Tiger Construction: Sagat Match-up Thread

I can break down the whole thing.

I’m not sure how you play against Chun, but Abel and Chun are two completely different characters that pose entirely unique threats to Sagat. I’d venture to say that if you’re playing against Abel like you are playing against Chun, you’re playing at least one of these matches wrong.

It is true that knocking Abel down can be important in this match. If you want to play aggressively, the knockdown is important. Now, as Sagat, you don’t have to play aggressively, but it is a good option, certainly.

Tiger Uppercut will beat all jump-ins, obviously, but Abel’s Air-to-Ground game isn’t that bad. Between Jump Jab, Jump Forward, and a well placed Jump Fierce (like safe-jump, Jump Fierce after a knockdown), a good Abel can find spots to jump in on Sagat. Jump Jab can beat your s. Roundhouse, so be wary.

Eh… As an Abel player, I gotta say, I’m not concerned at all with Tiger Shots. Abel jumps over or rolls through those easily. Either that, or I focus them. Having Abel focus or roll your Tiger Shots really isn’t good for you. As I focus or roll, I’m building one of my meters that will allow me to completely shut down your fireball game. EX Wheel Kick goes through fireballs, so I don’t have to wait until I get Ultra to punish you for throwing them. Obviously, allowing me to focus your Shots builds me meter for the Ultra, which shuts down a large part of your game. Throwing fireballs builds your meter, sure… but at the expense of building Abel’s, which, IMO, is more important in the match-up.

Your tricks to deal with Abel’s rolls won’t work on a good Abel. I’ll just roll through your Shot, and end at a range that doesn’t really benefit you at all. Too far to hit me… too close to attempt another Tiger Shot… a pretty good range for me, and you just… gave it to me… for nothing, really. This is not the range where you want to be against Abel. Too much can go wrong here for you.

If you wait for Abel to get Ultra, and then get aggressive… you’ll lose to any decent Abel. By the time Abel gets Ultra, you either want to have a good lead to lame him out, or you wanna be already playing aggressively, and have Abel knocked down on his ass, so you can keep up okizeme pressure. Waiting for Abel to get meter, and then going in allows Abel to thwart your attempts to get in, and land his Ultra a lot easier.

Abel’s command throw is invincible to throws. No throw in the game will beat it. Certainly not Sagat’s normal throw.

No… Abel’s Stand Jab is not 3 frames. Abel has no moves that come out in 3 frames. Sagat’s Low Jab is faster than all of Abel’s moves.

Yes, and no. Sure, it will beat any attack, but smart Abel’s know you wanna uppercut when the going gets tough. Smart Abel’s will sprinkle in their roll into the offense when they anticipate TU’s and will punish you HARD. Don’t rely on this move too much. Obviously, it’s good in a lot of scenarios, but it can also be your downfall.

I’m not sure what this means.

Good general advice.

Good Abel’s will bait TU and punish you very hard.

Not really. For Abel’s anti-air Low Fierce to pop up, he has to hit with the tip of his elbow, meaning, he has to throw the move out pretty early, and hit you at a high point in your jump. Even if you manage to beat the AA out with the Randy Savage elbow, you’re not gonna be able to combo when you land, unless the Abel just really messed up the timing on the AA.

Easier said than done.

Yep… which is why throwing Tiger Shots is dangerous, because you just hand over that position right to Abel…

Yep… if the Abel goes for resets. If not, he’ll just slam you on the ground, safe jump you, and you have to deal with Abel all in your face again, with no recourse for a little while. If he does try to reset, yeah… it’s up in the air… but people have tendencies…

Yes… but good Abel’s know that, and will work to neutralize TU very early. Be cognizant of that.

So yeah… the general strategy is off, I’d say, but there are also some things that are just wrong, like the info on Abel’s command throw, and the frame data on his Stand Jab.

