MK9 | The Ice Strategies

Current Fighting Games Mortal Kombat
1

I figured there needed a thread for different type of strategies vs. certain types of players. Sub-Zero is definitely not an easy character to master. These are some things that I do. They really focus on his Ice Clone and getting your opponent frozen. I would like to here you guys’ techniques.

Teleporters (and Kitana):

When I see teleport type characters, I throw out a clone and I go in front of just in case they teleport.

While in front of the clone:

If you’re far away you could do an Ice Blast to make them neutral jump or just towards you. If they jump towards you, without them attacking, you can slide…remember, you’re far so most likely they won’t attack, if they do…well it’s tough.

If you’re in “jump then dash” range (aka they would have to do both to get close to you), if they jump, you can throw out a ground freeze (timing is everything). If they don’t, you could throw out a ice blast (you can always do that, but be careful because of recovery time).

If you’re close, you can slide. I don’t recommend ice blast when close. If they start to jump you can slide to get on the otherside (don’t do this in corner) and start the process over again.

You do have to watch the blocking on all of these, otherwise you can get punished (especially ground freeze and slide)

I also use the clone as bait for teleporters when I’m behind the clone. If I’m close enough and I can “tell” that they are about to teleport. I would either double dash dash (if I’m REALLY close to the clone) or most likely slide and catch them frozed. Against smoke players you can also jump if you can time it right, you’ll catch him frozen on the second hit. Usually if i’m far and I’m playing Smoke and they use the teleport a lot, you can jump backwards and he usually gets frozen.

Close Range Characters:

I usually throw a clone out just to keep distance, Johnny Cage players who like to Shadow Kick on wake up usually get a nice freezing. Liu Kang kicks as well. Works well on dive kick players as well. I usually hit them with the 214, slide to get closer and bring my clones closer. Also it’s wise to try to get your clone in the air on a neutral jump where he takes up most of the screen so if a player tries to jump or dash, they get frozen, unless they had a slide to get underneath. If you get them in a corner, throw some ice blasts and check to see if they are blocking high or low. If high, throw out a slide. Make another clone, rinse and repeat.

2

is it just me or is the ground freeze just really useless. I can’t seem to find a way to utilize it properly…

3

The “easiest” time to utizluze it is when someone is knocked down into the corner, leave a clone somewhat in air, then ground freeze them.

I usually ground freeze as a mixup for a regular blast when close. I usually set it up by after an effective slide, I usually throw some ice blasts so they think the next time it’ll be a blast. Then use the ground freeze.

4

This information seems relevant to this thread, so I’ll post it here:

Sub Zero’s Ice Clone

  • If clone is broken via opponent being frozen by it, or the timer for the clone expires (and it shatters itself), then you have a 1 second cool down period before you can create another clone.

  • If clone is broken by opponent dash-blocking it, or the clone immediately self-destructs (IE you were too close to the opponent when you created the clone), then you have a 4 second cooldown period before you can create another clone.

This is according to Tom Brady on the recent Alpha-ism podcast.

5

X-Ray

You usually want to use Sub-Zero’s Xray in a combo to make sure it hits. My friend helped me yesterday and I didn’t even notice, but you can hold his X-Ray and release (auto-release after like 7 seconds) and he’ll stay frozen (like Cyber during parry move) until you release it. This is more for a mind game. If the player does almost anything, you release it and they’ll get hit. If they jump back (if ur still in range) it’ll hit him. If they teleport, it autocorrects (if you release after they move from that side of the screen). If they throw a projectile, it has armor and free xray.

Downsides to baiting is if the person knows this, all they have to do is stand still and block (unless they hit you and of course then you’re messed up) or they can bait and block you. If they do block it, you can immediately slide (if they are standing) since slide has good recovery and pretty fast. The computer even fell for this, it blocked for a while then jumped, then I let go and got them, I kinda laughed.

6

This move could make sub so amazing if it came out faster. You could set up all sorts of guessing games like knockdown into ground freeze/fireball freeze setups. So frustrating.

7

Yea, if the ground freeze was as fast, or just even a little slower than the ice blast, it would make his close up game ridiculous. How it is now is not totally useless but it’s definitely unsafe.

8

In a way there’s projectiles so play as you would with Ryu. But this time you have a lot more moves than being half baked. Very good starting character, though I typically get bored and use other characters later on.

9

Ground freeze is way too slow. At least when you compare it to similar unblockables like Scorpions hellfire.

10

Don’t compare it to Scorpion’s hellfire. They’re very different moves on very different characters to serve very different purposes.

Scorpion’s hellfire is to add pressure to a turtling opponent so that they try to jump, which can lead to an anti-air spear.

Sub’s ground freeze is supposed to aid his rushdown when he needs to break through a blocking opponent up close.

