The Ten Best Mortal Kombat 11 Fatalities for Esports Crowds
By Jason Fanelli ·
Mortal Kombat 11 is rife with epic finishing moves called Fatalities, but only some of them would translate well to a live MK event. We list the ones we think would get the best crowd reaction.
Mortal Kombat 11 is out in the wild, and the competitive scene grows stronger every day. Every weekend brings new tournament footage, and every day more tech is found and explored on countless livestreams. In these early days of discovery there’s one thing we’re seeing a lot of that we know will fall by the wayside eventually: Fatalities.
Now we know that using a Fatality in a competitive environment is frowned upon, considered taunting by some and a waste of time by others, but that doesn’t mean some of these death moves wouldn’t be perfect on a big screen watched by hundreds of people at a tournament. In fact, the ten we’ve listed below would be perfect in a live setting, as crowd reactions will be priceless.
Kung Lao - “Meat Slicer”
We can hear a raucous MK11 watching crowd shouting with every one of Kung Lao’s turns. Each slice would bring a louder and louder sound until the last one sends the crowd into a frenzy. If Kung Lao becomes a competitive favorite, we’ll be looking for this.
Johnny Cage - “Mr Cage’s Neighborhood”
We don’t think we need to go into too much detail as to why this would be an incredible Fatality to watch live. Just in case though, the mixture of boos at the bad jokes and laughs for the pure insanity of it all is enough to make us want this to happen ASAP.
Cassie Cage - “Girl Power”
Envision this: Cassie charges while shooting her guns, getting multiple cheers from the crowd. Then, when she stops firing, we hear a building “ooooooooooOOOOOHHHH” until the final punt comes coupled with loud cheers and multiple arms raised like a football referee. This was tailor-made to be experienced in a large group.
Jax Briggs - “Still Got It’
Much like Cassie above, this one is here solely for the build-up. As the head floats in the air the cacophony will build, until finally Jax takes the skin off the ball (literallly) with a mighty swing and hits a mighty home run. A live crowd might even sing the classic stadium organ music too, which would be icing on the cake.
Frost - “The Cyber Initiative”
We included this one solely for an event like EVO, where there are multiple fighting game tournaments going on at once and there may be a few players not familiar with MK watching a match. Once they see this Fatality they’ll have to know more, because a human brain being taken from the battlefield and inserted into a killer robot demands more information.
Kano - “Last Dance”
Kano’s sudden penchant for the ballroom -- right after stabbing the poor soul in the neck with a glass bottle no less -- is so goofy a good crowd would give a hearty laugh. His other Fatality almost made the list for sheer brutality, but this one will make a non-MK crowd a little more comfortable.
D’Vorah - “New Species”
People expect Fatalities to be gross, but it’s blood and gore that they’re on the lookout for. D’Vorah delivers it, but mixes in a heapin’ helpin’ or disgusting creepy crawly bug nonsense. We need to know how a live crowd would react to it in real time, just once.
Kabal - “Hooked”
This is another one that would be going for sheer shock factor, both in the slicing of the Achilles tendons and the obvious teeth-grinding portion. This is NetherRealm’s sound team’s finest work in MK11 in this writer’s opinion, and hearing that blood-curdling sound
Baraka, “Food for Thought”
Technically we’ve seen this one live already, as it was the centerpiece of the original gameplay trailer. The reaction at the reveal event tells us everything we need to know about how a live FGC crowd will react, so some Baraka player should do it to get the crowd going...or grossed out.
Geras - “Peeling Back”
The single most brutal, unnerving Fatality in the entirety of Mortal Kombat 11 belongs to Geras. His peeling trick makes us cringe every single time we see it, its sheer brutality setting a new bar for MK’s violence. Of course we want to see someone hit it at the end of a big tournament set, don’t you?
For more Mortal Kombat 11, check out our guides on how to unlock two of the Krypt’s most difficutlt doors, the Dragon Amulet Door and the One Being Door, as well as a quick primer on performing Brutalities.