Sol Badguy said:

heck, Dhalsim-6 is incredibly sexy as well.

quarzark said:

...ok let's not let the excitement get to our heads eh? ^^;

quarzark said:

Not as sexy as the promo though.

Baranor said:

Not when their entire deck relies on one character ability (HanzoKick comes to mind but is not the only culprit)

Rashotep's deck is MADE to handle having a blank character; you just pack good attacks and foundations and you're good to go.

guitalex2008 said:

With the exception of Gill, I think it's pretty safe to say that about 95% of decks rely ENTIRELY on their character. Sure, a lot of symbols ARE good on their own, but what good is a Hilde who cannot uber pump, a Donovan who can neither draw nor clear, and a Chun Li who can no longer screw the rules?

From what we saw at the SCC the better 6 HS characters were , sakura , seong mina , and actually rashotep being able too blank a character.

Scubadude said:

I gotta build me one now...

People who lean to hard on character abilities lose. Tag Along is way way way too good. This is why Talbain was so strong, because his ability couldn't be stopped so you could lean on it.

Character ability that compliments your deck and gives you an edge: Good.

Needing that ability to win: Bad.

This is why character like Jon Herr are good. Because he dosent need the abilities to win, but they do help.

Protoaddict said:

I have a huge argument against that there my friend, but no need to derail the topic lol.

B-Rad said:

Agreed. Immensely. If your deck ISN'T based PRIMARILY around your character's abilities...

...you MUST be playing Gill or Rikuo.

If one's deck is completely reliant on their character to win then it would behoove them to run any counter measures that they can to protect that ability. it's essentially the same thing as running a successful combo deck. one needs measures to protect their combo pieces.

theboogerman said:

You'd think, at this point in UFS history, people would assume this and move on.

A deck that doesnt have to specifically protect it's characters abilities to function has more room to support the other cards in the deck and the combos therein, leading to a stronger strategy.

As a for instance:

Sakura recursion that needs Sakuras built in recursion ability to win via some discard from the card pool strategy is vulnerable to Tag Along, and has to dedicate some slots to protecting the character with anti tag along cards. This is a strong strategy.

However:

Sakura recursion that uses Sakuras recursion as a redundancy to the other recursion in the deck (Ironincally also tag along) does not have to dedicate as many slots to protecting thier characters ability to win and can use other support cards or search cards in thier place. This is a STRONGER strategy by far.

a better example would be say... the new Temujin. Someone who builds a deck revolving around playing just tiny, cheap moves, then powerful:3'ing them has to pack more cards to protect my ability instead of a deck that just Feline Spikes people.

quarzark said:

I agree completely its much better an I think its the direction the game needs to go where damage pumps come back . Rather then all the one shot big attacks like we have seen before set 12.

Protoaddict said:

A deck that packs these cards can generally use these very same cards to protect something else or for another use.

MarcoPulleaux said:

No no my point is that Jon Herr decks are relient on Jon Herr... At least Jon Herr's (the player) deck was that won Potm.

Anyways there are several good 5-6 handsize characters that are viable. Why? Because they have symbols that draw cards or draw cards themselves.

Alex, Sakura, Sogetsu, Hugo, and Algol all have built in draw mechanics (yes I said Algol, he's sorta viable).

Morrigon, Promo Ken, Rashotep, Temujin (either), Zangief (WHY IS NOBODY PLAYING HIM?!?!?!?!?!?!). and Ragnar all have symbols that draw cards.

That's about the only way six handsizers are going to be able to top 7 handsizers

B-Rad said:

shh...

one of these days I will get around to playing him... especially when I get to face a Sakura/Talim player...

"WHAT SICK MAN SEND BABIES TO FIGHT ME!?!?"

the majority of the characters with the All symbol are playable. I mean seriously, it has BRT and Abelia's for card draw that does stuff, Researching the Past + Fatherly Love for recursion with Tag Along, White Gi, Anti-Social, Hugo's stuff and other things I'm too lazy to mention.

and Jon Herr is always reliant on Jon Herr, unless it's not Jon Herr playing Jon Herr.

...

...

...

Jon Herr.

quarzark said:

All is thus not playable by the majority of players.

Homme Chapeau said:

All is perfect for the majority of players.

you play these shiny, expensive grey cards, then you play these orange cards and people lose. Sometimes you gotta mix it up though, and play a shiny orange card. If you're feeling REALLY daring, throw in a blue card.

We've been playing mostly 6-hs'ers and loving it.

As far as Felicia goes?

Donald came in 1st last night (well, 2nd after the Scout's Astrid, but our Scout don't count for prizing) with his Felicia deck.

He ran no Spikes ('cause we all hate the card), but the main combo was start the turn with Master's Challenge (clog both card pools), then use Felicia to put the cards in momentum. Harder for opponent to block, and he gains 3 momentum. Double win.

He would then do a Naruto (did I mention he ran off Good?), ideally boosting speed with Darkhunter of the Night, then draw cards. Sometimes he would do the same thing with Wicked Chew.

I believe that variables like the ones in Wicked Chew's ability are now static once they activate. (The current AR doesn't cover it, but the following rule implies that it is so:

"8.1.8 If a card played from hand has a value of X, that value is defined when the card is announced. If the value that defined X changes after the card is announced, X will remain as initially announced, until another ability modifies that number.")

By the way, on the Lu Chen subject. You guys know you can use his ability to put two cards in the opponent's card pool that don't share symbols (if they were multisymboling) right? Thus preventing them from playing more cards? Baranor pointed that one out to me. Craziness.

