Match-up Discussion What character would you say smoke has problems with?

[EGP_Shoryuken]

1.Kung Lao
2.Cage
3.Mileena
4.A good Jax

 

[FrothyOmen]

4.A good Jax

UGH this. maybe it's just inexperience, but I've never beaten a jax player with smoke. ever. I play him so rarely that i forgot to mention him before

 

[EGP_Shoryuken]

UGH this. maybe it's just inexperience, but I've never beaten a jax player with smoke. ever. I play him so rarely that i forgot to mention him before

I say that cuz I do play good Jax players and they give me a really hard time. Also Aris(who is probably the best smoke player in the county) loses to tyrant, the guy who put Jax on the map @ evo.

 

[FrothyOmen]

Would you say it's because of imperfect matchup knowledge, or is it just a hard matchup period? What can Smoke do against Jax? I really don't know a thing about him except how to use a few of his combos/GP cancels :\

 

[arydious]

@Arydious - The sub matchup is pretty easy. Stay at the far edge of jump distance, and just be ready to do 3 things. Smoke away from the slide (especially wake up slides), Smoke Bomb the instant you see a clone, and block. Most Subs do blocked strings into clones, which you Smoke Bomb them. If they slide Smoke Away and then punish the slide, it will wiff against the smoke away. Never block low against Sub since he does not have anything low the really hurts.

I see I never really knew this. I don’t get to play a good sub often but now ill remember this. Also it seems like het hits me if I do not block low, and his damn cross up kills me.

Actually, Sub can make you block low by jailing you with d4 and then going into 21 and 22 pressure.

If you smoke away and try to throw smoke bombs at Sub all the time, you'll end up in the corner if he just walks you down. Once you're in the corner the matchup becomes pretty heavily in Sub's favour. The best way to play against Sub with Smoke is to annoy him with pressure when he gets within jumping distance, and then run away some more.

This is what he does the d4 I think. Maybe I also fear the slide more than I should. Thanks for the information everyone

 

[EGP_Shoryuken]

Jax has the same ability to get in and mix it up with frame traps like Cage does. He can dash Punch the sb to get in and recover before hes in any danger. Once he's in its all about Jax. Even if the smoke player tries to lame it out by running, Jax can dash punch him out of his smoke away.

 

[Vergatarix]

Hello everyone, My Main is Smoke now, I was playing Noob/Cage but Smoke feels so good, I'm having a lot of fun with him, but my only problem so far is Raiden, I have a friend who plays a very good Raiden and I just can't beat him.

Please tell me some advice to deal with Raiden.

Thank you in advance!

 

[SZSR]

Hello everyone, My Main is Smoke now, I was playing Noob/Cage but Smoke feels so good, I'm having a lot of fun with him, but my only problem so far is Raiden, I have a friend who plays a very good Raiden and I just can't beat him.

Please tell me some advice to deal with Raiden.

Thank you in advance!

My primary ways to hurt Raiden are d4, b2 3 into smoke bomb combos when he teleports and punish his supermans with dash 3, d1, 2 into full combos.
d4 has a surprisingly good reach, but if they catch on, try to block right after to bait teleports into supermans. d3, into a dash grab is unexpected damage which is helpful but if puts Raiden far away from you which is good or bad depending on how well you can bait supermans and teleports. It's definitely no easy feat considering how fast those two attacks are, but considering you can't lock him down or zone him out, you need to fight Raiden is a very unorthodox way.

 

[G4S KT]

Hello everyone, My Main is Smoke now, I was playing Noob/Cage but Smoke feels so good, I'm having a lot of fun with him, but my only problem so far is Raiden, I have a friend who plays a very good Raiden and I just can't beat him.

Please tell me some advice to deal with Raiden.

Thank you in advance!

My first question would be are you playing your friend online or offline

 

[arydious]

Hello everyone, My Main is Smoke now, I was playing Noob/Cage but Smoke feels so good, I'm having a lot of fun with him, but my only problem so far is Raiden, I have a friend who plays a very good Raiden and I just can't beat him.

Please tell me some advice to deal with Raiden.

