Strategy

Long Range

Bad walk speed means that M. Bison is reliant on dashes, jumps, and specials to move around. But when piloting a charge character, you should remember that his position signals to foes what he might do next. An M. Bison just sitting in crouching block is obviously charged up and waiting to react to something with a special or slide. An M. Bison repositioning with short walks (often necessary, even if he isn’t exactly Vega) signals to the opposition that he has no charge built up; they can move in on the ground without worry of Double Knee Press and throw fireballs without getting Head Pressed. Be aware of the little messages your movement signals to the other player. To some degree, you can mask your current intentions with whiffed moves. For example, you can whiff standing normals to get a few frames head start on a down-back charge, as M. Bison still seems to be standing for the duration of the whiffed normal move.

Walk speed aside, M. Bison has more options at long range than most characters. This is mostly thanks to Head Press, which gives you a jump-in attack from anywhere, and one that hits at an awkward angle compared with most jump-ins. Any Head Press, hit or blocked, bouncing off a foe’s head is a chance to either fly back out to long range or transition into close-range offense with Somersault Skull Diver. Between his forward jump distance and Head Press, M. Bison’s direct attack range rivals anyone’s. But just following obvious arcs in from long range is a terrific way to eat anti-air attacks. Head Press on its own would be relatively easy to deal with—enemies can just anti-air along its trajectory—but it’s M. Bison’s ability to change to his other aerial specials that makes this move a threat. When you initiate Head Press, it should primarily be to pull it way short with Devil Reverse. This represents aggressive movement without putting M. Bison at much risk. It creates uncertainty about when (if ever) it’s safe for the opponent to jump forward. Like a grossly exaggerated dive kick, Devil Reverse is more effective the less often you actually target the enemy directly. Once you’ve made the opponent skittish about reacting too decisively against your faked Devil Reverse spins, you can use it to legitimately enter close range at any time.

Characters with dominant ground projectile games (Ryu’s the classic example) have usually given M. Bison fits, but the tables are turned now. Psycho Reflect allows M. Bison to instantly counter any single-hit fireball thrown his way. Not too many conventional zoners are going to keep throwing predictable fireballs if you throw back a few of your own. At that point, they’ll probably limit fireballs to trying to throw them over where M. Bison will land from Devil Reverse.

If you throw EX Psycho Blast, you’ll also briefly remove worry about lateral fireballs, while giving M. Bison powerful cover. In a way, EX Psycho Blast is like being able to use R. Mika’s Nadeshiko helper at will, for just one EX Gauge stock. The normal problem with M. Bison’s seemingly overpowered invincible forward dash is that it’s too much of a commitment not being able to swap to crouching block for that long. But with an overpowering, slow-moving projectile on screen, M. Bison can afford to dash (and jump, and Head Press) forward as aggressively as you like. An opponent who tries to hit M. Bison out of his forward movement is an opponent who’s about to eat an EX Psycho Blast.

You can use his forward dash’s invulnerability period to dash straight through incoming attacks with great timing. Relative to M. Bison’s starting position when a dash begins, he travels forward vulnerably for one character width, then travels forward another character width invulnerably, then a final character width’s worth of vulnerable recovery. So it’s the middle third of the dash that you should aim to use as a “dodge” move in this way. This gets much easier during Psycho Power, his V-Trigger, where travel distance and invulnerability are extended.

Finally, note the incredible reach and speed of crouching , which can score a knockdown from 70 percent of the screen away, and now resolve to try very hard not to use crouching . Getting too comfortable using this move just because it’s far-reaching and fast will lead to you eventually getting all your slides blocked and punished hard. Save M. Bison’s sweep for when you have a hard read against your opponent’s movement habits (like if they always dash in a certain situation). This can score you long-range Crush Counter knockdowns.

Mid Range

Mid range is M. Bison’s preferred attack space. From here, you’ll be able to threaten with a number of offensive options, while sitting at a strong position for M. Bison defensively. Forward dash into immediate throw or crouching (Combo 1) is valid here, but your mileage will depend on your opponent. A player with good reactions may force you to remove dash-in offense from your plan (aside from when you have an EX Psycho Blast escort), always striking M. Bison during dash recovery. Other opponents may be susceptible to dash-in throws and so forth. It’s up to you to assess which kind of player you’re likely facing at a given time.

