T.V.L.K.M - Competitive History of Cyber Sub-Zero

[Music] i'm back from a bit of a break from content it's been a really busy year for me and i needed to recharge my batteries burnout is real so make sure you take care of yourself everybody however i've always known what my next competitive history video will be when i returned the first cyborg character to grace this video series a character that is only a part of the netherrealm era of titles starting with mk9 and making a very surprised appearance in mortal kombat x cyber sub-zero has always been a unique take on the cyborg style character design however competitively this character has always struggled to really stand out as a powerful pick a character that took a long time to develop fully mechanically especially in his first ever appearance of mk9 that doesn't stop cyber sub-zero from being both incredibly fun to play and a popular pick from hardcore character specialists that really went to town exploring his potential through the years welcome to the competitive history of cyber sub-zero so starting with mk9 which was his first ever appearance as this game was not only a revival of the franchise really but a retelling of the classic story instead of smoke becoming a cyborg which is normally what happens it is sub-zero that gets turned instead it was actually quite the curveball to us and nobody expected it in an official title back in 2011. not only that but you had to unlock cyber sub-zero by reaching him in the story once you beat him you get cyber sub so you couldn't grab the game day one and use him instantly this also meant that in tournaments if a setup didn't have cyber sub unlocked you had to unlock him otherwise you couldn't use him so rip cybersub players gameplay wise this was a complete blank canvas for a new character that we would see shades of in future titles as well but in mk9 this character really did go through quite the journey in terms of the meta and i'll get into that very soon move wise here's what we're looking at for cyber sub zero ice ball is a standard freeze it works the exact same way as human sub-zeros and it gives you a full combo the enhanced version goes full screen here is where cyber sub comes into his own separate from human though the ice bomb is a bomb attack with three different directions they are unblockable just like cyrax's bombs and they freeze the opponent on hit however they do have a specific mechanic where they often don't freeze but that's something for a little later the enhanced bomb will fire all three directions at once slide is like human slide once again a fast advancing attack with a knockdown enhanced does more damage teleport is like cyrax's teleport in terms of animation it can be done grounded or airborne and enhanced will act as a single hit attack it isn't really amazing though because he's vulnerable for a long time when it's activated dive kick has two directions close and far three input for close and the four input for far enhanced hits more times and does really good damage for a single attack finally and one of the most interesting moves that he has in this game ice parry is an instant parry that will parry most attacks but like most parry attacks will lose to lows the regular parry will knock down an enhanced parry is a full freeze you can anti-air with this which is quite important but it's risky if they predict it all of these tools combined makes cybersub a interesting character with both incredible mobility and utility for days thanks to his projectiles bombs movement teleports he's got all kinds of gadgets going on but attack wise he has some crucial strings and normals as well three three two hits three times with the second hit of the string acting as a low three four ends in overhead so there is somewhat of a mix-up here although 3-4 is definitely slower two one one plus two is your main launcher most of the time but two one is also your best string to confirm into meterless freeze back two two and forward two two one are both advancing strings useful for combos with the back 2 2 also being a good poke in the neutral back 321 starts from a low and it splats but the back 32 can combo into x-ray as you're airborne the same can be said for back to four which on its own is not very good but on hit can combo into the x-ray in the corner finally in terms of single buttons up 4 is a magic button indeed it is a high but on hit after a juggle this attack does massive damage but you have to land the up 4 into slide extremely early there is more to this though which brings me to my next section cyber subs x-ray can only be done in the air and it starts from a dive kick does really good damage but is mostly used for combos although you won't really see this in general because he's a meter-intensive character cyber sub-zero really sums up the insane levels of tech that mortal kombat 9 had however we need to understand a drawback that he's always suffered from because this was designed to be this way presumably so he just wasn't cyrax 2.0 i assume cyber subs bombs could not launch the opponent was also technically airborne during the frozen stun so you'd often just get something like 3 4 into back 2-2 slide not terrible but it's not a grounded combo which would have done more damage additionally his bombs when used as a setup tool after combos would rarely freeze at all they'd just knock down like this it's not a lot of damage and you don't get much off it a lot of the time when looking at the stun though the opponent would only be frozen if the bomb was used if the opponent was in a state