Zangief Match-Ups Thread

Street Fighter V Zangief
201

Zangief, in my opinion, is a keep away character without the traditional zoning tools. Lp is a giant wall that is extremely difficult to bypass. Lp, headbutt, vskill, and hp are his main threats. When your opponent begins to respect these it’s time for the spd marathon. Here are my matchup listings and reasoning.

Vs Ryu 5.5 to 4.5

[details=Spoiler]
Ryu’s fireball game is strong and a cornerstone to beating gief. At the proper spacing it’s a brick wall. Jumping leads to dp and blocking gives him more space. HP, f. Hp and v skill are instrumental in getting past this wall. Against the right opponent, this is tricky. Vtrigger is very important here. As it can shut down his fireball game and gief wins the neutral against ryu’s stubby limbs without them.[/details]

Vs Ken 4.5 to 5.5

[details=Spoiler]
This matchup is similar to ryu, however Ken has better pokes and his fireball game is less significant. Ken has much better tools in the neutral and once he is in can wreak havoc on zangief. v reversal is better than v trigger in this matchup imo.[/details]

Vs birdie 4 to 6

[details=Spoiler]
Birdie’s normals are ridiculous for zangief. And his AA beats any jumpin and comes out very fast. Cr lp is almost as good as ours, St Mk is brutal, and f hp is a strong tool vs our HP. Zangief has no effectives tools against banana and can except to get rid of it, often times leading to a free 50/50 for birdie. Our saving grace here is damage output.[/details]

Vs dhalsim 3.5 to 6.5

[details=Spoiler]
Dhalsim is a nightmare for gief. His zoning tools combined with his ability to reset to neutral on a good read are phenomenal. Try to hit his limbs with a crush counter and get in his face. One good read may win the match, but most of the time it is too little too late[/details]

Vs Karin 5.5 to 4.5

[details=Spoiler]
Cr lp can stuff most of Karin neutral game. A mix between this, f. Hp and hk can shut her down pretty hard when used properly. Her pressure on wakeup is strong and she has strong hit confirms. V reversal is better in this matchup i think. I feel zangiefs damage out and read based neutral against her gives him a slight edge.[/details]

Vs mika 4.5 to 5.5

[details=Spoiler]
Gief flat out wins the neutral game and his damage is far superior. V skill shuts down her dropkick, and lp shuts down ever other approach. Always try to keep this match in the middle of the screen to avoid the corner. If/when she gets a hit on you, prepare for the blender. As a grappler, use your knowledge of when people want to jump and when to block to your advantage. V reversal is your friend here. Mikas advantage in the mixup game comes from positioning and the ability to hit confirm into decent damage. If she gets the leg up on you, it’s over. Pretty sad, the student has surpassed the teacher.[/details]

Vs Vega 4.5 to 5.5

[details=Spoiler]

Vegas poke range hurts and can pretty easily escape the corner. St lp and hp are your best tools here. Stuff out a lot of attempts to poke, and try to catch him with a crush counter. His entire game plan is to keep you out. Once you’re in, Vega has 0 options outside of block or jump. Watch out for his vtrigger into super. Once he has vtrigger jumping is a no go. [/details]

Vs chun li 3.5 to 6.5

[details=Spoiler]
Chun li is much like Vega, expect her neutral game is even better. She can hit confirm for great damage, her anti air is godlike, and she has really strong pressure. She even has a reversal and a fireball making this matchup a nightmare. Standard gief game of fishing for vskills, headbutts, and crush counters to get in, but it won’t be easy[/details]

Vs Nash 4 to 6

[details=Spoiler]
This is a very frustrating match. Headbutt, neutral jump, and vskill are your most important tools against his zoning. Do not get predictable with these or you are going to get punished. Vskill is the only thing keeping this from being a 10-0 matchup. His dash speed and long range safe pokes are brutal. Luckily his wakeup is terrible. Try to fish out v reversal and v trigger if you manage to corner him. Don’t let him moonsault in without challenging him in the air. He’s safe on block. Once he has super you can no longer jump. But against an ancy player, you can fish it out and avoid it with air SPD. [/details]

Vs bison 5 to 5

[details=Spoiler]
You both have the same goal here. Get in and destroy the opponent. We do so with SPD and spd intimidation. He does so with frame traps and crush counter intimidation. We win the neutral game, but a lot of bisons will bypass the with various moves. Be ready for his dashes, if you shut this down its pretty much an easy win. But a well timed slide, devil’s reverse, or dash and he is in.[/details]