Thank you in advance!

Check out the match up thread i just put up. I used to hate raiden now i don't fear him. I am assuming how ever that you are playing offline with your friend and not online. Really comes down o baiting raiden to do his moves and punish the hell out of them.

 

[shoshinsha]

Well... I agree with those who've talked about Raiden. While he's not unbeatable, a good (re: intelligent) Raiden is probably Smoke's toughest matchup, IMO. Not overwhelming, though. Probably about 6-4. I've also found Nightwolf to be somewhat challenging for similar reasons as Raiden. However, since I also play both Raiden and Nightwolf, I'm pretty familiar with the matchups.

I have to say that I haven't found some of the others mentioned (Cage, Liu Kang, Kung Lao) to be THAT difficult. Sure, they're tough, but mostly in the sense that they're great characters, not in the sense that Smoke is exceptionally vulnerable to them. Lao is just a matter of running away and being patient. Since his projectiles are useless and his teleport is easy to read from full screen, the only real threat is his dive kick. For Liu, Cage, and other rushdown that lack a teleport, I've had a lot of success getting out of a corner by waiting for them to do something and then whiffing a jumped telepunch. Also, mixing in an occasional ex shake is usually enough to make them slightly wary of getting too "button happy."

 

[Vergatarix]

@Subzerosmokerai: Great information! I'll train your strategy. Thank you a lot.

@KT Smith NYC: I play with my friend offline.

@Arydious: I'll will check it, thanks!


I hope to beat him tomorrow, we will have a small local tournament, the ONLY character in this game that gives me problems is Raiden, I have read TYM every day, I have the living guide in my memory, I know a lot about MK9 and I consider myself a good+ player but my brain just can't process Raiden lol. (I spend minimun 4 hours every day on training)

Thank you all.

 

[arydious]

good luck and dont get nervous

 

[Solidshadow]

I dont see why every smoke player has issues with rushdown characters. You can choke them by rushing them down; using your teleport to go behind them after a knock down, and mix up grabs, combo strings and crossovers. If you get rushed down, after a blocked string, use d1 into smoke bomb. It works almost every time and if not it pushes them away so you can jump backwards + air teleport. And then you're out. D1 beats almost every attack in the game, its that fast. Even reptiles dash. An extremely well timed KL spin can get it sometimes though. It even catches them on the way up.

 

[arydious]

I dont see why every smoke player has issues with rushdown characters. You can choke them by rushing them down; using your teleport to go behind them after a knock down, and mix up grabs, combo strings and crossovers. If you get rushed down, after a blocked string, use d1 into smoke bomb. It works almost every time and if not it pushes them away so you can jump backwards + air teleport. And then you're out. D1 beats almost every attack in the game, its that fast. Even reptiles dash. An extremely well timed KL spin can get it sometimes though. It even catches them on the way up.

This does seem viable but a rush down character is expecting smoke to teleport out, this results in a block teleport which means they get a full punish, and then they begin the rush again. If smoke has no meter smoke towards/away cant bypass their physical attacks, so we get tore up their. d1 smoke bomb does work but many people also expect this from smoke being rushed, they can block it and do a fast punish.
We can air teleport as well, it is a lot safer but a good player still knows how to counter this and are well aware that smoke is capable of this. Also most rush down characters have a means of closing the gap as well. Example air tele, d1 d1 to get space then try to get back away generally they can do a shadow kick or a dash to get right back in.

Its not a dead end situation for smoke. Smoke definitely has the tools to get out but its no easy task. I personally love to d1 bait them to lower block and hit a b2 3 smokebomb. The thing that makes it hard for smoke up close by a rush down character is it becomes paper rock scissors

 

[kandehbar]

I dont think rush down is smokes problem at all.
While smoke doesnt rush down he can add counter pressure. The only reason i see smoke getting rushdown is when your trying to play runaway smoke.
Vs rush down you cant do that you have to pressur with D4 smoke bombs and B2. Smoke CANT GET cornerd, he has ex smoke Toward so i dont see why you would get rushdown. You need to make a preemptive escape then add pressure