Resource Review of Evil, Part 2
By: Edward Shelton (darklogos)
Get in my BELLY!- Looking at the assets and action cards of evil:
We are now going to look at the action and asset cards that make Evil functional and work overall with Evil. It can be said that there isn’t much to work with. That is true. It's hard to say that there are even a few gems in here. What can be said is that there are some nice rocks to throw at your opponents eye to slow them down a bit.
Acheron & Nirvana: While this card is okay it serves Chaos more. If you find yourself with a deck full of 5 check E’s then play this card. If not, pass it by.
Corrupting Evil: This card makes your card destruction stand out more. It is a high cost card and only worth playing if you know your going to be on the tail end of a combo attack.
Destruction in His Wake: One sided card destruction. Play it if you got it or die!
Evil Intentions: It is a very risky card for Evil because you don’t want to loose not one copy of All Life is Prey from your deck. But man if you just got to get rid of something on the field you will have to take the hit.
Immovable Object: Did someone order Throw hate? Immovable Object makes King and Rashotep hate you even more.
Invoking the Ancients: The only speed pump you are going to get. But it better serves you after a person fails a check to get a potentially troublesome card RFG. If there is an Omar Chavez player in your meta this card is worth side boarding.
Kunpaetku Shrine - Dream Remnants: This is a terrain to play just to prove you have more guts then your opponent. It adds damage to all attacks and commits to give you 2 damage.
Patriot Games: Play it if you got it.
Scroll of the Abyss: Asset destruction and re-check ability. I’ll take that.
Soul Stealing: Your going to need every blocking edge you can get. A strongly suggested card to add to any Evil deck.
Tower of Rememberance – Encounter: This card makes the gap between your foundation base and your opponents foundation base smaller and smaller each turn. Strongly suggested to put in the deck.
Unnatural Grace: Do I really have to hype the card? Think not.
Why no Hunger for Souls on the list? Sorry to say that in most decks it is going to suck. Also it has a no Throw limitation. Add on the fact that if you check a 5 to the ability you have wasted 2 checks for something very small. Too many downsides for the potential upsides. My previous gripes with Devil Gene stay in play. I don’t think it helps evil or any deck that much.
Here at COBRA’s quality control center we haven’t had an accident in over 30 days - Picking foundations for your Evil deck couldn’t be any more easier.
You might say that foundations of Evil suck. You might say that Evil’s foundations are too situational. You might also say that Evil’s foundations are tier noob. Well if you've gotten this far you have nothing left to lose, then let me rant on.
All life is Prey: This is the backbone of Evil’s damage right here. If your not using this card you are high. I don’t mean altitude.
Anger Towards a God: Look at the attack section. Then look at this card. Look at the attack section one more time. It would be a good idea to consider this card.
Beacon of Evil: Expensive foundation much? Yes it is high priced but it makes it so that you can blow up foundations and attack with a lot less risk.
Beyond Humanity: You need this card just in case you check a Lion Slayer.
Chasing After the Power: Playable while commited, check. Check hax, check. Blows itself up, check. Why aren’t you playing it?
Corrupting Force: If blowing stuff up once wasn’t good enough you get to do it again. This time its targeted.
Covenant Elder: This can be a good card based on your meta. On the other hand without Reversals it is hard to capitalize on the destruction of this card. Its not a deal breaker card but it may be strong side board material.
Dread Pirate: Putting that checked Lion Slayer in my hand. Thank you very much.
Driven by Ambition: This card helps you more then in Chaos decks. The main reason is that you are working with less and getting a good check without having to commit a lot a the end of card placement is a good thing.
Enraged Golem: a minimum of +4 damage. I think that is a good deal.
Feast of Souls: This card is to make sure your finisher goes out with a bang. This card also makes sure your finisher goes off. It also makes sure any cards you need to play that require you to have less foundations then your opponent can go off. MMM souls. It’s what’s for dinner.
G-Corp Leader: You play this card so you can get back the valuable loot you lost. If dynamite had a magic chemical that allowed it to be reused. G-Corp Leader would be that chemical.
Her Own Agenda: First and foremost its momentum drain. Second it gives you check hax. Everything is good with this card.
Intimidating Presence: Dark Bite's best friend.
Intolerant of Failure: More targeted destruction.
Memories that Stain its Armor: More targeted destruction.
Need to Destroy: To many goodies to talk about. The biggest advantage of this card is that it replaces itself with a blank foundation. So you have one more card to blow up this turn.
No Longer Controllable: It sacrifices itself so your 5+ damage attacks can kill harder.
Respected and Feared: Not quite a staple but its on the up and up.
Seeking Treasure: Only good if you are packing the Terrains.
ShadoWar: Great card. Use it to fill out your deck.
The Azure Knight: This is your encouragement to keep stuff blown up. More damage to you!
The Twilight Witch: It gets rid of a non-attack card in your opponents staging area and it prevents pesky assets from being put in the staging area. I like this card. WOW a solution for Path of the Master.
Vengeance: Blows more stuff up. What is there not to like.
No Mr. Bond I expect you to die! A summary of everything:
Now that we have gone through Evil, we can see some key things. First off, it is an aggressive symbol that rules through foundation and assets destruction. Next we saw that it had a lot of heavy hitting attacks. Finally we see that by living on the edge of foundations, and technically going against one of the primary deck building premises of UFS, you can create a deck that is competitive. If it hasn’t already been mentioned most of the cards are cheap because people just don’t play them.
If you read this far thank you for reading. Remember innovation does not come without risk.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Resource Review: Evil (Part 1)
Evil - Or, it pays to be a douche bag.
By: Edward Shelton (darklogos)
Why do people not play Evil in the current format? I had to first look at it from a matter of diversity. I thought, "Hey people, want options? That’s why they play Fire, Earth, and Life. The more I looked at the decks, pretty much people were running a select few cards with a few tweaks here and there. Note - this is not a slam against staple cards but it is clear that many decks tend to parrot each other inside a symbol despite the character being piloted. This happens the most in Fire.
But I digress. This lead me to believe that card volume making a symbol better is a myth. It is a lie we tell ourselves to justify a symbol choice. The next thing I looked at was, what does Evil do well that other symbols do not do? When I looked at Evil’s selection of cards I had to admit it was a bit thin. The thinness let me see a fine line and a consistent theme - Heavy damage and control through destruction.
She is just not like any other girl I meet - The high points of Evil:
Unlike Earth (control through blanking) and Death (control through RFG), Evil blows its buildings up so it can kill the other guys' soldiers and hopefully knocks over a tank. It is the ultimate "cut off your head to spite your nose" symbol.
Evil hits hard. If you look through the attacks of Evil you will find currently 17 attacks that are 5 damage or more. You will also find some attacks like Lion Slayer that can do 10 or more damage a turn. If you look through the foundations you will see lots of cards that boost damage on attacks that do 5 damage or more. As the article progresses it will be seen why it Evil stands out.
You look more like trick then treat - The downfalls of Evil:
The first major downfall of Evil is that it does very little outside of destroying stuff to keep and gain control. While this is very effective there is only 1 card that makes that destruction one sided. This means a scorched earth policy may not be a good one in all cases. This makes stuns hit harder and has the potential to set you back as the game goes on. With stun being a strong mechanic as it is right now one has to be on the look out for it.
The next major problem of Evil is cost. When we look at the difficulties of most of the attacks, you are playing a lot of 5 difficulty checks. While this wasn’t so much a deal breaker in OLDFS, in NEWFS it is a tough pill to swallow. The problem arises that since you are destroying your foundations a lot, passing checks is going to be harder to do. Thus high difficulty attacks causes you to have lots of setbacks.
The last major problem is the lack of speed pumps. Speed pumps would be awesome to make this symbol viable. But overall they are greatly lacking. Evil is on the complete opposite side of air right now. Air needs damage pumps and Evil needs speed pumps. Here’s hoping for a Air/Evil character to come out soon.
MUHAAAA! - Looking at the characters of Evil:
Usually I do characters last because it gives people a feel of where the symbol is going and they can better see how they are going to pair up the right character to the right support. This is not the case with Evil. You are looking at your characters first because they are going to really determine how and how much you are going to bust face. What can be said is that all the characters benefit off of All Life Is Prey. So keep that in mind of how you want to use that.
Astaroth*
Many hate him because he presents a scenario in which you are playing the foundation catch up game. His second ability stops people from taking advantage of his weakened foundational position. His best means of play in all honesty is to use his E’s only when needed and then All Life Is Prey to kill people. The big problem when people play him is that they are trying to use his E and R every turn. This is the worst way to play him. You want your opponent to be on edge wondering when you are going to blow yourself up for the kill. A must add in is his throw for the kill condition. Yes Astaroth* is not super efficient. But I think he is a character you can start practicing with to get the better feel of Evil’s play style. He is your practice dummy, punching bag, judo partner, training bra character card. He is a good place to start but he is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Bryan Fury*
Look, its Ragnar without the downsides of Ragnar. It can be said very tongue in check that Bryan Fury* takes everything good about Ragnar’s support and puts it on a character card. Bryan Fury* is a damage pump whore. A +4 damage to an already 5 base attack is pure sick. Yes he is blowing up foundations to do it. But we want that. The thing to think about Bryan Fury* is that you want to blow up stuff in your staging area that has side effects that key off of them being destroyed. Lets just say Need to Destroy is your friend. One great piece of tech advice I saw for Bryan Fury* was to play Master Of Magic and Torn Hero in the deck. Master Of Magic makes it so your attacks help you more as foundations instead of momentum.
Cervantes.
While he is an Evil character and just about all of his cards have Evil on it I think he gets an overall better experience off of Void or Chaos. The damage pumps are killer in Evil but Void and Chaos offer more stable damage pumps. Unlike other evil characters Cervantes needs his staging area in one piece. You can’t set fire to your ship and expect to float.
Kazuya Mishima*
Sadly again we are faced with another character that plays better off his other symbols. Kazuya's blow up the world function does fit in Evil’s paradigm. But he has no need for tick for tat destruction when he can reset the field when he wants. Kazuya Mishima* needs other advantages to make him stand out. With poor draw ability in Evil right now his second ability is a liability more so then a blessing at this point in time.
Kyoufu*
Now we are talking about a solid Evil character. Kyoufu* has the potential to be Evil mill. At the present time there are not any reversals in Evil. This lowers her current effectiveness to dictate tempo. But it is clear that she makes it easier with her R to push through an third or 4th attack with little to no problem. She is a prime candidate for the Slayer>Shadow Flare>Titan Axe combo of doom.
Nightmare*
Sad to say he gets talked about very little right now. While Fire gives him more damage right now, Evil makes his first R into a tempo controller. Unlike other Evil characters he can make the other side of the field less populated then his side of the field. This makes it so that he can reset the other players board while having a small nest egg to work from. All Life Is Prey just stacks with his second R and makes anything he throws crazy good. Add in Dark Bite and you can shut down almost any momentum based deck. He is one of the best anti-Kilik cards in the meta right now. Evil would be craptastic without him.
Zhao Daiyu**
Most fanfare comes from her promo which a lot of people loved from what I hear. Zhao Daiyu** has been one of the harder characters to play in NEWFS. The first downside is the 25 vitality. Yes it is one less then most other characters but for her abilities, at times, that 1 more hp is worth it. When we look closely if you play her stock with just her cards she can’t do the damage. If you play her off of Death again damage is a major issue. If you play her off Chaos you will find that she has a problem fitting well in that camp. Playing her off Evil is highly viable but requires you to play at a higher level then the other characters. Unlike the other Evil characters Zhao Daiyu** is trying to RFG trouble cards, while discarding trouble cards, and blowing up the opponents staging area with grace. She pushes the envelope because she has the potential, with splashes of Death, to be one of the most controlling characters in the meta. If you look closely if you take what is present with Evil and splash in Master of Magic(yes, I love that card) and Proficient Sniper you have everything you need to setup some massive control. Fortunately her signature card (Twilight Embrace) and Lao Xie's Grinning Death benefit massively from Evil’s damage pumps. The biggest problem I see is surviving highly aggressive turn 2-3 kill decks. But if Zhao Daiyu** lasts that long she will have her vengeance.
GIVE ME SHARKS WITH LAZERBEAMS ON THEIR HEADS!- Looking at the attacks of Evil:
Lets look at some cards that stand out in Evil and makes the symbol easier to play.
Ancient Ensnaring Sleeve Technique: Oh look, its Devil Gene without the discard. Okay, I know I gripe on that card a lot. But Ancient Ensnaring Sleeve Technique is an attack your opponent has to block because whatever is coming next is going to be worse.
Astaroth's Body Splash: 4 difficulity and 5 damage attack that can’t be bounced by White Crane or have any ratings or anti-keyword jank pulled against it. This card should see more play in the future.
Dark Geo Da Ray: Evil’s only high damaging Multiple. Play with care and love. I mean hate.
Demon Slayer: This card helps Evil because it is one of the few bits of enhance hate it has access to.
Hades: Hades just drizzles itself in damage pumps. Everything is everything that makes the Evil symbol EVIL. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Hades Ax: In a world where every power gamer is running Communing With The Ancients, For The Money, Chasing After The Power or Jin Kazama...one attack decided that the meta was too safe. Hades Ax coming to meta busting theater near you! GET IN THE CHOPPA!
Hades Destroyer: Yes it is an overpriced throw but man if you are looking for a guaranteed finisher card this is it.
Hell Lancer: It’s a high 5 damage attack. It benefits from most of Evil’s foundations.
Knight Breaker: Already a meta staple. Nothing more needs to be said about this card.
Lao Xie's Grinning Death: While this card is best comboed with Twilight Witch and Forbidden Lore, this card makes it so those pesky tutor cards don’t go to school on your behind.
Leg Slash: Good difficulty, good damage, good block, good check, run this card.
Lion Slayer: Play this card. This makes players who have stacked character cards think twice when they play you.
Midnight Launcher: See - Knight Breaker.
Shadow Flare: This card is a card that no Evil player should overlook. It offers control and it makes it so your foundation destruction is more effective. –1 checks for them and +1 checks for me!
Soul Smasher: This card is broke awesome. You are going to A. have less foundations then your opponent. B. You have access to Stun. C. You can use almost any Evil foundation to pump its damage. D. You have already stunned them so the chances of this going off is increased. If your riding the razors edge of foundation destruction this is your card.
The Shadow Rises: It stuns and sets up Grinning Death or Soul Smasher.
Titan Ax: I have been ranting about this card for most of the guide. This card is awesome and it is a gem that has been overlooked by the meta for its bigger brother Knight Breaker. Knight Breaker and Titan Ax do the same combo E. They even have the same combo lineup. Put your MIB shades on because someone is walking around with neuralizer making people forget about this card.
