Unique Attacks

Hell Attack while jumping

Hell Attack: M. Bison’s old jumping “strong-strong” makes its return and opens the way to some punishing anti-air juggle combos. Jumping is M. Bison’s highest-priority jumping attack, with an invincible hitbox on his glowing fist. Hell Attack is produced by canceling jumping on hit into another press. You can cancel jumping into Hell Attack immediately, or you can delay the cancel as late as just before landing. Jumping places jumping foes into floating, jugglable hitstun, so Hell Attack combos naturally air-to-air, while still leaving the victim in a jugglable state. By canceling jumping into Hell Attack either early or late, you can alter your target’s descent back to the ground. Ideally, you want to time the juggle so M. Bison lands earlier than his enemy, giving you time to juggle with Psycho Inferno, Psycho Blast, or Double Knee Press. (For the latter two, you’d start charging just after M. Bison’s forward/neutral jump began.) See Combo 10.

There are two main ways to nail opponents air-to-air with jumping to Hell Attack. The first one is to get a good read on their jump-in habits, then just beat them to it: jump forward with very early jumping when they jump in. This is like jumping up into opponents with an air throw attempt when using Chun-Li, Nash, Vega, or Zangief. When you confirm a hit, cancel into Hell Attack on the way down to juggle them. The other way is to use jumping as your own jump-in attack. This deals less damage than jump-in , but if the opponent tries to jump away, they’ll get placed into a juggle state as M. Bison lands. From here, you can immediately jump (either forward or neutral works, depending on position) with canceled into a delayed Hell Attack, staggering the hits so you have time to juggle with a special on M. Bison’s second landing. In some previous Street Fighter incarnations of M. Bison, you could still perform Hell Attack after jumping whiffs, but unfortunately, you can’t cover both bases here. You can only perform Hell Attack if jumping hits, so you’ll have to commit to starting it either early or late in a jump.

Psycho Axe

Shadow Axe

Psycho Axe: This downward-swiping slash moves M. Bison forward about a step during its execution and is his farthest-reaching poke by far, with the exception of his incredibly risky crouching slide. The move’s hitbox extends slightly in front of M. Bison’s hurtbox, giving him great priority (on top of having fierce button strength to begin with). It leaves M. Bison at +1 even if guarded and links into crouching on normal hit. (Start charging immediately after starting so you’ll have charge built up to cancel crouching into Double Knee Press if desired; see Combo 5.) As a counter-hit, Psycho Axe causes a Crush Counter spin that easily allows for combo extension. (See Combos 8 and 9.) The

only downside to this move is its somewhat slow startup speed. You’ll need to use this meaty against foes air recovering or waking up (like immediately after a back throw), or as a poke from the tip of its range.

Shadow Axe: M. Bison’s target combo of standing (his standard bread-and-butter opening) into Psycho Axe (described above). This version of Psycho Axe is unsafe if guarded, leaving M. Bison at a punishable -5. If standing is guarded, there’s also a five-frame gap between the strikes, which means that M. Bison can be thrown or jabbed out of the Psycho Axe follow-up. If standing normal hits, this isn’t a problem, but the hits don’t naturally combo—your enemy might get normal hit by standing , and then block Shadow Axe and punish you with a throw or five-frame combo starter. If you want to incorporate Psycho Axe into your game despite the lack of safety when blocked, you can sometimes perform standing , wait for it to recover, then use regular Psycho Axe; a watchful, defensive player eager to punish target combos may take this bait and give you something to punish.

All these problems evaporate if the initial standing itself strikes as a counter-hit. This creates enough hitstun for Shadow Axe to combo, and (like with naked Psycho Axe) you can link crouching after to continue.