So, obviously I have been and always will be notorious for my extremely loud and ardent views on things, and I always say they're based off logic, but frankly, they aren't always based on actual experience, just my advanced understanding of this game.

Well, after attending my first (and likely only) regional (which, hopefully by the time you've finished reading this article, you can read my tourney report in the TRForum), I figured, hey, why not actually use some REAL evidence from a REAL high-caliber tourney? Why not speak from what's ACTUALLY happened?

These are things I've learned from today, although some of them I had been saying since day 1. If you disagree, by all means do, but just know most of these issues I will debate with you heavily.

NOTE: Although almost every topic covered here was also covered with Scubadude, MegaGeese, Steele, and others, unless I specifically use them as an example, please do not you my words against them. I am the sole author.

#1) Seong Mi-Na is incapable of winning it big.

I've built Seong Mi-Na in 3 different ways. Also, today I literally beat the other Seong Mi-Na by 1 place. Crazy stuff. After some discussion, we all unanimously agreed Seong Mi-Na is simply incapable of winning anything in a respectable playing field. I'll cut to the chase:

1: Handsize. "Oh, but Shinji, come on, Aquakinesis, Bigger They Are, Tag Along." Cool...but you actually have to, you know, DRAW them. Not just draw them, but sometimes draw multiple copies of them, and make sure they do not get negated. Believe me, all throughout my regional, my handsize was a constant 5-11, and only rarely did I have troubles. However, that 5 handsize IS going to be a liability, especially for the first turn where drawing what you need turn 1 is absolutely pivotal. A Seong Mi-Na without draw support simply does not cut it.

2: Donovan. I'm not saying this because I got my ass seriously handed to me by MegaGeese's Donovan (yeah...owned =/), but rather because their similarities are uncanny, and the differences are stacked in D's favor. Seong Mi-Na has few things over D. She can run Red Lotus, she can immediately bounce Ira-Spinta, and she has, yes, a Form ability on Defender. That's it. Her usefulness pretty much ends there (although there's no denying her badass E). Donovan is a 7 hander. He has free clearing (much quicker than Seong), and has built-in draw, so no need for Aquakinesis (but boy is that swell in Donovan anyways). What's more, he runs Experienced Combatant way better than Mi-Na, and while Mi-Na instantly gets Tag Along or Ira-Spinta, Donovan can simply use Tenacious. I think it's agreed Donovan is the premier Order character as of right now, but trying to justify using Mi-Na over Donovan is really, really hard, something I think will always curse her to be worse than him.

3: Somewhat a combination of the two. Mi-Na is reliant on about everything. Tag Along is her best friend, and if it gets KFT'd, discarded, or simply not drawn, she's at a disadvantage. Furthermore, she NEEDS to draw. Period. Unless you're like me and you run Shadow Blade (and you won't, because who the EFF runs Shadow Blade?), Seong Mi-Na can NOT win without help from her draw. The odds suddenly become thrusted to your opponent's favor, leaving you with nothing but hope, and a crapload of vitality that loves to LOL at Spinta's weak damage.

"What about Jeremy Ray? He almost won!"

The way I view it, if you run enough attacks, ANYBODY can win a game. All kindsa factors can cause a good deck a bad loss. Checking Spintas, making stupid mistakes, failing blocks, etc. However, good players with average luck who play smart ought to be able to beat Mi-Na (depending on their char too, of course). It's not that Mi-Na = failure, it's that Mi-Na = difficulty, and if you're using her, you're clearly a "high risk = high reward" kinda guy as I am. But just know, as a Seong Mi-Na player, not only are you fighting against diversity, but there are just better characters than you.

#2) Banned talk with logic

So now that I have "acceptable" ground to speak on, it's about time we set the record straight:

1. Feline Spike is THE most powerful, most used attack around. Period. Of our top 8, I wanna say 5 of us ran Spike, and that's excluding the rest of the players who ran Spike as well. It's just THAT reliable.

"But what about that saying, that you check it more than you win with it?"

BS, and anybody who says that likely isn't running the card themselves. If you're running Feline, here's basically the skinny:

A - Don't run 4 copies. Ever. Run 2-3. It's all you need.
B - Checking shouldn't matter. If you're running Feline, there'd better be a Tag Along, Kabuki Artist, or a Free Will in your deck to fetch a checked Feline. There's simply no excuse to not have them.
C - Checking Feline doesn't lose games; YOUR OPPONENT KILLING YOU loses games. There's a difference. Failing control checks in UFS is going to happen. Often. At the worst times. Stop fretting about your broken-ass 1 check attack AND RUN IT!

It's not CSS. It's not. It's not "I hit the table and win." Rather, it's "I hit the table and usually win." Nevertheless, it's the most reliable kill around, moreso than both Launcher and Breaker, and any other multiple like Spinning Beat that just says "COME EAT ME ALIVE BITTER RIVALS!"

2. Defender's fine. Although I wouldn't mind that E getting changed, after using it today, I think it's fine. Besides, when was the last time we saw a Defender Loop do well? MegaGeese's Kyoshiro is the only one I think of

3. Blood Runs True has to go. No question about it, the card has an ability that ought to be limited to Akuma and Akuma alone. If I'm checking negative 3s? Yeah, how is that not broken?