Two Deadly Rings Technique: Breaker and Stun on the same card. What more needs to be said.
Upper Claw: This card is great. It is talked about and used a lot. Its 5 damage makes evil players smile with glee as they drop their opponent into the acid tank. And no I’m not talking about LSD.
There are some reasons why the following attacks didn’t make the list. Curse of the Ancient Mariner is only good if you have Acheron & Nirvana in play. But as it stands it offers Evil very little. The same can be said for Lightning Uppercut. With cheaper attacks that do 7 damage in Evil the E doesn’t make the price worth it to play. I’d rather play Shadow Flare. Spinning Demon is a great card but it fits way better in Chaos then it does in Evil. You can play it if you are running character cards. (Editor's note - that's it for Part 1, check out Part 2 later this week!)
By: Edward Shelton (darklogos)
Why do people not play Evil in the current format? I had to first look at it from a matter of diversity. I thought, "Hey people, want options? That’s why they play Fire, Earth, and Life. The more I looked at the decks, pretty much people were running a select few cards with a few tweaks here and there. Note - this is not a slam against staple cards but it is clear that many decks tend to parrot each other inside a symbol despite the character being piloted. This happens the most in Fire.
But I digress. This lead me to believe that card volume making a symbol better is a myth. It is a lie we tell ourselves to justify a symbol choice. The next thing I looked at was, what does Evil do well that other symbols do not do? When I looked at Evil’s selection of cards I had to admit it was a bit thin. The thinness let me see a fine line and a consistent theme - Heavy damage and control through destruction.
She is just not like any other girl I meet - The high points of Evil:
Unlike Earth (control through blanking) and Death (control through RFG), Evil blows its buildings up so it can kill the other guys' soldiers and hopefully knocks over a tank. It is the ultimate "cut off your head to spite your nose" symbol.
Evil hits hard. If you look through the attacks of Evil you will find currently 17 attacks that are 5 damage or more. You will also find some attacks like Lion Slayer that can do 10 or more damage a turn. If you look through the foundations you will see lots of cards that boost damage on attacks that do 5 damage or more. As the article progresses it will be seen why it Evil stands out.
You look more like trick then treat - The downfalls of Evil:
The first major downfall of Evil is that it does very little outside of destroying stuff to keep and gain control. While this is very effective there is only 1 card that makes that destruction one sided. This means a scorched earth policy may not be a good one in all cases. This makes stuns hit harder and has the potential to set you back as the game goes on. With stun being a strong mechanic as it is right now one has to be on the look out for it.
The next major problem of Evil is cost. When we look at the difficulties of most of the attacks, you are playing a lot of 5 difficulty checks. While this wasn’t so much a deal breaker in OLDFS, in NEWFS it is a tough pill to swallow. The problem arises that since you are destroying your foundations a lot, passing checks is going to be harder to do. Thus high difficulty attacks causes you to have lots of setbacks.
The last major problem is the lack of speed pumps. Speed pumps would be awesome to make this symbol viable. But overall they are greatly lacking. Evil is on the complete opposite side of air right now. Air needs damage pumps and Evil needs speed pumps. Here’s hoping for a Air/Evil character to come out soon.
MUHAAAA! - Looking at the characters of Evil:
Usually I do characters last because it gives people a feel of where the symbol is going and they can better see how they are going to pair up the right character to the right support. This is not the case with Evil. You are looking at your characters first because they are going to really determine how and how much you are going to bust face. What can be said is that all the characters benefit off of All Life Is Prey. So keep that in mind of how you want to use that.
Astaroth*
Many hate him because he presents a scenario in which you are playing the foundation catch up game. His second ability stops people from taking advantage of his weakened foundational position. His best means of play in all honesty is to use his E’s only when needed and then All Life Is Prey to kill people. The big problem when people play him is that they are trying to use his E and R every turn. This is the worst way to play him. You want your opponent to be on edge wondering when you are going to blow yourself up for the kill. A must add in is his throw for the kill condition. Yes Astaroth* is not super efficient. But I think he is a character you can start practicing with to get the better feel of Evil’s play style. He is your practice dummy, punching bag, judo partner, training bra character card. He is a good place to start but he is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Bryan Fury*
Look, its Ragnar without the downsides of Ragnar. It can be said very tongue in check that Bryan Fury* takes everything good about Ragnar’s support and puts it on a character card. Bryan Fury* is a damage pump whore. A +4 damage to an already 5 base attack is pure sick. Yes he is blowing up foundations to do it. But we want that. The thing to think about Bryan Fury* is that you want to blow up stuff in your staging area that has side effects that key off of them being destroyed. Lets just say Need to Destroy is your friend. One great piece of tech advice I saw for Bryan Fury* was to play Master Of Magic and Torn Hero in the deck. Master Of Magic makes it so your attacks help you more as foundations instead of momentum.
Cervantes.
While he is an Evil character and just about all of his cards have Evil on it I think he gets an overall better experience off of Void or Chaos. The damage pumps are killer in Evil but Void and Chaos offer more stable damage pumps. Unlike other evil characters Cervantes needs his staging area in one piece. You can’t set fire to your ship and expect to float.
Kazuya Mishima*
Sadly again we are faced with another character that plays better off his other symbols. Kazuya's blow up the world function does fit in Evil’s paradigm. But he has no need for tick for tat destruction when he can reset the field when he wants. Kazuya Mishima* needs other advantages to make him stand out. With poor draw ability in Evil right now his second ability is a liability more so then a blessing at this point in time.
Kyoufu*
Now we are talking about a solid Evil character. Kyoufu* has the potential to be Evil mill. At the present time there are not any reversals in Evil. This lowers her current effectiveness to dictate tempo. But it is clear that she makes it easier with her R to push through an third or 4th attack with little to no problem. She is a prime candidate for the Slayer>Shadow Flare>Titan Axe combo of doom.
Nightmare*
Sad to say he gets talked about very little right now. While Fire gives him more damage right now, Evil makes his first R into a tempo controller. Unlike other Evil characters he can make the other side of the field less populated then his side of the field. This makes it so that he can reset the other players board while having a small nest egg to work from. All Life Is Prey just stacks with his second R and makes anything he throws crazy good. Add in Dark Bite and you can shut down almost any momentum based deck. He is one of the best anti-Kilik cards in the meta right now. Evil would be craptastic without him.
Zhao Daiyu**
Most fanfare comes from her promo which a lot of people loved from what I hear. Zhao Daiyu** has been one of the harder characters to play in NEWFS. The first downside is the 25 vitality. Yes it is one less then most other characters but for her abilities, at times, that 1 more hp is worth it. When we look closely if you play her stock with just her cards she can’t do the damage. If you play her off of Death again damage is a major issue. If you play her off Chaos you will find that she has a problem fitting well in that camp. Playing her off Evil is highly viable but requires you to play at a higher level then the other characters. Unlike the other Evil characters Zhao Daiyu** is trying to RFG trouble cards, while discarding trouble cards, and blowing up the opponents staging area with grace. She pushes the envelope because she has the potential, with splashes of Death, to be one of the most controlling characters in the meta. If you look closely if you take what is present with Evil and splash in Master of Magic(yes, I love that card) and Proficient Sniper you have everything you need to setup some massive control. Fortunately her signature card (Twilight Embrace) and Lao Xie's Grinning Death benefit massively from Evil’s damage pumps. The biggest problem I see is surviving highly aggressive turn 2-3 kill decks. But if Zhao Daiyu** lasts that long she will have her vengeance.
GIVE ME SHARKS WITH LAZERBEAMS ON THEIR HEADS!- Looking at the attacks of Evil:
Lets look at some cards that stand out in Evil and makes the symbol easier to play.
Ancient Ensnaring Sleeve Technique: Oh look, its Devil Gene without the discard. Okay, I know I gripe on that card a lot. But Ancient Ensnaring Sleeve Technique is an attack your opponent has to block because whatever is coming next is going to be worse.
Astaroth's Body Splash: 4 difficulity and 5 damage attack that can’t be bounced by White Crane or have any ratings or anti-keyword jank pulled against it. This card should see more play in the future.
Dark Geo Da Ray: Evil’s only high damaging Multiple. Play with care and love. I mean hate.
Demon Slayer: This card helps Evil because it is one of the few bits of enhance hate it has access to.
Hades: Hades just drizzles itself in damage pumps. Everything is everything that makes the Evil symbol EVIL. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Hades Ax: In a world where every power gamer is running Communing With The Ancients, For The Money, Chasing After The Power or Jin Kazama...one attack decided that the meta was too safe. Hades Ax coming to meta busting theater near you! GET IN THE CHOPPA!
Hades Destroyer: Yes it is an overpriced throw but man if you are looking for a guaranteed finisher card this is it.
Hell Lancer: It’s a high 5 damage attack. It benefits from most of Evil’s foundations.
Knight Breaker: Already a meta staple. Nothing more needs to be said about this card.
Lao Xie's Grinning Death: While this card is best comboed with Twilight Witch and Forbidden Lore, this card makes it so those pesky tutor cards don’t go to school on your behind.
Leg Slash: Good difficulty, good damage, good block, good check, run this card.
Lion Slayer: Play this card. This makes players who have stacked character cards think twice when they play you.
Midnight Launcher: See - Knight Breaker.
Shadow Flare: This card is a card that no Evil player should overlook. It offers control and it makes it so your foundation destruction is more effective. –1 checks for them and +1 checks for me!
Soul Smasher: This card is broke awesome. You are going to A. have less foundations then your opponent. B. You have access to Stun. C. You can use almost any Evil foundation to pump its damage. D. You have already stunned them so the chances of this going off is increased. If your riding the razors edge of foundation destruction this is your card.
The Shadow Rises: It stuns and sets up Grinning Death or Soul Smasher.
Titan Ax: I have been ranting about this card for most of the guide. This card is awesome and it is a gem that has been overlooked by the meta for its bigger brother Knight Breaker. Knight Breaker and Titan Ax do the same combo E. They even have the same combo lineup. Put your MIB shades on because someone is walking around with neuralizer making people forget about this card.
Two Deadly Rings Technique: Breaker and Stun on the same card. What more needs to be said.
Upper Claw: This card is great. It is talked about and used a lot. Its 5 damage makes evil players smile with glee as they drop their opponent into the acid tank. And no I’m not talking about LSD.
There are some reasons why the following attacks didn’t make the list. Curse of the Ancient Mariner is only good if you have Acheron & Nirvana in play. But as it stands it offers Evil very little. The same can be said for Lightning Uppercut. With cheaper attacks that do 7 damage in Evil the E doesn’t make the price worth it to play. I’d rather play Shadow Flare. Spinning Demon is a great card but it fits way better in Chaos then it does in Evil. You can play it if you are running character cards. (Editor's note - that's it for Part 1, check out Part 2 later this week!)
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chaos On The Rise: Part 2
Chaos On The Rise, Part 2: Or, getting off a shaky foundation - looking at the foundation tactics and characters of Chaos.
By: Edward Shelton, AKA darklogos
Chaos does something that no other symbol does right now. It makes character cards useful. Many people have complained the only thing Character cards are good for are blocks and 6 checks. Chaos says “It sucks to be you” when a character card hits their hand. Kazuya has a lot to do with this change. A lot of cards mentioned do go with him. But the synergy with the other cards mentioned should be noted as well.
Merciless Fighter: Why are you playing Chaos without this card? It gives you +4 damage for discarding a character card. It does not commit unless you use the +2 damage option. You can get 6 damage a turn off this card if played right. This card does more damage pumping then fire damage pumps and eclipses the damage pumps given to earth’s throws. Only Ragnar’s and Hilde’s support come close to beating this but they have strong disadvantages tied to those cards. Play this card. Hug this card. Love this card. Have children with this card.
Covenant Elder: Any character R against you is always a bad character R. This is more meta situational but as more R characters are revealed the stronger this card will play. This is more of an up and up card.
Dread Pirate & Beyond Humanity: You will be checking 2’s so you better pack this. The best attacks for Chaos right now have 2 checks. You need these cards so they don’t slow you down. You can re-check and you get that strong 2 check attack in your hand.
Controller of Souls: Better then freaking scroll of the abyss. Shuts down POTM crazy bullcrap. At the same time you can exchange out a bad card in your hand for a draw. It’s a great card that helps chaos a lot.
Boxing is Life: This card in 2 more sets will be a meta defining card. Right now it is a strong card that just needs more support to flesh it out. This card gives speed pumps and that is not a popular thing in chaos. While this doesn’t help your spinning demons this does make your blazing fists monsters.
Chasing After the Power: Yes more check hacking your favor!
Driven by Fear: This card can be a colon cleanser for you or an oh shit play for your opponent. Stoppng the dreaded combo or launcher/breaker bull that dominates the meta or just making it so you can block with a cheaper check. This card gives you a lot of control. Remember flush attack cards, even if they hit, can’t go into momentum if they are in the discard.
Her Own Agenda: This card is a little secret to most players. Most people only think of ZD with this card. It has a lot of advanatages. The first is that it makes people think twice about Maniacal laughter or any other card that adds to momentum. A +1 to anything can be a problem. The next is momentum draining. There are some decks that can’t run without momentum. Decks that depend on multiple and discarding momentum for effects are almost crippled by this card. Also this kills Zi Mei because she can’t react to refuel momentum since she did not loose 2 or more momentum.
Intolerant of Failure: If you are in the blowing up mood play this card.
Maniacal Laughter: Stun 1 and momentum gain for blowing up a card. Yeah I’ll take that.
Mishima Family Bloodline: This is why you play character cards. Every time you block with a character card you draw. This makes it so you have a strong defensive position on your opponents turn. Do not under estimate this card.
Mishima Zaibatsu Leader: If you combine Maniacal Laughter and Her Own Agenda you get this gem of a card. The momentum gain is the key element more so then the momentum drain.
Need to Destroy: Great card for your male characters. It has the ability to reduce ratings of keywords by 1. This is going to matter as the game progresses. The added blank foundation after it is destroyed is a nice touch.
Respected and Feared: This card is one of those cards on the rise. This is a Yun-Sung stopper.
Vengeance: This card slows down your opponent and puts you in a position to gain staging area advantage. Early game this can be a killer card.
Some might say, "where is Communing with the Ancients?" I see that card as a generic fit card that works in any symbol it is played in. It doesn’t touch the core of chaos. The same can be said for For the Money. It has a lot of generic use. With Chaos ability to CC Hax in its own favor I don’t see the value of it “if” the chaos deck is built strong on CC Hax.
Cry HAVOK and release the dogs of War! - Looking at Chaos characters and their overall viability.
