Street Fighter 6/Zangief/Matchups

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A.K.I.

Zangief vs. A.K.I.

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Blanka

Zangief vs. Blanka (Difficult)

Due to Blanka's excellent defensive and neutral tools, Zangief struggles a good deal in this matchup.

Punishing Horizontal Blanka Ball
Light and Medium Blanka balls are incredibly negative on block and leave Blanka quite close to Zangief, allowing Zangief to punish with 2HK for a safe jump. Alternatively, Zangief can burn meter for a more powerful Drive Rush punish.

Heavy Blanka Ball sends Blanka further out, requiring Zangief to contest it on the way in with Double Lariat or 2MP. Luckily, it also has greater startup, allowing Zangief to better react to it.

Cammy

Zangief vs. Cammy (Comfortable)

While Cammy's pressure and footsies can be difficult to deal with, Zangief is well equipped to fight her off and can punish her massively for small mistakes.

5HP~HK Target Combo
When not in burnout, Zangief can punish a Cammy attempting to reset pressure with her 6HP~6HK target combo, there is always an 8f gap between the second and third hits, regardless of whether she cancels into a divekick or not. While the window to input it is small, Zangief's 2MP is an incredibly rewarding option that can beat both.

If Cammy does not cancel the target combo, then 2MP lands as a Punish Counter, allowing Zangief to link 2MP into 3MP for a ground combo.

If Cammy instead cancels the target combo into her divekick, then 2MP lands as a Forced Knockdown, allowing Zangief to combo into TK OD Borscht Dynamite for massive damage.

Chun-Li

Zangief vs. Chun-Li (Difficult)

While Zangief does a solid job contesting Chun Li's offense and forcing her to alter her pressure game, Chun absolutely dominates in neutral with her incredible ground speed, large pokes, and Kikoken.

Serenity Stream stance will low-profile the following moves:

5MP, 5MK, 2HP, nj.8HP, PP/PPP (1st hit)

Dee Jay

Zangief vs. DeeJay (Comfortable)

While Dee Jay can punish Zangief with incredible damage while controlling the neutral, Zangief is uniquely equipped to contest a good chunk of Dee Jay's offense thanks to the incredible speed and range of Screw Piledriver. Additionally, Deejay's lack of many cancellable pokes means Zangief can get a lot of mileage out of 5[HP]'s upper body armor.

Dhalsim

Zangief vs. Dhalsim (Deadly)

A traditionally poor matchup for Zangief, Dhalsim is well-equipped to bully Zangief at any range on screen with his stretchy limbs and potent projectiles. The one saving grace is that once Zangief gets in, Dhalsim has among the worst defense in the game.

Using Siberian Express

While largely niche in other matchups, the far version of normal or OD Siberian Express is incredibly valuable against Dhalsim. While the move is normally incredibly slow, if it armors one of Dhalsim's many long-ranged normals, it transitions into the grab portion of the move. This allows Zangief to armor through and punish these normals and forces Dhalsim to take a few extra precautions.

Ed

Zangief vs. Ed

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E.Honda

Zangief vs. E.Honda (Comfortable)

While Zangief can struggle to make up a life deficit against Honda, the same is true in reverse as Zangief has access to a large number of effective tools for countering and severely punishing most of Honda's typical offense without relying on Perfect Parry.

Beating Sumo Headbutt
While Zangief can utilize the universal counterplay to Sumo Headbutt, 5[HP] allows Zangief to armor through and punish headbutt attempts. Note that you do take a large chunk of recoverable health for doing so. Even if Honda stops short with a lower-strength headbutt, Zangief can release the HP button early to whiff punish it. Honda is also discouraged from using OD Sumo Headbutt as a wakeup option more than normal as meaty SPD will ignore the armor and hit much harder than a normal throw would.

Beating Sumo Smash

Zangief has some of the best tools for beating Sumo Smash in the game. Double Lariat's large hitbox and one-button input allows Zangief to easily anti-air Sumo Smash without much thought. 2HP also finds one of its few uses since the height at which it hits causes a punish counter spin out that can be comboed into OD borscht dynamite. 5[HP] also gets the job done while providing excellent okizeme and conveniently beating sumo headbutt at the same time. This means Zangief can instead focus on reacting to Honda's other options, such as Drive Rush.

Guile

Zangief vs. Guile (Comfortable)

Surprisingly, Zangief does quite well against Guile. While he, like everyone else, struggles against Guile's fireball game, his superior mixup game allows him to take much better advantage of any opportunity Guile hands him.

Jamie

Zangief vs. Jamie (Mixed)

Zangief excels at punishing Jamie's offense, but Jamie can power up in neutral much more easily against Zangief than against other characters. In addition, Zangief struggles against Jamie's superior footsies.

JP

Zangief vs. JP (Deadly)

One of Zangief's worst matchups and one of JP's best, Zangief struggles immensely vs JP's zoning due to his slow speed and narrow jump arc. In addition, Zangief's slower buttons means he cannot bully JP in the midrange as effectively as other characters. Finally, JP has one of the best anti-throw tools in the game with OD Amnesia, allowing him to easily contest and punish Zangief's offense.

Playing Around OD Amnesia
JP's OD Amnesia (22KK) is an incredibly rewarding counter tool, allowing JP to severely punish any of Zangief's throws or heavy normals. However, if OD Amnesia counter's one of Zangief's light attacks, Zangief is left at advantage, allowing him to potentially avoid the exploding projectiles with a mixup.