4. Bitter Rivals is one of THE most threatening cards in our game, and it does need to go. Honestly, before regionals, I thought, "eh, it's a decent card, but I still think Ways of Punishment is better." Not anymore. Allow me to explain Bitter Rivals:

A - Back in the day, changing your attack's zone used to be a big deal. Changing your opponent's zone was an even bigger deal. BR can do both at absolutely no cost.
B - Strategizing against Bitter Rivals is like strategizing against Harrier Bee; your hand is getting chewed through one way or another, or your attacks will be blocked, or both. Bitter is THE hardest card to strategize around just slightly above such cards as Red Lotus and Blood Runs True. Depending on how many BRs they have determine not just what you can play, but what's going to go through. Bitter is not a stupid card; it has MORE than just two effects, if you catch what I mean.
C - As always, IT'S A FREE ABILITY! I swear, if FFG ever has openings for a card designer, I am packing up and moving up north, because this is ridiculous. As I explained to Scuba about how such cards like Red Lotus and Oral Dead need to have MUCH heavier costs, when it comes to FREE abilities, you'd better make sure they're not too useful. If Bitter had a momentum cost, it'd be much harder to use. As a free E to do what it does? No.

Like I said, feel free to debate me, but there's just too much Bitter Rivals does that pushes it over the edge. You can change all of your attacks to any other zone, namely, a zone your opponent cannot block. You can also change all of your opponent's attacks to zones that you can use to block against. Then of course, you can snipe out attacks, namelly, YOUR OPPONENT'S KILL CONDITIONS, while they're left wishing they had ways around it (and btw, despite how bustedsauce Chester's is, even Chester's is like EFF DAT to BR).

5. Ira-Spinta absolutely needs to go. There's simply no defending this card (other than the fact that you likely run it and don't want it to go). It's control on a massive scale. Anything added to your momentum by Ira's cost is only tutored by Lord of the Makai, or traded with Kabuki Artist off Air or Order, which basically renders its cost pointless. Furthermore, Ira's target, as I'm about to go into detail about in the next story (#3) is too global. It doesn't say committed foundations. In fact, it doesn't even say foundations: it says anything that isn't a character. That's simply unacceptable. If they had made **Jedah** more like Spinta, and Spinta more like Jedah, nobody'd care. But after witnessing the potential of this card (and when I say potential, I sure as Hell do mean LOCK DOWN), I can say fairly that it needs to go, hands down. There is NOTHING balanced about Ira-Spinta.

6. Lord of the Makai is more of a moral thing more than "OMFGBANTHISLAWL." As it has been discussed, momentum SHOULD come from attacking, but as we all know, that doesn't generally work that way. I'm OK with direct momentum gain, like via White Magic and Natural Leader, but Lord of the Makai just makes those two look extremely ridiculous by comparison, and overall it's just too one-sided and, as my complain is always, has no cost. You're getting +1 momentum for free regardless of how you carry it out, and then there's that E Commit, which while I wouldn't normally mind it's E Commit, Body of Souls shares All and Chaos and is clearly less desirable thanks to Makai's existence. Being a 2/6 +1-mid is also unnecessary. Like I said, it's not because this card is amazing that I'd want it to go, it's because it's free, costless momentum gain when momentum is supposed to be something you work for.

#3) Gray wars never die

Our game is still gray war infested, and here's why

We are given far too many universal cards that do not have harrowing costs. Almost every top tier card's cost is to be turned sideways. How many times do I have to say this? BEING TURNED SIDEWAYS IS NOT A COST! It only LOOKS like a cost because you're committing a resource so that it cannot be used again until it readies.

Program, Chinese, and Experienced commit ANY foundations. Oral Dead negates ANY form on a foundation or asset. Red Lotus negates ANY staging area targetting not named Siegfried/Rashotep's support.

And not only are these universal effects so powerful, they're cheap! You may think the Order three having 3 difficulty slows it down, but really, it doesn't, especially not when you've got even more powerful foundations like BRT (2), and Aquakinesis and Forethought (1).

If you ever want gray wars to end, you need to make gray cards correspond to orange cards, NOT OTHER GRAY CARDS!

For example...

If Red Lotus said, "Whenever your opponent destroys, commits, or removes a foundation from your staging area from the game BY THEIR ATTACK'S EFFECT" or "DURING THEIR ATTACK", then again, you've got something that is counter-ATTACK, not counter-FOUNDATION.

The way it works now, Red Lotus is almost Ibuki in itself. Red Lotus doesn't just stop stuff like Stun or Zi Mei, it stops Program, Chinese, and Experienced. It stops gray cards.

What happens is that games become wars of, "I just want ONE enhance to go through, BUT, in order for that enhance to go through, I need to wade through 2 Chinese, 3 Chester's, and 2 Oral Dead." There's no excuse for games to be played that way.

This isn't to say that foundations can never work against other foundations. However, when you go and give cards these global effects, you're not focusing on attacks: you're just focusing on being awesome, which is the whole **** reason why anybody who can run such cards END UP BEING TOP TIER!

#4) Earth, Good, Void, and Life need to kick it up a notch.

