I'm not really interested in the spot per se, but I'd like to make the argument for Liu Kang and why he will probably stay very relevant should his current Dragon's Fire and Flame Fist stay as they are.
From the looks of Yomi's list, what they most favor as signs of a great character are either A) Strength of 50/50, B) Strong chip based offense, or C) Both. So in that sense, it would very much make sense as to why Kung Lao in Tempest would be up there, Tanya, Quan Chi, etc. Given that, I would argue that Liu Kang excels at B), whilst not succeeding so much in A), but having just enough of a guessing game to reinforce his relevancy.
In Dragon's Fire, Liu Kang becomes much like D'vorah or old Scorpion, where they excel at completely locking down an opponent for seconds at a time while building themselves massive amounts of meter as well. Unlike Scorpion, Liu Kang's string starter is a mid that is not able to be poked out of, but unlike D'vorah lacks incredible range. Liu Kang can land his f213 string three times in succession on an opponent, given the execution, and dash cancel the last one to stay at a reasonably high amount of frames. Where Liu differs is his b1, which is a 2-hit mid that starts in 8 frames; with this move, for armor starters that are 11 frames or more, Liu Kang effectively removes the option of armoring out of his attack from this blockstring. The only thing most characters can do is backdash (All forms of jumping lose). The string b12 also effectively jails into his double dragon kick, which can be meter burned into a little bicycle kick that keeps him at +2. At this point the opponents avenues of escape open greatly, and a pretty simple metagame more or less plays out from there. Most irritating is that that whole sequence, while being almost interruptible by slower armored moves, will waste enough time on hit or block for his whole stamina bar to return, which means any landed poke will start up the blockstring again in full force.
To me, where this becomes absurd is both the amount of chip and how much meter this builds; 3 f213 strings, plus a b12 xx double dragon kick should do approximately 12% chip, while building back one bar and about a quarter or more. That's about on par with some of the top characters as far as chip goes. The only way to deny that damage would be to "take the hit" of his string, which is fairly effective since he can't do much off a landed f213 midscreen (Corner is a different story). Still, in my humble opinion, having to resort to "taking the hit" is not really a great option, and puts him into a situation where he is still fairly strong (Mid-range).
Another thing he has in common with the top characters is corner carry. A typical combo from Liu Kang should carry you almost 1/2 screen, and in the corner the backdash option out of his usual blockstring shenanigans ceases to be a factor, which is very dangerous. Add to that, most of these combos do not require meter due to his cancels, and are fairly high damage for meterless (36-37%).
Flame Fist surrenders the big meterless combo options for even more chip, although there are a few characters where the guessing game ceases to exist for the most part. On Scorpion, Kitana, Mileena, and Ferra/Torr, there is no gap at all in EN Windmill Punch xx Dragon's Roar backfist, which is a solid 10% chip on its own as well as building about 75% or more of its own meter back. For some reason, these four characters can not escape every hit of the Windmill Punches regardless of standing or crouching, and makes every combo ending in Windmill Punch tacking on that 10% as well as building insane bar for Kang.
Now that is not to say Liu Kang is without his weaknesses, for there are a few. For one, his defense is quite poor; he lacks armored launchers, and only DF EN Bicycle Kick and FF EN Windmill Punch can be used as effective launchers, and the DF cost two bars and whiffs on crouchers. His safest option, the Dragon's Roar backfist, is prone to completely missing on almost any sort of move that lowers the opponent's profile. His mixup game beyond throw and use of his f4 low is also rather limited, as the only overheads he really has are his MB Bicycle Kick and his b2, which is quick and has long range but can be punished by certain characters and ends in a weak soft knockdown. It should be fairly easy to limit his offense to having to resort to his chip damage sequences or throw, which is not as strong as some characters like Raiden, D'vorah, etc.
Due to his walk speed and general strength of anti air (Sweep, d3, s1 and d2 all serve this purpose wonderfully), I feel like he can outpace most characters on the ground and find some way to land that f213 that don't involve taking big risks like jumping or simply running up and doing it. If you are a character with a slower armored move, I'm not entirely sure what the best answer is to Liu Kang running his Dragon's Fire cancel blockstring. Backdash is seemingly the only option, and slight variances in timing can catch that backdash just as well (While usually surrending the armor breaking aspect). I'll include a video I made on the subject to kind of show what I mean.
http://1drv.ms/1GZ6UbF (Poor Kotal...)
I'll be the first to admit that I perhaps underestimated how strong the threat of the chip damage and how long the blockstring could go on was, but seeing the rise of Kung Lao, who himself has somewhat limited mixup options but stronger chip damage blockstrings, I couldn't help but point out how Liu Kang, while not doing the damage of some of the top tier characters or some of the same footsie options, has a lot more in common with them than the characters ranked lower.
