There is just so much to love about the clip we have for you here today. To set the stage, it’s fairly well known that Zangief vs. JP in Street Fighter 6 is a match up that heavily favors JP.
His ability to occupy the screen with tons of projectiles and use long-ranged normals to keep Zangief out make things very difficult for the grappler. However, this clip here featuring a Gief player named Kobayan going up against Nemo’s JP shows that a match is never over until its over, and it happens to be the greatest Zangief comeback I’ve seen in Street Fighter 6 so far.
Within the first four seconds of this clip we see just how badly the odds are stacked against Kobayan. The grappler player takes a hit from a stray portal and as a result sits with literally a sliver of health left while Nemo essentially has a full health bar.
Despite this, Kobayan stays in the game and goes on the offensive landing a quick sweep, then Drive Rushing in to keep the pressure on. Kobayan hits Zangief’s hopping knee strike, scoops Nemo up with a quick SPD to get the party started, then uses a quick Drive Rush sequence into a reset that ends up with Nemo cornered and with about 10% health left.
The Drive Rush sequence cooked all of Kobayan’s meter, leaving them in burnout against a JP with not only about five bars of Drive Gauge, but also a level 1 super stocked. At this point, any touch from a special move or super will close out the round for Nemo.
Nemo knows this, and on wake up attempts JP’s level 1 super as Kobayan is right on top of him to continue applying pressure and score the last opening they need. Due to Zangief’s size and the size of the area where JP’s level 1 super hits, even trying to jump away from it would likely result in the grappler getting tagged and losing the round.
Kobayan knows this as well, and in an attempt to clutch out the win opts to use Zangief’s level 1 super in retaliation. For those who don’t know, Zangief’s level 1 super is an anti-air attack that doesn’t hit grounded foes and doesn’t strike on the way up.
The plan here isn’t to KO Nemo with the super, but instead, Kobayan uses the start up invincibility of Gief’s level 1 to not only soar through JP’s level 1 super projectile, but also to end up behind the opponent safe from harm. That is exactly what happens, and while JP finishes the super animation, Zangief is able to recover more quickly and punish Nemo with an SPD to take the round.
Not only is the level of play here just outstanding in general, but this clip is also an excellent display of low tier players studying the hardest match ups and knowing answers that most players would never even consider.
You can view the clip below courtesy of XLVCKYJ on X (formerly Twitter).
Kobayan: There aren’t a lot of #Zangief players that impress me. Largely due to most of them just option cycling, but not really controlling neutral. Kobayan might be the new Cantona. Gief players that were there will know exactly what I mean: vs NEMO pic.twitter.com/BaXfnE1CAJ
— LVCKYJ (@XLVCKYJ) December 28, 2023