RiBBz22
TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
Kung Lao's insane air mobility completely cripples all of Smoke's special moves. One of the only answer for a dive kick heavy Kung Lao is to go to the air and try to beat it with tele-punch but this is way too risky for the damage you get most of the time because on whiff KL can just spin it.
It is an extremely bad guessing game to continue pressure with Smoke since all of his good strings put you at zero frames and he has to at least respect the spin. Sure, you can bait it and hold block but that more than likely puts you into a block string 21212 (or whatever one he wants to do) that will build KL insane meter and lead into a teleport mixup, which because of Smoke's larger hitbox can end up leading into another blockstring and more meter.
Sure Smoke punishes hard, but chances are with the way KL builds meter that he will have enough to break.
IMO KL is tied with Kabal for Smoke's most difficult MU.
Here is a snip from KT Smith's guide which I still believe applies to the current MU:
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Kung Lao: Large Advantage KL
One of if not the worst MU Smoke has for several reasons.
One, you can't run away from KL. Whiffed dive kick and teleports chase smoke drift faster than you can do them.
Two, he has heavy air mix ups. A jump in > top screen teleport is super fucking hard to punish unless you really commit to it on prediction.
Three, spin. Spin blows up all cross up pressure for full launches for free and makes it risky to even poke him to get out of pressure.
And worst of all, four, all of his jabs jail you in crouch block, so it's effortless for KL to put you in pressure.
I don't have to mention that you should never ever jump at KL right? Good.
In order to beat Kung Lao you HAVE to punish his shit. His normals are straight up better than yours in every way. In order to keep from being pressured (because his standing 2 has such retarded range), you have to naked crouch and d4 a lot as he's charging in at you on the ground. This is risky because he can f33 xx spin you for full combo. You really have to guess what he's going to do because if you try to block check his f3 you're easily jailed into pressure. His pressure is ridiculous, too. You're likely eat a fuck-ton of chip and nickel & dime damage from his overhead/low mix up. You MUST take risks to get out of his pressure and it's super fucking easy for him
to put you there.
Thankfully, after the nerf, low hat is -14 on block. This is enough of a window to punish with 21 xx SB but is risky; if you're off by 2 frames and you get blocked you're getting launched by spin.
Against Teleport, you want to d3 > d1. 99% of the time the KL player will teleport > 3. Use your d3 to dodge it and you can knock him out of the air for a combo. This is really tight because of Smoke's huge hit box and you're going to get blown up if you mistime it.
Like was mentioned above, you HAVE to punish his spin and dive kick in order to win so your entire strategy has to revolve around baiting one, the other, or both. if he's a fan of whiffing dive kicks, when he jumps dash forward and block. Sometimes KL players like to get risky with dive kicks from up close. That shit is deceptively fast and is very hard to block on reaction since you have so much more to worry about once he goes airborne.
To get baited spins, you want to fish for knockdowns (sweep) and then get in his face when he's on the ground. Hopefully he'll carelessly spin and you'll get a punish. You're probably going to need to get 2 launchers in a row in order to do any damage because KL builds meter like no other, especially since his pressure is so easy to get started.
The best punisher for spin is still dash in > 21 xx SB.
If you can't bait Kung Lao into blocked spins or dive kicks, you're probably going to lose.
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