Algol*: He has been beaten bruised and underrated for so long people don’t see him as a threat. Chaos can power up this guy a lot. He has 4 unique strengths that make him an unseen contender. The first is he can make an opponent go through their deck. Since most players religiously stay around 60 cards, constant discard and draw will take its toll faster then some think. There are cards in chaos to accent that through ZD’s support. The second advantage is Pseudo-Soul Calibur and Pseudo-Soul Edge. He can stop draw or draw with his opponent. This is tempo changing. If Chaos had more reversals he could literally lay a heavy counter attack and just build on his turn. The third advantage is Alshain Najm. This card makes Heichi blush. He can pump his damage to crazy numbers with this combo card. Good thing this is Algol combo only because it would be a staple card for all chaos decks if it wasn’t. The last advantage Algol has is what I like to call the Jubilee effect. Jubilee could hurt people but she couldn’t do tons of damage. She is the most underrated person on the x-men/generation x. Villains laugh at Jubilee. Your opponent will do the same thing. Since Algol isn’t top tier people will laugh and underestimate the character. This gives you the mental edge. If your opponent takes you lightly then they won’t see the knife you are palming in your hand.
Cervantes.: He likes to CC hax. This is becoming more risky but the funny thing is that Chaos holds all the stuff that messes with his CC Hax. Cervantes is a hard card to recommend but if you have his asset then he will surprise a few people. The one thing he needs to get over is the ability to scout what is on the top of his deck before he uses his second ability. That would put him in a place to start jacking with decks.
Heihachi Mishima: He has proven why he is a staple character in the Tekken series. Now he does the same thing in UFS. The thing that is nice about him is that he takes weak damage attacks and turns them into monsters. He can get a lot of mileage out of character cards and attacks with his abilities. He is a spinning demon machine. The more cheap multiples we get in the game the better he will be. I will say that he is a great candidate for playing the Rites.
Jin Kazama*: He can boost his checks by committing and damage pump while commited. He is a great character who makes playing cards easy. He is a top character for a good reason. One thing to remember with him is not to over extend because its easy to get cocky in the pluses to your checks. Jinsis another character that makes character cards useful.
Kazuya Mishima*: His blow up the world tactics were thought to be the end of NEWFS. But it seems that he is more a quite storm then anything else. He has a built in speed and damage pump and he can stack on even more damage by using his support. To much focus has been put on his nuke and not so much on the fact he can drop cards from his hand and boost damage. Add in card draw tricks and Kazuya will kill you in a blink of an eye. Don’t get distracted by the nuke option! Play it as needed and only when needed.
Omar Chavez: By far one of the best chaos characters, and one of the best characters in the game. The meta is glad that chaos doesn’t have more throws or he would be a straight monster. When we look at him closely we see that he doesn’t commit for anything he does. This is a 100% gold. He can tutor once per turn and damage pump by committing foundations. That is really good. A good mix of character cards is 4 Algol’s and 2 Jin’s. Why Jin you may ask. So you can tutor a 3 difficulity character card without having to discard 2 or more cards to get a character card. Being able to get anything from the discard pile lets him setup how he wants to setup. He has the ability to have 3-4 Merciless Fighters on the field consistently. The only problem is playing him off chaos he can mill himself really quickly. Once an Omar player gets going there is almost no way to shut him down. When a solution to reversal pummel smash comes to chaos Astrid will have to pass the consistency crown to Omar.
Padma: She requires the following cards Ruthless, Determined to be the Best, Driven by Fear, and Long standing rivalry. Ruthless makes it so that people have to block your weak attacks. This adds more sting onto your hits. Determined to be the best works out if you have played spinning demon and multiple then play a low damage attack. Driven by Fear and Longstanding rivalry work hand in hand. First you play out normal attacks chain. Then play a weenie attack. After that use Driven by fear and follow up with a long standing rivalry pumped attack. If you did your job they will be able to block but it will be a partial at best. Padma is a thinking deck that is several steps ahead and has to calculate a lot. Do not get dependent on the small attacks but see them as killing with a thousand paper cuts. You can’t just slice once.
Steve Fox*: He is a mini tank. Sadly he benefits the least from Chaos. Spinning demon is the core of chaos attack wise and it doesn’t help him. But he does benefit a ton from blazing fist. I think that in 2-3 sets he will be a card that will be S teir. Again an answer to reverse pummel smash needs to be in place.
White Crane*: I’ve asked so many questions about this character its not funny. She has been one of the most quirky characters to come along in NEWFS. She plays mother may I with your opponents cards if they have 2 or more keywords on the card. Off of Chaos she can do something that many have not considered. She can play chaos support and attacks and play Faithful bodyguard. Use faithful bodyguard to save her when the big monster attacks are coming. Other then that her better symbol is life. Chaos gives her the punch she needs but she doesn’t synch up well where chaos is now. But in the future she just might give a few characters a run. She is a character to watch.
Zhao Daiyu**: Yes I played her. I she is a tough cookie even when she is playing Nina support off of death. But we are looking at Chaos. ZD gains very little from chaos. Thing is that she overcomes her biggest complaint about doing damage with all the nice tricks chaos has. Sadly she doesn’t do it as good many other chaos characters. The control tricks she gains is few and far between. In the end she is not chaos material right now.
Zi Mei**: Why aren’t you playing her off of fire? Sad to say is that she is a better fire character then chaos character. She can take the Padma advice I gave and actually make it work consistently. The sad thing is that she has cards off of fire that do all of that and more. She doesn’t benefit from spinning demon. The only card that could be added to her arsenal is Demon Slayer.
If you read this far thank you for reading. Remember innovation does not come without risk.
By: Edward Shelton, AKA darklogos
Chaos does something that no other symbol does right now. It makes character cards useful. Many people have complained the only thing Character cards are good for are blocks and 6 checks. Chaos says “It sucks to be you” when a character card hits their hand. Kazuya has a lot to do with this change. A lot of cards mentioned do go with him. But the synergy with the other cards mentioned should be noted as well.
Merciless Fighter: Why are you playing Chaos without this card? It gives you +4 damage for discarding a character card. It does not commit unless you use the +2 damage option. You can get 6 damage a turn off this card if played right. This card does more damage pumping then fire damage pumps and eclipses the damage pumps given to earth’s throws. Only Ragnar’s and Hilde’s support come close to beating this but they have strong disadvantages tied to those cards. Play this card. Hug this card. Love this card. Have children with this card.
Covenant Elder: Any character R against you is always a bad character R. This is more meta situational but as more R characters are revealed the stronger this card will play. This is more of an up and up card.
Dread Pirate & Beyond Humanity: You will be checking 2’s so you better pack this. The best attacks for Chaos right now have 2 checks. You need these cards so they don’t slow you down. You can re-check and you get that strong 2 check attack in your hand.
Controller of Souls: Better then freaking scroll of the abyss. Shuts down POTM crazy bullcrap. At the same time you can exchange out a bad card in your hand for a draw. It’s a great card that helps chaos a lot.
Boxing is Life: This card in 2 more sets will be a meta defining card. Right now it is a strong card that just needs more support to flesh it out. This card gives speed pumps and that is not a popular thing in chaos. While this doesn’t help your spinning demons this does make your blazing fists monsters.
Chasing After the Power: Yes more check hacking your favor!
Driven by Fear: This card can be a colon cleanser for you or an oh shit play for your opponent. Stoppng the dreaded combo or launcher/breaker bull that dominates the meta or just making it so you can block with a cheaper check. This card gives you a lot of control. Remember flush attack cards, even if they hit, can’t go into momentum if they are in the discard.
Her Own Agenda: This card is a little secret to most players. Most people only think of ZD with this card. It has a lot of advanatages. The first is that it makes people think twice about Maniacal laughter or any other card that adds to momentum. A +1 to anything can be a problem. The next is momentum draining. There are some decks that can’t run without momentum. Decks that depend on multiple and discarding momentum for effects are almost crippled by this card. Also this kills Zi Mei because she can’t react to refuel momentum since she did not loose 2 or more momentum.
Intolerant of Failure: If you are in the blowing up mood play this card.
Maniacal Laughter: Stun 1 and momentum gain for blowing up a card. Yeah I’ll take that.
Mishima Family Bloodline: This is why you play character cards. Every time you block with a character card you draw. This makes it so you have a strong defensive position on your opponents turn. Do not under estimate this card.
Mishima Zaibatsu Leader: If you combine Maniacal Laughter and Her Own Agenda you get this gem of a card. The momentum gain is the key element more so then the momentum drain.
Need to Destroy: Great card for your male characters. It has the ability to reduce ratings of keywords by 1. This is going to matter as the game progresses. The added blank foundation after it is destroyed is a nice touch.
Respected and Feared: This card is one of those cards on the rise. This is a Yun-Sung stopper.
Vengeance: This card slows down your opponent and puts you in a position to gain staging area advantage. Early game this can be a killer card.
Some might say, "where is Communing with the Ancients?" I see that card as a generic fit card that works in any symbol it is played in. It doesn’t touch the core of chaos. The same can be said for For the Money. It has a lot of generic use. With Chaos ability to CC Hax in its own favor I don’t see the value of it “if” the chaos deck is built strong on CC Hax.
Cry HAVOK and release the dogs of War! - Looking at Chaos characters and their overall viability.
Algol*: He has been beaten bruised and underrated for so long people don’t see him as a threat. Chaos can power up this guy a lot. He has 4 unique strengths that make him an unseen contender. The first is he can make an opponent go through their deck. Since most players religiously stay around 60 cards, constant discard and draw will take its toll faster then some think. There are cards in chaos to accent that through ZD’s support. The second advantage is Pseudo-Soul Calibur and Pseudo-Soul Edge. He can stop draw or draw with his opponent. This is tempo changing. If Chaos had more reversals he could literally lay a heavy counter attack and just build on his turn. The third advantage is Alshain Najm. This card makes Heichi blush. He can pump his damage to crazy numbers with this combo card. Good thing this is Algol combo only because it would be a staple card for all chaos decks if it wasn’t. The last advantage Algol has is what I like to call the Jubilee effect. Jubilee could hurt people but she couldn’t do tons of damage. She is the most underrated person on the x-men/generation x. Villains laugh at Jubilee. Your opponent will do the same thing. Since Algol isn’t top tier people will laugh and underestimate the character. This gives you the mental edge. If your opponent takes you lightly then they won’t see the knife you are palming in your hand.
Cervantes.: He likes to CC hax. This is becoming more risky but the funny thing is that Chaos holds all the stuff that messes with his CC Hax. Cervantes is a hard card to recommend but if you have his asset then he will surprise a few people. The one thing he needs to get over is the ability to scout what is on the top of his deck before he uses his second ability. That would put him in a place to start jacking with decks.
Heihachi Mishima: He has proven why he is a staple character in the Tekken series. Now he does the same thing in UFS. The thing that is nice about him is that he takes weak damage attacks and turns them into monsters. He can get a lot of mileage out of character cards and attacks with his abilities. He is a spinning demon machine. The more cheap multiples we get in the game the better he will be. I will say that he is a great candidate for playing the Rites.
Jin Kazama*: He can boost his checks by committing and damage pump while commited. He is a great character who makes playing cards easy. He is a top character for a good reason. One thing to remember with him is not to over extend because its easy to get cocky in the pluses to your checks. Jinsis another character that makes character cards useful.
Kazuya Mishima*: His blow up the world tactics were thought to be the end of NEWFS. But it seems that he is more a quite storm then anything else. He has a built in speed and damage pump and he can stack on even more damage by using his support. To much focus has been put on his nuke and not so much on the fact he can drop cards from his hand and boost damage. Add in card draw tricks and Kazuya will kill you in a blink of an eye. Don’t get distracted by the nuke option! Play it as needed and only when needed.
Omar Chavez: By far one of the best chaos characters, and one of the best characters in the game. The meta is glad that chaos doesn’t have more throws or he would be a straight monster. When we look at him closely we see that he doesn’t commit for anything he does. This is a 100% gold. He can tutor once per turn and damage pump by committing foundations. That is really good. A good mix of character cards is 4 Algol’s and 2 Jin’s. Why Jin you may ask. So you can tutor a 3 difficulity character card without having to discard 2 or more cards to get a character card. Being able to get anything from the discard pile lets him setup how he wants to setup. He has the ability to have 3-4 Merciless Fighters on the field consistently. The only problem is playing him off chaos he can mill himself really quickly. Once an Omar player gets going there is almost no way to shut him down. When a solution to reversal pummel smash comes to chaos Astrid will have to pass the consistency crown to Omar.
Padma: She requires the following cards Ruthless, Determined to be the Best, Driven by Fear, and Long standing rivalry. Ruthless makes it so that people have to block your weak attacks. This adds more sting onto your hits. Determined to be the best works out if you have played spinning demon and multiple then play a low damage attack. Driven by Fear and Longstanding rivalry work hand in hand. First you play out normal attacks chain. Then play a weenie attack. After that use Driven by fear and follow up with a long standing rivalry pumped attack. If you did your job they will be able to block but it will be a partial at best. Padma is a thinking deck that is several steps ahead and has to calculate a lot. Do not get dependent on the small attacks but see them as killing with a thousand paper cuts. You can’t just slice once.
Steve Fox*: He is a mini tank. Sadly he benefits the least from Chaos. Spinning demon is the core of chaos attack wise and it doesn’t help him. But he does benefit a ton from blazing fist. I think that in 2-3 sets he will be a card that will be S teir. Again an answer to reverse pummel smash needs to be in place.
White Crane*: I’ve asked so many questions about this character its not funny. She has been one of the most quirky characters to come along in NEWFS. She plays mother may I with your opponents cards if they have 2 or more keywords on the card. Off of Chaos she can do something that many have not considered. She can play chaos support and attacks and play Faithful bodyguard. Use faithful bodyguard to save her when the big monster attacks are coming. Other then that her better symbol is life. Chaos gives her the punch she needs but she doesn’t synch up well where chaos is now. But in the future she just might give a few characters a run. She is a character to watch.
Zhao Daiyu**: Yes I played her. I she is a tough cookie even when she is playing Nina support off of death. But we are looking at Chaos. ZD gains very little from chaos. Thing is that she overcomes her biggest complaint about doing damage with all the nice tricks chaos has. Sadly she doesn’t do it as good many other chaos characters. The control tricks she gains is few and far between. In the end she is not chaos material right now.
Zi Mei**: Why aren’t you playing her off of fire? Sad to say is that she is a better fire character then chaos character. She can take the Padma advice I gave and actually make it work consistently. The sad thing is that she has cards off of fire that do all of that and more. She doesn’t benefit from spinning demon. The only card that could be added to her arsenal is Demon Slayer.
