vs. Vega

Vanquishing Vega

Vega’s walk speed is terrifying for most characters to deal with. He transitions seamlessly into his desired range and has superb attacks for almost any position he’s in. However, he lacks any defensive measures, so he’s easily pinned down if you can score a knockdown on him. He has to burn resources using his Critical Art or V-Reversal to get out of meaty attacks, so keep a vigilant eye on his gauges and bait them out, forcing him to burn resources. If you’re ready for his backflip V-Reversal, you can punish it with a meaty attack because it has a frame of recovery as he lands. His EX Aurora Spin Edge is throw-invulnerable, but he’s taking a large risk of getting interrupted with a counter-hit if he uses it as a wakeup reversal.

The most troublesome aspect of Vega’s gameplay is his close-range offense. If he knocks you down or puts you in enough blockstun, he can set you up with his crouching attack, which hits low and links into several of his knockdown combos. You want to avoid this situation as much as possible. If he’s next to you mid-stage, you can opt into just eating his throw and then performing a quick-recovery. None of his throws offers him enough advantage to set you up for a meaty attack, as long as you quick-recover. However, his combos ending in EX Crimson

Terror and EX Flying Barcelona Attack can be devastating because of the amount of advantage and damage he earns from landing them.

If he’s going for a long-range game using Flying Barcelona Wall Jump, be ready to air-to-air him to prevent yourself from getting mixed up with his follow-up claw attack. His vertical hurtbox extends far below him, but its hitbox is narrow. This lets you anti-air him with attacks like Cammy’s + and Ryu’s crouching easily.

When he has a full V-Gauge, his neutral game becomes much more dangerous. Keep tabs on his gauge because he can cancel most of his mid-range claw attacks into Bloody Kiss, which deals a substantial amount of damage (especially if he has a loaded Critical Art to follow it up with). You can mitigate this strength of his by forcing him to block enough, wearing out his claw stamina and knocking it off. Offense-based characters with oppressive blockstrings can give him a hard time.