Super Cyrax.

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Super Cyrax - Preparing For The NEC Championship..

Hello there forum. My name is Box.

I am totally devoted to my favorite yellow nightmare, Mr. Cyrax, and I'm on a mission to make mine as superior as humanly (or i guess cybernetically) possible. Thankfully, this Cyrax resurgence and increase in talented players at the tourneys (Mustard and Trophy Club in particular have been the 2 ive really tried to emulate - id be lost if i didnt have the streams to study or their brutal offenses to learn and build off of) has not only given me a LOT of new tactics and strategies. Having never been a fan of the command throw, the bombtrap nerf hasnt affected me whatsoever, and im much more a fan of mind games and strategic fights than being a douche and smothering my opponent in resets depending on who im facing. Ive spent most of my time as of late in the Practice Dojo and running through Expert Ladder trying to make sense of every matchup and build strategy against his more formidable opponents - Mileena and Raiden especially, man do I fucking hate me some Mileena and Raiden - and now i look to you, TYM forum, to help me smooth out the circuits and get the most out of my mustard.

The only ones I can really say ive got a hold on fighting against are Quan Chi, Subzero and Baraka. I would say Kung Lao, but no matter how well one learns to predict his timing and dipgame his hats, running into the wrong relentless Lao rarely turns into a win.
So, any advice? Any and all fighters are who I'm looking to beat, so whatever you think works/could work/have seen work would be welcome, not just for me, but for anyone who's serious about Cyrax. Reset bitching/cheap win bitching or not, there are few people in this game as well put together and (somewhat) evenly matched against whoever they happen to face, and i can guarantee that if half the people clamoring for him to be more patched than he's already been wouldnt be complaining if they were well versed in his moves and could pull off his tricks. That's what the resets are there for, so you still have a plan to fall back on when your opponent blocks your nets faster than you can fire them.
And FOR THE RECORD, if Kung Lao can have as completely overamped an offense as he's got, you can let me keep my grenade juggles, because the odds of pulling off half that shit in a tournament against a real well-assembled player are slim to none.
You dont want to get made an ass of by a robot? Dodge the net. thats about it. At least if/when you go down, itll be under more humane circumstances.

Ive put together a pretty good offense (short, brutal combos like the 2 1 buzzsaw or the punch bounce into grenade bounce into air throw/ragdoll, because it either works and knocks them flat, or it draws out a breaker which THEN can lead to 42-48%-ers as long as theres enough bar for a sticky bomb), but now my focus is all about defense/helping the rest of the Cyrax clan be able to stand my ground in all situations.

 

[PND_Ketchup]

i have a little bit of advice, dont try and just be a clone of another player. it's all well and good watching streams and taking combos and setups from other players but you have no idea how much wonders half an hour in training will do.

not only is it good to find your own tricks but they may be something people havent seen and will probably give you and edge in the match for doing so.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

i have a little bit of advice, dont try and just be a clone of another player. it's all well and good watching streams and taking combos and setups from other players but you have no idea how much wonders half an hour in training will do.

not only is it good to find your own tricks but they may be something people havent seen and will probably give you and edge in the match for doing so.

Nooooo, you're right; i dont mean i literally just xeroxed their styles, they just opened me up to a lot of shit i wasnt previously even THINKING of doing (the grenade throw/uppercut juggle, for instance.) id already hit the 24 hour mark on him, put the game down for a while to run through Infamous 1 & 2, brought it with me on vacation w my brother and got back in the mood, was learning the tricks and trades of different fighters (Subzero & Liu Kang mostly), then i saw the video of Mustard running the gamut in that one tournament and it completely re-fired me up. I knew next to nothing of any of the more official shit that goes into the game (resets, framerates, going way indepth to ace fights against certain characters, etc), now i feel more motivated than ever to improve and concoct and think up my own Boxy deathtraps. For example, my favorite thing to do unless im playing a Kabal or a Sektor or someone who can spin me up or knock me out on arrival is go teleport happy. not only is it a great meter builder, but you can frustrate the fuck out of somebody without even throwing a punch just by playing keepaway, and if they havent got a decent punish for it and they get too close, it becomes EX keep away, and the minute they throw an attack the wrong way and you come out on the opposite side, its 2 1 Net and the fit hits the shan. Id way rather catch people falling with buzzsaws than bother with the resets because again, it keeps them guessing, and if you block right on the wakeup, theyre open for even more suffering.
It seems like everybody likes to rush with the 3 3 for their string, but im almost strictly 2 1. Its stronger, less likely to drop, and i can just end with another 2 and knock them fullscreen if i wanna get distance and start dropping bombs.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Hello again, fellow lovers of Kombat.

