Apart from the fact it's Winnipeg? *joking*

i take all my cards on hand lugguge (espeallally after my clothes were lost on way to sweden (wooo i got them back though) so yer most important thing in hands at all times lol.

I hate that they always need to look into my bag of goodies but meh can't be helped lol.

As for insurance should really sort that out knew i forgot something thanks guys

First off, sorry for not responding earlier like I said I would.

When people say that the Canadian and American metas are the same, it is a bit of a misnomer. I find the Canadian meta to be a bit more geared to turtle/control decks than aggro/control decks (at least when compared to the American meta). Decks like Kin's Talbain are a good example. Many people will run every possible anti-meta/turtling card there is in an effort to protect themselves from the early onslaught. From my (admittedly limited) understanding of the UK meta, I'd say the Canadian playstyle is a bit more similar to what you are used to than the American playstyle. However, the Canadian and American playstyles have adapted to coexist with each other, so you can get quite an amalgam at one of these tournaments. That being said, there will be a sizeable contingent from both CA and the States, so it becomes a bit more difficult to prep for a tourney like this, in my experience.

The way I do it, is I take a representative deck from each symbol I feel is worth worrying about, and play through them all. I'll go through a few decks that I think have a very good shot of having solid representation.

Air Chun Li: Test against something that runs Spinta, Spike, and Hoyoku-Sen. Air's foundation base isn't too hard to pin down, but some of the lower difficulty foundations people can experiment with. However, as long as you get used to dealing with Spintas thrown on your own turn, you will be ok. If you go with Akuma, you are sitting better than a lot of other people due to your ability to hack checks on both your turn and your opponent's turn. I feel like Chun Li is the most powerful of the air decks and the only one you need to spend all that much time testing against. In a 50 person tournament, I'd expect 5-7 players playing or sandbagging chun li.

All Alex: While All has been licking its wounds ever since Olcadan's came about, it has gotten a nice shot in the arm with the new sets. Though All didn't make that hot of a showing at the US PotM, I wouldn't be suprised to see him rearing his ugly face again. This deck would probably be a little more of a rogue style deck since there hasn't been a difinitive build off All in a while. I still think Alex will be the best deck to test against because he has pure card advantage and will be able to muscle through your hacks. I'd also expect you'll have to deal with a decent amount of pommel smashes, so be ready for that.

Chaos: I'll be honest, I have very little experience playing as and playing against chaos decks. I have a feeling the symbol is right on the verge of doing something good, but I just don't know what that is. I'd expect a chaos deck to function similarly to death and/or evil decks, so you may be able to get away without testing heavily against chaos. My best guess would be to test against Frogase, Guy, or Fio. However, I personally wouldn't spend too much time on them.

Zi Mei Death: I'm not sure if Death or Evil Zi Mei is better, but Death Zi Mei seems like just as good a candidate to test against Death as any. Again, this is a symbol that hasn't been doing much lately, but with the new sets have a lot of new toys. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Death deck do well. I'd test against a deck running the Nightmare attacks and maybe off symbol Fury of the Ancients backed by Death's strong foundation base. Blanka might be a decent test subject too. I'd be concerned for you against this matchup because it just takes 1 multiple attack to be resolved for you to be in big trouble vitality wise.

Yi Shan/Seigfreid Earth: Two very similar decks. Earth is arguably the best its ever been and though it has been hiding in the weeds for a while, I'd expect it to do well. My concern for your Akuma deck is that Earth has enough counter control and damage redux that I think you might not be able to get through it all for your big kill. Your hax should help you quite a bit here.

Evil: Take your pick of any of a number of great evil characters. The advantage for playtesting against evil is that the decks are interchangeable and vary in only very slight ways. Pick one and test. I expect Evil to be one of your more difficult matchups.

Fire Hilde: Like Elena and Adon of old, she's the new face of fire aggro. I would steal someone's build off the forums (there have actually been a handful of decent builds posted as opposed to the drivvel that normally is posted) and test against it. Rejection is your friend (I keep assuming your Akuma is off Evil, if not, just ignore my evil-focussed comments).

