The Grandmaster's Vision - Competitive History of Sektor

[Music] welcome back to another episode of competitive history this time we're going to pull out all the stops for what is and always has been my favorite fighting game character of all time if the name didn't give that away in the first place i guess sektor is the character that has personally shaped my taste in mechanics design and visuals and across the many mk titles that he's featured in he's been all over the place in the competitive tier list from top to bottom to stuck in the middle he's been there done that a bonus for this episode is that i recently collaborated with my very good friend history behind the warrior for a lore history of sektor which is on his channel and it's live already if you haven't already seen that make sure that you check it out too these two videos combined really kind of put the lore and the story and his competitive meta across all the different games into one complete package this is our week of sector and this is a complete competitive history of the red cyborg himself [Music] now before this video begins i do actually have a very special shout out to give if you like mortal kombat and in-game exclusive content stick around for it because mustard and myself have been fortunate enough to be partnering up with beyond nrg which is a gaming energy supplement from the uk the drink is packed full of vitamins minerals and nootropics with five flavors in total but the reason that we're talking to you about it now is that beyond energy have partnered up with mortal kombat as well for some exclusive flavors they are two flavors the wild forest fruits and the blue raspberry lemonade they are scorpion and sub-zero themed and the reason that is the case is that with either of these two flavors that you purchase you will get either sub-zero's avalanche skin attached or scorpion's gold demon skin they are two very difficult skins to get normally as i'm sure you're aware but by purchasing one of these two flavors the skin comes with the package it's not just that though if you're in the uk there is a competition to win both an xbox series x and a copy of mk11 ultimate on the xbox series x as a grand prize worth noting these codes are for the xbox version and i know there are plenty of xbox players that like our channel so i think if you like xbox and you like mortal kombat it makes sense to give beyond energy a bit of a look doesn't it now if you use the code km10 on the website you will get a discount on your purchase so thank you very much for your time thank you to beyond nrg for supporting the channel and hopefully you can get some cool mk content onto the video sector's first ever appearance would be vanilla mortal kombat 3. now there's definitely a strong case for the cyborgs to have deep seeds within specific people in the fan base if you started with mortal kombat 3 right because they were pretty much the ninjas of this game the cyborgs outnumbered human ninjas until ultimate mk3 a little bit later so we'll cover sektor in ultima as he is pretty much the same in both games and ultima is definitely the one that is more commonly remembered he brought weaponry to the fight in mortal kombat 3 the straight missile is a simple input and it functions as a simple projectile another simple input belongs to the teleport which is a full combo launcher that can be done on the ground or in the air this is pretty important to his game plan because it does have that kind of jump in teleport mix-up which can definitely catch people off guard the final special move here is the smart missile which tracks the opponent i'll explain the game plan of these a little bit later but the fact is his inputs are some of the easiest in the entire game which is why i think i liked him so much as a kid i could actually do his moves and they weren't very complicated combo strings are an area that you fall short as sextor as he hasn't got much of them and they're not that great on their own he has this three-hit launcher which doesn't do terrible damage if you do combos afterwards and it can set up into smart missile this five hit which can be a nice little punish in a pinch and most notably this two hit kickstring this is your kick combo or sektor and if you know the meta of run jabs pressure and having a good kickstarter to essentially crush their defense two hits is simply not enough it was definitely a major tool that sektor lacked competitive game plan did let sektor stand out to me as he's one of the few characters that can actually work projectiles into a major part of his game plan elements of zoning that we would go on to see many games later you could really machine gun smart missile and straight missile and if you didn't know the solutions to the match up he can even look kind of broken the issue is you could nullify the smart missile easily if you know what moves gave you the invincibility and just making the explosion miss certain combo strings specials low pokes and more meant that in tons of match-ups the trade of the smart missile versus them essentially taking the hit and then punishing you was never in your favor additionally to this and it's definitely a weird one arcade ultimate mk3 has a bug where player 2 sektor can't have two missiles on the screen at once if the smart missile is out straight missile won't work until the smart missile has exploded it's a massive hit to his