So with 3 months standing between me and my completely delusional attempt to become the Mays Gilliam of Mortal Kombat and light the torches of salt at NEC XII across the river from my homebase of New Jersey, I now have purpose in my amarillo mission, but many a difficulty to contemplate and address.

On the one hand: Toms River is an ultraviolence dead zone. No players to speak of. At least not enough to count.
So, at a loss for training partners or general human fodder, I look to my on-again-off-again comrade in the AI to give me war and frustration close enough to the real thing to prepare me for the pressure of tournament time. Running through arcade ladders just to try and get certain people on higher difficulty rungs, spending hours in the lab to work out kinks in certain matchups (my top 3 at the moment being Kitana and trying to perfect the Anti-Air timing to snatch her out of the Square Punch, blocking Kung Lao's strings, and straight-up fistfighting Scorpion after watching Slips remind me that I'm not the only big man in yellow in this game), anything I can think of that'll stick in the ol' noodle.
My biggest issue with myself is a big one: I get too fighty, and I'm not Johnny-Cage-status enough to be this fighty. Where I should be playing D and waiting for a mistake to capitalize on, the desire to make the sonofabitch bleed overwhelms and leads me to swing fists right into countermoves and bouncy combos. There's matches I know I should be taking slow and steady (Cage, Jax, Lao, MILEENA), but when things get fighty, I smell blood and lose sight of strategy. Soooo...my plan is to find a friend - not even a player, just another beating heart with eyes - to "spot" me while i put some defensive practices into effect - simple shit like calling moves and heads ups to get me used to anticipating the moves/frames and seeing shit coming and keeping an eye on the number of times I/the dummy burn lifebars and who burned more, which'd be useful as I'm terribly impatient when it comes to eating combos and i have a bad habit of wasting breakers at inopportune times just to avoid a string. If there's one thing watching the streams and tournaments has taught me, it's that sometimes youve gotta get your face broken to get the clear shot at your opponent's jugular.
Gonna gather video links from all the great Cyraxes - Mustard, Maxter, Trophy Club, my yellow mentors - and figure out the timing on these corner combos and get inventive, cuz idk if its the fact that im using a regular dualshock or im just hitting shit too slow, but i cant for the life of me get half of these to work, and theres no way i want to walk into Philly without being well-versed on how to eat someone for breakfast if i get them pinned against the wall. If I get the jump on a Raiden looking to corner me and beat him to it, i want him to pay with blood, feel me? The rest of my offense im proud to say ive sharpened like a #2 pencil, with my own little tweaks and twinges to break from the rest of the Heinz box and make it my own, but the corner is where I still need a lot of work.

In short, I've never attempted to take something I'm relatively good at and put it on a bigass stage like this before, so the Quest For Super Cyrax is quite a big deal to me, and I hope all this effort and typing leads me to some measure of a promised land.

 

[PND_Mustard]

i think you're going at this the wrong way, against some characters some things just wont work. you will NEVER corner raiden, it's not possible, his teleport is safe to all but a 1 on reaction providing he actually tries to follow it up and its invincible on startup so you wont hit him, i feel raiden is cyrax's worst nightmare as nets/bombs just dont work on him, so you're left with his shitty pokes and techable command grab.

you shouldnt just set on telling yourself 'im an aggresive player so im gonna work around that' thats something cyrax is incapable of as a character, you NEED to be patient with him and be on point with anti air nets/1's.

best of luck!

