I was reading some discussions about Order vs. Evil, who can out control who, etc, and I figured why not expand the discussion in the light of US Nats since it is coming up in just over one week. Most people have seen the results from the big tournaments this year, and very little in the environment will be changed for US Nats, since the bannings will not be in effect until July. Therefore, we can expect the Nats results to shape up similar to the past two big North American events - Path of the Master and CanNats. Many of the same players will be there, the same basic deck archetypes will be prevalent, and the Coolest Prize in Gaming will be on the line. These are some of the basics that you will need to know if you want to compete at US Nats 2009:

Air, Evil, and Order are the top symbols; everything else is decidedly below them.
Path of the Master results - Top 8 (3 air, 2 order, 2 evil, 1 fire), Top 4 (2 air, 1 evil, 1 order)
CanNats 2009 results - Top 8 (3 air, 2 order, 3 evil), Top 4 (2 air, 2 order)
Many regional results have been similar. I recently attended a regional in KY where the top 4 was 2 evil, 1 order, and 1 air. This is not to say the other symbols cannot surprise you, but these three are the big ones you need to plan for.

That being said, here's a comparison of these three symbols in order to better understand how they work and discuss the key strategies/cards used in these decks.

Board Presence/Control
Air - Chester's Backing, Chinese Boxing, Inhuman Perception, Perfect Sense of Balance

Order - BRT, Program, Chinese, Experienced Combatant, Charismatic, Psycho Style, and Dormant for Millions of Years

Evil - BRT, Red Lotus, Oral Dead, Charismatic, Revenant's Calling, Chester's Backing, and Evil Doer Destroyer

As you can see, all three symbols have a pretty healthy does of board disruption/control and/or negation. Number wise, Air has fewer of these cards than the other two symbols, but makes up for it a bit by getting double use with Shooting Capoera. Order has by far the most committal and is more proactive with its board control than the reactive Evil. Basically, when Order doesn't like something it just commits it. When Evil doesn't like something, it negates it. Both are strong, but I have to give the slight edge to Evil due to Revenant's Calling. In the head to head control battle, Revenant's is simply too amazing. It is the number one card you want in play when the opponent is stacking up control pieces.

1st - Evil
2nd - Order
3rd - Air

Attacks/Win Conditions
Air - multiples (Feline Spike, Hokoyu Sen, Menuett Dance), control (Heel Snipe, Ira Spinta)

Order - Juni's Spiral Arrow, Ira Spinta, Kazuya Reppa

Evil - The combo (Ichi no Tachi/Reverse Flayer, Midnight Launcher, Knight Breaker) and Forward Kick (with Hanzo, typically an Evil base, so I've included it here)

Air can put out the most damage with it slew of multiples and easy momentum generation. Air also has two great control attacks and a good number of reversals. Air has the all around most versatile attack lineup. For making its attacks hit, Air doesn't really do anything special. It has stun and other commit effects, but that's about it. Order has the best lockdown/control attacks. It also has some good ways to push attacks through with mass committal, speed pumps (Enslaved, Hwang's), and control haxx (BRT, Forethought). This is crucial for order, as most of the time it just needs to hit you once with the Spiral and you will not recover. Evil struggles the most in this category as it must kill with a string of attacks (unless you're Hanzo). Evil typically needs to play at least three attacks in the same turn in a specific order. This often means that Evil cannot attack early on and has to worry about abilities that can be triggered on multiple attacks like Shooting Capoera. Evil also has the most trouble killing the large vitality characters. Order can loop the Arrow until they are dead and Air can just do insane amounts of damage, but Evil doesn't have either luxury unless you are Hanzo. Evil does have some great ways of pushing attacks through, with Bitter Rivals, Ways of Punishment, and Blood Runs True. Overall, Order and air have distinct advantages over Evil in this category, but Air shines even above Order with the versatility that its attacks bring to the table.