where they could block as it was deployed but it still felt really strange because sometimes they'd freeze anyway sometimes not it was sometimes said that if the game considered them in a state where they can't move they'd get frozen but sometimes it's just a normal hit the main purpose for bombs on hit was on the understanding that look they probably won't freeze and working around the mini explosion was your best bet you could steal combo from it if you time it right and the most common combo being a two one one plus two that usually has a gap in between the second and third hit but the bomb would fill that gap and allow a free launch afterwards because the final hit launches the final note about the bombs on a base level was that if the opponent is frozen by either a bomb or regular freeze you are unable to fire any more bombs until the combo is over not like cyrax where you can stun and bomb whenever you want this means that you didn't have the same setup tools that cyrax had but you could use some tools to break this rule and do a bomb anyway here are the examples neutral jumps splat in the corner ends the combo and allows a bomb drop mid screen or in the corner a dash into up four after the 2-1 launch ends the combo instantly and again allows a bomb drop although they are quite far away so you can use other moves to make this really tricky but you're not going to get masses of reward mid-screen not being able to use bombs after combos the way cyrax could made you have to use other methods for setup stuff like up four into whiffed bomb for frame advantage or up four into teleport for frame advantage cyber sub was a crazy setup heavy character and this was what made him so interesting to lab with for many players a final bomb detail is not majorly practical but it existed thanks to crazy lab monsters like doctrine dark for example is that you can make your bombs invisible should you repeat the bomb input right as it detonates doing this at the right time would make this happen crazy really but yeah it's pretty cool strength wise cyber sub zero is slippery fast paced unpredictable and actually sported an interesting neutral thanks to his projectiles he could make a lot of characters have to come to him because of the minefield of projectiles he could create and as parry being so instant meant the pressure that other characters just had to hold like cabal or johnny cage he could challenge thanks to instant parry and get a combo for his troubles if you're brave enough however we have to discuss what made him on the lower end of the tier list because that is where he resided the more obvious one is matchups he had a large amount of matchups that he just struggled in for all kinds of different reasons most of the top tiers completely chewed him up but he was funnily enough able to do a few things versus kenshi for instance because of how his counter zoning worked generally though a lot of the game's more popular characters were a struggle for this character to deal with a common issue for the lower tiered characters of mortal kombat 9 he wasn't alone in that respect in more detail though he had some fundamental flaws that hurt him a great deal pokes were one of his troubles specifically their frame data frame data in mk9 was notoriously unreliable a myth at times but with low pokes cyber sub had a really rough time and this is why down one on block was punishable by other pokes down three was fast and probably his best low poke being zero on hit against standing opponents but plus seven on hit versus crouched opponents unfortunately his down four was zero on hit versus standing opponents but minus seven on hit versus crouched opponents so you hitting a down four gave you nothing at all the general game of looking for a poke to hit and taking your turn he just couldn't do reliably you'd think down three could just be used instead like everyone else but here is the next fundamental flaw that really hurt him dash in down three just isn't reliable why because the three input is used for his mid bomb which is forward forward three doing a forward dash into down three gives you a bomb not the poke most of the time this is terrible for cyber sub because you can't dash in down three which could have been really good for him given the frame advantage versus crouching but that's just the way it is for him in this game unfortunately on the subject of frame advantage many cyber sub players felt that his two one one plus two string had random frame advantage on it as well an effective technique for instant plus frames found by irish nrs player and cyber sub original used for glue involved a instant enhanced dive kick so only the first hit connected making it crazy plus on block this random frame advantage from two one one plus two could go into instant dive kick and then another two one it's weird but i always thought it was pretty neat personally fundamentally cyber sub zero did not have the base tools to compete with the top tier characters of mortal kombat 9 but his tech setups combos and more were really fun to dive into nevertheless he was popularized back in the day by players such as egp guamo j360 and used for glue to name a few and you can actually find their tournament footage to this day on youtube they really pioneered this character competitively in my opinion a lot of the setup potential that i mentioned took a very long time to discover and refine so early cyber sub-zero was not the same kind of character that you could in theory experience in 2020. he was a slow burner and many cyber sub-zero players of