Well for about the last week or so a player at my local store has decided to belittle himself even further and call me out for net -decking ' playing evil zi-mei and order donovan. Now I don't know about the rest of the field but I would have to say for evil 40-45 cards are staple 10-20 are flavor about the same for order.

Now what do you guys think and how different can these decks arch types be or are we all just net decking off the first person that posts an idea

example - knight breaker /midnight launcher combo in zi mei for evil

- feline spike/ira-spinta/defender in donovan for order

well with any game there are always going to be staple cards but ive seen that in this game more then any other decks can be complelety different while still achieving the same win condition or strategy

but there are alot of decks that run the same cards because they are good if nobody posted decklists online or knew what other people were running im pretty sure that certain decks would look the same because some cards are just better then others...

prime example is in an evil deck if you want 2 run something that gives your control checks + something your more likely 2 run iga legacy over rookies fortune just because it is better in every way

jackpot-444 said:

Well...Evil's All-Star Attack Line-Up goes something like this: 4x Ich-No-Tachi, 4x Reverse Flayer, 4x Midnight Launcher, 4x Knight Breaker. It's pretty standard fare these days, that if you're running an Evil deck, then this is how you kill.

Re: Feline Spike/Defender...what's funny is that Combo necessitates Dono being played Dual Symbol: Order/Water...Actually, i've seen more I-Spin + Fweem Order decks running around these parts than Defender + Feline...

As reliable a Kill as that combo is, i think a lot of players are simply growing bored with it and looking for newer ways to bring the pain.

Well, I've been doing some deckbuilding since my regional, and really, the honest truth is that, if you ever want your deck to look different, it's going to have to either:

A: Have character exclusives

B: Run Combos

or

C: Be themed/have a constant theme (like maybe a High Kick Kim deck, or for example, my Terry deck is all about blocking, then muscling-out a victory against stupid opponents who thought they could win during their last turn).

Ingenuity is pretty rare for this game, with some obvious exceptions.

As far as Evil and Order goes, as they are generally viewed as the two best symbols, it's simply hard to deviate. Order, though, does have the Spiral Lock, Spinta abuse, hybrid decks, etc.

My Astrid must be one heck of a deviation then >_> Then again, it's more of an aggro-ish Order build than a typical lock-down Order deck... As for Evil, sad to say that the past 4 Evil decks I've seen from different metas in the state varied by less than 5-10 cards, 10 being on the very generous side, and they're all basically carbon copies of Jon Herr's Herr deck (fronting either Jon Herr or Zi Mei).

ShadowDragon said:

astrid is an exception as she needs so much of her own support as for evil you can build one 60 card deck and insert any random character and still win alone on the fact that evil controls

Evil just really doesn't have many options. don't get me wrong it's one of the best symbols in the game but it has limted options for variation. Luckilly the options it does have are some of the best in the game.

Order can be used in many ways though.

Order is, for the most part, about turning your opponent's staging area sideways. Evil has more negation rather than committal effects.

You don't have to play Spike, Spinta, or Defender in Donovan in order to win.

Fweem, Kuzuryu Reppa, and Personal Style all get the job done, too.

Also note that most Order characters won't play Spike, and typically won't have any reason to play Defender, either, really.

MegaGeese said:

MegaGeese said:

It's too bad Personal Style doesn't have Void on it. Imagine Personal Style + Ivy.

Bottom line, both of the symbols in question have multiple ways to seal the deal. The problem is they also both have markedly better attacks and ones that are far more consistent than others.

The good player needs to weigh off the benefit derived from running a new and unique kill condition (possibly catch another player used to common kill conditions off gaurd) vs. running a tried and true kill condition that will work, but may not work as well becuase the opponent's deck will have tech to counter the common. Of course, the reason we see the later option taken more often than not is because the symbols in question have enough 'answers to answers' to ensure the kill with time and 'arguably' even setup.

As someone has stated, order is proactive - comits answers, whereas evil is reactive (excluding Bitter Rivals) - negates or cancels answers. There are specific cards that deal with both of these strategies (torn hero/lotus/others and end it all/others), the race between well constructed decks then becomes who can build faster? And this would be my understanding of the tiers of building faster.

a) Spinta on your opponent's turn (see Chun-li / turnabout / a new low), or simply building on your opponent's turn

b) Selective cards or rampant control hack (see Akuma + BRT) mixed with a new low

c) Consistency (checks and balances, or checks and Jon Herr) and many answers to Spinta and Chun-li (a and b) which Evil has

d) Spinta X 2

e) Spinta and Handsize

f) answers to selectiveness (willful/destiny) and answers to Spinta and handsize

g) Handsize and answers to Spinta

Draw contributes to the above to a degree, espeically with respect to longer games. If you can live (beat spinta/forethought/keep up with the negation war against evil) with your 6hs and have draw you can catch up a tier later.

c+) Of course, you can always kill faster than the opponent builds, and that is what air agro often offers many players who simply have e). It is also what Zei Mei offers, but she can also have bits and pieces of c) at the sacrifice of some agression.