missile-based game plan which is kind of sexual's entire point in this game but player 1 didn't have this issue making sector on the player 2 side a worse version of the character because you can't work missiles into your meta at all crazy i know but hey look it's arcade and sometimes these things are the way they are now although a lot of community rom hacks and very famous versions of ultima mk3 that are used in tournaments they do fix the missile problem for sektor at the highest level he is still sitting comfortably in the bottom three area of the tier list the tools he had simply didn't allow him to hang with the top tiers and things like his laughably low damage from the kickstarter his extremely punishable teleport for minimal reward the counter play to his homing missile nothing really was working out for him in this game at all and he was unfortunately one of the least threatening on the roster the tragic fact is that robot smoke was a better sector at high level play the same teleport but more reward a better projectile as it was fast and it's stunned for a combo he had more damaging strings more damage off of his kick string which is basically sektors but better an air grab for better damage still and he had extra layers of gameplay thanks to the existence of an invisibility sextol had more projectiles sure but neither were as dangerous as what the harpoon smoke had gave you i still remember being at east coast throwdown two years ago and having people essentially lining up to play me because nobody else they knew played sextol at high level a 20 plus year old game and most people still don't know many people that played this character just to put that into perspective mortal kombat trilogy is definitely important to cover here because sektor is a superior version of the character in this game because of a couple of things the first and more obvious is a new move it was common in trilogy for a lot of characters to kind of get extra projectiles and sektor would be one of those characters in the form of a double straight missile this move does crazy good damage for only a little bit extra recovery it gives you bigger combos better zoning and it works into the smart missile game a lot more effectively it is basically sektor but with a much better missile game so as you expect he's automatically better than an ultima mk3 the second and definitely more specific but very important is that the issue i mentioned where sektor can't have both smart missile and straight missile on the screen for player 2. playstation 1 trilogy actually has that on both sides unfortunately but n64 trilogy fixes that issue you can in fact have both types on the screen at once majorly increasing your ability to put missiles into your game plan and being able to do double missile makes n64 trilogy sector the best version of classic 2d sector without question i say classic 2d sector because there was definitely a great evil dwelling in the dreamcast age with some of the cheapest gameplay you've ever seen in your life mortal kombat 4 whilst it had an arcade version that definitely wasn't as popular as the previous titles was more remembered for its console versions the sega dreamcast would release basically an expansion of mk4 onto the system called mortal kombat gold which had a bunch of new characters the most secret character of all was actually sektor who was obtainable through the cheap menu and still required a sequence input in the character select to play as in the first place what lied beneath this cheat sequence was no joke one of the most broken mortal kombat characters the franchise has ever released a character that definitely screamed last minute edition and broke everything about the game with very little effort required you'd have more than one release of mk gold across the time period with more modern versions of the disc nerfing sector a little bit as they went on he didn't have any new moves the straight missile double missile and smart missile and teleport they were all still there but they just completely annihilated the entire cast because of a few key reasons missile could be quite literally spammed out without thinking the smart missile had a really long travel time so you could do multiple of them in one go making it impossible to actually punish you for doing it without getting hit yourself the missile zoned you out all day and you couldn't even approach him half the time he was a total nightmare with zoning alone and is one of the most dangerous keep away characters in franchise's history but that was just the start of things for this crazy character in some versions teleport would straight up infinite until max damage happens easy mode combos that you can just do until the game broke the combo for you anything in the teleport launch into knock down and smart missiles started the broken as hell zoning and anything on block into double missile would be a pretty superb option on hit or block and that's not even including his weapon by the way which was an actual gun this gun was basically another projectile on top of his already god tier projectiles the guy just pulls this out and it's like yeah this character was ban tier as i said different releases of gold would make some adjustments to the character like a teleport limit etc etc but he was always and i mean always the absolute number one on the gold tier list this character was comically broken a