I was thinking I'd call this thread, "Is Kitty Spike still good?" but that's an easy question. Yes, it is still good. Being able to potentially put 24 damage on the board by committing a single foundation and using a few costless abilities, at a fairly high speed in an offcenter zone backed by Stun:2 potentially during your opponent's turn... it's good.

But it's definitely not the only thing you can do offensively, and there are more answers sprouting up every day. I won't really go into the replacements in the first post of this thread, since that would really get offtopic fast, but as far as answers...

• Holding Ground, Healer, Fight or Flight, Assassination Arts. All of them completely negate the damage from 1 of the Multiple copies, and incidentally they all share the Good symbol. Fire is also represented twice on the foundations.
• Undisputed Ruler. A 2/4 with no block on the Earth, Death and Void symbols, this card simply removes the Multiple keyword from Spike. [it can't stop your opponent from playing it as a Reversal, though]
• Crown of the Forgotten Secret. A 2/5 +1H Unique asset from Shadowar on Air-Good-Fire {same as Healer, hmm}, this card has a very simple free E: Your opponent's high attack gets -2 damage. So that 24 damage becomes 18 before blocks or anything else. And, once suspect your opponent is about done Spiking for the turn, Crown can destroy itself for a further -4 damage with a minimum of 1. Hence, with only a crown and no blocks or other redux, that 7/1 deals 14 damage. I'm so scared
• Speaking of blocks, simply blocking Feline Spike is not a bad idea at all. It's the best way to deal with a damage pumped initial copy, for sure. Tira's Contract can help here, by playing your last block without a control check, or by turning a half-block into a full.
• Torn Hero and to a milder extent Perfect Sense of Balance punish your opponent for using the Stun.
• Using No Memories, Seal of Cessation, or The Evil-Doer Destroyer to shut down the Multiple enhance works great, and the 4/4s don't destroy themselves to work like Undisputed Ruler or Seal. That said, these cards have fairly prohibitive stats {and in TEDD's case, Uniqueness}, so chances are better that your opponent will be able to out-control them compared to the 1- and 2-difficulty cards listed above.
• Momentum hate. Calming the Mind, err, comes to mind, but so do cards like promo Guy, Blood-Stained Fate, Kuzuryu Reppa, Ken's Shotokan, Excitable.... The combination of CtM and one or more of the discard cards could well be enough to seal into the abyss for several turns or even the game. Calming the Mind also has the added benefit of shutting down one of Kitty Spike's partners in crime, Ira-Spinta, and making the control war much more manageable for Earth/Life/Water decks in that matchup.

There's obviously another part of the discussion to be had; how does one best use FSpike offensively? Personally, I think that the card will remain more-or-less in vogue for Chun Li decks, because forcing your opponent to stun 2 and then deal with 24 damage over 3 attacks TWICE between Ready Phases is really too much for a lot of decks to handle. Especially when, after the two Spikes have been thrown, the Chun Li player still have some room in their card pool for Hyoko Sens and High Plasma Beams, assuming they're a fairly typical Air build with plenty of 6ccs and Soul of Ling Sheng Su+Shooting Capoera.

Discuss!

Any attack that, in the hands of a non-retarded player, can output 24+ damage at the cost of two momentum is still top-tier.

Well for it's symbol spread it is still one of the best kill cards there is. There are now some other ones but I don't see spike taking a back seat until there is another super potent attack for wind water and good. Still those symbols best option hands down with the only exception being Sen in Chun-li.

i think spike is still the best kill card in the game. the one check is it's only drawback ( a big one) but it's worth it. I just think that now a days people may be reluctant to run 4 spikes (especialy in chun li) because their are safer options (hoyuku sen, menuete dance).

trane said:

24 is superior to 20 which is superior to 15.

Homme Chapeau said:

Kinda funny how they go straight down the line huh :b

As far as "safer options" -- why not leave behind the Multiple keyword altogether, or use it in a dramatically different way? Use a Midnight Launcher-Knight Breaker combo, or Kuzuryu Reppa + Personal Style {I don't really know why people ever stopped using this, it's really solid when you have strong board advantage -- play your hand out, drop the Reppa for 11 or 12 difficulty, tap 1 more for each and they're both coming in for whatever number you had to check + 2; and both cards are useful in multiple situations -- PS for excellent stats (and you only need 1~2x), Reppa as momentum denial, card draw, and pressure}

I editted OP to add "momentum denial" to the list of counters, if you can keep Lord of the Makai down it's often possible to lock their momentum stack down if you run cards to do it.

Spike won't stop being top-tier until it rotates.

The reason? It's non-multiple, non-stun enhance. The fact that it doesn't lose to the anti-multiple defenses present in the game is what is going to set it apart from any other multiples that may come along. It would be far closer to a balanced attack without that ability (or as has been suggested many, many times, to make that ability Felicia only).

Wait isnt seal of cesstation rotated? I just looked at mine and it only has the 3 point shurican watermark.

There also some with 4 points that were printed later in the aop season.

Solstice said:

They were reprinted with a four point.

