Strategy

Long Range

Birdie has more options from far away than other brawlers. Against adversaries who treat you like Zangief, bide your time and build V-Gauge with Break Time. Someone running away just isn’t that distressing to Birdie. Your foe’s character choice and level of passivity will dictate your other V-Skill options here. Enemies like M. Bison who lack standard projectiles give you opportunities to roll out Drink Time, which Birdie can follow behind, ready to anti-air if an antsy opponent jumps over the can. Seeing Drink Time rolling in can also lull passive/defensive players into blocking, which you can defeat with a Bull Revenger timed to grab before the Drink Time can actually makes contact.

On the other hand, when you have plenty of room against an aggressive character like Karin, Cammy, or Laura, you can use Banana Time to set up a defensive banana peel as a temporary ground deterrent. This is like F.A.N.G. setting up his Ryobenda mines for ground control. If the opponent trips on the banana (or gets hit by Drink Time’s can), they’ll go into a slipping hitstun. If Birdie is close enough, this gives him a chance to link standing canceled into Bull Head/Bull Horn.

But hyper-aggressive opponents aren’t likely to give you lots of space to set up banana peels in the neutral game (though you’ll have other chances, like after Hanging Chains and other knockdown moves). They’ll typically make long range irrelevant just by sticking to close range and mid range. Zoners like Ryu, Dhalsim, and F.A.N.G. may prevent you from deploying much long-range V-Skill stuff by the sheer volume of their barrages. If they don’t feel like giving Birdie a chance to squeeze out his relatively slow V-Skill projectiles, they don’t have to. Dhalsim can just punch Birdie before you can get anything out, and he may also scout out your V-Skill startup and teleport in for a combo right then. Ryu can just pound Hadokens your way constantly. And F.A.N.G. can pepper your half of the playing field with Nishikyu poison balls and his far-reaching poke. These kinds of characters and game plans will force you to wade forward carefully. Neutral jump up over incoming lateral fireballs, then walk forward after landing while the enemies are still on screen behind Birdie. You’ll want to close in to where long range shades into mid range so that Birdie’s Hanging Chains, long pokes, and armored EX Bull Horn become weapons against someone trying to keep him at bay.

HK Bull Revenger is tempting because of its huge command grab range, but it’s a Hail Mary-style play that you should reserve for hard reads (like chasing a knocked-down foe’s back quick-recovery) and a very rare change-up. Amusingly, it does give you a direct assault tool against another Birdie trying out full screen V-Skills in a mirror match. You can also use HK Bull Revenger to leap over conventional fireballs, snagging the thrower. However, this requires precision because the grab has no projectile invincibility, and you’ll simply have to clear the tops of fireballs with the leap’s apex. Unfortunately for Birdie, HK Bull Revenger is not exactly Karin’s HP Ressenha for effortlessly passing through oncoming projectile threats.

When you do have an idle moment at long range, apart from using V-Skills, you can eat up a few beats by putting Hanging Chain Brandish out there. An actual chain release at the longest ranges won’t actually grab anything unless your opponent picks that moment to rush forward, but you can just cancel the swing. This may coax the enemy into trying to take anti-Hanging Chain counter-measures, but it’ll eventually put them off acting too decisively against chain swings if you create enough uncertainty about when you’ll actually let Hanging Chain fly. If you expect the foe to dash forward in response to swings, use Hanging Chain Brandish with LK or MK; if you expect them to jump in, use HK. Press and hold the button for activation, then wait and see what the results are. While letting the chain briefly swing and eyeing your challenger’s reaction, you might detect something punishable to react against instead of merely canceling Birdie’s chain swinging.

Mid Range

Mid range is Birdie’s ideal distance. All of Birdie’s ranged attacks come into play, including fireball-dodging attacks like Bull Charge, Bull Slider, and Bull Horn, and it’s not close enough yet for Birdie’s size to be a liability. Opponents have to respect Hanging Chains and pokes like standing and crouching , and even the threat of mid-range Bull Horn. Meanwhile, Bull Revenger remains as useful as ever to catch the enemy when they’re not paying attention to the skies.

