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Combo Breaker 2024 Live Discussion and Reactions Thread

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Premium Supporter
Even though I think Peacemaker is really good and probably still top 3, I don’t think he needs to he nerfed again, at least not yet. And I also don’t believe Baraka needs to be nerfed. A lot of these characters are able to do these crazy things because of the Kameos making all their fck neutral tools safe or convert for good damage. Idk if people just can’t see that or if they don’t care..
 

rifraf

Noob
I swear if crazy people like you spouting nonsense get Baraka nerfed AGAIN, while Peacekeeper stays the same, lmao! You 100% have beef with ambush kameo's (that are godlike when paired with Peacekeeper just sayin) but weirdly blame it all on Baraka.

But I do agree that Baraka got the mk11 treatment and his gameplay is way too simplistic, he desperately needs the Rain treatment. I hope your whining gets that for me.

#buffBaraka
Flowchart Baraka is flowchart Baraka. These BS kameos are enabling BS gameplay, it's not hard to see why. But I wouldn't expect a Baraka player to be able to figure it out :REO

Also, if Khameleon was nerfed before this tournament literally everyone would use Kano, Goro, Kung Lao and maybe Stryker. If Khameleon goes, the other ones need to go too.

#deleteBaraka
 
Flowchart Baraka is flowchart Baraka. These BS kameos are enabling BS gameplay, it's not hard to see why. But I wouldn't expect a Baraka player to be able to figure it out :REO

Also, if Khameleon was nerfed before this tournament literally everyone would use Kano, Goro, Kung Lao and maybe Stryker. If Khameleon goes, the other ones need to go too.

#deleteBaraka
Yeah, but no. My post clearly went over your head and is continuing to soar off into the horizon, you will never be able to grasp it. I'll give you a hint, we agreed, but shhh don't worry about that now. Baraka bad, ambush kameo hurt rifraf, game bad rifraf hate bad things
 

Felipe_Gewehr

Twinktile
Lord almighty, anyone who can do it, please keep the controversy coming on this thread, for either side. I miss the old leaks thread.
 

rifraf

Noob
Man, this tournament. SoniFox with the Omni Man/Mavado pick and Unjust responding with Peacemaker/Mavado. :eek:
 

BlazingShrapnel

World's Worst Nitara
Expected VGY would be the one to pull Omni-Man this weekend but Sonic bringing Omni/Mavado is probably the best surprise all tourney. Those conversions are crazy lmao
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Premium Supporter
I actually was expecting SonicFox to use OmniMan vs MightyUnjust’s Peacemaker. He used him against him recently online and did very well before the servers went down in one of his recent YT videos.
 

rifraf

Noob
It was a great tournament. I know Peacemaker will get lots of heat from the community and we're all allowed to be sentimental about things we find annoying but in all seriousness I hope no character nerfs come out because of this tournament.

If anything, the kameos that enable this specific degen playstyle should get changed at some point. Hopefully before EVO.
 
Flowchart Baraka is flowchart Baraka. These BS kameos are enabling BS gameplay, it's not hard to see why. But I wouldn't expect a Baraka player to be able to figure it out :REO

Also, if Khameleon was nerfed before this tournament literally everyone would use Kano, Goro, Kung Lao and maybe Stryker. If Khameleon goes, the other ones need to go too.

#deleteBaraka
Cry more about Baraka. Maybe you'll get him nerfed a fifth time until he finds another Kameo to barely scrape by once again.
Baraka is not allowed to be a good character, huh?
 

Pan1cMode

AUS FGC represent!
We saw great character diversity this tournament. Huge variety in general. Don’t let anyone tell you that only one character is dominating the meta- it’s not true.

In top 8 alone:
Rain
Johnny
Peacemaker
Shao Khan
Sindel
Ermac
Omni-man
Nitara
Baraka
Kung Lao

Kameo wise:
Goro
Khameleon
Janet
Mavado
Kung Lao
Sub Zero
Kano

If we extend further to top 24
Reiko
Liu Kang
Tanya
Smoke
Mileena
Quan Chi

Kameos:
Motaro
Tremor

And honestly probably more that we didn’t see streamed.
 
