I agree with the above when it comes to Mika. Neutral jump is strong against her.
I find myself using it on my wakeup. If she goes for a wakeup grab you can neutral jumping HP into CA.
For ppl having grief in the sim matchup, you can use st.hk/cr.hk to counter his limbs preemptively before they come out (I know sweep can hit his st.mk, I think it’s Sims st.mp that our st.hk can clip).
Hitting his limbs like this creates a crush counter from almost full screen distance at max sometimes which will give you plenty of time to close in on him.
Jumping light kick seems to be one of the good jump ins to get trades/maybe stuff Sims AA’s.
This matchup becomes alot more bearable when you’re able to scare sim into pressing less buttons
So if you v-skill a Mika dropkick is it always a free spd? No matter how long she charges or not?
AFAIK it doesn’t matter how long she charges it but I haven’t tried it in depth in training mode either. I still don’t really know what the implications of absorbing a hit with iron muscle are. Like when I can get a guaranteed punish with SPD and when I can’t.
Yeah that’s exactly what I wonder as well. That’s probably why I still don’t use v-skill that much.
the v-skill has a recovery to it, so if you v-skill right before she hits you cannot punish but you are safe. If you v-skill a little bit earlier then you can recover in time to SPD (keep in mind this is when you are not pressing forward at all so no flex hit comes out)
I think each hit you absorb in the startup animation of v-skill momentarily halts the animation, and so you still have to wait for it to end before you can input anything. But if you absorb hits after the v-skill is in the active frames (basically, the first frame when you’re able to walk forward and/or do the flex attack) you can release it and immediately do a move as if you were doing it neutrally.
I could be wrong, but to me, it seems like fireballs and specials are good to absorb on reaction, but it may be better to try and absorb most buttons preemptively. And if you do parry on reaction, just release and block; or, if it was a medium or quick-ish heavy button and you’re not sure you can release and catch with SPD, try punishing with the flex hit instead. Even if you don’t punish, you still check them for pressing a button after. And if you have VT, you can confirm it into the activation and do 300+ dmg. Either way, I don’t think it’s a good idea to parry buttons on reaction and SPD unless you know for sure it’s something with super slow recovery.
Yeah it does seem you should mostly try to muscle the big moves. I’m not a frame data annalist but I guess one could check the frames on iron muscle and see which moves are worth absorbing into spd and which are not.
For the first part where you have to wait, is there anything that can cancel?
Man I lost to two decent R. Mikas in a row. SHE WILL CATCH THIS D I SWEAR. Fang can suck it too fuck that guy lol.
Mika is absolutely filthy when she gets you in the corner. It’s tough because we want to get our opponents in the corner! One mistake and the tables are turned and we get in the blender. I’d rather play this matchup at neutral and poke her to death if at all possible. If you do get cornered keep in mind your v-reversal.
Seriously, fuck Nash. I have a feeling this mu may end up worse than Sim. At least with Sim we know what we’re getting but with Nash we work him all the way to the corner and he gets out for free and it’s back to square one. This kinda reminds me of the Sagat mu in SF4 where the other player doesn’t even have to be good but the mu will always suck.
Birdie is the hardest matchup for sure. If you play against a really good Birdie, it’s pointless.
I would say matchup wise it’s
Birdie>Chun>Dhalsim>Nash>>>>Rashid>>>>Vega>FANG
I played against Hagejin’s Birdie yesterday 3 times, and let me tell you, I felt like a retarded scrub against him, no comparison to Itazan’s Birdie.
Hagejin>Birdie>Chun>Dhalsim>Nash>>>>Rashid>>>>Vega>FANG
There, I fixed it for you. No need to mention it 
But seriously, can’t wait to see his undercover Zangi.
I heard Itazan went back to Gief. Hagejin is definitely a better Birdie though.
That being said I don’t think Birdie is even in the top 3 worst match-ups for Gief. Sim, Nash and Chun are all harder in my opinion. I don’t even think Birdie is in 4th place.
That’s my biggest complaint. There’s a simple flowchart they can adhere to to defeat gief players. I’ve asked Capcom in the past about this and they’ve responded with “that’s just Street Fighter.” Yeah. It’s your shitty game design in Street Fighter. It doesn’t have to be this way, though, if they actually knew how to balance a videogame properly.
It is too early to complain about the Nash mu
Imagine how worse we gonna be after akuma release with such asshole gief.
I expect it may be 1-9 or 0-10 matchup for gief
(Don’t be worry, Akuma must exist in EVERY street fighter, may be a year or more later on, but Akuma will never absent)
You just have to adjust your mathematical risk to the new game, that is V.
The penalty for a baited SPD could be equated to the penalty for a baited shoryu, give or take.
Unlike days of SF4, the concept of SFV is V-Read and V-Commit.
It’s up to you, how much your willing to bet. But I advise you don’t move all your chips in the middle, ALL THE TIME.
I like to play small pots, to avoid deviation and swings, and that will be my aim in V.
I got more games with good Sims during my time at Final Round, and here’s my feelings on the matchup :
Definitely not as bad as I previously thought 
When using st.hk/cr.hk to counter poke Sims buttons, it eventually scares sim into not pressing so many buttons and creates gaps in their neutral that you can use to your advantage.
Gief has to stick to the gameplan and not get discouraged by getting poked constantly because landing one counter poke with his round houses can equal up the life lead alone, let alone the fact that you’ll most likely land a CC leaving him on the ground long enough to dash up next to him.
Meaty throw was also an extremely important option on a knocked down sim in the corner.
It’s still not an easy matchup, but I feel like it’s workable in tournament
IMO these non-fireball/hybrid characters are borderline bullshit in SFV. Everyone who wins with them should feel dirty. YOU DIDNT EARN IT