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The State of Zoning and Overall Strategy in Mortal Kombat 1

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
People get salty when they lose, so on the one hand all archetypes (zoner/grappler/rush down) are kind of equal opportunity targets. However with zoning, and somewhat grapplers as well, they force the opponent to play a different kind of game, which makes people feel more uncomfortable.
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
My favorite zoner character was Cyborg in Injustice 2. If there's an MK1 equivalent of that at some point, I'll play that character/kameo combination. In the meantime I'm planning on trying Kitana.
 

Ptehu

Prince of Edenia
I never received as many hate messages from people convincing me that I cant play the game until I played Reiko/Sareena comp. And I did this only to reach Grandmaster level in KL to get Nitara skin and thats it.

But whatever man. These are the tools that are available in the game and Ive never seen any pro player bushido code that I cant zone people out.

But yea - "you wack", "zone your mother", "you are level 150 and you dont know how to play" and thats really the most mild what I got after the series.

And I can agree that zoning is annoying and sometimes also struggle against Kitana or Sindel [i think i already posted that here] but I never offended anyone online. Not because of playstyle or anything else.
 

SixPathsOfHate

Make triple skulls input BDF or DF Hold F
I never received as many hate messages from people convincing me that I cant play the game until I played Reiko/Sareena comp. And I did this only to reach Grandmaster level in KL to get Nitara skin and thats it.

But whatever man. These are the tools that are available in the game and Ive never seen any pro player bushido code that I cant zone people out.

But yea - "you wack", "zone your mother", "you are level 150 and you dont know how to play" and thats really the most mild what I got after the series.

And I can agree that zoning is annoying and sometimes also struggle against Kitana or Sindel [i think i already posted that here] but I never offended anyone online. Not because of playstyle or anything else.
Being the energy vampire that I am, I cant help but grin with my crooked ass teeth every time someone shit talks me for zoning.

I kill em with kindness and accept all their insults and agree with each of them, apologizing as I continue zoning. Sometimes they understand it's the way of Shang and other times they just get quiet.

In a few instances where they're really mad, they will just leave and I will try to friend them to continue the salt train and try to talk with them so they can gain a bit more perspective but Steam makes this so hard because I cant see who I recently played with for some ungodly reason.
 

Felipe_Gewehr

Twinktile
In a few instances where they're really mad, they will just leave and I will try to friend them to continue the salt train and try to talk with them so they can gain a bit more perspective but Steam makes this so hard because I cant see who I recently played with for some ungodly reason.
You can always just go to your profile in MK1 and watch your replays, then you can see the name and steam profile of the recent players.
 

rifraf

Noob
Being the energy vampire that I am, I cant help but grin with my crooked ass teeth every time someone shit talks me for zoning.

I kill em with kindness and accept all their insults and agree with each of them, apologizing as I continue zoning. Sometimes they understand it's the way of Shang and other times they just get quiet.

In a few instances where they're really mad, they will just leave and I will try to friend them to continue the salt train and try to talk with them so they can gain a bit more perspective but Steam makes this so hard because I cant see who I recently played with for some ungodly reason.
I love hate messages. I cherish each one of them by sending ❤ and kisses to the senders. I'm courteous like that you see :laughing:
 
My favorite zoner character was Cyborg in Injustice 2. If there's an MK1 equivalent of that at some point, I'll play that character/kameo combination. In the meantime I'm planning on trying Kitana.
Injustice 2: Zoners among us, was such a different game, almost everyone had the tools to deal with Cyborg (everyone could just foward roll which was a universal phase teleport) mk1 has lots of anti zoning tools but only for certain characters so it would be too oppressive. Id be okay with it if the character had 0 combo ability, just give them a potato mixup and some pokes.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
My take on Kitana...

Kitana - a surprisingly uncommon character considering her popularity, I believe that Kitana has some of the best zoning and runaway in the game, particularly when paired with Kung Lao. She can easily win zoning wars with EX d,b+3, which allows follow ups on trades, and her fatal blow, which hits from very far away. Kitana's offense, on the other hand, is limited and gimmicky. She has gaps in key strings (i.e., b+2,4 and 2,4), no frame advantage on any normal attacks or strings, and no overheads. While she can arguably win every match up by zoning and playing footsies (as b+2 and 2 have slightly disjointed hitboxes, I think) she may struggle against characters with excellent anti-zoning tools such as Mileena, Omni-Man, and Raiden. For this reason, I believe that she is high mid tier rather than top tier.

I have to edit my take on Sindel because of the newly discovered vortex, which makes her better than I initially thought. Top 2 is highly debatable, but she has to be top 10 at worst.

Li Mei is another character whose zoning and overall tool set is worth commenting on. Check out RIF Scorpion's performance at Blink Respawn. He placed third exclusively using Li Mei/Scorpion. I like the damage output a lot.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
I received the most praise from casual fighting game spectators when I was using Tremor in MKX. They also supported me when Kitana or Predator players would zone me. On the other hand, I received nothing but vitriol while playing characters like Freddy, Deathstroke, and Zod. Although they can and do complain about every gameplay style, there is no doubt that the casual audience tends to correlate combos and rush down with skill yet zoning with a lack of skill, cheapness, cowardice, etc. MK1 was designed with this perspective in mind.
Well consider yourself lucky, because a lot of the rest of us have had people literally complain about practicing combos. Here's a video of what I'm talking about: you only need to watch the first few minutes.


Imo this is what it means to be casual. The guy rants for 20 minutes about being held in the air for too long and having too much damage to him, which means he's unable to fight the match, and being whiff punished. This is what I mean — just about anything that's effective will be seen as cheap/unfair.

