I was labbing Cassie and I found out that you can actually hit her armored and regular getaway flipkick with Cutthroat b1. For example, Cassie's f33 (overhead-low-shadow kick) string is supposed to be -8, however, upball does not punish it, instead you can throw her ass if she does it. Once you do that they might use the armored getaway flip to make you respect this option when Cassie is at negative frames. I recorded dummy Cassie doing f33 then flip kick and you can actually hit her with Cutthroat b1 after blocking her f33, you can't launch her, but you can do b1-knife toss and both the knife and b1 will connect for 11%. YOLO upball is not a legit option for 0 on block situations to escape pressure since chances are it will just whiff while Cassie's flip kick connects and you get launched.
Grandmaster Sub-Zero is not a losing match-up like it was in MK9. You can ex Kano ball Subby's ice clone cancels on a read so that the ball will consume the clone with armor and punish Sub before he recovers from placing the clone. Sub should not be able to trap you into the corner.
As for Scorpion, you need to use the practice mode to figure out the zoning exchanges. Unblockable hellfire in hellfire variation doesn't give Scorpion anything, it's -1 on hit, if you get hit by it, you can straight ball afterwards and Scorpion can't do anything but block and maybe teleport to avoid it (spear won't come out on time), which means that if you know he will block you get a free dash and he won't be able to punish that on reaction. The overhead minion in inferno is the same thing, very little advantage on hit. If you straight ball AS SOON AS you are able to after getting hit by the overhead, even from full screen, even a spear won't come out on time from Scorpion if he does a premeditated overhead minion into spear. Scorpion's hellfire/zoning tools have always had only 2 purposes, to condition you into jumping so he can punish you with either a spear or a teleport, or try to trick you into throwing a projectile after getting hit by hellfire. Getting hit by hellfire or blocking any of the minions as well as getting hit by the overhead don't mean anything, Scorpion will only land his teleport if you retaliate with a knife or throw a double knife at neutral and he reads it. You can get in on Scorpion by just walking, blocking low and throwing a knife every now and then to keep him on his toes. Knife can not be punished on reaction, Scorpion needs a setup or a read to land the EX teleport. Kano and Scorpion can not outzone eachother, however Scorpion has the advantage because he can get a full juggle on a right read, so what do you do? You close the distance to even out the risk-reward in your favour. Kano has better normals so once you get in you should be able to maintain your pressure. You can get a free d4 on a blocked 2,1,4 most of the time. whiffing ex aerial kano ball or ex kano balling while grounded on a reaction to his projectiles will get you in. Spear should not be neutral ducked but blocked, since it actually has bad enough recovery now for Kano to actually punish it with a straight ball even from full screen. Ex spear doesn't have armor anymore so Scorpion can not punish a 3/4 to midscreen knife on reaction like he could in MK9. I am not even gonna talk about his fireball in hellfire variation, that thing is a joke and you can easily discourage him from using it with a random knife every now and then, like what is the worst thing he can do? Hold the fireball and instant run cancel into a teleport to bait you into throwing a knife but that's a shitty gimmick and you should know he is trying to bait a knife or a a ball if he does fireball dash cancels... or try to initiate his own offence by whiffing the teleport and then pressuring you, in which case he will be close to you and at a disadvantage due to Kano's better normals. I firmly believe that the Scorpion match-up isn't bad, Cutthroat should beat be able to beat all of his variations.
He has sick corner damage, safe specials and great priority moves (his f4 beat mine all the time lol). Cybernetic probably zones him out decently and commando can escape corner with smart command throw or counter. Cutthroat felt really bad, maybe the 50/50 helps but with bar he has armor on everything lol.
