So with the new bannings (re: STOG June 2009) I just wanted to discuss these 2 symbols with people. Partially because of the title I could make, but also because of how these effect them.

Death; This symbol is now ridiculous imho. Death has always been really good, but it's main problem was that anything it could do, Evil could do better. Now though, I'd say it's definately gotten a boost. For instance, while evil still has a leg up, Death can run Destiny, Inhuman Perception, and No Memories, and since Olcadan's is gone, the auto-spot that was for Oral Dead, a card with only a few uses outside of negating Olcadan's, it has the room to pack it's power cards. because most of it's cards share with evil, It's attack base is solid, and with Ragnar/Rashotep's support, is even more so. I hope with the bannings that we will see more of this techy symbol floating about.

Life: This is an opinion again, but I always thought life was amazing. From a CC-hax standpoint, it has access to Forethought, Anti-K', Spirit of Athens, and the 8 card handsizer to draw all those. Outside of that, it's survivability was top-tier, and it has access to Revenant's and Perfect Sense of Balance, 2 cards that really help against the control game and with Calming the Mind, it probably had one of the best answers to air's Feline Spike/Ira-Spinta. The only thing it really lacked was a solid way to kill people. With speed pumps it would definately make things hit, but it would need to string attacks together in order for that to happen. Yi-Shan's support is amazing though and Striking Thunder + Yi-Shan's Tiger Claw are two auto-includes in a Life aggro deck as far as I am concerned. Oh, and the fact that it had 0 answers to Olcadan's outside of Nature's Force, and no Sakura/Seong-Mina to loop it like water did.

Olcadan's being banned makes life playable again. Simply put, I can make a life deck and not have to think about what symbol to possibly splash so that I would be able to actually compete. Chester's being banned makes it so that Life control can play it's game. While I think Life still lacks some of the power of the obviously top-tier symbols, I think a tournament competitive life deck is no longer an impossibility.

I think life has one Giant ace up its sleve, Professional soldier. Granted it not LOTM, but it is a good replacement if nothing else, especally with double grounder in the game. Additonally life still has:

GTeam
Rejection
Annu Mutsube
Battle Prowess
Chi Disruptor
Will For the Fight
Minuette Dance

I think they are in better shape than they often get credit for to be blunt.

I would most definately agree on both fronts. Life is so much better now that Olcadan's and Lord are banned, as now the alternatives look so much nicer, such as Professional Soldier. Siegfried and Yuri in particular are looking exceptionally pleasant, what with having their own damage pumps on top of Yi Shan's support and a lot of access to Path Of The Master's draw power.

Death, on the other hand, is something else entirely. I'll be most definately playing 7 hand Death characters with La Superba and Menuette Dance or Midnight Breaker Combo now that I don't have to mulligan for Oral Dead or groan everytime I see a Chesters' hit the field. Hugo will become exceptionally powerful too.

I agree with the sentiments here. I think that with Chester's gone Death is truly the negation symbol of choice (solid F:, R:, and E: negation still, but not outdone by 4 other symbols that could straight up stop foundation stuff and gain life to boot).

Obviously with Olcadon's gone, a hell of a lot becomes playable. You can actually expect to play wtih the cards you draw, i.e. I don't have to go through my deck knowing that if I don't draw redlotus/controller/oraldead/assethate that I won't be able to play any of my own combo pieces.

I think the symbol tiers have opened up! Time will tell of course if this is true or not, but life and death are officially more playable after today's news.

Without Olcadon's... Order by a large degree has the most 'proactive' control pieces with commital (non-negation). To that extent, death has it good with perfect sense of balance and oral dead, whereas life/good/earth have it very good with siegfried's anti-commital stuff.

Torn Hero is stronger now imo with Olcadon's and Chester's gone.

Gotta keep the eye on the prize, i.e. nothing is changed for nationals. But worlds, and at least one more set before it, will really be interesting.

- dut

Im a lil on the fence about the new bans.... on one hand it demolished my tourney deck but on the other it made my two favorite symbols good again!

Life RIght now is awesome, it can play the long game or the short game with its super speed and crazy life gain. BRT still hurts this a ton and Life still has no momentum generation outside of throwing out attacks. Getting rid of Olcadans was amazing for this symbol but at the same time it needed Olcadans prolly more than any other symbol because lifes focus is so much more narrow than any other symbol... seriously 95% of Life cards either gain life or boost speed.

Death- O I can wait to play death, but Im not looking forward to getting Knight Breakers again. it seriously has all the control pieces minus BRT. It has R and E negation, speed pump, damage pump it it one of the most versatile symbols out their right now. Awesome.

With chesters gone I am going to be trying to make death work with Mac if at all possible I will be playing death at worlds.