playable appearance that most won't remember or dare i say even know about was his unique addition to mortal kombat tournament edition which was a game boy advance title he was the reward for beating the tag mode on hard difficulty and was by all means just a re-skinned cyrax visually he even has the same fighting styles and although he has his teleport punch and rocket sektor has a much better [ __ ] stance because he gets launchers and some combo strings that complement the teleport whereas cyrax doesn't get these there's not much to cover here at all i think but i definitely saved myself a bunch of potential youtube comments by mentioning that he was playable in this game the game was really hard to get a hold of back in the day and i think it only released in america or something so it's understandable if you've never heard from it or seen it it is actually quite fun though i will admit for a game this old and on such a limited system i always wanted to play this when i was a kid but in the uk seemed pretty impossible to get a hold of now the proper 3d age was in full swing with deadly alliance and deception having their console releases at this time armageddon as the final mk title to grace the ps2 era of systems would include all characters yet to make their 3d appearance sektor would make his armor get an appearance because of this and his prominence in the story his earlier design sporting what i always felt was actually the reskinned model they used for tournament edition or something but when the game was out sector had new visuals and a brand new move set although fun fact he could be seen in early e3 footage of armageddon with one of ermac's fighting styles so who knows what kind of moves he could have had if he had that fighting style right very interesting special moves are mostly here straight missile and teleport uppercut both coming back but smart missile is replaced by an up missile something that we would see in the future as well the final special move is flame burner which is another move that would become staple but it made its debut as a special in this game sektor is a character mainly focused on his weapon stance but the hand to hand does have a couple of key normals and strings that you would use a fair amount standing two is a launcher that bags major damage it is the main launcher that you'll go with across the entire character his low pokes aren't all that bad like down one or down three and down four but the main string that you'll use is one one stance change it transitions into pulse blades which is sektor's weapon and on the ground it's good damage by itself but in juggles it is a different world entirely sektor's weapon is the main stance to use thanks to its range tracking of moves and access to basic mid or low options and that is the basic mix-up of this game think of it as like a low overhead situation back three is a far-reaching low back one is a launching mid these two back-to-back are a simple mix-up tool sector does boast a fair few launches too with his back too in weapon hand-to-hand has things like forward three and some other launches just to name a few he had a lot of combo options because of it which brings me to weapon back four this move does really good damage and it doesn't track too badly either throw on parry cancels on top to give it extra range and it's not a bad poke to be honest in juggles though this attack is insane for damage output because at the right height the back four and hand to hand one one starts change can both be used to continue juggles and you can end it in a weapon standing three string sector is a very heavy hitting character without having to use the often community banned air infinite loops because of his weapon back four throw in those parry cancels into back four mid combo and you can get even more damage off any launch although this parry cancel is extremely tricky and in typical 3d mk fashion sometimes it just doesn't work anyway sektor was very much a hit and run character in weapon stance mostly and you use his launching options to bag that giant damage output once they've used all of their breakers it's party time but before then parries into hand-to-hand standing too or any kind of launch you can get your hands on serves as a means for getting those breakers out of the opponent because the breakers really stop you from getting the damage that you want the damage was his biggest factor in my opinion his range wasn't too bad at all thanks to weapon and specials and his combos were both extremely fun and high damage but in typical armageddon fashion he wasn't broken and you had to be pretty broken to be top tier in this game sektor was by all means solid as hell but he still sat around the midsection of the tier list for a lot of people he also just wasn't played a huge amount by the way so information from him back in the day was impossible to come by almost but thankfully we can play him today and definitely figure out what he's all about this game is a special one for me as it was where competitively sektor definitely saw his first taste of mainstream competitive play it is where my gamer tag comes from in the first place with multiple combat 9 being my first proper dive into tournament play sektor is an extremely interesting character in this game where his legacy of moves is perfectly pieced together to create a style of character that we hadn't seen before whilst