If you read this far thank you for reading. Remember innovation does not come without risk.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Ruminations & Ramblings: Rashotep & Jin Kazama
Ruminations & Ramblings: Or, I was too lazy to think of an appropriate title and also not sure what I was going to write (until I starting writing it).
By: Vikram Sareen (VikramS)
So in the interval between the South Arena Showdown, I've been playing a lot of cards. More than I expected, really. My local metagame at the moment is non-existent, and slowly I am changing that, trying to get back to where it once was, 16-20 players regularly. It will take time but I'm confident it will happen.
However, luckily I have some good friends who used to play UFS who I been kind enough to help me experiment with the card pool. Not only that, but they love it so much that they want to play regularly. Perfect.
In one of the first articles for this site, I talked about characters that intrigued me. On the forums, there has been good discussion on Nina Williams, and I think I have some ideas on her now that might enable me to make her very, very good. Still, the two characters that fascinate me even more are Rashotep and Jin Kazama. I have had both of them built in various forms for about a month, from early garbage first passes to now, some decent decks that I wouldn't mind playing in a tournament at all with some minor tweaks.
Let's start with Rashotep first. This guy is...what, exactly? The consensus opinion before SAS seemed to be that he was strong; most saw him as equal to if not stronger than King in terms of Earth Throw builds. After his utter failure of a showing at SAS, and the internal testing of the Florida and Atlanta metas, my personal opinion was for a while that he was dead as a doornail competitively. Yes, I gave up on the lovable Egyptian blankmaster. In my defense, it wasn't for lack of trying, I can tell you that. I tried pure Death, pure Void, and pure Earth - the first two being too defensive with weak aggro, the third being tricky to balance offense/defense and severly lacking low blocks - and it just didn't work out at all. I then went and tried tri-symbol, not as difficult as you might think given the wealth of excellent support cards out there with either all 3 resources, Death/Void, Death/Earth or Earth/Void. While better, it was too complicated and still suffered from being painfully SLOW.
Perhaps I should back up a bit. I rarely dismiss any character outright. Even crap like Geki and promo Rikuo, I've given a chance to. Not much of one, but I have tried to build both, so that should tell you I'm not afraid to go out on limb (frail and unstable as that limb may be). Clearly, at the very least Rashotep does not fit into this class of suckitude. He does one thing, but it's exceptionally useful - blank a card in your opponent's staging area for the turn.
Now the question becomes, exactly how GOOD is this damn enhance? There is no shortage of uses, most importantly in dealing with character abilities. Along with JJ, and Paul Phoenix in a much more limited way, that's it as far as character negation. On top of that, defensively, killing Path Of The Master for a turn can save a game - or anything else, for that matter. I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist. And offensively, the use of that enhance is equally effective. the one drawback is that you usually want to keep him open at all times, which makes passing checks even more at a premium than normal. And there is not much in terms of boosting checks in his resources.
One relevant fact to consider is that Rasho's own support is outstanding, with at least two cards that I would consider staples in any build of him - Ka Technique and Undisputed Ruler. Both of these cards as among the best control in the format, and in the case of Ka Technique it functions just as well for aggressive turns shutting down key defenses as needed. Undisputed Ruler is unbelievably strong right now, so much so that I completely shut down J.'s Kazuya deck just by having two on the board and open at all times. It kills those brutal Combos, laughs at the Stun suite (fuck you, Zi Mei's Wheel Kick), demolishes Mutiple, you name it! On top of those two, Rasho's remaining support offers even more stringent control but poor numerical stats and weak blocks are not worth it on these foundations. KT and UR along with his ability are enough, though.
Given that as a base, he starts to look better. You now can deal with much of your opponent's turn fairly effectively, no matter what their strategy, just by having these pieces in play. Control is all about limiting options at the most basic level, and that is precisely what Rashotep offers. The major, massive drawback to him is that he is very slow compared to many other characters in the format. Of course this is subject to how you decide to build him, but in general he does not have any aggro options on his own. That is why a card like Bracers Of Horus & Set exists; the Rashotep E on it alone is worth the price of admission. Being able to give any Throw +1 damage for no apparent reason is VERY good. It turns any 4 damage throw (like, say, Close Throw & Flooded Nile Throw) into even 3 damage if blocked for half, a significant numerical difference. One of the more intriguing support cards is One-Handed Crocodile Grasp, a brutal card that is balanced a lot by the 2CC. Stun: 2 is definitely worth it, and it can combo with Cobra Twist and the Rashotep E on it makes it a potential game-ender at all times; shutting down a critical defensive card (say, an opposing Stand-Off) will win the game many times. My question is, is it worth the 2CC? I have yet to find an answer.
That's essentially what I think of Rashotep, and I think now I have a solid deck in place (which I will post soon) that requires minor adjustments, but is at least effective in what I want it to do. As a control fan, I plan to keep it going, since I still have yet to see true control be effective in terms of this particular blazing aggro-dominated meta. That leads me right into Jin Kazama, one of these blazing aggro characters for sure. Just like Rashotep, Jin is an easy read - the man wants to murder people, quickly and painfully. The ability to Float Like A Butterfly numerous times in a turn, for the cost of a commit (!), is quite devastating. Combined with his enhance, those multiple attack strings hit hard as well.
Jin is, in my estimation, equally proficient in any one of his resources. There are many different ways to build him; utilizing multiples is a good idea, so immediately Menuet Dance and Spinning Demon come to mind. Jin does not have a natural advantage to push attacks through, so a typical Fire stun suite or a speed pump like Eiserne Drossel helps a fair amount. Some like Midnight Launcher/Knight Breaker in him, but I don't. It's generic, and the low speed/high zone of those attacks make them easy to block without a boost, even while stunned out. It's great in Hata, excellent in Jin and many other decks but not my choice overall. I prefer Kazuya's support structure both in attacks and foundations as they just lend themselves perfectly to what Jin is trying to accomplish.
Speaking of Kazuya's base, it is frankly absurd. Mishima Family Bloodline, The Hunt Is On, Merciless Fighter, and the aforementioned Spinning Demon combine to form a very disgusting combination of consistent card draw, insane (FREE) damage pump, and general character card abuse. Yes, Fire is strong, but I think with Jin that Death or Chaos (or both) are far better because of this alone. So I can further explain my reasoning here, for reference here is the Jin deck I currently have built (arrived at after much tinkering):
Starting Character - 1x 3/6 Jin Kazama, 6HS 28V, Chaos/Death/Fire
Character Cards (5):
3x 3/6 Jin Kazama +0M
2x 4/6 Kazuya Mishima +0M
Assets (3):
3x 3/5 Eiserne Drossel +2M
Attacks (18):
2x 5/3 Cleave +0M, 4H5
4x 5/3 Wipe The Floor +1M, 3L4, Kick
4x 4/3 Spinning Demon +1L, 3L4, Kick, Multiple: 1
4x 4/3 Leg Slash +2H, 3L5, Breaker: 2
4x 4/2 Lion Slayer +1H, 4M5, Punch, Combo (Kick)
Foundations (36):
4x 3/5 Need To Destroy +2L
4x 2/5 All Life Is Prey +3L
4x 2/5 The Hunt Is On
4x 2/5 Mishima Family Bloodline +3M
4x 2/5 Maniacal Laughter +3H
4x 2/4 Merciless Fighter
4x 1/5 Treacherous Offspring
4x 1/4 Cursed Blood +3L
4x 1/5 Brooding +3H
Total: 62+1 cards
The idea that I have here is to exploit Kazuya's support as much as possible, along with lots of low attacks or 4 speed base printed attacks. I can push through attacks with Stun via Maniacal Laughter, speed with Drossel or discard with Wipe The Floor. That fuels Lion Slayer, which comes for 8 on the card WITHOUT the combo E, and with for at least 10 and usually more - this is Jin, after all. The deck hits fast, requires minimal setup to kill turn 2 or 3 consistently and is less generic than you might think. Popping Jin's E, fetching back the character card you just tossed with The Hunt Is On and either drawing cards with MFB or pumping attacks HUGE with Merciless has been my favorite build so far, and the most effective. We'll see whether I keep messing with Jin or not, he is slightly boring because he can be easy mode, but as a test deck and a generally competitive version this has worked for me.
So, that's my look at these two most interesting characters. Let me now what you think! As always, hope you enjoyed it and till next time, peace.
By: Vikram Sareen (VikramS)
So in the interval between the South Arena Showdown, I've been playing a lot of cards. More than I expected, really. My local metagame at the moment is non-existent, and slowly I am changing that, trying to get back to where it once was, 16-20 players regularly. It will take time but I'm confident it will happen.
However, luckily I have some good friends who used to play UFS who I been kind enough to help me experiment with the card pool. Not only that, but they love it so much that they want to play regularly. Perfect.
In one of the first articles for this site, I talked about characters that intrigued me. On the forums, there has been good discussion on Nina Williams, and I think I have some ideas on her now that might enable me to make her very, very good. Still, the two characters that fascinate me even more are Rashotep and Jin Kazama. I have had both of them built in various forms for about a month, from early garbage first passes to now, some decent decks that I wouldn't mind playing in a tournament at all with some minor tweaks.
Let's start with Rashotep first. This guy is...what, exactly? The consensus opinion before SAS seemed to be that he was strong; most saw him as equal to if not stronger than King in terms of Earth Throw builds. After his utter failure of a showing at SAS, and the internal testing of the Florida and Atlanta metas, my personal opinion was for a while that he was dead as a doornail competitively. Yes, I gave up on the lovable Egyptian blankmaster. In my defense, it wasn't for lack of trying, I can tell you that. I tried pure Death, pure Void, and pure Earth - the first two being too defensive with weak aggro, the third being tricky to balance offense/defense and severly lacking low blocks - and it just didn't work out at all. I then went and tried tri-symbol, not as difficult as you might think given the wealth of excellent support cards out there with either all 3 resources, Death/Void, Death/Earth or Earth/Void. While better, it was too complicated and still suffered from being painfully SLOW.
Perhaps I should back up a bit. I rarely dismiss any character outright. Even crap like Geki and promo Rikuo, I've given a chance to. Not much of one, but I have tried to build both, so that should tell you I'm not afraid to go out on limb (frail and unstable as that limb may be). Clearly, at the very least Rashotep does not fit into this class of suckitude. He does one thing, but it's exceptionally useful - blank a card in your opponent's staging area for the turn.
Now the question becomes, exactly how GOOD is this damn enhance? There is no shortage of uses, most importantly in dealing with character abilities. Along with JJ, and Paul Phoenix in a much more limited way, that's it as far as character negation. On top of that, defensively, killing Path Of The Master for a turn can save a game - or anything else, for that matter. I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist. And offensively, the use of that enhance is equally effective. the one drawback is that you usually want to keep him open at all times, which makes passing checks even more at a premium than normal. And there is not much in terms of boosting checks in his resources.
One relevant fact to consider is that Rasho's own support is outstanding, with at least two cards that I would consider staples in any build of him - Ka Technique and Undisputed Ruler. Both of these cards as among the best control in the format, and in the case of Ka Technique it functions just as well for aggressive turns shutting down key defenses as needed. Undisputed Ruler is unbelievably strong right now, so much so that I completely shut down J.'s Kazuya deck just by having two on the board and open at all times. It kills those brutal Combos, laughs at the Stun suite (fuck you, Zi Mei's Wheel Kick), demolishes Mutiple, you name it! On top of those two, Rasho's remaining support offers even more stringent control but poor numerical stats and weak blocks are not worth it on these foundations. KT and UR along with his ability are enough, though.
Given that as a base, he starts to look better. You now can deal with much of your opponent's turn fairly effectively, no matter what their strategy, just by having these pieces in play. Control is all about limiting options at the most basic level, and that is precisely what Rashotep offers. The major, massive drawback to him is that he is very slow compared to many other characters in the format. Of course this is subject to how you decide to build him, but in general he does not have any aggro options on his own. That is why a card like Bracers Of Horus & Set exists; the Rashotep E on it alone is worth the price of admission. Being able to give any Throw +1 damage for no apparent reason is VERY good. It turns any 4 damage throw (like, say, Close Throw & Flooded Nile Throw) into even 3 damage if blocked for half, a significant numerical difference. One of the more intriguing support cards is One-Handed Crocodile Grasp, a brutal card that is balanced a lot by the 2CC. Stun: 2 is definitely worth it, and it can combo with Cobra Twist and the Rashotep E on it makes it a potential game-ender at all times; shutting down a critical defensive card (say, an opposing Stand-Off) will win the game many times. My question is, is it worth the 2CC? I have yet to find an answer.
That's essentially what I think of Rashotep, and I think now I have a solid deck in place (which I will post soon) that requires minor adjustments, but is at least effective in what I want it to do. As a control fan, I plan to keep it going, since I still have yet to see true control be effective in terms of this particular blazing aggro-dominated meta. That leads me right into Jin Kazama, one of these blazing aggro characters for sure. Just like Rashotep, Jin is an easy read - the man wants to murder people, quickly and painfully. The ability to Float Like A Butterfly numerous times in a turn, for the cost of a commit (!), is quite devastating. Combined with his enhance, those multiple attack strings hit hard as well.
Jin is, in my estimation, equally proficient in any one of his resources. There are many different ways to build him; utilizing multiples is a good idea, so immediately Menuet Dance and Spinning Demon come to mind. Jin does not have a natural advantage to push attacks through, so a typical Fire stun suite or a speed pump like Eiserne Drossel helps a fair amount. Some like Midnight Launcher/Knight Breaker in him, but I don't. It's generic, and the low speed/high zone of those attacks make them easy to block without a boost, even while stunned out. It's great in Hata, excellent in Jin and many other decks but not my choice overall. I prefer Kazuya's support structure both in attacks and foundations as they just lend themselves perfectly to what Jin is trying to accomplish.