1st - Air
2nd - Order
3rd - Evil

Characters
Air - Chun Li, Andrew Olexa, Mignon
Order - Gill, Donovan, Seong Mi-Na
Evil - Akuma, Hanzo, Zi Mei, Jon Herr
Air has perhaps the most hated and most meta-defining character right now in Chun Li. She can cause such disruption on the opponent's turn, in today's environment, that a great deal of a deck's viability is dependent on how well it can deal with Chun Li. Olexa and Mignon both bring momentum gen to the table to help fuel those multiples. Mignon can play the ever popular Feline Spike easier on the opponent's turn as a Reversal. Olexa brings more control to Air with his haxx and A New Low turns him into a pseudo-Chun Li.
Order Spiral decks typically rely less on their character than other competitive decks, so almost any 7 hand size character with order has the potential to be a competitor. Order has several good 7 hand size characters such as Donovan, Guy, and Nagase. However, no one does it better than Gill with his 8 hand size. Seong Mi-Na takes on a little bit different structure than most other Order decks due to her recursion ability and small hand size.
Evil has great control with Akuma. He has committal and a great haxx ability that can be used on both players' turns. He also has nice support with Seclusion. Zi Mei brings great aggro abilities and a pretty good multiple attack that doesn't require momentum, which is nice considering Evil's momentum gen is not stellar. Jon Herr is typically built very similar to Akuma/Zi Mei, but has the added ability to move bad checks to the bottom of the deck. Hanzo is played for the kick, but his response ability isn't bad for building either. All of these evil decks really rely on their character cards, unlike the non-SM order decks, so if you can shut down the character, Evil could struggle.
Overall, this one is pretty close; Order scores some major points for the big hand size and the ability to not care about the opponent's Tag Along. Evil brings the character specific goodies like Seculsion, Forward Kick, and Zi Mei Multiple. However, Chun Li alone gives Air the edge. There were a total of 5 Chun Lis in the top 8 decks at CanNats before diversity was applied - three actual Chun Li decks and 2 more hiding in the sideboards. At US Nats, you are more likely to run into Chun Li than any other character, thus Air gets the edge.

1st - Air
2nd - Order
3rd - Evil

Wildcards
These are the potential surprises, or cards that we haven't seen yet in the highest levels of competition this year, but that could have an impact at US Nats.
Order - Order gets a nice boost from the reprint of Cursed Blood that can really speed up the Spiral lock. Look for this card to be making its way into the standard order decks.
Air - Undercover Agent offers Air a really good deterrent against the other two power symbols. Typically the control battles against Evil and Order can last a while and both sides will have multiple copies of the same cards in play. We've seen Evil decks using Revenant's Calling to help in the long game, but few people seem to be running Air's best answer to repeat offenders. UA allows Air isn't as versatile as Revenant's, but it will really make the opponent think about using multiple abilities in a given turn. Willful is another card that has been giving Air an advantage over the other two symbols. With Olexa, Akuma, BRT, and Forethought all over the place, Willful is surely going to bring some punishment for haxx at this year's Nats.
Evil - Evil doesn't really get anything new since CanNats, nor are there any Evil tricks of note that aren't already being used.

So that was just a general overview of the top 3 symbols and what you can expect from them. Based on the last couple of tournaments, Air appears to be the favorite to win, but either of these other two have more than enough capabilities to pull it out. In the end it's going to come down to the players behind the decks and the matchups. But you can bet on it that most of the top decks will be utilizing one of these three symbols.

I hope this helps anyone planning on going to Nats to better understand our current competitive environment. Check out my next thread for a more in depth look at the top decks going into US Nats, including some that are not Air, Evil, or Order!

Wow Matt,

Thank you for summing your thoughts up like this. You'll find no disagreements here... Although I don't have a strong desire to use any of air/order/evil symbols, I would be surpised if not at least 75% of the top 8 decks are Air, Order, or Evil in nature.

I think I was the closest non-air/order/evil deck from top 8 at Cannats (three-way tied for 8th, pushed down to 10th, 8th and 9th were Order as you know <gill-rock> )

My only loss came to the Chun-li that beat out diversity.

