Let me type a little about my number one toon to play, Kotal Kahn. I’ve used the War God variation the most, but I also really like the ability to command grab and do Brutalities with the Sun God. Meanwhile, Blood God, the red variation, is easily the least used variation.
But I remember that in a recent patch, they buffed the Blood God’s totem that allows him to do more damage. That’s pretty much the only thing going for Blood God. It’s kind of like as if Kotal Kahn was a wrestler, and he doesn’t even have any special moves (yes yes, I know he has the air grab and he can throw a slow projectile). But I was hungry for a change yesterday, and I tried out the red variation.
To my surprise, I found that I was able to win several games with him. Mostly because he hits like a schoolbus. Before I tried him out, I was scared because I thought it might be too hard for him to get down his totems. But I realize that was probably my own bias, due to the way I had been playing the War God variation.
You see, Kotal Kahn is the type of character who utilizes a lot of throws. Every throw is another chance to get down that damn totem. His projectile is also strong enough so that most of the time you can throw down a totem immediately after a projectile, if you can manage to get that one out.
As Kotal Kahn, one of my favorite Kombos, the F122, makes him do a shoulder charge forward and follow it up with a punch that knocks your opponent one screen back. I find this tends to be a very safe way to open up a match, because his shoulder move is one of the few fast startup normal attacks he has.
Often times, if I can knock the opponent back with the first F122, I can follow it up with another F122, and sometimes even a third, and by then he’s in the corner.
But the beauty of the F122, is that it’s great in *every* variation. Because the pushback is ideal for you to throw down that damn crystal totem. So Kotal Kahn has no trouble getting the totem down, and once it’s down he hits hard enough to make the variation probably worth it.
One of the things I don’t like about the Blood God is that I’m not entirely sure what the other totems do, and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask. It’s poor game design, in my opinion, because why should I have to google what this move does? I mean, they have a menu that tells me how to throw down the totem, and what the totem is called. But they don’t tell me what the fuck it does, and it isn’t immediately obvious.
My guess is that one of them gives armor, and that guess is based on knowing that one of Quan Chi’s special moves is a buff that does the same. For personal reasons, I really wanted to do his Brutality where you throw down the totem and then uppercut the other guy’s head off. But I don’t think I’d unlocked it in the Krypt yet.
Or wait! Upon further inspection, I *had* unlocked it in the Krypt. The problem was that we were playing two player at one point last night. And we were passing around the controllers willy nilly. So I was playing as Kotal Kahn as Player 2. In other words, I hadn’t unlocked jack shit, and as such, I couldn’t do the move.
Again, I feel a shitty design choice for the devs. Because of the way they chose to make their game unlock, I can’t enjoy it to it’s fullest. Please listen, Ed Boon.
Somewhere, during all of this fooling around with Kotal Kahn, I realized I had playing him a bit wrong. Remember that F122 I had mentioned earlier. Well I used to always follow that up with either a projectile, or the unblockable ground stomp that the War God has. But now I realize, Kotal Kahn has a way better option, and no one, not even the pros, are using it.
I’m talking about his god ray, of course. The one that looks like a beam of sunshine from the heavens. If you stand in your own beam, it heals you. If your enemy stands in it, it does DOT chip damage to him. What a fool I’ve been.
Nowadays, in whatever variation, if I connect a F122 in the middle of the match, I’m way more likely to do the god ray. Because you can have it land mid screen, or on top of you, or on top of an opponent.
So if my health is low, I’ll cast it on myself and start to heal. Even if your opponent is a full auto, Jacqui Briggs spammer, worst case scenario is you’ll come up even with the chip damage they do. Best case, like against a Shinnok spammer, you can pretty much heal back up to full health.
But you can also cast the god ray over *them*. That usually gets them to move, or at least stop fucking spamming. So all this time, I was almost angry at the game design, because they made this Kotal Kahn character who is fucking helpless against spammers. Turns out, he has a great tool in his toolbox.
I don’t know why the pros aren’t doing more of this now, but I would expect to see them adopt it, like yesterday.
I can’t finish today’s post without talking about the tournament that I saw on Twitch last night. I’m mentioning this because I saw Sonic Fox lose. For like the first time, ever. Yeah, I know he’s lost before. But this is just the first time that *I’ve* seen it.
One of the reasons why he’s lost, I think, was because he was going up against an off character. I believe the man was Michaelangelo and the toon was Quan Chi. Some matchups just don’t jive like that. Either way, Sonic Fox went on to lose again, later on in the bracket.
It was kind of sad to see. Because the story of so many great legends goes down just like that. They enter the scene, they kick ass, they have a streak. But once they’re beaten, often it opens the floodgates to their return to mere mortality.
Let’s be honest here. Sonic Fox was always somewhat of a risky player. I mean, he made very good use of the slide, which for Erron Black, *looks* very similar to his high attack. And against many opponents, he was able to land it. But the truth is that he really shouldn’t have been able to. It’s fair to say that a professional, playing at the top level of the game, should be able to punch the use of a slide. I had always thought that’s what separates the men from the boys. I mean, I’d fall for the slide. But I’m not playing at the top level.
So good for him. I also saw that Sonic Fox was playing a few games as Tonya. I really like that decision. Since Sonic won the first tournament as Erron, I understand why he would continue to play as Erron. Because once anyone finds a formula for victory, why change it? I mean, as long as it keeps working, your best move is to keep using it. And that’s exactly what Sonic Fox did. But now that we’ve had more time to play MKX, I’m willing to bet that Sonic has another toon he would prefer to main, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him switch to that toon. Tanya is as likely as any.
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