Great, thanks for sharing!

I didn't realize Sub-Zero was top tier, this is news to me, the others I was aware of and it seems Kitana has slighly moved downward?


I'm glad all the buffs Sheeva has gotten since release have pushed her to upper mid as well as my girl Sonya.


Stryker being mid is a okay with me, as long as he's viable I'm good to go.


I thought Jade was mid tier, really shocked how low she is, especially after her buffs.


I might participate in the discussion, haven't checked the link out yet, thanks again my good sir

May want to take it with a grain of salt, there hasn't been enough time to gather every data necessary to make an accurate tier after the recent patch. I think right now, there can't be that many categories since everyone is good (except Sindel lol). It's fun to guess though, I think the best two characters right now are Kabal and Cyrax.

Not that I really care, but Nephrite posted this at least a week ago, it just wasn't it's own thread.

^ It was actually GodlyShinnok who posted that tier list in the strategy zone.


Anyway, in my humble opinion I feel like they're overestimating Sub-Zero. I'd switch him and Reptile for places. Even though they nerfed Reptile's dash, I still struggle to punish it... I do kinda suck though lol...

Great to see that Sheeva, Baraka and Stryker climbed up. I'm really diggin' Sheeva these days, love the buff on her anti-air grab!

No wonder Sindel is still so low, yes she can do nice damage with combos now, but her normals are so slow that she hardly ever gets a chance to do a combo. I also read that you can poke her out of some strings (2, 1 and b3, f2 maybe?).

Jade, I don't know. I'm a bit surprised, is she really that bad? My problem with her is that she feels a bit sluggish and her mix-up options are weak. We'll see over time how much that re-boomerang buff really helps. Maybe they should buff up her enhanced glow so that she only takes 50% damage if someone hits her? Maybe make her sweep recover faster?

I was starting to doubt Kitana's high placement, but Devastation bitchslapped me for ever doubting my baby's quality.

I knew Jade was low before, and I'm not a bit surprised that after the grand, spectacular buffs that they acted like they were going to give her with the "big secret" turned out to be garbage that she's still bottom tier.

She has ZERO mid/low mixups, she has no teleport to control position, you have to waste meter to get her reboomerangs and glow, meaning you can forget using her Xray and getting her 50%+ combo. The only thing she has is a rather high damage combo, if you're ever lucky enough to land the first hit of it. Oh, and reboomerang resets if your opponent is stupid enough to fall for them.

What she needed instead of these stupid reboomerangs and pushback on block for the DF+2 (who was even saying that that was a problem?) was a much MUCH faster staff overhead, the ability to link a full combo after 3,4,2, and to make B+1 less punishable on block. Seriously, the recovery frames on that are about as bad as Mileena's blocked ball roll, and it's a frigg'n normal.

That would have moved her up in the tiers, not to KL and Raiden level, but it would have actually made her respectable. I hate how they screwed her in this game and made f***ing Freddy high tier.

I am surprised to see Sub-Zero that high. I haven't had the opportunity to mess around with any DLC characters, so it's cool to see where they place. I haven't played a good Sheeva player ever, so I'm shocked that these buffs moved her up this far on the tier list. I'm surprised Ermac is that low, what happened to the days when he was dominating tournaments? Was he nerfed that bad? I'm sad that these "ultra special" Jade buffs have done nothing for her. And finally, I can't believe Sindel is dead last just because I thought the MK team said that she's the best character in the game. I guess they were trolling.

It's interesting how the list is divided into six categories from S to B. I guess the characters are balanced enough to keep it from being separated from S to E.

I know the nature of tier lists, I know the nature of highly competitive play, and I know the nature of casual play. It's just interesting to see how the best of the best think that the characters rank when being used by the best.

SIndel is amazing but not played correctly by most people.

I don't see any way Sub is top. The buffs haven't changed his bad matchups enough IMO. I know Kitana still blows him up. I got to play the matchup with top Sub's at Dev and it was still a big struggle for them.

Wow- Rain being even with Reptile, Kitana, and Freddy,
Skarlet's low ranking, and Ermac's *very* low ranking
are all huge surprises to me.