ARMed_PIrate said:

1) Master's Challenge is boss. You know who else breaks the Hell out of it? ::Ukyo::

2) I just wanted you to know, pointing out that small tidbit of Lu Chen is F'ing amazing. More amazing then that new book How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People

ARMed_PIrate said:

When an ability resolves, any variables are evaluated and "stored" in the gamestate, so yeah if you hit with Wicked Chew and have 10 momentum, then play some powerful move and pitch all the momentum then you still get the +10CCs

Wafflecopter said:

Bitchplz, 125 Rapids of Rage!

Wicked Chew is pretty Jim Jones in nature, its only real problem is trying to find use for that E. Your deck needs to REALLY hustle momentum, something Felicia sure does. It's really a crime Felicia doesn't top every event like Mi-Na, Li, Donovan, Zi Mei, etc etc. She too can run BTA-Aquakinesis, wtfruit?

Wow. This was supposed to be a simple argument, looks like it turned into a novel or something. Anyways, I am the Donald the guys at Gameology mention, and I apoligize if I've gone off topic or rambled a bit too much. Nowhere in this post am I trying to say I'm the best or anything like that and I am not trying to insult anyone, I'm simply trying to present an argument that may have some bearing on why 7hs are used more often than 6hs. This is by no means the only argument one can make, it is simply my opinion, formed from my own experiences over 18 months of learning UFS. This is a long argument, but it's only about half of what I can write. If you would like me to continue this here or elsewhere please let me know.

Ehh so the only reason I can figure for 7hs to be more dominant right now is people a lot of people can't figure out how to build decks without Olcadan's, Chester's and F. Spike and Seal of Cessation. Now obviously there are some 7hs characters with nice abilities that have a huge impact on how a single match is played, but it seems to me (based solely on what I've been exposed to in person and while lurking around the forums) that people who have those cards simply can't build decks without them. It's disappointing really when so many people get into such a limited mindset.

I'm not here to argue my opinion about specific cards. I'm trying to explain my opinion on the close-minded approach most players are taking when building a deck. Although personally I don't think much is going to change while Spike is still out there I think I can still address my point for lack of creativity without focusing on any specific card, but on several different things I've seen.

I'll start with my Block 2 decks to make my point.

Zangief 5-dot - Earth build. Could soak up damage like a giant sponge. On average after my second turn I would take a grand total of 10 damage from Talim's Rolling, Melancholic, 8th Bill rush, without life gain. Turn 2 shuts down 30 or so points, turn 3 shuts down 50+. Basically the only way to get around him after turn 5 is to win a lockdown war against Program Malfunction and Mortal Strike and sequence about 5 attacks and your enhances in the proper order to override whatever damage redux I had. The deck forces people to play a different game, and if you can't adapt then basically I win unless you pull something really insane that nobody's ever seen before.

Sagat - Everybody loves acceleration. Lot of discard based attacks, lot of damage boosting foundations, Amy's, No Memories and Bitter Rivals. Has the potential to break 100 damage turn 3 with the right set up, but that's rare. Had a habit of regularly throwing out 10+ damage on almost every attack by turn 4. No major control cards, just good old fashioned beat down that could take out smaller characters on turn 3 and finish off most of the larger lifers (26+) by turn 4. Oh and if they Olcadan for my Clones I usually used the enhance to push just enough damage to kill.

Luise 2-dot - No cheap tricks. Just more beatdown with a bit of control/life gain/ recursion. 20+ damage was easy turn 2. If they Tag Along her R then you just hit them harder next turn. It's the best example I've ever seen of playing a deck with as few foundations in your staging area as possible. And just to throwback to my comment in 'gief, if she was facing lockdown/redux decks the trick was as simple as leaning back on your control until you have a fistful of attacks and your kill turn usually involved three or four big attacks and 5-10 clones (no joke. Twelve was getting busy in those cloning vats). We built her to push through 'gief. She did.

So here we have three different decks with three completely different play styles. It took us a while to learn enough to build them this way but when we got there they managed to push through or straight out dominate a lot of decks. It's called creativity, and it's not something I'm used to seeing, although with the Gameology players since I started there two weeks ago I've seen quite a diverse field. In fact, I didn't see it but I was told a Ragnar beatdown managed to pull some nice beats on Zangief even though he eventually lost. So, nice job to whoever that was.

Hopefully I'm still on topic, if not I apologize. Basically what I'm trying to say is a lot of people lack creativity, so they're running the characters that makes things easy. That statement completely different in meaning from 'running the character that makes their deck effective'. I've played someone over six weeks or so, who used five different characters that was basically the same exact thing. Chester's, Olcadan's, Seal, Spike,LotM, and either High Plasma Beam or Juni's Spiral Arrow. All those decks were made to simply survive long enough to Spike into HP Beam and nothing else.

Of course that's just one example, but it's what I see going on with deck building lately. You get the occasional new deck or crazy strategy that hasn't been done before, but then everybody gets involved in netdecking and all you see is clones and clones of the same kind of deck. Sure there's decks like Ivy that pretty much have one main build that works, but where's the creativity in the rest of them. With what I see everybody runs Nightmare the same way, or runs a certain symbol in the same exact way as everyone else. Why can't people learn to do something outside of the established norm? Sure it happens, but not often enough up to this point.

Now to finish this up before I write a full-sized paper here. I realize that the new sets and new characters welcome a lot of different play styles and a lot of unique aspects even among simliar strategies. I understand that it takes time for new things to be discovered, and maybe that's what we need is a bit more time. But from what I see so far a lot of choices are based on what is easy and proven instead of what is new and unexpected. To sum up my argument, I think if people were to start experimenting more then eventually someone could find a way to make 6hs characters more competitive, and I do mean without half the deck being card draw. Maybe somebody has and they just don't know it yet.