I'm tinkering with a Death Deck that just became so much more powerful with Owlface gone. It's so much easier to sit on my ass now. Death can SERIOUSLY live. It can negate a load of stuff, and with properly built decks, build at a furious pace. Magnus liked the deck Andrew (DaiAndOh) came up for me to play, and I'll be fixing it up as it doesn't seem like anything will change my idea right now.

Oral Dead still belongs in Death decks. There are so many more annoying forms out there (particularly in Order decks) that the card eats up. Don't not include it in your Death deck. That's still a GIANT mistake.

I'm personally VERY excited for the suppose reprinting of Power of the Edge. Death/Chaos Blanka will become even more incredibly awesome then he is currently.

my only problem with death is the amount of 4 checks I want to run. Saikyo-Ryu, MAC, No Memories, Manifest Destiny, Military Combat Arts... >_<

Just on 2009 format (spread it out!), Life is amazing.

Siegfried support, Ivy support, Tira support, Lu Chen support all coupled up in the offensive juggernaut that is Yi Shan?

Oh gawd.

OH GAWD.

I think my eyepatch just came.

I'd like to speak on Life's behalf...

So, one night, I was looking to build the perfect Life deck. I went online, looking at Life's best cards and characters, noticing it has some really anti-meta potential.

After building the deck...

...

Life officially has nothing. It is the most useless symbol around. It's capabilities of winning are much harder than any other symbol's, and that is of course due to the lack of decent cards.

The recent bannings only helped Life in that none of the cards banned had Life. However, Life is going to really need support from Tekken in order to matter.

Death is good. Death is even better now that there's no Chester's to oppose it =D

quarzark said:

Do what I'm doing.

Just run them all. =)

MarcoPulleaux said:

Life is pretty good, Death is abso-****ing-lutely amazing. This game is fun again playing Death aggro.

Seriously, if Death had Bitter Rivals it'd be unstoppable. As-is, well, Saikyo-Ryuu is close 8)

Wafflecopter said:

...k cept didn't I say how I went on to deeply investigate Life's many high points, and build a deck around those?

Life sucks balls. Just because it HAS cards doesn't mean they matter.

I'm really not sure how you came to that conclusion.

Every deck I've built lately, at some point, I'll think of some card from left field (more or less) that heartily screws whatever I just put in. 9 times out of 10, that card has had Life.

Life has virtually every answer to commit effects.

Life has virtually every answer to Rejection.

Life has RIDICULOUS pieces of defensive tech. I've survived games with Legacy Ibuki decks for turns with a 19 vitality Male life deck..

It doesn't have a very strong set of tools to finish the game with. I'll agree with you there. However,

MarcoPulleaux said:

Absurd

and I disagree. Heavily.

MarcoPulleaux said:

=/

Who cares about life gain? Sure, you can summon your army of Prominent Noblewoman to stop my Rejection...and that's all they will do, because they have no secondary effect that matters.

Tough Outer Shell is nifty...if it wasn't so deeply LOL'd@by Oral Dead. Also, life characters aren't that good; they're gonna need all the draw they can get.

Life has no truly conventional draw (with its best draw arguably being Make a Difference), and its momentum generation is limited to Professional Soldier, an extremely ghetto Lord of the Makai.

Its characters are bogus. Almost all of them are aggresively-oriented, but don't end up doing what they're designed to, and that is relentlessly beat face. Or, to put it better, the characters that have Life have better symbols. Yuri could throwdown a better Water game. Siegfried a better Earth. Leona a better Fire.

Having access to both Torn Hero and Perfect Sense of Balance is pretty cool, and Calming the Mind is hoss, esp. with Olcadan's gone, but the list of pros pretty much stops there.

If you really want me to compose a gigantic essay, I will be more than happy to tomorrow mornin'. For now, you pretty much have my disagreement.

Or, you know what. Come up with some opinions about specific cards, their realistic uses, etc, and I'm sure we can find some sort of middle ground here.

Yi-Shan's Tiger Claw = Hawt Life attack - hit with it, using some easily available life speed boost. Stick it face-up in your momentum, commit out your opponents crap.

Will to Fight = Your opponent stops using Bitter Rivals to discard your cards. Because it's playable while comitted, you can use the printed damage pump to nifty effects.

Razor Bite = Hits, and then lets you plan out how you're playing your cards because you get to see your upcoming check.

Not having to deal with Owlface & Chesters makes life's job a lot easier to just go get some aggro on, and go from there.

P.S. - Life has Forethought and The Anti' K ... Aww Crap son... someone just called the cops!

Having played life... recently at that... there is some definate hope for it.

Oh... Raging Tira = Silly.

Rejection the attack, then still annu matsube... Naruto for handsize advantage and card draw...

Most people will disregard it, because with Life you've got to play like 20 attacks to make the deck go, when people are still trying to get away with 8-12.

Off of LIFE .

