MK11 Guide: How To Play Against Jacqui Briggs featuring MokoraN

Jacqui Brigg's incessant pressure can be difficult to overcome for any player. Chip damage and mind games galore in her matchups. It's best to get a foundational understanding of what you should be doing against her. Whether to crush thought opponents online, at locals, or just between friends who won't stop picking her and her grenade launchers.

We joined up with MakoraN to bring you a guide on how to get the upper hand against the one and only, Jacqui Briggs.

Mortal Kombat 11 | How to Play Against Jacqui Briggs | Guide by MakoraN

Jacqui's Variations

Most Jacqui players will feature variations with Granade Launcher and Bionic Bounce. Granade launcher is great damage of time option. Bionic Bounce is the tool that allows her to apply constant pressure. Given the power of these two moves, you shouldn't worry too much about any of the other moves Jacqui has, as most players will take these two first.

Jacqui's Weaknesses

Jacqui's range is finicky, it is great at long distances where her grenade launcher and leap can open a path to fighting up close. Then once she is in her opponent's face, she has many normals and specials to pile on the pressure. But at a certain distance in between those, Jacqui struggles to have safe or reliable options. A good strategy to make use of this deficit in her strategy is to zone her out with characters such as Cetrion.

You are going to want to keep putting pressure on Jacqui as the two options she will generally use to escape are her bionic dash, which can be blocked and D2 punished, or use her leap, which, if you are able to read or react to then you should be able to use one of your anti-air attacks to punish. Neither is an easy win however, but they can help you retain the momentum of a match.

How to escape Jacqui's strings

A common pressure string is 1, 2 into a leap grenade launcher. You can respond by using a good anti-air, D2, or just a normal punch. You can also punish her on her second or third bounce. But be careful, Jacqui can delay her attack a little, leading to miss timings and putting back into the string. You can also back-dash to anti-air, there is a window to forward dash, but it is so small that it is generally not worth practicing.

The nature of the attack means that it's better to commit to a particular read, whether that is one, two, or three bounces. If you try to always react to it you are very likely never going to get out and just plain lose.

Another option for Jacqui is to leap close distances and swap sides constantly. At first it might look like it will jail you in, but you can interrupt her with an anti-air or by jumping yourself. Neither option is guaranteed so it's best if you play around with which feels best for you and in the match itself to see if you can get away with simpler moves that offer more value.

What not to do against Jacqui

Don't try to poke with D1 agasint her F3, 1 string. Go for a D3.
Don't throw tech-forward, only try backward and try to do it late.
Don't try to react to everything, trust your reads more and if they fail, adjust.
Don't dash without blocking, you will get bionic punched.