Something that was never really discussed for this game were the matchups... >.>
It's 5 in the morning, I've got nothing better to do. Not really a big matchup thing, but gives an outline of what characters lose to, and some examples.
-Scorpion basically has no really bad matchups. Sareena and Drahmin are his main hard matchups, but they're not very difficult just because he swings things around so easily.
-Sareena's entire game is neutral control with knives. Jade completely disrupts this, and outranges her, but doesn't really have a safe option. So she doesn't demolish her, but presents herself as her hardest matchup. Other top characters also don't struggle vs her.
-Dairou's main threats are characters who have the easiest times punishing Dairou for using TSD, and those who have air options. Fujin does both of these things, and despite having weaker normals overall, he doesn't care too much when Dairou doesn't really play his game well vs him otherwise. Tanya also fits the mold of the air options character. Jarek is a slightly problematic character, as well. The more I think about Dairou as a character, the more I see he's probably one of the weaker characters in the top tier.
-Drahmin mainly struggles vs Dairou's defensive wall game, and Tanya's ability to be difficult to touch for Drahmin. Li Mei also is a little problematic as her weapon massively outranges him and is pretty safe even vs him.
-Hotaru has solid matchup numbers, and doesn't really lose to any of the top tiers. Sareena is his only truly bad matchup. Not a slaughterfest, though.
-Noob has great punishment, but struggles severely to deal with characters who don't really get punished that easily (Dairou, Sareena, Scorpion, Drahmin, Hotaru, etc). Invisibility is always a powerful tool, though.
-Tanya has the best low in the game (it's only really better than Mileena's due to Mileena's having worse properties overall). She also has an air fireball. And invisibility. She's not safe, but she's very difficult to deal with in the neutral, though. Mainly gets beaten by characters who disrupt her neutral game a lot, like Sareena.
-Kenshi has great damage and mid-screen control, but he doesn't like characters who play keepaway better than him, like Sareena and Dairou. Because Dairou hates lifts, he doesn't do too horribly against him, though.
-Sub-Zero is a great turtle character, and gives characters like Ashrah, Bo Rai Cho, Drahmin, and Kira fits. He does play vs Sareena well, too, but he hates Dairou's TSD a lot.
-Jade loves playing vs projectile characters, but gets pretty banged up when characters don't care about that and can punish her range well.
-Kabal punishes things extremely well due to dash, and nomad touch gives him solid mid-screen control. His hookswords aren't as good as Mavado's, but he generally creates damage opportunities easily in comparison. Not too many characters give him issues, but he doesn't give too many characters issues, either. More along the lines of that character that just does fine vs everyone and doesn't have defining good/bad matchups.
-Raiden's weapon has absurd range, and pokes well, giving him a great mid-range game. Teleport disrupts zoning and footsies pretty well, and his superman is a solid punisher. Another character who doesn't demolish, but doesn't get demolished, however.
-Bo Rai Cho is essentially Johnny Cage in MK9. His offense is stupid good and you don't want to be near him whatsoever. Great oki from his throw, puke puddle is a great way to break guards, and he moves forward super fast. He doesn't really like turtles, though. Sonya gives him hell, as do Smoke and Sub.
-Smoke is as turtly as Sub, and hates the same things Sub does, oddly enough. He's better at anti-zoning, though, altogether.
Will add on some other time.