Vs Cammy 5.5 to 4.5

[details=Spoiler]
Cammy is very straight forward in this game. Use your standard footsies in neutral and walk her down. If you can shut down here dive kicks this is a relatively easy matchup. Her pressure isn’t that scary and she’s not too difficult to pin down. Without her reversal, this fight would be free.[/details]

Vs necalli 5 to 5

Spoiler

Necalli has strong pressure vs gief and his v skill is good for zoning you. F. Mk is a good tool against this. Walk him down with footsies, bait a DP or two, and take the win. I feel gives neutral is strong as is his damage. Necallis reversal makes this even.

Vs Alex 4.5 to 5.5

Spoiler

this match is relatively even. Alex has better footsies and approaches, gief has his v skill and better damage. I do not know too much in depth, but it feels Alex’s better neutral game wins this.

Vs rashid 5.5 to 4.5

Spoiler

rashid neutral isn’t very good. His projectile isn’t very good. And his damage isn’t very good. His mobility is his only true strength here. With your anti airs on point and exceptional reads as a gief fan, you should take this match.

Vs Laura 5 to 5

Spoiler

Laura s standing hk is her most threatening move against gief. Our St hk can beat her projectile. If she gets predictable with fireball with blocking strings you can SPD her. As a gief player you can tell when people want to command throw. Her resets and mix-ups are better, but we win damage. Neutral feels even. V trigger shuts down her fireballs 100%

Vs fang 4 to 6

[details=Spoiler]

V skill is kind of useless here I think. He can often get you with a 3rd attack before you can release. His zoning is strong against gief and it takes a good read to get in. S hp is also bad in this matchup with the long range lows and multihitting buttons. Patience is key in this matchup. It’s uphill but not impossible. [/details]

Opinions, criticism, and feedback welcome

202

I think it is a very fair matchup chart and thank you for doing it. Clearly the worst matchups are Dhalsim and Chun. I don’t know about having an advantage to Ryu though. I’d argue that is at the very least even or slight disadvantage. Despite us having such knowledge of fighting Ryu for 25 years, he is very strong in this game with his damage output. We probably don’t know enough about Alex yet but thus far it has felt even. I’d go so far as to say that we have an advantage vs Laura. Can st.hk right through her fireball and her range on command grabs is weak. Definitely a solid analysis. Thanks Kanon.

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Terrible matchups - Nash/Birdie, Dhalsim, Chun, Bison
Bad matchups - Vega & Necali
Slightly disadvantage - Ryu, Ken, R.Mika, Karin
Even - Laura, FANG, Zangief
slight advantage - Alex, Rashid, Cammy

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Can I get clarification on your opinion of necalli, bison, and Alex?

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I think Necalli is pretty even until he activates V-trigger, then I feel he gets the advantage.

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Terrible - Dhalsim, Chun, Nash
Bad - Vega, Birdie
Slight disadvantage - Ryu, Ken, Necalli (because of VT), Mika (because of blender),
Even - Karin, FANG, Cammy, Alex, Bison
Slight advantage - Rashid, Laura

Vega very well could be slight disadvantage since he is so weak when you finally get the pressure on him. That matchup requires incredible patience. Bison doesn’t scare me. Too slow and the strategy is pretty predictable. Frame trap or dash throw mixup. He doesn’t have any wakeup options.

207

I don’t think Gief ever has the advantage in this match. Ryu soundly beats Gief in pretty much every situation. He even does more damage for some reason, has great AA, invincible DP, fireballs and his parry is great against Gief’s HP.
4.5/5.5 for Gief at best, probably closer to 4/6

I pretty much agree with this. Ken also does insane damage off of that HK and it blows up armoured moves. His high speed and mobility really win the day.

Agree. Birdie does nasty things to Zangief. He basically does everything Gief does and more and better. Great range, nightmare banana, godlike AA, v-trigger that lasts the entire round. Insanely hard match-up.

Agree. This is a nightmare match-up. The only solace Gief has is that Sim stuns/dies quickly. Maximise those opportunities and remember your V-Trigger beats both his V-Trigger and his CA.

I think this is mostly even. Karin outfootsies Gief quite well and has a surprisingly high damage output and can link into damaging combos quite easily. Her metreless anti air isn’t that good though and like Dhalsim she stuns/dies very quickly. Try to finish this fight quickly.