Every symbol can compete right now. That is...except for the above symbols. They can't, and they won't ever until they get the things they lack. Don't give my some giant list of, "LOOK AT ALL EARTH HAS!" Um, Earth is currently one of my favorite symbols, and I have a tri-symbol Gen in the works who cheatz face.

The 4 symbols are all lacking some things, and I might as well go into detail hmm?

Earth - Reliable draw and reliable momentum. Period. With some Bigger They Are-esque draw, Earth could finally matter. Although we all want to run *Yi-Shan* his lack of good draw is what keeps him from mattering, especially since he NEEDS his Inhuman Perceptions to stop Tag Alongs, which destroy him mercilessly. Earth, as of now, has amazing anti-meta cards. Calming the Mind to counter Makai, Amy's Assistance to counter Defender loops, Atoning for His Wicked Deeds which is simply awesome (and kills Red Lotus dead). But that still isn't enough. Apart from Ways of Punishment (which, while amazing, people WILL run Warrior's Path), it has no real way of killing (no Feline, no KFT, nothing like that). Earth needs some more spam-happy attacks, and again, draw support and momentum. While I think we can all agree *Gen* is the premier Earth character, and his abilities ARE good, they aren't good enough. Period.

Good - My favorite resource symbol =). Looking at Good's attacks, I know this is going to sound ironic, but it needs to be able to kill. Yes, I know, it has Ichi no Tachi, Mark of the Beast, and most importantly, Feline Spike. However, today I was looking over a Good deck I had built....and yeah, while Good is much like Earth in that it has some pretty nifty counter-meta cards, the list of Pros stops there. While Evil, Order, Air, Chaos, and Water are busy getting all these MAD control cards, the 4 symbols I mentioned need cards equally as cheap that DESTROY such cards, like Torn Hero. Of course, Torn Hero's biggest problem is?...anyone? ITS SYMBOLS!

Life - Needs a lot. Life shares too many cards with Earth and Good to the point where Life doesn't even know what it is anymore. History has proven life gain has never mattered sans Revitalize (which wasn't life gain; it was broken gain), and speed pumps are a convoluted strategy. When it comes to speed pumps, you're simply wasting time, and here's why. 1. Damage is what kills, not speed. 2. Speed pumps don't affect cards in their hand (other than potentially not being able to block). 3. Speed pumps don't affect the staging area. In short, if you want speed pumps to matter, we need new support where when you grant cards speed bonuses, magic stuff happens. Still, Life needs to stop sharing its symbols with Earth, Good and Water, and start standing out. Oh, and don't say, "Life can run TOS/Calming/Noblewoman"; those are ALL sidedeck cards.

Void - Void is getting there, and there's no denying that. It can Ways of Punishment, Multiple frenzy, Aquakinesis, No Memories...it has stuffs. But not enough so. Besides momentum generation, I'll admit, I don't quite know what Void needs because...I don't care for Void. Never have, and likely, never will. A symbol based around being slow and sapping options simply isn't my style.

#5) Decks with versatility win

That might sound rudimentary enough, but with the clear amount of HanzoKick, All Your Base Loop, and stall decks (such as Defender Loop) present, people aren't always getting the point.

Back when Addes Syndicate was still legal, and Matt Kohls challeneged me to build Evil HanzoKick and report back with my results, I took on his challenge. Built it, exactly as one would want, and as was expected, it went undefeated. However, I still went on to call the decktype crap, and I still do today.

Here's why =)

My Seong Mi-Na deck runs 4 different attacks (5 if you include Defender as an attack. I don't): Feline Spike, High Plasma Beam, Shadow Blade, and yes, Mega Spike. Today, I killed people with all 4 at some point or another. Why did I decide to do this? Because versatility wins. You're going to need back-up plans, because if your deck is situated around 1 and only 1 kill, you will not win, and if your deck has few kills, the chances are slim.

'But Hanzo and All Your Base have CLEARLY proven their worth!"

You're right, they have! But much like I said about Seong Mi-Na, that isn't going to remain consistant, and people WILL run cards that counter infinite loops.

#6) So after competing in a regional with upper-crust players using upper-crust characters, now how do you view this game and its top-tier character?

My opinion hasn't changed at all, really. My problem with MOST cards in this game is their costs. A cost (including its difficulty/control ratio, btw) is supposed to be determined by the effects it's paying for. Red Lotus, with such global range of Reactionary trigger should NOT be a 2. All the upper-tier characters have the same theme in common: big handsize, undercosted or free abilities.

While I've always said, "When creating a character, make sure that ITS abilities are MUCH stronger than their support", that doesn't justify giving them free abilities so that they will be used.

So really, I guess it's too late now, and the characters are already in play. But from now on, they need to start being more intelligent about how little is too little?

Oh, and do I still want Chun-Li banned? Well, funny story, I never played the Chun-Li in our regional. Perhaps more interesting, I never saw or heard of our Chun-Li. However, yes, I still want her banned.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed some things I've learned from my regionals experience. Hopefully my decklist and tourney report will be up shortly. Hopefully now that I have "credible experience" we'll start to take things a little more...seriously?

