Question What makes MK9 stand out?

[Soul Bound X]

While I agree Lao was better than Cage, he definitely wasnt top 3. Many thought he wasn't Top 5 either.

Kabal, Kitana and Sonya definitely beat Lao. I'm pretty sure others did too. That's too many bad MUs to be top5 in that game

I don't know if that is universally agreed upon. Pl and forever king both thought cage was definitely a bad mu for lao too but foxy grampa made it look a lot easier for lao. We quit playing this game too soon. It definitely had some more evolving to do. But let's say the top 2 characters are kabal and kenshi since most people would agree on that. Who do you think the number 3 character is?

 

[SylverRye]

Yes, 2 evos back to back. But he didn't have the most tournament wins but 2 evos is fucking impressive and puts you in the spot light and let's face it, evo is where the w counts the most. The consensus was that the best players were cd jr, reo, and PL. It was pretty much a tie between those 3

Ahhhh I see. Thanks for that, i had no idea lol

 

[xKhaoTik]

I don't know if that is universally agreed upon. Pl and forever king both thought cage was definitely a bad mu for lao too but foxy grampa made it look a lot easier for lao. We quit playing this game too soon. It definitely had some more evolving to do. But let's say the top 2 characters are kabal and kenshi since most people would agree on that. Who do you think the number 3 character is?

Kitana was widely known and accepted to be a bad MU for Lao. Both Bit and I have tournament wins against King and I believe bit has a win against PL too (I didn't play PL in tourney but we played a LOT online).

I completely forgot about cage beating Lao too lol. I also remember talks about Cyrax beating him.

Top 3 is too much of a stretch for him. The top 3 characters that were mainly said were Kabal, Kenshi and Cyrax. I personally would put Sonya as 3 but I can't really argue Cyrax either

 

[Soul Bound X]

Kitana was widely known and accepted to be a bad MU for Lao. Both Bit and I have tournament wins against King and I believe bit has a win against PL too (I didn't play PL in tourney but we played a LOT online).

I completely forgot about cage beating Lao too lol. I also remember talks about Cyrax beating him.

Top 3 is too much of a stretch for him. The top 3 characters that were mainly said were Kabal, Kenshi and Cyrax. I personally would put Sonya as 3 but I can't really argue Cyrax either

Idk about sonya or kitana, but I could do pretty well against forever king with cage, but not foxy grampa. Foxy grampa did this bird lao shit and he would rarely teleport unlike king. The teleport would open king up a lot for punishing. Well foxy would just jump kick dive kick over me and he would land outside of my range. And he'd do this back and forth. This sounds pointless but what it does is make lao completely unreadable. He can do anything after he lands. Playing a mu where your opponent can't read you gives you a big advantage. Maybe not big enough to put it in his favor. But big enough to make it at least even. But if that mu is in anyone's favor it is definitely in lao's after playing foxy. I'm not sure if bird lao works on sonya but if it does i would suspect that it would even that mu up too. But I can't speak for the sonya lao mu.

I can see cyrax being number three just because of that dumb ass reset. But idk about sonya. Everyone always says she's so good but she has never really had the best results that you would expect the number 3 character to have. She is definitely an amazing character though.

 

[TomlulsBrady]

Yes, 2 evos back to back. But he didn't have the most tournament wins but 2 evos is fucking impressive and puts you in the spot light and let's face it, evo is where the w counts the most. The consensus was that the best players were cd jr, reo, and PL. It was pretty much a tie between those 3

Umm, that census is not entirely accurate. CDjr was below PL&REO in terms of achievements, and I would argue DJT was over CDjr as well. However, I think at CDjr's peak he was the best player in the game by far and that he really changed the meta with how he blew up pokes(I would have also given Jr the nod for utilizing walking effectively in footsies but JOP had the meta perfected way before he did. Such a shame that JOP retired after evo 2011, he would have done so much mopping in 2012).

 

[xKhaoTik]

Idk about sonya or kitana, but I could do pretty well against forever king with cage, but not foxy grampa. Foxy grampa did this bird lao shit and he would rarely teleport unlike king. The teleport would open king up a lot for punishing. Well foxy would just jump kick dive kick over me and he would land outside of my range. And he'd do this back and forth. This sounds pointless but what it does is make lao completely unreadable. He can do anything after he lands. Playing a mu where your opponent can't read you gives you a big advantage. Maybe not big enough to put it in his favor. But big enough to make it at least even. But if that mu is in anyone's favor it is definitely in lao's after playing foxy. I'm not sure if bird lao works on sonya but if it does i would suspect that it would even that mu up too. But I can't speak for the sonya lao mu.

I can see cyrax being number three just because of that dumb ass reset. But idk about sonya. Everyone always says she's so good but she has never really had the best results that you would expect the number 3 character to have. She is definitely an amazing character though.

Yea i know what bird lao is. King and PL played like that too. It was annoying lol. But not so much with Kitana. One of the main reasons why Kitana was considered a bad MU for him was because she shut all that shit down. His mobility was severely limited in the match since she controlled the air and ground far better than he did. All of those dive kicks, teleports, rolls, none of them beat the fan.