The Rain thing is awesome, though-
maybe I should dust off my PS3 and play again...

Oh, whoops my mistake!

Anyway, I don't know if I agree with Ermac being that low. I can do an EASY 41% combo with him and I don't even mess wit him like that. Is it because his moves are super punishable?

It's not like it really matters though, I feel pretty much everyone is on equal footing as of now. Although, Kung Lao is still slightly above the rest.

to put my input..i still dont really agree with this list especially regarding Jade. I do think she was put in bottom tier only because its not that she moved down, but everyone else moved up and their buffs are more useful. i main Jade and i can asure you that she is mid-high tier. i can do amazing combos with her and easliy trick people with her boomerang throws. her projectile invincibility also is very useful. and even though her pole vault can now be ducked, i still think overall shes a balanced character.

Good point, the patch is still fairly new. Everyone seems so much more even in that list, I'm still in shock how many characters are in the low top tier, although I'm sure that list will change, hopefully we can begin to see a tournament with a ton of new characters getting shine instead of the usual suspects, I would love to see Jade, CSZ, Sindel, Stryker etc take a big tournament.

Kabal makes sense, he's easily the most versatile character on the roster, with no really bad match ups. Cyrax I think is at least top 5, we rarely/never see him at tournaments though

Poor Sindel, a beast in story mode, a paper tiger in game


Jade I would totally consider moving up to mid tier, she seems on par with Stryker without a doubt and several of the other mid tier characters, the only major weakness I've found with her is her lack of great mix ups, if she had more of those I think she would move up exponentially. That glow shuts down zoning, great tricks with her boomerangs, nice glowing kick to close the distance, easy to combo into X-ray. I think I may pick Jade back up again if she truly is low tier though, I love my underdogs

You know what, I'm actually satisfied with this list. Since my top three are Cyrax, Ermac, and Shang Tsung, it feels good to know that 2 out of that 3 are Mid to Low tier. Now I can throw that shit in my opponent's face when I get those hate messages regarding Ermac and Shang, and how 'cheap' they are! Not too mention I'm gonna have that Rocky "underdog" feeling now when I play higher tiered characters lol.

I think Ermac has some really bad match-ups and that's why he's so low (Raiden, Noob Saibot, Kabal, Cage?).


@Espio: Hmmm, well there weren't any Cyrax players in Top8 at Devastation, but there were in other tournaments. I remember there was a flood of Cyrax players at the National PDP tourney, Trophy Club was extremely interesting to watch. There's also Maxter who has a sick Cyrax and there's also Mustard from UK, his matches against Ketchup's Sektor are really cool to watch. The lack of Raiden from the start has been kinda surprising to me, especially since he's been considered top tier from the start and is generally a very popular character in the MK community.

I'm kinda surprised by this list. I really don't agree with a lot of it.

A. Sub Zero certainly got a buff, but is no way top tier. I'd put Kitana and Mileena ahead of him any day. Speaking of which Id say both are top tier, especially Kitana.

B. Reptile is absolutely still top tier. Punishable dash on block my ass and the good players really only used it to control distance and as a fast punish anyway, which it still does easily.

C. Kano low top tier? I could be wrong here as I have only recently picked him up, but didn't his regular knives get a bit of a nerf? They're not as fast as they use to be and he's no longer the best zoner with the fastest projectile, many characters can out zone him. Also his regulars are painfully slow which seems to be enough to put Quan Chi on the lower end of the tier list and he has a better projectile (skull has faster recovery, EX skull causes stagger and grants free jump in/mix up). All his wake ups are just as punishable as Quan Chi's, although upball does require the correct distance to be punished (similar to cage's flip kick).

D. Why is Smoke suddenly not mid tier anymore? Did he receive a buff? I would never think to put him above Ermac although he does have a bit of an advantage against him. Speaking of which, I really don't think Ermac should be so low. He's one of the best punishers in the game and has more opportunity for mix ups than say Cyrax just not with insanely high amount of damage. He can easily hold his own against most of the characters above him, including kung lao.