Speaking of Kazuya's base, it is frankly absurd. Mishima Family Bloodline, The Hunt Is On, Merciless Fighter, and the aforementioned Spinning Demon combine to form a very disgusting combination of consistent card draw, insane (FREE) damage pump, and general character card abuse. Yes, Fire is strong, but I think with Jin that Death or Chaos (or both) are far better because of this alone. So I can further explain my reasoning here, for reference here is the Jin deck I currently have built (arrived at after much tinkering):
Starting Character - 1x 3/6 Jin Kazama, 6HS 28V, Chaos/Death/Fire
Character Cards (5):
3x 3/6 Jin Kazama +0M
2x 4/6 Kazuya Mishima +0M
Assets (3):
3x 3/5 Eiserne Drossel +2M
Attacks (18):
2x 5/3 Cleave +0M, 4H5
4x 5/3 Wipe The Floor +1M, 3L4, Kick
4x 4/3 Spinning Demon +1L, 3L4, Kick, Multiple: 1
4x 4/3 Leg Slash +2H, 3L5, Breaker: 2
4x 4/2 Lion Slayer +1H, 4M5, Punch, Combo (Kick)
Foundations (36):
4x 3/5 Need To Destroy +2L
4x 2/5 All Life Is Prey +3L
4x 2/5 The Hunt Is On
4x 2/5 Mishima Family Bloodline +3M
4x 2/5 Maniacal Laughter +3H
4x 2/4 Merciless Fighter
4x 1/5 Treacherous Offspring
4x 1/4 Cursed Blood +3L
4x 1/5 Brooding +3H
Total: 62+1 cards
The idea that I have here is to exploit Kazuya's support as much as possible, along with lots of low attacks or 4 speed base printed attacks. I can push through attacks with Stun via Maniacal Laughter, speed with Drossel or discard with Wipe The Floor. That fuels Lion Slayer, which comes for 8 on the card WITHOUT the combo E, and with for at least 10 and usually more - this is Jin, after all. The deck hits fast, requires minimal setup to kill turn 2 or 3 consistently and is less generic than you might think. Popping Jin's E, fetching back the character card you just tossed with The Hunt Is On and either drawing cards with MFB or pumping attacks HUGE with Merciless has been my favorite build so far, and the most effective. We'll see whether I keep messing with Jin or not, he is slightly boring because he can be easy mode, but as a test deck and a generally competitive version this has worked for me.
So, that's my look at these two most interesting characters. Let me now what you think! As always, hope you enjoyed it and till next time, peace.
Chaos On The Rise - Part 1
Chaos On The Rise: Or, why Chaos may be a top tier symbol soon.
By: Edward Shelton, AKA Darklogos
With three sets making up the meta many people have rated a few selection of cards on the top and many cards on the bottom. Astrid, Hilde, King, and Rashotep stand at the top while many other character cards lurk in the shadows waiting for the meta to fill out their strengths. The symbols that have been praised so far have been fire and earth. Each provides agro and something unique on top of the aggro. Fire has lots of stun support. With stun being the main form of control and Pummel Smash annoying all who face it fire gives a little something extra to the aggro players out there. Earth right now is the best soft control/damage redux symbol around. Look through earth and you will find lots of cards that disrupt and knock down damage. While throws is the aggro mold for earth it also sports many different attacks that disrupt or make it easier to get more damage out a turn.
With that being said the question is why play Chaos in this meta? Fire has won SAS with James Hata being the main character. You see Earth King/Rashotep throw decks in almost every meta. Chaos may look bleak but it has a lot of strong options that people will appreciate here really soon. So lets go into a break down on why you want to play Chaos.
Screw you Scott Gains I can make a SIX CHECK!: Making character cards matter.
I say this as a joke. Listening to a UFS podcast the godfather of
CHAOS CONTROL: Bringing out the rage of Chaos in your deck.
Unlike Earth, Chaos is not really a throw supported symbol. Alphard Maliki and Double Face Kick are your only throws. Unlike fire, Chaos doesn’t have a lot of stun. So what stands out in chaos on the attack side of things.
Alphard Maliki: A 2L6 throw is nice. Most earth throws don’t hit that golden number of 6 damage. Being an off center attack gives you a bit of an edge as well.
Double Face Kick: Spinning Demon into Double Face kick. Can you say ownage!
Spinning Demon: This card has proven to be meta defining. This card syncs up with Merciless Fighter and Mishima Family Bloodline really well. This card is also fuel for any future cards that require combo (kick, kick). Best part of all it is a low attack that deals 4 damage.
Blazing Fist: By far one of the least mentioned cards in the meta that has so much potential. While most people are looking at throws, punches are overlooked. With the ability to fuel damage based on proceeding punches added on the fact that it’s a multiple 2 and each multiple gets the punch keyword this can be a kill condition card.
Demon Slayer: While most use this as sideboard fodder it has a lot of potential in the main deck. The first major reason is even if it doesn’t do damage you can negate an opposing players enhance. The added bonus is that it removes itself from the card pool lowering your checks. This has a lot of potential in the future play of Chaos.
Lion Slayer: Chaos has the potential to do something that no other symbol can do right now. That is to make character cards viable. This card has the potential to do major damage. If you use lion slayer as a second or third attack any character cards in the card pool or staging area count towards its damage. This helps against other chaos decks.
Wild Storm: +1 to checks Why thank you good sir. I really could use that. While this does help your opponent block, this edge will eventually be overcome by the amount of multiple you will spam out later turn.
Alaraph Achernar: One of the most overlooked attacks period in the game. This attack lets you draw 2 cards for its combo E. You are going to be playing Spinning demon. This card is almost an auto add so that you can draw more a turn. Love the card it loves you.
Eltanin Nath: One may ask why am I including this card as a core card for chaos. It is an ok attack. First off it gives you +0 mid block. The next is that I forsee hand discard to be on the rise next set. You will need every little trick you can get make people think twice about milling your hand. This card is M.A.D. Yes you will take damage when you can’t block but your opponent will be hurting as well. At the end of the game some people may not want to risk revealing their hand.
Some may ask why didn’t I include the Rites, Wheel Kick and other X cards. These cards over saturate the way chaos is run and many times don’t stand out more in chaos then they do in their other symbols. Wheel Kick for example stands out way more in fire decks then in chaos decks. While the control is nice it doesn’t add to the function of chaos. I foresee a reaction to stun coming down the pipe. I don’t think it will be hit hard but there will be more answers then Perfect Sense of balance and Torn Hero. When more stun backlash hits the Rite combo and some of ZD stuff will be useful but not as strong. I do not foresee chaos being the anti-stun symbol.
I give you a 50 if you let me in the club: Looking at assets and actions in a changing meta.
At first glance it looks like Chaos got crapped on by a million ton mammoth and then was set on fire by a falling meteor for orbit. Inside of this pile of flaming poo is a lot of tricks that can help the average chaos player get a few stabs in on those pesky fire and earth decks.
Acheron & Nirvana: You might say wow why this assest? The main reason is that strong ablities are coming with additional control checks printed on the cards themselves. This card makes it so almost any card is auto successful. It is a bit overpriced but it will be a key card in the future.
Ascending Zephyr: Making Lion Slayer a low attack for the win. In all honesty this card makes many ho hum attacks really dangerous. In spite of the better chaos attacks being low attacks or high attacks this card pushes through your high damage attacks.
Destruction in His Wake: Chaos lacks a lot of foundation fireworks. This card brings the fourth of July to your deck. It should be easy for any chaos player (lizardman excluded) to run this in your deck with little to no risk. Yes you must check a 6 or more to play this but dang it you got character cards buddy. Your good to go.
Evil Intentions: While I personally don’t like this card it has a role to play in Chaos. This card helps you get rid of rival POTM before you play yours in the card pool. This best to get rid of things that are going to stop your key foundations or assets your dropping this turn. Yes you will loose something good. But getting the edge for what is going to hit your staging area this turn is more important.
Hoping for a Challenge: CC hax advantage while getting some nice mometum generation for your throw. This is something that any spinning demon head needs to think about.
The Devil Within: Killing them softly with their stun. Killing them softly with their stun. With the abundance of stun ratings getting in the 3+ range its nice to remember to pack this card to bring the pain.
Unnatural Grace: Fuel for killing. Some decks don’t need it but man it will allow you to do some crazy aggro in a turn.
Why no Devil Gene on the list? Here is why. Unless it’s a kill card or you know your opponent has something sick coming for you (The devil within or Kilik’s E) the card does way to little for the meta. First off you have to commit the asset. Second it is unique. Third you have to discard a card for the ability. When you can pack Demon slayer and it does the same thing with advantages. Yes reuseablity is there with devil gene but man the price you pay going into your opponents turn is not worth it in my opinon. This may be a card that has been over-hyped. Yes Chaos lets you draw cards by using different tricks. But at the same time you don’t want negate that edge. This card negates that edge a lot. Next you may wonder why Scroll of the Abyss is not on the list. The reason is that it gains very little from Chaos and since it doesn’t have a chaos E it does nothing for a chaos deck that other cards can already do better. Yes reuseability is a factor. But in a sense it either blows up itself or it blows up another asset in your staging area to take out another asset in your opponents staging area. Sorry this is not worth your space in a chaos deck. Any other deck symbol it is worth while. Willful almost made the cut but it puts to much pressure on the attack it is paired with being a throw. With throw hate coming it makes this card less likely to get off.
(Editor's Note: look for Part 2 soon!)
Monday, October 12, 2009
South Arena Showdown Weekend
South Arena Showdown Weekend - Decklist, T8 Rounds Report, observations and GAAAAHLIC BUTTAH!
So after all that prepatory work, as my previous posts indicate, I though I was ready for the tournament. My teammate, J. Post, had created a monster deck in the form of Fire **James Hata**, with an amazing attack base that punished the opponent repeatedly in many different ways. He generously gave me the leeway to tweak the deck as I saw fit, and being so raw to the new environment it took me a while (and some conversations with elite players) to really get my own feel for the foundation base - the attacks weren't touched, except for dropping from 19 to 18 total. After some experimentation, head wrangling and a LOT of testing I thought I had a beast deck that was, at worst, 50-50 with any deck in the format including Astrid and King/Rasho Earth and quite a bit better than that against opposing Fire, Chaos, Death, Life and All builds. Few other resources were seriously viable in our estimation; stuff like Ivy and Void Algol was gimmicky and subject to fits, and while Efrain Costa's T8 Life Tira was tremendous we didn't get enough time to really mess with anything that creative, so we stuck to what we thought was the best for our metagame planning. My personal opinion of the meta on a cursory glance was that the 5 best characters in the format were Hata, Astrid, King, Zi Mei and Heihachi. Definitely in the mix as well were Paul Phoenix, Jin Kazama, Rashotep, Tira, and Kazuya Mishima. Those mostly are the decks that the Hata was thrown against leading up to the tourney, and he fared very well in both in-house testing and with our visiting players' fantastic decks, so I ran with it.
My final decklist and some thoughts are on the forums here, so please check it out. The deck is simply built to abuse Hata's response ability over and over again. Every attack in the deck hits deceptively hard with that simple premise and the foundation spread that enables many more triggers. There are many powerful interactions within the deck offensively and amazingly I can be versatile and play the waiting game with UT, Stand-Off and Hata's zone-changing abilities, then strike and kill when my opponent fatally overextends. However, mostly I will hit hard for 12-15 damage on the second turn (usually unblockable) with a single attack or series depending on the draw, then finish the job on the 3rd. Most of the deck is self-evident so I will not waste space on a detailed analysis. I just build quick and smash, draw some cards with Financial Troubles/Hymen Buster and do it again, or be patient and then back to the first step.
Friday before the tournament I went to J.'s to hang out with the Altanta players, whom I had never actually met but had talked to many times and knew what to expect. Namely, a bunch of wackadoos who love to drink but also know that UFS is SURRRRRIOUS BIDNESS and have done extremely well over the years at many events (Ben Shoemaker got as close as second to James Hata himself at the 2008 UFS World Championship). Ben, Drew Maffei, and Dave Wagoner - Team LION STANCE - are all amazing players with creative deckbuilding ideas and skilz to pay the billz, and their companions Ivey Willis and Josh Kroswick are no slouches either. That they are also friendly and funny people who love to joke around is a major bonus. They were there waiting, we said our hellos and got down to some cards, tech talk and general tomofoolery. In between good games against their decks, Ben was raping stuffed animals, Drew and I were discussing the possibility of Garlic Butter wrestling - which would become a running theme for the weekend and killed my sex drive for days - and Josh, Ivey and Dave were getting drunk at a moderate but deliberate pace. Good times. We were waiting for more of the ATL crew to arrive and also to pick up our Canadian brethren, Brad Penstone, so naturally we sat down and played some cards.
Dave was running a wonderful but complicated Death Tira, Ben had an aggressive Fire Zi Mei combination deck and Drew was playing with aforementioned Earth King POTM smash. Between these 3 decks and mine, it was literally 50-50 in testing for each matchup. All things being equal, there were no extreme advantages/disadvantages that we had over each other so that only increased my confidence with Hata. After we got B-Rad in the house, of course we wanted a piece of his excellent Astrid, whom many considered the best deck in the format. I managed to win two matches 2-0 and 2-1 against him, which was a surprising but pleasing result to be sure. After that more people from ATL showed up and it became a house party. These folks, which included eventual runner-up Keenan Meadows and fellow T8'er Alex Marco, were all just as fun and really loved the SFIV setup that J. had on the big screen, with the old school joypads and everything. We all drank a bit more, talked a LOT of tech on the format and matchups, and J. and I worked on our version of Chaos Heihachi which was a modified 20/20/20 build that featured all low attacks and was hilarious to mess with. Then he proceeded to maul Ben's Zi Mei pretty hard for a bit, until Ben pulled off a full 2nd turn PACMAN COMBO. What is the Pac-Man combo, you ask? Named after a terrible but catchy Junkie XL song, the combo goes "ROCK MORE" (Zi Mei's Wheel Kick aka FUCKING FRENCH TOAST), "ROLL MORE" (Dragon Lifter w/Combo), "FUCK MORE" (Neutron Bomb w/combo) , "CAUSE PACMAN IS LOVING IT!" (Fury Of The Ancients with the extra +2 multiple). Yes, ATL does this sort of thing, and I love them for it. It was getting late so Ben and I retired to the back porch to harrass Scott Gaines via phone and call him a little girl for not being here, and for some cigarettes and talk of losing to Hata in Finals (it happened to me 3 times, but his was far worse so we commiserated and cursed his name). Around 2AM I made the long trek home, and noticed my car has a coolant leak. This would come back to haunt me.
