Today’s Mortal Kombat X roundup includes the usual spattering of combo videos, but we’ve got a few more random bits of strategy than we’ve been highlighting in recent updates. This shows that players are beginning to move away from creating the longest combos possible and are instead figuring out ways to open up opponents and actually land those combos in the first place.
First, we’ve got a Kano option select that allows the cybernetic fighter incredible pressure on a downed opponent. As you’ll see in Redemptionmusicz’ clip below, this series of inputs beats all of Sub-Zero’s wake up options (including EX slide) by slamming out enough hits fast enough to break armor, and it doesn’t cancel into the Eye Burst on block or back dash.
Up next, we’ve got a few assorted bits of strategy from Tom Brady and REO that everyone should be sure to check out.
Starting out, they offer up a strange Sub-Zero option against D’Vorah. Typically, if Sub-Zero’s EX slide tosses an opponent into an ice clone on the first hit, its second hit will break the frozen state that the ice clone causes. At a certain range against some of D’Vorah’s attacks, Sub can throw out an EX slide, knock her into an ice clone, and the second hit of the EX slide will whiff and leave D’Vorah frozen for whatever sort of slick combo he feels like unleashing.
This isn’t the sort of thing that will come up very often at all, but it’s weird and worth keeping in mind for this match-up.
Up next, the duo display a bit of Liu Kang technology that, so far as anyone can tell, appears to be a bug. It seems that if Liu Kang manages to put an opponent in hitstun, he can then perform an air fireball and land without having to go through his recovery frames. This makes the fighter a much bigger threat from full screen.
And lastly, Tom Brady and REO show off a meterless vortex for Jacqui’s shotgun variant. The idea behind it is fairly simple: just combo into a shotgun re-stand, cover the ground to your opponent, make them pick high or low block, and if they guess wrong, do it all again.
The first thing that a Jacqui player will likely note when watching this is the absurd amount of stamina bar required to keep up the spacing necessary to maintain the 50/50 pressure. Tom and REO made sure to address this as well; Jacqui has a normal that moves her quite far forward and can be used in this situation as part of an option select in order to provide spacing when the stamina bar isn’t available to do so. She can, through the use of this option select and her stamina bar, move the opponent from one corner to the other with this vortex.
At the moment, she isn’t able to score much damage off this setup due to the sort of requirements that the re-stand has. This will likely change at some point in the future when a Jacqui player discovers a way to get big damage into a re-stand.
So often, combo videos assume that players are prepared to look at a combo once and immediately know the inputs based purely on the animations, or at least repeatedly pause the footage to jot down notes on which hit follows which so they can pull off the string themselves.
That isn’t the case for this next video, because in addition to including a lengthy selection of Kitana combos, Savage Ogre spends the last half of the video showing each combo in slow motion, complete with the inputs required to pull them off.
Up next, you can pick up some Ferra/Torr combos from Hurtbox TV. As with previous videos, this one covers each of the variations that this fighter brings to the field and shows great ways to score easy damage, as well as some less practical means to push the numbers ever higher as your execution with the duo improves.
Nico Montano is back with another Goro video, this time focusing on the four-armed fighter’s Tigrar Fury variant. In this mode, Goro gains access to a handful of fire-based special attacks, one of which is a low-hitting fireball that pops opponents up when it connects. As Nico demonstrates, this can be used to create safe pressure as well as offer a very fast high/low mix-up on opponents.
Nico spends a good deal of time explaining how this pressure works and the different ways to apply it, as well as what to do after a fireball lands to score the most damage.
And, as we’ve been doing since we started making these roundups, we close things out today with a few character breakdown videos from SupermanSajam. Today’s selection includes Shinnok, Goro, and Scorpion. If you’re looking to pick these characters up, there’s no better place to get a quick and dirty look at how to get into the fight.
Have you found something brutal in Mortal Kombat X that you can’t wait to share? Drop us a line and let us know; your video could be featured in our next roundup!
Sources: Redemptionmusicz, Tom Brady and REO, Savage Ogre, HurtboxTV, Nico Montano and SupermanSajam