that time frame wouldn't have used a lot of the setups and tech that you see here a crazy new addition to a legendary mk title guess what we can finally debut an mkx character into this series for the first time nice that said let me take you back a little bit the year is 2016. mortal kombat x has been out for a full year already and we're just about to get the combat pack 2 installment we know at this point that triborg is on the way which combines smoke sector and cyrax but what we weren't prepared for was the secret fourth variation which was cyber sub-zero i'll never forget how i felt seeing this for the first time when we were preparing for the tribal combat cast back at the esl pro league finals something that mustard and i were personally involved in and that whole experience will remain one of my fondest career memories i say secret because it's not immediately obvious how you pick him he belongs to the variationless option that you pick for other characters so to get him select triborg press up up 2 and now you have cyber sub 0 selected this would be variationless for other picks anyway the core element of cyber sub-zero that was developed in mk9 was explored so much more in mkxl while he's not an amazing character compared to the actual top top tiers he's insanely fun to play and could do pretty well against other characters that were considered very strong themselves i'm not going to cover universal tribal moves more the cyber sub specific attacks and general game plan you'll recognize a lot of these moves straight away from mk9 free is returned but it's got a different input this time it still functions the same way but it has a really fast recovery so full screen it is quite the nuisance me to burn this to instantly shoot a beam that freezes the opponent icebomb also makes a comeback with three different distances this will freeze the opponent airborne like mk9 but his general moveset capitalizes off freeze better in this game me to burn the ice bomb to create a puddle that freezes the opponent grounded in mkx the bombs are not unblockable they hit as a low divekick and its two distances make a return too with an added meter burn input that does a lot more damage slide as fast goes really far and is armored with extra damage if you meter burn it the final special and something new to cyber sub in x is the drone this drone powers up some of your cyber sub specific attacks me to burn this to summon all three at once and three is the limit i will explore the drone in a little bit though because they are important x-ray startup is different for all cyborgs and the cyber sub is no exception his is a parry keeping in tradition with his mk9 counterpart but there is an option to attack off it too and you can cancel it as well it has an amazing is a brutality normals and strings for cyber sub are as follows neutral jump punch is your best mid with great range this button is really really good back 2 has a built in back dash and it ends in overhead you can special cancel the back dash into specials so it's awesome for the retreating style of play or to instantly create distance it uses one bar of stamina to perform because it's a back dash forward two is a long range ice lance great poke but especially good knock down frames for setup back one two plus four is an extra overhead ender this will freeze grounded if you need to burn it forward one two starts from the far and fast forward one and is slightly plus on block a great move for push back into other buttons two one two acts like sectors visually but it simply knocks down on its own however the drone changes the properties of this which brings me to the drone buff breakdown as this was really important to the character drone would alter many of cyber subs moves some being quite vital in a real match here's the list two one two with the drone buff becomes special cancelable forward one two with the drone buff launches for a full combo back one two plus four on its own with the drone buff does significantly more damage over twenty percent on its own back two gains extra launch properties with a drone buff letting you double pop up after something like a neutral jump drone buff on ice ball and meter burn ice ball makes the ice do damage over time good for bmbs drone buff on meter burn divekick ramps up the damage once more and finally drone buff on ice bombs will once again increase the damage output using a drone buff for extra damage and utility makes it a crucial part of the character's game plan you can easily summon a drone after freeze and still extend combos so you'll always have the chance to get these what you do with them though is completely up to you now gameplay wise cyber sub zero had great range great projectiles and counter zoning thanks to freeze and ice bombs but also incredible mobility thanks to divekick and slide he was always slippery and hard to pin down like mk9 he overwhelms you if you don't know the match up but when you do he is extremely unsafe divekit can be punished with advancing buttons slide as death on block he had to really show the cyber sub player that they couldn't get away with whatever they wanted but as the cyber sub zero player he had so many ways to remain unpredictable and hard to read that you could still win with him he just wasn't as reliable as the super top tier variations in sector and smoke but this character was still a mix-up machine not like cyrax though cyber sub did it in his own way and that brings me to the final section of this portion the mix-ups because this was what cyber sub-zero was all about at