So last night, I’m watching Twitch.tv and there’s this big MKX tournament. So I watch it. It’s on kinda late for me. I can tell by the brackets and the timing that it won’t end until after midnight. But they’ve got all the big names, meaning SonicFox is in, so I kinda have to watch it.
As a little aside on SonicFox, he’s kinda like my new hero. The old one was Taeja in StarCraft 2. But Taeja is long gone, I guess his wrists are blown out from all his years of winning micro.
It is the time of the SonicFox now. He’s pretty much the first pro MKX player I know, from winning that first Netherrealm pre-release tournament. I had thought that, after getting more time to learn the game and its characters, that he would switch. But here we are, months later and several tournaments in, and he’s still playing as Erron Black. So kudos to him.
But what also fascinated me about this tournament? The last seeded guy made it to the final round with SonicFox. He was a relative no name who played mainly with Cassy Cage, but also with Jacqui Briggs.
I was interested, because Jacqui is largely considered to be a newbs character. Full auto Jacqui that is. I wondered if she really was a gimmicky character, like if pros can just own her so hard, or if she’s really legit.
Well that no name guy, I think his name was Dabb, he switched to Jacqui in between games, and he owned face with her! Sure he had a few full screen uzi volleys that Jacqui is famous for. But he also used her for combos like a god. He made combos I’ve never seen before, combos that I never knew could exist.
For one, she has a special move that is a mid level punch that *looks* like a combo. For me, the problem with that move is that it’s so hard to land. Mid hitting special moves are also tough to land because they’re so easy to block. But Dabb was able to land it -- several times.
Then there’s his use of the up rocket. I had always thought it was more of a finesse special move, the kind of thing you would use if your reflexes are on the game, or if you just have a good read that your opponent is going to jump at you. But Dabb was able to incorporate it into his combos. I’d never seen that before.
Then he used Jacqui’s *other* special move that I had only guessed about. I think it’s called her gauntlet block. Anyway, it’s her only special where if you do it in practice, it looks like she’s just hitting her gauntlets together. I had always thought that it would block or reflect a projectile attack. But Dabb was the first person I’d never seen actually *use* it in combat.
And that was impressive. I’m still not sure exactly how it works, because I saw him use it several times in a match against Sub Zero. Some of the time when he used it, it simply absorbed the iceball. But at least once or twice, I saw the same move *reflect* the iceball, which was really cool.
I saw Jacqui Briggs freeze motherfuckin’ Sub Zero.
For the past week or so, I’ve been playing as Kotal Kahn. For a variety of reasons -- I simply like the character. But also because I felt like he was the more legit character to play as. Because his combo strings are more complicated, and his footises allow him to more take advantage of getting your opponent in the corner.
But now that I see how a real pro can play as Jacqui, I’m very tempted to switch back to her. If I could do even half of the stuff I saw Dabb do, I’m going to really pwn face with her. And my Jacqui play was always better than my Kotal Kahn play. So watch out.
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