-Body of Souls is still playable. Heck, I'd play both. Body means you don't have to commit Makai in the first place, after all.
-Oral Dead is perfectly fine, because it ONLY affects foundations and assets. If it hit any form ability at all, it'd be different. As is, the only counter to character-based F's is Tag Along, and KFT/Yoga for actions. We actually need something that stops characters F's =/
-Earth is one of the strongest symbols around at the moment, dood. It has Hugo's draw support with Brute, btw. Two cards is a lot when you're a 6HS.
-Good is stupidly...good. Shelby's Gill deck came very close to wiping me out... *shudder*
-Preston's Chunners lost to Scuba in the first round of top 8. That's why.

I suspect hearing "chunners lost in the first round of top 8" is something your going to be hearing a lot. Look at the can nats thread...

My opinions:

1. Red Lotus and Oral Dead are fine. They both have a commit cost and most abilities they can negate have a commit cost as well. Without them Olcadan's would be even worse than it is now. My only complain would be about both having both Evil and Chaos while many symbols don't have that many answers to olcadan's and other forms of control. Speaking of which, I don't see why olcadan needs to be kept around as it is.

2. Blood Runs True is ridiculous, it has always been, and should be banned or errate'd. It still is omnipresent in most top-competitive decks, meaning that for a new player to be competitive (in some ways) you need 4x a starter-deck box topper from a year ago expansion, so you basically can only get them from a quitting player spending some $$. It can be used both to control and to attack

3. Defender is fine for its cost, the true problem is Lord of the Makai, which is the one that needs to go.

4. Bitter Rivals is the most annoying card in the game, and we can argue wether it wins games or not by itself at the top-level (no card really does, decks and players win or lose games, not cards), but I've already seen it listed in quite some champion decks.

5. We have never ever seen an Ira-Spinta here so it has never been an issue so far.

------------

And another thing: in my opinion some of the champion cards released are far too good (Olexa, Herr and maybe Hata**) when compared with the regular character ones, which I don't think is a good thing as their release is much more limitated.

MegaGeese said:

-I'm not saying Oral Dead needs to become better >_>! Sure, it does only stop foundations and assets (and thus does not stop actions or characters), but my beef is that its cost is too little for an effect too global. Unlike Red Lotus, which only stops certain effects, Oral Dead will stop ANY form, regardless of what it does. I'm not necessarily saying Oral Dead should only stop, like, Forms that draw or anything specific, more, Oral Dead should be more like Inhuman Perception, a card I am a huge fan of; given a cost that MIGHT make the card unplayable to some.

-Hulking Brute is a 3/4, which automatically means it may or may not see play. Also, when I say reliable draw, I mean repetetive draw. Hulking Brute will draw you 2 cards, sure, but unlike Bigger They Are (which is a 2/4 not to mention), you can't use multiple Hulking Brute Responses because the first one will negate any other draw. Huge Wrestling Army is no better because while it is free draw, it's only when it's played into the card pool, and nothing more. Maybe Earth should use its hulking size to its advantage and have draw support maybe akin to Bigger They Are (ex. if you're taller than your opponent's char, or you're heavier than your opponent's char, draw X cards. X equals the difference between your opponent's printed handsize and your printed handsize)

-Good's my favorite resource symbol; of course I'm aware of its strength =). But it still needs more, and that isn't me being greedy; I'm saying it will never be viewed by the mass majority as a decent symbol until it gets a few more things, notably, some attacks similar to Launcher-Breaker in strength, and some foundations that are around the strength of Lotus and Torn Hero.

Amano

-As I already said, committing a card is barely a cost, because 95% of the time, you are MORE than willing to turn a card sideways to negate your opponent's card effect. Do you know why M. Bison's support never sees play (with the exclusion of 1 to 2 copies of Charismatic)? Because it doesn't negate; it destroys, which unfortunately isnt' as strong as negation. Negation needs to stop being printed for a while, at least, not in the symbols that already have a lot of it, and they need to start printing less harmful control methods, such as destruction and Rashotep stuff. As for Olcadan's, I can only say what needs to be said: it isn't AS BAD as people make it out to be; all tourney long I saw the grimaces of people gesticulating, "Jeez, what awesome foundation is the LEAST awesome?" However, if the card were to go I'd be happy as Hell; such a card is unnecessary to the environment, and Lord knows Without a Care will NEVER see play because of its existence.

-You haven't seen Spinta in action? Then you need to lol. I haven't seen any Hunger for Souls Ibukis yet, but I still acknowledge their potential.

-Champions SHOULD be stronger than most regular characters to SOME extent. They certainly deserve it. However, again, no matter what award you win or what stats and symbols you litter your character with, you can't just go and get extremely undercosted abilities, unless, again, they just don't matter that much. CCHax is one of the most irritating, NPE effects this game has ever had, and thankfully I'm not alone in my belief of that, so that pretty much says how I feel about Olexa, and as for Herr, his enhance is simply too abusable, not to mention, his character covers one major issue Evil cannot otherwise do regularly: draw.

MarcoPulleaux said:

If I had realized that I was going to be playing ibuki instead of sandbagging into jonherr, I would have totally hunger for soulsed it up

Eithinis said:

Good thing I didn't face you, because my no-Red-Lotus-MiNa would be pretty nonplussed by Hunger for Souls =/

Honestly, I don't see why you didn't just use John Herr period. While Ibuki is amazingsauce Ibukers, without Suzaku (or a big attack to truly abuse that R), Herr's draw n' peak is simply more useful than +3 to a check IMO.

