I played the game first time on saturday against a friend using Scorpion. Tried out Cutthroat and Commando. So here are my initial thoughts:
I feel like choke on Commando needs to be safe. Point blank knives go over crouch blocks and can be punished. This is an issue imo since the only footsie tool you have in commando is f4 and that move terminates your pressure on block unless cancelled into specials, which are all unsafe if read correctly. Jax has safe gotcha grab and energy wave is advantage on block and has to be neutral ducked when canceled into from strings, just to compare. With Commando Kano you have to take too many risks for too little reward, your opponent will be sitting on meter always since they don't have to use breakers against commando so they can just armor you as they see fit and why wouldn't they armor frequently? Punishment in commando is very weak and you don't get much for blocking unsafe moves. Commando could be very good at high level... but we'll see, doesn't really suit my playstyle though.
In Cutthroat you can cancel f4 into bladeslice every now and then vs characters that can't punish it, same chars can't punish f2,1,2 either. Naked ex bladeslice can be used for whiff punishing the same as b2-series in Cybernetic, if f2 wont reach. F2 also punishes lots of uppercuts and sweeps as well. Regular bladeslice on hit is +10, pushes back and the only way to deal with an f4 (10 frames) follow-up is to backdash or block, no frames to use armor and jumps won't evade it either. If they backdash they are backing themselves against the corner (where they will get completely destroyed), whiffed f4 can not be punished after a backdash in this situation. Something to remember about the overhead in Cutthroat is the fact that even if you do have to give up your frame advantage and run cancel into it to hit opponents with it due to it's bad reach, the mere existence of the overhead means that people will be more inclined to use wakeups and armor and just generally press buttons more, read them correctly and you will punish them harder than Cybernetic Kano ever can.
I will give Cybernetic Kano a try in real matches, but Maaaaaannnggg... I absolutely love Cutthroat, everything I ever wanted Kano to have and he has it. F2,1,2 whiff punish reminds me of doing the same with b1,1,2 in MK9. I don't like the idea of having to blow meter in Cybernetic when I could have almost as much in Cutthroat without using meter... but yeah this is just me and my preference, I want high meterless damage and very stiff damage when using meter and godlike punishment... and the corner rape too lol, just an all around solid character that doesn't have terrible match-ups and has good options in all situations. I also don't want to sit at full screen chucking knives after I knock my opponent down now that there is actually an intelligent okizeme system, charge in and get on that ass, they have to guess and they are closer to the corner even if you just run up and block.
Oh yeah almost forgot, since Kano sucked in MK9 in comparison to the rest of the cast, I think now it's safe to say that "Mah turn! No charge!"
Edit: OK so bladeslice on hit into f4 is not a legit frametrap, armor is instant, my bad. You have to settle for a d4 if you are in range. Also, the cancel advantage on f4 can't be correct. F4-bladeslice can actually be backdashed if you block the f4 and then backdash. Bladeslice is supposed to be i19 but even with 20+ frames of cancel advantage the bladeslice can be armored through on at least after f4 and f3,3 on block. B3,1,2 can not be armored before the last hit although it says there is a 1 frame gap. 1,1,2 has a gap before the last hit.
