Blanka? Everyone likes the Blanka counterpick on him.
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Claw beats Blanka imo. Even if you disagree and say Blanka wins it I don’t see how it would be so overwhelming to actually be a counterpick.
Blanka is definitely a counterpick to Claw. For a top tier character like Claw, any counterpick will not be overwhelming. But Blanka does have a slight advantage when it comes to controlling vertical space and limiting Claw’s air game.
Blanka is one of Claw’s best matchups.
7-3 in my opinion.
:d::mp: keep him out of crossup range.
Walk forward :d::mp: after blocked ball is guaranteed.
Slide electricity as soon as you see it.
If you don’t have flipkick charged simply :d::hp: as an antiar.
If he starts to get close walk back while throwing the occasional :d::mp: or simply back :ub::hp: if you think he will ball.
If you get knockdown You can usually Roll on him without any major worries.
If he tries to emptyroll into mixup simply slide it as it is landing or flipkick if you have reflexes for it.
And if you need to apply pressure :uf::hp: is extremely hard for him to deal with.
If he does get in he can easily kill you.
It’s in ST considered to be one of Blanka’s hardest matchups.
http://shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php/Blanka_(ST)#Vs.Vega.28claw.29:
"In my opinion, ties with Honda for Blanka’s worst match.
Vega doesn’t have to do anything in this match. All he has to do is crouch. If you walk forward, he will do c.MP. If you do Blanka ball, he will do c.MP (it beats it!). If you jump, he will do flip kick anti-air. If you make him block a fast FP ball, he can walk forward and hit you with stand HP for free. Although Vega is played primarily in an offensive manner, this is one of his only matchups where just sitting still and hitting one button, can give him an almost free victory.
The key to winning here is crossing him up and controlling the match, like usual. The problem is, his c.MP has SO much range that you can only cross him up if you jump WITHIN THE RANGE OF HIS c.MP. So, if you are playing a competent player, you will NEVER cross up Vega.
The only real advantage Blanka has on Vega, is that Blanka’s vertical ball will beat Vega’s wall fives 8 times out of 10. The problem is, any competent Vega player won’t be doing wall dives, they’ll just be doing c.MP.
Good luck with this one!
Khiempossible says:
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at max range you can trade Blanka’s low fierce with Vega’s crouching strong
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blanka’s low strong will counter hit vega’s low strong clean.
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you can also counter someone who’s mashing low strong with blanka ball. takes timing.
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you blanka ball both vega’s roll and sweep. "
http://shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php/Vega_(ST)#Blanka
"This matchup gave me trouble too for a while. Once you learn it though you’ll get better at it.
Charge back/Walk backward the whole round. If he balls, you can either flip kick through it, try one of the other counters suggested, or block, take a small step forward, standing fierce. Sounds basic, but this one strategy of stting there with Vega is good enough. Eventually, especially if you have a lead, he has to try something to come to you.Funny, cause doing anything else can be trouble with Blanka. Wake up balls or electricity can stop cross over wall dives. If the Blanka is good at wake up balls, it can stop doing meaty Claw Rolls on top of him. Just keep him out and wear him down. Don’t go into his meathouse.
In the original everything ST thread DSP broke this match down pretty good [1] and it helped me out. See if you can find it somewhere. (CapMaster)
Claw VS Blanka is a funny match. Most struggle with it at first, but once you learn it it can become a free win for you.
Sit back. Any blocked rolling attack is a free standing fierce for you. You catch them with this a few times, they may try to do a jab or strong ball into throw/hop/whatever. Watch for this, then sweep it. You can flipkick balls too of course. Use crouching strong to keep him away. be careful going for wall dives, as both rolling attacks and electricity can beat it. Sit back, and by never let him get into his cross up short range. That’s where this match is lost. Keep him out of that range and you will whittle him down. (CapMaster again) "
The only thing that has changed in this matchup from ST is that you use :mp: instead of :hp: after a blocked ball.
