It’s just my opinion that Gouken beats Sagat. You can explain why you think he doesn’t.
My personal reasoning for it is because Gouken can beat Sagat in the FB game. He can get Sagat into patterns and can punish with a boat load of options. If you’re full screen you can do ex.demon grab, mid screen you can do palms, or U2(so godlike). My opinion is just confirmed by seeing bonchan play against infiltration, or both the Ft5 sets between Ryan Hart and Infiltration.
Gouken has an amazing safe jump dive kick setup on Sagat’s wake up, it’s pretty beastly set up into high damage frame trap combos.
I’m not saying this match is out of this world difficult, but I think it’s tougher for Sagat, just my two cents though.
I don’t think it’s inexperience, I think it’s just hard to react to in general. Look at the top Sagat in the world, Bonchan. He plays against top Gouken’s in Japan, and still didn’t know when Gouken did the air parry, I used to try to punish it with TK but when people adjust they do the kick to beat it clean…
The biggest killer IMO is the gouken sweep into demon flip safe jump. It’s easy, safe pressure
If its a raw flip and u see the flip but u dont know what to do just jumb back rh. He has no option to stop you. Just a braindead answer and u are safe no matter what. If its his ghetto vortex then u just gotta run dat guessing game. Remember you can FA fireballs too. I recommend that actually. Build ur cannon and ur ex so you can take control. If the fb war makes u uncomfortable then just walk him down. Sagat is actually better in footsies for the most part in this match as gouken has no super threatening buttons besides sweep but gats st.mk and cr.hp can beat that consistently. gouken has the walk speed but without the buttons to back it up its all bark no bite. and of course spaced knee beats alot of his stuff too.
All that stuff gouken does is not on reaction. Its guesses and pattern reading i.e master level players taking advantage of what gouken is about… Huge return off guesses.
and imma be honest i havent seen any sagat rly play that match with confidence. Ryan and Bonchan both looked kinda lost when they fought infil who by the way…is most certainly the stronger player.
i will say this though i think online gouken is harder to beat and thats where i fight goukens . i think bonchan had infs gouken at canada cup but he fucked up that one anti air when he had inf cornered if he had of dp’d i rekn he woulda won it.
In regards to infiltration i dont think hes better then bonchan if he was he woulda beat him with akuma which is a worse match but bonchan bodied him. i just think that yeah bonchan is not super confident against gouken i feel the same way myself.
I do the same i find attacking him fine. just sometimes i get caught out by random flip grabs and at times the palm going through tigershots can be annoying as fuck
The thing is, good gouken’s don’t just do raw flips, they can react to what you do.
I used to think the match up was even, or even slightly in Sagat’s favour. But I think Gouken’s U2 swings it in his favour. Gouken does have the walk speed(as you mentioned), but his F-dash is great too. I also think his corner pressure trumps Sagat’s in this particular patch up, but that’s just my opinion.
if the match up is in goukens favor its not a real bad one though. akuma cammy viper ibuki fei ken are the types of matchups we should be worried about most imo.
That is a very fair assessment IMO. It’s definitely not an un-winnable match-up. People find that at the highest level Guile vs Sagat is 5-5, I do as well. That is why I believe gouken has the slight advantage vs Sagat(and Guile for that matter). He can play against Sagat like Guile but has better options vs Sagat’s zoning.
i fought dieminions guile in a ft3 last year evo. and i lost final round. Now dieminion is either #1 guile or at worst #2 i dont think its in guiles favor sagat can out shoot guile and is better up close. guile only wins from mid range or if sagats fireball game isnt on point. its even imo as sagat doesnt fully dominate the fight but gat does more damage. just stay outside backfist sonic boom range joe. thats the main key to winning imo.
They can’t react with the flip to anything it’s far too slow. I play gouken as a loose side. They can react with the palm through fireball though.
The problem with gouken is that he has no hit confirms, his “big” damage essentially comes from you fucking up or whiffing a reversal in his face. If you have AS activated it’s one less option he’s got and good goukens should know that once you do load it that parry option is gone. His sweep is beastly though and you have to be mindful of that up close.
I watch you tube matches and too many Sagat’s try to jump on Gouken but you can’t, his cr-fierce is good against Sagat if he’s on point with his zoning. I still say it’s 5-5.
In my experience on these boards too many folk write off Sagat because things are “difficult” but that’s got nothing to do with match ups because he’s a bloody hard character to play and most of us are not up to the level. At the same time he does have more than his fair share of bad matches. Too many in fact, for someone generally accepted in the community as a “good” character.
difficulty plays a part in tournaments not matchups imo. if your character is easier to use less chance of fucking up. and in tourney thats a huge thing.
For sure. That’s why I’ve alway’s thought Sagat’s better as an alt than a main. It’s like playing roulette against the Casino, the odds are against you, your having fun but you know your getting raped. Top 8(ish) characters are all bad matches…
Yet for the life of me, since I picked him up, I don’t have nearly as much fun with other characters. Keep feeling like I should pick a new main but it feels like such a cop out. Switched from gief to Gat and it was like learning the whole game over again but it’s certainly made me a better player.
Well stripping it back, I think we all consider Sagat to be the best zoner in the game and Gouken isn’t exactly known for his ability to negate zoning.
If we were to put every character that has a special that gets through fireballs and an Ultra that counters fireballs as a bad match, Sagat would be sitting about 3 places below Hakan…