Gief does win the neutral game AND OH GOD PLEASE KEEP IT THERE! Errant charged dropkicks can be muscled and spd’d. That being said R Mika is obviously an awfully designed single player character so once she gets in on Gief he’s pretty much done. Gief’s terrible wake-up game and 0 ways to escape the corner pressure hurt him massively in this match-up.
A coin toss.

Claw beats Gief handily as long as he has his Claw. When he loses it the match becomes more interesting. You can do some funky air to air stuff against him like air blocking his Barcelona but overall this match is a real struggle.
4.5/5.5 is reasonable, probably inching closer to 4/6 though. FloE vs Snake is a good match to watch.

Agree. Chun handily beats Zangief in every aspect except health/stun and damage output (this somewhat changes when she gets V-trigger). Brick wall Chun is a nightmare to fight. (Instant) air legs is great and her rapid hits are good at blowing up your armour. That being said there are a few things Gief can do. Her wake-up is not good without metre and she stuns/dies rather quickly. Knock her down and body press/knee drop ambiguous cross-up her a bit.

Nash is one of Zangief’s worst match-ups. I put him in the top 4 with Chun, Dhalsim and Birdie. He just zones Gief out excruciatingly well and he can save his V-metre for escapes if he ever gets cornered. His great dash speed also makes him hard to chase after a soft knockdown. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he has one of the best CAs in the entire game. Easy to combo into, good chip kill potential and amazing anti-air properties. Our 1 saving grace is his assy wake-up.

I mostly agree here but I think that, while their game plan is similar, Dictator has stronger and better ways to execute it. His damage output is very high with metre and his throw range is massive. His V-trigger is also monstrous so I highly recommend not letting him use it if possible. Thankfully his metreless anti-airs are kind of suspect because they don’t deal with cross-ups well. Remember that when you get a knockdown. Once he gets CA you can no longer jump in on him though. You must also be brave enough to punish his non-v-triggered dashes with pokes.
This match is all about picking your opportunities, you both do high damage so be very careful when sticking out a limb in neutral. This match is hellish for people who are not frame data analysts because they didn’t design Dictator’s animations well enough for people to intuitively see what is safe and what isn’t.
I give this one a 4.5/5.5

Cammy is a pit bull in this game and just wants to maul people. Thankfully this puts her in Gief’s preferred range quite often and you have higher health and stun. The frame-trap and throw game will be an important factor in his game so keep in mind which of her attacks are safe and which aren’t. Her hooligan gimmicks can be countered with LP and crLP so don’t be afraid to swat her out of the air.
I call this match about even. Maybe a very slight advantage for Gief.

Necalli is an interesting fight. Pretty much everything revolves around fighting him BEFORE he gets V-trigger. Unfortunately Gief is extremely terrible at preventing Necalli from getting said V-trigger because they gave Necalli seismo for some reason I still don’t understand and it builds his V-metre like nobody’s business. And of that wasn’t bad enough, they also gave Necalli a divekick because why not right?!
Necalli’s damage output is very high and rises to stratospheric heights once he activates V-trigger. If/when he does then the match becomes a hard 4/6. His speed and power just increase to silly proportions. His CA can anti-air as well so be careful of that. Necallis generally love to wake-up jab and he can combo off of it. Also be mindful of that USFIV E.Ryu MK kind of godlike crush counter HK he has. He won’t get too much off of it usually but it’s excellent at blowing up armour.
I rate this match closer to a 4/6

My Alex experience is too limited to say much about this one. I do think Alex’ probably wins the neutral game and his anti-airs are dangerous. That being said his damage output seems surprisingly low for a big body grappler.

Rashid does not do a lot of damage and does not have all that much health and stun BUT nearly every single move he does is great against Zangief. I completely disagree that his projectile isn’t good. I think it’s great against Gief if he spaces it well. His V-trigger is also excellent vs Gief and his CA is even better. I think a good Rashid basically zones Gief to death. He has great moves and escapes to prevent him from being walked into the corner and people have been showing off some very tricky setups with him as well. A very dangerous opponent and a very tense and drawn-out match for both parties.
I give this one a 4.5/5.5

