What's new

Question What MKX character(s) should I use if I want to improve my fundamentals?

Hey everyone. Title pretty much explains everything. MK11 is out in a few months, and I'd really like to improve my fundamentals before launch. They're pretty horrible at the moment. Truth be told I'm hardly above beginner when it comes to playing fighting games. Basically, I'm looking for a character that stresses the need for good fundamentals in order to get anything done. Doesn't have to be a top tier either. If anything I think a lower tier character would probably be best in this case.

And if people are curious as to what I mean by fundamentals. Basically think of some of the most basic fighting game terminology and basics that would need to be learned if one ever wanted to compete competitively in any fighting game.

I'd also like to thank in advance everyone in the TYM community. The whole site has been amazing when comes to uping your game and leveling up competitively.
 

Gamer68

Fujin!
Maybe Deceptive/Noxious Reptile? He has a lot of different tools and because of that he usually has something to answer the opponent, but he doesn't really have explosive mix-ups or damage. I feel like you really need to understand your character, the opponent's, and different situations to do well with him but maybe that's just me.

Kano can be very similar to a shoto character from Street Fighter (Ryu, Ken, etc), so that isn't a bad pick either. Because of that he is more of a "traditional" fundamentals character in comparison to Reptile.

Like others said MK11 is nothing like MKX, so you should probably look into learning Injustice 2/MK9 instead.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
I've had similar thoughts, in terms of trying to prepare for MK11. I've heard Ninjitsu Scorpion is a pretty "fundamental" MKX character, but who knows. Fundamental MKX might be very different than fundamental MK11.

One thing you could do is to try and break "Fundamentals" down into their separate parts, and then work on those parts individually in practice mode.

For example, when I think of fundamentals, I think of things like spacing, anti-airs, whiff punishing, punishing after the opponent does an unsafe move, block strings, and frame traps. These are all things you can work on in practice mode, with any character. I'd suggest checking out Gief's Gym on Reddit. He's got a lot of good drills you can do to work on fundamentals. They're obviously for Street Fighter, but you can easily adapt them to any fighting game you'd like.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
TBH fundaments aren't about what character you play, but rather how you play them. You can work on them with any character.

If you're depending on the character you pick to give you the fundamentals, I'd say you probably looking at this wrong.
 

STB Sgt Reed

Online Warrior
Don't play injustice. It'll make you start ducking to block. MK has a block button and thus you should play an MK game to get ready for MK11.

I'd recommend MK9 but there's probably no one playing that online.

I would say characters that rely on good spacing of normals and not too many mixups because they've been toned down in mk11. Look to focus on punishing mistakes and whiffs.

The problem is most characters have dirty mixups. Um I'd say use characters like:

Noxious Reptile
Pumped up Jax
Maybe Kenshi to learn good spacing
 
"in terms of trying to prepare for MK11"

mk9: nrs fundamentals
inj2, mkx: online/offline versus

you may also consider to play and explore some good non-nrs games in order to expand your horizon as a player!

all of these available for the ps4:
street fighter 30th anniversary collection (super turbo, alpha 3, third strike)
usf4
guilty gear xrd
skullgirls
garou mark of the wolves
jojo's bizarre adventure
kof 98
 
Last edited:
TBH fundaments aren't about what character you play, but rather how you play them. You can work on them with any character.
This is actually my viewpoint. I could just pick up any character and learn the game's fundamentals that way. But some characters are pretty brain dead and I don't want to end up relying on a character's crutch that in the end won't help me develop anything meaningful.

I essentially want a character that sucks unless im my fundamentals are on point.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

MrWarMachine

Jacqui/D'Vorah 2020
Honeybee said (and Dragon and Grr agreed) that playing MKX to get ready for MK11 is a bad idea.

I'm in the same boat as you, because I also wanted to try to get back in the swing of MKX things prior to the reveal, I'm probably gonna go back to SF: V and DBFZ for now because more people are playing those. However, MKX is still really fun and worth learning even if all of the things don't transfer over.

Cross Counter Training has a lot of good fundamentals videos worth checking out as well.
 
Maybe Deceptive/Noxious Reptile? He has a lot of different tools and because of that he usually has something to answer the opponent, but he doesn't really have explosive mix-ups or damage. I feel like you really need to understand your character, the opponent's, and different situations to do well with him but maybe that's just me.

Kano can be very similar to a shoto character from Street Fighter (Ryu, Ken, etc), so that isn't a bad pick either. Because of that he is more of a "traditional" fundamentals character in comparison to Reptile.

Like others said MK11 is nothing like MKX, so you should probably look into learning Injustice 2/MK9 instead.
Maybe Deceptive/Noxious Reptile? He has a lot of different tools and because of that he usually has something to answer the opponent, but he doesn't really have explosive mix-ups or damage. I feel like you really need to understand your character, the opponent's, and different situations to do well with him but maybe that's just me.

Kano can be very similar to a shoto character from Street Fighter (Ryu, Ken, etc), so that isn't a bad pick either. Because of that he is more of a "traditional" fundamentals character in comparison to Reptile.

Like others said MK11 is nothing like MKX, so you should probably look into learning Injustice 2/MK9 instead.

You're the second person to mention reptile and I've been eyeing him for a while now myself. I may just bite the bullet and start practicing my fundamentals with him.

Though I'm starting to think that SFV may be a better place to practice. Tbh I could always eventually do both.
 

PapaRegadetho

All hail emperor Liucifer Kang!
Variationless Liu Kang is pretty much the best thing,since he has everything a right fundemental character needs in a 2d fighting game. Sagat type of zoning, a good uppercut for anti airing, b2 for spacing and whiff punishing as well as an overhead that splats,fast walkspeed for getting in and out of range for footsies, d3 poke thats plus on block which resembles many other 2d fighting games when it comes to low poking rather than losing your turn after it and aswell some pressure.
 
Variationless Liu Kang is pretty much the best thing,since he has everything a right fundemental character needs in a 2d fighting game. Sagat type of zoning, a good uppercut for anti airing, b2 for spacing and whiff punishing as well as an overhead that splats,fast walkspeed for getting in and out of range for footsies, d3 poke thats plus on block which resembles many other 2d fighting games when it comes to low poking rather than losing your turn after it and aswell some pressure.
Cybernetic or Cutthroat, CT may be a 50/50 machine in the corner but he is a pretty footsie based character imo.
Thanks for info guys. I'll start looking into these characters to see works best for what I'm trying to do.