MarcoPulleaux said:

Goddammit this topic was doing fine and then you UFS godwin it.

Homme Chapeau said:

Oh come on, what are the odds people will see that one quote and turn this thread into that? =D

Homme Chapeau said:

@Shinji: Naks... taps my board? How exactly? Say you hit Shadow Blade, but can't get Father Bull out or I can control it (lol Gaishiki Lunar/Nature's Force/Spinta). Tap 2 destroy 1 destroy another if I don't block or redux. China Box/Program Malfunction are normal control pieces, they neutralize my Red Lotus/Torn Hero, or against a different deck you'll lock out 1~4 of my foundations, while I continue playing 3+ more every turn.

Reversal (by that I basically mean Naks/Lu Chen) decks definitely do one thing very correctly -- punish the bleeding piss out of throw-based decks.

Nak has all sorts of stuff to muck with your board. A good Nakaruru deck (albeit a Good/Water deck) can run up to in theory:

Program Malfunction

Chinese Boxing

Father Bull

Shadow Blade

Darkness Blade

Feline Spike

Without a Care

Olcadan's Mentoring

Nature's Force

Atoning for Wicked Deeds (and can get BOTH Forms out of it)

Hope for One's People

Torn Hero

A Means of Self Defence

ALL of those cards either commit/destroy foundations/assets (with the exception of Atoning which flips something over). And that's not even counting Revenant's Calling which you can play off of Life. Oh yeah, and Nak's ability blows something up too.

No Forgiveness!

just sayin'

MarcoPulleaux said:

I am going to hold off on commenting because I haven't seen the rest of your decklist BUT

Jesus that looks slow as balls.

how did this topic become about naks? (who isn't even from set 12)

trane said:

Pretty easily, considering that we are discussing good Good characters who can compete with Hilde.

Reading is your friend.

Reading, pssh, who does that on a forum?

I thought Lu Chen would be the more probable thread derailer... so much for my brewing Nako-tech remaining mostly unforeseen. =D

I think it's fair to say that if Chen/Nako type decks -and- someone completely different like Hilde can both be powerhoused off the Good symbol, it's a good symbol (lolwordconfusion). One thing Good has going for it is that their bombshell foundations are still often 1 or 2 cost. You can run a fairly strong foundation base without ever going over 2 difficulty, which is especially helpful because Good is getting to be a very Asset-heavy symbol.

Edit: Good symbol is good. New catchphrase?

This thread is seriously one of the worst ever produced, its full of everything that drives me nuts on these forums derailment, shortsighted and untested opinions, and discounting already established as working ideas.

I really hates it

Archimedes said:

Looks can be deceiving, and in this particular case, they are. When all you run are approximately 6 attacks and 2-3 of a 3 check asset, you don't have to really be concerned about your checks. Statistically, you'll have 1 to 3 of those bad checks in your hand, alleviating your deck from fear of checks. Also, as you should know, as soon as you get a good 3-5 foundations out, control checks become less important, mostly when, again, you're running so few attacks to mess with them. Plus, Free Will means checking attacks can be a good thing.

Failed2k:

OK, I understand, we were supposed to be talking about Hilde hype, and now we're discussing the viability of Nakoruru/Lu Chen. Couple of things...

1. At this point, what is there to say about Hilde that hasn't been said in the first few pages? If you have your own opinion, by all means, let's hear it. I still remain convinced that the ever popular LOLCOBRABLOWLOL Hilde is not capable of winning any event, just doing extremely well. I think people need to stop praising her and look at other characters, and if you're still set on running Hilde, try either Order, or maybe Good, because I just don't think running 4 Lynx Tail and 4 Cobra Blow is enough. Hanzo Kick hasn't ever won anything with that theory, and as far as I'm aware, never has there been a deck that just used one uber powerful uber speedy card to win. SO, that's my point. Debunk it, if you must, or speak your piece, or say nothing at all.

