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General/Other Why I Chose Smoke

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tl;dr: I chose Smoke because it would force me to improve my game, and playing with him somewhat changed my definition of winning
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*Please keep in mind that I am not insulting Smoke as a character in any way, and that I actually like playing as him and encourage others to try him out for a while*

I decided to learn to play as Smoke before any other character when I didn't know much about the game. This was back when I was one of those players who only used special moves and uppercuts to play the game. I thought Smoke would be a good character to play as because of his Smoke cloud. "Woah, you just use it and they come near you for a free teleport? He must be pretty good!" Yikes...

After about three hours into practice mode I learned that Smoke didn't have too much going for him. I noticed that he only had two moves that can be used for chain combos and that they were really slow. Playing through some ladder matches I also learned he had to be a very defensive character, which I wasn't good at being. At this point, I decided to throw away my previous reasons for using Smoke and adopt new ones to justify still using him. I wanted to discipline myself. I figured that I shouldn't take the easy way out by choosing a higher tier character than him. I wanted to improve my overall game first, which was awful. Even though I'm still not done, I feel like I have succeeded in improving myself in aspects of the game I used to suck at, such as defense, by continuing to use Smoke.

At this point, I feel like I'm well versed with Smoke but I still have a long way to go. I got Gold Membership for my Xbox recently and took advantage of it by playing lots of MK online. The more I fought people online (and sometimes offline) with Smoke, the more I started to notice a change in my attitude about the game. The most obvious and most important example is that, even though I would lose quite a few matches, I would still consider those to be successes because of the character I was using. I started to hold myself to a different standard of success. I started feeling that just doing well in a match with Smoke (especially against characters like Kung Lao, Kabal, Freddy, etc) made me feel that I had won in a different way even though I didn't win the match.

I won my fair share of matches and I lost my fair share, but that didn't change the way I somewhat felt like a "winner" because of my "limitation." After exploring the TYM forums I noticed that I wasn't the only one. Like Wafflez put it:
like smoke said, it would be extremely hard to "win" using him, but doing well is doable.
Playing with Smoke has had good and unexpected impacts on me as a MK player. It forced me to get good at aspects of the game I used to be terrible at and also got me to see the game in a different light without distorting my overall perception towards it. If anybody here has had a similar experience with another character, think it's very useful and educational to play with a specific character, or just want to comment/criticize anything about this post, please do so! Or you can completely ignore this post altogether. I don't mind, I just felt like I had to share this with the community. :)
 

Impose

A Call For Blood
Smoke doesn't have a lot going for him? wut? :confused:

Last I checked he was in quite a few top 10 lists
 
maybe its not the character.
You're right, it's not completely the character's fault; I still very much suck at the game overall.

Smoke doesn't have a lot going for him? wut? :confused:

Last I checked he was in quite a few top 10 lists
You should follow this discussion. I'd rather not change the subject on this thread at least yet :)

http://testyourmight.com/threads/smoke-2012-post-evo-mu-chart.25487/page-7

I would say Quan-Chi is low-tier, therefore I learned fundamentals by playing him, but he's a cheap bastard and I haven't learned shit.
Thanks! I'll be sure to give him a shot :)
 
He's right. If you wanna learn more about why Smoke players feel this way, check out the Smoke matchup discussion right here.

http://testyourmight.com/threads/smoke-2012-post-evo-mu-chart.25487/page-7
dude frothy's just trolling you. smoke is definitely top 10 maybe top 5. he has the tools to beat 2 of the top 5(freddy and kenshi) pretty well and most of the other characters in the game. the smoke community has a lot of people that will say that he's bad constantly, but they all know he's extremely good. It's not just an issue of damage but also what his damage and the fact that he only has overhead starters forces you to do. It creates a mindgame where you have to guess whether he's pokind, which puts him at advantage on hit, or going for combos. the safe bet is to let him poke, but then your health will suffer, if you crouch block your heath may suffer more. also, his ability to shut down zoners is the best in the game and smokeball means you have to be careful on your approach. He's puts many characters in very precarious situations. Smoke is definitely a very good character.
 
dude frothy's just trolling you. smoke is definitely top 10 maybe top 5...
Lol, as much as I tried to prevent that discussion from coming here, I failed xD. It would seriously be best if we were all to discuss Smoke in that appropriate thread. The relevant stuff starts at around page 8 :)
 
Lol, as much as I tried to prevent that discussion from coming here, I failed xD. It would seriously be best if we were all to discuss Smoke in that appropriate thread. The relevant stuff starts at around page 8 :)
well i was just commenting or criticizing (as you said to do in the OP) the idea in your post that smoke isnt a great character. Wafflez is the biggest "downplayer" in the mk community and you should really only listen to what he says about how things work or tech or anything factual really.
Also if you're looking for a character to pick up to teach you fundamentals pick up cage. he will teach you how to space properly so that you can get someone in his great pressure game. people like to joke that cage is just f3, but in orther to win with him you have to know how to get someone into his pressure in the first place. that is not so easy against players who understand the working of the character.
Generally though i would say Liu Kang is the best character to learn for the basics. his zoning and his rushdown/spacing games are good. he's probably the most fundamental character in the game.
If you want to stay with smoke that's fine too. he's a good character that will surely teach you something about the game... not sure what though.
 