On the day of the main event I arrived at the store, 2d10 Games, early after trying to avoid having my car explode on me and to help one of our store owners and set up shop. Who do I see but my old friends, the remaining members of Team Southtown - Aulden Lloyd and Efrain and Alex Costa, all very talented players and especially unique deckbuilders that make crazy shit work. We catch up, talk about how awesome the state of the game is right now and they help me set up till everyone arrives. I get the iPod blaring classic and modern hip hop and it's on. I could do a full report for Swiss, but frankly it's embarrassing that I was scrubbing out hardcore, having excrutiatingly tight 1-2 losses back-to-back to Ben and Drew before turning it around in later rounds. Luckily I had no diversity as the Jins and Heichachis murdered each other and their standings all day. I ended up in 6th after Swiss, with the full Top 8 being:
1. Drew Maffei with Earth King
2. Ben Shoemaker with Fire Zi Mei
3. Brad Penstone with Fire Astrid
4. Keenan Meadows with Chaos Heihachi
5. Alex Marco with Fire Paul Phoenix
6. Vikram Sareen with Fire James Hata
7. Efrain Costa with Life Tira
8. Aulden Lloyd with Fire Cassandra
J.'s Heichachi deck was diversified, but not on some lame tiebreak. The freaking software resolves ties by LAST NAME (!!!), so since the two Heihachis had identical SOS, records, game wins-losses and so forth we all collectively decided that SUDDEN DEATH was the best option and Keenan won it 2-1 in the end. So the spread was 5 speedy Fire aggro decks, an Earth beatdown, a Chaos murder explosion deck and a Life deck with literal personailty disorder. Who plays control in this game? Not us, apparently.
Quaterfinal Round - vs. Brad's Astrid
As I said earlier, we had tested this already and it tilted in my favor, but only just. Astrid as we all know is rough and those irritating reverse Pommel Smashes pack quite a wallop with her E. However, if she doesn't have PTP on the board, Hata mows her down. At least that was the plan.
Game 1: To make matters worse, Brad won the roll and got naught but an asset and foundation down on his turn, while I built with 5 foundations including Standoff and double Brooding. After he dropped some more grey cards, on my second turn I tossed a Hammer of the Gods for 7L10, he blocked for half and reverse Pommeled me for 4...and I just chucked a Midnight Launcher that hit for the full 7 and played more foundations. Now at 15 and in bad board position, he wasn't able to put any pressure on me as I fully blocked two attacks (thanks, Hata!) and then threw a fatal Bomb-Launcher-Breaker 3rd turn. He saw no Paid To Protects and just one Standoff, that sucks.
Game 2: This looks more promising for him as he gets an early Paid to Protect but again, builds really slow. However, he doesn't have a Path out so I am not to worried about my own clock. My deck is also loving me and handing me Pommels. I toss a 14 damage Hammer on my second turn which frankly I expect to get blocked (it was a baiting attack - yes my BAITING attacks are for 14!) but he misses the block and I internally do a little jig because now I know I can win next turn if he doesn't kill me. He does too, so he tries and tosses 4 attacks that get me to 8 but doesn't have quite enough to do it. I draw another Pommel, tap his PTP and hit him for a small 3, and then kill him with a fatal Launcher for absurd damage and speed. W 2-0, GREAT deck and player so congrats to B-Rad on 5th in a tough field.
Semifinal Round - vs. Drew's King
Drew is a phenomenal player and hilarious person, and his deck was beastly all day (and the next). He beat me in a tremendous match 2-1 in Swiss but I knew I could win and had figured out that King's hand reveal for the free throw is seriously painful against Hata's speed and zone-changing. Still, I knew it would be hard work to win and advance to the final.
Game 1: However, though he won the roll, the gods smiled on me and he got just a Bloodline Rebellion and Path in play, failing his second foundation check. I tossed down some serious hatred in the form of FTM, Financial, Brooding x2 and he could only shake his head. I drew a Hammer that hit for 11, then played some Stand-Offs and waited. He managed to get me down to 12 but no further and I finished the job with a massively pumped Pommel Smash for game.
Game 2: This was a much closer, extremely tight game that reflected our epic match in Swiss. He got a good defensive setup while I built with the Ultimate Team, PTP, From the Hawk and Hope. He hit me for 4 next turn and had good defense. I smacked for 5 and waited patiently. His third turn was the key. He had Path, and thought he could win if he did the math right. I let him take his time, and he swung with a Close Throw that was pumped to 7, and I enhanced with PTP and revealed a hand of 5 attacks, reducing it to 1. "Good play" was his only comment, in disbelief. With that and my Stand-offs I now knew he couldn't push lethal, and he did too but he tried anyway as he was likely dead next turn. I got as low as 7 but he had to reveal his hand of double Sa, Symbol of Protection and Stand-Off. I used Financial to make him pitch one (he tossed Stand-Off), then carefully did the math factoring in the -3 and took him down with 3 large attacks at high speed. W 2-0, It was HARD work though and Drew's deck was a complete monster, so major MAJOR props to him.
Final - vs. Keenan's Hiehachi
I thought about advance scouting this deck as it was making waves at the tourney but I didn't bother, I figured as long as I do what I normally do and check piles every turn I would be okay. I didn't plan on how many tricks he had up his sleeve, however...
Game 1: He won the roll (I LOST EVERY DAMN DIE ROLL ALL DAY!) and went first, and built quickly. I did the same, and soon I had 3x Stand-off in play. He went for the kill and tossed no less than 6 huge attacks at me in one turn, including a Spinning Demon with an extra multiple thanks to Need To Destroy. I blocked half of them fully, ate about 16 damage and was hanging out at 12. He was completely spent at that point, All I had to do was draw a single attack and win the game. I drew....6 FOUNDATIONS!!!! Wow. So I played some grey and held three cards for blocks and said go. He play some more foundations as well and waited. So finally I draw a Hammer, make it 11H27 (!) and he FULL blocks it with a damn +3H block by popping 4x Chasing After The Power for the check. Wow again. I mean, what can you do? And of course if I had had another attack I would have tossed it after for a lot but at that point I was clearly resolved to God hating me. He tossed two attacks for 13 to finish me, one which I blocked and one that killed me. Aargh!
Game 2: However, I was still pretty confident and able to joke about that block. My thinking was, basically everything that could go wrong did and I still had a chance to win that game, so I was okay. I built very quickly, he apparently was drawing a lot of attacks and not tossing them because his first two turns he played nothing but foundations. By my third turn neither of us had swung but I had Hammer, Laucher and Breaker in my hand. Long story short, the Hammer hit for 6, I made the Launcher for 13 which he ate and Combo'd with the Breaker with at best he could half block and it was still going to be lethal. He didn't hit me at all this game.
Game 3: Once again, he built slow with only two foundations going first. I dropped 5 and knew I was in a great position to win. He had some more gray but it was not enough. On my second turn I hit him with a Hammer for 9, then followed with a baiting Neutron Bomb for printed which he ate. Of course, the Combo E on that allowed me to play a "free" Launcher that I pumped to 8, so he was already at 6 with the only damage done to me by my own Broodings. He tried to push through some damage but with so many foundations open and Hata ready, plus the blocks in my hand I fully blocked it all. I ended on my next turn with a massive Pommel Smash of all things! W 2-1, Keenan's deck was spectacular and he played it amazingly well, this certainly could have gone either way. I look forward to more great matches in the future, sir.
Ah, sweet victory! I couldn't believe I pulled off the comeback, and still can't believe it. J. was ecstatic and the ATL guys were teasing me for being a scrub early and coming back to win it all. I got a binder of every card in ShadoWar and SCIV, some great schwag as well as some uncut sheets and a Death resource life counter along with art cells and whatnot. What a great package, and the tournament itself was a blast.
Though tired, I wanted to hang with ATL and celebrate, but my car was on the fritz. Ivey rode with me to keep me company and also to help if needed with the car. I got it as far as I could before it was really billowing, but thankfully I was near my parent's house so I walked in, told my dad I won and needed the car to get to Naples and traded in my shitty Civic for his Lexus. We got there and tossed back some beers, talked about the event. Soon everyone was asleep except for me, Drew, B-Rad and some stragglers, so we went on the back porch and talked about the state of the game, my trip to STG and many other things. Great conversation.
The next day, I repaired my car (or so I thought) and went to the shop. We didn't really have enough teams to do a full team event so we did another singles event for the last binder. I abstained and decided to run it as everyone wanted me to play Christie with Samba loop, and I was like, "fuck that shit". I cranked the iPod and relaxed as everyone played it out, with J. running Hata this time. We took a break to eat at Golden Corral, which I sensibly refused to eat anything at unlike the other idiots in our party (they regretted it later, I TOLD them they would). After this, Ben read us some hilarious things that I cannot mention further because they were extremely pornographic. It ended up being Drew and Ben in the Finals with Drew winning a close close match 2-1. Congrats to him for that! We went back to Naples one last time to party it up except my car stalled on the road again, and though I managed to get it there I had to get it towed back. This time, me, Ben, Ivey, Josh and our local player JB had the "back porch convo" and played some games; Ivey wanted to play me and we had the most hilarious match of all time as we were both inebriated and our decks kept giving us strange but humorous hands. Soon It was time to say goodbye. I got home, thanked AAA for saving my ass (and money) and crashed hard to bed.
All in all, it was a fantastic fun weekend and a true pleasure. One of the reasons I came back to the game, aside form the format changes itself, was that the community is so amazing and this weekend confirmed that in spades. The best part of all of it was that Jasco Games decided to award the winner a paid plane ticket to Gen Con, how cool is that! So I WILL be at Worlds this year again, no more excuses.
Some MAJOR PROPS go to:
-J., what can I say? The man planned and executed the whole event spotlessly, at great personal cost, had a house full of nutjobs the whole weekend and at the same time got me back in and playing at the level I needed to be at to win. There are no words for that, and I can only say a sincere THANKS, and I look forward to a brand new era of Team Misery in the future. Also his wife, and her tremendous hospitality both before and during the tournament, definitely deserves a shoutout.
-Ben, Drew, Dave, Ivey - After so many talks online and on the phone over the years, it was a true pleasure and honor to meet you all finally. I had expectations of your awesomeness from the stories that many other players had about y'all, but it turned out that they had underestimated even that, and it came through a hundredfold. In-between the drinking and hilarity, there were top level games, tech talk, general life talk and GAAAAHLIC BUTTAH. I feel sad that you all don't live here, that's how much fun it was! I cannot wait to do it again soon, and we shall win the South some cardboard this year for sure, Southern Alliance baby!
-Everyone else from ATL especially Alex, Josh and Keenan - you guys were great, and made tremendous showings. I feel like I didn't get a chance to spend as much time as I wanted with some of the ATL crew, but I still think they had a blast and these 3 that I mentioned above were right there all weekend competing hard. Will look forward to the next round of battles, guys.
-B-Rad - for making the long trip to Florida, and for being super chill and a great player to boot. We all feel like you are officially adopted as a member of the Dirty South, and you earned your trip with your showing, even if it was with that horrible evil bitch Astrid! Great matches sir, you'll get me next time I am sure.
-Aulden, Efrain, Alex, Harold Ellis - unexpectedly glad to see the Southtown crew, some of my favorites from Florida, show up and not only that but do well both days in the events. All of you are really really good and push me to the limit, but once again know how to have a good time. I hope that your store situation works out and that you continue to play, and I will use whatever weight I have to make things happen for you.
-Finally to the shop and our locals, thanks for coming out and supporting the event and I can't wait to have the playgroup grow to herculean proportions in the future.
Slops to:
-For The Money, for being busted in half. POTM, same diff.
-Tournament software and the worst tiebreaker system in the history of all time, along with a confusing SOS and point system with strange weighting and such.
-Anyone who didn't show up, like Omar, BOO! Well, there's always next time...
-Drew for inadvertantly causing my penis to cease function for 3 days. Thanks asshole.
That's it, check back next week for more metagame talk, and as always till then, PEACE.
So after all that prepatory work, as my previous posts indicate, I though I was ready for the tournament. My teammate, J. Post, had created a monster deck in the form of Fire **James Hata**, with an amazing attack base that punished the opponent repeatedly in many different ways. He generously gave me the leeway to tweak the deck as I saw fit, and being so raw to the new environment it took me a while (and some conversations with elite players) to really get my own feel for the foundation base - the attacks weren't touched, except for dropping from 19 to 18 total. After some experimentation, head wrangling and a LOT of testing I thought I had a beast deck that was, at worst, 50-50 with any deck in the format including Astrid and King/Rasho Earth and quite a bit better than that against opposing Fire, Chaos, Death, Life and All builds. Few other resources were seriously viable in our estimation; stuff like Ivy and Void Algol was gimmicky and subject to fits, and while Efrain Costa's T8 Life Tira was tremendous we didn't get enough time to really mess with anything that creative, so we stuck to what we thought was the best for our metagame planning. My personal opinion of the meta on a cursory glance was that the 5 best characters in the format were Hata, Astrid, King, Zi Mei and Heihachi. Definitely in the mix as well were Paul Phoenix, Jin Kazama, Rashotep, Tira, and Kazuya Mishima. Those mostly are the decks that the Hata was thrown against leading up to the tourney, and he fared very well in both in-house testing and with our visiting players' fantastic decks, so I ran with it.
My final decklist and some thoughts are on the forums here, so please check it out. The deck is simply built to abuse Hata's response ability over and over again. Every attack in the deck hits deceptively hard with that simple premise and the foundation spread that enables many more triggers. There are many powerful interactions within the deck offensively and amazingly I can be versatile and play the waiting game with UT, Stand-Off and Hata's zone-changing abilities, then strike and kill when my opponent fatally overextends. However, mostly I will hit hard for 12-15 damage on the second turn (usually unblockable) with a single attack or series depending on the draw, then finish the job on the 3rd. Most of the deck is self-evident so I will not waste space on a detailed analysis. I just build quick and smash, draw some cards with Financial Troubles/Hymen Buster and do it again, or be patient and then back to the first step.
Friday before the tournament I went to J.'s to hang out with the Altanta players, whom I had never actually met but had talked to many times and knew what to expect. Namely, a bunch of wackadoos who love to drink but also know that UFS is SURRRRRIOUS BIDNESS and have done extremely well over the years at many events (Ben Shoemaker got as close as second to James Hata himself at the 2008 UFS World Championship). Ben, Drew Maffei, and Dave Wagoner - Team LION STANCE - are all amazing players with creative deckbuilding ideas and skilz to pay the billz, and their companions Ivey Willis and Josh Kroswick are no slouches either. That they are also friendly and funny people who love to joke around is a major bonus. They were there waiting, we said our hellos and got down to some cards, tech talk and general tomofoolery. In between good games against their decks, Ben was raping stuffed animals, Drew and I were discussing the possibility of Garlic Butter wrestling - which would become a running theme for the weekend and killed my sex drive for days - and Josh, Ivey and Dave were getting drunk at a moderate but deliberate pace. Good times. We were waiting for more of the ATL crew to arrive and also to pick up our Canadian brethren, Brad Penstone, so naturally we sat down and played some cards.