2. I was actually considering writing an article about how Reversals fare in our current game, but when it was finished, it was much too small and shortsighted to even bother posting. Although it started as, "there are better characters to use than Hilde", now we're discussing the viability of who I call the reversal masters: Nakoruru and Lu Chen. Never before have they been discussed because, well, they just haven't. Although this thread is about Hilde, the important thing should be that we're having productive thought for once, and we're discussing two EXTREMELY overshadowed characters who have much more potential.

All in all, if the above two points don't faze you, then revert back to the classic rule: If ya haven't got somethin nice to say, don't say it at all! =D

MarcoPulleaux said:

I know life promo nakoruru was a bit big for a little while running CSS and Senkyutai deceptive unrequited combos. I do agree though, i don't like the idea of a deck depending on one single card like that though.

Eithinis said:

It isn't a good idea because it has consistantly failed and is only good in theory. The theory obviously being that you back up your attack with this massive wall of control. The problem is that decks like that don't have ANY form of contingency plan; if they are foiled, they lose. Every deck should not just have a Plan B, but a Plan C and maybe even Plan D, which is the whole reason why our game used to always be about running a minimum of 16 attacks.

Furthermore, as I mentioned, almost every Hilde I see is pure Fire, or is hybrid (generally Fire/Good since Fire/Order is quite lacking). Fire may have GAINED control, but it is NOT at the forefront of the control game. A single Rejection can all but screw-over uber Lynx Tail, and it can be backed by KFT off all 3 symbols.

As for non Cobra Hildes, I think they will be fun, but is Hilde the face of aggro? Again, I wouldn't say so. To me, to be a true poster child for Aggro you HAVE to run more than 8 attacks. 16 should be a minimum, with 20 being the general standard. That's how Aggro was. Adon ran Jumping Shotei's for EFFs sake, and really, if you can't run Shotei, then how can you call yourself aggro? XD

20 attacks seems a little too much. 15-16 seems a bit more sensible to me.

No offense to Olexa at all, but I'm not entirely convinced on her since she needs quite a few specific cards to make her work correctly in the manner of Cobra Blow. I still think that, in general, a general aggro character/deck would probably be the better bet for consistency, rather than pure glass cannon which is what Hilde seems like. I'm more or less speaking on experience of the older aggro decks (so this could, of course, be all wrong), but when I look back on all the old style aggro decks (Ken Punch, Fireball Kohls, Adon, any large size fire character), they could win using a lot of different methods. Ken Punch could be the only one that was very precise on the list, but with the fact that you probably draw half your deck in the span of 2-3 turns...you're probably going to have plenty of Combination of Blows in your hand.

When it comes to Hilde, there are just numerous ways to disrupt the combo...and the combo is more or less the only kill condition you are packing if this is the situation in hand. And then you're caught dead in the water. We're simply jumping to conclusions a bit early on. POTM and one regional (which was too small to really qualify as a good sampling, no offense Arch) is simply not enough for us to know yet.

Let's see how she performs at Can Nats. That will tell us how she fairs in another big field. If she does well in two large fields with a lot of great players, then I'll happily (and quite easily) change my opinion. She has one under her belt so far-let's see it again.

Aggro has no defined number of attacks, any deck wit hthe potential to kill consistantly within turns 1-2 is aggro, period. If you think aggro decks of old played a bunch of attacks yo uare just wrong, the most successfull aggro deck in history was, oh my whats this, Matt Kohls Fireball, 8 attacks, and a gimmick that required, OH MY GOD a 2 card combo that, and don't quote me on this, Could be EASILY disrupted but was still very effective because of the speed of the deck and enough counters for the things that disrupt it. You know what makes hilde Great? Her ability to go into a long game smoothy because of her large foundation base filled with defensive cards that double as offensive cards, she isn't a glass cannon her board is chalk full of survival gear. Builty Correctly she is the fastest deck in the meta, hands down AND she can still play the control war game with a decent level of effectiveness. If you think her combo is "so easily" disrupted, you'll find yourself sadly mistaken if you ever play against a well-built Hilde. Her combo eats up none of her deckspace or Board, and can kill any char in the game with little assistance, leaving her the space to fill the deck with tricks to back it up.

