Sub-Zero General Discussion

[LiangHuBBB]

does anyone else doing the triple ice clone randomly by accident very often since the patch?

 

[OldManFGC]

does anyone else doing the triple ice clone randomly by accident very often since the patch?

100%. And interestingly, like Lionheart says, there's actually 2 different single bar versions now, which I think will be nice. I just need to get used to waiting to block until Sub is on the ground.

 

[Gelato]

does anyone else doing the triple ice clone randomly by accident very often since the patch?

not only happens that what i notice is that offline the ex clone work i can get the 1bar and the 2bar version online i always get the 2 bar version

 

[Amplified$hotz]

since cyrax net drains meter now, you can get someone in a net then increase the net capture time by spamming icy vapors. Stealing more meter than usual.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

https://x.com/mk_tombrady/status/1735701008611721644?s=46&t=hSkiyIrskk7H7tDvqotbpg

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Anti wake-up tech with Jax:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1713863842600501338

 

[rifraf]

Alright guys, since Sub-Zero got some "FAT" buffs now, I've been deep diving him lately.

So, right! Where do we begin with this guy? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand his kit correctly, SZ is a zoner that wants to stay mid/mid-far screen. His main buttons suggest that he's not meant for close combat and none of his full strings is special cancellable. That leaves us with his special moves, which again I believe are a zoners moves.

Having said that, I don't understand how Sub-Zero is supposed to open you up when his specials are so gimped? Forget about kameos. How does he open you up? His b2 has so much power put to it but it's fundamentally a bad move, and SZ has no real way to make you respect it. You don't really have to crouchblock against SZ because there are no real threats so his b2 is useless. A random slide is not a massive threat at all, and if he's up close to use any of his other lows it's probably not going to end up well for him anyway.

That could change imo, if some of his specials are slightly changed to hit low. It wouldn't change his defense, but I believe he could be able to apply far away pressure and punish.

1. His air EXdb4 being a low, could be a great punish move and opens up a combo route from far away. He's spending a bar for that!
2. I don't understand why on earth both deadly vapors are a mid and not a low?? The move is beyond disappointing right now. (Scorpion's flames is a low!) Making it a low, would make the opponent want to crouchblock a bit more, thus opening them up to a potential b2.
3. Why is his ice ball so painfully slow? Seriously, it makes no sense.

I apologize if I'm super off in my opinions, it's just what I understand from playing the character as well as playing against him. Please feel to comment and correct me.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Alright guys, since Sub-Zero got some "FAT" buffs now, I've been deep diving him lately.

So, right! Where do we begin with this guy? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand his kit correctly, SZ is a zoner that wants to stay mid/mid-far screen. His main buttons suggest that he's not meant for close combat and none of his full strings is special cancellable. That leaves us with his special moves, which again I believe are a zoners moves.

Having said that, I don't understand how Sub-Zero is supposed to open you up when his specials are so gimped? Forget about kameos. How does he open you up? His b2 has so much power put to it but it's fundamentally a bad move, and SZ has no real way to make you respect it. You don't really have to crouchblock against SZ because there are no real threats so his b2 is useless. A random slide is not a massive threat at all, and if he's up close to use any of his other lows it's probably not going to end up well for him anyway.

That could change imo, if some of his specials are slightly changed to hit low. It wouldn't change his defense, but I believe he could be able to apply far away pressure and punish.

1. His air EXdb4 being a low, could be a great punish move and opens up a combo route from far away. He's spending a bar for that!
2. I don't understand why on earth both deadly vapors are a mid and not a low?? The move is beyond disappointing right now. (Scorpion's flames is a low!) Making it a low, would make the opponent want to crouchblock a bit more, thus opening them up to a potential b2.
3. Why is his ice ball so painfully slow? Seriously, it makes no sense.

I apologize if I'm super off in my opinions, it's just what I understand from playing the character as well as playing against him. Please feel to comment and correct me.

He’s not a zoner. The character has no real archetype of his own as he’s gutter trash. He’s unfinished in my opinion due to his bad frame data and move properties.

The way you play him depends on which kameo you’ve equipped to carry his poor toolset.

You open people up with barebones strike/throw mix ups, whiff punishing, klone, and having good timing. What people don’t get is, that’s you as a player opening someone up, NOT Sub-Zero.

He has no real strong gameplan or win condition besides MK Tom Brady’s new vortex. I’ve been saying this for months but people refuse to believe it. NRS either doesn’t want the character to be good or they’re very incompetent.

 

[ticklebandit!]

Forgive my laziness for not finding it in this thread, but what are sub zero’s bnbs with Sonya again?? Like off b2 and b34?

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

Alright guys, since Sub-Zero got some "FAT" buffs now, I've been deep diving him lately.

So, right! Where do we begin with this guy? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand his kit correctly, SZ is a zoner that wants to stay mid/mid-far screen. His main buttons suggest that he's not meant for close combat and none of his full strings is special cancellable. That leaves us with his special moves, which again I believe are a zoners moves.

Having said that, I don't understand how Sub-Zero is supposed to open you up when his specials are so gimped? Forget about kameos. How does he open you up? His b2 has so much power put to it but it's fundamentally a bad move, and SZ has no real way to make you respect it. You don't really have to crouchblock against SZ because there are no real threats so his b2 is useless. A random slide is not a massive threat at all, and if he's up close to use any of his other lows it's probably not going to end up well for him anyway.

That could change imo, if some of his specials are slightly changed to hit low. It wouldn't change his defense, but I believe he could be able to apply far away pressure and punish.

1. His air EXdb4 being a low, could be a great punish move and opens up a combo route from far away. He's spending a bar for that!
2. I don't understand why on earth both deadly vapors are a mid and not a low?? The move is beyond disappointing right now. (Scorpion's flames is a low!) Making it a low, would make the opponent want to crouchblock a bit more, thus opening them up to a potential b2.
3. Why is his ice ball so painfully slow? Seriously, it makes no sense.

I apologize if I'm super off in my opinions, it's just what I understand from playing the character as well as playing against him. Please feel to comment and correct me.

He's a runaway reactionary character, your right his BF2 push is punishable by jump in kick, his clone is punishable on reaction and his deadly vapors is only used for combos, his B2 is very unsafe and requires Kameo, his Divekick is punishable on reaction with UpBlock or backdash into wiff punish.
His entire moveset has gaps:
1(Gap)2, 2(Gap)1, 1(Gap)2(Gap)2, 2(Gap)1(Gap)2, B3(Gap)4, 3(Gap)4, 4(Gap)4, F12(gap,)3
Because of this he can't safely jail off D1 only his D4 into F12 works.
His F12 can't be used close up vs good characters because of things like Johnny's D1 6f and F3 9f Mid or fast mids or jabs.

But Brady's tech is good if you can start B2 with charged Lao hat and combo long enough into air freeze to get it back to loop it into the one Brady showed midscreen. That makes his B2 very hard to guess and you can hold Lao hat to hit afterwards to make it safe. All you need is one touch into this Vortex loop.
I think he's more like bottom of S unless you while gameplan is wiff punishing and safely setting up HTBs and reacting to their moves.
He's a bottom tier character that has many flaws being carried by a looping vortex.
As much as I hate to say it, I think it will get nerfed even though 5 other characters are running around with this kind of dirt. Because people FN hate Sub Zero for whatever reason. The buff to Clone was only a fix the the EX Clone glitch they caused last patch and the 1more frame of cancel window and 1 more frame of B2 active frames was clearly a FU buff and was not intended to cause a HTB Vortex. At least I can't imagine they did with that kind of change, who would've thought 1 Frame of active would do this. Think about how bad they gutted Sub Zero in relation to S+ Tier characters in the Beta and before first patch with Johnny, Kenshi, Baraka, Raiden, Sindel, Ashrah who had wild TOD sequences, Vortex, Unblockable infinites, crazy pressure and mix, insane chip with 50/50's.

On a positive note for now Sub has dirt that is actually strong and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts and I'll use it in KL and locals and all those that cry about Sub it will be a reality check, cuz if he loses it I'm using Sindel Infinite after Nerf and if they nerf that I'll use the 10 other ones that exists that isn't being shared with the community because how Nerf smiley they are.

I didn't have much time to lab but my issue was I couldn't get Vortex HTB started using Lao hat HTB midscreen only in corner with 3x B2 into S4xxClone. I'm probably doing something wrong and I'm sure @Amplified$hotz or @OldManFGC or one of you Sub loyalists can find something. I'm going to main Sub but I'm also using Quan and I gotta find his answers to Ashrah, Kenshi, Raiden and Rushdown chars with crazy frame data and make vids.

if you can find a way to get Lao hat HTB to loop midscreen into a freeze then it's gonna be good for offense because right now it's very risky to use B2 with HTB setup or Kameo to make it safe like Stryker but this Jax/Lao loops is really strong, don't get me wrong you can always play your opponent into hanging themselves with footsies using F1 as wiff punisher or staggers into backdash F1/21 and I like using Divekick on reaction to them wiffing or doing projectiles or on reads when I know they do projectile into pressure like Ashrah DF1 projectile into F2/21
Or Reptile's forcballs after invisible setup

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Forgive my laziness for not finding it in this thread, but what are sub zero’s bnbs with Sonya again?? Like off b2 and b34?

There’s a lot depending if you’re calling Sonya twice or just once. Or if you’re spending a bar or not.

Here are a few posts that contains some: https://testyourmight.com/threads/sub-zero-kombos.74792/post-2712617

Sub-Zero Kombos

Post Sub Kombos here!

testyourmight.com

Sub-Zero Kombos

testyourmight.com

Sub-Zero General Discussion

@Amplified$hotz It looks like up Kopter is so damage scaled with Subs damage scale that you only get 20% off the Sweep. You can do B2 into Up Kopter but don't get more damage than base Sub Zero. You can get Bomb setups and do 40% midscreen off overhead and 35% off B4 The bomb is +71 on block...

testyourmight.com

 

[Amplified$hotz]

He's a runaway reactionary character, your right his BF2 push is punishable by jump in kick, his clone is punishable on reaction and his deadly vapors is only used for combos, his B2 is very unsafe and requires Kameo, his Divekick is punishable on reaction with UpBlock or backdash into wiff punish.
His entire moveset has gaps:
1(Gap)2, 2(Gap)1, 1(Gap)2(Gap)2, 2(Gap)1(Gap)2, B3(Gap)4, 3(Gap)4, 4(Gap)4, F12(gap,)3
Because of this he can't safely jail off D1 only his D4 into F12 works.
His F12 can't be used close up vs good characters because of things like Johnny's D1 6f and F3 9f Mid or fast mids or jabs.

But Brady's tech is good if you can start B2 with charged Lao hat and combo long enough into air freeze to get it back to loop it into the one Brady showed midscreen. That makes his B2 very hard to guess and you can hold Lao hat to hit afterwards to make it safe. All you need is one touch into this Vortex loop.
I think he's more like bottom of S unless you while gameplan is wiff punishing and safely setting up HTBs and reacting to their moves.
He's a bottom tier character that has many flaws being carried by a looping vortex. As much as I hate to say it, I think it will get nerfed even though 5 other characters are running around with this kind of dirt

I didn't have much time to lab but my issue was I couldn't get Vortex HTB started using Lao hat HTB midscreen only in corner with 3x B2 into S4xxClone.

if you can find a way to get Lao hat HTB to loop midscreen into a freeze then it's gonna be good for offense because right now it's very risky to use B2 with HTB setup or Kameo to make it safe like Stryker but this Jax/Lao loops is really strong, don't get me wrong:

So with this, you can make the overhead hit before the hat does?

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

So with this, you can make the overhead hit before the hat does?

Yes but it's a very hard combo to do because you have to link two B2's instantly and dash forward before doing first B2 so it doesn't wiff.
The B2 change was a huge buff for extra combo routes and old higher damage opti's
I just suck with Sub and have had time to figure it out. Let's say we can't, we can do wiff punish into this Vortex where rest are 50/50 HTBs and is a TOD sequence. Or you can do setups (essentially baiting Divekick punishes) or setplay to make Divekick punish. It seems solid. But 100% you can do HTB Vortex starting from HTB in corner, so much more juggle opportunities.
Hey try 11xxEXDB4 to pop them up longer for 1 Bar into vortex if you can find any way to juggle long enough for Regen beep and clone freeze them on fall, I know there's several routes and some stages have corner carry from midscreen into corner freeze = HTB Vortex

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Yes but it's a very hard combo to do because you have to link two B2's instantly and dash forward before doing first B2 so it doesn't wiff.
The B2 change was a huge buff for extra combo routes and old higher damage opti's
I just suck with Sub and have had time to figure it out. Let's say we can't, we can do wiff punish into this Vortex where rest are 50/50 HTBs and is a TOD sequence. Or you can do setups (essentially baiting Divekick punishes) or setplay to make Divekick punish. It seems solid. But 100% you can do HTB Vortex starting from HTB in corner, so much more juggle opportunities.
Hey try 11xxEXDB4 to pop them up longer for 1 Bar into vortex if you can find any way to juggle long enough for Regen beep and clone freeze them on fall, I know there's several routes and some stages have corner carry from midscreen into corner freeze = HTB Vortex

I’m talking about the vortex. Like how do you make it hard to block? Can you switch up the timing of when the overhead hits like sindel?