Well I have to agree with you on all accounts Marco. However, in some cases I have to question, is it the fact that the cost isn't enough or is it that the card is to powerful? I know you stated that in a few cases that certain abilities need to be tied down more such as Red Lotus only applying to attack's, but what about the concept of some card in the first place?

I really dislike the fact that BRT, Lord of Makai, and a lot of other cards passed through to be printed. They are simply to powerful and these cards I find simple degrade the game by giving certain symbols an enormous boost and power over others. It sucks even more as a lot of these card are promo's that players can't get because a) their to expressive in the fact that you have to open a ridiculous amount of boxes to get them as in Feline Spikes, Spinta's, Lord of Makai's, Defenders, and Knight Breakers, and even after opening six's boxes of a set they still get only one copy. b) They missed the local event by being not regular players or they are new player thus being left out. c) Being the odd case that you simply don't get enough in prize support at your local store, as in getting less than a play set of Heel Snipes and having to trade or buy off other groups that got at least two play sets.

Also, as is the case, back in block two and one, you didn't need to run a lot of the power rares in the deck as you still had cards like Chain throw, Deceptive Look, Unrequited love, and others that where uncommons that where almost as powerful. With certain uncommons and few power rares you would see a lot of different deck ideas concepts and differences. However in the case of block three that is not true. A lot of the decks I saw at the Canadian Nationals where close clones of each other, in example Gill, Hilde, and Juni, that had only minor differences as in one ran Feline Spikes, the other Juni's Arrow, and the last Spinta for kill. Same goes for the Chun-Li's and almost the same for Zei Mei and Akuma, as all ran the same cards, mostly being the top powered ones. It seems that ingenuity has certainly gone down.

MarcoPulleaux t from blocking and playing cards out right, Chinese and Program Malfunction completely shuts down your opponent down when playing. Again there are ways to stop it them but with so many other cards like them you can't stop them all. I find my self conceding more often do to the fact that my opponent has a stupid level of board control that I can't punch through rather than actually losing to an opponents attack. The game state has become less enjoyable. Foundation's should help your attacks for the win and provide necessary control when needed, and not be a complete dominating aspect on the board all the time.

Regarding Chun-li, I feel that she's fair in the fact that she can be beaten by the other select few characters out their and can't really be touched by others. Hope you noted my sarcasm. A lot of the characters being printed are junk. I don't see anyone playing Adon, Juli, Charlie, and Gaira in competitive or even casual games do to the fact their abilities, symbols and hand size just can’t compete. Didn't you used to see a whole variety of characters being played back in block one and two? It used to be six hand size was good enough as card draw wasn’t such a prominent factor in the game. It was good, but you could still play without and around it. At least 75% of the characters back then actually had abilities that could be used effectively and provided good deck themes that almost all had a good chance of winning. Block three seems to show only a select few characters are worth playing due to the fact they are a tier above the rest in terms of abilities, hand size, or the amount of over powered support in the selected spread of symbols.

As always, too your point about symbols, Earth, Life, and Void need to be boosted to at least equivalent level of the other symbols. Also it seems that quite a few of the symbols are having identity crises in the fact that few of the symbols, mostly the bottom tier, are thinly spread over many abilities or characteristics and don't have a consistent theme. Example Earth has minor life gain, minor damage pump, minor speed pump, adequate foundation control, minimal momentum gain, problematic card draw, and minimal character control. Order on the other hand is prominently draw, commit, cc hack. Notice which ones better?

I am going to stop my now before I get really reeled up. I really don't like what UFS has turned into as of block three and hence why I have currently stopped playing UFS. Once the game fixes it self and regained a bit of what it once was, then I will definitely get back into it. As of right now I just think I’ll be rifling through the forums to see what is going on and hoping things will change.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Because i'm an aggro player at heart, and with the right draw I can turn 1. Like i said before, I didn't want to knock the other jon herr player out of diversity, so *shrug*, the draw is amazingly abusable and nice but, *Shrug* And there are plenty of things to abuse it on, the knightbreaker requires a 7, so ditching a card to only need a 4 is pretty nice, and if i do like, ichi -> midnight launcher -> knightbreaker -> reverse flayer -> midnight launcher, it becomes really handy; I try to avoid having to lose to rejection with one big attack, so several multiple and using the R on the last few starts being pretty sexy.

Navitude said:

-You know why decks are looking the same? Top tier symbols. NOBODY'S gonna wanna run Death Zi Mei when they COULD run Evil Zi Mei. Nobody's gonna wanna run All Juni when they could run Order Juni. When Set 9 came out, they did a great thing: only print 2 characters with Evil. They're going to NEED that type of bias in order to see to its that the upper tier symbols seem either less appealing, or that the lesser tier symbols seem more appealing. But by putting the Skull and Flame on almost every Trident card, you're simply gonna run the Trident.

-Program was designed to shut down Higher Calibur. Of course, that didn't really end up mattering since Calibur got banned when Chinese Boxing was already out. Once again, their concept is on the mark, but their result is not. Being able to select ANY foundation is far too wide, especially when that selected card can never ready until Malfunction does.

