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!)