Tech Gimmicks

[MK Peanuts]

Here's some terrible setups I've been using lately. You may find that these tactics are effective if your opponent is a moron. If your opponent isn't a moron, I can't guarantee your success, but who knows, maybe you could catch them sleeping or something.

:en Invisibility
I end all my corner combos with 214 xx invisibility, but if I'm feeling particularly frisky I'll enhance the invisibility. This makes you totally invisible instead of just kinda hard to see. I sometimes also EX invis after a knockdown. This is generally something I go for to close out a round. After activating I back off and see what the other guy is gonna do. From there I kinda play it by ear, but in general terms...
-If they whiff something, throw a smoke bomb
-If they jump, air teleport punch
-If they just stand there and block, dash up and throw

xx Smoke Bomb
This is primarily anti-Kung Lao tech. Maybe it's also useful against another character, I'm not sure. 214 has enough pushback on block that you'll be outside the range of Kung Lao's spin, so if your smoke bombs are getting punished by spin a lot, you could use this to bait a spin and then punish it. You're still within range of an EX spin, but that's got 9 startup frames and I'm pretty sure smoke bomb is only -8 on block so you should still be good.


13 kinda looks like it gives you a safe jump on hit, even though it doesn't. You can throw it out there and hope your opponent is like "oh jeez it's a safe jump, I better block." You can also cancel 13 into smoke towards, which actually puts you at disadvantage, but again, maybe they don't know that.

Front throw -> Teleport punch
You can whiff a teleport punch after a throw the same way you would after an air throw. This only works for front throws and only if they don't tech; if it's a back throw or they do tech, the teleport punch gets blocked and you get full combo punished. Pretty bad risk to reward ratio unless you happen to notice they never tech after a front throw.

Throw -> Smoke towards
I can't take credit for this one; I saw ATL Redd doing it on Battle and Brew last Thursday. Unlike everything else I just wrote, this actually seems like a viable tactic. You can smoke towards after a throw, and while the oki you get isn't as good as a whiff teleport punch, it is like a billion times safer. If you used a back throw, smoke towards puts you right up in their grill where you can start going crazy. If you used a front throw, you'll be in range for a b2. Some wake up attacks can hit you while you're stuck recovering from the smoke towards, so watch out.

:en Smoke Bomb Does Chip
I didn't realize this for a long time but it is absolutely a true thing that really happens. I had been using EX teleport punch to try and chip people out, which is obviously really dangerous if it turns out they had 3% health left instead of 2%. EX smoke bomb does the same amount of chip and is safe on block. It's still risky if they jump, though. I dunno if this one really counts, it seems a lot less gimmicky than the other stuff. Well I'm including it anyways.

That's about all I got. Feel free to contribute your own gimmicky and impractical tactics.

 

[G4S KT]

lol, I like 13 as a fake out safe jump. 21 could probably do that too if you're playing that game.

112 xx smoke bomb and b14 xx smoke bomb can serve the same purpose as 214 xx smoke bomb. all three of those string actually trap into smoke bomb so it's good to catch people who are really quick with following up after they block something of yours.

214 has enough pushback on block that hat spin whiffs? that's pretty important to know.

For throws, there are 3 follow up options the way I see it: invis, drift towards, or tpunch. I normally watch to see how often they'll tech knockdowns and if it's rare or never I'll risk a tpunch.

I've been known to blow a full bar going for 6% chip if it'll win the match and we're both at low health. Had about a 50% success rate with that lol

What's some other gimmicky stuff... hmm...

 

[Faded Dreams V]

Throw -> Smoke towards
I can't take credit for this one; I saw ATL Redd doing it on Battle and Brew last Thursday. Unlike everything else I just wrote, this actually seems like a viable tactic. You can smoke towards after a throw, and while the oki you get isn't as good as a whiff teleport punch, it is like a billion times safer. If you used a back throw, smoke towards puts you right up in their grill where you can start going crazy. If you used a front throw, you'll be in range for a b2. Some wake up attacks can hit you while you're stuck recovering from the smoke towards, so watch out.

This is the only one I do that you mentioned. I try to keep pressure for as long as I possibly can. Never really saw anyone do it, but more Smokes should.

I generally don't waste much meter unless it's for breaker, EX Smoke Away, or the F4 reset, but sometimes I (rarely) use 3 D1 EX Invisibility. I learned this from Reptile players, and it works a lot online, but of course, any high-level player will low poke you out of it, and you'll end up wasting meter for nothing. Not to mention you can simply throw or continue poke pressure. But if it does work, you can mindfuck the hell out of your opponent since you're right in their face and they can't see you. Gimmicky to the max. lol.

Regular invisibility can be done at any time fullscreen, when you knock down opponents, after a throw, etc. No reason to do it and no reason not to do it. Might as well if you get the chance.