I was mostly mono-all, although I did splash 3 life-only cards, revanants... uh yeah, your discussion on revanants is spot on, it is a very versatile card.

- dut

One thing about air when it comes to control pieces is its very easy to splash in chaos to get things like oral dead and red lotus into its lineup.

Also I'm still going to prove fio is awesome come nats, watch out for it.

epicness man, epicness! i like this thread. i'll def be playing one of these three symbols.

if you want to win you should too guys.

Scott Gaines said:

Agreed, and disagreed. I think you should play a symbol that you enjoy and are comfortable with. There are at least another 2 symbols that can compete with the 3 mentioned, but becuase of the degree that these 3 symbols have soldified themselves in the meta, and the desire to go with what is proven/comfortable, I highly doubt we will see a lot of innovation, especially from the top players

- which, to be fair to the game and players, is perfectly fine. There comes a point where something proven reaches a certain efficiency that is hard to turn one's back on for something that is simply different/(not proven to be any better).

- dut

Don't forget the best evil attack...TIGER FURY

I won't play a symbol that I'm not comfortable playing. I did so at the Canadian Nationals and look where it got me.

This was not meant to say these are the only symbols and you shouldn't play others. This was more of an informative post stating that these symbols have been on top lately, and here is what they do, etc. This was more aimed at the up and coming UFS stars and new players. Obviously the veterans have a feeling for what is good and why.

But yes, I would encourage you to play whatever deck/symbol you are most comfortable with, just be ready to handle Air, Evil, and Order

Tuesday said:

heh, how could I ever forget that.

don't forget, order has defender loop 2.

Just a couple thoughts to add to Matt here.

Air has two more attacks that I feel are worth mentioning. Charlies Fierce Punch, and Sonic Boom EXTRA.

Charlies fierce punch is a great attack at 4 dif, as you can lead off a turn with it or play it at the end of a chain of attacks. The E on it lets you kill a foundation if another copy of it is in play, between mirror matches, and fighting against an oponents control pieces this can be extremely usefull. Its one of those attacks that your opponent doesn't want to let it hit, so they will use control to stop the E, or hack the check to play it, or use a block to fully block it. I like it as a lead attack as I know my opponet will do something about the attack, so I can follow it up with something like Feline Spike or Tiger Furry (Both of which are also High attacks) Of course you do need to be carefull tossing it if your opponent has Bitter Rivials out, but thats true for most attacks nowadays.

Sonic Boom EXTRA is great in air, as its low difficulty lets you toss it out after something like a fully multipled feline spike and still only need to roll a 7. With all the momentum Generation most air decks will be running, especially Lord of the Makai, its not too difficult to stock up momentum. With the powerful 2 on Sonic Boom EXTRA even 3 momentum turns it into a 10 Damage attack, that again as a follow up to some of airs other attacks can be that final bit of damage needed to kill. It even has a nifty static text ability that can make using an attack to block it impossible to do.

I agree with Matt Undercover Agent should find a home in any deck that can run it. Like Revnants, it really helps controll the grey wars, as your opponent has to deal with it or watch his board go sideways.

Finally on a very minor note, my top 8 Rock Howard at path of the master was Order/ALL. The deck had 10-12 cards that only had all or order, the rest had both order and all, and 4 cards only sharded life (Rejection) but dosent really change the numbers you are comparing.

On a final note, I would not be suprised to see ALL make top eight at nationals either. With Controller of Souls and Chesters it can control/cancel any card in your opponents staging area, and Kung-Fu Training covers action cards. Bitter Rivals can handle most of the Kill condition cards. You still get BRT for a little Hax, and Saikyo-Ryu and the Action side of Unorthodox Training can completely strip your opponents hand. I have had a lot of fun Using Antisocial, Saikyu-Ryu, and Unorthodox Training to strip my opponents hand, then use the E on Ancient Fighting Style to go into my turn with a massive number of cards in hand and go for the kill.