Sure the usual suspects were still there but we saw a decent amount of Mavado (nothing to convince me he deserves that -100 yet) General Shao and Rain. We saw a rare Shang Tsung and we also saw Reptile in pools thanks to Cossner and TamedLizard... it's not much but it's a step up from last year.

Character variety was good.

And when's the last time somebody beat Sonic Fox in Grand Finals without resetting the bracket?
 

rifraf

Noob
Maybe you'll get him nerfed a fifth time until he finds another Kameo to barely scrape by once again.
Did I say nerf him? No sir. I said DELETE him from the game. No Tarkat victims allowed! When I go to pick a character, I want to see a blank space where Baraka is now. You want to play him? Fire up MK11 and lock in!
:REO

Anyway, in case you missed it.

It was a great tournament. I know Peacemaker will get lots of heat from the community and we're all allowed to be sentimental about things we find annoying but in all seriousness I hope no character nerfs come out because of this tournament.

If anything, the kameos that enable this specific degen playstyle should get changed at some point. Hopefully before EVO.
 

Arqwart

D'Vorah for KP2 copium
We saw great character diversity this tournament. Huge variety in general. Don’t let anyone tell you that only one character is dominating the meta- it’s not true.

In top 8 alone:
Rain
Johnny
Peacemaker
Shao Khan
Sindel
Ermac
Omni-man
Nitara
Baraka
Kung Lao

Kameo wise:
Goro
Khameleon
Janet
Mavado
Kung Lao
Sub Zero
Kano

If we extend further to top 24
Reiko
Liu Kang
Tanya
Smoke
Mileena
Quan Chi

Kameos:
Motaro
Tremor

And honestly probably more that we didn’t see streamed.
This game has by FAR the best character representation of any modern NRS tournament for a top 24. For anyone doubting the kameo system: read 'em and weep. Yall can be unhappy with how it's variations with a few extra steps cause that's entirely fair, but clearly it's working exceptionally well alongside very intentionally designed playable roster characters to allow for a lot of diverse gameplay and relatively even balance (though that bar is in hell after MK9/X/11 lol).

Now where my top tier Kitana players at? I'm sure as hell not good enough to hit this level of play, but I need my girl takin Ws off people. Gimme them post-buff MKX days. :cool:
 

BlazingShrapnel

World's Worst Nitara
Watched pretty much every second of the streams, and by my final tally of characters that popped up on stream at least once, Combo Breaker saw every character except Kitana, Scorpion, Raiden, and Li Mei. Whits probably played Raiden in his sets, but no clue about the rest. I genuinely can't recall the last NRS game that had that many characters from the roster show up on stream.

Only thing I'm shocked by was the relative lack of Kenshis, especially considering NA and LATAM have Kenshi higher tier than the EU and ME do. Instead, we got waaaaay more Peacemaker than I expected (or wanted, tbh).
 
Did I say nerf him? No sir. I said DELETE him from the game. No Tarkat victims allowed! When I go to pick a character, I want to see a blank space where Baraka is now. You want to play him? Fire up MK11 and lock in!
:REO

Anyway, in case you missed it.
Yeah yeah whateva, you should have masked up.

I'm still not convinced about -100 health penalty on Mavado.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Watched pretty much every second of the streams, and by my final tally of characters that popped up on stream at least once, Combo Breaker saw every character except Kitana, Scorpion, Raiden, and Li Mei. Whits probably played Raiden in his sets, but no clue about the rest. I genuinely can't recall the last NRS game that had that many characters from the roster show up on stream.

Only thing I'm shocked by was the relative lack of Kenshis, especially considering NA and LATAM have Kenshi higher tier than the EU and ME do. Instead, we got waaaaay more Peacemaker than I expected (or wanted, tbh).
I think it was mainly the streamed matches missing Kenshi, since JChan/Hayatei etc. made it fairly far.

Can definitely say that there were too many interesting sets at this event to stream them all. There were a lot of character matchups I was curious about, and EVO will be another chance to see more of them.
 