Good: Be aware of the super-turtling possibilities of Good and be ready for the Spike kill. I don't know if a Good deck could do well, but I think it has great matchups against some of the better decks in the meta, but crappy matchups against some of the more mediocre decks floating around, so it really depends on if these Good decks can make it to the top tables in the early rounds.

Life: Don't bother

Order: Be ready for the Spinta decks. Seong Mina is someone you will have to deal with and can be a bit of a pain if you let her get going. Plus, you will have a hell of a time getting through her life. Other Order characters to consider testing against are Gill (due to 8HS, he can blast through your hack) and Donovan (due to his draw potential) and Guy (cause he can kill surprisingly quickly). Basic Order here. Not a lot has changed and the Order matchup is pretty well understood.

Void: I wouldn't bother here either, though there may be something I'm overlooking

Water: I look at water and I see Order Lite and Air Lite. If you have decent matchups against Air and Order, chances are you'll have decent matchups against Water. As such, I'd overlook in favor of testing against some of your harder matchups.

I hope this helps (it helped me to put all my thoughts together). If I were you I'd spent the majority of my time testing against Air Chun Li, All Alex, Evil Zi Mei, and an Order deck. By no means are these going to be all the decks you see. We have a pretty diverse field over here, so there will be surprises, but I think if you understand your matchups against the basic, representative decks, you will be able to adapt your strategy effectively against any curveballs that are thrown your way. Let me know if you want to talk shop anymore prior to your voyage.

Jonathan

wow thats a message and a half, all i can say is thanks for all ur advice.

The main problem i have with testing vs certain decks is people and owning the cards for them, i.e there are VERY few people runing ira spinta over here (wever thats due to access i don't know) so testing vs it has been hard.

The 2 regionals have been really good for me to find out about other decks other than the couple in my local area, but they have still been mostly dominated by spike wins decks (well at least there is one deck i can deal with )

I will have to try and test with proxys all your different ideas to see how my deck copes (my brother is in for a few long days ) and hopefully i will bring a respectable deck over. Mostly though it will just be very cool to go over, have a huge amount of fun and play some card games.

Thanks once again everyone all this has helped a lot

Tuesday said:

Like you said, if you don't have people running Spinta over there, definitely proxy something up. It's a card that can be difficult to play around if you've never played against it, but once you have, you can minimilize its impact on you.

Case in point: be very careful which foundation you choose to put into your opponent's momentum. Many times, the correct choice is to put the Lord of the Makai in because they can just use its enhance to recur whatever it is you put into the momentum. Other times, it isn't, but choosing the correct target is often very very important in the spinta matchup and will come more easily the more you play against it.

If you do test against Chun Li and Order, definitely run them in the test decks. Running 6-7 two and one checks in a deck a lot of times is a bad idea, but going back to Hewitt's comments, many people in the States will do just that because of the greater pay off (as long as it doesn't screw you).

I wouldn't worry too much. If you're a UFS player serious enough to pony up the cash to fly over, I'm sure you have the skills to represent well. I look forward to getting a few games in with you!

(And try to steal some copies of JJ's character for trade! He never responded to my request for a trade

he dosn't have them yet and not sure if he's tradeing them so much as psodo giving them away to friends people who ask nice as far as i'm aware

could be wrong though

yer people over here go HOW MANY 2 CHECKS then faint at more than 4 lol

Thanks again and i look forward to some games too

Hey Tuesday buddy, see if you can snag some Scott Mence's... I don't have any

Hey Jon,

Totally off topic again, friend me and PM me over the card or send me an e-mail to [email protected] . I don't have them yet though.

I didn't even realise you requested one or I would have responded. Sorry about that.

as i fly out tomoz i thought i would just post a big thank u to everyone who has put forward their helpful comments i hope that i will be able to put it all to good use.

Thanks

Good Luck Mark, Bring It Home!!

Oh yeah, make sure you liberally use the "Eh" and "Whats than all aboot" in conversations, it will convince them you are a local............

Tuesday, I sent you an email, please respond asap etc.
Safe flight.

Good luck Mark!

Can you bring us back some Canadians to play with?

Good luck Mark.

Good luck,

If you top 8 than i'll have Muchops respect for you.

Again good luck.

Bring her home.

Cheers

hanzo