very much evolving the character mechanically to even further heights so let's go over the moves first because they are as you expect crucial to his game plan straight missile is a projectile that knocks down this is important as he can take the lead in most projectile wars getting his next option as they stand up enhanced missile is a mid up missile returns from armageddon and it has three different distances to it enhanced will fire the smart missile but important to note it doesn't do any chip damage in this game so not quite a round ender teleport launches once again with the enhanced granting another launch and more damage crucial to sektor's combo game you can do this move in the air with a much faster startup making the use of instant air teleport with sektor a vital technique to master his counter zoning becomes much better if you can do this every time flame burner comes back and it re-stands on hit with the enhanced version doing a little more damage but honestly you never really saw the enhanced version used x-ray is a neat projectile for sektor with a cool little cinematic but like mk9 in general it's just not something that you would use much at all standing one is six frames and it has a few strings attached to it that you would see often one one back one comes from it and it sends full screen on hit one two back one is a full launcher and because it starts off of a six frame jab it is technically the fastest launcher in the entire game one two two ends in overhead which is crucial for his mix-up game back to one on top of being incredibly meaty is big damage on its own with back to comboing into teleport on the ground for giant combo damage use back to one mid combo at the right height to combo into a back three which is a low combo starter by the way and get major combo payout the back three is good for trip guarding someone after they've landed from a jump and a meterless corner launcher on top of being confirmable into teleport anyway anywhere on screen up three is a leg lift stance that can go into either a low string or a single hit overhead back one is a safe on block and single hitting blast sending full screen and forward two is an advancing button with a back one at the end that once more sends full screen now that is a lot of moves but with all of it combined here is the game plan sektor had incredibly strong neutral thanks to things like back one forward two flame burner missiles instant air teleport reactions for counter zoning standing one was a fantastic anti-air on top of the sheer existence of a six-frame launcher which was great for interrupting pressure or punishing moves that are otherwise hard to punish with most other characters being able to set up missiles or smart missiles in pressure and going into a leglift stance 5050 is something that i personally used a lot later in the game's lifespan and was absolutely a missing piece of tech in my opinion back in the day but there were some shortcomings to the character and he faced them that you would mostly notice them in a real match quite often to be honest one two back one is definitely a fast launcher there's no downplaying that but unless you're point blank the two whiffs and then the back one gets blocked you tend to lose a lot of damage because the string often doesn't combo into itself unless you are right up close making the punished game not as strong as it otherwise would have been and it definitely hurt the character in certain matchups enhance teleport it's safe on block and your only good wake up attack problem is it's very easy to make with with low profiling buttons knowledgeable players would make your one bar wake up miss completely and punish you anyway so in a high level this wake up option tends to get completely nullified and you're just at the mercy of the incoming mix-up sector's difficult match-ups were often the most popular characters in the game cabal sonja cyrax johnny cage for instance all gave sextill a pretty rough time with cage versus sextor in the corner pretty much being a gg right there sektor was a really solid character don't get me wrong but the reason he's considered high mid in the tier list and not near the top is because his flaws in competitive were rather easy to exploit and the top tiers gave him some real trouble but when he's not against those characters sektor really can thrive so he's in a very strange place in mk9 he's great against a bunch of characters but some of the most popular definitely give him a difficult experience sektor's alternate costume was mechanically a little bit different but not by much sektor's main thing in the human skin was that one two two had a better hitbox so some confirms worked for human but not for robots it's why human sector ironically is technically better because he has no new weaknesses but extremely minor advantages for sector players there were a fair few that i could safely say really pushed the character's limits in competitive tournaments i'm not even gonna plug my own gameplay here you're free to check that out if you like but i'm talking players like nicolas from greece ikizzle from the states swift tom hanks who liked human sector gross for crying out loud who made his debut in competitive mk9 with a serious sector showing in a grand finals this character was extremely well represented all around the globe so look i know this technically isn't sektor but all the sector players