STARTING CHARACTER : 01
[1] 6:6 *Ivy* [All, Life, Void]

ACTIONS : 04
[4] 4:4 Switching Weapon Styles [All, Life, Void]

ATTACKS : 16
[4] 3:3 2M3 Fei Long's Forward Kick [Air, All, Life]
[4] 3:3 3H3 Howling Spirits [All, Life, Void]
[4] 3:3 3M3 Evil Sparrow [All, Life, Void]
[4] 3:3 4L2 Razor's Bite [All, Life, Void]

FOUNDATIONS : 36
[4] 2:4 Journey of Repentance [Earth, Good, Life]
[4] 2:5 Regretful Existence [Earth, Good, Life]
[4] 2:5 Prominent Noblewoman [All, Life, Void]
[4] 3:4 The Gorgeous Team [Evil, Life, Water]
[4] 2:4 Researching Anywhere [All, Life, Void]
[4] 2:4 Researching the Past [All, Life, Void]
[4] 2:5 Genius Alchemist [All, Life, Void]
[4] 3:4 Make a Difference [Air, All, Live]
[4] 1:5 Torn Hero [Earth, Good, Life]
[4] 3:4 Artificial Soul [All, Life, Void]

This is just the top of my head. I know a lot of people think that Ivy is just a gimmick or something but I I love how aggressive she can be on any turn. She can draw by herself by just commiting 1 foundation. Regretful Existence can pump your attacks at the cost of your staging area but if your opponent is going to die then why not? And the best, Make a Difference says 'Let's tdo that again!' as you proceed to draw all the cards you just spammed to spam some more.

But that's me, and this is just a rough draft of a deck that I would consider awesome with soem fine tuning.

Dunno about all of you, but I think Life is lookin' pretty right now.

Ugh, I realize I have 44 foundations inthat deck. And that the total count is at 64. Honestly? I don't think it matters in that deck.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Life has prolly the best draw card out their and the speed boosts needed to make it work. Deadly Ground. yeah Ill draw 20!

I do agree Lifes charcaters are either too specifically oriented (speed boost or lifegain), or better off of other symbols like Yang, Leona

Spotlight cards for a life deck not yet mentioned:

Eiserne Drossel - It pretty much reads +2 speed on every attack you play this game, unstoppable by your opponent.

Genius alchemist - It seems innocent, but this card has really been beating face for me in some of my void and all builds, can easly be applies to life.

Tien Lei, Iron Thunder - Possiblty the most versatile card printed in a long time, it teams well with All of YiShans attacks, which are all in thier own right very strong as is.

Distractable - A foundation that will keep your kill card as your kill card.

WIndmill Waster - Potentially loopable throw with decent stats. Has been forgotten for some time but something tells me there is a lot of potential behind it.

IVY ATTACKS - Raging Gnome is honest to god a decent win condition when the deck is built properly. Life has the card draw to make it happen. Evil sparrow is also a fantactic attack to open up the gates for you to play things like Sigfrieds earth divide and the like.

Life is stong, its just a matter of time before people realise what it can potentially do. The one thing life has the best potential to do, and i have done it before is first turn lock down. I have had games with my leona before where because of her 8 HS my first turn consisted of 2 forethoughs 4 other foundations, and an anti k in my hand with cost. Hax still wins games against some symbols.

Robes of the Grandmaster: Another free E: +2 speed.

Atoning for the Past: Such an amazing card, as long as one of your attacks deals damage, add any attack face up in your momentum. Great if you throw one of the next three attacks.

Close Throw, Rera Kishi Matek, Butt Slam: All amazing 3 check throws, especially Close Throw which has stun: 2 in addition to being awesome.

The Thirst Always Wins: An alternate way to gain momentum. Also very useful with any of the above three attacks.

Will of Iron and Infected: Low difficulty, 6 check foundations with great blocks and semi-useful abilities.

No Forgiveness! + The Gorgeous Team G:F E: = blank out your staging area.

About Face: Still an amazing card.

and someone already mentioned it but... Forethought + The Anti K' + (the part they didn't mention) Leona, who has an 8 HS. Ballin'

I'm really liking Death now personally, it has great control cards, and having Inhuman doesn't hurt either. Though the biggest change with Olcadan's being gone,(this is just my opinion), is Charismatic. Once only being ran has a 1 of due to Olcadan's, now can be safely played at 3, giving Death some real negation power, along with Inhuman, No Memories, and Oral Dead. Plus Death also splashes really well with Evil and/or Chaos. Which has Lotus and Controller of the Souls. So it wouldn't be a surprise if Death starts seeing more play.

Death Cards:

Inhuman Perception, No Memories, Charismatic, Oral Dead, Revenant's Calling, Trapped in a Nightmare, Destiny, Manifest Destiny, Perfect Sense of Balance, Cursed Blood, just to name a few.

Teric Aylor06gt said:

charismatic at four, o baby!