SZSR

Noob
Lol, as much as I tried to prevent that discussion from coming here, I failed xD. It would seriously be best if we were all to discuss Smoke in that appropriate thread. The relevant stuff starts at around page 8 :)
http://testyourmight.com/threads/smoke-2012-post-evo-mu-chart.25487/page-8#post-647339

You might have seen this already but this is xSmokex's summary on why Smoke can be viable except not a winning character. I agree with this sentiment as do other Smokes.
 

WayoftheFist

Cold day in hell...
Lol, as much as I tried to prevent that discussion from coming here, I failed xD. It would seriously be best if we were all to discuss Smoke in that appropriate thread. The relevant stuff starts at around page 8 :)
Every single thread on TYM will become a matchup/tier list discussion thread. Don't fight it. It's a futile battle you will always lose. If you make it to page 2 without matchups and tiers being discussed it's a good day.
 
Every single thread on TYM will become a matchup/tier list discussion thread. Don't fight it. It's a futile battle you will always lose. If you make it to page 2 without matchups and tiers being discussed it's a good day.
either that or a thread about having sex... slips vs 21 yo and ass vs tittes are the two that come to mind
 
Wafflez is the biggest "downplayer" in the mk community and you should really only listen to what he says about how things work or tech or anything factual really.
I trust Wafflez's word and xSmokex's word both. They both have the best credibility when it comes to anything Smoke related =P

Also, thanks for making this entire thread relevant in one piece. I was just worried because it's against the rules to create two threads about the same thing, but this thread is much more specific than the Smoke matchup one. Still, a lot of players, including Wafflez and xSmokex pretty much say almost the same thing I'm saying in this thread. Oh, and also thanks for your suggestions :D. I wasn't planning on touching Liu Kang for at least a good while, but I guess I can pick up on him sooner. :)
 

WayoftheFist

Cold day in hell...
either that or a thread about having sex... slips vs 21 yo and ass vs tittes are the two that come to mind
Those were still mu threads. Slips goes 5-5 with 21 yo (due to 2 encounters one loss one win) and if I remember correctly ass went roughly 6-4 over titties with a general agreement that both are quite nice.
 
Those were still mu threads. Slips goes 5-5 with 21 yo (due to 2 encounters one loss one win) and if I remember correctly ass went roughly 6-4 over titties with a general agreement that both are quite nice.
by that logic everything in life can be divided into tiers and matchups. eating 10-0 starving
 

RiBBz22

TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
dude frothy's just trolling you. smoke is definitely top 10 maybe top 5. he has the tools to beat 2 of the top 5(freddy and kenshi) pretty well and most of the other characters in the game. the smoke community has a lot of people that will say that he's bad constantly, but they all know he's extremely good. It's not just an issue of damage but also what his damage and the fact that he only has overhead starters forces you to do. It creates a mindgame where you have to guess whether he's pokind, which puts him at advantage on hit, or going for combos. the safe bet is to let him poke, but then your health will suffer, if you crouch block your heath may suffer more. also, his ability to shut down zoners is the best in the game and smokeball means you have to be careful on your approach. He's puts many characters in very precarious situations. Smoke is definitely a very good character.
Zero chance of him being top five. I definitely think he is probably top ten though...right on the edge of it.
 
I have him 6th, Kabal Kenshi Cyrax Sonya Freddy Smoke
I can see debate for 7th if you think lao is better, but otherwise there's absolutely no way he's worse than that. There are definitely not any more characters in this game that put him further back.
 

RiBBz22

TYM's Confirmed Prophet/Time-Traveler
I have him 6th, Kabal Kenshi Cyrax Sonya Freddy Smoke
I can see debate for 7th if you think lao is better, but otherwise there's absolutely no way he's worse than that. There are definitely not any more characters in this game that put him further back.
I don't see much debate in Lao being higher than Smoke. To begin with 1) Lao is at advantage against Smoke, and 2) Lao does much better against the top tier opponents that Smoke struggles against. I could see more of a debate being with Cage and Skarlet and possibly Kitana...however that is pointless because I think Smoke is top 10... my point is that there is no way he is top 5 in this game.