I have plenty of experience of playing gen videos

Gen- Gen is a tricky type of character he usually wants you to tiger shot a lot so keep calm on it and space him out and be beer prepared for a tiger for a tiger uppercut (He GLIDEDS its hard) remember gen doesn’t have a shoryuken type of reversal so you can easily pressure him(smart gens will dash back). Also the only way that to have a high percentage against him is learning his jumps and which way to block because of sagats hight hitbox it is hard blocking his jumps. so go to training and check his crossovers, also he is a poking type of character so it won’t hurt to block his attacks

Abel (for online Sagat scrubs :P) :

  • Overall they’re best to play against with an aggressive mindset. Playing as a sitting duck trying to zone them makes life so much easier for them. If the momentum is there for you, go for it. (In a safest way of course. No Random TUs or HK TKs!)

  • No Tiger Shots from close range… especially when he’s trying to worm his way in. Tiger Shots help them.

  • As much as we rely on TUs… I think Abels like to get the TT throw out a lot too if given the chance. This has big damage and it’s so easy to set yourself up to eat one. Even for doing what seems to be the right thing by blocking his attacks.

Watch out for typical throw setups because he will beat you with a TT throw (I think this can apply to anyone with command throws). Neutral jump + mk is a good counter for the following situations (maybe EX TU if you have meter to burn):

  • If your FA is blocked and you dash towards him on the follow-up for throw.
  • Air to air resets.
  • Suspiciously next to you on wake-up. (Possibly baiting a TU too)
  • Empty cross-up jumps. (Possibly baiting a TU too)
  • Blocked j+mk from Abel
  • Blocked f+mk dash from Abel
  • Everyone knows Sagat’s are just hungry to get into someone with big damage. Abel’s will be trying to bait these TUs with these possible scenarios:

*During his reset combo he’ll just sit and block = whiffed if you are TU happy.

*1st CoD hit blocked, FADC backdash = whiffed if you are TU happy.

  • Also watchout for Abels that stand long range on wake-up. They usually do this to chip you for the round with the overhead kick if you’re on the brink of losing. You can counter this with pretty much any special move if you see it coming. (TU, TK or Ultra)

Anyone have some proven anti-Zangief tactics?

I’ve read several forums and wikis, and watched quite a few Mago, Ojisan Boy, etc, matches, but, I can’t seem to build solid fail-safe defensive techniques against Zangief.

I tend to struggle mostly against non-aggressive 'Giefs. Blocked tiger shot damage could only get you so far, before his EX meter builds, esp. after a few ‘safely-spammed’ Kx3’s. The smart ones will wait for a whiffed or ‘exploitable’ tiger shot, and make their break in, utilizing an EX green-hand, FA Dash, or low safe-jumps. They ‘turtle’ closer, throw-canceling any throw attempts, occasionally poking with the LP or cr-LPx3 > Kx3. (Kx3 counters focus attacks and most norms, and has nearly flawless close-range invincibility. They can also utilize its block stun to command throw (or ultra), and of course crouching or standing LP, MP, LK, ward-off attempts are all countered and futile. Unlike most other characters, Sagat has no unpunishable/mildly punishable ‘escape moves,’ (like an air-hurricane kick escape); therefore, once he’s is knocked down, Zangief can pretty safely position himself for the unblockable (?) overhead cross-up, followed by throw/command throw upon stun, countering any L or M attacks with command throws, Kx3, or a game-ending ultra.

It’s for certain that you can’t play his ‘turtling game,’ since he’ll just stun > command throw you all day. 'Gief can quite easily make his way to mid-screen by either FD’ing, short safe-jumping, timing a green-hand, etc, so trying to zone him there won’t work. At half-screen, tiger shots aren’t safe, blocked TK will get you command thrown or worse, as will blocked TU’s, and blocked High ‘norms’ will get you ultra’d or EX’d.