used it it's got the name the moves the play style i'm covering it here because it just makes sense triborg in mortal kombat xl had all four of the cyborgs as variations the sector variation absolutely ticking all of the boxes and has all the moves making us feel right at home speaking from absolute experience mkx was a game that was full of patches balance changes and the like if you want to know what the journey of triborg was in that regard i actually made a whole video on it a while ago so i'll link that for you in the description and probably the pinned comment for this video i'm going with final patch sector who is definitely a top five character for a number of reasons the classic moves are all here so i really don't need to go over them for yet another time you know them by now missiles flame burner teleport but a new move that he gets in mkx is an air dash that at certain heights was actually safe on block so it's super annoying in the neutral and it's a great whiff punisher if they try and jump and you jump or something in mkx sektor can cancel the air charge into his teleport on block for a cost of a bar for a really crusty mix up of dash versus no dash it also makes his overhead and low game into teleport way more annoying than usual flame burner is an amazing armored tool on meter burn so it's an option that you always had to keep in mind when pressuring him the only issue that had was that because it was down down three you would sometimes on wake up get a delayed wake up when you actually just want to wake up attack it was quite annoying smart missile in this game chipped out and in my personal opinion it had my favorite brutality in the entire game sectors unique buttons in this variation like back 2 for example which was special cancelable ranged and it can go into straight missile made him a neutral god his meterless damage was fantastic and you could choose between full screen enders close range enders into overhead low mix up staggered pressure into a straight missile that was safe at most ranges in the final patch sector in this game was just really really safe and had a ton of options fundamentally one of the best characters where if you were a talented player you'd be hard-pressed to find something this variation didn't do well there is a reason that sonic fox was the greatest sector player in mortal kombat x right the natural talent combined with a character that did everything they wanted to do this wasn't always the case in previous patches armoured reversals for example really hurt his most dangerous tools back then but in the final patch where armor universally wasn't as damaging his risks became much lower for the same great reward this variation played just like sector with better mobility than ever better mix-ups than ever better buttons than ever the variation was without question top 5 in mortal kombat x and saw plenty of success in the competitive realm that's for sure the honorable mention of this video is sektor in mortal kombat 11 who appears as an npc you can play him if you use pc mods offline but he is missing all of the mk11 flair like crushing blows fatal blows stuff like that once again i actually made an entire video covering him so you can check that out for an absolute deep dive his moves are all taken from mkx triborg although some of them do function a little differently and he's just definitely not a character that is designed to be used by a human because he isn't his combo gravity and stuff really puts that forward personally my all-time favorite visual design and a character that i really would love to see playable in either mk11 or a future mortal kombat but as the gameplay of sektor does appear in mk11 in some capacity it was worth showing just for the cherry on top i think and that concludes what is definitely the longest competitive history i've ever worked on sektor has been one of the iconic cyborgs since his first ever appearance in the 90s and remains to this day a special character to me i genuinely probably wouldn't be where i am right now esports wise if i didn't nerd out over this character and franchise so much and it's been a lot of fun revisiting the legacy that sektor has left behind in the franchise if you like this video and you want to see more of sector please check out history behind the warrior who did a full history of sektor's law in the official franchise's timeline it launched a few days ago and i was lucky enough to be the voice of that video as well thank you for watching if you want to support me make sure you stick around on the patreon maybe drop a like or a subscribe i appreciate all of it and i will see you next time tell me who you want next i'd love to know [Music] you

Channel: PNDK&M

Views: 300,736

Keywords: History, of, kurtis, stryker, competitive, high, level, play, combos, combo, ketchup, mustard, pnd, K&M, meta, tournament, tournaments, mike, metroid, grand, finals, tutorial, guide, umk3, armageddon, 2011, 2012, 1992, 1995, arcade, arcades, infinite, how, to, do, game, gameplay, moves, move, specials, Rain, Prince, Of, Edenia, pits, meat, character, characters, episode, wind, god, fujin, MK4, mame, dolphin, gamecub, dreamcast, aftermath, variation, variations, history, chameleon, khameleon, trilogy, PS1, Documentary, education, ermac, ps2, sEKTOR, gold, broken

Id: _iV2fS0HQ7I

Length: 27min 12sec (1632 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021