After the changes for Mortal Kombat XL were released, many players felt that Quan Chi would see a sharp decline in competitive play due to the loss of his meterless Vortex, guaranteed gapless pressure after Meter Burn Ground Burst, and added damage scaling on his Bat attacks in the Summoner Varaition. However, some of those same players were quick to overlook the myriad of enhancements that were given to the demon’s Sorcerer Variation. This style of Quan saw reduced startup and recovery on all three of his spells, faster regeneration on the hit of armor in Dark Curse, and his Skulls, Ground Bursts, as well as his Trance, became capable of draining his opponent’s meter on both block and hit while standing in Black Magic. Yet many players felt that his corner game with Final Hex, which gives Quan increased chip damage for as long as his opponent remains inside the circle, was severely weakened due to reduced chip and meter gain on block across the board in XL, compounded by the loss of gapless frame advantage on his MB Ground Burst, which has removed his “Rune Trap” setups.
Fortunately for those of us in the Quanmunity, ESL commentator and 5th place Evo finisher, PND|Ketchup, has been back in the lab with the Brotherhood of Shadow member. In this time, he has discovered a new variation of the Rune Trap that can’t be jumped or back dashed, and beats button pressing as well as both Delayed Wakeup timings, losing only to armored reversals. With Black Magic allowing him to drain more meter from his enemies than ever before, this shouldn’t prove to be too much of a detriment.
Using two reps of F21, MB Skull allows Quan to tag opponents with a meaty 14 in the 1, 14, Trance string to continue looping the restand in the corner. If they choose to use max Delayed Wakeup, and you whiff f21 MB Skull, the game will option select F212, as the input for Skull is DB2, with a large window to confirm it and input the MB Skull. If they half Delay Wakeup, they will stand up into the second hit of the F21 string and will be forced to either block or get hit by the MB Skull. This allows for around 65-75% damage in the corner.
Ketchup also released another video explaining the new Sorcerer Quan in full detail earlier this week, offering a look at what type of gameplan you need to be using with him now.
Source: PNDK&M via Test Your Might