Dave was running a wonderful but complicated Death Tira, Ben had an aggressive Fire Zi Mei combination deck and Drew was playing with aforementioned Earth King POTM smash. Between these 3 decks and mine, it was literally 50-50 in testing for each matchup. All things being equal, there were no extreme advantages/disadvantages that we had over each other so that only increased my confidence with Hata. After we got B-Rad in the house, of course we wanted a piece of his excellent Astrid, whom many considered the best deck in the format. I managed to win two matches 2-0 and 2-1 against him, which was a surprising but pleasing result to be sure. After that more people from ATL showed up and it became a house party. These folks, which included eventual runner-up Keenan Meadows and fellow T8'er Alex Marco, were all just as fun and really loved the SFIV setup that J. had on the big screen, with the old school joypads and everything. We all drank a bit more, talked a LOT of tech on the format and matchups, and J. and I worked on our version of Chaos Heihachi which was a modified 20/20/20 build that featured all low attacks and was hilarious to mess with. Then he proceeded to maul Ben's Zi Mei pretty hard for a bit, until Ben pulled off a full 2nd turn PACMAN COMBO. What is the Pac-Man combo, you ask? Named after a terrible but catchy Junkie XL song, the combo goes "ROCK MORE" (Zi Mei's Wheel Kick aka FUCKING FRENCH TOAST), "ROLL MORE" (Dragon Lifter w/Combo), "FUCK MORE" (Neutron Bomb w/combo) , "CAUSE PACMAN IS LOVING IT!" (Fury Of The Ancients with the extra +2 multiple). Yes, ATL does this sort of thing, and I love them for it. It was getting late so Ben and I retired to the back porch to harrass Scott Gaines via phone and call him a little girl for not being here, and for some cigarettes and talk of losing to Hata in Finals (it happened to me 3 times, but his was far worse so we commiserated and cursed his name). Around 2AM I made the long trek home, and noticed my car has a coolant leak. This would come back to haunt me.
On the day of the main event I arrived at the store, 2d10 Games, early after trying to avoid having my car explode on me and to help one of our store owners and set up shop. Who do I see but my old friends, the remaining members of Team Southtown - Aulden Lloyd and Efrain and Alex Costa, all very talented players and especially unique deckbuilders that make crazy shit work. We catch up, talk about how awesome the state of the game is right now and they help me set up till everyone arrives. I get the iPod blaring classic and modern hip hop and it's on. I could do a full report for Swiss, but frankly it's embarrassing that I was scrubbing out hardcore, having excrutiatingly tight 1-2 losses back-to-back to Ben and Drew before turning it around in later rounds. Luckily I had no diversity as the Jins and Heichachis murdered each other and their standings all day. I ended up in 6th after Swiss, with the full Top 8 being:
1. Drew Maffei with Earth King
2. Ben Shoemaker with Fire Zi Mei
3. Brad Penstone with Fire Astrid
4. Keenan Meadows with Chaos Heihachi
5. Alex Marco with Fire Paul Phoenix
6. Vikram Sareen with Fire James Hata
7. Efrain Costa with Life Tira
8. Aulden Lloyd with Fire Cassandra
J.'s Heichachi deck was diversified, but not on some lame tiebreak. The freaking software resolves ties by LAST NAME (!!!), so since the two Heihachis had identical SOS, records, game wins-losses and so forth we all collectively decided that SUDDEN DEATH was the best option and Keenan won it 2-1 in the end. So the spread was 5 speedy Fire aggro decks, an Earth beatdown, a Chaos murder explosion deck and a Life deck with literal personailty disorder. Who plays control in this game? Not us, apparently.
Quaterfinal Round - vs. Brad's Astrid
As I said earlier, we had tested this already and it tilted in my favor, but only just. Astrid as we all know is rough and those irritating reverse Pommel Smashes pack quite a wallop with her E. However, if she doesn't have PTP on the board, Hata mows her down. At least that was the plan.
Game 1: To make matters worse, Brad won the roll and got naught but an asset and foundation down on his turn, while I built with 5 foundations including Standoff and double Brooding. After he dropped some more grey cards, on my second turn I tossed a Hammer of the Gods for 7L10, he blocked for half and reverse Pommeled me for 4...and I just chucked a Midnight Launcher that hit for the full 7 and played more foundations. Now at 15 and in bad board position, he wasn't able to put any pressure on me as I fully blocked two attacks (thanks, Hata!) and then threw a fatal Bomb-Launcher-Breaker 3rd turn. He saw no Paid To Protects and just one Standoff, that sucks.
Game 2: This looks more promising for him as he gets an early Paid to Protect but again, builds really slow. However, he doesn't have a Path out so I am not to worried about my own clock. My deck is also loving me and handing me Pommels. I toss a 14 damage Hammer on my second turn which frankly I expect to get blocked (it was a baiting attack - yes my BAITING attacks are for 14!) but he misses the block and I internally do a little jig because now I know I can win next turn if he doesn't kill me. He does too, so he tries and tosses 4 attacks that get me to 8 but doesn't have quite enough to do it. I draw another Pommel, tap his PTP and hit him for a small 3, and then kill him with a fatal Launcher for absurd damage and speed. W 2-0, GREAT deck and player so congrats to B-Rad on 5th in a tough field.
Semifinal Round - vs. Drew's King
Drew is a phenomenal player and hilarious person, and his deck was beastly all day (and the next). He beat me in a tremendous match 2-1 in Swiss but I knew I could win and had figured out that King's hand reveal for the free throw is seriously painful against Hata's speed and zone-changing. Still, I knew it would be hard work to win and advance to the final.
Game 1: However, though he won the roll, the gods smiled on me and he got just a Bloodline Rebellion and Path in play, failing his second foundation check. I tossed down some serious hatred in the form of FTM, Financial, Brooding x2 and he could only shake his head. I drew a Hammer that hit for 11, then played some Stand-Offs and waited. He managed to get me down to 12 but no further and I finished the job with a massively pumped Pommel Smash for game.
Game 2: This was a much closer, extremely tight game that reflected our epic match in Swiss. He got a good defensive setup while I built with the Ultimate Team, PTP, From the Hawk and Hope. He hit me for 4 next turn and had good defense. I smacked for 5 and waited patiently. His third turn was the key. He had Path, and thought he could win if he did the math right. I let him take his time, and he swung with a Close Throw that was pumped to 7, and I enhanced with PTP and revealed a hand of 5 attacks, reducing it to 1. "Good play" was his only comment, in disbelief. With that and my Stand-offs I now knew he couldn't push lethal, and he did too but he tried anyway as he was likely dead next turn. I got as low as 7 but he had to reveal his hand of double Sa, Symbol of Protection and Stand-Off. I used Financial to make him pitch one (he tossed Stand-Off), then carefully did the math factoring in the -3 and took him down with 3 large attacks at high speed. W 2-0, It was HARD work though and Drew's deck was a complete monster, so major MAJOR props to him.
Final - vs. Keenan's Hiehachi
I thought about advance scouting this deck as it was making waves at the tourney but I didn't bother, I figured as long as I do what I normally do and check piles every turn I would be okay. I didn't plan on how many tricks he had up his sleeve, however...
Game 1: He won the roll (I LOST EVERY DAMN DIE ROLL ALL DAY!) and went first, and built quickly. I did the same, and soon I had 3x Stand-off in play. He went for the kill and tossed no less than 6 huge attacks at me in one turn, including a Spinning Demon with an extra multiple thanks to Need To Destroy. I blocked half of them fully, ate about 16 damage and was hanging out at 12. He was completely spent at that point, All I had to do was draw a single attack and win the game. I drew....6 FOUNDATIONS!!!! Wow. So I played some grey and held three cards for blocks and said go. He play some more foundations as well and waited. So finally I draw a Hammer, make it 11H27 (!) and he FULL blocks it with a damn +3H block by popping 4x Chasing After The Power for the check. Wow again. I mean, what can you do? And of course if I had had another attack I would have tossed it after for a lot but at that point I was clearly resolved to God hating me. He tossed two attacks for 13 to finish me, one which I blocked and one that killed me. Aargh!
Game 2: However, I was still pretty confident and able to joke about that block. My thinking was, basically everything that could go wrong did and I still had a chance to win that game, so I was okay. I built very quickly, he apparently was drawing a lot of attacks and not tossing them because his first two turns he played nothing but foundations. By my third turn neither of us had swung but I had Hammer, Laucher and Breaker in my hand. Long story short, the Hammer hit for 6, I made the Launcher for 13 which he ate and Combo'd with the Breaker with at best he could half block and it was still going to be lethal. He didn't hit me at all this game.
Game 3: Once again, he built slow with only two foundations going first. I dropped 5 and knew I was in a great position to win. He had some more gray but it was not enough. On my second turn I hit him with a Hammer for 9, then followed with a baiting Neutron Bomb for printed which he ate. Of course, the Combo E on that allowed me to play a "free" Launcher that I pumped to 8, so he was already at 6 with the only damage done to me by my own Broodings. He tried to push through some damage but with so many foundations open and Hata ready, plus the blocks in my hand I fully blocked it all. I ended on my next turn with a massive Pommel Smash of all things! W 2-1, Keenan's deck was spectacular and he played it amazingly well, this certainly could have gone either way. I look forward to more great matches in the future, sir.
Ah, sweet victory! I couldn't believe I pulled off the comeback, and still can't believe it. J. was ecstatic and the ATL guys were teasing me for being a scrub early and coming back to win it all. I got a binder of every card in ShadoWar and SCIV, some great schwag as well as some uncut sheets and a Death resource life counter along with art cells and whatnot. What a great package, and the tournament itself was a blast.
Though tired, I wanted to hang with ATL and celebrate, but my car was on the fritz. Ivey rode with me to keep me company and also to help if needed with the car. I got it as far as I could before it was really billowing, but thankfully I was near my parent's house so I walked in, told my dad I won and needed the car to get to Naples and traded in my shitty Civic for his Lexus. We got there and tossed back some beers, talked about the event. Soon everyone was asleep except for me, Drew, B-Rad and some stragglers, so we went on the back porch and talked about the state of the game, my trip to STG and many other things. Great conversation.
The next day, I repaired my car (or so I thought) and went to the shop. We didn't really have enough teams to do a full team event so we did another singles event for the last binder. I abstained and decided to run it as everyone wanted me to play Christie with Samba loop, and I was like, "fuck that shit". I cranked the iPod and relaxed as everyone played it out, with J. running Hata this time. We took a break to eat at Golden Corral, which I sensibly refused to eat anything at unlike the other idiots in our party (they regretted it later, I TOLD them they would). After this, Ben read us some hilarious things that I cannot mention further because they were extremely pornographic. It ended up being Drew and Ben in the Finals with Drew winning a close close match 2-1. Congrats to him for that! We went back to Naples one last time to party it up except my car stalled on the road again, and though I managed to get it there I had to get it towed back. This time, me, Ben, Ivey, Josh and our local player JB had the "back porch convo" and played some games; Ivey wanted to play me and we had the most hilarious match of all time as we were both inebriated and our decks kept giving us strange but humorous hands. Soon It was time to say goodbye. I got home, thanked AAA for saving my ass (and money) and crashed hard to bed.
All in all, it was a fantastic fun weekend and a true pleasure. One of the reasons I came back to the game, aside form the format changes itself, was that the community is so amazing and this weekend confirmed that in spades. The best part of all of it was that Jasco Games decided to award the winner a paid plane ticket to Gen Con, how cool is that! So I WILL be at Worlds this year again, no more excuses.
Some MAJOR PROPS go to:
-J., what can I say? The man planned and executed the whole event spotlessly, at great personal cost, had a house full of nutjobs the whole weekend and at the same time got me back in and playing at the level I needed to be at to win. There are no words for that, and I can only say a sincere THANKS, and I look forward to a brand new era of Team Misery in the future. Also his wife, and her tremendous hospitality both before and during the tournament, definitely deserves a shoutout.
-Ben, Drew, Dave, Ivey - After so many talks online and on the phone over the years, it was a true pleasure and honor to meet you all finally. I had expectations of your awesomeness from the stories that many other players had about y'all, but it turned out that they had underestimated even that, and it came through a hundredfold. In-between the drinking and hilarity, there were top level games, tech talk, general life talk and GAAAAHLIC BUTTAH. I feel sad that you all don't live here, that's how much fun it was! I cannot wait to do it again soon, and we shall win the South some cardboard this year for sure, Southern Alliance baby!
-Everyone else from ATL especially Alex, Josh and Keenan - you guys were great, and made tremendous showings. I feel like I didn't get a chance to spend as much time as I wanted with some of the ATL crew, but I still think they had a blast and these 3 that I mentioned above were right there all weekend competing hard. Will look forward to the next round of battles, guys.
-B-Rad - for making the long trip to Florida, and for being super chill and a great player to boot. We all feel like you are officially adopted as a member of the Dirty South, and you earned your trip with your showing, even if it was with that horrible evil bitch Astrid! Great matches sir, you'll get me next time I am sure.
-Aulden, Efrain, Alex, Harold Ellis - unexpectedly glad to see the Southtown crew, some of my favorites from Florida, show up and not only that but do well both days in the events. All of you are really really good and push me to the limit, but once again know how to have a good time. I hope that your store situation works out and that you continue to play, and I will use whatever weight I have to make things happen for you.
-Finally to the shop and our locals, thanks for coming out and supporting the event and I can't wait to have the playgroup grow to herculean proportions in the future.
Slops to:
-For The Money, for being busted in half. POTM, same diff.
-Tournament software and the worst tiebreaker system in the history of all time, along with a confusing SOS and point system with strange weighting and such.
-Anyone who didn't show up, like Omar, BOO! Well, there's always next time...
-Drew for inadvertantly causing my penis to cease function for 3 days. Thanks asshole.
That's it, check back next week for more metagame talk, and as always till then, PEACE.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Final Countdown
The Final Countdown - Or, avoiding a last minute crisis of faith at 2 AM while intoxicated.
Let me tell you a little story. In March of 2008, I went to the South Coast Championship in Orlando for some fun and card floppery. Also, of course, to do the best I could and finally WIN a damn tournament instead of constantly losing to James Hata in final rounds (it happened at the 2007 East Coast Championship and again in the 2008 New York City Team AoP in January, d'oh). Granted, if you're going to lose to someone, you can't really complain if he's the best individual player ever in the game (and also the current lead developer, of course). That was the plan, anyway.