My two cents

Umigame

Umigame said:

Stop giving away ALL of ALL's secrets! hehe ^^

- dut

dutpotd said:

ps. you are missing the best part of the Ancient Battle Style Combo, glad you aren't giving it away too!!!

OMG Matt Kohls writes an article the sky is falling lol..

Good stuff though Matt is pretty much sums up the meta right now. Hopefully with the 2 new reprints and the bans things will change though .

dutpotd said:

the secrets are safe. that was close

dutpotd said:

All is hoss right now, anyone fails to see it is definately missing something.

Granted it isnt effected by nats but the latest bans really tear All a new one.

I have travelled abit this year going to various regionals and running one myself and went to can nats. From what i've seen in the current meta, and playing people and what not this are my feelings on the meta. So I wish to add to Matt's analysis.
If I had to give tiers to UFS right now it would be as such:

Top
Air
Order, Evil
All and Fire (as standalone), Chaos and Good (as support symbols only)
Death, Earth,Void
Water, Life

Matt covered air/order/evil fairly well.
Air has the speed to be relevant, and as matt stated order and evil have the control to make it.
As you may notice all those symbols have relevant olcadan's protection, with air having upwards of 8 slots, order has 4 slots, and evil also has 8 slots aswell.
All does have the nice comboniation of kung fu training, yoga adept, chester's backing, and controller of souls to cover anything that may threaten it, but unfortunately it tends to fold like an accordian to order's committing power and it can't just close games with spiral arrow + hard hack/ commit. As of now, it's best kill now it dark force mirage body + lots of card drawing and an instant kill on the same turn the DFMB hits.
Fire has not proven itself but I do believe it can catch many people off guard as a symbol that uses speed to attack which is currently unconventional because people can't rely on their hand so much to protect itself.
Good and chaos have been demoted to symbols that people will dual symbol main just for destiny and some cool stuff that those symbols provide. They tend to be couple with order to provide some versality to the standard builds. Chaos is also used to shore up some of evil's weaknesses like lack of momentum, and card drawing and card recursion to make sure that the deck gets some card advantage going.
Death, earth, void, water and life are symbols I have little fear of, or respect for quite frankly. I have yet to lose to one of these decks, and these decks are some what lacking in speed or relevant control pieces, or they are unable to provide a kill in consistant manner.

Symbols to watch out for in order:

1) Chun Li
2) Evil
3) Order
4) Air

Air is only better than evil and order if the Air deck is Chun Li or has Chun Li in the sideboard. I don't mind fighting Air decks with non Chun Li characters much at all. Attacks only on your opponent's turn... I can deal with that.

Well it will be interesting in the team event with so many good cards very tightly within evil order and air overlap that it will be interesting when decks are being made. Team SUPER DYNAMIC COOKING TIME will be there from Rochester Just for the team event. So Matt I hope my team plays yours in that event cause I have to return home that night to attend my bro's graduation. I know you want that rematch and I wanna except that rematch.

PaulBittner said:

Bittner rarely posts, but when he does he is spot on! (Chun-li, her own symbol... - yuck, the truth is leaving a sour taste in my mouth)

I suppose I should add some of my own analysis... I come from the other side of the coin. Instead of saying what is prevalent, I will attempt to break down the ways to overcome it as I see it (albeit there are few).

(assumption : you need an answer to Olcadon's or you better be killing turn 2 to stand a chance, becuase without this you will lose any control game that goes past turn 3 against any of these 3 symbols). Operation - KILL THE OWL.

(assumption : you also need an answer for Spinta nowadays, Spinta is actually Olcadon's Father, Jedah told me so after a few drinks the other night. You need to a) red lotus it up, b) enhance negation it to hell, c) cry like a baby, d) run skull, or e) run cheap powerful attacks and smack your opponent with 8 momentum of powerful 2 after his 4th Spinta... Really strong decks run a combination of one or more of these answers)

EVIL:

Evil is only as strong as it is lately (or even stands a chance against Air and other insane agro <see Feline Spike> ) becuase of two cards that save it, Bitter Rivals and Rejection . If you plan on killing an Evil deck you pretty much have to be able to overcome these two cards.