When I go into a tournament nowadays, I have to at least build f) or be in for a nasty experience as I am sure most of you agree.

- dut

Sol Badguy said:

agree.

responding to op: it's not just evil and order. air decks are mostly similar ( kitty spike + some combination of Ispin, heel snipe, hoyuke sen, or menuete dance.) honestly many symbols have 30 plus auto includes.

trane said:

My new tri-symbol deck involving air uses only iSpin in there.

how different? they are just bad as any other symbols.

Homme Chapeau said:

Ok and spinta is great but to quote a player at my store ( looks the same as a deck online same kill and so on must be netdecking ) because in an enviroment with 1000+ players no two decks are allowed to be the same or players allowed to come up with the same idea. example turn it on promo ALEX how many people do you think came up with that idea the first week those cards were out .Well my point is we all have symbols that we like/love and hate and meta choices vs something you take to the big tournment will now and always depend on you local area

Ah... the net decking discussion... how I loathe thee.

Jackpot brings up building a deck that is similar to something that's appeared online, and he's accused of net decking...

Recently I published something called "All your base loop" found here.

I bring this up, because it's a really off beat deck, that I brought to the Path of the Master event, and by and large, no one had heard of it, and no-one knew it existed.

Before I even started to play the deck I was picking up a self confidence, and Scott Gains asks "Are you building that Mignon US Airbase deck?"

I inwardly gasped - crap, had someone else discovered the really off the wall combo? Did other people already know of it's existence.

I discovered by and large that people did not.

What's the point of saying all of this? It's a combo - it's a really, and I mean *really* unobvious combo. Did either of us net deck it from the other? No. But based on a finite number of cards in the meta, and the meta driving certain decks, it will lead people to build certain ideas because they look like viable options.

I've seen it in many games, where as a response to the meta, multiple people build the same type of deck, and someone is decried a netdecker.

Sadly, those cries will never go away.

There is a segment of the population that is strongly opposed to Netdecking in any way shape or form. They feel it's cheating, and there is nothing you can do to disuade them.

Many of the arguments against net decking can also be used for net decking, and at the end of the day, it's a hotly contested topic that has no right or wrong answer.

Don't feel bad, If you run Itchy/Launcher/Flayer/Breaker in Evil, you're not net decking, you are running some of the best attacks available to you.

If you run Sprinta/Reppa/whatever in order - you're running the best attacks available to you.

If the guy wants to freak out that you're net decking, and that's why "you're winning". Tell him "since you know what I'm playing, you know how to beat it."

Because honestly - once a deck is common knowledge, people should know how to beat it. If they choose not to evolve, then it sucks to be them.

thankyou being a fan of ccg's for along time now ive found this is how you grow a game players post ideas for other players to see so that they are forced to think outside the box to win.

Are there staples for evil and order yes .

But at the same time there are staples for every resource in the game . So in the end it has to come down to fine tuning your deck and player skill.

To answer the question in the topic, I ran an evil deck tonight with two attacks. Both being twilight embrace. While I own playsets of the evil attacks, I just get the feeling that attacking to throw chip damage out there is punished in this game. I.e China box, reversals, bitter rivals etc.... unless your winning this turn attacking seems to be the wrong call most of the time.

My win condition for the night was RFG with wonderworld warriors and just plain blocking and burning people with pack zhao. Memories that stain its armor was basiaclly my attack with its +4 block. The deck was slow as all hell but backed with a wall of typical evil control and oddball stuff like memories and M.bison cards I had plenty of time to burn people. The anti-life gain cards of set 12 are going in somewhere next week. Its a goofy ass deck but I had fun blocking for GG.

Some cards just go together and you would be stupid not to use them together. Its just the logical conclusion a typical player would come too.

If im playing zhou dayou burn/mill and I want to run her and invoking the ancients, I would be an absolute dummy not to run something to make my opponent fail thier control checks (BRT on evil, Forethough and spirit of athens and anti K on Chaos). The fact that someone else may run this combo is irrelivant to the fact that its a logical and smart combo to run.

Even without any communication between players whatso ever, peopel are bound to come to events with the same or similar decks. its just the way it is. Im not a religious man but this passage I remember hearing my philosophy teacher say when i was in school alwasy comes back to me:

(Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV) What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. {10} Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

Any combo you can run is not there because you created it, at the most you only found it.

Protoaddict said:

A wise man also once said "Simpsons did it!"

Basically means the same thing. Given enough time, everything will be covered/unoriginal....that doesn't merit it not worthwhile.

its funny this same time last year evil was dominating my shops meta the way order is dominating now. I think order will take home the title at nats this year in the US but at the same time i will stay with the "theme" that has happened at worlds the worlds the last three years and say evil will rule the world again in 2009.

I think pretty much every evil deck is running the Midnight Breaker combo they just vary on the opening attack from Reverse Flayer to Itchi No Tachi or some other attack.

Ya know the only way to win worlds is to run a good deck. Good is always triumphs over evil right?