Oh, and I don't know if this counts as gimmicky, but you can teleport behind your opponent after using a breaker, similarly to when you air throw. He totally has the best breaker just for this reason. =D

 

[MK Peanuts]

Oh, and I don't know if this counts as gimmicky, but you can teleport behind your opponent after using a breaker, similarly to when you air throw. He totally has the best breaker just for this reason. =D

Haha, seriously? I had no idea, that owns.

 

[Faded Dreams V]

Haha, seriously? I had no idea, that owns.

Scratch that. For some reason, it's not working in practice. I just saw some Smoke I beat up do it on me a few minutes ago! Darn it. D:

Maybe it only works after a tech roll or something.

 

[leek]

Scratch that. For some reason, it's not working in practice. I just saw some Smoke I beat up do it on me a few minutes ago! Darn it. D:

Maybe it only works after a tech roll or something.

Was it a breaker in the air?

When a breaker is done in the air, the player that was previously taking the damage recovers faster.

 

[Faded Dreams V]

Coincidentally, I just found a video of a Smoke player doing it (don't know if this is the dude I fought):

1:10 and 1:20. Apparently, the Sektor did in fact tech roll, but the breakers were also in the air....sooooo.....yeah. Seems too risky.....like almost everything else that Smoke did in that video. lol.

 

[MK Peanuts]

My goodness, baiting the shake with homing missile and then punishing with teleport uppercut for the win. That's disgusting.

Anyways I'm gonna start trying whiff teleport punch after air breaker when I play casuals, you know, just see how that goes.

 

[G4S KT]

My goodness, baiting the shake with homing missile and then punishing with teleport uppercut for the win. That's disgusting.

Anyways I'm gonna start trying whiff teleport punch after air breaker when I play casuals, you know, just see how that goes.

Sektor actually can't bait smoke with missles. [MENTION=5003]SwiftTomHanks[/MENTION] and I reached this paradigm for a hot minute and I was like "shit".

Then a few days later I realized you can tpunch any missile on reaction and then I was like "derp".

Not only that, if it was a homing missle, you can tpunch them and then recover in time to shake the homing missile LOL.

 

[MK Peanuts]

Sektor actually can't bait shake with missles. [MENTION=5003]SwiftTomHanks[/MENTION] and I reached this paradigm for a hot minute and I was like "shit".

Then a few days later I realized you can tpunch any missile on reaction and then I was like "derp".

Not only that, if it was a homing missle, you can tpunch them and then recover in time to shake the homing missile LOL.

That's good information. I guess LuciusAxelrod is fortunate that his opponent didn't know any of this.

 

[Faded Dreams V]

You know, I think he could have just blocked both. Even with the missile and teleport, he might have had a magic pixel of health left. Enough to punish Sektor with a full F4 reset since the Sektor (non-EX) teleported to the right of him near a corner when he had a bar of meter and the Sektor had no breaker. Not sure if Sektor would have recovered out of teleport before the missile hit though. Would have been awesome if that Smoke won that way regardless. xD

 

[Apock]

214 - 0 on block
11- 0 on block

 

[smokey]

Sektor actually can't bait smoke with missles. [MENTION=5003]SwiftTomHanks[/MENTION] and I reached this paradigm for a hot minute and I was like "shit".

Then a few days later I realized you can tpunch any missile on reaction and then I was like "derp".

Not only that, if it was a homing missle, you can tpunch them and then recover in time to shake the homing missile LOL.

Homing missile baits are good traps for smoke, because you shouldnt really resist the shakes if you arent looking for the reaction telepunch.

I THINK (need to test next time i can) that i have drifted through a missile, avoided both it and the instant telepunch that came with it, and punished with 21xsmoke bomb. Its good to note that teleporting on reaction kills missile zoning though, you wouldnt be surprised that most projectiles are punishable on reaction with tele, its just risky because if you time it wrong we all know what happens

 

[Faded Dreams V]

Moah gimmicks:

Whiffed EX Telepunch - Most people online are so used to that terrible whiffed Telepunch strategy where you appear behind them. If you do the EX version, you appear in front of them, they will instinctively attack backwards, leave themselves open, and you will get a chance to attack because the EX version is pretty safe (Smoke lands on the ground very quickly).

D4~Invisibility - Probably the best set-up I can think of for invisibility because it creates an adequate space between you and your opponent (they won't instantly poke you out), but you're still close enough to intimidate them. Only bad thing is execution. It's pretty annoying to do on the 360 pad.

D1~Smoke Towards - Just another D1 option. This one is very tough to do on the Pad, but very useful to get out of certain situations.

Nothing new, I imagine, but gimmicks none-the-less.

 

[MK Peanuts]

I imagine you could do d4u3 to buffer the d from the d4 into the motion for invisibility. That may make it easier. Alternately get a real controller