Agree with Shari! Only problem I have in that match is reacting with the flipkicks, but that’s my problem and not a reflection of the matchup.
can someone explain how honda beats vega?
im having a really hard time with this matchup.
shari got everything covered about the vega vs blanka match. i don’t think the matchup changed at all since ST. the blanka balls might be harder to punish on block than before, but now he takes more damage if you hit him out of his horizontal ball with c.mps and alike.
blanka’s super might be a bit safer, but i think you still get free c.mp after blocking it.
as for honda having a small advantage on vega. its pretty simple, he doesn’t have a fireball and honda has a small to big advantage vs non fb characters. jab headbutt stops like most of vega’s options (and also non fireball characters). honda is still vulnerable to wall dives, but once he stays in the corner, you can’t wall dive him due to jab headbutt. his j.mp will also hit you out of a wall dive. can’t poke him all day to death like other characters since he can just jab headbutt thru it. can’t really tick throw him either since he has a huge throw range, stored ochio and also headbutts.
however, vega does have a speed advantage and if you play as a reactive vega, the match is definitely winnable. its just that honda’s defensive options and ability to do big damage that gives him the slight advantage.
apoc wrote a pretty good post of how the honda vs vega match goes.
Apoc’s Honda vs Vega post is hilariously inaccurate. I mean, his advice for Vega vs Honda is to walk forward. I suspect it’s a joke post.
Honda is very strong against Vega’s walldives. His jab headbutt, buttslams, and jump MP are all very good anti-walldive options (and close fierce, “the chop”, is also sometimes useful). Honda is also traditionally strong on the ground and can chain advancing HHS without losing his charges, which constantly threatens Vega.
What this match usually looks like is that Vega pokes a bit at the start with jab roll or something, then runs the hell away and tries to make Honda come to him. When he’s cornered, he tries to walljump to the other side somehow. Of course, Honda can intercept that walljump by anticipation-jumping, which is fairly safe against Vega (Vega can try to punish that with a risky punch dive).
Once Honda gets a knockdown, he opens a whole can of whoop-ass with crossup tick throw setups and can take down a lot of Vega’s life pretty fast.
I think Honda has a comfortable advantage against Vega.
Edit: Honda can counter Vega’s vertical jumps with either jumping jab, jumping MP, or timing a fierce headbutt on Vega’s prejump frames. Relying strictly on vertical jumps as Vega vs Honda will get you killed.
I have to agree with Thelo on his post.
As a claw player, I’ll admit that this match has Vega in a defensive mode most of the time. Any kind of offensive start with Vega against Honda can be whacked with Headbutt, combined with Honda’s infernal tick-ochio BS makes this a hard match for Claw especially with Honda’s high damage.
It’s definitely winnable if Claw plays defensively, and has a good reactive game to punish. But other than that, its 7-3 Honda in my opinion. If it is the typical spam headbutt Honda, then its 6-4 Claw if Honda just stupidly attacks.
Yeah, um this entire post is incorrect.
Just based off character design Honda takes this.
Vega can’t approach him without putting himself at risk.
What the heck, I always seem to punish blocked Horizontal balls with standing :hp: really easily…I never found it hard…
in vanilla st the matchup was 6-4 vega according to one of the best vega and honda players in japan.
the matchup changes slightly since vega can’t do repeated wall dive knockdowns, but even then, theres no way that honda wins 7-3. again, whoever turtles the hardest wins.
as for apocs post, it makes perfect sense. vega has the fastest walk speed in the game, why wouldn’t he use it?
Honda has four special moves. They are four very good reasons why walking towards Honda is not a good idea.
Honda tried way too hard in those fights.
Honda should be just sitting on his ass for the most and only moving when Vega moves. And even then Honda doesn’t have to move all that much.
The end of that match was ballsy though. Risky as hell.
But, anyway Honda doesn’t rape Claw or anything. It’s a slight advantage.
Claw essentially has one tactic vs Honda that works, while Honda by design gives Claw trouble.
I swear, I don’t think there’s been a more misunderstood matchup in a fighting game than Honda v Vega. I think Vega players tend to overreact because they say to themselves “I play a non-fireball offensive zoning character, and Honda beats that kind of character, so Honda beats my character.” Honda beats Claw because Honda beats non-fireball characters (Boxer has a fireball and Sim doesn’t, right?), because of character design, because Vega can’t poke Honda to death like other characters, and because Vega can’t tick throw Honda either. In reality Claw can play runaway and hit and run fairly well, and he can use walldives really well. Just toss this nonsense about design out the window, I mean talk about an unhelpful point.
Honda’s anti-walldive options have been consistently exaggerated. This is one of those things that’s entirely dependent on the skill of the Claw player, and Honda can only guess in a way that hurts him if he guesses wrong. Claw has setups that Honda can’t do anything about except try to block, ie Honda’s headbutt/super will lose and his buttslam will get punished (sometimes for knockdown into another walldive). Claw can also do dives timed in such a way that Honda just has to guess how to deal with them; early dives beat neutral jumping responses, later crossup dives beat headbutt and standing fierce, etc. It’s hard to walldive against Honda when he’s in the corner, but Vega can actually do something about whether Honda gets cornered by running back and holding onto his side of the screen and by diving over Honda’s head to force Honda back into the middle of the screen (depending on where Honda was at first, of course). I don’t think anyone is good against walldives.
