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Match-up Discussion MK9 2013 Tier List

generic list from a scrub

Kabal
Kenshi
Cyrax
Sonya
KL

Freddy
Cage
Smoke
Kitana
Skarlet
Jax
Reptile

Shang
LK
Sektor
Mileena
Raiden
Ermac
Sub Zero

Quan
Scorpion
Rain
Noob

imo ofc yolo

everything else i agree with except maybe switch kano/sheeva but the fish are already pushing it so who cares about plankton
 

TheTetraSpirit

Kombatant
Meh the MU is pretty easy still 6-4 smoke at least imo and I think thats a fair analysis of the MU.

Whats your usual tools for spacing cage besides D4? How does he do vs. max range blade charge on block? Can't he still get a F3 in on block for free and begin pressuring? I play Baraka quite a bit, but not to the extent you do. I do think he is better than everyone in that tier though with the exception of MAYBE Rain.

At max range, none of his normals can touch you. Pretty sure shadow kick can still punish it all the time, though, so I use it very sparingly.
Otherwise I actually use a lot of things for spacing because the pace of the match tends to be slower against him.
I use 2/21 fake outs a bit, dashing in for raw F2xxSlices, and of course D4s.
There's more walking in and out in this match than a lot of Street Fighter matches.
 

cR WoundCowboy

WoundCowbae <3
WoundCowboy who do you think are Shang's worst MU's? I think smoke, lao, kabal, sonya, kenshi and Cyrax body him all relatively free (7-3 for all with the exception of maybe the latter two).

Smoke could be in the same tier as Freddy and Lao for sure all 3 of these characters are super solid but they all also have those one or two complete ass match ups. I wanna break it down more I feel like we should compare their MU's and tools a lot more closely.

Also Reptile was kinda just thrown there thats not really exact. He's within that tier but he's not necessarily at the top like it shows.
The only characters that really destroy him on that list are Cyrax and Smoke. His only other atrocious MU is Jax.
 

xSMoKEx

Coward Character User
lol I just noticed the one thing that his three worst MUs have in common: they all have 100% combos :(. And yea, Jax can't be pressured, footsied or zoned; there are no options.
Shang's high hitbox and lack of armor really f him otherwise he'd be a very solid character. His D3 is nice, pressure is pretty good, decent fireball game and spacing game in general.

You don't find Lao to be terrible though? the hitbox making all of his jabs (1,11,112,1121, 2, 21) hit seems so terrible and he even lands tele 3 easier vs. crouch block (very situational but still). I figure that stupid pressure + his mobility would be an issue.
 

cR WoundCowboy

WoundCowbae <3
Shang's high hitbox and lack of armor really f him otherwise he'd be a very solid character. His D3 is nice, pressure is pretty good, decent fireball game and spacing game in general.

You don't find Lao to be terrible though? the hitbox making all of his jabs (1,11,112,1121, 2, 21) hit seems so terrible and he even lands tele 3 easier vs. crouch block (very situational but still). I figure that stupid pressure + his mobility would be an issue.
Nope, 4-6. Upskulls are pretty good at controlling his teleport and divekick movement and Shang can sort of give himself a low hitbox with D3 to avoid his pressure. I have played Pboard, King, and Perfect Legend offline and I did fine.
 

xSMoKEx

Coward Character User
Nope, 4-6. Upskulls are pretty good at controlling his teleport and divekick movement and Shang can sort of give himself a low hitbox with D3 to avoid his pressure. I have played Pboard, King, and Perfect Legend offline and I did fine.
Thats enough to convince me lmao i'll take your word for it.
 

miloPKL

soundcloud.com/pukelization
It's been about 2 years since I even thought about posting one. So here goes another to add to the pile.

S+
Kabal

S
Kenshi Sonya Cyrax Lao Freddy

A
Cage, Jax, Skarlet, Kitana, Smoke

B
Liu Kang, Sektor, Shang Tsung, Mileena, Reptile, Ermac

C
Raiden, Sub Zero, Scorpion, Noob Saibot, Quan Chi, Scorpion, Rain, Cyber, Sindel

D
Stryker, Baraka, Nightwolf, Kano, Jade, Sheeva,
 

Jay Rupp

Human Smoke or Riot
I havent played in a grip does Quanchi really blow that hard? i used to main ermac and he used to feel A tier.

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GamerBlake90

Blue Blurs for Life!
I havent played in a grip does Quanchi really blow that hard? i used to main ermac and he used to feel A tier.

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Quan Chi is NOTHING without the Rune Trap, which is basically 45% damage just for blocking (more if it follows a combo). His lack of good mix-ups just makes it harder to achieve the trap, let alone a combo. Why play him when you can play Smoke or Cyrax who punish you just as hard, or harder, all for the cost of one bar of meter rather than three, while having infinitely superior tools in every aspect? The only other good tool Quan Chi has is a 7-frame uppercut.