E. I thought Sonya was considered top tier or at the least low top tier? On the TYM forums it seems most people consider her the best rush down character in the game and her D4 is on par with Mileena's and im pretty sure has more distance. Also her projectile isn't total shit like JC's so i don't really understand whats keeping her high mid tier?

F. And lastly, although he is one of my all time favorite MK characters and I would LOVE to have him be more useful in this game, I still feel like Baraka is low tier or at the LEAST low mid tier. I would be extremely excited to see a high level player using Baraka to kick ass in a tournament or something but it seems even with his buffs baraka still has the same basic problems and incredibly lop sided match ups. If i'm totally off here and someone wants to correct me PLEASE do so.


For the record I hope i don't come off too whiney/bitchy here. I'm not tryin to complain. I am an intermediate player with most of my experience based on online play and am no where near as knowledgeable as Tom Brady or Reo. I just feel a bit outta the loop on this latest tier list and I normally take what these two say about the game as Holy scripture. Feel free anybody to correct me if I'm lookin at these characters the wrong way.

Hey you guys should check these matches out if you wanna see more Cyrax tournament matches. This is my favorite high level Cyrax player Mustard winning a tournament in the UK WITHOUT using resets (its from before the latest patch.)

what's ironic is I saw match with Maxster v.s Eric something or other shortly after I made that post lol. Pretty good match ups, I'll have to check out some additional ones too.


I think people didn't run to him because of his predominant use online maybe people felt they might be too predictable using him? Either way, it's a shock but a wonderful one to not see him so much.

@Spaceman:

A: Well, it seems most of us agree that Subby is too high on the latest tier list.

B: I'd definitely switch Reptile and Sub-Zero for places as I already said.

C: I think they buffed up Kano's knives again. Not sure if they're as fast as they initially were though. Where exactly should his place on the tier list be I'm not sure, but I do see him as a well rounded, solid character. He probably doesn't have any bad matchups. As for Quan Chi, I think some of his strings can be interrupted (even with Cyber SZ's parry and Cyber SZ already is a nightmare for Quan due to his dive kick which Quan apparently can't punish). I didn't know that his ex-skull gives a safe jump-in, thanks for that bit! Also, I listened to the latest Bradycast where Tom speaks about a Quan player at Devastation who played really well and I got the impression like his opinion of Quan Chi changed for the better. We'll see.

D: Not sure why Smoke climbed up, maybe some new resets were discovered? As for Ermac, Brady says he has some really bad matchups like Raiden and Noob Saibot. Maybe some others too (Cage?).

E: In the early top lists Sonya was actually considered low mid-tier character and now she's high mid-tier, same as Cage. Both probably have issues/difficulties against good zoners. Look what REO did to Morty's Sonya at Devastation.

F: Baraka, I don't know how much better he is in 1.05 version of the game. They made his specials safer and I think his ex-blade charge goes full screen now? I think his corner game improved massively, but I could be wrong.


You didn't come off too whiney/bitchy, don't worry. And, like you, I too am an intermediate player so who knows how wrong/correct I am with my reply to you lol. But, it's cool to discuss it.

Thanks for the link btw. I've seen quite a few Mustard matches, but I'm always rooting for Ketchup as I prefer Sektor over Cyrax.

Very good read and interesting info here.

I don't really post much around this forum because I'm no high level player, however, its always great to see all the contributions and support from the members who do understand more of the real gameplay mechanics and area.

I've been reading some amazing gameplay analysis on certain characters and all I can think about is how awesome it would be to play with that level of skill to actually make those things happen.

Excellent job you guys, specially those of you who are always making helpful posts and contributions in this board. Keep them coming!

Apparently some new Kitana technology has been discovered which makes her the new best character in the game (at least until something new gets discovered for some other character). The technology is still a TOP SECRET and only few know of it and it seems we'll have to wait until NEC tourney on Dec. 3rd/4th to see it presented.


See the image in full size by right-clicking on it:





OMG!!! I'm so excited about this! I can't wait until December, my heart won't be able to take it!

EDIT: Nvm the rest.