-They don't see play primarily because of their lack of abilities. While I dislike 7 handers having good abilities (meaning, really, Adon is where he should be), every character needs to have abilities or character-only cards enough so to scream, "PICK ME!" from the trade binder. This is not Pokemon; you can't just create "characters good for beginners" and cute damage pumps and whatnot, because the better ones will overshadow them everytime. Don't give us Water Gun if you know we're just going to use Surf every time.

-As I'd mentioned earlier, FFG is going to need an SNK Set 1 bias in order to help those, as well as Chaos and Fire, who truly are not that good. They really do need to design a set with those symbols in mind, and BETTER than Set 10 did.

Another reason I used Ibuki was because I kept playing either hilde, or decks with BRT, so speed and hard checks for blocks were a problem, that extra +3 on my check on a block saved me a few times.

Eithinis said:

Hey, fair enough, good character is good. Congrats on getting to top 4 dood.

<3 grats on top 8, yourself

MarcoPulleaux said:

That's Herr's toon in a nutshell. Overpowered crap. Anyways most of your points are on par Marco cept for a few:

Oral Dead and Red Lotus are ABSOLUTLY needed in this absolutly disgusting meta and are fine as they are: There is far too much stuff that commits/removes cards for Red Lotus to be any less good. I could understand if Program Malfunction, Spinta, and China Box weren't as powerfull (and arguably, China Box is the least powerfull of the three and actually kind of fair), then I could see Red Lotus being reworked. Oral Dead stops far too much jank in order for it to be removed. I agree, it's a very broad effect, but it only hits stuff on the board that aren't characters (which potentially have more busted forms than staging area stuff). It also doesn't touch the hand either.

I have ALWAYS hated Blood Runs True. Ever since it's release, they way that it was packaged, and even the art on it. Not counting Chun Li (who's another huge long rant for another day), I'm willing to wager 10 of the top16 decks ran it. Is it over powered? Sure is! Cause there isn't enough that stops it. There's a reason K Dash was SO ridiculous. Because CC Haxx will forever be the most dominate mechanic in the game.

Nav... Let me introduce you to Battle Prowess... The BEST life gain in the format that isn't banned. It also has Earth and is spammable.

Until you play Seong-Mina at a major event or play as Seong-Mina at a major event, please refrain from speaking about her as if you understand her fully.

Thank you.

failed2k said:

Easy there, let the noobies live in their world of ignorance. Seong mina as a 5 handsize character, except she can get back cards from her momentum and can double spinta/spike you in a turn? + She has water, order, chaos so she can draw a ton of cards, and can tri-symbol if you have to fair easily.

Oh and shinji, just cause you lost with seong mina at a small regionals doesn't mean anything the problem might be the pilot.

ummm... for such a long post (some of it well thought out), I don't know why you start by bashing one of the best(better at the very least) characters in the game at the moment - it takes away a lot of your credibility...

In response to your other #'d comments.

#2. Banned talk is fine, but logically speaking, until you see one of those cards absolutely dominating the circuit why would you argue it needs to be banned. I especially disagree with your BRT talk, there are so many good answers to it now, try willful as the biggest nasty, that I have seen (and in many major tournies) players play around it to great success. In fact, I like BRT, it either a) forces a player to run more attacks (i.e. some get tossed) or b) for them to succumb to grey wars, and the possibility of more ties, which are really the worst things to take in UFS swiss (imo).

#3. Duh. We have foundations for a reason, and as long as some of them negate others there will be wars between them. The fact that this can be a thinking and beating game is one of it's appeals (and yes, versatility, being able to do either as called for, is what wins tournies)

#4. Said symbols are not 'as' versatile as the others, I agree. They just have different and fewer notches than the other symbols.

#5. Answered, also why the other symbols are typically worse showers - fewer notches and cards that do 'one' or limited things. Evil has the least situational card base = most consistent atm. Air and order are so **** close behind it isn't even funny.

#6. Hmmm, you have a lot of opinions so it is actually quite hard to tell if you are changing your mind or simply emphasizing one of the many points you like to get across.

oh, and thank you for the detailed post as always you do put a lot of effort into trying to explain where you are coming from.

- dut

B-Rad: I'm not saying Oral Dead and Red Lotus are broken, I'm saying for such global control you need to have not just a bigger cost, but a bigger difficulty.

Failed2k: Your lack of knowledge of my Seong Mi-Na career means, just like your username suggests, you have failed. Try reading my article before opening your mouth.

Shajir: You didn't even read what I said, did you? No, no you didn't. Oh, and why are you being a trashtalker? I went to a regionals. Period. And I'm a Mi-Na fan, and as she mah girl, I'm speaking honestly on her behalf. Just because you like somebody doesn't make them good. Seong Mi-Na has some issues, and if you'd read what I write and stop being rude, maybe you'd have something more useful and constructive to say, instead of just being a waste of space as you've traditionally been.

dutpotd: Um, every card I mentioned IS dominating the circuit. Where do you play?

