Top NRS player and notable lab rat REO has posted a shocking–and seemingly quite useful–discovery in Mortal Kombat XL, that even reaches back all the way back to 2008’s Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It utilizes the Flip Stance button (L2 on PlayStation 4, LT on Xbox One), a function many players have felt is a superfluous or outright useless mechanic in NetherRealm’s more recent titles, aside from some situational uses involving the execution of X-Rays and certain Fatalities. However, with this new tech, players can more easily evade command grabs from characters like Kotal Kahn and Jason Voorhees by doing a neutral jump and immediately tapping Flip Stance. Due to a bug, your character will cancel the first or second frame of their neutral jump startup, before transitioning into the Flip Stance animation. REO explains the specifics of this technique.
What this does is it actually tricks the game into thinking that your character is jumping for the first two frames. Now your character won’t be considered airborne, they’ll still be hit by any ground attacks or unblockables. But because the game reads that I input a neutral jump, it will give me instant immunity to throws and command grabs for that 1 or 2 frames.
In the video, he shows Kobu Jutsu Tanya being able to punish a whiffed command grab from Relentless Jason, using this tech after making a correct read. REO notes that this bug has been around in the last four games produced by NRS/Midway, as Flip Stance was first introduced in MKvDCU, but had little usage there or in Mortal Kombat 9 due to those games’ general lack of command grabs. Perhaps this could prove useful in the upcoming Injustice 2 as well, since MK’s sister series also possesses this function?
Lastly, REO notes three important things to keep in mind about this tech in his TYM discussion thread:
- Still a hard read, like jumping out of command grabs.
- Makes you look like a hacker/swag god when you pull it off in a KOTH with a bunch of people (LOL)
- Gives some characters better punishes/optimal combos that they normally wouldn’t get off their NJP vs. some command grabs.
You can see the full video below, and head over to REO’s discussion thread on Test Your Might for more details.
Source: MK_REO; via Test Your Might