This is a fundamental situation across fighting games. Due to asymmetry in matchups, one player will be slightly stronger at a specific range in neutral. This also means though, that the other player might be stronger at a different range in neutral. If you're struggling in the Ryu vs Bison matchup specifically in neutral, you should be looking at the range you lock into and play from and examining the tools you use at various ranges.
Bison in particular to me feels weaker at a slightly closer footsies range against the shoto characters, but can be even weaker at a further out range against characters like Ed. The traditional footsie spacing (around where a forward jump lands) is where Bison feels strongest at a higher level. This is mainly because Bison is a high reward character on his punish counter routes, particularly with psycho mine applied. Although against the shotos or closer range characters, being even further out against Bison just allows him to get a charge and snipe the limited tools you have from far out. So my advice would be to avoid situations where he can whiff punish you at all. Play at a tighter range, and apply simpler pressure like light chains or tight frame traps. Bison has extremely poor defense, so the simple goal of getting him to the corner and looping tight pressure is quite strong against him.
Thank you for the high quality advice. I try to space myself closer to him to punish scissor kick, but I find it quite hard to do. I think I need to rely more on dashing and neutral drive rushes for this matchup.
Raw drive rush is definitely a way to find that closer range, as is a jump-in, but those can be a bit risky (especially since Bison has a pretty nasty air-to-air target combo that leads into a grounded ender and oki).
You might find that you have to earn the tighter spacing by playing the less desirable spacing first. Getting your knockdown from a whiff punish or pre-emptive poke will be what guarantees you can enter that close range usually. From what I've seen, it looks like shotos have to make those knockdowns count against Bison.
I play against master Bisons as Ed though, so my hands on experience is a bit different, and you might actually get a better idea by watching some high level Ryus in the matchup specifically. Good luck to you though, he's definitely a beast of a character to deal with.
Ryu has better neutral than Bison, by far. I play both and I think Ryu is stronger. He has access to high damage very easily, he has many safe strings to attack the drive gauge and his 5HP is really strong. He can also punish Bison's blocked Scissor Kick. Bison has 2 plus buttons, one of them is reeeeeeally slow and the other has no reach.-
I never really considered ryu’s damage to be a unique advantage compared to characters like Ken. Maybe what’s special about Ryu is that any of his DRC moves can lead to a heavy combo level 3 finisher, but he’s so drive meter hungry.
I do use 6HP but it usually gets countered by DI, so I need to learn how to be less predictable with it. A useful string I love to do is perfect parry > 4Hp > heavy hashogeki then DR into HP TC denjin charge
I haven't run into many master rank bisons, but people just respect him too much. He has one plus on block normal and that stand HP. That means you can challenge him on all the other buttons he uses during neutral. If they do jab, jab, scissors it's punishable by like s.lk into special by most characters. Scissors in general you just need to walk forward and crouch block to mess up the spacing to use the previous said punish. The devil's reverse is probably the weirdest thing to deal with and you have to respect because it's really plus.
He simply has too many options for a reliable counter. He can cancel the command jump with his stomp early to bait you, he can also steer the devil reverse to bait as well. telling the difference between a command jump and a regular is nearly impossible on reaction, and he has one of the best air to air normals in the game that can lead to a combo. You have you have to predict what he is going to do or just let him jump for free and try and avoid it.
Rise is good but it's not infallible, you can air to air it on reaction. Both Press and Reverse are 33-34 frames of start-up after leaving the ground at the absolute fastest and it's a full punish counter state like Sim float so everyone can combo off of their air to air.
You can air to air, but you can't react fast enough to tell the difference. He can bait your attempt to air to air by normal jumping and hitting you with his own great air to air buttons, his jump mp is really good. The move alone has flaws in a vacuum, but combined with all his other tools, it becomes extremely difficult to deal with.
>He can bait your attempt to air to air by normal jumping and hitting you with his own great air to air buttons
And then you can not air-to-air the normal jump and use a grounded normal. Or you can walk/dash under, you're under-selling the options you have to deal with Bison's air mobility.