Also, Scorpions hellfire doesn’t lead to a full combo. If Sub had a ground freeze at hellfire speed, he’d be insanely broken. Enhanced ground freeze would give Sub a free 30%-ish any time the opponent stands still, and that would be absolutely nuts.

11

I see your point but ground freeze is so unsafe it’s not worth it.

So is there an effective way to deal with all teleport characters? Against Raiden I just pull out a slide as soon as I can tell they are teleporting. Kung Lao is more tricky, I try to uppercut most of the time but Subby’s uppercut is really slow. Cyrax teleports and uppercuts way to quick to punish which is crazy annoying. Ermac’s teleport is pretty easy to react to and punish on block (thankfully).

I ask this because I’m finding it hard to deal with rushdown teleport spammers. I need a reliable strat against these fools.

12

Definitely Sub’s most frustrating matchups all involve teleport spammers. The best you can do is try to land a lucky ice ball while standing in front of an ice clone so they cannot teleport. Your best bet is to eventually get the opponent into the corner and start putting pressure on them with Sub’s high-low mixup game, his grab or even go for a gutsy ground freeze (not recommended). Not sure how useful his crouching jab is at the moment, but I know his standing jab is way slow. Standing BP-BP is his best poke because you can hit confirm cancel it into an ice ball or if it’s blocked you can combo it into a BK and then ice clone immediately after the kick is blocked.

It’s a good strategy to bait your opponent into jumping in so that you can time an ice clone and they land right on it (if they’re not too close obviously).

Also I’ve noticed that even if you do an ice clone while doing a certain move and Sub’s leg is sticking out, the leg is not actually a hit box and opponents can walk right into it… which is silly in my opinion.

Playing my friend’s Raiden I noticed that it was a constant game of ice ball in front of a clone. Also, though it’s seriously unsafe, you might want to go for a random slide every now and then depending on where you are in the match at that point. After you score a knockdown against teleport characters it’s important that you rush that shit down so they don’t get a chance to wait for you to mess up.

13

I forgot to mention smoke. On blocking his teleport, if you put out an ice clone if front of you (standard practice) , he will get frozen on the second teleport punch giving you a free combo. Also, do not be a chump like me and get tricked by his enhanced teleport, it does three hits so keep blocking.

@Golden Sun
I usually punish jump in’s with slide. Ice clone never seems to come out fast enough and I end up getting a boot to the face. I also think BP-BP is subbys only decent poke although to stop a rushdown you can also throw out a sweep or random slides. I do alot of random slides : )

14

I’ve made actual use of the ground freeze, recently. I think of the ground freeze (in it’s current state) as a move that you just forget you have, until the exact moment you know it’s best used. Not as a weapon, but maybe as a utility that might come in use maybe once out of every 25 matches. I was playing my friends Scorpion the other day, and I had forced him into a corner. When I get an opponent in the corner, I like to do the 2-2-2 combo while they’re still down to either get a free OTG hit, knock them down with the last hit when they get up and aren’t blocking, or just keep them pinned if nothing else. Well, I did that once, and the second time he got up, I backed up a step and threw out the ground freeze (literally the only time over the span of about 20 matches) and he got up blocking, which of course, meant he was stuck in the ice. He was like “OOOooooHHHh SHIIIII, I didn’t even see that coming!” I think that’s when it’s best used.

I’ve been dealing with a lot of people that play almost the entirety of the match low-blocking, too. They crouch block, and then footsie your ass when you try to move in for an overhead. Very annoying. I’m going to try to use it against crap players like that.

15

This is very very effective against people that like to constantly jump-in on you. Especially as a wake-up.

16

@trippalhealicks
Ice clone should be your go to move against any character, let them come to you! Use it to keep rushdown chars on the other side of the screen or throw one out behind you and bait against teleport chars. As for turtles that constantly block low, mix em up with throws, jump in attacks, BP-BP-BP combo or BK into ice freeze. BK into ice freeze is the best option but be wary of wakeup specials.

17

Ice Clone works well against Cage’s shadow kick. Unless it’s EX then it goes through the clone I believe.

18

Edited my post. I kept saying “clone”, but I meant “ground freeze.” Now my post makes sense. LOL

19

I don’t know if people have started doing this yet, but a nice trick for cloning pressure is to c.FK and cancel to a clone. If you do it too fast either nothing will come out, or you’ll get a ground freeze. Timing for this isn’t hard at all and it allows you to clone extremely close to the person. 1/4th of zero’s leg will be overlapping the opponent (assuming you c.FK as close as possible).

They can jump over it still and move back however.

A nice option after landing this is to dash once, jump, cross up. blah blah blah

20

Also, effective against someone jumping back.