知己知彼 百戰百勝 - "Know thyself and your enemy, and all battles shall be won"

"Know thyself and your enemy, and all battles shall be victorious" - Sun Tzu

II.   Fundamentals

In my opinion, playing Zangief is nothing like playing a shoto or a charge character. Learning his style pcommands you to pick up an entirely different game. Players need to recognize this and develop a different mentality on how Gief should be played. But like any successful players, you need to learn everything there is to know about Gief, how he plays against his opponents, and be able to utilize them flexibility to do well. To quote a the Art of War proverb: 知己知彼,百戰百勝. (See translation under the picture)

A.   Understanding Zangief

Strengths

  • High stamina – Though toned down from vanilla, he still possesses the highest Health and Stun meter (along with T.Hawk) in AE at a whopping 1100 for both Health and Stun. This is a very much needed attribute as it is somewhat difficult for Zangief to get hits in against certain characters. Thus the high stamina, coupled with high damage is instrumental in allowing decent returns for risk/reward ratio decisions (e.g. whether to risk a jump or a SPD).
  • Decent damage – There are a number of characters that can land far more damaging combos than Zangief, but a number of his moves are very damaging, most notably his Ultra, SPDs, Suplex, Far Standing Heavy Kick and even his normal slam (160 damage ouch). His footsies and ex greenhand combos are no longer as damaging compared to vanilla, bummer but that’s what we gotta deal with.
  • Long range – This seems like a strange one, but melee wise with the new L.SPD Zangief is a beast with long reaching normals. This means pushing opponent to the corner becomes a key strength of his. Get close, and zone well to get the opponent to slowly get backed off into the corner where you can work your magic.
  • Strong knockdown mixups – This remains a key strength of Zangief’s, and it’s still extremely deadly to all characters lacking a 3 or 4f uppercut. His KD (“Knockdown”) pressure is extremely good though Zangief’s now would have a try harder to score a knockdown compared to vanilla as his EXGH no longer knockdowns (with the exception of counterhits).

Weaknesses

  • Lack of mobility – Face it. He’s slow as hell. His walkspeed, jumpspeed (~6f) and even his dashspeed is horrendously slow. This means that it’s harder to zone and weave in and out of danger compared to fast moving characters like Akuma and Chun Li. This makes him a sucker against people who walk fast or have great tools to attack Gief at max ranges. Though fret not, he does have tools and answers to these problems.
  • Difficulty – It’s not that it’s hard to pick up Zangief, his moves are relatively easy to perform and his combos are not hard to do. Rather, there’s a certain degree of difficulty at utilizing the the most basic of his tools to counter some basic puzzles or patterns that even beginner players will throw at you (e.g. backdash, jumping back, 3/4f uppercuts, jumping up and down).

Attributes of a Good Gief Player:

This is not an exhaustive list, but rather what I think are the three most important meta-game attributes of a good Gief player that goes beyond the techniques, zoning and execution.

  • Patience – If you are unwilling to commit on choices that have a crappy risk and reward ratio (which can be most of the time if you are unable to properly read your opponent), its much less psychologically taxing on the other player who is spamming things like jump back fierce than the Zangief player who’s supposed to brave the danger and get in. In general, Gief is a walking, giant, hittable box. It greatly frustrates the opponent if they are unable to score big damage on you as you are closing them in to the corner bit by bit.
  • Great yomi – This is entirely another topic really. But players who are good at yomi AND at the same time who are willing to take risks are great Gief players. This means being able to expect what the opponent will do, and being able to setup the optimal punish for it. This is really important for Gief because the easiest way to land some of his most damaging moves is by punishing and expecting people to do certain moves. (E.g. backdash into ultra against uppercut whiff.) I can’t emphasize how important it is for Gief players to be able to anticipate what their opponents might do / screw up on. A Gief player need to be able to take advantage of every small mistakes that leave the opponent open to a SPD or whatever.
  • Good reaction – This means being able to react against a whiffed Ryu c.mk and punishing it with a buffered EXGH, SPD or whatever. Or EXGH against a target in the air / other moves. This also means punishing the opponent with the best move possible, such as landing a suplex on a whiffed light punch SRK (if distance allows) rather than a lariat or EXGH combo. If there’s one thing the Japanese giefs do well, its that they usually punish with the most damaging punish possible in all situations.