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

I’m talking about the vortex. Like how do you make it hard to block? Can you switch up the timing of when the overhead hits like sindel?

Oh yeah you can do the NJP before the low hits or hat hit first. It's all in the delay time before neutral jump and when Lao hat releases. I do it so hat releases by end of meter and I adjust my jump time for it

 

[Amplified$hotz]

K7 Showoff (A popular Sub-Zero player) chose to use Kenshi at Dreamhack (from the matches I saw) instead of Sub-Zero.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Oh yeah you can do the NJP before the low hits or hat hit first. It's all in the delay time before neutral jump and when Lao hat releases. I do it so hat releases by end of meter and I adjust my jump time for it

That’s really good stuff. I suppose Kung Lao is Sub-Zero’s best kameo now.

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

K7 Showoff (A popular Sub-Zero player) chose to use Kenshi at Dreamhack (from the matches I saw) instead of Sub-Zero.

Well I mean Kenshi is crazy good and it might have been a bad matchup for Sub. Like Sub is arguably S Tier only from the vortex factor alone but he's undeniably a bottom tier character when considering toolset without the Vortex so even though Lao is carrying him to high tier status he's still having his low tier struggles.
This is what I was trying to say to Foxy, I understand that we have to consider tier placements with "best known Kameo" for each character because it's unrealistic to try and evaluate every one of the 400+ Kameo matchups. But every character has a toolset base and with Kameo, Kung Lao allows him to vortex and makes zoning more formidable but it does nothing for 90% of his flaws, instead it completely throws away those strings and tools instead of other Kameos that literally close up other characters weaknesses like Prepatch Cyrax did.
Sub will still struggle vs characters that outrange him like Tanya, Ashrah and Sindel because they ignore his defense options and toolset. And he struggles vs characters with crazy up close tools like Johnny.
IMO he will be placed S+ Tier by several pro players but will fall to S/A+ because of his matchups. Characters like Johnny and Sindel have few bad matchups and you can clearly see they are high tier without Kameo.

 

[rifraf]

Since they touched up the kameos now, I believe characters are next. So, fingers crossed SZ will get some sort of slight readjustment. The character is not very well designed at the moment but he has some very interesting and fun moves. It's just that the "puzzle" doesn't really come together very well.

 

[LiangHuBBB]

Im struggling more to win matches with sub in this patch than the last 1
not sure why, even though sub got a clone buff, he still feels so weak

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Im struggling more to win matches with sub in this patch than the last 1
not sure why, even though sub got a clone buff, he still feels so weak

He is weak unless you’re playing Kung Lao or another kameo that allows you to do a nice setup.

However he is better than before.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

Man K7 went down 0-2 against Pulse’s Johnny Cage as Shao. Switched to Sub-Zero tied it to 2-2, then lost 2-3. If you find yourself playing against Johnny or Kenshi play Sub.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

K7 Showoff (A popular Sub-Zero player) chose to use Kenshi at Dreamhack (from the matches I saw) instead of Sub-Zero.

K7’s a day-one Kenshi player. He picked up sub later on, but he’s been using Kenshi for longer than sub.

I do wish that he had started that last set with Sub though, because he definitely would have won it. His Sub is really good.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

K7’s a day-one Kenshi player. He picked up sub later on, but he’s been using Kenshi for longer than sub.

I do wish that he had started that last set with Sub though, because he definitely would have won it. His Sub is really good.

He played Sub in MK11. He’s said that Sub-Zero is his favorite character. He plays Kenshi offline because Kenshi is better. But I consider him a Sub-Zero player at heart. These tweets are from not long after release.

 

[Amplified$hotz]

The new and improved ice klone freezes opponents for a longer duration. This allows conversions and setups that weren’t possible before. Check it out: