SaltShaker
In Zoning We Trust
Yea other people are picking up secondaries. Even Goro is used was a tournament counter pick. But yet no one is picking up Kano for actual tournament play. Why is that? -.-Kano was not significantly better than Reptile, Reptile always had better damage and mixups in all his variations. Takeda was worse though but Ronin got buffs so now it's pretty good.
There are hardly any people that are full mains of characters nowadays anyway, look at Honeybee picking up Tremor even though he plays D'Vorah or Sonicfox picking up Kitana/Cassie even though he mains Erron. It's not that the character is that bad, it's that other characters are fun to play as well and they want to play other characters too. Hell I have a ton of pocket variations but Kano is still my main, not for counterpicking reasons just because I find them fun
If you look back in the Kano threads you'll find people that don't post any more but might still play him so I don't think that's a fair point. There are still plenty of people who still post in the Kano forums that only play him: Jupe (who WON a European competition not that long ago with JUST Kano may I remind you), Noobe (who I'm pretty sure has better results than Coach Steve), countrypistol, FlappyDaniel, Zatoichi, bdizzle, you get what I'm saying. And that's not even half the people I could name, that's just who comes to mind right now. Point is 90% is definitely an exaggeration and we've had other people picking him up as well like Biohazard for example so although there are undeniably people that have dropped him it doesn't mean he's that bad and it doesn't mean others aren't still doing well with him or picking him up themselves.
You'd play Kano over others for a bunch of reasons. Maybe you find him more fun, maybe you prefer the archetypes/moves he provides, maybe you prefer to play someone super safe which Kano is, maybe you like how great in footsies he is, maybe you're a character loyalist, or as I thought would be obvious some people just don't play top tier because they're not fun. People also want to enjoy the game and some people just don't enjoy switching to top tier instead. If that were the case I for example in the case of Shinnok would play Bone Shaper over Necromancer but I don't because I find it boring and I don't like losing F22. I can understand other people who switch to top tier but in my opinion that says more about the player than the character. Not to say the players are bad, I just don't think using a character as a crutch is helping anyone lol.
You would play Commando for safety and unbreakable damage, something someone like Kotal isn't as good for.
You would play Cybernetic for the mid knives and great footsie tools like B2.
You would play Cutthroat for what are probably the safest meterless 50/50s in the game, never mind the fact they can also be hit confirmed into an easy 40-45%. Erron and Quan Chi don't do that better because they need to spend a bar to make their mixups safe and even then there's a gap you can backdash or armour through in the move they use to make them safe with meter.
I'm not Kano isn't amazing but he's certainly not invalidated by other characters. Other characters do some things better but not all. You can't complain about Kano being mediocre anyway, you've made the decision to switch to top tier instead so go complain about D'Vorah heheheh
Tooooooo many people dropped him. That was my point, he was uber popular, probably the most used he's ever been in a MK game. Fast forward and he's one of the most dropped characters if you compare the 1st 3 months to the last 3 months. Even in tourneys on stream there were a bunch of Kano's before, now you're lucky to see one an entire weekend. The numerical difference is huge. The only character that I think was dropped as heavily as Kano is Kenshi. That's not keeping good company.
There's no logic reason to pick Commando over Sun God Kotal from a competitive standpoint. If you're playing for fun casuals yea, but when you're trying to win he's just a far, far superior grappler character. Basically what everything Commando should have been.
Instead of playing Cyber just play HQT for low shots and a better toolset with cancels and 50/50's to couple with S-Tier zoning that's better than Cyber's. Or BS Shinnok with space control of the Gods, strong footsies, and 50/50's for the heck of it with better +frames on EX skulls.
Wanna Cutthroat for mixups? Yea you can spend two bars to get +frames on block into a 1 bar 42% combo that drains your own health. But why do that when you can do a high damage 50/50 with Erron and end a combo with THEM losing health not YOU (lol), while doing high chip damage and making them guess during a 211 string for even more mixups? Or give them the mixups of death with Quan Chi for the same exact damage but less meter to set them up?
Nothing stands out anymore with Kano. He's just a fair Street Fighter character trying to play Marvel vs Capcom. It doesn't work. The biggest thing I think we disagree on is that in December 30th 2015, I think it is clear that Kano has been invalidated by other characters. Other than enjoyment of playing the character or familiarity, there's no reason why you would pick Kano over a better character anymore. Any type of MU there's either an upgrade or a significant upgrade to what he brings to the table as a character. This is why none of these guys pick him up, but they have no problem picking up Tremor, Cassie, Jax, and other characters.
But you're right, since I've moved to Bug City I've lost my privileges to complain about Kano. Fortunately in Bug City though, there's actually nothing to even complain about since all the residents are taken well care of.
I don't actually think his plus frames are much better, he's +14 but the opponent is 1/4 of the screen away where nothing is guaranteed. May as well be +5 and right next to them. It's like Cyber's restand, he's +13 but he can't actually put on any sort of pressure midscreen (not that he should be but yeah you get what I'm saying).