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

i think you're going at this the wrong way, against some characters some things just wont work. you will NEVER corner raiden, it's not possible, his teleport is safe to all but a 1 on reaction providing he actually tries to follow it up and its invincible on startup so you wont hit him, i feel raiden is cyrax's worst nightmare as nets/bombs just dont work on him, so you're left with his shitty pokes and techable command grab.

you shouldnt just set on telling yourself 'im an aggresive player so im gonna work around that' thats something cyrax is incapable of as a character, you NEED to be patient with him and be on point with anti air nets/1's.

best of luck!

Raiden really is the devil when it comes to Cyrax. My god, that man makes my head hurt...

Next time I have a session, I'll be putting that into practice and give a twinge to my anti-air game. Learning when it's better to throw little bits and pieces of attack and keeping cats afloat with the fists instead of trying to chase people into a combo would serve me well. It's like I said, I dash and dash but I just can't catch the little bastards. I guess it's like the JC juggles, you just gotta keep at it til your hands and nerves know the routine and catch up, and then its golden firebomb time.

Many thanks for the advice, Mr. Mustard. You make me glad England exists .


And Spooky - you ever randomly hear something strange in your head that sounds good enough to work?
I didn't pick a main for the longest, I just wanted to battle, but after about a month and change of getting my ass kicked regularly online after the game first dropped, I decided to stop being indecisive and settle on someone, and after much thought and about 3 screwdrivers, a little birdy in my head said "Cyrax."
And I stopped and thought, "hmm...well, he was my go to robot in the olden days (other than in D.A. where I was all Scorp & Bo Rai Cho), he's got all the same tricks and traps, let's give him a try..."
Never went back. Taught myself Noob & Sub-Zero as backups recently, but prior to that, I've been 100% LK-4D4. Love my robot.

 

[Mt. Mutombo]

Hello there forum. My name is Box.

I am totally devoted to my favorite yellow nightmare, Mr. Cyrax, and I'm on a mission to make mine as superior as humanly (or i guess cybernetically) possible. Thankfully, this Cyrax resurgence and increase in talented players at the tourneys (Mustard and Trophy Club in particular have been the 2 ive really tried to emulate - id be lost if i didnt have the streams to study or their brutal offenses to learn and build off of) has not only given me a LOT of new tactics and strategies. Having never been a fan of the command throw, the bombtrap nerf hasnt affected me whatsoever, and im much more a fan of mind games and strategic fights than being a douche and smothering my opponent in resets depending on who im facing. Ive spent most of my time as of late in the Practice Dojo and running through Expert Ladder trying to make sense of every matchup and build strategy against his more formidable opponents - Mileena and Raiden especially, man do I fucking hate me some Mileena and Raiden - and now i look to you, TYM forum, to help me smooth out the circuits and get the most out of my mustard.

The only ones I can really say ive got a hold on fighting against are Quan Chi, Subzero and Baraka. I would say Kung Lao, but no matter how well one learns to predict his timing and dipgame his hats, running into the wrong relentless Lao rarely turns into a win.
So, any advice? Any and all fighters are who I'm looking to beat, so whatever you think works/could work/have seen work would be welcome, not just for me, but for anyone who's serious about Cyrax. Reset bitching/cheap win bitching or not, there are few people in this game as well put together and (somewhat) evenly matched against whoever they happen to face, and i can guarantee that if half the people clamoring for him to be more patched than he's already been wouldnt be complaining if they were well versed in his moves and could pull off his tricks. That's what the resets are there for, so you still have a plan to fall back on when your opponent blocks your nets faster than you can fire them.
And FOR THE RECORD, if Kung Lao can have as completely overamped an offense as he's got, you can let me keep my grenade juggles, because the odds of pulling off half that shit in a tournament against a real well-assembled player are slim to none.
You dont want to get made an ass of by a robot? Dodge the net. thats about it. At least if/when you go down, itll be under more humane circumstances.