DEFlores said:

yep yep, and I still don't play with any of my own

Cascade said:

The card was only "Top Tier" when there was no other kill in the game.

There are other kills now.

Not just that there are more attacks but damage pumps too . Like Siegfred and Astrid as characters and most of the combo attacks are insane and Hilde is capable of a turn 2 kill . Is spike still the all round best kill probally is it as good as CSS was back last season definately not . The main difference is CSS required nothing more then foundations and was almost half the difficulty. Spike will still be popular but I still dont think its the end all be all I just think characters like Chun li push it to the extreme sometimes.

You mentioned a lot of ways to stop spike. These cards also can severly hinder many other kill conditions. Most kill conditions in the game rely on either a loop, damage pump, enhance ect. This means that things that can stop one kill condition can just as easily stop others. SO, how do people still win? Looking at decks that win, we see a trend. Either they are going to try to knock out the opponent faster than they can set up the control to stop a kill condition, or they are going to run the control needed to force out a win. This is the nature of kill conditions. Every one has to fight through some negation to actually kill the opponent. So saying that because one particular condition has X answers doesn't really mean anything, cause when it comes to game time, its all about board position. Has your opponent had time to set up for your early assault? or have you been out controlling them the entire game and making it so that when it comes time to force out the win, you have what you need to stop them from stopping you from killing them? Feline spike is still a great kill condition.

Not many other cards have been released in this game that require only 2 mometum to force out 24 damage. This gives it great ease of set up, making it so that if you want to knock out your opponent before they set up, you have the tools. It also means you won't have to run a lot of tech, attacks, actions ect. to get the kill. A lot of times a hybrid deck running 12 attacks and 8 actions will play out 4 foundations turn one, then go on to turn 2, meaning to play more foundations, and end up drawing into attacks an actions, which they may not pass or may not share symbols with their foundations, meaning they're stuck with dead cards and get to play 2 foundations, severely hindering them in the control war.

The one check is very negligable. I hardly ever build decks without 3-4 1 or 2 checks. My personal UFS philosophy when it comes to those checks is that their are 2 times you don't want to check them: the kill turn and the beginning of the game. This is why I don't feel like there is much of a differance between ones and two's. Early game set up is EXTREMELY important and when its hindered, it can mess up the rest of the game for you quite easily. But John Herr seemed to do OK at GCC, running I believe 5-6 1's and 2's in main (ira spinta and Feline Spike). It comes down to which you perfer, consistancy, or potential deffectiveness. I think that even with the 1 check, feline's effectiveness very much overides the risk associated with playing the card.

Feline Spike (or Kitty Kitty Meow Meow as it has become known in ATL) is STILL by far one of the best kill conditions in the game. You can't beat low cost for high damage, even with its onecheckidyness. If you share the symbols and need a kill condition, you can always rely on feline spike to see you through. If you have them that is

Yeah, six (three each of iSpin and Spike).

Any Spike is still extremely viable. I turn two'd someone today with Spike, and the character had enough health to survive a fully multiplied one all on his own =/

Spike is still a great attack. With that broken Enhance, nothing's gonna diminish that any time soon.

There are just... other win conditions now, especially ones that check 2 or even 3. Maybe not as effective on their own, but a Launcher/Breaker combo doesn't have to check any 2's and can kill just fine as well, and without needing momentum.

Anyone that thinks Spike is not the best kill condition in the game and is willing to give theirs up because of this please contact me ([email protected]). I have Knight Breakers, BRTs, Olcadans, Raging Gnomes, cash and drugs. Seriously. There is no better kill. No other card on Ebay is going for close to $40US (there is Menuett, Vibrato, Gnome etc sitting on there for <$30US and not moving), whilest Spike sits at $37US with time to run on the auction. Last week or so 4 went for about $40US each.

Yes secondary market inflates prices, but they do so due to demand. Demand arises because of a cards effectiveness.

Already sold mine.

Seriously we have been getting a lot of regional reports in the past few weeks and like NONE of them are being won by spike. I've been hearing a lot of "would have won but rolled spike" posts, but no "this spike deck won" posts.

Cascade said:

In any other situation, Make A Difference would save your life. So would a well-timed Ichi no Tachi, Fatal Disruptor or Mark of the Beast.

There are plenty of answers to it (someone please reprint Constant Training), but the fact that this Multiple once played can't go away for any reason is kind of teh suck.

Duckman said:

Chun-Li with Spike won the Green Bay Regional.

Felecia with Spike got 3rd in the Shwa Regionals. Chun Li has been top 8 in EVERY SINGLE REGIONAL. I don't see anyone winning anything with Fire Kick or Neo Raging Storm. Launcher/Breaker combos win cause they're run in Evil (one of if not these strongest symbol) decks which hack the hell out of everything you try to block with.

Evil is strong becuase it has 'the most' universal answers is all. It has poor attacks compared to air and 'most' other symbols.

Kitty Spike is still the strongest attack. Why? beucase it forces players to run the answers you listed in your first post or be killed. The existence of a card that is that damaging that it forces people to build their deck a certain way or die a certain death is my equivalent of top-tier...

- dut

TripsEX said: