what is "keeping you in check" or "checking" your opponent?

[noobharvester]

what is "keeping you in check" or "checking" your opponent?

 

[cyke_out]

It basically about reading your opponent and forcing your opponent to respect your options or get hit, usually done with an unsafe move.

for example, characters with a hard hitting fast special like Cage's shadow kick, or nightwolf's shoulder ram, can throw them out at random times or after a blocked string to condition your opponent to block and play more defensive for fear of eating random attacks and giving them an chance to punish those moves.

Once you have them in check, or making them afraid to do something because they are waiting for your move, you can mix it up and do something else, like go for a throw or a cross over jump in.

 

[THTB]

^^That.

 

[R2FI]

It basically about reading your opponent and forcing your opponent to respect your options or get hit, usually done with an unsafe move.

still don't get it.
another example would be raiden - it is described in the guide, randomly teleport into superman or wait a bit after a safe blockstring, finish with superman again to stuff any normals they throw out.

sure, it works (surprisingly often, i got to admit). but isn't it a high risk/low reward move? you don't really know if he is going to block or push buttons (except you playing a noob who tries it over and over again...), but if you are playing an experienced player who himself randomly blocks or push buttons, raiden will get 30+ damage.

think nightwolf's shoulder and cage's shadow kick are safe and can only be punished if crouched and not blocking, so they only get punished by uppercuts.

so, how do you decide when to check and when not?
i think i'm still missing the "read your opponent"-part in mk9. besides many other things, lol

 

[Dark_Rob]

still don't get it.
another example would be raiden - it is described in the guide, randomly teleport into superman or wait a bit after a safe blockstring, finish with superman again to stuff any normals they throw out.

sure, it works (surprisingly often, i got to admit). but isn't it a high risk/low reward move? you don't really know if he is going to block or push buttons (except you playing a noob who tries it over and over again...), but if you are playing an experienced player who himself randomly blocks or push buttons, raiden will get 30+ damage.

think nightwolf's shoulder and cage's shadow kick are safe and can only be punished if crouched and not blocking, so they only get punished by uppercuts.

so, how do you decide when to check and when not?
i think i'm still missing the "read your opponent"-part in mk9. besides many other things, lol

It is really hard to play this game 100% safe. Simply put, you have to take some chances. Checking your opponent is about keeping them honest. Its not something you do everytime, just every now and then to make them respect your options. There is no right or wrong time to do it. Its kind of by instinct. Great players like Reo and Tom Brady have great instincts and they are usually right more than they are wrong. But no one is right 100% of the time.
Sometimes its just about switching up strategies as well. As an example, tonight Red Saleen and I were having alot of back and forth matches. Then we did some SubZero vs Ermac matches and he starting beating me a bunch of times in a row. I was trying to play really safe because I was respecting Ermacs gravity sqeeze/fireball zoning game to much. And he was just chipping me to death and keeping me out. By respecting his options I was playing right into Ermacs game.
Finally I said "To hell with this bullshit, imma rush this mutherfucka down and I dont give a shit what happens" And you know what? I won that match, definitively. Nearly everything I did in that match was completely unsafe and highly punishable. I rushed like a maniac, did unsafe slides,2,2 and 2,2,4 mixups that could have been punished at anytime. But my reads and guesses were right. So sometimes you just gotta throw caution to the wind and "rush that muthafucker down"

 

[R2FI]

thank you for your answer - sounds like i have to stop playing mk as i would play sf.

in mk you are forced to guess much more than in other fighters, or is this a missinterpretation?

 

[Dark_Rob]

thank you for your answer - sounds like i have to stop playing mk as i would play sf.

in mk you are forced to guess much more than in other fighters, or is this a missinterpretation?

To some degree yes. However in every fighter you have to make guesses and reads, its just a little different in MK in its application. But yea, you defnitely cant play MK like SF. Whole different animal.

 

[THTB]

Well, you can do the same things in SF. Checking your opponent in MK is no different from doing so in SF.

And it's not so much guessing, but reading and EVERYTHING in MK9 requires you to set it up. It's a mindgame fest.

 

[R2FI]

and i thought learning mk9 would be much more easier when you have some sf experience.
oh boy... plenty of topics to learn and get used to.

 

[BecomingDeath13]

It is really hard to play this game 100% safe. Simply put, you have to take some chances. Checking your opponent is about keeping them honest. Its not something you do everytime, just every now and then to make them respect your options. There is no right or wrong time to do it. Its kind of by instinct. Great players like Reo and Tom Brady have great instincts and they are usually right more than they are wrong. But no one is right 100% of the time.

Sometimes its just about switching up strategies as well. As an example, tonight Red Saleen and I were having alot of back and forth matches. Then we did some SubZero vs Ermac matches and he starting beating me a bunch of times in a row. I was trying to play really safe because I was respecting Ermacs gravity sqeeze/fireball zoning game to much. And he was just chipping me to death and keeping me out. By respecting his options I was playing right into Ermacs game.

Finally I said "To hell with this bullshit, imma rush this mutherfucka down and I dont give a shit what happens" And you know what? I won that match, definitively. Nearly everything I did in that match was completely unsafe and highly punishable. I rushed like a maniac, did unsafe slides,2,2 and 2,2,4 mixups that could have been punished at anytime. But my reads and guesses were right. So sometimes you just gotta throw caution to the wind and "rush that muthafucker down"

Reading this post had me laughing so hard! Thanks for that Rob. Oh, btw I fixed your paragraphing for ya

 

[BATTLEBEAR]

does anyone else use low FKs to check ?

 

[BecomingDeath13]

I don't usually do it. It depends on the character I have. I mostly poke with the low kicks and sucker the opponent to block low and bam overhead.