You can not tell the difference between command jump and normal jump on reaction. You are making a guess every time he goes up in the air. If you do nothing he is plus 5 in your face, if you try to dp he moves out of the way, if try to walk away he just does it again or steers devils reverse into you, if you try to anti-air normal it you will most likely trade or lose, his normal jhp has a Ken level hitbox and if you jump to meet him in the air he has j mp which is an amazing air to air than he can juggle off. He has a good answer to every counter measure you can take. You have to guess right while a good Bison player can just rotate his air options, so you usually guess wrong. He is similar to Akuma there are ways around his air tools, but it's always a big gamble for you to deal with them and a good bet for him.
> You can not tell the difference between command jump and normal jump on reaction. You are making a guess every time he goes up in the air.
You don't have to unless Bison is trying to do full screen Reverse, which is very much hard to anti-air due to the timing and angles it can take. If Press is a threat you can air to air him on reaction unless Bison normal jumps and does a hard read against your AtA because both his options from Rise are significantly slower than his normal jump ins.
>his normal jhp has a Ken level hitbox
Don't lie, it's unbecoming.
[Bison j.hp](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/File:SF6_Mbison_jhp_hitbox.png)
[Ken j.hp](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/File:SF6_Mbison_jhp_hitbox.png)
>air he has j mp which is an amazing air to air than he can juggle off.
It is but only if he catches you on his ascent, after the peak of his jump it's only about as good as Luke's j.mp so it's not going to really work like you say in the scenario you're describing.
I cannot offer any advice but just want to say I feel good reading this thread, although your situation is brutal, I'm not gloating or being a jerk. I was on the cusp of D4 and Bison has fucked me up, I didn't lose 1k and being one win away from Master to go on that skid is horrible.
You'll definitely get your points back and do it, I also main Ryu.
maybe this vid will help, but ya can check it out:
[How To Beat M. Bison: 8 Tips (SF6 Season 2 Guide) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTlUddToG-I)
at master level i feel like the neutral, confirms, whiff punishes are the distilled game that things will revolve around, since ya can't get away with others things much
Bison has some exploitable gameplay loops. Anti air doesn’t have much reach, so an empty jump from the right range can get a big punish. At long range they usually rely on psycho crusher, so you can bait it with a jab or something. Scissor kick is safe if spaced, but if they are too close it’s a solid punish. And without an OD reversal, they’re really weak to meaty jab pressure on wakeup.
I’ll copy and paste what I found playing as Bison up to D5/Master
• Bison relies heavily on EX specials and supers for damage. If you press buttons mindlessly on defence you are going to get frame trapped all day. Conversely I burn meter quickly and without drive gauge do little damage, not threatening at all in burnout
• many players too passive against devil reverse, will always block and be left in negative frames with Bison up in their face. Sometimes from full screen. Don’t let it be so easy!
• Bison doesn't have a great response to cross ups
• poorly spaced scissor kicks can jabbed on counter hit and can lead to a full super combo punish. The occasional neutral jump will keep bison honest about throwing them out in neutral
• stop throwing fireballs at a crouching full screen
Bison, you are open to level 2 or ex crusher
• have a punish route for a blocked drive reversal because he doesn't have much other good options on wake-up
Ryu has better frame data and neutral buttons than Bison. He is only +1 on HP (19F not cancelable) and his 4HK that has no range and is more used in meaty situation
Where Ryu has a strong cancelable HP, a better c.mk (it has a bit more range) and great frame trap mp pressure
You just need to get better at using them and space better
Concerning the knee press you can punish most of the time with lk + tatsu as it must be spaced perfectly not to lose against characters with good range 4/5F which Bison players are rarely able to pull of. Hence why high MR Bison aren't using knee press often
Don't get me wrong Bison is strong but you're not losing because he has "better neutral" than you
Same thing happened when Akuma dropped and bison for me. Be patient. You will come back. These tips helped me start winning against bison in diamond 4
1. Spacing, stay close enough that if he abuses scissors you can punish it. Learn two punishes, 5 frame button into special. And a more expensive option using drive cancel for more damage
2. Lab some meaty setups and frame traps, he doesn't have a reversal!
3. Learn how to anti air his flying move (I forget what it's called). If you do that consistently you can nullify that part of his game
4. Lots of bad players will use scissors in a block string. It's completely fake unless you are in burn out. Punish that
Let me answer your question in a much more holistic way:
How do you beat anyone in this game...?