This is the 1 match-up in SFV I feel Gief wins. Her projectile can indeed be HK’d, HP’d or even fHP’d and most of her moves are not invincible at the start. This can really ruin her day once she is put on the defensive. Her wake-up isn’t all that strong either and since her anti-air doesn’t work well on wake-up she is prone to getting crossed-up and vortexed. Her wheel kick is also not the best vs Gief because iron muscle can tank it and turn it into an spd. She depends on strong mix-ups when she’s all over you but unfortunately for her this involves getting up close to Gief and he has more damage output, health and stun.
Impose your will on her and don’t let her get going with her charging elbow mix-ups.
I give this one 5.5/4.5

General opinion has been all over the place when it comes to this match-up. At first people thought it was bad for Gief, then people thought it was bad for FANG but I’ve always thought it’s an advantageous match-up for FANG.Xian beating Snake Eyez with FANG was no fluke. His multi-hitting and long-ranged attacks are great for frustrating Gief and blowing up his armour but if Gief ever gets in FANG is in a world of hurt. (I agree with your point about Iron Muscle but I do think there is 1 move we can use it on. It’s that poison lunge double punch thing. Unless it’s spaced extremely well we can muscle into spd that one.) The poison itself is more of an afterthought in this match but his anti-airs are fantastic (both with poison balls and his multi punch anti air). A good FANG will probably not sit back and lob poison at you either. He’ll get in on you with his funky movement and low block strings. This is a good match to train your V-reversal abilities. Don’t put up with that block string. He also has a fantastic instant overhead you need to be very careful of and when he gets cornered he can slide out but remember we should be able to punish that with a throw. His greatest weapon vs Gief is unquestionably his poison bomb though. Much like Birdie’s banana it’s an extremely annoying obstacle to get around and will make this match a real slog.
I usually liken this match to SFIV Dhalsim vs Gief. You really need to pick your opportunity in this one and when you get one you need to maximize your damage and don’t let him slither away.
P.S. If FANG EVER does his poison balls or poison cloud at point blank range remember to punish him hard for it. Spd him right through or just HK if you’re in a pinch.
I rate this match 4.5/5.5 with the potential to (d)evolve to a 4/6

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Terrible- Sim, Chun, Nash, Birdie
Bad- Ryu, Claw, Bison, Mika, Ken, Necalli

Everyone else he loses to but it’s not horrible if we play perfectly and don’t get touched lol, yeah it’s sad. I think right now our best mu is Laura and even that is even imo but I think in time that mu will be a loss too.

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Rashid certainly gives gief problems.

210

Be patient, most Rashids online hang themselves imo.

211

Any tips for Sim? I’ve been watching replays of some high LP Gief vs Sim fights and I noticed that most Giefs patienly stay back and wait until they read a yoga fire, double dash forward under it and SPD and try to stay on top of Sim for the rest of the match. Some Sims catch on to this and use a yoga flame instead and Gief just blindly reacts and dashes into the flame. Otherwise they try to jump over limbs or flex them. I haven’t really seen any obious goto strategies to deal with this fight. I’ve noticed some people here say to crush counter the limbs but with what?

Basically this is my worst match up. I know it’s probably Gief’s absolute worst match up but any gimmicks or things that you guys have found that help would be great.

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Referring to good rashids in my scene. The character played correctly gives gief problems

213

will somebody please give me advice on fighting dictator dudes always positive with his normals

214

Singledash > shk, instead of double dash into yoga fire

215

fish for limbs…lariat their mp…hard to do specially if they also throw yoga fire at you but once you hit them with a lariat rush their non russian slim bodies and never let go

216

This match is a pain if you’re constantly on defense. Bison and Gief have similar goals here in applying pressure and staying in. He is very frame trappy especially considering St.HK is +3 on block. You need to block it out and wait for your turn. Fortunately he has problems with walk-up or tick throws since he is so slow. Read what he wants to do on dash, either it is going to be throw or St.hk. I’m not sure if it is the best idea but I generally just CR.jab him out of the dash and push him back. Take the fight to him since he has questionable anti airs and no reversal options.

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also do you guys have any tips or practice session to do for throw reversals

218

Has anyone found a concrete method of stopping dhalsims wakeup instant air teleports?

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After some special time playing the Zangief - Birdie match-up today I think I can now conclude that it’s a 3-7 match-up.
The only times I had even a remote amount of success was with complete shenanigans.

If anyone has a good strategy against good Birdies please let me know.

220

dont do jump ins as much as possible if youre gonna jump make sure its cross up…abuse dash LSPD