Standing and crouching are your baseline pokes, with great reach. You’ll want to poke with these from the tips of their ranges, keeping Birdie as safe as possible when guarded. Standing is the faster poke (striking in eight frames instead of 10), but crouching is one of Birdie’s only low-hitting threats. Crouching reaches even a tiny bit farther than his medium pokes, while scoring more damage and a potential knockdown (and a potential Crush Counter knockdown at that, unrecoverable on counter-hit). It leaves Birdie at a punishable disadvantage guarded, though, so save his sweep for checking the opponent’s ground movement. Someone walking or dashing is also someone who isn’t blocking low, after all.

While poking in mid range to close range, you’ll want to get into the habit of holding down one or two buttons. Having Bull Horn or EX Bull Horn ready here is the purpose. Bull Horn is an excellent reactionary move to lots of common things. Just to name two, it’s a great early anti-air, and it can be used on reaction to blast through mid-range fireball attempts. It’s much easier to react to something by simply releasing a button than it is to perform any kind of command. You just have to get used to giving up a poke button. With a quick process of elimination, you end up with some obvious candidates: and are out since you need all those normals, whether standing, crouching, or jumping. You probably don’t want to consider , either, because of sweep, Bull Drop, HK Hanging Chain, and HK Bull Revenger. This leaves and the light buttons. Here, preference comes into play. It’s not so bad giving up light

buttons at mid range; you can’t normal throw or tech-throw, but that’s not relevant unless the enemy rushes in suddenly. At close range, you’ll definitely want access to your jab and short buttons again. This leaves as the most obvious Bull Horn charge candidate in most situations. Birdie’s fierces are beefy pokes, but they’re also his most punishable normals besides sweep, and they don’t accomplish anything he can’t get out of another button.

Birdie doesn’t have hit-confirms quite like many characters do, but that doesn’t mean he can’t get a lot of combos. From the range where standing barely hits, you can perform standing and it’ll whiff. Buffer MP Bull Head quickly during the whiff, and it’ll only actually occur if the opponent moves into your standing strong, like by dashing or extending their own poke. In these cases, the moves will cancel together automatically, and you’ll score a psychic-looking knockdown combo. But there’s no guesswork; it’s just a spacing trick.

You can use Hanging Chains when you’ve scouted your opponent’s movement and know what they’re going to do, or to beat out mid-range fireballs a little preemptively. You can’t counter fireballs with LK or MK Hanging Chain purely on reaction because they’re not quite fast enough. But if you make an educated guess about when the foe will throw a projectile and time your Hanging Chain slightly earlier, you’ll win. Hanging Chain’s striking ball doesn’t clash with fireballs, just passing directly through instead. This triggers the hit-throw when it hits an enemy’s extended post-fireball throw arms, making Birdie invincible to the fireball about to hit him. At the cost of a stock of EX Gauge, you can use EX Hanging Chain to assert faster, more guaranteed lateral space control. This is fast enough to be used on reaction, will also pull down jumpers, and has a projectile hurtbox that will knock aside incoming fireballs.

Opponents frustrated with Birdie’s ground pokes may just go for jump-ins, hoping to bypass the whole footsies chore and skip to hitting Birdie repeatedly. Birdie is practically made of anti-airs, so don’t let them do this. Jumps from farther out (from mid-range into long-range starting points) can be shot down with the first hit of Bull Drop (or with Bull Horn for more damage, if you have a button charging). Whenever you’re certain that a jump is incoming, you can spin up HK Hanging Chain and hold it, waiting to release when the foe jumps (or to tap another button and release after a moment to cancel Hanging Chain if no jump seems forthcoming). Against jump-ins that start closer to Birdie, so the attack angle is sharper down atop his head, you’ll want to rely on crouching for anti-air. Anti-airing with crouching has the advantage of causing adversaries to air recover onto their feet before Birdie, giving you a chance to either continue mid-range poking at an advantage or engage into close range.

As a shakier but still noteworthy counter to the opponent’s offensive openings from the air, you can set down Banana Time whenever you feel like they’re going to jump in. The reason this can work is because of tripguard. If they jump in and attack as you’re setting the peel, they may hit Birdie, but then they’ll land, unable to block for two frames because they attacked in midair. They slip on the peel and enter hitstun, and their offensive play becomes your punish opportunity.

