Zangief General Thread: Our Russian Skies Are Protected

I feel the same way. I used Bison pretty heavy at launch and never did as well as I’m currently doing with Gief. I’m like you, until I started messing around with Gief I was pretty disappointed with the game. I’d like to see some combo versatility, but I’m OK with the frametrap game.

Just a friendly reminder fuck Nash that is all.

Do we have ANY positive matchup? Like a 6-4? Doesnt feel like it. Feels like every single match up is an uphill battle.
I mean, I’ve got the character list right in front of me and I dont really see myself going: “Uh yeah, xyz! That’s a sweet matchup” … Balrog ‘feels’ like it could be in favor because we can v-skill his dashpunches, but once they adjust and KKB out of them for a grab, it’s a nightmare again.

Maybe Im missing something? Is there any matchup you personally enjoy because you feel like it’s giefs favor?

Since day one I’ve felt that he loses every mu and today I still feel the same. Boxer might be close to even but it’s way too early to say for sure imo. All I know is if a good Boxer touches you you’re dead. I think eventually that mu will be bad too but who knows. I agree that every mu feels like a struggle with this character and we have to be totally on point or we have no chance.

Balrog can not kkb too often as it sucks
It is too slow and riskly

The Laura MU is in our favor. I can’t speak to serious competition at like tournaments, but if you’re referring to online, Gief doesn’t seem that terrible.

Dunno if it’s just my style of play, but I seem to do really well against Necalli more than anyone else, even against the odd platinum rank I’ve played. What’s the consensus on that matchup? Balrog, Laura and Karin are 3 others I don’t mind popping up at the matchup screen.

It would tight if the flex hit did damage equal to the amount gief took from v skill

Necali and Karin are tricky for me. What’s your secret?

I’m not super strong at analysing my own games but I’ll try!

Against Necalli I just try and focus on holding a bit of space and keep them out to start with using jabs and charged sHP. Charged sHP works pretty well in this matchup as Necalli doesn’t have strong multi hit moves that blow up the armour, or a slide kick or something thats easy for them to hit low where there’s no armour. They love to frame trap you but their command grab is slow and short range, so they don’t often mix it up and quite often follow through with a stomp to finish (which is negative on block), so I usually keep blocking until I see the stomp then return fire (until they give me a reason to do otherwise). Learning to pick the moments they will reversal DP, blocking it and punishing is a big help. See if you can bait them out on wakeup, after an anti air or just recognising a particular situation they like to use it if they throw it out. I tend to assume if it’s an important time of the match more often than not they’ll DP.

Karins love to play footsies and start an offense with a dash in attack into a flurry of quick hits or high/low/high/low pressure. I try to keep closing the gap otherwise you’re letting her run the play. Using knee hammer can work well to advance forward, catches alot of those dash in attacks. Learn her moves that are negative on block and jab out, or use vreversal to relieve the pressure if she does get in. Karin isn’t super strong with the anti airs, so worth testing them out early and seeing how well they handle a jump in, or you might catch them out focused on making their move forward or mid attack on the ground. Karins reversal DP is even easier to pick, because it’s only available when she has EX bar. And if she doesn’t have EX bar and you get a knockdown, go in hard.

Gief beats the grapplers pretty handily imo. Better neutral game, better grabs, similar pressure game in most cases. I think it’s a matter of figuring out how to utilize his tool-set and learning how to follow them up.

I’ll agree that there needs to be less complaining from Gief players and more effort finding new uses for his toolbox, though. It’s the same story for every low tier character in every game.

You think Gief beats Birdie handily? You must know something no one else does about that mu. Birdie’s a terrible mu imo.

Didn’t realize Birdie’s a grappler, seems more like a mid-range character that happens to have a command grab. His kit points to that primary play-style.
The grapplers are Mika, Alex and Laura.

Lol another major with no gief in top 16

Shoutouts to Itabashi Z either way, to make it as far as he did with Gief and 5000 participants it’s almost like he won to me. Still think Gief is a lack luster character.

They really need to look at dashes in this game most of the ones that made top 8 have great dashes, and safe pressure.

Finally made it to 7k wit gief. Will be Plat one day. Not that it means anything lol. My rating seems to be contingent on how many good nash players I fight in a row. Edit: NVM we plat boys.

IMO gief beats mika, laura, alex, and balrog.

In the entire top 50 we had one Gief and zero Alexs’. Grapplers are completely irrelevant in this game in high level play. I didn’t count Snake cause he barely played Gief sadly but who can blame him. I don’t consider Mika a grappler at all for obvious reasons. This game is just Nash, Chun, Cammy, Ken, Necalli, and a sprinkling of Mikas and Ryus.

Yeah outside of LI Joe I was rooting for Fuudo to take it. But that top eight showed what we already know in that Nash can get away with a lot of bs.