Introduction
A colossal wrestler nicknamed the Red Cyclone. Zangief is dedicated to physical improvement and instructing his students.
Zangief is the original big-body grappler character, and acts as a lumbering monster who utilizes his size and long reach to intimidate the opponent into sitting still, before opening them back up with one of his many command grabs.
Zangief's plan is very simple: Play the throw game. Gief's huge size allows him to poke at longer distances than most of the cast, making it difficult for them to respond to his advance without surrendering space or committing to a high-risk option. 5MP, 5HP, 5LP, and 5MK can wear down the opponent while he looks for an opening. When the opportunity arises, Zangief lurches forward and grabs his opponent with the signature Screw Piledriver. This command grab has completely absurd range, is incredibly fast, and deals monstrous damage on hit. SPD has the potential to instantly turn the tide of a match and sets up the remainder of the Zangief's gameplan.
From here, Zangief continues to approach his opponent, moving between safer options and risker options to capitalize on the mistakes of his opponents. Zangief has dozens of ways to set up tick throws and punish poor decision making. He also has a bunch of unique tools for hard reads, like Siberian Express. Additionally, Zangief's signature Lariat allows him to become projectile invulnerable for a while, giving him the ability to punish fireballs thrown from too close. Coupled with his solid pokes, Zangief's tools make him a midrange menace who is well-equipped to muscle his opponent to the corner, where his offense becomes all the more terrifying.
While Zangief's offense is effective, he is notably not a vortex-style character like some other famous grapplers. Every time Gief uses Screw Piledriver, he sends the opponent nearly fullscreen and must take a big risk to keep the momentum going. Zangief is notably weak to keepaway, and in general must play very patiently. There are many strong zoners on the SF6 roster, which can make his life quite difficult. Even still, a good Zangief player is more than capable of overcoming his bad matchups compared to previous games. Choosing to stick with the Red Cyclone will let you live the wrestler power fantasy of your dreams while terrifying your opponents into submission.
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Classic & Modern Versions Comparison
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| Missing Command Normals |
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| Shortcut-Only Specials |
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| Miscellaneous Changes |
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Zangief loses access to some of his best neutral tools with Modern, 5MK and 2MK, both very valuable for being pokes with huge range that are still quite safe from drive impacts, he also loses 5HK which typically allows for immediate high-damage punish counter options with 5HK, 3MP> SA1 or 5HK, 3MP, OD Borscht Dynamite (360KK)
6HK is gone, his only grounded overhead, and 3HK, which is a situationally useful low/throw invincible option. His best air-to-air J.HP has been gutted in favor of going all-in on his normally difficult Borscht Dynamite (360k) aerial grab with its Modern one-button input.
Generally modern Zangief has lost a lot of his important long-range kicks for the sake of his inputs being made considerably easier for his rewarding specials. He loses considerable strength in his mixup game without his overhead (6HK) but one-button inputs have made his anti-air with SA1 and Borscht Dynamite (360K), which are very rare to see, much more consistent and common. Screw Piledriver (360P) (and SA3) is extremely scary on Modern, he can whip it out as a reaction without fear of accidentally missing, (SA3 also doesn't require a jump) but he will still need to do the standard input if he wants to use Light/Medium SPD at longer ranges, or to get the full value of SA3's insane damage.
As a character with notoriously difficult inputs, Modern can curb some of the frustrations of playing Zangief normally, while also creating new ones due to the removal of important tools.