Will she win a championship? That is yet to be seen, not many chars win a championship, that does not mean they arent great at what they do(see Adon, Alex) but if you are inclined to believe she's hype then go right along, im not here to stop you im just suprised with how little respect she is recieving.

failed2k said:

I couldn't disagree with your more.

I wouldn't call Matt Kohls aggro, not one bit. Why? Because never did I see a Matt Kohls deck EVER running more than like 8 attacks or so. Matt Kohls was not only unconventional, but never once saw play after the errata.

***Adon*** was, and likely always will be the face of aggro. Most Adon decks ran 20 attacks until Challenge the Master, in which it could've ran anywhere from 16 to 20. The whole point was Adon did nothing BUT smash face by super pumping 8th Bills, Widow Makers, Shoteis, and anything else he ran.

That's what aggro has, and always should be: beating face, and nothing more.

I understand how Cobra Hilde works, and I'm telling you it isn't that great. Like I said, a single Rejection screws over likely the entire deck.

Fireball Kohls got eaten alive by stuff like Armored Defense. If people got that out early on me, I was more or less boned and I had to hope big time that an onslaught of Glass Slippers (I didn't own any Infiltratings =/) and Fire balls would be enough to kill them. (Then again, I basically carbon-copied Omar's deck, and he won a team champ with the build. But me being an idiot, I didn't run my Penny Arcades and that came back to bite me in the ass that day at ECC..that and that playtester...grr).

I certainly don't mean any offense to you or anyone that thinks the same, Jeremy. I'm just a little skeptical, is all. I promise you that if she performs well at Can Nats, then no one really has any right to say she isn't worth it, since that would be two straight venues where she performed well in a large field with a lot of top players. And I can't remember any time when such a case occurred where a character did that well that many times and wasn't considered a great character. MAYBE you can say Voldo...but I wouldn't even go that far, since even after Happy Holidays went away, Antisocial got introduced to the deck, and it actually made the fact that Voldo fronted the deck more relevant.

And Shinji...Kohls was definitely aggro. Using your own word, he was just unconventional aggro. Two Fireballs and that was bad news right there. At times it was SURPRISINGLY underrated. And hell, people used to get excited if I failed out a turn checking a 2...only to be purely shocked at how happy I was. The next turn on that usually resulted in game, in my favor. He could beat face, just in a very different (and better) manner. I still say the Errata on him was uncalled for...with some of the things we still have running rampant now even.

Furthermore, as I mentioned, almost every Hilde I see is pure Fire, or is hybrid (generally Fire/Good since Fire/Order is quite lacking). Fire may have GAINED control, but it is NOT at the forefront of the control game. A single Rejection can all but screw-over uber Lynx Tail, and it can be backed by KFT off all 3 symbols.

This is a pretty stupid thing to say, really. No Memories is not an action card, and neither is Seal of Cessation; KFT does nothing to "back up" Rejection against 2 of the 3 basic ways that Fire can respond to it. Ideally, they're not gonna go for the kill anyway before they've nuked those cards out of your hand with Bitter Rivals, but either way saying that Fire is a bad symbol to deal with Rejection, when it has access to one of the two direct sources of Enhance negation in the format, is stupid.

In practice, Fire is one of the best-equipped symbols to deal with Rejection, probably second to Evil which can run most of its tools against it, minus No Memories, and plus Evil Doer Destroyer, BRT and Chester's. They're not always gonna avoid it, but that's because Rejection is a stupidly good card that costs 3 and UFS is a randomly-drawn card game. Comments like this are only validating failed's complaints of this becoming a Universal Theory System discussion.

A single Rejection doesn't screw over Hilde. Your continued insistence that it does, Shinji, only serves to display your own ignorance.

You don't think we Hilde players are aware of Rejection in the environment and exactly what it would mean to Lynx Tail if we allow it to go through uncountered? Just how much testing HAVE you done against Hilde decks? Probably none because you insist on once again denying reality (like you did with HanzoKick, which has been proving you wrong again and again).