close range just like mk9 cyber sub-zero cannot do bombs if the opponent is frozen beforehand but unlike mk9 there is no way you can break this rule you can do bombs if there is no freeze by all means but the freeze is where most of your combos come from if you're confirming certain moves like a forward one three or a one one one for instance that means that we have to end the combo first and then do the bomb which requires moves with great knockdown advantage to finish the combo most famously an airborne forward two which has a lot of frames to work with forward two into close bomb while cornered is the most popular way after confirms that cyber sub could mix bomb into the back three down four for both cyrax and cyber sub as a standard hard to blockable but honestly knock down frames into bomb was pretty self-explanatory and you could get really creative with it the difference with cyber sub is that you really had to read how the opponent would try and fight the mix-up some wake-up attacks go through what you do or evade you completely and punish sometimes a player might just jump or press a button you have to get used to how they play to really enforce the most lethal mix-ups additionally most of the mix-ups here come from the corner with cyber sub as mid-screen you can't do the same kind of splat into bomb because they're too far away you could still mix mid-screen with a neutral jump punch into back 3 down 4 up 3 because it's a hard knock down allowing for an overhead or low mix up i used to do this all the time but also things like neutral jump into a forward 1 3 mid bomb this also allows for the back 3 down 4 mix up in terms of tear placement he was never a character on anybody's radar really especially late game not really for his own merits though but because he was grossly overshadowed by sektor and smoke who were more fundamentally strong with crazy reliable tools cyber sub was a really strong counter zoner who could trade favorably versus most projectiles because if you trade from full screen you can slide or dive kick your way in and almost always confirm he had stylish but necessary bnbs from jump dive kicks and he has this amazing flow to his gameplay that i can't really explain you just need to see it for yourself strong characters that have good projectiles or advancing buttons would need to watch out for ice trades or instant njp thanks to its speed and hitbox some characters ruined him if they didn't have to care about his mix-ups but others would get locked down by his obstacle course of hazards and then on hit leading to mix-ups i always liked how his back three up four could confirm off dive kicks really well every borg has this move but cyber subs confirms oh that's so good mkx cyber sub zero was a character that i always thought was not that relevant compared to other triborg variations but to this day he is still one of my favorite mk characters to play of all time including every single game triborg wins i'd like to finish this video with an honorable mention a character in mortal kombat 11 that has shades of cyber sub in their game plan that character is frost we know she's a cyborg in this game but not the same exactly as sektor or cyrax but she does have some moves that straight up belong to cyber sub and she reminds me a lot of the character i'm pretty sure it was by design too her bomb potential which has fun mix-ups attached her fatal blow basically being a meter burn freeze from mkx the movement the long-ranged ice attacks come on a bunch of this is cyber sub-zero i wanted to cover this a little bit though because it's rather out in the open but some people might not have put two and two together if you didn't play extensively the previous games or pay that much attention to cyber sub right i regret not covering solely to shang in my chameleon video because that's a similar game plan so this was something that i didn't want to miss a second time round and that cyber sub zero while he's only had two official appearances and is by all means an nrs era character his two playable appearances have still been incredibly fun to me personally i never played him in mk9 during the game's prime i was too much of a sector loyalist back then but i had to extensively learn and revisit mk9 for this video with cyber sub but i did always play him in mkx so it's been lovely to come back and revisit a character that i thoroughly enjoy to play fans of high mobility and setup potential will love this character and if you get the chance grab mkx on steam or ps4 or whatever and give this character a try for yourself a long time ago some community members believed in mk9 that cyber sub had some hidden potential a secret top tier perhaps but then eventually when we started to realize just how struggle the character was the original coined term a tournament viable lethal killing machine didn't quite have the same meaning that it does in 2020 i'm sure thanks for being patient with me i know i've taken a short break to recharge my batteries here but it is lovely to be back thanks for watching consider maybe subscribing or maybe even joining my patreon for further support and i'll see you next time take care [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: PNDK&M

Views: 274,574

Keywords: History, of, kurtis, stryker, competitive, high, level, play, combos, combo, ketchup, mustard, pnd, K&M, meta, tournament, tournaments, mike, metroid, network, 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, CSZ, cyber, sub-zero

Id: QVqp7K4Kq-Q

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 02 2020