Sonya didn't really have a lot of success because as good as she was, she still lost to Kenshi, kabal and Freddy. We didn't see as much Freddy, but Sonya would make it pretty far until she ran into someone like pig or Reo. MyGod did very well with her at the 3rd Evo for MK tho.

 

[just_2swift]

Idk about sonya or kitana, but I could do pretty well against forever king with cage, but not foxy grampa. Foxy grampa did this bird lao shit and he would rarely teleport unlike king. The teleport would open king up a lot for punishing. Well foxy would just jump kick dive kick over me and he would land outside of my range. And he'd do this back and forth. This sounds pointless but what it does is make lao completely unreadable. He can do anything after he lands. Playing a mu where your opponent can't read you gives you a big advantage. Maybe not big enough to put it in his favor. But big enough to make it at least even. But if that mu is in anyone's favor it is definitely in lao's after playing foxy. I'm not sure if bird lao works on sonya but if it does i would suspect that it would even that mu up too. But I can't speak for the sonya lao mu.

I can see cyrax being number three just because of that dumb ass reset. But idk about sonya. Everyone always says she's so good but she has never really had the best results that you would expect the number 3 character to have. She is definitely an amazing character though.

I always thought Lao was top 10 not 5.

Kubawl kenshi cyrax Sonya cage I thought this was the top 5 back then.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I just really wish that Noob Saibot was in this game, he is my second favorite MK character, he would be so badass and perfect for the variation system. He could have a rushdown, a zoning with the shadow, and hopefully his own "cryomancer" style which would be inexplicably cool. I'm getting hyped just picturing something that will never happen ever

 

[Soul Bound X]

Umm, that census is not entirely accurate. CDjr was below PL&REO in terms of achievements, and I would argue DJT was over CDjr as well. However, I think at CDjr's peak he was the best player in the game by far and that he really changed the meta with how he blew up pokes(I would have also given Jr the nod for utilizing walking effectively in footsies but JOP had the meta perfected way before he did. Such a shame that JOP retired after evo 2011, he would have done so much mopping in 2012).

Well just to be clear, I'm talking about mk9 in it's prime. 2012. Not mk9 after injustice came out.

 

[Soul Bound X]

I always thought Lao was top 10 not 5.

Kubawl kenshi cyrax Sonya cage I thought this was the top 5 back then.

That's all right except for cage. Cage wasn't top 5

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Real talk, every MK9 tournament after VXG 2013 was just the old guard auto placing and then going through the motions in top 8. Very few stepped up to push the meta or force the top guys to stay sharp. It's not just the top tier, the level of play was super stagnant too. So IMO a lot of the talk of let's keep playing it'd be so hype rings hollow.

Not to mention that by the end of that game's competitive life, the Top 8 picks would look like the following:
3 Kabal and/or pocket Kabal
2 Cyrax, 1 pocket Cyrax
1 Pocket Kenshi to beat cage
1 Kung Lao who's probably gong to pick pocket Kenshi to beat Cage
1 Cage
30% of the time a Sonya or pocket Sonya

And If people are being truthful, late Injustice tournaments had a far more interesting meta

At least we didn't end up with 3 Batgirls, 3 Aquamans or 3 Zod's in every Top 8
At least people weren't picking pocket Zod just to lame out other Top players

 

[Soul Bound X]

Yea i know what bird lao is. King and PL played like that too. It was annoying lol. But not so much with Kitana. One of the main reasons why Kitana was considered a bad MU for him was because she shut all that shit down. His mobility was severely limited in the match since she controlled the air and ground far better than he did. All of those dive kicks, teleports, rolls, none of them beat the fan.

Sonya didn't really have a lot of success because as good as she was, she still lost to Kenshi, kabal and Freddy. We didn't see as much Freddy, but Sonya would make it pretty far until she ran into someone like pig or Reo. MyGod did very well with her at the 3rd Evo for MK tho.

Yeah, I can understand that. How bad would you say the kitana mu is?

And, used for glue once said "pl created bird lao, foxy perfected it" . I'd be telling king about how stupid the mu is when foxy plays it on xbox live and he wouldn't believe me. And he'd tried his version of "bird lao" against me and it didn't work. He'd like mis space it and get uppercutted or something. The point is he didn't do it right. When foxy did it, you couldn't touch him. He'd hit you with the jump kick and then dive dick over you. Not only was it stupid but it looked stupid. If you watched him play bird lao against cage or someone that bird lao worked against, you wouldn't believe you were watching high level play. It looked like 2 guys who had just picked up the game yesterday were playing lol. No one else really played "bird lao" the way foxy defined it.

 

[SHAOLIN]

Switch Lao with cage

Hahaha. . .No.

There's a reason why he was call "Bird Lao" in MK9.

 

[xKhaoTik]

Yeah, I can understand that. How bad would you say the kitana mu is?