Ermac is...decent at best. He hits you hard, for meter or without, and has okay zoning, but opening you up is the problem. I think zaf can comment more on how Ermac works as he does main the character.
 

SCK ERR0R MACR0

Apprentice
I havent played in a grip does Quanchi really blow that hard? i used to main ermac and he used to feel A tier.

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Quan Chi is terrible--few characters have it worse than him. His only redeeming quality really is Rune Trap and even that only makes most of his matchups 5-5 and 4-6. If you have to break, your offense goes away.

Some claim his mixups are good, but they're only good if someone doesn't know Quan. Quan's low starter is decent, but he doesn't have anything to give you a reason not to block him low. He has two overhead options, the first is after the low starter, B, 1+2, but you have plenty of time to see it coming and block. The second option is U+3, which is extremely slow and can be blocked on reaction pretty much, not to mention is is full combo punished on block by the entire cast.

His wake up game makes getting cornered a nightmare, and ES telestomp is really the only way out of pressure. Even then, someone can anticipate the ES telestomp, back dash and full combo punish it. His uppercut is decent, but that's about it.

Quan can frustrate players unfamiliar with him and his gimmicks--outside of that, he gets steam rolled by a lot of the cast.
 

GamerBlake90

Blue Blurs for Life!
Quan Chi is terrible--few characters have it worse than him. His only redeeming quality really is Rune Trap and even that only makes most of his matchups 5-5 and 4-6. If you have to break, your offense goes away.

Some claim his mixups are good, but they're only good if someone doesn't know Quan. Quan's low starter is decent, but he doesn't have anything to give you a reason not to block him low. He has two overhead options, the first is after the low starter, B, 1+2, but you have plenty of time to see it coming and block. The second option is U+3, which is extremely slow and can be blocked on reaction pretty much.

Quan can frustrate players unfamiliar with him and his gimmicks--outside of that, he gets steam rolled by a lot of the cast.

Yo, didn't I play you today in MK9? The tag was E_R_R_O_R__MACRO. If I didn't, I may have run into an impostor.
 

SCK ERR0R MACR0

Apprentice
Yo, didn't I play you today in MK9? The tag was E_R_R_O_R__MACRO. If I didn't, I may have run into an impostor.

It seems many people have a tag that is something like it--mine is ERR0R MACR0. I've had this tag for around 7 years, I kind of knew once MK9 was announced that it was going to be out of style lol
 

zaf

professor
Ermac is...decent at best. He hits you hard, for meter or without, and has okay zoning, but opening you up is the problem. I think zaf can comment more on how Ermac works as he does main the character.
When people think of zoning, they generally think of like a freddy where he can shoot claws or a kenshi that can flurry or shoulder. This is more active zoning. Where ermac takes away space from you. He is still zoning as he controls space. So when people think "oh ermac zoning sucks"... They generally think of ermac's that use TKP a lot and use it kinda recklessly or randomly. When this is not entirely the case. Doing this gives your opponent so many opportunities to just dash in after a blocked tkp and pressure you for free.

Ermac TKP occupies a lot of space. Generally you will notice when people play they tend to dash block a lot or block a lot against him because of how easy it is to get snagged by a TKP. If you look at a kitana vs cage MU, they generally space each other out a lot. They walk back and forth a lot as well. Well when you play ermac it is very hard to be playing this sort of game. You need to bait ermac to TKP, so that you can either punish if you play a character that can punish, OR block one so you can get in and start pressure. If you are trying to bait a TKP, this is when ermac can play his game. He can go in on you at this point since you are blocking.

Since he has no real high/low mix up.. You generally want to do strings into throws. This is how you will open your opponent up. When they think you will throw, you need to blow them up. When they think you will keep doing block strings, start to throw more. You do not necessarily need a high/low mix up game to open people up. You also do not want to let ermac sit on a life lead as this is something he can control very well.

What he lacks in a true mid blockstring, he makes up for with his iafb.
At highest level play when you block a poke, it is a lot better to follow up with a blockstring rather then a poke into blockstring.
Ermac has 3 main types of strings. Ones that are high starters that generally are not good to use as a counter poke, strings that are too slow to be used as a counter poke and lastly some mids. B34 and 31 are 12 frame starter mids, but the second hits whiff without a jump in on most characters. In this case you can use iafb to blow up pokes that you block. This does actually punish and hit people with -13 d1's. Which then lets you follow up. Characters that this does not punish, this still generates a good guessing game. That most people still block afterwards because they are either afraid of a tkp or tks or they are trying to bait one.

This is just how he works, in a nutshell.
 

YOMI Reno_Racks

I have a dream...
Wasn't an Mk player but why was Rain considered not good? He always looks strong whenever I see someone play him.
He's pretty good. He just gets zoned out in a lot of matchups. Kitana, Kenshi, Kabal, Kung Lao, Shang and Freddy are all very bad mus for him. He can compete with everyone else but doesn't destroy anyone in the cast.