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MK1 Tier List Discussion Thread

Juggs

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
I know it’s way too early to have a legitimate tier list, but wanted to see what everyone is thinking. SonicFox posted on Twitter recently that he believes the top 5 is Kenshi, Cage, Raiden, Mileena and Baraka. But he recently removed Mileena from that top 5 and replaced her with Ashrah. And he also said Smoke is essentially mid tier at best. And I’ve seen or heard several top NRS players say that Smoke is good but that once people figure out the MU, he’s going to be much easier to play against. I know that technically goes for every character, but the point is that right now he seems stronger than he maybe is just due to lack of MU knowledge. But then you have other players like Tweedy placing him in the top 10.

Of course, all tier list discussions this early should be taken with a grain of salt. I just think getting the discussion going is interesting. Even though I personally don’t think tier lists themselves are that important, I do think the discussions can be productive and unironically just fun to discuss.

Anyway, I think there seems to be somewhat of a consensus on the top 4 at least for right now. Which is Kenshi, Raiden, Cage and Baraka. Just about everyone who I’ve seen talk about or list their opinion on who the top characters are, those 4 always seem to be at the top.

Tweedy made a tier list video where he actually places Scorpion among the S tier characters. I haven’t had a chance to use Scorpion yet but I’ll be getting to it soon. Anyway, here’s his video discussing it



So let the chaos begin! Who are y’all thinking looks strong, mid, or weak right now? Again, this is a super early tier list discussion, so take everything with a grain of salt. And don’t take any placements personally, lol.
 
Mikemetroid

Mikemetroid

Who hired this guy, WTF?
Lead Moderator
I think all characters are good, I think that each character needs to have its own tier list, for kameo pairings.

each "S Kameo Pair" could then be compared.... this is literally impossible to measure this way imo... and the chaos would be way too on brand for the game lol

ex. Cage/Cryax might be one of Cage's best pairs, but on the game as a whole against all of these "S-tier pairing" might be a completely different location on the tier list...
 
Juggs

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Mikemetroid said:
I think all characters are good, I think that each character needs to have its own tier list, for kameo pairings.

each "S Kameo Pair" could then be compared.... this is literally impossible to measure this way imo... and the chaos would be way too on brand for the game lol

ex. Cage/Cryax might be one of Cage's best pairs, but on the game as a whole against all of these "S-tier pairing" might be a completely different location on the tier list...
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I definitely agree that every character is good. And one of the reasons is because of the Kameos. Weaker characters can have their weaknesses covered by certain Kameos. You could even have a Kameo tier list but I think that a Kameo tier list definitely would be dependent on who they’re paired with.

Also depends on MU’s obviously, but especially when you have Kameos like Shujinko. Like with Sub+Shujinko vs Geras, Sub can do a 100% combo. So that technically can make Geras fall down the tier list because you can just learn that MU with Sub+Shujinko and counterpick it if your main team struggles against Geras. And I’m fully expecting there to be a lot of MU’s like this with not just Shujinko, but with any other character + Kameo combo.

This definitely feels like one of the deeper NRS games and like people will be discovering new things for awhile.
 
Juggs

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Marlow said:
Yeah, their lists are usually pretty unconventional.
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Yeah but that’s typically when he makes a claim that have people scratching their heads. So far his top 5 make sense, well, at least his top 4. I don’t know much about Ashrah or Mileena yet to really have an opinion on them. I also haven’t been able to play the game anywhere near as much as I would’ve liked by now, but that’s life for ya. I’m not a content creator or a top tournament player so my other priorities have really taken over.

Luckily we’re still really early in the games life AND this is one of those games, as I’ve said, that’s gonna take a long time for people to really have a solid feel of every character and kameo combination. We could find out 6 months from now that a certain Character and Kameo combo that no one ever had sucess with turns out to be insane and makes the character top tier, that’s definitely a possibility with a game like this and it’s why I’ve been so excited about it.
 
E

Eji1700

Kombatant
My main thoughts so far-

1. No base character strikes me as S rank yet, which to me is "this is a problem for the game and needs to be nerfed/reworked" tier. Feels a lot cleaner than any injustice launch for sure.

2. I suspect Baraka/Raiden/Scorpion + Cyrax chip nonsense will still be viable, but less of a full on game plan, once people have time to really lab the flawless blocks. If you flawless block just one of the hits, the rest deal no chip (but aren't flawless blocked), and since most of these strats revolve around strings/multihit moves, you can't vary the timing.

3. I could see Kameo Kung Lao as possibly being S tier. One of two kameo's with a teleport and Low Hat is just a better version of Kano Ball in almost every way.

4. If I had to pick who I thought would be "best" in the next 2 months, I'd probably say Kenshi/Gears/Shang will all still be seeing a ton of play, but there's literally no one on the roster who i'd be totally surprised to see taking tournaments, and I don't think anyone is unplayable.

As for the "still in the oven" stuff that might wind up nuts once we've had more time to lab it-

1. While I suspect the chip strats will fall off cyrax is pretty unexplored. His blade spin is obviously good, net has some niche use, but I think most people are sleeping on the bomb setups. It's one of those things that's going to take awhile.

2. Goro's up punch is stupid good but a little hard to use. Once people get it down and know where to use the rest of his kit I expect him to skyrocket in use.

3. Frost orb does evil horrible unrepentant things and I look forward to those who are better than me labbing out the nonsense.