Only a 6-4. She didn't body him or anything but she did have a clear advantage

 

[haketh]

I still believe Cage is better than Lao despite the horrid Kenshi MU existing for Cage. Lao just has that many more bad MUs, though I don't know about that Lao vs Ermac MU being 4-6 Ermac favor stuff that was being pushed awhile back.

 

[just_2swift]

Hahaha. . .No.

There's a reason why he was call "Bird Lao" in MK9.

Lol ok. Well bird Lao needs to be in mkx

 

[THTB]

I still believe Cage is better than Lao despite the horrid Kenshi MU existing for Cage. Lao just has that many more bad MUs, though I don't know about that Lao vs Ermac MU being 4-6 Ermac favor stuff that was being pushed awhile back.

If I'm not mistaken, that matchup was in Ermac's favor because of similar reasons (push instead of fan disrupting the air mobility).

 

[Tokiwartoothxdk]

I still believe Cage is better than Lao despite the horrid Kenshi MU existing for Cage. Lao just has that many more bad MUs, though I don't know about that Lao vs Ermac MU being 4-6 Ermac favor stuff that was being pushed awhile back.

Ermac controls spacing extremely well as well as the air. i dont know if its as bad as a 4-6 but ermac does has some advantage

 

[Soul Bound X]

I still believe Cage is better than Lao despite the horrid Kenshi MU existing for Cage. Lao just has that many more bad MUs, though I don't know about that Lao vs Ermac MU being 4-6 Ermac favor stuff that was being pushed awhile back.

I feel like this thread is becoming a lao down playing thread. This character won 2 evo's back to back. Cage could never do that. I would take lao's match up chart over cage's any day. Kabal and kenshi are very bad match ups for cage. Especially kenshi. If you have a really good kenshi, it's basically unwinnable. I am very confident, and I'm sure pig is too, that pig could beat dizzy (the most tournament successful cage) in a first to ten, not dropping a game. 10-0 . And it wouldn't even be that hard. It'd actually be pretty easy.

 

[SHAOLIN]

I still believe Cage is better than Lao despite the horrid Kenshi MU existing for Cage. Lao just has that many more bad MUs, though I don't know about that Lao vs Ermac MU being 4-6 Ermac favor stuff that was being pushed awhile back.

What game are you talking about?

 

[Peckapowa]

While I agree Lao was better than Cage, he definitely wasnt top 3. Many thought he wasn't Top 5 either.

Kabal, Kitana and Sonya definitely beat Lao. I'm pretty sure others did too. That's too many bad MUs to be top5 in that game

you ask me top 6

kabal
kenshi
cyrax
sonya
kenshi cyrax and sonya are all super close - imo people forget how stupid sonya was

then its lao freddy then its maybe smoke IDK

people overestimate cage a bit he loses to 5 of the top 6

 

[Peckapowa]

I still believe Cage is better than Lao despite the horrid Kenshi MU existing for Cage. Lao just has that many more bad MUs, though I don't know about that Lao vs Ermac MU being 4-6 Ermac favor stuff that was being pushed awhile back.

cyrax beats slightly imo, cage kills him in the poke game, but cyrax can play defensively with bombs and footsies, it woudl be cage favor/even if cyrax wasn't touch of death character. but cage gets buttwrecked by sonya and kenshi and kabal and freddy's not fun either. he also has a lot mroe even mus like LIU KANG kitana etc. plenty of characters that do fine vs him.

 

[Peckapowa]

cage shits on low tier characters, but top tiers beat him and higher tiers compete, the

Kitana was widely known and accepted to be a bad MU for Lao. Both Bit and I have tournament wins against King and I believe bit has a win against PL too (I didn't play PL in tourney but we played a LOT online).

I completely forgot about cage beating Lao too lol. I also remember talks about Cyrax beating him.

Top 3 is too much of a stretch for him. The top 3 characters that were mainly said were Kabal, Kenshi and Cyrax. I personally would put Sonya as 3 but I can't really argue Cyrax either

Let me make this point, cage beats lao, but playing against a high tier bird lao is really frustrating, and lao's standing 2 is amazing at forcing you to poke and whiff punishing. it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Lao definetly is amazing in general, but he gets wrecked by sonya, i suppose he loses ot kitana, he loses to kabal (but is one of the best picks), probably loses to cyrax, and maybe even sektor? regardless i don't think anyone beats out lao for top 5. Because the other characters vying for that spot have near unwinnable matchups

Lao has bad mu's freddie and cage have some awful matchups. Freddy cannot beat smoke, and can't beat kabal either, and lao is super bad as well.

I do htink he's not on the same level as top 4 tho

 

[Peckapowa]

I don't know if that is universally agreed upon. Pl and forever king both thought cage was definitely a bad mu for lao too but foxy grampa made it look a lot easier for lao. We quit playing this game too soon. It definitely had some more evolving to do. But let's say the top 2 characters are kabal and kenshi since most people would agree on that. Who do you think the number 3 character is?

PLaying skillful chris' lao was the most annoying thing on the planet, the character was obnoxious.

 

[Peckapowa]

my boy baraka way too low