Jump-in offense begins here, too. From the edge of long range into mid range, you can initiate frontal jump-ins where you can likely link grounded standing upon landing, even hitting a max-range jump attack. Closer in, from prime mid-range territory, a forward jump can lead to an ambiguous frontal hit, or to cross-up jumping . M. Bison’s long forward jump gives him a potential cross-up range that most characters don’t enjoy. In fact, you must be careful not to go for cross-ups too far in, where mid range shades into close range, or M. Bison will jump clear over the foe and be vulnerable to punishment (or at least give up tempo advantage).

On the ground, Psycho Axe begins to reach from here, especially if it catches the opponent’s poke. On hit, Psycho Axe offers combo follow-up potential, especially as a Crush Counter, and doesn’t give up advantage if guarded.

And, naturally, this is classic “scissor kick” territory. How much you threaten with these attacks will depend on your opponent. Characters like Ken and Ryu will discourage you from being too aggressive with neutral game or blockstring Double Knee Presses, but characters who lack a rapid reversal or three-frame jab won’t give you much reason not to force them to block DKP whenever possible.

M. Bison’s walk speed means that he doesn’t really have a traditional footsie game of walking in and out of poke ranges, trying to coax mistakes and punish whiffs. If you poke with him, it’ll be more anticipatory to control space, like with swiping forward with Psycho Axe. A little closer in, you can also poke with the tip of standing , a great seven-frame check against your target’s movement. Crouching also has decent range, is neutral on block, and allows for special cancel combos on hit (Combo 2).

Be a little wary of defensively using Psycho Reflect against projectiles from this range or closer. Are your opponents loaded with EX Gauge and perhaps trying to bait you into committing to an animation they can stuff with a Critical Art or some other quick lateral attack? Nash, Laura, and Ryu are examples of characters who can intentionally put out exploratory fireballs, hoping you’ll reflect them so they can just feed you a Critical Art. If your challenger isn’t doing this, then reflect away. Just be cautious of getting baited when playing too close to expectations.

If the enemy tries to take initiative and engage on their terms, you have limited counter-measures. Against telegraphed frontal jump-ins, crouching works well as an anti-air. If you make a hard read (or good guess) against the opponent’s jump-in, you can also beat them to it with forward-jumping , which can lead to Hell Attack combos (as seen in Combo 10).

Close Range

You can end up at close range with M. Bison after dashing or jumping in, and after having Head Press follow-ups guarded. (And with V-Trigger active, Head Presses themselves become jump-ins on block, basically.) M. Bison’s up-close offense is about fishing for hits with moves that leave him heavily at advantage when blocked. In particular, this includes standing/crouching and standing , which leave M. Bison at +3 blocked. Right behind those, standing/crouching and standing leave M. Bison at +2 blocked. Any of these moves, blocked, into standing thus becomes a frame trap with a gap of only one or two frames, uncounterable without invincible reversals. Crouching or standing canceled into LK Double Knee Press as a frame trap finisher also leaves M. Bison at +3 on hit, right back in close-range offense.

When the opponent is made hesitant by M. Bison’s quickest pokes and fastest scissor kick, you can go for standing and . Standing hits in seven frames, a little slow for an SFV medium-strength normal, but it keeps momentum on block and allows a link to crouching on hit (Combo 4). You can chain cancel standing into its Shadow Axe follow-up sometimes as a built-in frame trap, if your adversary is being especially defensive and you don’t really think your opening standing has a chance of hitting. However, this leaves M. Bison at -5 on block instead of +1 like regular Psycho Axe. Standing starts up only two frames slower than , striking in nine frames, and leads to combos on both normal hit and counter-hit (Combos 5 and 8). Because it leads to so much advantage on hit, it’s a good hit-check starter up close since you’re not canceling it into anything. If it’s blocked (+3), you can go for an attempt at secondary offense. In virtually every situation, it’s better to fish with standing up close than to resort to Shadow Axe for the built-in delay.