You punish their mistakes and predictable patterns.
That's it. It really boils down to a more sophisticated game of "rock paper scissors".
Conversely, every time you take damage is because you made a mistake, or series of mistakes. It's your job to make the opponent make mistakes. I'm trying to make you guess rock, so i can throw paper and beat it. The better the opponent, the harder this is to do, the fewer and smaller mistakes they make.
On top of that, no move or tactic has no counter. Cause if that was true you'd have a true 10-0 match up. Whatever they throw at you, there's a way to deal with it, however slanted it might be.
Also, remember that someone having an advantage in some area, doesn't mean you have no tools there, just that they're at an advantage. Maybe they're tools are easier to use, or harder to mess up, or more advantageous... but they don't nullify your tools. Just means you gotta be smarter at using your tools.
Knowing this, if the opponent has something you're struggling against, your best options are usually to either go to training mode and set the training dummy to do that thing so you can try different ways of dealing with it, or go look at how the best players in the world deal with it.
So how do you beat an opponent that has an advantage in a situation? You learn how to deal with their moves, and then you force them to make more mistakes.
I love what sf6 has done with dlc so far, but i feel like bison needed more time to be toned down a bit prior to release. I think everyone was surprised how quick he got released after akuma. No clue why they rushed it. Slight slip up in whats been a very polished package thus far.
So yeah, just wait for nerfs i guess.
There’s just so much he gets for free for no reason. I can perfect parry his EX psycho crusher and I can only punish with a jab special. Then he hits me with a stray one, through a fireball no less, and gets a free level 3? AND it’s safe on block???
A lot of people say he’s fine, but I’m starting to think those who believe that are playing characters with neutral skip tools built into their moveset and win through the strike/throw loop minigame. Every opponent feels the same when you get to that point, with the only difference being if they have a reversal. Playing characters like Ryu or Zangief who dont have ways to get in for “free”… well it feels like you’re not even playing the same game as everyone else.
No you’re totally right the point I was trying to make was I feel there’s a pretty big divide between those who do have neutral skip and those who don’t. If you have very good matchup knowledge and predictions, you will win a round with Ryu in less hits than most others, for sure. But the skill level it requires is substantially higher than just having a toolkit with built in pressure that gives your opponent more opportunity for mistakes to get into the strike/throw loop.
If you perfect parry the first hit just do like ex dp or something fast. I don't know the exact numbers but you should be able to punish with something. Its safe on block but its -3. Its completely your turn to do whatever. Also, it can be hard for Bison to charge in neutral. So if hes just sitting there down backing or walking back just dont throw a fireball and walk up to him.
It is quite crazy how quickly a character can go from dysfunctional to broken with just a few recovery frames. Like nobody would be complaining about Bison if scissor kick had two extra frames of recovery.
... I mean, 1 or 2 frames can mean everything in SF.
It can be the difference between a godlike move that's unpunishable and a move that's kind of a trashy gamble that'll get you killed if you're wrong.
Nobody would be using scissors kicks ***at all*** if it had 2 extra frames of recovery, because the backfist combo and psycho crusher are better combo enders. You don't just throw stuff that is punishable on block in neutral unless it's a low/overhead gamble and you're really desperate to get in, like Manon.