If OD Amnesia counters Zangief 2LK, Zangief is left +3, allowing Zangief to immediately enforce a mixup between 3MP, Spinebuster (3+LP+LK), or SPD (360P). If either of the throws hit, the throw animation allows Zangief to avoid the exploding projectiles. If 3MP hits, Zangief can avoid the projectiles by canceling into SA2 Cyclone Lariat (236236P).

Zangief's 5LP and 2LP also leave him advantageous against OD Amnesia, being +6 and +8 respectively, so Zangief must slightly delay the throw mixup.

Juri

Zangief vs. Juri (Comfortable)

While Juri's fast dash and Drive Rush can be difficult to fight against, Zangief is more than well-equipped to fight her gameplan while having uniquely powerful tools against her Saihasho projectile.

Low Crushing Saihasho
One of Juri's most powerful tools is her low-to-the-ground projectile, Saihasho (236LK). To counter this, Zangief can use his Knee Hammer (6MK), Smetana Dropkick (3HK), and Cyclone Wheel Kick (6HK) as each move leaps over the projectile to punish Juri.

Knee Hammer is the lowest risk option, leaving Zangief +4 on Punish Counter at minimum, and often leaving him +6 or more to link into 2LP, 3MP, or 2MP.

Smetana Dropkick is the fast, high-risk option and often results in Zangief being clipped by the projectile after the move lands, but it hops over Saihasho the quickest, serving as a close-range reaction option.

Finally, Cyclone Wheel Kick is the most rewarding of the three, giving Zangief a massively damaging punish combo when performed close enough. However, it is by far the slowest of the three moves, and if Juri recovers in time and blocks, she can land a punish of her own.

Ken

Zangief vs. Ken (Difficult)

Out of all of the shotos, Ken is arguably the most difficult to fight as Zangief. While he's the worst at zoning Zangief, his excellent buttons allow him to squarely beat Zangief in the midrange game. In addition, any solid hit allows Ken to take Zangief all the way to the corner, exploiting Zangief's defensive weaknesses.

Beating HK Dragonlash

the upper body armor on 5[HP] gives Zangief an option to punish HK Dragonlash on reaction without gambling on a Drive Impact.

Kimberly

Zangief vs. Kimberly (Difficult)

As a ninja character, Kimberly can easily overwhelm Zangief in both neutral and on offense. Out of all of Zangief's matchups, this one requires some of the most knowledge to navigate due to Kimberly's myriad gimmicks and knowledge checks.

Punishing Teleports

Zangief's best button to check Kimberly's teleports is 2MP. Against her normal teleport, 2MP xx Double Lariat is a consistent punish, though Zangief can also punish with SPD if he reacts quickly enough. Against OD Teleport, 2MP causes a Forced Knockdown state, allowing Zangief to combo into TK OD Borscht Dynamite (j.360K) for massive reward.

Lily

Zangief vs. Lily (Deadly)

Surprisingly for a fellow grappler, Lily's kit is near-perfectly suited to combating Zangief. Her large ground pokes and excellent AAs make it incredibly difficult for Zangief to approach her, and Zangief's slow speed means she can very easily gain her unique Wind resource. As such, it's damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't, and thus Zangief is forced to play by her rules.

Luke

Zangief vs. Luke (Difficult)

Of the three shotos, Luke is the best at keeping Zangief from getting in due to his superior fireballs. In addition, Luke's high damage means that every whiffed SPD hurts like hell.

Manon

Zangief vs. Manon (Mixed)

Manon does much of what Zangief does, but trades punishment damage and plus frames for largely superior everything else. She's faster than Zangief, has better pokes than Zangief, and has better anti-airs than Zangief while maintaining a similarly spooky mixup game. As a result, it's difficult both to approach her and defend against her in neutral. Luckily, Manon's frame data often leaves a sizeable gap in her throw mixups for Zangief to SPD out of, so he can punish her for being too greedy on offense.

Marisa

Zangief vs. Marisa (Difficult)

While Zangief doesn't necessarily struggle against Marisa on a tool-by-tool basis, her massive damage allows her to outperform Zangief in terms of raw risk-vs-reward. If she guesses correctly on any command grab, Zangief will often take significantly more damage than he would have dealt on top of being on the receiving end of further okizeme. Thankfully, Marisa's lack of throw-invuln reversals outside of SA2 and SA3 means Zangief can better leverage his normal throws on offense compared to most other matchups.

Rashid

Zangief vs. Rashid (Difficult)

Zangief has the tools to severely punish the gaps in certain mix-ups, while his JMK in particular can abuse Rashid's weak anti-air game. However, Rashid's slippery movement can make him hard to pin down and his projectile beats most of Zangief's typical anti-projectile moves and strategies, making the neutral awkward to navigate.

Ryu

Zangief vs. Ryu (Mixed)

Out of the three shotos, the Ryu matchup is probably the least unfavorable for Zangief. It's still difficult to get in on Ryu, but a Ryu who focuses on zoning Zangief out often lacks Denjin Charge for Ryu's more devastating combos.

Zangief

Zangief vs. Zangief (Mirror)

The Zangief mirror is either incredibly stale or incredibly goofy with no in-between. Zangief struggles to approach his own midrange options, but those same midrange options lead into very little, resulting in a slow back-and-forth of failed jump-ins and stuffed dashes. However, Zangief's lack of reversals paired with his overwhelming mixup means that if either player gets in, they can blend the opponent alive.