I’m not speaking about the agressive/impatient 'Giefs (95%) that think they’re going to force their way in, and ‘green-hand’ and ‘spam Kx3 spinning’ their way to a victory. There are so many holes to exploit in that gameplay, I find myself undecided on how I want to attack rather than on whether or not I should press a button. I often ‘perfect’ the aggressive 'Giefs, using standing RH, exclusively. …It’s against the 5% ‘ultra reserved/defensive ones,’ that I can’t find any solid/safe poking/attack options. Every game Sagat can possibly play in this match-up seems exploitable, and seems to heavily rely on countering one of Zangief’s blunders, with no alternate attack options. To me, this is really the only match-up in which it seems Sagat has to really ‘look for exchange-hit/blocked damage scraps’ to stand a chance. (Aside from match-ups against good Dhalsims, great Seths, and outstanding Akumas).

I hope some of the higher-level G1 or SG Sagats can point something out that I’m over-looking; because, I’m seriously fresh out of ideas. I’ve messed around with some option-select variations, but, the same issues stand. The championship level videos seems to portray a good amount of split-second reaction-time-based counter technique; but, that seems really, really shaky, and (again) reliant on a blunder, without an alternate attack strategy.

Some info on akuma

if you sense a double roundhouse coming st.mk stuffs it.

if he does a double air fireball you can ex-TU through it.

practice auto-correct wake up DP for cross ups like air tatsu > Sweep.

learn the uber range of akumas sweep and stay out of it.

Akuma has some divekick shenanigans that stuff your TU so try and distinguish which ones are punishable and which you should just block. (Example this divekick setup).

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if the akuma is sweep happy you can FA it and score a combo.(has some drawbacks; Demon in yo face, and if they are really good they can demon after you absorb the sweep).

from my own personal experience i try to stay close to akuma and avoid his air fireballs.

the air fireballs are used to force you into blocking them which gives him openings.

example:

you block standing and you get a sweep.

you block low and you eat an overhead.

you block (high or low) they walk up and grab.

they can poke for more pressure with cr.mk > hado or double roundhouse.

The end.

those are just somethings i do.

pls correct me if im wrong.

i just had a very long post on gief n akuma n fuckin srk logged me out oh well ill just throw in the akuma one

vs akuma

your main pokes here are crouch hp st lk and occasional st hk the reason you dont abuse st mk much is because it is slower than st lk and the hit box is tall so it is easily jumped

aggressive akuma has an advantage over sagat but first lets learn to destroy the defensive ones

yes it is hard to catch akuma but you dont need to catch him to drain him down as long as you are more active you will have the advantage for example look at ojisan vs tokido at my event gods garden the key is corner pressure and chipping away while getting meter if they like red fireball just jump over is they like to poke then uppercut if they demon flip then jump hp

your jump hp will beat demon flips and naked cross tatsu so remember this and your uppercuts mainly lp and mp and you will control the air fine if you are near cornered and they do jump peak air fireball you blow through withex uppercut its worth it especially when you are cornered

against aggro akuma you want to crouch hp in anticipation of his hk advances but only if you know its coming its an ok poke to whiff as well its hardest for akuma to sweep on reaction if he gets closer push him out with st lk into tiger shot

you want to have good tiger shot rhythm as always if you can poke good with this you should win its great to push akuma out with combine with back dash you get good spacing if you land ex tiger shots that will hurt him a lot its also very fast so get meter for this and your uppercut cancels but ex tiger shot is very important

f+lk is rare but if you hit with this and combo it can be a great devstating strategy to take matches

if he does hk with rhythm pauses to bait uppercuts find his rhythm and uppercut for example if he always waits 1 second then presses hk then you wait 1 second then uppercut and win the match its worth the risk to limit them and if they wait too long you can back dash or jump back

dont use tiger knee much in this match most of the time it will just get you hurt and make things harder well at least vs a good akuma ya

Thanks HAV for the info, I’ll update the thread shortly.

edit: and the rest too

I never understand why abel player fadc after the first hit (on block) since cod mp or cod hp is safe on block ( -3)
Sagat cannot punish with reversal tiger uppercut.

For me it’s a waste of meter

cr lp > tu beats cod first hit

Ok Alioune but how many Sagat do that in real ?