If you say "there are counters", then you don't understand how this game works. You can't say "there are counters" without being flat out wrong. Willful is garbage. It will do nothing more than rot in your hand until they play Blood Runs True, and if you wasted action-space for Willfill, be ready to be KFT'd, Inhuman'd, or Cessation, ALL of which see play. Sure, Destiny's a counter, but look at its symbols. Only 1 is arguably good, and that's saying next to nothing, because if you're brave enough to run any of its symbols, you're going to have to side Destiny anyways because maindeck Destiny does nothing to opponent's who do not get out/run BRT. I could go on, but I've already stated my point in the article.

Thinking and beating is one thing. When I have to decide which foundation do I Chinese Box to win, that's fun. But what isn't fun are games consisting of me wanting to play 1 enhance, but I can't until I get out my playset of Boxings, 3 Programs, and 3 Chester's to match their wall of negation.

I appreciate the compliment. I always put forth logic, research, etc, but in this article I used actual tourney results where I was competing with a number of forum-goers who likely agree with the majority of what was said (ESPECIALLY about Seong Mi-Na, which was a prime discussion between me, ScubaDude, and Steele).

failed2k said:

I'd like to meet you someday, and get a chance to play against you. Partially because I'm fully aware that you're a great player, and I love a challenge, and partially because I'm very interested in just seeing you play Mina. (well, I also like to meet people, so that's part of it, too).

Hope to see you at Worlds, good sir.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Finally another player who thinks the same way I do. I've quit UFS about 10 times now and every time I come back I pray that the game is playable again but then shortly realize it's still not.

People that have played the game from the beginning would be stupid not to say how messed up things have been since Set 8. Pretty much everything you mentioned in your post is correct, and if you really break it down it's not hard to see that when the game was dwindling around set 7, changes were made to guarantee that people had to buy Set 8 and 9. Thus is the reason you see so many things with no cost.

US Air Base was touted as a card that would 'fix' this. What Sabertooth didn't realize was that the meta was so out of control at the time that even Air Base couldn't do anything. As a result of that, bam, huge bannings which included Addes and Revitalize, etc...

This brings us to the present. We have Set 12 which was supposed to 'fix' everything, just like the previous sets and it didn't fix anything. What we got was some gimmicky stuff and a couple more cards to counter cards that shouldn't even be legal in the play enviroment.

I'm of the opinion that the majority of people still playing UFS only do so because they have either been rejected or lack the skill to compete in other CCGs. This is no personal offense to anyone because I've been there but the game is basically Yu Gi Oh, where the player that spends the most money usually wins. The player base is so small and the cards aren't THAT expensive so it's possible to feel like the best with minimal effort or competition.

I apologize for the poor grammer in this post as I am exhasted, but I just had to back up Marco. I know it takes balls to post any criticism of the game these days. There's too many newer players that are willing to accept any new jank that comes out because the game is their life and the jank helps them beat their friends easier. I guess that's the only point of games like this though isn't it?

MarcoPulleaux said:

I read what you wrote in your article , and I read your tournament report where your deck sounds like a complete mess and lacks a lot of what the deck needs to make it work, I'm not sure you even know what it takes to make the deck work. You are not completely off base with some of the things you said, she has a high difficultly curve, but she is more then capable of winning a major event. Every deck has weaknesses and flaws and bad matchups, seong-minas just has very OBVIOUS weaknesses. Kirk Polka just won can nats with his deck, beating me in top 4 and then moving on to beat Andrew Olexa and winning the whole thing. Me and Kirks matchup was a Re-match of our top 4 game at POTM that I won and advanced to the finals, meaning that yes, my deck had the potential to win that matchup, and yes, my deck is also plenty good enough to have taken a run at olexa. Luck didn't play nice with me, and Kirk played a great game and his deck ran at its absolute Best against me two games in a row, but when it comes down to it, just because I did not win POTM or Can Nats, does not mean I could not have, once you get into cuts EVERYONE is a good player and luck is often a more defining factor then skill in the closing rounds. When both players play solid-mistake free games, the one whose deck draws better, or plays better within the matchup will win. In this case Kirk and my deck were both evenly matched, his just went crazy on my face.

So if you want to make under-developed poorly proven statements in fancy bold text about chars people are playing, then mention the players playing them by name and basically ignore what the char has accomplished even tho you claim to adore her and be a expert on her, next time please, just choose not to speak at all.

MegaGeese said:

I'll be there, I'm a big fan of metting everyone I can haha.

My deck is not complicated nor fancy, and is just a really solid, really consistant deck, that I feel comfortable with. Some matchups are worse then others, but I never feel like I have any unwinnable matchups, and obviously I've done pretty okay with it. Seong-Mina is one of my fav chars from the game, and like the rest of my playgroup we tend to stick to the ones we love, and avoid playing the ones we don't unless neccessary. Right now I like my seong mina, I have a few other decks built off chars I love (Iori, Alex) but I feel like Mina gives me my best chance to win and she has performed quite nicely up to this point(not perfect but yaknow, I can't complain too much about my recent finishes with her)

Good, good. I've got a lot of respect for you, both as a player and for that statement right there. ^

I tried to do the "playing a deck you hate just because it's good and can win thing", and I really didn't like it. So this time I went with something I liked playing; the same sort of thing applied - I knew that certain matchups could cause me problems, but there's no point in overworrying because nothing is ever unwinnable, ever. My third game with Scuba I went from having two foundations against his 12+ foundation board to forcing him to wipe his board with Cutting Edge to stay alive at 1. More than half of this game is purely psychological; about 30% of that is conquering your opponent's mind, and the rest is conquering your own. The best advice about deckbuilding is something Ben said to me once - don't worry about diversity, just go in playing something that you like, and go in with the mindset that you're going to at least be the best [insert character name here] player there, if not the overall winner. No deck is or ever will be perfect - just get in there and do the best you can. To me, that's the mark of what makes someone a good player - how well they work with what they're given, particularly in tight spots.