If you plan on surviving Evil you have to be able to at least have an answer for control hacks, whether it lies in response negation, willful, destiny etc. It will push it's kill through if you don't.

There are two cards that Evil has that I call 'tricky business', these cards will appear in any Evil Deck and seem to multiply the higher up in the ranks you go. They are... Manifest Destiny and Anti-K . To defeat 'tricky business' you have to THINK. Do not give your opponent an opportunity to use these cards and you will beat an Evil player. A really good Evil player manufactures his own ways to use Manifest Destiny, usually, this involves sacrificing some resources that he shouldn't or by exposing himself to a card pool card (aka your +1 speed) and you need to take advantage of this.

ps. Hanzo is Special. He usually asks to be killed moreso than any other Evil character becuase a lot of resources are usually devoted to a consistent push through and not necessarily on defense. Just keep this in mind.

Common answers to Evil include...

1) Protecting your own Bitter Rivals to force the discard of Rejection and/or change a zone back to block...

2) Running alot of attacks, an agro character and getting lucky with your bad checks. Wait a sec, that is the way to kill anything... Luck. Ignore #2, just my wishful thinking.

3) Blanking stuff on your kill turn and having an answer for Rejection

4) Get rid of it's attacks, either play extremely defensively or with selective discard. This also requires you to have a bigger deck and to have a LOT of patience.

5) take advantage of the fact that Evil can't draw worth sh1t. Bait Revanants. Seriously, it is almost an Evil player habit to respond with Revanants, count your cards and the damage you can do, count theirs and their defense, account for their last card being Rejection, and smack them in the face.

6) RUN ANTI HACK. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU HEARD - MAINBOARD WILLFUL IF YOU CAN, MAINBOARD DESTINY IF YOU CAN. YOU WILL THANK ME LATER.

ORDER :

Order... What can I say about Order. Honestly, and Tag said it somewhere else, you need to kill Order fast or it will lock you down and gain the upperhand it wants. This is why Mina is such a hard match-up for almost everything but Air, and a certain Evil deck needed to mill her to win a couple games at PotM.

Personally, I find most Order decks play with few attacks, either they loop something once they have everything in place and under control, or they splash Spike (see Donovan) and catch you with your pants down. To this extent, the best way to kill Order is too... take advantage of those turns when they play their whole **** hand out (becuase they check so well...).

Do have an answer to mass committal (the main culprit here is Experienced Combatant ), if you can answer this, you are allowed to fight back, i.e. use your pieces to kill the way you envisioned when you put them in your deck. The only way to survive Order is to outbuild it and play defensively, watch it make a mistake and lose all of it's few and far between attacks and a) strike, or b) watch as the Order player tries to get through his deck to find more... Surprisingly enough, this also means having an answer for control hacks, see #6 above.

Common answers to Order include...

1) Revanant's Calling. Almost all Order decks double up on stuff and take turns upon turns to maliciously lock you down and gain an advantage before attacking. Discarding isn't a problem usually, because most Order decks run so few attacks. Stopping one of two Program Malfunctions/Chinese Boxing is a really big deal. Revanant's also ends most degenerate loops that happen on the same turn (see Defender), so yeah, it kills two birds with one stone.

2) Low difficulty attacks with good enchances on them. Seriously folks, Order rarely has negation (unless you count hacks), except for skull, it always runs skull. If you can pass that 4 difficulty attack with a sweet enhance on it, you are usually laughing.

3) Run things that are 'playable while commited'. Order hates these cards. Order cries when it sees a card like this. A really good one is Cervantes Starter Exclusive for control check boost, block them Arrows!

