First of all Happy New Year everyone!
Before I get into strategies: I would like to congratulate myself on my great showing at Frosty Faustings *pats self on back*
Who’s awesome? I’m awesome.
Lol anyways for this blog I am going to talk about the strategies I used at Frosty Faustings as well as a sort of recap of how I played.
1st in Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, Mortal Kombat 9, 2nd in Injustice: Gods Among Us and 4th in Killer Instinct.
In DOA5U I used Gen Fu all the way, in MK9 I used Kung Lao and Kabal. Injustice I used Batman, Scorpion, Doomsday and Superman. KI I used Jago.
For the longest time I have been struggling in DOA5U. Mainly cause I wasn’t sure how to properly use the force tech. Forced tech from DOA4 to now has changed a lot.
Forced tech is the way in DOA to keep advantage after knocking the opponent down so you stay in control. For example: SF4 Akuma knocks you don’t and performs safe jumps to keep advantage and control of the match.
Anytime I would go for forced tech the opponent would tech or hit me with a get up kick. It boggled my mind for a long time cause I didn’t understand the formula in this game. In DOA4 you would have to cut your juggle short and hit the opponent as they land on the ground. This technique is actually what we call in DOA4 an untechable. Different from landing an actual untechable knockdown in fighting games. We had untechable combos that lead to forced tech situations.
Anyway the way it works in DOA5 is that after you perform a combo that slams the opponent down out of the ground.`
Example: Gen Fu ends combo with 6ppp and then does 3p to hit them
If they stay on the ground and don’t tech they will be forced to get up. If they tech the 3p and don’t get hit Gen Fu can finish his 3p because it has a follow up and if the opponent does anything but guard or sidestep they will get hit by the follow up. If the opponent does sidestep Gen Fu can grab or hit them with a tracking move to punish them.
Knowing this I was able to win cause I could make most of my combo enders and knockdowns.
Mortal Kombat 9
I played against Dizzy where I wanted to try Kung Lao out vs Cage since this is a tough match up for me. I knew I would beat him with Kabal cause last time I played him at UFGT in casuals the sets were heavily in my favor.
As I predicted I dropped the game as Kung Lao cause that match is god awful. There is some tech with d3 because it pushes Cage out far to where he can’t counter poke with his d3, d1 or f3 because it will whiff if Kung Lao decides to back dash or do a cross over jump. However if Cage does nothing Kung Lao pretty much gets nothing and we all know Kung Lao can’t win from doing d3, d3, d3, d3 all day.
With Kabal I focused on playing solid and my spacing. I wouldn’t do an air gas blast if I was too close because I didn’t want to get hit by a standing, crouching jab or a f3 into a nut punch. If Cage were close enough I would just back dash, hook sword throw, b2 saw or nomad dash into nothing since this makes the opponent freeze up and gives you a lot of time to get space and build meter.
Anytime he would advance with a normal I would whiff punish it with f4, b4 or a nomad dash. I played the match up right. If the round was going to end I wouldn’t block I would just let him kill me so he wouldn’t build any meter for enhanced force ball. I made the right reads and spacing was really tight.
I need to credit playing Street Fighter for making my spacing intact. Every since I stopped playing Street Fighter 2011 I noticed my fundamentals had significantly fallen off. I went back and looked at a lot of my 2011 MK footage and my 2012 footage and the biggest different is my spacing on everything. 2012 I was moreso just going off of reads to beat people while in 2011 I went off of fundamentals to beat people. Fundamentals is what wins in the long run.
stay tuned for part 2 with Injustice: Gods Among Us and Killer Instinct
Discussion
Glad to see you are returning to top form.
got a typo “SF4 Akuma knocks you don’t and performs safe jumps to keep advantage and control of the match.” you have don’t instead of down