I heard there’s a new tier list out somewhere, but I have no idea where it is. In the meantime, I decided to check out the July tier list on Eventhubs.com to see how my matchups rate. I saw the Boxer matchup is 6-4 in Zangief’s favor, and I don’t understand how this can be! This is one of my worst matchups, even worse than Guile. Can someone explain to me how this is supposed to be in Zangief’s favor? I figure this forum would know better than the Zangief forum.
New tier list is here. I’m not an advanced player but I do play Balrog, and the basic reason the matchup is in 'Gief’s favor, I believe, is because Balrog’s strengths lie in close. And a great Gief player can be more dominant in these ranges than Balrog (example: SPD’ing a blocked dash punch). It’s not a completely unbalanced matchup, but it is in Zangiefs favor.
Balrog can make fewer mistakes than Gief on the whole as well, given Gief’s bigger lifepool and heavier damage overall beit from normals and, naturally, SPD’s etc. Good Zangiefs will highlight Balrog has good means of keeping Zangief out so some may hate turtle/zoning/spacing Rog’s but ultimately for Balrog to do any substantial damage, he has to be in close and thats where it gets very muddy for him as Gief can do the same right back to Balrog, get a lead and hang back leaving the risk of Balrog having to get in to try an do some damage or resort to chipping away with risky straights.
Given he has terrible wakeup options this makes it quite easy for Gief to turn the tide entirely in their favour with mindgames/mixups on wakeup as well considering Balrog has limited ways of getting out of his shinanigans and always risks just eating more damage.
It’s one of those awkward matches that slightly tip in Giefs favour overall but it’s far from an obscene disadvantage to Boxer who can be really annoying for Gief if played on point.
Gief can win from one knockdown fairly simply to be honest. Balrogs’s escapes can be punished with relative ease using a few OSs. Balrog however cannot win easily - this is one of his toughest matches to deal damage in, and he effectively only ever chips away.
It’s a footsies match, and is probably closer to 5-5 until Gief scores a knockdown - then it’s heavily stacked to Gief. Balrog scores a knockdown and he pretty much just backs off on wake up.
That is one of the more retarded match-up lines in the new chart. 5-5 slight favor for Rog man. Just that this is based off compiled touney data so it isnt an exact science. Its close but it may well have been Vangief destroying some local Rogs to skew those results. LOLOLOL
I know this fly’s in the face to many here, but seriously, there is VERY little Gief can do against an obscenely turtling boxer. He has to take tons on risk and eat a ton of damage for that “educated” guess and play a bait game. Gief simply cannot take and give as much punishment as before either. That extra 100 on the life bar is only there to take more CHIP damage getting in.
In the hundreds of hours of video I’ve seen in the past year plus i have rarely seen a better Gief (itabashi, etc) consistently beat a Rog if he turtled and zoned well. But as mentioned, Rog wake up is pretty crappy so big advantage Gief IF he can get the knockdown, otherwise all rog.
Trini_Judoka’s getting at exactly my problem. The most I can ever hope to get against a turtling boxer is maybe a light SPD, and then I’m essentially returned to the same old situation I had before. It feels like a problem I’ve encountered playing as T. Hawk against Guile in HDR: I can’t realistically jump in and I have to get him to hesitate so I can grab. Neither one wants to get up close, because that’s just when they start getting beat.
I play a couple of giefs, and I get owned by the cross-up body splash and st.hk used as an AA and used to buffer in spds. For me the Gief match-up is a guessing game at 1/2 screen to point blank. But I do agree, a perfect turtle match nets gief ZERO, but personally gief does enough damage off of one mistake/opening to have a much better turtle game.
Gief’s st.mp is a great advancing tool. +2 on block and 4 frame start up? Godly.
Balrog’s st.lp is better, but he doesn’t wanna walk forward much here.
I think it’s 6-4 because of the knockdown. It’s 5-5 prior to that, maybe even in Balrog’s favour, but the chances Gief will land one knockdown isn’t so low that it’s not stacked in his favour when he does.
That, and mad OSing EX Green Hand is nasty.