If Honda does corner himself, you’re not done. Max range or too-far jab rolls are actually useful here. Depending on how fast Honda can react or what he’s doing (like if you faked a dive he might have tried a jump counter and not been able to land and do headbutt in time, for example), you’re either safe or only risk trading, it’s unlikely that you’ll get straight knocked down. And if Honda does do a knockdown fierce headbutt or toward+roundhouse and then moves forward, well, at least that means he’s not cornered anymore. And if you’re up on life when he’s cornered, it becomes less effective for him to hold a charge. Yes, moving forward with fierce hands is pretty easy and you can use that forward movement to mount a comeback a little better, but that’s not a huge change here imo.
If you watch a match between very high level players, you’ll pretty much see this in action. It’s not the down-back fest caricature people often say, it’s actually an interesting positional battle in which control of the sides of the screen is important. Even or a slight win for Honda imo.
Edit: Otochun isn’t not sitting still because he’s a retard, he’s doing that because he knows sitting still isn’t effective.
yeah I used to have problems with the turtle honda, just sitting there waiting to use the head butt or butt stomp. crossups with wall dive destroy honda. he can jump up and try and intercept, but if you anticipate that, just hit him with the tip of your claw if he’s holding his wall. close in and then try and cross up. it always works for me. if he trys to butt stomp you while you cross up, 99 percent of the time, he’ll miss, and if you press punch early in the wall dive, you have a 50 percent chance of hitting him as he rises up from the butt stomp attack. wash rinse repeat. against really good honda players, you just need to hit and run in the same fashion then hold your side and let them come to you. but with vega’s speed, honda cannot hit him very often, but yeah if a honda knocks you down, it’ll be hell to get back out.
I have never liked that matchup chart.
Guile beats Blanka 6-4 ?
I can’t really understand how Vega can threaten Honda with a tick throw at all when Honda has a no-wiff stored Ochio he can simply negative edge if Vega ever gets close which reaches much further than Vega’s throw range.
Could you or apoc if he still posts explain that ?
Also another note on the Blanka matchup.
Blanka balls being harder to punish is not true at all.
Slight step forward into :d::mp: is guaranteed against a blocked blanka ball.
Meaning it will always hit.
Somebody help me out here…
How is it possible that we can say that Blanka loses to anyone outside of DJ and Boxer 7-3?
What do we know?
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Honda just has to hold back and down all day on Blanka.
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Vega has to stay grounded vs Blanka and do the same as Honda.
Sooooooooooooo, what can Blanka do?
I’ll tell you what he can do. He can get life bar advantage by pimp slapp’in Vega and Honda and then hold down back himself.
Shari posted some great info on how to counter Blanka and I think that 99% of it is legit but the ONE problem I have with that thinking is that nowhere does it account for life bar advantage. Those strats work wonders if Vega has to sit there and wait for Blanka to come to him but what about the other way around? The second Vega or Honda think they can just advance on Blanka is when that whole gameplan is out the window.
The point I’m trying to make is that we focus alot on counters and strategies that neutralize an advancing opponent BUT! a complete strategy should encompass the other side of the equation. Meaning, that if you are no longer in a position to just sit there and hold down back, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO THEN?
Same goes for Honda. 
For Honda vs Blanka, mostly advancing HHS. Vs Blanka it works okay, but sometimes it’ll lose to electricity. Honda can try to sweep electricity but that’s kind of asking to eat a Blanka ball to the face. If Honda is feeling really ballsy he can always try to forwardjump jab against a jumping Blanka or forwardjump fierce against a grounded one. But really, advancing HHS is just safer 99% of the time. Meaty HHS after a knockdown is also nice and safe, and leaves Honda in a comfortable position.
That’s good stuff Thelo and I’m not one to nitpick but this is exactly what I’m talking about. The second you have to take your character out of that safe strat/comfort zone is when you have to take more chances than maybe you’d like vs a character that you would normally handle mush more easily if he just came to you.
We are always quick to point out how to stop something that a particular character is trying to do but rarely give examples of what do if that plan is negated by the opponent having health advantage AND also having a good set of moves to also stop/negate your advancement.
I’m not trying to make this a Blanka vs Vega and Honda conversation I’m just trying to point out what we should always consider if Plan A is broken. Just some food for thought.
Thanks for the reply.