4. Shang and Shunjinko are both cases where I don't think anyone is even close to maxing out what they can do, and shang is already looking scary.

5. He's boring, but I think Kano is being overlooked. He's practically zoner in a can at his worst, and i'm curious what he'll look like backing up a sindel/rain/reiko vs someone like Johnny.

6. With Rewind showing off how gross darrius is with Reiko, i'm curious if there's going to be some other horrific damage setup with someone like Geras.

Edit-

Oh and Rain. I know he's not the zoner that was promised, but portals look like they have some very nasty uses that people are only just starting to scratch the surface of.
 
O

OceanOne

Noob
I won't die on this hill defending my main but why is Kenshi perceived as the best character in the game? Is it just because of the chip damage in Sento stance? I think 50% and even 70% combos are way more aggravating than 10% - 15% in chip damage if you're in the right situation (sandwiched) once per round. But sure I wouldn't complain if they completely removed chip damage from the spirit.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of people straight up disrespecting Kenshi + Sprit and just pressing a button to kill the spirit.
 
E

Eji1700

Kombatant
OceanOne said:
I won't die on this hill defending my main but why is Kenshi perceived as the best character in the game? Is it just because of the chip damage in Sento stance? I think 50% and even 70% combos are way more aggravating than 10% - 15% in chip damage if you're in the right situation (sandwiched) once per round. But sure I wouldn't complain if they completely removed chip damage from the spirit.

Also, I'm seeing a lot of people straight up disrespecting Kenshi + Sprit and just pressing a button to kill the spirit.
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Mostly because in good hands sento is pretty oppressive, but I think it should be. Still getting into sento isn't as easy as people make it out to be and the cooldown after sento is blown is a REAL disadvantage.

Smacking the spirit is great when you can, but given that most people activate in such a way as to lead to that double slash you're dealing with it on wakeup, and it's behind you making it hard to hit.

While there's going to be some dip as people figure out his gimmicks and nonsense, I also think he's likely to get better as more and more kenshi players find ways to just use base kenshi and kameo's better.

Still, as I said before, I'm yet to see anything I'd call for a nerf on. Could get there, but isn't yet.
 
Skybox

Skybox

Noob
The op:
Raiden, Baraka, Cage, Sareena, Cyrax

The noob Killer:
Smoke

Buttons are slow, their combo paths feel very limited: scorpion, Reptile
 
Juggs

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Based on my limited experience and also what some top players have said, this is my personal list. But this is a super rough draft.

21051
 
Juggs

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Went ahead and stuck this thread so if another one is made it’s easier to find and merge into this one. Actually surprised more people aren’t discussing tiers, that’s typically a lot of people’s favorite thing to do early in a NRS games life, lol. Maybe it’s because there’s a little more depth in this game AND a character can drastically change based on which Kameo they’re using.
 
Ray'sGoodLiquor

Ray'sGoodLiquor

I don't care I'm not a competitive player anymore
Juggs said:
Went ahead and stuck this thread so if another one is made it’s easier to find and merge into this one. Actually surprised more people aren’t discussing tiers, that’s typically a lot of people’s favorite thing to do early in a NRS games life, lol. Maybe it’s because there’s a little more depth in this game AND a character can drastically change based on which Kameo they’re using.
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It's the first MK game in a while with enough depth that the top 5 characters aren't obvious. It's also hard to factor in kameos, and I think kameos will have a ton to do with matchups. I think a lot of bad matchups will switch kameos instead of mains.

I play a lot of sets against a tournament level Ashrah and she's really fucking hard to punish. I can't say if she's top 5 or not but she's tough to deal with.
 
Felipe_Gewehr

Felipe_Gewehr

Twinktile
Ray'sGoodLiquor said:
It's the first MK game in a while with enough depth that the top 5 characters aren't obvious. It's also hard to factor in kameos, and I think kameos will have a ton to do with matchups. I think a lot of bad matchups will switch kameos instead of mains.

I play a lot of sets against a tournament level Ashrah and she's really fucking hard to punish. I can't say if she's top 5 or not but she's tough to deal with.
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Id say the top 5 are still obvious, however they arent THAT different from the rest of the top 10, so you still have variety regardless
 
Juggs

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Ray'sGoodLiquor said:
It's the first MK game in a while with enough depth that the top 5 characters aren't obvious. It's also hard to factor in kameos, and I think kameos will have a ton to do with matchups. I think a lot of bad matchups will switch kameos instead of mains.

I play a lot of sets against a tournament level Ashrah and she's really fucking hard to punish. I can't say if she's top 5 or not but she's tough to deal with.
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I think the top 5 actually ARE obvious, well at least the top 4. Every single person has had the same top 4 just in different order. And that is Kenshi, Baraka, Raiden and Cage. I think it’s pretty clear these characters are the best in the game. Baraka might even end up being #1 honestly. He’s so oppressive with his pressure, and that pressure does a ton of chip. And when he does land a hit he’s taking half your life in one combo (that only costs 1 bar of meter I believe with Cyrax Kameo). And he can combo off his throw. He can completely bypass neutral too. That said, one of the things that makes him OP is Cyrax. He’s still top 5 without Cyrax but I think Cyrax may very well put him at #1 until people start finding legitimate answers to him.

But the rest are definitely up in the air at the moment.
 
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