I realize our regional wasn't particularly large (I'll be bummed if it means no regional winners' dinner, because that's why I wanted to win), but I like to think of it as a great learning experience and good prep for Worlds. I won't win; I'm not a good player (I'm not BAD, just a bit better than "okay"), but I wouldn't mind cracking top 16.

In summation - see you in August. I'll be the guy wandering around trying to trade for every copy of *Donovan* he can find, haha.

Well, I agree and disagree.

First I think that BRT is just fine. Having just come back from regionals I can say that it won me a few games, but actually backfired and lost me a game and nearly another thanks to giving my opponent a critical card. It encourages people to run more attacks and to be honest all it is is a panic button where you say 'Oh god! Any card but THAT' and gamble that your opponent will get something worse. It stops Feline Spike very well, and the only decks I saw it hurting really badly were obnoxious control decks. To be honest, I think Forethought is much more ridiculous, a first turn with a forethought or two tends to be the end of it. At least BRT lets your opponent play their hand instead of halving (or worse) the number of foundations they can play for fear of having their turn ended! The only person that seemed to be annoyed with me using it in Regionals was a Good Talbain who wasn't siding or running Destiny (Whoops!) and in that case I suspect he was more frustrated with himself for not doing so!

Ira Spinta... that card is purely a goldmine of NPE. There is nothing fun about having your staging area constantly destroyed. Giving momentum isn't nearly a big enough drawback, and frankly it's not fun to play against a deck that has control over your entire staging area starting on turn two.

Lord of the Makai. It's a bit of an enabler, but I think that Defender is the problem... and if Ira Spinta is staying in the format, you practically NEED LotM to combat it with it's commit-E.

Seong Mi-Na I think is an amazing character, and she top-4'd my Regionals handily. I may not be a top-caliber player, but I was running a top-tier deck to be sure, and she was the only matchup (other than a bizzare Tira that went so utterly against the local meta that I hadn't prepared for it) that even made me sweat. Her handsize might be a drawback, but 34 vitality is a tall hill to climb, so I respectfully disagree. As far as I've seen in my own experience and in tournament reports, Seong Mi-na is amazing and routinely places very high in even highly competitive atmospheres.

Chun-Li... She's more than a little obnoxious. I played against her in teams and it was the most unpleasant matchup of Regionals as a whole. Both games I played against her I went first and she basically got to start with an Olcadan's in her staging area. I would say that she needs an errata of some kind, either limiting the types of cards she can play with her R, or putting a reasonable cost on it. Tag-Alongs didn't help at all. By turn three in every single game she had such a dominant staging area that there was nothing I could do except sit there and eat Ira Spintas all day.

Bitter Rivals is a great card. It always has been and always will be, but I don't feel it's ban-worthy, and moreover I think that it, BRT, Chester's and LotM give All almost all it's strength as a symbol foundation-wise. It's a very strong card, but playing against it is no more frustrating than playing against any repeatable effect like Shooting Capoera or Clean Freak or whatever else. It's so easy to get rid of Bitter Rivals from your opponent's staging area now that I hardly see a problem.

Feline Spike's only problem I can see is it's omnipresence in decks with it's symbols. I don't feel it's banworthy as there's a lot of answers to it now... and I mean a LOT. None of the decks running Spike got to the later rounds of competition here. IIRC there was a Spike deck that washed in the Swiss rounds of singles and another that placed last in Teams (It was Mai and our team's Nightmare got her just fine). It's a scary card, but the 1 check makes up for it.

My biggest frustration with BRT, Spike and LotM is the difficulty of GETTING said cards. I think if more people were able to run them, they'd see how little they actually do for a deck. Playing casual games after Regionals I put together a silly Felicia deck, a friend of mine played my Sakura I ran for Regionals against it and I trashed him... even those cards don't win games on their own. You need to have skill to properly employ them!

GiantThighLover said:

I am a player thath as been with the game since set 1 and I have never before disagreed more with any other post on any forum. You sir/mam have absolutley no idea what you are talking about. I agreed with you up to a point though. Then you compared UFS to YuGiOh and basically said it takes no skill to play this game. Yeah...You could not be more wrong. I have played about 40 TCG/CCG in my life. It's my passion and I am proud of it. UFS is one of the funnest games I have played. Sure it has some NPE. What game doesn't? Sure it has money cards. What game doesn't. You know what UFS does have? A TON of good cards. Most games you get sets where only about 20-30% of the game(if even that many) are playable and the rest are crap that will never be used.

I love this game. Sure it may not be in the best shape right now but things are looking up.