Today I got beasted on a lot by players in my city, and I think it’s time to reassess my game plan.
While earlier I relied a lot on defensive turtle tactics; getting the life lead and actually running out the clock in certain matches and running away a lot, I began to move into a more ‘active’ playstyle, one where instead of letting matches run to T, I’d finish them by having offensive surges, usually starting whenever I landed EX FBA. Both of these playstyles worked great for me but the more and more I play Vega the more I really come to embrace the raw strategy of ‘hit and run’. Vega should constantly be on the move, but I misinterpret that to mean “Spam Cosmic Heel”. I facepalm so hard every time I cosmic heel, get blocked by Abel, and then think… “I just did exactly what he wanted me to do.”
The thing is, once I learned that EVERY scarlet terror you connect with puts you in the best possible position Vega could want to be in, I realized I should begin to re-think my playstyle. Though beforehand, about 50% of my damage in every match was Cosmic Heel, ST, I still had a lot of blocked Cosmic Heels, that while they wouldn’t yield immediate negative results, I’d put myself in terrible positions and as a result pay dearly for it. Now I’m thinking about using Cosmic Heel much, much less, and sticking to raw footsies more to sort of “keep the battle going”. Also, instead of running away so much, I’m trying to adopt a new strategy: don’t try and run away, but instead, try and stay within 1/2 screen from the center of the map at all times.
Think about this trade off; just about anybody in the game has obvious advantages when it comes to corner raping people: Gouken gets mad combos, people can’t leave against Zangief, Ryu gets an ultra set up, so does Rufus, Viper, Sagat… etc. Really… what advantages does Vega have in the corner? … A super set up? Yeah… that never hits. Mad footsies and poke pressure…? yes, but anyone can do that… And think about what can happen to YOU if ONE mistake occurs, and YOU end up being the one in the corner. The match is over against soooo many people who are so good at shutting Vega down… Today I lost so many fucking matches after winning with 90% hp then getting corner raped by endles pressure. honestly, the advantages of keeping people in the corner do not outweigh the disadvantage of getting absolutely raped if you make one mistake.
Another thing is focus. I spam focus way too much. It works against certain chars, but like everything else, it’s a trick. It’s not supposed to work because it’s not safe in many situations, but you hit people with it because they don’t expect it.
Anyway… today was REALLY rough, I was pissed off at some of the shit happening to me today, and I knew it was time for a re-evaluation. I’m pretty confident that Vega’s game revolves heavily around Scarlet Terror; every time you hit one, and someone techs their knockdown, they are in a horrible position. You can ambiguous corpsehop into confirm combos or kara throw mix ups, set up Izuna drops REALLY well (this was one thing of my game that WAS working today. I hit literally 90% of my FBA’s as Izunas) as you have a massive advantage: the only situation where a Barcelona actually limits an opponents options, you can chip with RCF (not really safe but you can always mix it in against turtle-heavy, teching opponents). and you can build meter with another ST. You can also set up safe jump ins, easy. It’s Vega’s most important move; more important than FBA or I would even argue crouching strong. I’m confident now that Vega’s game is about extremities; when he gets knocked down, he gets raped, but when Vega knocks down, he rapes. So;
- You prioritize knocking people down
- And you prioritize never getting knocked down,
- And you stay in the center of the screen
anyway. All just theory craft caues I’m still reeling from the massive defeats today. Any thoughts?
EDIT: Vega’s sweep is also important too. It’s a knock down and you have two corpse hops after it: Piece of Mercury, or depending on how far in your slide after your sweep, Scarlet Terrors. Shorts will bring you over there head if you’re right at their fallen body, and a little bit further, forwards, then roundhouses. You can make it extremely ambiguous. Vega’s sweep is fast as hell, massive range, despite the slow speed of the actual hit of the sweep being 100% safe.
question but just so I’m on the same page how do you kara throw with claw?