M. Bison doesn’t have an overhead (outside of jump-ins and Head Press moves) and his pokes aren’t the fastest, so opponents may be encouraged to be very defensive against him, just riding out the blockstrings and waiting for pushback to present an escape opportunity. Because of this, although M. Bison’s walk speed doesn’t help the endeavor any, you’ll sometimes have to just go for a throw. You’ll need to do this pretty quickly, like immediately after a jump-in or Double Knee Press or Devil Reverse, or after only one light tick. There are trilobite fossils that would react to M. Bison attempting a walk-up throw, so you won’t get throw attempts from much farther out.

When your bait up close (most commonly, standing or linked to crouching ) is guarded, you can let it go uncanceled and play with M. Bison’s innate tempo advantage on block, or you can cancel into special. Canceling into Psycho Blast or Double Knee Press on block at least scores you some chip damage, while giving you the option of either pushing the foe out with Psycho Blast or staying closer with DKP. Canceling to Psycho Inferno on block isn’t advised because efficient opponents will punish this. If you let blockstrings go without special cancels, pushback will eventually put M. Bison out of poke range, basically back out to mid range or just before it. From there, standing HK Double Knee Press can clip the enemy’s limbs and get M. Bison right back in, relatively safe on hit or block.

When you aren’t the one calling the shots up close, M. Bison can run into issues being pressured. Without full EX Gauge, he has no invincible reversal (though EX Head Press almost makes a show of it), and his Psycho Explosion V-Reversal is prone to whiffing if opponents aren’t flush with him. Cross-ups mostly strike at an angle that thwarts crouching , and they might not leave him with a gap to anti-air with a normal attack anyway. This can lead to a loop of M. Bison getting caught in a loop of being crossed up repeatedly, forced to block at the challenger’s mercy. In these situations, Hell Attack (jumping ) can come in handy as a quasi-reversal. The enemy jumps in because they expect to descend on M. Bison with an attack, not go air-to-air with someone jumping to greet them. If successful, react by delaying the Hell Attack follow-up until the way down (depending on your foe’s position) so you can tap them back up before landing, giving you a chance to tack on juggle damage.

Psycho Power Active

With six more strike and projectile-invincible frames than dashes outside of V-Trigger mode (13 total, versus 7), Psycho Power dashes are much more likely to actually dodge attacks. They’re also capable of passing through the opponent while M. Bison is invisible. With ground pass-through possible and V-specials requiring no charge, ground cross-ups into standing V Psycho Blast give M. Bison a new, safe mix-up tool. Mix up by sometimes dashing through and throwing them.

Psycho Power activation can serve as an enhanced hit-check as with most fighters, whether from pokes or while Double Knee Press is hitting. You can also use activation to make a “random” crouching slide safe once per round. V-Trigger-canceling can also create unique mix-ups, thanks to the pass-through dash. Knock someone down, time meaty HP Psycho Inferno over their wakeup position, then V-Trigger cancel it and dash forward. If they’re clipped and launched from the back by Psycho Inferno’s persistent active frames, you can juggle with V Psycho Inferno from M. Bison’s new position.

Remember to use one strength lower than you’re used to for V Double Knee Press. Meter permitting, any confirmed V Double Knee Press should lead to the hideously damaging V-Trigger-only finisher of V EX Psycho Inferno into V EX Head Press.

When trying to open up your opponent during Psycho Power, remember that canceling pokes into specials requires no charge. This means that you can cancel blocked pokes into Head Press at a whim. Every option from V Head Press leaves M. Bison at positive frames on block, so this is “safe” as long as your adversary isn’t great at shooting you down on short notice. This opens the door for you to bamboozle overly turtlish players by dashing through them, canceling a poke into V Head Press, then interrupting that with V Devil Reverse (which warps through them, crossing sides yet again).

If your challenger holds you mostly at bay, engaging in a long-range standoff, you can break it at the cost of two stocks by canceling V EX Psycho Blast to V EX Head Press. This takes a heavily damaging move that was going to be safe if guarded anyway and then covers it with an exploding, projectile-crushing projectile. You don’t get to be head of Shadaloo by being weak, after all.