I assume you're working under the impression that Hilde will always go for the blind turn 2 kill. Any Hilde player who does this against a character who has the slightest chance of running Rejection is an idiot.

Hilde can turn 2 you easily, but more often than not she can drop back and play like the CSS decks of old. Every single time I went for a kill with Hilde I planned the entire turn in advance before even attempting the opening Pommel Smash.

Archimedes said:

Oh, you mean like how Matt Kohls challenged me to build Evil Hanzo Kick, I did, went undefeated three tournies in a row, and still went on to tell people what an utter s--tfest of a deck it is? Because HanzoKick has never once won anything major, and never will, because once you foil it with all the various ways there is to foil the deck, it dies hardcore, thus why both Hanzo and Hilde will never win anything with only one win strategy?

There's the door. You are welcome to GTFO.

*rant over*

I understand Fire has more ways of dealing with Rejection than just KFT, but I'm telling you it's still a crappy strategy. A deck NEEDS to have more than one way to win, plain and simple. If somebody asks you, "How does your deck kill if for some reason you can't get Cobra Blow off or maybe you get Tag Along'd?", you're going to have to give an answer. Failure to do so says something about your deck.

As I've already bloviated about, REALITY has proven that decks that only run 1 win strategy just don't win. It's likely the sole reason why Getting an Education loops ran out of style quickly, and why Defender loops are, as we are noticing, dying off.

Decks need to flexible, and need several back-up plans and need to be prepared for several enemies.

Cobra Hilde is overrated, and will not actually WIN anything. It can place high, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but I think as time moves on people will realize that, while it was fun, the best decks are ones that run more than 8 attacks.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Is a regional anything major?

Archimedes said:

Or has a back-up plan.

Also, guys, why are you answering Shinji's wild, untested, idiotic elucubrations? I'm asking seriously. I thought we all knew by know that he's speaking straight out of his ass.

Antigoth said:

It depends on whether or not it confirms his hypothesis.

Homme Chapeau said:

I enjoy slamming my head repeatedly against brick walls.

It's amusing because he states that decks with singular strategies don't win, when that is clearly a blatant falsehood.

Spike? CSS? Old school YogaRoundhouse locks?

It's like he cherry picks notions just so he can tell me to GTFO.

Shinji:

I rarely ever agree with you. In this case, I still don't agree with you. For one, Feline Spike would like to have a word with you.

But that's besides the point.

I ask you (quite nicely) to curtail the manner in which you present your response. When I read posts, I try to imagine the manner in which people are speaking..and that one came off as flat-out dickish. Speaking in unfounded absolutes is never a good idea.

I don't think you're right about HanzoKick. It is a very good deck that, while it can be shut down, must be done so VERY early (Example of Chubbs having to side into U.S. Air Base and having to have it out Turn 1 against a Hanzo Kick deck or else the game would have been over for him) or else the deck shall win.

Also, you might want to be a little more specific about decks only having one way to win. What you meant to say, I think, is that the decks that only have one way to reach their win condition never succeed (which is still wrong, imo), not that decks only having one way to win never wiin. I'll list a few decks for you, some of which go back a little while:

Mill decks. Mill decks only have one way to win-mill (duh). However, they did it via: Revitalize, Happy Holidays, Contemplation, Vast Resources, Yun-Seong, Mil Rank, etc etc.

Alex Block 2 version. It's primary kill condition was, at first, CSS. The deck would just sit on it's ass and wait to draw the card. Once CSS went, Jeremy (and probably Paul, too) switched to using Tiger Fury for almost the same effect, and met with success (Another Team asset and 3rd place at Worlds last year). Widow Maker just set the deck up for the kill. Example of a deck that had only one way to win that succeeded.

Donovan post Worlds pre official Block 3 rotation. Order lockdown->Feline Spike->game done->have a cup of coffee and read the paper.

There are other decks to name, I'm sure. But I'm in the midst of studying for my Sociology and Microeconomics finals so my mind is blank past those.