Cyrax's footsie game is good, but it's not Top 5 good IMO. By no means am I an experienced player, but I've watched enough high level play that I'm comfortable saying I think he belongs at least 2 places lower. His biggest problem to me, what puts him below other top-tiers, is that he can't convert damage out of anything other than high strings, slow projectiles, or risky mindgames.
He has one overhead that you can combo out of and it's slow as hell (b2). His fastest standing poke is 9 frames. His d3 is 9 frames, -9 on block and +1 on standing hit, which is good but I don't know if it puts it in "OH SHIT HO" status. d4~buzzsaw is a cool 50/50, but if you managed to low block a d4, you should immediately block high and be ready to tech a CG because what else is he gonna do? He's at 0 frame advantage anyway off a blocked d4. And if you get hit with the saw, you've taken a whopping 8%, which isn't so bad considering what he can do out of nets.
lol CG is not a death loop and your alternative is not eating a combo. Tech that shit if your opponent is getting predictable, or if you have huge balls just don't block the jip and see if they whiff a grab. I don't recommend doing that, but it's been done to me -_-' ...d4 and AAt are beast, I'm not gonna fuck with you on that. Ragdoll is also insane because you can make any high string on block safe and build some meter. I think Rax's zoning game is too easy to work your way out of even for rushdown characters like Cage, and too easy to blow up for more mobile characters like Lao. It's only really effective when you have your opponent pinned in the corner. Bomb pressure is unsafe up close, you have to toss a bomb from like 1/2 screen and then approach.
Block high, know what to poke out of, and play smart against his zoning game and you won't be eating resets. I'm not downplaying him as a high-tier or top-tier, and I'm not claiming to be as knowledgeable as high-level players, but I just think he's a few spaces too high.
Yes. Are you?
Thank you for a very informative and detailed answer (no sarcasm). Just to comment on the first point, the damage he does convert off high strings is ridiculous. You really want a low or overhead combo starter on top of that? His slow projectiles....one is a freaking moving wall that is tricky to jump over especially if the Cyrax player is calculated and knows how to counter you avoiding it. It leads to stupid damage and wins pretty much all trades. His bombs are moving land mines that are excellent space control anywhere on the screen. Yes they're slow and if you are predictable with them (or generally opening your chest too much), you'll get punished. But they are very dangerous and tricky to deal with, and even if you have good mobility i.e. Raiden or Lao, Cyrax can set it up in ways to force you into a predictable teleport/dive kick for example and punish big time. If you use it correctly, it's deadly, along with the net. Watch Maxter and you'll know what I mean.
Now onto his pokes. Having a 9 frame standing poke is by no means slow. Only a select few characters (Jax, Sonya, Cage, Liu, Sektor off the top of my head) have quicker pokes. The reason his D3 is so good is because it has maybe the best range out of any D3. This means you can do D3-chest saw for free because it's very difficult if not impossible to counter-poke if done at max range except by someone like Sub Zero or Kitana. As for D4-chest saw, yes you gave good counters to it, but a Cyrax player can always link a net if he knows you are going to eat the follow-up to D4. That's death. On top of that, those 8% add up and it then becomes maybe 40-48% just off that. Also I can't give you every possible follow up off neutral situations but Cyrax has options and counters to your counters (as does any character). It's all reads and more often than not Cyrax gets the best punishes out of wrong reads so risk-reward nearly always plays in his hands.
Now onto the mix-up: command grab death vs reset death. Here is what can happen to Cyrax and his opponent.
1) Opponent techs command grab=both characters are safe.
2) Opponent thinks to tech command grab and Cyrax does 21-net=death.
3) Opponent thinks to tech command grab and Cyrax whiffs the grab=potential full combo punish against Cyrax.
4) Opponent remains blocking and Cyrax gets a command grab=15% or whatever plus safe jump into same mix-up
5) Opponent remains blocking and Cyrax does 21 into whatever=both characters are safe
So 5 possibilities. Twice it can be a real problem for the opponent. Once Cyrax can be full combo punished (not nearly as hard as he can punish though), and twice both characters are safe. Also factor this in, it's scary as hell to tech a command grab when you know the alternative outcome for guessing wrong. The fear alone makes this mix-up scary more than anything.
Anyways I agree with you on many points. His zoning can be predictable and he can get out zoned and sometimes he has problems against heavy rush down. But remember this, he always has the best comeback factor and they say it takes "a net and a dream" to do the job and there isn't a truer statement in the game. Is he Kabal or Kenshi level? Of course not. But putting him out of the top 5 is ridiculous at best.
And even then it could be argued that Fighter Hayabusa is D tier compared to Starman.