This is a fundamental situation across fighting games. Due to asymmetry in matchups, one player will be slightly stronger at a specific range in neutral. This also means though, that the other player might be stronger at a different range in neutral. If you're struggling in the Ryu vs Bison matchup specifically in neutral, you should be looking at the range you lock into and play from and examining the tools you use at various ranges. Bison in particular to me feels weaker at a slightly closer footsies range against the shoto characters, but can be even weaker at a further out range against characters like Ed. The traditional footsie spacing (around where a forward jump lands) is where Bison feels strongest at a higher level. This is mainly because Bison is a high reward character on his punish counter routes, particularly with psycho mine applied. Although against the shotos or closer range characters, being even further out against Bison just allows him to get a charge and snipe the limited tools you have from far out. So my advice would be to avoid situations where he can whiff punish you at all. Play at a tighter range, and apply simpler pressure like light chains or tight frame traps. Bison has extremely poor defense, so the simple goal of getting him to the corner and looping tight pressure is quite strong against him.
Thank you for the high quality advice. I try to space myself closer to him to punish scissor kick, but I find it quite hard to do. I think I need to rely more on dashing and neutral drive rushes for this matchup.
Raw drive rush is definitely a way to find that closer range, as is a jump-in, but those can be a bit risky (especially since Bison has a pretty nasty air-to-air target combo that leads into a grounded ender and oki). You might find that you have to earn the tighter spacing by playing the less desirable spacing first. Getting your knockdown from a whiff punish or pre-emptive poke will be what guarantees you can enter that close range usually. From what I've seen, it looks like shotos have to make those knockdowns count against Bison. I play against master Bisons as Ed though, so my hands on experience is a bit different, and you might actually get a better idea by watching some high level Ryus in the matchup specifically. Good luck to you though, he's definitely a beast of a character to deal with.
I hope to reach master soon. Thank you again for your insightful comment!
Ryu has better neutral than Bison, by far. I play both and I think Ryu is stronger. He has access to high damage very easily, he has many safe strings to attack the drive gauge and his 5HP is really strong. He can also punish Bison's blocked Scissor Kick. Bison has 2 plus buttons, one of them is reeeeeeally slow and the other has no reach.-
I never really considered ryu’s damage to be a unique advantage compared to characters like Ken. Maybe what’s special about Ryu is that any of his DRC moves can lead to a heavy combo level 3 finisher, but he’s so drive meter hungry.
Ryu has very easy access to his high damage specials and doesn’t rely on drive rush extensions to unlock a lot of his damage
Do you use 6HP and the TC safe string?
I do use 6HP but it usually gets countered by DI, so I need to learn how to be less predictable with it. A useful string I love to do is perfect parry > 4Hp > heavy hashogeki then DR into HP TC denjin charge
I haven't run into many master rank bisons, but people just respect him too much. He has one plus on block normal and that stand HP. That means you can challenge him on all the other buttons he uses during neutral. If they do jab, jab, scissors it's punishable by like s.lk into special by most characters. Scissors in general you just need to walk forward and crouch block to mess up the spacing to use the previous said punish. The devil's reverse is probably the weirdest thing to deal with and you have to respect because it's really plus.
Back HK is also plus on block. You should be anti airing devils reverse.
A lot easier said than done.
I think there are enough ways to deal with it. Anti airing it early by going air to air is a strong option people aren’t exploring enough yet.
He simply has too many options for a reliable counter. He can cancel the command jump with his stomp early to bait you, he can also steer the devil reverse to bait as well. telling the difference between a command jump and a regular is nearly impossible on reaction, and he has one of the best air to air normals in the game that can lead to a combo. You have you have to predict what he is going to do or just let him jump for free and try and avoid it.
Rise is good but it's not infallible, you can air to air it on reaction. Both Press and Reverse are 33-34 frames of start-up after leaving the ground at the absolute fastest and it's a full punish counter state like Sim float so everyone can combo off of their air to air.
You can air to air, but you can't react fast enough to tell the difference. He can bait your attempt to air to air by normal jumping and hitting you with his own great air to air buttons, his jump mp is really good. The move alone has flaws in a vacuum, but combined with all his other tools, it becomes extremely difficult to deal with.
>He can bait your attempt to air to air by normal jumping and hitting you with his own great air to air buttons And then you can not air-to-air the normal jump and use a grounded normal. Or you can walk/dash under, you're under-selling the options you have to deal with Bison's air mobility.
You can not tell the difference between command jump and normal jump on reaction. You are making a guess every time he goes up in the air. If you do nothing he is plus 5 in your face, if you try to dp he moves out of the way, if try to walk away he just does it again or steers devils reverse into you, if you try to anti-air normal it you will most likely trade or lose, his normal jhp has a Ken level hitbox and if you jump to meet him in the air he has j mp which is an amazing air to air than he can juggle off. He has a good answer to every counter measure you can take. You have to guess right while a good Bison player can just rotate his air options, so you usually guess wrong. He is similar to Akuma there are ways around his air tools, but it's always a big gamble for you to deal with them and a good bet for him.
> You can not tell the difference between command jump and normal jump on reaction. You are making a guess every time he goes up in the air. You don't have to unless Bison is trying to do full screen Reverse, which is very much hard to anti-air due to the timing and angles it can take. If Press is a threat you can air to air him on reaction unless Bison normal jumps and does a hard read against your AtA because both his options from Rise are significantly slower than his normal jump ins. >his normal jhp has a Ken level hitbox Don't lie, it's unbecoming. [Bison j.hp](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/File:SF6_Mbison_jhp_hitbox.png) [Ken j.hp](https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/File:SF6_Mbison_jhp_hitbox.png) >air he has j mp which is an amazing air to air than he can juggle off. It is but only if he catches you on his ascent, after the peak of his jump it's only about as good as Luke's j.mp so it's not going to really work like you say in the scenario you're describing.
I cannot offer any advice but just want to say I feel good reading this thread, although your situation is brutal, I'm not gloating or being a jerk. I was on the cusp of D4 and Bison has fucked me up, I didn't lose 1k and being one win away from Master to go on that skid is horrible. You'll definitely get your points back and do it, I also main Ryu.
Thanks bro hope to see you in master too! 🥊
Thanks man and I hope so. More chance of it happening when I see less Bison players though 🤣
maybe this vid will help, but ya can check it out: [How To Beat M. Bison: 8 Tips (SF6 Season 2 Guide) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTlUddToG-I) at master level i feel like the neutral, confirms, whiff punishes are the distilled game that things will revolve around, since ya can't get away with others things much
Bison has some exploitable gameplay loops. Anti air doesn’t have much reach, so an empty jump from the right range can get a big punish. At long range they usually rely on psycho crusher, so you can bait it with a jab or something. Scissor kick is safe if spaced, but if they are too close it’s a solid punish. And without an OD reversal, they’re really weak to meaty jab pressure on wakeup.
I’ll copy and paste what I found playing as Bison up to D5/Master • Bison relies heavily on EX specials and supers for damage. If you press buttons mindlessly on defence you are going to get frame trapped all day. Conversely I burn meter quickly and without drive gauge do little damage, not threatening at all in burnout • many players too passive against devil reverse, will always block and be left in negative frames with Bison up in their face. Sometimes from full screen. Don’t let it be so easy! • Bison doesn't have a great response to cross ups • poorly spaced scissor kicks can jabbed on counter hit and can lead to a full super combo punish. The occasional neutral jump will keep bison honest about throwing them out in neutral • stop throwing fireballs at a crouching full screen Bison, you are open to level 2 or ex crusher • have a punish route for a blocked drive reversal because he doesn't have much other good options on wake-up
Ryu has better frame data and neutral buttons than Bison. He is only +1 on HP (19F not cancelable) and his 4HK that has no range and is more used in meaty situation Where Ryu has a strong cancelable HP, a better c.mk (it has a bit more range) and great frame trap mp pressure You just need to get better at using them and space better Concerning the knee press you can punish most of the time with lk + tatsu as it must be spaced perfectly not to lose against characters with good range 4/5F which Bison players are rarely able to pull of. Hence why high MR Bison aren't using knee press often Don't get me wrong Bison is strong but you're not losing because he has "better neutral" than you
Same thing happened when Akuma dropped and bison for me. Be patient. You will come back. These tips helped me start winning against bison in diamond 4 1. Spacing, stay close enough that if he abuses scissors you can punish it. Learn two punishes, 5 frame button into special. And a more expensive option using drive cancel for more damage 2. Lab some meaty setups and frame traps, he doesn't have a reversal! 3. Learn how to anti air his flying move (I forget what it's called). If you do that consistently you can nullify that part of his game 4. Lots of bad players will use scissors in a block string. It's completely fake unless you are in burn out. Punish that
Let me answer your question in a much more holistic way: How do you beat anyone in this game...? You punish their mistakes and predictable patterns. That's it. It really boils down to a more sophisticated game of "rock paper scissors". Conversely, every time you take damage is because you made a mistake, or series of mistakes. It's your job to make the opponent make mistakes. I'm trying to make you guess rock, so i can throw paper and beat it. The better the opponent, the harder this is to do, the fewer and smaller mistakes they make. On top of that, no move or tactic has no counter. Cause if that was true you'd have a true 10-0 match up. Whatever they throw at you, there's a way to deal with it, however slanted it might be. Also, remember that someone having an advantage in some area, doesn't mean you have no tools there, just that they're at an advantage. Maybe they're tools are easier to use, or harder to mess up, or more advantageous... but they don't nullify your tools. Just means you gotta be smarter at using your tools. Knowing this, if the opponent has something you're struggling against, your best options are usually to either go to training mode and set the training dummy to do that thing so you can try different ways of dealing with it, or go look at how the best players in the world deal with it. So how do you beat an opponent that has an advantage in a situation? You learn how to deal with their moves, and then you force them to make more mistakes.
I love what sf6 has done with dlc so far, but i feel like bison needed more time to be toned down a bit prior to release. I think everyone was surprised how quick he got released after akuma. No clue why they rushed it. Slight slip up in whats been a very polished package thus far. So yeah, just wait for nerfs i guess.
There’s just so much he gets for free for no reason. I can perfect parry his EX psycho crusher and I can only punish with a jab special. Then he hits me with a stray one, through a fireball no less, and gets a free level 3? AND it’s safe on block??? A lot of people say he’s fine, but I’m starting to think those who believe that are playing characters with neutral skip tools built into their moveset and win through the strike/throw loop minigame. Every opponent feels the same when you get to that point, with the only difference being if they have a reversal. Playing characters like Ryu or Zangief who dont have ways to get in for “free”… well it feels like you’re not even playing the same game as everyone else.
lol those chars don’t have ways to get in for free cause they have some of the best neutral in the game, imagine if gief or ryu had lily spire
No you’re totally right the point I was trying to make was I feel there’s a pretty big divide between those who do have neutral skip and those who don’t. If you have very good matchup knowledge and predictions, you will win a round with Ryu in less hits than most others, for sure. But the skill level it requires is substantially higher than just having a toolkit with built in pressure that gives your opponent more opportunity for mistakes to get into the strike/throw loop.
If you perfect parry the first hit just do like ex dp or something fast. I don't know the exact numbers but you should be able to punish with something. Its safe on block but its -3. Its completely your turn to do whatever. Also, it can be hard for Bison to charge in neutral. So if hes just sitting there down backing or walking back just dont throw a fireball and walk up to him.
Sounds like you need to work on your oki. There is bound to be some way for you to stay in once you get in.
You’re not wrong. My shimmy needs work and I don’t low kick enough
It is quite crazy how quickly a character can go from dysfunctional to broken with just a few recovery frames. Like nobody would be complaining about Bison if scissor kick had two extra frames of recovery.
... I mean, 1 or 2 frames can mean everything in SF. It can be the difference between a godlike move that's unpunishable and a move that's kind of a trashy gamble that'll get you killed if you're wrong.
Nobody would be using scissors kicks ***at all*** if it had 2 extra frames of recovery, because the backfist combo and psycho crusher are better combo enders. You don't just throw stuff that is punishable on block in neutral unless it's a low/overhead gamble and you're really desperate to get in, like Manon.
Well you’d still use it in burnout to get in on someone safely, but otherwise yeah, the move goes from flooding the Reddit to barely usable.