretty much the same as he always did in ST tourneys (even while focusing much more time on SFIV). Justin is no doubt an excellent overall player but this empirical evidence indicates that r.Sagat, while weaker, still yields mostly the same results as o.Sagat at a certain skill level.
The only issue here is that Justin rarely plays HDR even offline and I haven’t seen anyone else around his level in online HDR, so most folks never see how a good Sagat plays. It’s sort of ironic too because there are just as few good o.Sagat players yet many have no problem casting him as #1 in ST.
Honestly, I don’t see anything about Dhalsim and Chun Li that have made them noticeably weaker either. For some Chun Li players, their whole gameplans revolved around landing the super and it’s understandable why they would switch characters now that their style is now less feasible. But if you watch Otochun, consider how much those nerfs would actually affect him. Then again, matchups matter significantly less than player ability until you approach the peak.
I agree with the Chun-Li view. My whole basis for still keeping her at her spot was that, yeah she lost a bit of things, but as you pointed out if you watch Otochun (big fan here), his game plan would differ very very little on how he actually wins. He mainly used her pokes and throw game to win. Sure super helps, but I don’t recall him doing the super into up kick that often if ever? Anytime he used the SBK it got stuffed. He used neckbreaker once in a while, but I can’t recall him getting anything over one knockdown from it (def no loop). I don’t even think he used leggs much either. Poke and throw, poke and throw!
I still think Fei vs Chun Li is 7-3 in Fei’s favor. By far his easiest matchup.
Like I said before most of what I quoted you on is false as fact not opinion and I pointed out why so if that equals living on 2 different planets then ok, if Schaeffer said that than he’s incorrect. You misunderstood me because I only responded to you saying character popularity is indicative of that character’s ranking (which it obviously isn’t.) Keep in mind some graham wolfe one of the best rog’s around doesn’t use rog in 4 because according to him he’s too different…do you think he’s the only one who thinks that way?
Great post what you said about Wong can be applied to Valle, I don’t know if he ever entered an hd tourney with him but I’ve seen him use sagat a few times on xbl and he is scary.
Didn’t NKI one of our best chuns switch to dictator primarily because he thought she was nerfed too heavily? To say super is a big part of SOME U.S. chun’s gameplan is a little bit of an understatement IMO.
IMO matchups for sagat vs :
rog 3.5-6.5
sim 3-7 (maybe even 2-8 at least against rog’s rushdown sagat can keep him out but against sim…there is no escape lol)
vega 5.5-4.5
ryu 5.5-4.5
dj 6-4
honda 5.5-4.5
chun 5.5-4.5
bison 6-4
ken 5.5-4.5
guile 6-4
cammy 7-3
blanka 5-5 (maybe 5.5-4.5 either way)
fei 6.5-3.5
hawk 6.5-3.5 (maybe 6-4)
geif 7-3
Why isn’t all ofthis going in the sagat thread? lol
Cuz this is about Sagat’s tier ranking, not his strategies, tactics, etc.
Thanks for the list, Zoolander.
Care to expand on Sagat vs Vega?
You’re saying Sagat vs Vega is 6-4 (Sagat’s advantage), while Ganelon thought it was 4-6 (Vega’s advantage, which is the source I used for my chart).
How about Sagat vs Deejay? You have it at 6-4, while BruceAskew has it at 5-5 (also my source for the chart).
And Sagat vs Chun Li? You have it at 6-4, Zass has it at 5-5. (I have it at 5.5-4.5 at the moment).
I don’t remember where I got 5-5 for Sagat vs Cammy, either.
Based on my own play of Vega, its his advantage v. Sagat. Slide goes under high tiger shots, cr. mp is hard for Sagat to deal with, Vega has the fastest jump-in, and so forth.
I haven’t yet met a really good Sagat but I’d say DJ-Sagat is about even with a slight advantage to Sagat (4.5-5.5)
good point, I just wish that thread got more attention lol.
