Best MODOK in the world? Needs a real joystick? Now that EVO is over I’m interested in what the MODOK community thinks of Captain Mexico. Personally he’s my hero but I’ve been living in Mexico for the last 9 years so I may be slightly biased. That being said I’ve always loved watching his team play more than anyone else’s… it’s just so entertaining.
Here are his matches that were on stream. There were a bunch of great ones that were offstream as well of course. I really wish I could see the one where he beat Marlin Pie.
Frutsy vs Fanatiq
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Frutsy vs Y2J
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Frutsy vs Too Much Damage
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Frutsy vs Knives
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Frutsy vs Chou…
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Frutsy vs Combofiend…
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For those of you who want more of him and/or want to check out the true level here in Mexico I highly recommend this 5 vs 5. Team VersusMX vs Team Elite Mexico (essentially Guadalajara vs Mexico City) Taekua (who made top 12 at EVO) is a member of Elite and Frutsy was made an honorary member of Team Elite for this 5v5 even though he’s really a member of Team Asteroides. This first to 20 is truly epic.
I don’t know if he is the best, but his Evo placement alone makes him worthy of being considered the best. He is really no slouch with his other characters either. I personally really liked that he would go for a practical neutral game plan rather than push for the complicated stuff. I’m also just happy he managed to put MODOK up there for the world to see. I dislike that people think he is just a troll character and not a legit one (I personally think he is just a more complicated Magneto)… though I can understand where the confusion comes from. That being said, when you tie for fifth at EVO with him on point, I think it becomes hard to deny the character’s potential.
Makes me wish Dok had a sombrero alternate costume as well.
My only gripe with his play was with some of his neutral/mixup game actually. A lot of it was good (like inching down from the sky with homing bombs to make his decent), but I think he benefited a ton from the MODOK matchup inexperience (like the match vs y2j) to get hits in. He got away with far too many j.S hits after floating up in the air forever (the other player should be getting that air grab). He did some nice tick throws the first day, but I don’t think he used his lows as much as he could have. He didn’t seem to have any incoming setups either. However, he still had one of the best neutral games that I’ve seen from a tournament Dok.
I definitely agree a lot of match up inexperience was present in his opponents, but he was also just really good at aiming his jump S’s at just the right times. Given its ability to become a pretty ambiguous cross up, I’d like to give Frusty some credit there for the most part. He had some good midscreen confirms, which he fumbled a bit at times, and I don’t think he took enough advantage out of Dok’s ability to call assists while at super jump height with his air dashes. I did love those tick throw setups as well though.
But I can usually forgive a lot of technical and play errors when it comes to being under high level tournament play. I see a lot of combo makers (not aiming this at anyone on the Dok board, just in general) often criticize tournament players for keeping things simple, and not fully optimizing their confirms without considering the risk of error under pressure. Making it that far, and taking out so many killers on the way, leads me to think that this was largely because of how good his neutral game is. Because it clearly was not because he was doing the most optimal combos or setups. And I know for a fact that a lot of the people he played against and beat have some good experience against solid MODOK players, so I can’t throw the inexperience card at too many of them. But the one’s that did lack experience certainly seemed obvious.
Personally, I try to avoid using j.S at all, since it is prone to be air thrown out of (or Bionic Armed like I think Combofiend did) if you face someone with Dok matchup experience, though he did space them as best as one could. Just for the record, Frutsy’s combos were pretty optimized, sans the times he just wanted to spend the meter to KO the character right away. And I too take into account the pressure a player is put under, especially at something like EVO, so I never try to judge a player based on what you see on streams and the like… I see it as only a glimpse of what they know and can do. Some people look like they don’t know what they’re doing when they are in the tournament setting, but take them out of there, and you just may find that they are a dangerous player with just too much tournament nerves. I find that you see players at their 100% during long casual sets.
I enjoyed watching this guy play, I was rooting for him the whole time. I was actually upset that Frutsy didnt flight block that bionic arm from combofiend. I dont have a problem with his j.S abuse because I use that move quite a bit myself. Also, I dont think it is easy to airthrow that move as long as it is spaced, especially since you can control the trajectory with airdashes. My only gripe is his team synergy could be better for MODOK (but not necessarily for frutsy) and things getting shaky once MODOK was gone. He did really well having a good neutral game, good hit confirms, decent welcome pressure with the M cubes (no hitconfirms here, though), and actually doing “real” MODOK combos
In his match with Combofiend he dropped a few combos and ending up losing MODOK which cost him matches because MODOK is clearly his best character. Working on resets/setups when he cant kill and working on or changing his other characters may have changed the outcome of that match
Frusty does not play like a regular MODOK, he has better fundemental/zoning the average MODOK player. He might not have the fantiest setups or combos, but he won basically because outplay his oppotents. He has good block, he has practice backdashing, he frusf. Besides Motempest, I think
I don’t truly believe that Fanatiq/Knives/Marline/TooMuchDamage don’t know what up with MODOK. What really caught them off guard is that Frusty plays a MODOK on their level. Marlin does have a sercet MODOK, Fanatiq/Knives have meet Pigg offline, and Toomuchdamage fought Motempest before. I feel like they just weren’t use to a MODOK that wants to be defensive, and turtle.
Frusty was use J.S a lot because of he was dropping on top of people, and it’s MODOK’s biggest hitbox. It can be countered, but I don’t think people have found a way yet to punish MODOK SO bad , that MODOK should be scared of using it. It’s like you can beat Footdive, but people still Footdive nonstop.
Don’t think he has the best MODOK team, but I do believe he is one of the better players who has ever touched MODOK in recent history. Not to mention his Cap and Task shell is so good that he can still win without MODOK.
I honestly felt like his greaest mistake on Combofiend was not just going for airthrow/jamming bomb resets. He seemed like he wanted to go for resets, but Combofiend blocked them all. Combofiend plays MOtempest, I bet Combo knows that MODOK doesn’t have a good high/low compable to Magnus. Airthrow reset are predictable, but I think there is greater chance of opening Combo up with that. Not to mention there are some pretty killer resets that Frusty could learn…
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I agree about everything that has been said, also there’s a difference between having MODOK experience and having LOTS of MODOK experience. Combofiend probably has the most out of his opponents in the form of MoTempest. All I’d have liked to see from Frusty is:
More reset attempts
Less air throwable approaches (Honestly the opponents didn’t seem to try and air throw at all sans combo fiend)
A better team to back MODOK.
That being said, he did excellent (His neutral is mean, very few advances got through) and I hope to see more from him in the future. I’m mad at myself for not joining the fight now Next time I will join the BRODOKS in the conquest!
I think he already used his command flight and Frutsy just didn’t think Combo would Bionic Arm him when he was dashing down to the ground.
All I’m saying for j.S is that if you are at or under super jump height, you can be easily thrown out of the startup of j.S if you are predictable with it or your opponent is just fishing for air grabs like crazy. It isn’t so easy to space your opponent when you can’t see them either, so there’s always some risk to air dashing down with j.S.
I totally agree with your evaluation of the jump s.
What really impressed me was his patience and air movement. He did well to not get flustered and really milked the time. Ll too often I personally feel like I need to be aggressive or spamming zoning shit on the screen, seemed like frutsy was so good at mixing it and alo good at just not pressing anything in some situations.
He performed really well and I think his success is going to help the confidence of other brodoks o go out and seriously try to compete
I love how Frutsy wasn’t afraid to take full advantage of MODOK’s high air game to shut down ground based characters. I see fairly often other MODOK players try and match other players on the ground. I think an assist that could work with a high flying MODOK would be really effective, such as Magneto’s hyper grav or Dormammu’s pillar (drags them up to your height for a j.S)
1- It was great that Frutsy put his focus on his neutral game, rather than on landing flashy Jamming Bomb set-ups and TOD TAC combos.
2- Now MODOK totally needs to have an alt costume with a sombrero in homage to our Mexican hero.
I loved this guy’s play, and he’s one of my new favourite players now. Although it may have something to do with the fact that his MODOK style is very similar to my own. xD
I also play MODOK as a defensive zoner, and I’ve always advocated that that’s the most effective way to play him, as opposed to the technical rushdown style that most people seem to favour.
Yeah! Wouldn’t such a costume be just great? The oversized sombrero would certainly look very funny, as long as they didn’t exaggerate or overdesign the “Mexican” theme for the costume on the overall. SF4’s and SFxT’s tacky alt costumes come to mind.
As long as we get a BRODOK too I’m all down for a Mexican Organism Designed Only for Destruction. Honestly I think MODOK can be successful both offensively and defensively, in fact that’s how Frusty plays him. The players were a bit dumbfounded by his flying. I throw that up to nerves more than how good flying in the air all the time is. It’s really a gamble trying to mixup that S, a standing jab will beat it half the time.
Personally he’s my hero but I’ve been living in Mexico for the last 9 years so I may be slightly biased. That being said I’ve always loved watching his team play more than anyone else’s… it’s just so entertaining.