You don’t know if abel will stop after the first hit or continue with the second hit.

It’s look risky to do cr lp first and TU after.

I see a lot of Sagat (perhaps not the best) use TU reversal and no “reversal” crouch lp.

But i agree with you cr lp > Tu beat cod first hit

Viper…

Sup doods, im having an awful time vs. viper. Any tips? (Read the viper section already vs. sagat).

What can you do against seismos on wake up? besides block… the chip pisses me off lol.

Thunder knuckle 7 frame start up right? possible to safe jump her?

any info would be good.

seismo is when she hits the ground and like earthquakes your ass? taht thing?

focus attack absorb and dash forward?

I finally updated Abel’s info with HAV’s insight. Anymore?

Does anyone have any information to add to the Ryu match-up? This is hands down my worst match-up, and I spend most of it confused to hell. It’s not so much the defensive ones that hang back and try and out zone me, it’s more the aggro ones that viciously assault me with c.mk at mid range. That move is my pappy.

You’ll have to poke with cr.fierce or st.short>low tigershot to deal with c.mk. If st.short is done far enough his c.mk won’t reach you but you will reach him. And with cr.fierce it’s all about timing. If he’s doing c.mk>hadouken, you can focus, and as SOON as the c.mk hits you leave it, dash back. You’ll gain a counter hit crumple, and even if you didn’t since he didn’t do the follow-up hadouken, you’ll still have focus hit him and backdashed to safety. There’s also cr.roundhouse if you want to footsie with that, but it has lead to more trades or me getting hit than I had liked, so I stick to st.short and cr.fierce (st.short more cause you can poke him while he’s not in c.mk poking range, and safely low tigershot since he can’t be in range to hit you with a reversal shoryuken between st.short and low tigershot).

Sagat’s focus attack has a bit more range than his st.short would you believe, so it is useful at times as a poke. Also watch out for ryu’s spamming c.mk waiting for you to jump. If they’re not near me but within jump range as soon as they fire a c.mk I low tigershot or extigershot.

Never jump at a ryu c.mk’ing, you’ll guaranteed get deep shoryuken’d.

To cover other areas of fighting ryu:

Watch out for his ultra, if you get predictable with your tigershots he’s going to definitely ultra between your shots, so be careful when he gets ultra and start faking tigershots so he’ll throw it then you jump and punish. A good tactic is to obviously be extremely predictable. Then when he jumps>Ultra w/e you fake, he throws, you jump, heavy punish combo win for you. A big part of fighting Ryu is the fireball mindgame.

When Ryu has super, this thing is nasty. You can get hit full screen from a high tiger-shot. What I’ve done to bait it is throw out an EX high-tigershot. This keeps the super at bay while it’s travelling lightspeed giving you enough time to block, threat averted.

On topic of safe-jumping, ryu can’t be safejumped, you can only fake-cross or fake-safejump. Stupid high priority shoryuken.

Zoning vs. Ryu, your ideal jump-in string is j.fierce, st.short, low tigershot. When Ryu throws a hadouken, the j.fierce allows you to hit the extended part that is his hands, so it’s kinda a pretty safe jump. You always jump in a range that’s a bit in front of his face. He can’t shoryuken you, if he throws that hadouken that’s extra range for him to get hit and that’s when you press j.fierce. Even if he blocks it, the range is far so st.short>lowtigershot, even if he tries to reversal between st.short and low tiger, he’ll entirely whiff you and get hit by the lowtigershot, but you need to have decent range for this.

Ryu is one of my most-hated matchups with Sagat. You really need a strong mindgame to win this one, as well as having a strong up-close pressure game (which unfortunately I lack in, my specialty is zoning). I just have trouble using a blockstring when he can shoryuken between every frame I do (cr,short, cr.short, etc.) so help on that would be appreciated.

Akuma’s stHK is really tough to beat. I try counter poking with stLK and stMK, I also stick out a crLP xx TS after a blocked stHK from akuma. I’m just curious about what everyone else does, or if there’s something I’m missing. Because that move is really tough in this match up.

At mid range, I use st MK, it stuffs his HK early.
Close distance after a bloqued HK, I think crLP to TS is nice.
Smart akuma players, will try to put HK in your recovery… before at mid distance, I used stHK a lot, and often I would get the HK in my recovery… so now, I prefere to use stMK.

Lately, I’ve had some problems against fei long … I red the tips from playgroundlegend and also some info from emblemlord in the fei thread.
Often I get stucked in the corner and didn’t succeed to get out or punish …
I don’t know this match up at all so it was kind of hard to figure out what to do in match.
In the corner, they bait you with footsies, if I try to footsies myself, I loose then —>rekka. Or he backdashed and rekka in my footsies recovery.
Also at close range, they loop many chicken wing in my guard… I try to TU but I didn’t succeed to counter his chicken wing…it’s tricky because, they chicken, block then grab … or chicken again.
Anyone has other tips ?? or punishment advice ??
thx

Sagat vs Ryu

i’ve notice that you have to be careful about telegraphing your tiger shots…ryu’s ability to jump in over your tiger shots is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than sagat’s ability to jump in over ryu’s fireballs

spamming tiger knee is not always a good thing, even at max range as c.mk will go under it and give ryu a free throw/srk

maybe it’s just me but the close game is in ryu’s favorite, ESPECIALLY if he gets the knockdown, with ambigious tatsu cross ups and j.fp it can be quite the guessing game, and even worse with sagat’s huge hitbox…ive had crossup tatsu land ON my head, sometimes it’ll be a cross up and sometimes it won’t

i think sagat’s best way to win the ryu match up is to zone him entirely and prevent ryu from getting in close…

but that’s just me, ive yet to figure out a way to deal with ryu’s pressure game

This match can be quite tough, and zoning Ryu the whole match works, but when he catches on it changes. Against the top Ryu here I’ve gone through tons of different strategies, even to zoning him the whole match and not getting close at all. What did he do in turn? Started zoning me, and winning the fireball war since he was more prone to jump over my tigershots than I was to his hadouken. Then I adapted and started jumping j.fp when he doesn’t expect it or at oppurtunity times. j.fp is really excellent vs. ryu since you can hit his extended hitbox after he throws a hadouken, so that’s your no.1 jump-in, to st.lk>low tigershot (you’d be jumping in at a range).

There’s a certain range where if he’s standing still that if you didn’t extend j.fp he can’t hit you shoryuken, but if you see him hadouken and his hitbox is still extended j.fp that hitbox. He might wise up and start walking forwards shoryuken, but at that point read his mind and go back to tigershots.

The main prob I had with the Ryu matchup was that I was scared of jumping and getting close. When you get rid of those two, you’ll start to do good vs. Ryu. Also jump forwards but not in range of his shoryuken to put him on the spot, focus dash forward through hadouken>st.lk or if closer c.lp>low tiger to pressure him. Anymore inquiries I’d be glad to help.

Also vs chun li

Chun li seems to be pretty devastating against sagat up close. Her block strings and axe kick/sweep mix ups are pretty difficult for sagat to deal with…but then again im a noob.

Her normals >>>>>>>>> your normals and it seems to be difficult to interuppt her block strongs except for a random TU here and there.

never ever end a block string with a LTS, such as s.lk >> LTS, when chun li has full meter cuz im pretty sure she gets a garunteed super…ive eaten quite a few of those

but till she gets super, id recommend ending your block strings with the LTS, because, like ryu, chun li’s c.mp causes your tiger knees to whiff, giving her a free throw.

as far as telegraphing TS, since chun li has a bit more of an arc to her jump, it is not as dangerous as ryu’s but her axe kick goes over LTSs so be careful about spamming that mindlessly…

any other inputs/tips would be appreciated, seems like when shes upclose or 1 character away, there is very little sagat can do.