I don't care about tier lists
Most of the time i tend to pick up characters who are fast, with a usually good walkspeed and annoying, characters like Ibuki, Cammy (SF series), Kunimitsu (Tekken) fit my style of quick offensive.
In Mortal Kombat this translates most of the time to Shaolin monks, since i don't like much of the Liu Kang Trope, he used to fit more my dead cousin playstyle as he was one to get hooked on looks and protagonists with headbands (Ryu, Liu Kang, Mizoguchi, etc) i tend to gravitate towards kung Lao more over the others (Kai, Liu Kang, Bo Rai Cho etc)
Kung Lao in MK games it's a bit of a niche because he has a unique system, he can move in air space like no other, and the exclusive ability to jump back away from any retaliation and coming back with a dive kick, its probably the only thing he has retained from every MK game he was in since MK2 (Outside of 3D era where he has no dive kicks).
And no one can really jump at him, his combos and normals are always swift and fast AF, adding that to his amazing mobility depending on the game where he is.
The other character who had an interesting design and has drawn me back into her was Skarlet in MK9, she was quick, excellent walkspeeds had a command dash was a Ninja, and her ability to play through blocking to make her game was something i felt an enormous previllege of exploring, NRS has never made a character like this, literally if you start to block her, she would start to get stronger, due her chip, meter gain, blockstring loops were insane, it was definitely a part of the character that defined her a lot
her projectiles didn't even did Chip damage, and her highs used to whiff on crouch block, so you had to crouch block to beat her to prevent her build meter, and deprive her of good wakeup options and defensive options, but her overheads and high jail for chip loops made her gameplay 100% interesting, since with each bar she could get, it was one for defense(wakeup or armor) or boost her offense through chip jails if she caught you stand guarding trying to avoid overheads and chip loops trough high blocking
Sadly they never caught this lighting on a bottle again and this concept has been rotting in mK9 ever since, but i do expect to see this back again in a future.
the other style is space control, which is using characters with good range, MK11 skarlet did this to an extent, she was essentially MKX Ninjutsu scorpion/Mk9 Kitana with worst normals.
In MK1 i Find Ermac's gameplan interesting enough to develop, sadly no one plays the game here, as everyone is out of it