Son ov Timett

Bork, No Jin
Just saw that King Gambler "Coaching" moment. Who TF was that dude? Gambler should've bloodied that cat's nose for that stunt.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
Combo Breaker saw every character except Kitana, Scorpion, Raiden, and Li Mei.
No Raiden? Are you certain? A couple of experts on this website predicted that Raiden would still be prevalent in spite of the nerfs.

Anyway, I watched most of the tournament. There were a plethora of nail-biting sets by various talented players from America and abroad. When Sonic Fox loses before top 8 and someone beats Ninja Killa while being down 2:0, you know that the competition is of the highest quality. I wish that Grr had been on stream, though. Apparently, he had a very close set with Sonic Fox off-stream.

While I genuinely enjoyed watching this tournament, I have lots to criticize about Mortal Kombat 1's meta, which I will save for the next podcast. I have a very difficult time accepting the fact that the best zoning character in the game still does (surprise!) a full screen attack into kameos. Very original, NRS.
 

rifraf

Noob
While I genuinely enjoyed watching this tournament, I have lots to criticize about Mortal Kombat 1's meta, which I will save for the next podcast. I have a very difficult time accepting the fact that the best zoning character in the game still does (surprise!) a full screen attack into kameos. Very original, NRS.
It's not a character issue. It's the 4 kameos that enable this gameplay, and NRS should rework them.
 
It's not a character issue. It's the 4 kameos that enable this gameplay, and NRS should rework them.
It's more than 4. I'm not a huge fan, but it's clearly the intended way to play this game. Goro, Kano, Khameleon, Jax(kinda), Lao, Sonya, Motaro, Mavado can even do it with defensive Trap use.

A sad but honest thought is that NRS has always catered to casuals, this MK is scrubby on purpose. I mean, no interesting single player mode to keep casuals around and the most degenerate gameplay of the NRS Era is certainly ripe for a conspiracy theory. They're gonna let it ride as far as HOW the Kameos work. Maybe cooldowns will get changed or something that just makes the game less fun but keeps it the same in theory.

Tournament was solid, happy to see the time of unbeatable Sonicfox end but is it him finally getting competition or is it a game that has a very close ceiling and floor?
 

rifraf

Noob
It's more than 4. I'm not a huge fan, but it's clearly the intended way to play this game. Goro, Kano, Khameleon, Jax(kinda), Lao, Sonya, Motaro, Mavado can even do it with defensive Trap use.

A sad but honest thought is that NRS has always catered to casuals, this MK is scrubby on purpose. I mean, no interesting single player mode to keep casuals around and the most degenerate gameplay of the NRS Era is certainly ripe for a conspiracy theory. They're gonna let it ride as far as HOW the Kameos work. Maybe cooldowns will get changed or something that just makes the game less fun but keeps it the same in theory.

Tournament was solid, happy to see the time of unbeatable Sonicfox end but is it him finally getting competition or is it a game that has a very close ceiling and floor?
One thing's for sure. NRS created this situation. Either was intended or not, that's the reality we're in. Now, something I'm skeptical about is the what-if scenario were NRS goes in and actually changes these "F neutral" kameos and players like @M2Dave start moaning and crying how NRS keeps nerfing stuff or whatever? The game will in fact be a better game but some players that enjoy the drama will never be happy with anything and those same players have the loudest voices. So, from NRS' point of view it may be a net negative to put all the work necessary to fix the game and still have players crap on them.

it's clearly the intended way to play this game
If it was the intended way to play the game Cyrax wouldn't get nerfed, Stryker and even Lao. Goro and Kano have never been nerfed but I'm willing to give NRS the benefit of the doubt. Besides, just straight up nerfing them will most like end up being another Cyrax situation were the Kameo is gutted. That's why a rework is more of a solution. Make them do something different, not plus frames to everything.
 
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CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Tournament was solid, happy to see the time of unbeatable Sonicfox end but is it him finally getting competition or is it a game that has a very close ceiling and floor?
Sonic was never unbeatable. Over time Sonic has lost to Scar, Dragon, Semij, Tweedy, HoneyBee, REO, King, etc.

The thing that keeps Sonic on top isn’t winning every event, but figuring out how to bounce back from the losses and adjust to win again. And that’s something that’s been consistent for 4-5 games now.