4) GET RID OF THE TENACIOUS. This card is a serious problem considering Order runs few attacks. Order only has 4 commonly used cards that prevent destruction (or at least off the top of my head), they also have that dirty old man Jedah on them... If your Olcadon's ain't committed... see Experienced Combatant... Go for the Tenacious if you can, response negate the silly Jedah card, blank it or something - and use your Olcadon's on THIS CARD.

5) Target your strategy against Order. If you are using autoblocks like Mysterious Stance, make sure Amy's and Experienced are dealth with. If you have trouble with Spinta, play with cards that allow you to build faster than your opponent (Draw + Valeria's/Anti-social/1 and 0 diffs/etc.)

6) The best way to beat Order is to notice 'what they don't have on the field'. Order is so very cokkie-cutter. What they haven't drawn into and played tells you a lot about where their weakness lies and a lot about how much longer you have to live (well live with foundations ready). Pick you poison carefully, target your attack, and for gosh sakes, go play Order and find out what it is that makes it tick.

AIR :

Tell me how I'm supposed to breath with no air? All bad song lyrics aside, you will feel this way after a major tourney. There is a lot of really accomodating Air cards around that appeal to many players. Let's face it, who wants to play Evil? Usually players that are a) old UFS-ers who have loved this symbol forever, or new UFS-ers who are sick and twisted and think Evil is cool. Who wants to play Order? Just those maniacal, 'I have complete control over this game' players. It takes a certain type to play Order, let me tell you... Air? Air is just 'Air-beats' as some players put it. You have to have an answer to Air's attacks, becuase, this is where most of it's power lies. Spinta, check, Heel Snipe, check, insert any killer multiple card, check. I hate playing against Air. I'll tell it to you all straight. It hurts to play against Air. It can kill you if you make one mistake (see Spike), it can lock you down here and there (see Chinese and Spinta), and it has insanely good control checks - after seeing three 6s checked against you in a row you will think Air is the $%^&*(.

My most consistent way to kill Air is to 'hang in there'. Invariably they will check poorly, and invariably they will force their hand. 'If' you survive (this means carrying 4 high block cards on you at any time after turn 3) you can counter with Air committed and kill it. That is the rule with Air, especially Air Chun-li, it starts the game ahead of you and you are trying to catch up. Sadly, if you attack (i.e. don't bide your time) and they have a Spike in their hand to reversal or next turn kill you fully committed with, or draw into one, or tag along one, ... yuck. You can't attack Air unless you are stripping it's hand along the way. That is a rule. Especially with Turnaboot and Feline, these things kill you on your turn. Don't ATTACK, hide like a baby, and run Psycho Style... Air has a hard time with commital, it has one counter commit card that is worth any sort of beans, that being Perfect Sense of Balance, which... wait for it, doesn't actually protect Air, it just says nananana-bobo, I commit you too.

Air is not a lockdown symbol, but it is a selective field symbol. It likes to loop Spinta, usually a bit better than Order (barring Mina). It will pick at your good stuff and leave you with junk. You can't rely on what will be in front of you. You usually have to rely on blocks... And they usually work... to an extent.

Chun-li is coming. Almost any Air deck can side Chun-li realistically, as long as the rest of the board is dedicated to addressing her inherant weakness. Which is sometimes momentum gain. Momentum hate works quite well on Chun-li I find. Obviously this is in tandem with Spinta hate. If you are using things like Cursed Blood or Yoga Adept, going after momentum gain pieces (especially Lord of the Makai) is really a good strategy I find.

It's weird, but a good way to contend with Chunster is to run 'form' cards to confuse her response frame. It is also helpful in keeping your card pool clear so that playing the Tag Along isn't on a 7 difficulty, but rather just the 5 like it was intended to be...

Common anwers to Chun-li, OOPS, I mean Air include...

1) Commit that character! Pommel/Psycho/Bomb/Manifest/AssassinationArts/etc.