Side note: I've watched a bunch of tournaments since Omni-Man's release, and I've hardly seen any Omni-Man get very far. Tweedy did pull him out in one set in the Kollosseum and that didn't go very well. I think that people overracted, and the idea that Omni-Man is this extremely effective character for minimal skill doesn't seem to be holding up in competitive play.
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Premium Supporter
Well consider yourself lucky, because a lot of the rest of us have had people literally complain about practicing combos. Here's a video of what I'm talking about: you only need to watch the first few minutes.


Imo this is what it means to be casual. The guy complains about being held in the air for too long and having too much damage to him, which means he's unable to fight the match. This is what I mean — just about anything that's strong will be seen as unfair.

Side note: I've watched a bunch of tournaments since Omni-Man's release, and I've hardly seen any Omni-Man get very far. Tweedy did pull him out in one set in the Kollosseum and that didn't go very well. I think that people overracted, and the idea that Omni-Man is this extremely effective character for minimal skill doesn't seem to be holding up in competitive play.
A character being extremely effective with minimal effort or skill may or may not reveal itself in competitive or tournament play. All it means is that the character is easy to use and win with generally speaking. And it’s not like he’s the best character or anything. So, it’s not like you’re going to see a ton of random Omni-Man players that you’ve never heard of before start showing up in top 8’s or anything like that, that’s not what that means and no one has even implied that (afaik). You’re also not going to see a ton of known pro players start exclusively using him either unless something super broke is found with him. Again, he’s similar to Supergirl in Injustice and Scorpion from MK11. Where they were easier to use and win with compared to most characters, but you didn’t see top 8’s flooded with them just because of that. Because despite their fck neutral tools, that wasn’t enough to do well at high levels. It’s kinda like Smoke in this game. He’s not top tier, but he demolishes scrubs. And he can do well vs good players too especially if they don’t know the MU. He’s also easy to use and be effective with at most levels. But the complete opposite is true at higher levels especially when compared to the top tier characters. He has to work so much harder than those characters do at the higher levels. Omni-Man is similar except he is way better than Smoke, is easier to use and be effective with than Smoke at most levels, and has way better neutral bypassing tools and is way safer than Smoke to boot.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
A character being extremely effective with minimal effort or skill may or may not reveal itself in competitive or tournament play. All it means is that the character is easy to use and win with generally speaking. And it’s not like he’s the best character or anything. So, it’s not like you’re going to see a ton of random Omni-Man players that you’ve never heard of before start showing up in top 8’s or anything like that, that’s not what that means and no one has even implied that (afaik). You’re also not going to see a ton of known pro players start exclusively using him either unless something super broke is found with him. Again, he’s similar to Supergirl in Injustice and Scorpion from MK11. Where they were easier to use and win with compared to most characters, but you didn’t see top 8’s flooded with them just because of that. Because despite their fck neutral tools, that wasn’t enough to do well at high levels. It’s kinda like Smoke in this game. He’s not top tier, but he demolishes scrubs. And he can do well vs good players too especially if they don’t know the MU. He’s also easy to use and be effective with at most levels. But the complete opposite is true at higher levels especially when compared to the top tier characters. He has to work so much harder than those characters do at the higher levels. Omni-Man is similar except he is way better than Smoke, is easier to use and be effective with than Smoke at most levels, and has way better neutral bypassing tools and is way safer than Smoke to boot.
People actually did complain about TheMightyUnjust winning a tournament with him day one. And that all the high-level players were using him, etc.

Looks like that was short-lived.
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
Premium Supporter
People actually did complain about TheMightyUnjust winning a tournament with him day one. And that all the high-level players were using him, etc.

Looks like that was short-lived.
Ah I see, I didn’t see that.
 
Damn that kiwi guy was one of the many annoying pre mk1 hype influencers, he went from deciphering ed boon tweets for twenty minutes to criticizing people who lab combos?!
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Kitana's offense, on the other hand, is limited and gimmicky. She has gaps in key strings (i.e., b+2,4 and 2,4), no frame advantage on any normal attacks or strings, and no overheads. While she can arguably win every match up by zoning and playing footsies (as b+2 and 2 have slightly disjointed hitboxes, I think) she may struggle against characters with excellent anti-zoning tools such as Mileena, Omni-Man, and Raiden. For this reason, I believe that she is high mid tier rather than top tier.
I think Kitana's fine as long as you think while zoning, rather than throwing everything out in predictable patterns.

Smart players will block, bait, and punish desperate attempts to tele in, etc, forcing Mileena players to really pick their spots.

For an example, here's Foxy vs. Mileena
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
Kitana is fine, nobody should play her like an offensive character. She got good keep away / "zoning" and traps. You just have to play patiently and smart.
 

Ray'sGoodLiquor

I don't care I'm not a competitive player anymore
You have to wonder what effects the eventual low hat nerf will have on zoning (and offense) in this game.
People that want zoning will go Sareena, people that want a +2 low will go Motaro, and people that want setups will go Tremor.
 
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M2Dave

Zoning Master
People that want zoning will go Sareena, people that want a +2 low will go Motaro, and people that want setups will go Tremor.
Solid predictions.

Watching UFA and KaniMani annihilate the lower bracket using Cage and low hat...

Man, it has genuinely been a long time since oppressive rush down characters were zone-able in a Mortal Kombat game at the highest level of play.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
As much as people were saying stream chat hates zoners, hardly anyone complained about Foxy, but the chat was taking Johnny Cage apart for a half an hour straight.

Just goes to show that whatever was strong is what gets the criticism. There’s no magic protection for rushdown characters.
 

Shawi

Noob
I am not a zoner by any means, but watching F0xy play Kitana and zone effectively was a treat.
Quite a subjective topic. I personally found it extremely frustrating, disappointing and lame to watch! Really dislike that style of play - MKX Lao Foxy is the Foxy I want to see. Not this….