vs. M. Bison

Embalming M. Bison

M. Bison’s walk speed is the game’s worst, making him commit to specials, dashes, and jumps for mobility. You should already be looking to anti-air as reliably as possible against any character, but start treating M. Bison’s dash as a lateral jump, too, sort of like looking to punish a roll in the Capcom vs. SNK series. He has an invulnerable period in the middle of his dashes that gets better during his Psycho Power V-Trigger, but you can still punish the end of them if you’re watchful.

Devil Reverse is a good move that you must watch out for, but if M. Bison is being predictable with it, you don’t have to respect it—nearly anything you use as anti-air early will beat out Devil Reverse, which has an enormous hurtbox under M. Bison.

Non-EX versions of Double Knee Press (usually called Scissor Kicks) leave M. Bison at between -2 (for the HK version) and -4 (for the LK version, a punishable disadvantage). Be sure to take back tempo advantage every time if M. Bison continually ends his blockstrings in Double Knee Press.

His EX Psycho Blast is a different story. This is one of the game’s best projectile attacks, traveling slowly while plowing through one-hit projectiles, paving the way for him to follow it for pressure and screen control and knocking down on hit. When he deploys it, unless you have some pass-through move like Karin’s EX Sappo or F.A.N.G.’s EX Nikankyaku, you’ll probably just have to block and watch out for a cross-up.

M. Bison during V-Trigger is basically “Shin M. Bison,” with a dash that can pass through for ground cross-ups, better versions of all his specials, and the alarming ability to cancel any EX special into any other EX special. This gives him monstrous V-Trigger combos and allows an almost bulletproof full-screen entry play of EX Psycho Blast EX Head Press.

M. Bison’s medium and heavy attacks are somewhat slow, he has no true defensive reversal of his own, and as mentioned already, his walk speed is dismal. If you’re playing an offensive character, especially one with a three-frame jab, bully inside and then don’t let up with close-range offense.