2) Negate those responses! Note, you really have to put a lot into this becuase Air has this really silly card called Inhuman Perception. Realistically, only Death with Preventing and Inhuman has the ability to out respond Air, and it loses out a bit against Chester's in the process.

3) Momentum Hate and Multiple Hate. Gauranteed, Air will kill with a multiple. At least, I'm pretty sure it will. The problem usually isn't stopping the multiple, it is keeping your ability to stop throughout the stuff that precedes it, Spinta/Snipe/Chinese.

4) Rampant Enhance Negation

5) Strong reversals? Yeah, watch that Air character fill it's pool with multiples and try to block the reversal coming back at it.

6) Hack, and hack for the anti-hack willful. Acutally, Evil has a decent time with Air as long as it 'expects' the Air player to have Willful and a) doesn't hack, or b) negates willful with Kung-fu/Skull/Yoga Adept.

I hope some of my ramblings help some players think of things against the current top 3 symbols. I know, at the very least, my block text helps me recall and remember a number of useful ways to at least contend with the "power 3 and Chun-li" (that rhymes btw).

- dut

dutpotd said:

wow man, you just stole all my thunder for the next discussion I was working on

Deck Don't Matter - of course I want that rematch, see you at Nats

Trane - D loop dropped off the competitive radar recently due to the superior Spiral Order builds. The D loop can be effective, but I would not expect to see a D loop deck in the top cuts of Nats.

Umigame - all good points. I think Charlie's and SBEx are both really good too, especially SBEx. However, the top Air decks right now just can't fit these attacks in, and are opting instead for Heel Snipe, Ira Spinta, and multiples.

Shajir - I pretty much agree with your tiers, however, I think that each of those bottom 5 symbols gets a boost after the bannings take effect. Death, Earth, and Water could be effective. I still have my doubts on life. Void will be good in a couple of characters - namely Akuma and Chun Li.

Death becomes arguably the best control symbol though.
Death has Evil Doer Destroyer and No Memories to deal with enhances, Oral Dead to deal with Forms, and Trapped in a Nightmare, Charismatic, and Inhuman Perception to deal with responses. Combine that with the Revenant's Calling and Dead for 1000 Years to hit everything else, and Perfect Sense of Balance to fight committal, and it's shaping up to be a pretty nasty staging area. Cursed Blood and Hulking Brute can help accelerate Death's building.

All really takes a hit with the bannings and probably will not be a contender for Worlds, depending on what Tekken 6 brings us.
Order gets hurt the least of the big 3 from the bannings and will continue to be a dominant symbol. Certain characters like Seong Mi-Na really hurt from the loss of Lord of the Makai, but most of the Spiral decks don't even care.
Air loses it's best control and momentum gen, so it takes quite a hit. However, it does have some backup in each department, so it will definitely still be competitive. I would look for End it All and Undercover Agent to start showing up more often in Air to compensate for the lost Chesters. Air also loses a bunch of 6cc between the 3 banned cards and whatever Olcadan's protection that people decide to remove. Lord of the Makai might still see some play to counter Charismatic, which will surely see a rise in play due to the banning of the Owl.
Evil clearly stands below Order after the loss of Chesters.

mattkohls said:

Sorry man, late night ramblings on my part. You will just have to bring the Lightning I suppose ^^

- dut

I don't know if we can expect to see End It All making many appearances -- while it does have excellent stats, Air has fairly weak card draw options to pay for the cost; Abelia's, Counter the Assault, or Kabuki Artist are probably the most playable, and all of them are 2-diff that commit for +1 card. Starting with 7HS, dropping 2 for End, then trying to balance attacks, additional hand costs (Natural Leader, Inhuman Perception), and defense/foundations after the attack -- that's stretching a few cards a long way, even if you supplement it with some card draw.

Wafflecopter said:

This is one of those very situational things. End it All can be great, or it can be absolutely useless. At the very least it will see play in some decks becuase of it's stats. Spammable and with a 6 check is sometimes all it takes to see an appearance in agressive (attack heavy) decks.

- dut