Although he is referring to o.sagat I still find it to be very helpful, also dp immediately following tk is a nice shenanigan to keep claw honest as it throws off timing n distance of premeditated dive (kind of like how boxer’s headbutts make walldive whiff) not to mention it’s harder to backflip through sagat’s fb’s then other fb’s.
Inherently being a charge fb character seems to be a slight disadvantage but because DJ’s slide isn’t as helpful in this matchup as others it’s a bit more apparent here. In my experience the legendary j lp DJ has is a bit easier to dp then lets say chun’s j lk or blankas j rh and the threat of sagat’s cr mk comboing into tk’s knocking dj all the way back and having to fight the uphill battle to close the distance again is worth noting. Although while posting this I remembered how easy it is for dj to tag sagat’s arms after a whiffed fb with j rh which can lead to an easy crossup on sagat’s bigass…hmm maybe it is 5-5 lol but I’m sticking with 6-4 if for no other reason that sagat compels DJ to be the aggressor.
I’ll preface by saying I’ll take DJ over chun anyday with her off wall jump, jump arc air sbk, and ESPECIALLY that fucking annoying j mk she can be slippery not to mention she builds meter fast. However like DJ she has the weakness of having to charge for her fb forcing her to be the more proactive of the two and I like tk here because if chun jumps back tk followed by dp could be waiting to meet her. Even then assuming sagat can corner her unlike shotos and sagat chun doesn’t have access to one of the best dp’s upkicks are simply not the ideal tool to get you out of a tight spot.
All 3 players are much better and more knowledgable then me take what I say with a grain of salt:sweat:
That’s true to an extent, but the new Air SBK really is a tough nerf in some of her harder matches, like Ryu, Ken, and Sagat. I think that for the most part, she’s weaker because her two hardest matches (Ryu and Sagat) became worse or didn’t really improve, respectively. But, also because the overall strength of other characters is better now (Fei is now a hard match for Chun, R.Ken is a lot more dangerous than N.Ken or O.Ken, Guile is now noticeably harder). On the other hand, I don’t think many matches got easier (Hawk is a lot less stressful, and now it’s not suicide to try and trade with Claw’s wall dives).
So, it’s not so much that SHE got weaker (although I think all of her small nerfs go a long way in making her weaker overall), but it’s more that a lot of people got better at fighting Chun-Li.
Also, there was something I wanted to slightly correct about Sagat, namely Orochizoolander saying that his Tiger Shots now have N.Sagat hitboxes. This is partially true; the High Tiger Shots for N.Sagat and R.Sagat are the same. However, R.Sagat’s Low Tiger hitbox is different; it’s much better than N.Sagat’s (which extends past the edge of his hand), but slightly worse than O.Sagat’s (extends most of the way up his arm). R.Sagat’s hitbox for Low Tiger Shots ends at his forearm.
Woah, I don’t see Sagat having that much of an advantage over Fei.
It feels pretty even, if not a slight advantage for Sagat.
Ok you want opinions on each match up, that’s understandable:
I think with Deejay it’s even or more so in his favor. With DJ the rush to get super in the early fb wars favors DJ and he can close the distance when he gets super and apply more up close pressure/cross up games… just itching for Sagat to mess up and eat a super or an upkick into super. Once DJ has super and itches closer (slide under highs and basically neutral/forward jump RHing his lows) what is Sagat going to do? This scenario seems most likely at the highest level of play (theoretically), unless Sagat uses a different early approach than “zoning” the guy out. Smart play by DJ early out to build meter will allow him big opps for one massive combo vs Sagat once he closes the distance (which isn’t the hardest thing to do) I dont’ see Sagat having an advantage over Ryu at this point at all as Ryu can do the same game as Deejay, only a lil better. I really dont think it’s 6-4 vs Dict, 5.5-4.5 at the most and more likely 5-5 at the higest level (baseless opinion). I don’t think he beats Ken, but I won’t touch that one atm… I’d put my money on Damdai’s Ken to beat Wong’s Gat.