Close Range

You may end up at close range with Birdie after cross-up , after LK Hanging Chain, or after backing your opposition into the corner. There are some things to be aware of up close with Birdie. You’re using the game’s biggest target, so you’re extra-susceptible to oddball tactics like jumping with an instant attack as an overhead. And those finicky combos that sometimes miss in odd situations, like against a crouching Cammy just outside a corner? Yeah, those combos aren’t going to have trouble hitting Birdie. This problem is illustrated well by standing , Birdie’s best close-range normal, which is a four-frame light attack that can set up tick-throws or start combos for him (see Combos 1 and 2). However, it also requires that he stand up to his full height, and thus his full vulnerability.

Killing Head grabs come into play up close, but Killing Head isn’t so much an active, aggressive command throw like those of R. Mika, Zangief, Laura, and Necalli. Its range isn’t amazing, Birdie’s close-range normals aren’t the fastest, and he makes an awfully big point-blank target. Killing Head is more like a powerful defensive option, something to use up close to ensure that the opponent’s own throw attempts or wide frame traps are snuffed out. To this end, EX Killing Head can assure success if you read the enemy’s intent to throw because it’s throw-invulnerable, with decent range.

Standing leaves Birdie at +3 when blocked, so there’s only a tiny gap if you tick with standing short and then go for a throw immediately. The opponent has to jump, use a throw-invincible reversal, or backdash. And you can punish the first two just by playing “wait and see” sometimes instead of tick-throwing. If you sense that the enemy is favoring backdashes to escape your throw attempts, then try to preempt their dashes with standing and crouching . Either roundhouse kick will be a Crush Counter versus a dash attempt, building your V-Gauge and either scoring a combo shot or an unrecoverable knockdown.

Because of the pushback on standing and the relatively short (non-EX) range of Killing Head, you won’t be able to tick more than once before a throw attempt. The only throw mix-up is either throw right away (like just dash in and throw, or tick with something like jump-in or and then throw upon landing) or throw after a standing tick. However, EX Bull Revenger is fast enough to provide another option whenever Birdie gets pushed out of immediate throw range. You can follow up long-reaching light ticks like standing or crouching (which reach a tad farther than standing ) with immediate EX Bull Revenger, a tactic that is very hard for enemies to deal with.

Crouching is a good light normal attack that must be blocked crouching and hits in four frames. So, it’s useful as Birdie’s fastest-hitting low move, even though it doesn’t lead directly to anything. On counter-hit, it’s possible to link moves after crouching , but this isn’t really confirmable on reaction, nor practical to fish for as a central piece of Birdie’s plan. It does need to be part of a larger low-hitting approach, though. Birdie doesn’t really have low-check combos, but crouching , , and all strike low, as does Bull Slider. (Bull Slider is even fairly safe, given its power.) Scoring light hits here and there adds up: it checks the opponent’s ground movement and gives them any reason to block low, which opens the door for Bull Drop to be more useful.

An opponent attacking Birdie up close can be countered with EX Bull Horn, which has a considerable armored period. It’s not strictly invincible, but this is as close as you get. (V EX Bull Horn is armored for even longer, and for two incoming hits; V EX Bull Head also has armor, improving Birdie’s reversal prospects during V-Trigger.) The only catch with using EX Bull Horn as a reversal or defensive move under duress is that it isn’t an input—it’s the release of an input, a negative edge command, so it doesn’t benefit from SFV’s enhanced input leniency. You’ll have to use EX Bull Horn under pressure the old-fashioned way: time it. Against meaty offense directly on top of Birdie, you may have to just block, or block a stock of V-Gauge on a V-Reversal to earn some breathing room.

Enjoy Time

V-Trigger Birdie is basically the same as normal Birdie, just extra terrifying. With his damage and speed all slightly increased, and extra armor frames on all versions of V Bull Head, V Bull Horn, and (especially) V EX Bull Horn, Birdie becomes the proverbial bull in a china shop. The enhanced walk speed in particular might be the most meaningful change, greatly enhancing his standing mid-range poke potential and his tick potential up close. The Enjoy Time activation itself is also tremendously helpful for unlocking enormous combo potential, especially when you also have Skip To My Chain ready.