Now for some reason, this event featured Teams first, then Singles on Sunday. So Saturday our team was set; I was playing Void Ibuki (yes, VOID Ibuki!), my local teammate Chris Kovaz was playing Water loop *James Hata*, and Omar Chavez had come down from New York and was running Andrew Olexa's character card off Evil. It was a strange team composition, three essential hybrid decks, as mine was the closest to being control. All day we did great, getting good matchups in terms of decks, and we all were on our game. Team Southtown, from the Tampa area, was the only team to defeat us in Swiss, so we were 5-1 and ranked 2nd going into top rounds. We met them again in the final, however, and ended up losing a close match. It was a tough loss, especially for me as it was my 3rd consecutive runner-up finish! Yikes. Would I always be doomed to lose when I was so close? It weighed on me for sure. you have to consider, in card tournaments, that the better you do, the longer your day will be - so finishing 2nd is not only emotionally draining but physically as well.
Now this Void Ibuki deck was built for fun, mostly, but featured a lot of great cards for defense like Tough Outer Shell - exploitable with the Life response, which Ibuki had access to - and Seichu Nidan Tsuki for the kill - still my favorite attack ever printed, by the way. It didn't hurt that she was busted as hell, if you recall this Ibuki was later banned for doing horrible things with Higher Calibur and The Red Lotus Of The Sun. However I had known that it wasn't good enough to play in Singles and win, and that result further confirmed that I needed a new deck. Well, all of us were hungry and so we all went to Friday's to eat. Everyone was talking about their day, and having a good time, and I kept plying myself with Bloody Marys while discussing ideas for tomorrow. After about the 4th Bloody Mary, I had a decent buzz going, and thankfully the hotel was literally next door. We walked back, and I pulled out my cardboard and starting looking through everything for ideas. Meanwhile, I continued to drink alcohol, because we had 3 beers in the fridge.
So now, I'm basically drunk, and my stack of characters is fast becoming a tower. Then it hits me - Cody. With an Evil/Fire split. I basically cobble together a deck out of spare parts and hand it to Omar, which he plays against my Ibuki. Omar first turn - Chain Throw + TRIPLE Absurd Strength! And I fail my block! GG. Yeah...so I'm thinking, though that should hardly ever happen normally, that's still quite nice. Nicer than anything my Ibuki can do on the first turn. Another attractive thing about Cody's character was the vitality - 24, for a 7HS! Again, being degenerate with both his abilities didn't hurt either. Now it's 2 AM, I need to finish this deck and get to sleep, and I can't find any Addes Syndicates. Which I know I need because of the stupid Void/Order Yun-Seong mill deck that Steve Kline had just won the Gulf Coast Championships. So I was in a depressing, inebriated stupor here, trying to get this deck done while my brain was creaming things like FOOD and SLEEP back at me. Also, I needed sideboard tech, and in this state of malaise I suddenly hit upon a perfect solution - The Illuminati. Though I was using Higher Calibur, I didn't rely on it to win and could be selective, while The Illuminati seriously crippled all forms of Yun-Seong, as well as many loop decks using Shinobi Tradition.
Next morning, my head is killing me, but I'm happy with the deck. Despite being TOTAL jank, with not even playsets of key cards like Addes and Unrequited Love, and being built under the influence, I did great all day and amazingly, played against Steve in the finals and won. It was a great feeling. So great that the 3 hour drive back to Fort Myers breezed by, despite me being the one doing the driving (and being really, really exhausted).
Now the point of this story is, DON'T do that! Like, ever. I got really lucky, had done a LOT of homework on the metagame and knew Cody fairly well, as I played him for months before that before I switched to Ibuki. That, and thankfully sobering up JUST in time for start of the tourney were my only saving graces. I did play very well during the tournament and I had a brutal final match against a wall of control to deal with, so the focus was there. Still...outcomes don't justify the means, as Machiavelli believed. I've won or competed at events at a high level since then, and my preparation has always been far more careful. I DO have a tendency to finalize decks at the last second, I can't help it. I'm a tinkerer; a card here or there CAN make a difference. Other than that, though, the steps that I take to prepare for a semi-major or major tournament are markedly different.
So, after all that, the question remains, what SHOULD you do? Different people have different processes, so I can only say what works for me. At least, I HOPE it STILL works for me, that would be more accurate! Because of the way I've kinda thrown myself back in headfirst, and with little time to prepare due to school/work and other obligations, my preparation for the SAS has been sporadic at best. Still, I think I've managed to get the best use of the time I have had, so that's what matters. Typically, I try to do the following before a tourney:
1. Find a deck that you are comfortable with, NOT just the "best deck" in the format. Whether you develop your own idea, or netdeck and modify someone else's idea, YOU should be familiar with the deck and ready to play it against anything. That is the most important, otherwise you will simply be ill at ease and more prone to making play errors. You gotta roll with what suits you. If you have and like a deck that's winning locally, but that hasn't made any impact anywhere else - hey, go for it! It could be YOU making that impact. As you play more and more games with a deck, certain additions and subtractions become apparent. Modify, and do it again. You will also notice patterns, combinations and strategies better - as opposed to simply copying something off the forums that seems to have won stuff and hoping for the best.
2. Play a LOT of games, and keep the metagame in mind at least a little. I mean, a lot of games. This is where metagame planning starts to factor in, an important part of any competitive CCG environment. Some top players, such as Omar, swear that they don't care about the meta, and it doesn't impact their decks. Some, like Team UFS House (Matt Kohls, Paul Bitner and Jon Herr - all on cardboard) play everything they can in every shape and style and DEFINE the meta themselves. I tend to skirt along the middle of this path - I do the best I can with my own ideas, then take the most consistent decks in the format and repeatedly play against them. I am not a fan of netdecking for playing purposes because I like to create on my own, but I have no problem with it as a useful tool for testing. For example, Astrid and Rashotep are extremely powerful decks right now that you need to be careful for, by general consensus and my own specific observation. So, getting a good list of those decks is important to gauge readiness and find chinks in the armor. On the same note, I leave the sideboard for last. I try and get the maindeck makeup of the deck sorted out, and if it's working on Game 1 wins at least 70% of the time that's good enough for me. Only then do I work on sideboard options.
3. Make good use of your sideboard slots. Those extra 8 cards are very important, and they should be chosen with care. What is hurting my deck? Is it specific to one character or card, or more general? Unless literally there is only one deck that you need help dealing with, your sideboard should contain cards that are good counters to your two or three big concerns BUT also not be too limiting; those cards should have more than one use. The recently reprinted Martial Arts Champion has long been a sideboard and even maindeck staple for precisely this reason; it's flexible, and flexibility means value in CCGs. It provides counters to a wide range of annoying problems - card draw, recursion, silly loops - at low cost, balanced by its numbers and no block. Perfect. The new Soul Wave is another example, as it is anti-discard along with asset hate - screw that Path Of The Master! If you have 3 copies of a card in the main, ocassionally the 4th copy is needed in certain matchups to ensure you draw it at critical times. Taken together, you can whittle down to 8 cards and set it up nicely for a toolbox of solutions.
That's all I have to say for now, but that was a lot! With two days to go before the big show, I've finished these steps at least and now am simply playing more games to get practice in. It feels good when you can lock your deck AND have time to just spin it as much as possible. As I illustrated concretely, though, that doesn't always happen! Check back tomorrow for one more update before the tourney Saturday, and till then, peace.
Let me tell you a little story. In March of 2008, I went to the South Coast Championship in Orlando for some fun and card floppery. Also, of course, to do the best I could and finally WIN a damn tournament instead of constantly losing to James Hata in final rounds (it happened at the 2007 East Coast Championship and again in the 2008 New York City Team AoP in January, d'oh). Granted, if you're going to lose to someone, you can't really complain if he's the best individual player ever in the game (and also the current lead developer, of course). That was the plan, anyway.
Now for some reason, this event featured Teams first, then Singles on Sunday. So Saturday our team was set; I was playing Void Ibuki (yes, VOID Ibuki!), my local teammate Chris Kovaz was playing Water loop *James Hata*, and Omar Chavez had come down from New York and was running Andrew Olexa's character card off Evil. It was a strange team composition, three essential hybrid decks, as mine was the closest to being control. All day we did great, getting good matchups in terms of decks, and we all were on our game. Team Southtown, from the Tampa area, was the only team to defeat us in Swiss, so we were 5-1 and ranked 2nd going into top rounds. We met them again in the final, however, and ended up losing a close match. It was a tough loss, especially for me as it was my 3rd consecutive runner-up finish! Yikes. Would I always be doomed to lose when I was so close? It weighed on me for sure. you have to consider, in card tournaments, that the better you do, the longer your day will be - so finishing 2nd is not only emotionally draining but physically as well.
Now this Void Ibuki deck was built for fun, mostly, but featured a lot of great cards for defense like Tough Outer Shell - exploitable with the Life response, which Ibuki had access to - and Seichu Nidan Tsuki for the kill - still my favorite attack ever printed, by the way. It didn't hurt that she was busted as hell, if you recall this Ibuki was later banned for doing horrible things with Higher Calibur and The Red Lotus Of The Sun. However I had known that it wasn't good enough to play in Singles and win, and that result further confirmed that I needed a new deck. Well, all of us were hungry and so we all went to Friday's to eat. Everyone was talking about their day, and having a good time, and I kept plying myself with Bloody Marys while discussing ideas for tomorrow. After about the 4th Bloody Mary, I had a decent buzz going, and thankfully the hotel was literally next door. We walked back, and I pulled out my cardboard and starting looking through everything for ideas. Meanwhile, I continued to drink alcohol, because we had 3 beers in the fridge.
So now, I'm basically drunk, and my stack of characters is fast becoming a tower. Then it hits me - Cody. With an Evil/Fire split. I basically cobble together a deck out of spare parts and hand it to Omar, which he plays against my Ibuki. Omar first turn - Chain Throw + TRIPLE Absurd Strength! And I fail my block! GG. Yeah...so I'm thinking, though that should hardly ever happen normally, that's still quite nice. Nicer than anything my Ibuki can do on the first turn. Another attractive thing about Cody's character was the vitality - 24, for a 7HS! Again, being degenerate with both his abilities didn't hurt either. Now it's 2 AM, I need to finish this deck and get to sleep, and I can't find any Addes Syndicates. Which I know I need because of the stupid Void/Order Yun-Seong mill deck that Steve Kline had just won the Gulf Coast Championships. So I was in a depressing, inebriated stupor here, trying to get this deck done while my brain was creaming things like FOOD and SLEEP back at me. Also, I needed sideboard tech, and in this state of malaise I suddenly hit upon a perfect solution - The Illuminati. Though I was using Higher Calibur, I didn't rely on it to win and could be selective, while The Illuminati seriously crippled all forms of Yun-Seong, as well as many loop decks using Shinobi Tradition.
Next morning, my head is killing me, but I'm happy with the deck. Despite being TOTAL jank, with not even playsets of key cards like Addes and Unrequited Love, and being built under the influence, I did great all day and amazingly, played against Steve in the finals and won. It was a great feeling. So great that the 3 hour drive back to Fort Myers breezed by, despite me being the one doing the driving (and being really, really exhausted).
Now the point of this story is, DON'T do that! Like, ever. I got really lucky, had done a LOT of homework on the metagame and knew Cody fairly well, as I played him for months before that before I switched to Ibuki. That, and thankfully sobering up JUST in time for start of the tourney were my only saving graces. I did play very well during the tournament and I had a brutal final match against a wall of control to deal with, so the focus was there. Still...outcomes don't justify the means, as Machiavelli believed. I've won or competed at events at a high level since then, and my preparation has always been far more careful. I DO have a tendency to finalize decks at the last second, I can't help it. I'm a tinkerer; a card here or there CAN make a difference. Other than that, though, the steps that I take to prepare for a semi-major or major tournament are markedly different.
So, after all that, the question remains, what SHOULD you do? Different people have different processes, so I can only say what works for me. At least, I HOPE it STILL works for me, that would be more accurate! Because of the way I've kinda thrown myself back in headfirst, and with little time to prepare due to school/work and other obligations, my preparation for the SAS has been sporadic at best. Still, I think I've managed to get the best use of the time I have had, so that's what matters. Typically, I try to do the following before a tourney:
1. Find a deck that you are comfortable with, NOT just the "best deck" in the format. Whether you develop your own idea, or netdeck and modify someone else's idea, YOU should be familiar with the deck and ready to play it against anything. That is the most important, otherwise you will simply be ill at ease and more prone to making play errors. You gotta roll with what suits you. If you have and like a deck that's winning locally, but that hasn't made any impact anywhere else - hey, go for it! It could be YOU making that impact. As you play more and more games with a deck, certain additions and subtractions become apparent. Modify, and do it again. You will also notice patterns, combinations and strategies better - as opposed to simply copying something off the forums that seems to have won stuff and hoping for the best.
2. Play a LOT of games, and keep the metagame in mind at least a little. I mean, a lot of games. This is where metagame planning starts to factor in, an important part of any competitive CCG environment. Some top players, such as Omar, swear that they don't care about the meta, and it doesn't impact their decks. Some, like Team UFS House (Matt Kohls, Paul Bitner and Jon Herr - all on cardboard) play everything they can in every shape and style and DEFINE the meta themselves. I tend to skirt along the middle of this path - I do the best I can with my own ideas, then take the most consistent decks in the format and repeatedly play against them. I am not a fan of netdecking for playing purposes because I like to create on my own, but I have no problem with it as a useful tool for testing. For example, Astrid and Rashotep are extremely powerful decks right now that you need to be careful for, by general consensus and my own specific observation. So, getting a good list of those decks is important to gauge readiness and find chinks in the armor. On the same note, I leave the sideboard for last. I try and get the maindeck makeup of the deck sorted out, and if it's working on Game 1 wins at least 70% of the time that's good enough for me. Only then do I work on sideboard options.
3. Make good use of your sideboard slots. Those extra 8 cards are very important, and they should be chosen with care. What is hurting my deck? Is it specific to one character or card, or more general? Unless literally there is only one deck that you need help dealing with, your sideboard should contain cards that are good counters to your two or three big concerns BUT also not be too limiting; those cards should have more than one use. The recently reprinted Martial Arts Champion has long been a sideboard and even maindeck staple for precisely this reason; it's flexible, and flexibility means value in CCGs. It provides counters to a wide range of annoying problems - card draw, recursion, silly loops - at low cost, balanced by its numbers and no block. Perfect. The new Soul Wave is another example, as it is anti-discard along with asset hate - screw that Path Of The Master! If you have 3 copies of a card in the main, ocassionally the 4th copy is needed in certain matchups to ensure you draw it at critical times. Taken together, you can whittle down to 8 cards and set it up nicely for a toolbox of solutions.
That's all I have to say for now, but that was a lot! With two days to go before the big show, I've finished these steps at least and now am simply playing more games to get practice in. It feels good when you can lock your deck AND have time to just spin it as much as possible. As I illustrated concretely, though, that doesn't always happen! Check back tomorrow for one more update before the tourney Saturday, and till then, peace.
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