Ive put together a pretty good offense (short, brutal combos like the 2 1 buzzsaw or the punch bounce into grenade bounce into air throw/ragdoll, because it either works and knocks them flat, or it draws out a breaker which THEN can lead to 42-48%-ers as long as theres enough bar for a sticky bomb), but now my focus is all about defense/helping the rest of the Cyrax clan be able to stand my ground in all situations.

I'll be honest with you, a lot of people disregard playing expert ladder completely. I can attest that it has helped me a LOT in learning characters. Yes the AI is stupid and there's really no substitute when it comes to playing another person, but things like the AI being Jedi in terms of countering your moves, makes you develop that sense of strategy and just slightly mimics the pressure of having to pull off combos on the spot against your opponent. It's not an ideal way of training competitively but it sure as hell doesn't do any harm.

I don't like talking about matchups, just because people play their characters differently, but something i believe helps with learning characters, is training with them and using them as if they were your mains. The character that has caused me more problems than any other character is raiden. Right now im picking him up, not only because im having a lot fun using him(and probably will main him) but because i know that the better i get with him, the better my cyrax gets against him.

As others have stated, try to add things from other players but stay true to playstyle and react to a situation not how others do but as how you feel it should.

 

[seoulspirit]

Actually Maxter can pull of Cyrax bomb resets like hot cakes

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

...Hmm...

I do enjoy the Evil Raiden suit...sure, why the hell not. I'll crack open a can of lightning if it means learning how to cap it.

And Maxter Traps are fucking insane. They make me glad to fly the Cyrax flag.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Today, someone online taught me I have a lot to learn about fighting Smoke.'

Useful tips, anyone?

 

[NariTuba]

Today, someone online taught me I have a lot to learn about fighting Smoke.'

Useful tips, anyone?

http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?11125-Any-tips-on-fighting-against-Soke-and-Mileena

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?11125-Any-tips-on-fighting-against-Soke-and-Mileena

And Mileena cliffnotes to boot. Excellent. Into the list of things to do it goes. Many yellow thanks.

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

Caraecrika: picking up Raiden to better myself at fighting him was a $$$ idea.
Having a fucking lightning blast learning him too.
His corner combos make me feel so much less retarded at pulling off corner combos.

Now that I'm spending time with the Thunder God, I loudly echo the statements that messing with his teleport makes no sense to the integrity of Raiden.
It's the chase that makes the fight. Don't fuck with the chase. Pretty please.

Next on my list of things to do: Scorpion. He's been a real pain in the ass lately.
Possibly gonna tape some fights/sessions and search for a critic to advise me on my pluses and minuses.

ONWARD TO POSSIBLE VICTORY

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

CYRAX PLAYERS

BOX NEEDS HELP

So I've been having some DefCon3-level issues...particularly against Kung Lao, Reptile, Rain, and Kenshi.
Reptile's Dashing and Lao's speed drive me out of my mind to keep up with.
Rain's plethora of tools is pretty difficult to contend with.
And I'm fucking sick to pieces of getting Tele-Slashed from here to Havana by that damn swordsman.

Any advice in these particular matters?

 

[PND_Mustard]

CYRAX PLAYERS

BOX NEEDS HELP

So I've been having some DefCon3-level issues...particularly against Kung Lao, Reptile, Rain, and Kenshi.
Reptile's Dashing and Lao's speed drive me out of my mind to keep up with.
Rain's plethora of tools is pretty difficult to contend with.
And I'm fucking sick to pieces of getting Tele-Slashed from here to Havana by that damn swordsman.

Any advice in these particular matters?

nothing personal, but jesus i wish you wouldnt be so extravagant in your posts haha, right.

reptiles dash should never be a problem, on block you can punish with a 11xxnet, timing isnt a problem as you can mash 11 and just cancel to net after the second hit, or just let 111 rock if you see you mistimed it.

kung lao can have his pressure stuffed by low pokes, given most of his first hits are pure highs, cyrax has a good d1 so abuse it when you can, nets arent great against him as he can teleport on reaction and hit you with full punishment.

i cant comment much on rain, but again, treat his roundhouse cancelling like kabals and poke him out of it when you can, use more low bombs if you're worried about him advancing.

kenshi is a pain in the ass, but tbh the matchup leans slightly in cyrax's favor as kenshi can trade with a net from a distance as he doesnt recover too great (as far as im aware), just try to read when hes gonna go for a ranged special and attempt a net trade when you can, bombs are hard to hit him with as he walks strangely fast.

 

[Beginner0k_TwM]

a little topic, but I want to know the opinion of other players. What do you think Ardarutiun would happen if "Cyrax" would give the armor to any special move? Since many, and perhaps all the character's armor in M?9 is on the EX special moves. Just sometimes it attempts to "wakeup" interrupt. And it applies to character's turtles

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

nothing personal, but jesus i wish you wouldnt be so extravagant in your posts haha, right.

reptiles dash should never be a problem, on block you can punish with a 11xxnet, timing isnt a problem as you can mash 11 and just cancel to net after the second hit, or just let 111 rock if you see you mistimed it.

kung lao can have his pressure stuffed by low pokes, given most of his first hits are pure highs, cyrax has a good d1 so abuse it when you can, nets arent great against him as he can teleport on reaction and hit you with full punishment.

i cant comment much on rain, but again, treat his roundhouse cancelling like kabals and poke him out of it when you can, use more low bombs if you're worried about him advancing.

kenshi is a pain in the ass, but tbh the matchup leans slightly in cyrax's favor as kenshi can trade with a net from a distance as he doesnt recover too great (as far as im aware), just try to read when hes gonna go for a ranged special and attempt a net trade when you can, bombs are hard to hit him with as he walks strangely fast.

I always overdo the extravagance >.<. But hey, I loves me some big letters .

Solid advice, though. Thanks, my English amigo ^_^.
Kenshi = definitely read-and-go, but man, he's quick as a fucking cat.
I'm definitely gonna try and pick him & his sword up after NEC. I really dig it.

Between Rain, Kabal, Jax, Stryker...Cancels are becoming a much bigger factor nowadays than ever previously, gotta grin and bear playing Online more just to learn to deal with them. Hasn't been nearly as bad since the patch, but still has its off moments for sure, but not a lot I can do when the AI doesn't do them, no?

Kung Lao and Reptile = meat. Getting their matchups down will make me a happy, happy boy...then it'll be down to Freddy.

How is the Cyrax/Freddy matchup, anyway?

 

[PND_Mustard]

I always overdo the extravagance >.<. But hey, I loves me some big letters .

Solid advice, though. Thanks, my English amigo ^_^.
Kenshi = definitely read-and-go, but man, he's quick as a fucking cat.
I'm definitely gonna try and pick him & his sword up after NEC. I really dig it.

Between Rain, Kabal, Jax, Stryker...Cancels are becoming a much bigger factor nowadays than ever previously, gotta grin and bear playing Online more just to learn to deal with them. Hasn't been nearly as bad since the patch, but still has its off moments for sure, but not a lot I can do when the AI doesn't do them, no?

Kung Lao and Reptile = meat. Getting their matchups down will make me a happy, happy boy...then it'll be down to Freddy.

How is the Cyrax/Freddy matchup, anyway?

i couldnt tell you i have ZERO freddy experience

 

[Lt. Boxy Angelman]

i couldnt tell you i have ZERO freddy experience

Same here...Freddy's definitely the guy who could trip me up in my learn-matchups-to-avoid-surprises plan. His zoning is really counter-intuitive to mine in that the Ground Spikes make standing/dashing in to throw Net Bomb traps a really dangerous idea, so it seems like my best plan would be to make him jump and exploit his lack of air tools, or play him like Kenshi and wait for a slip-up to Teleport behind/rush in to and capitalize on. No Rising Karma, but his uppercut's so quick it still makes jumping in a bad idea. Thankfully, he doesn't have an EX close/mid/far juggle ala Shang Tsung's Skulls to worry about, so it's not the most difficult zoning job, but it's still gonna be tricky >_<...gotta wait for a day off to sit down and really dedicate him to memory, lord knows how many people are gonna see m2dave's triumphs and start using Kruger for evil.