[media=youtube]-aPfAzARVno[/media]
Starts @4:20
Coopa is no slouch Gief. To me this vid shows why this is really an even stevens match-up. Slight adv Rog if he turtles well.
In this match even sometimes when Rog went down, there were a few good escapes to put it back to Rogs favor, when he’s on his feet.
I disagree. Whilst far from bad, the Gief was not anti airing properly and not using anywhere near enough st.mp. No OS green hands to stuff dash straights/ a poke happy Rog.
Thnxyoutoo did a great job, but Gief can certainly turn the screw more than that.
I agree Coopa was light on the o_s GH (he hit like 1), but it’s not like thxyoutoo was wildly throwing out rush punches and at the distance he stayed in the second match, Rogs pokes would beat Gief’s thwarting the o_s.
Which match did you watch because Coopa threw out like 2 dozen or so s.mp’s. Most unsuccessful because standing mp is an excellent tool but is very space and play-style dependent. In the range for s.mp to hit, Gief is wide open to sweep so the other other function would be to stuff non EX rushes which there weren’t ANY outside a combo or escape.
As far as AA goes, PPP can be a sitting duck to properly spaced/timed Rog hk/hp jump ins and alot of Giefs opt to block because generally at the point you have to hit hk/hp to stuff the lariat, if its blocked and you don’t dash away or jump, you can eat a juicy 360 and in thxyoutoo’s case, he ate an ultra fishing to stuff the lariat in match 1.
I agree that thnxyoutoo was playing in such a way as to make it painfully hard to fight as a Gief, but st.mp just wasn’t used enough in my opinion. I watched two I think - there were just the two right?
I still think it’s tough for Rog. You can’t mount pressure vs Gief at all, and there’s a reason the Japanese Balrog’s avoid it at God’s Garden until the later rounds. The nerd to lariat does makes it a lot easier - that shit was stupid in Vanilla, but perhaps now it’s too bad… Balance is tough to come by!
Nah dude, there were a dozen s.mp punches thrown out like EVERY round but again difficult to connect due to spacing without trade.
Also keep in mind in Japan, Gief is a highly developed character and there are WAY more gdlk Giefs out there than in the states. As matter, i think Vangief is the only gdlk person still playing Gief in Super in the states. Not a knock on other Giefers, but there is a difference between “that dude is fucing amazing” and “that dude is an effing God”.
I meant I watched two matches, not only two st.mps :p.
I’m from the UK myself, and we did have two really tough, top top Giefs, but one has dropped him for Dhalsim now (his Gief made the Balrog match up awful =/).
i gotta say i feel gief vs rog is 5-5, only thing is you gotta play really really defensive and be willing to chip away, if you get aggressive you shall lose!
this matchup is ez 6-4 gief ;[ you have a small advantage in the foot department but like dafro says if gief gets a knockdown you are in big trouble. the real answer is not enough good giefs outside of japan so people just think it’s even. this is not even.
i play alot of crazy giefs, some are the best in North America, you can’t say they aren’t top level just because they aren’t from Japan. I truely feel its 5-5, its just most rogs panic once they get knocked down. If your good with your pokes you can beat any Gief.
errr i’m not trying to say “everything japan is better” but when it comes to gief we just didn’t have the same strength at the ZA position as japan did in vanilla. in a competition of normals gief is pretty even with rog. Gief doesn’t need to jump and s.MP beats so many things. With ex green hand and lariat gief has very solid specials to compete. Rog has a smallish advantage in the foots department. c.LP buffer ex green hand beats a lot of rog’s stuff. On a knockdown rog has like so few options if the zangief knows wtf to do. Dafro is right it’s pretty even until gief gets a knockdown then it’s huge advantage gief. in 4 it’s easy to get a knockdown sooo that makes it 6-4 to me.
i’d like to hear what the top giefs think about this. I’d be suprised on how they feel the matchup is.
i should upload some of my videos against some of the top giefs, yes when they get a knockdown it can be Huge trouble. But i disagree than its easy to get a knockdown. thats why i say play very defensive. I also think Rog has a huge advantage in the footsies department.
This is just my opinion however.
i’d love to see some videos