This matchup is in our favor imo, but only slightly. Both characters have explosive offensive potential, great movement, and strong neutral game. Valk has a slight advantage due to his neutral and offensive dominance over bang. Dealing with nails is only difficult if you try to force your way in all the time. D nails in specific can give offense-hungry valk players a lot of trouble. The main fact of the matchup are that bang's neutral tools are limited in quantity while valk's really isnt. Forcing bang to spend the nails by moving around the screen and dancing around the nails' ranges is the best advice anyone can give in this matchup. Once he's low on nails, feel free to rush in as he doesnt really have any other means to stop you (by not having a real anti air). While on offense, you need to be wary of 6D at all times. If he's successful with it, especially when he's cornered, it'll make the round much more difficult to win. Ashura can be baited with the Br.ja option select but you have to be very alert about it since the superflash doesnt last long. Daifunka can be br.ja OSed but it's slow enough that it gives you enough time to untransform from wolf and block it. Punishing daifunka after the 7D from the br.ja OS can be hard since he moves quite far from the corner when it whiffs. His backdash you shouldnt worry about since you can whiff a w5a and still punish his backdash with run up w5a (midscreen. When he's cornered it's basically worthless since everything you do can punish it even if you arent looking for it.). His high health and explosive offense can make this matchup annoying, but considering everything he has to deal with, i'd say this matchup is slightly in our favor aha.
Gonna break down the main points of the matchup here:
-In neutral, focus on timing out his nails instead of just blindly rushing at him. He'll eventually try to force his way in and it'll be easy for you to stop him for doing so.
-When on offense, always always look out for wakeup 6D. You can punish this with wolf grab, w.jc (it doesnt hit him crouching anymore but most people instictively block it anyway since he's airbourne. If he 6Ds, you get a CH), br.ja, and delayed w5C. You can also do a meaty w5a and react to the teleport with another w5a or w5C, but it's quite hard to do so and it's easy to forget about when you're autopiloting your meaty blockstrings.
-You can br.ja OS daifunka and ashura.
-Try to study bang's gatlings so that it'll make it easier for you to defend against him. He shouldnt be able to win the round off of one touch if you're careful by reacting quick/making good defensive decisions.
-6A is quite good on defense in this matchup, but you shouldnt abuse it. Valk can 6A bang's 5A if he tries to do it after a blocked 6A (it's plus on block).
That's mostly what I have on the matchup. I beat rei pretty convincingly when I played him and I go roughly even with huey so I definitely have a lot of exp in that regard. Let me know if anything doesnt make sense!
