So I've been seeing a ton of talk from a lot of respectable players lately on Twitter/Twitch/TYM about the recently buffed Cryomancer Sub Zero. Australia has known a lot about this variation as one of our top players
@Gilbagz has been maining it since day one.
While I obviously dont think Cryo is bad, I do definitely feel like people are having a knee jerk reaction to it. Everyone is going crazy about how many options he has to tick throw, and due to that i have put together a video about how they are not as strong as many think.
How the Option Select works:
The main strings Sub Zero is going to tick throw you off of are F12, F33, B3 and possibly even s1. While they all seem like powerful tools, this is not necessarily the case, the command grab being 16 frames and a HIGH gives you the option to be able to block the full string and duck the command grab with the same block timing.
The way this works is you have to let go of block between the first and 2nd hit of the tick throw string, for example, f12 tick throw would work like this.
F122 < let go of block instantly after the second hit and then press block again as soon as the last hit of the string would connect, there is a 3f window through most of his tick throws and it is relatively easy with some practice to avoid all of his tick throws.
It's the same principle for all of his strings in to command grab but obviously the timing will be different, just practice your timing on the strings and you'll be punishing those tick throws in no time.
In Depth Explanation from
@Gilbagz
The command grab always hits at minimum 3f after the frame trap
So for example
f12 cmd grab hits 3f after f122 would hit
So you let go of block just as f12(2) would hit intentionally. Because we're human and wont time it properly, you'll naturally let go of block late. This will let you block f122 and neutral duck the command throw for a full combo.
This applies to all of his tick throws:
s1 cmd grab hits 5f after 1,2, s2 cmd grab hits 3f after 2,4, f4 2 cmd grab hits 3f after f42 1+3, b3 cmd grab hits 3f after b33
How this affects Cryomancer:
Being able to OS all of his tick throws forces the player to completely stop using them, while this does open up some stagger potential, its not a huge deal as Cryomancer's main stagger game is revolved around f12 which is now -7.
Applying this OS to your game will completely change the way you look at Cryo and will force the opponent to rely only on his neutral, which is now also not that good (see below)
Cryomancer's Neutral since the patch:
Before the patch Cryomancer's neutral game was based around using F4 combined with an OS found by
@Gilbagz early in MKX's life, this allowed him to use F4 in the neutral to whiff punish for high damage by confirming into cold blooded for a full combo.
Using F4 in neutral is not as strong anymore due to having to confirm in to EX ice ball to get any real damage off of a whiff punish.
Cryomancer now not being able to cancel his F42 into cold blooded also hurts his footsie game a tonne and has turned the character into more of a pure mixup character rather than a footsie based/neutral character like he was before this patch was released.
Video demonstration of the Option Selects for anyone who is unsure of how it works
Perhaps i'm missing something? If so, i'd love to have a discussion about it. Let me know what you guys think/how viable this is.
@YOMI REO @Pig Of The Hut @SonicFox5000 @PND_Ketchup @PND_Mustard @A F0xy Grampa
