A few days ago, members of the NRS staff (including Ed Boon, Tyler Lansdown, Paulo Garcia and more) began teasing buffs and nerfs for tomorrow's big patch.
Amongst these "normalizations" - Alien now has a hurtbox on his tail, Raiden may have super armor on his Superman, Dualist Kang can now use his white projectile to blow up a stagnant red orb, and...more controversially...Quan Chi's b2 is now duck-blockable. This can only mean that Quan's b2 is now a mid hitting move, greatly taking away from his mixup game.
Immediately after seeing this brief snippit of a nerf, the NRS community...specifically top players...went wild. People see this nerf to Quan's b2 and, for some reason, immediately correlated that to all 50/50s being regulated, nerfed, or taken out altogether. The idea of a more neutral based game has made many players excited to see Mortal Kombat become a fighting game and not a coin flip simulator.
While the idea of MIXL becoming MKXL sounds amazing, it is fair to say that people are GROSSLY overestimating the nerf of b2.
Before I explain, I have no "inside information", just seeing this in a realistic POV.
Hard-to-blockable and unblockables are pretty prevalent in this game. Like...overly prevalent. Quan, Takeda, Cyber Sub, Cyrax..all of these characters have hard-to or unblockables. This is a serious concern for the longevity of a fighting game. Once you're in the corner against the likes of Quan Chi, you might as well quick teabag while holding block because you're lucky AF to block it even if you try.
Quan Chi's b2 nerf, IMHO, is a hard-to or unblockable nerf while trying to keep Quan's zoning game relevant because the low projectile in Summoner is important. If you see ANY universal nerf based off of Quan's individual b2 nerf, it won't be a widespread abolishment of 50/50...but an attempt to regulate the hard-to and unblockables in this game. I expect to see Takeda's ex kunais become a mid.
Thoughts?
Tldr; - Quan Chi's b2 nerf may be a sign that hard-to-blockables and unblockables will be regulated in this patch. I could be completely wrong tho. But, expecting NRS to nerf all 50/50s in the game is a reach. Don't set yourself up for the letdown because you will be more salty postpatch than you are prepatch.