This is a guest editorial from EMP|Black Mamba who is also one of my sparring partners.

“I would like to address the Scorpion Ban topic. Certain players are going to say that the excuse of, “It’s too early to say and we need to see what happens in tournament” is a bad excuse. Regardless of what people think, it is the truth.

People say that Wonder Woman and Killer Frost are the only characters that do well against Scorpion; that is incorrect. Aquaman does VERY WELL against Scorpion and I’ve been playing against the match-up a lot. It should be obvious at this point that Aquaman’s Water Shield is the key factor for this match. While in Water Shield, I can dash out of it and towards Scorpion to close in on him without the usual high threat of Scorpions tools. The Scorpion player’s only decent option for this is Hell Fire. Even that, Water Shield absorbs Hell Fire and takes no damage. Hell Fire is still a great option against Aquaman because he recovers fast from it and, even though it might not hit, you can still throw it out to keep him at bay. Scorpion is going to start REALLY RESPECTING Water Shield and have to time Hell Fire to try and guess when you are going to dash out of it. Even if Hell Fire hits you every once in a while, that is only 6% damage…

If he jumps in on you while you are in Water Shield, Meter Burn shield to knock Scorpion away from you. Lets not even get started if Scorpion uses Teleport when my Water Shield is activated. Both Teleport and MB Teleport are full combo punishable when they hit Water Shield. With MB Teleport, he goes right through the shield, thus whiffing and still recovering when you deactivate shield, and he gets punished hard.

If both characters are full screen apart, Scorpion might try and Bloody Spear. If I absorb the spear with Water Shield, or even let go of shield and just block or duck the spear, Aquaman is going to either Trident you (From The Deep) or MB From The Deep for 20% of Scorpion’s health.

Scorpion already does low damage, so obviously when you wind up hitting Aquaman, he is forced to do even less damage because of Aquaman’s Character Trait. Also, you can anti-air Scorpion with d2.

Aquaman has tools to “kombat” Scorpion. Pretty much your strategy against him with Aquaman is: Water Shield ~ Dash, use Trait to disrupt his combos and vortex, hold down against him, (Universal strategy) and punish the hell out of him when you either absorb him or block his unsafe teleport. Aquaman out-damages Scorpion. This is a match to where BOTH CHARACTERS are going to have to respect each others tools and not play dumb.

Even if Scorpion only has 2 or 3 bad match-ups, so what? Welcome to a match-up based fighting game. Unless I am tripping, I’m pretty sure Kabal had NO bad match-ups… You will have to suck it up, pick one of the few characters that beats Scorpion and learn the proper way to play that match-up.

This Scorpion Ban talk shouldn’t even be happening yet. You have to wait and see how he does in tournaments, wait for more Anti-Scorpion tech to come out and see how the game develops.”

He learned this match up from playing me and I would love to have him play against REO if REO is up to it.