Do you guys choose your decks first and then choose your characters or vice versa. When choosing a character what are your criteria for character selection? How important is handsize, and do you look for "broken" abilities to abuse like Ibuki, Yun-Seong, Matt Kohls etc. When choosing a character do you choose abilities that are within the scope of the resources. Or do you choose a character that has abilities that do not correspond to the resources in question.

An example of this would be evil Ukyo or death Donovan. Ukyo gives evil, two things it normally doesn't have access to such as card drawing and discard, and Donovan gives death card drawing and card clearing, something that it normally lacks.

An example of the latter would be Water Donovan - a symbol that already has access to card drawing and card clearing.

Some of my main criteria for character and deck selection is hw much of a board presence the deck can generate and how potential card draw does the deck have aswell.

I choose whatever will make my buddy desire vengeance after he plays it. deck building kinda goes back and forth between us like that. who can out broken the other. ahhh, good times.

Me personally I first look at the character's ability and then try to make a deck that synergizes off if it and that depends upon the symbol then afterwards test it out.

I try to build from the character. If I see a character with a nice ability I break out the boxes and see if something can be made to work with that ability. For example Lizardman off water. I liked his response alot so I than decided which selection of cards will make that more playable. Ended up with water for it's new found control aspect and abundance of reversals which help overcome the natural downside to a five handsize.

But generaly I like to build the character not really minding what symbol(s) it is as long as it dosen't end up a total failure of course there have been some of those as well.

1) Character abilities

What does the character do? If it's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, I may actually still play it, but if his abilities don't further my deck's chance at victory why would I play him over anyone else? More specifically, what cards/abilities can I access while playing him. Example, playing Raphael gives you access to Death Puppet, a pretty easily Fight or Flighed attack, especially with Raphael.

2) Symbol spread

Ever since I've started dual-symboling decks it's been hard to stop, ergo I've made sure that symbol spread is perfect for the deck I will build. When I first looked at Hanzo3, for example, it's really because he had Air/Earth with those abilities that I wanted to play him.

4) HS/Vit ratio

Generally I pick those after I've picked the character, if he has multiple versions. For example, I find it's more profitable in the long run to run Zangief5 due to the 32/6 ratio and then stack Zangief4 rather than run Zangief4 out of the box for a 33/5 ratio.

I always pick a character before building the deck. This is because I tend to place a blend of picking the character for their abilities with picking them for who they are. For example, I am well aware that Zangief:: is very powerful, but I would never ever want to play him, as I've never liked Zangief as a character.

I think that for deckbuilding, it makes more sense to play the deck around the character rather than the character around the deck. This is because you can only ever be sure that you will always have your character out during a game. I also can't imagine it's very effective to tack a character like Talbain3 or Donovan1 into a ready-built deck. I think some people might try to do so just to prove a point (Building an effective deck out of Promo Rikuo or some such frivolity), but I find it difficult to believe that people would build the deck before the character often. People have their favourites, I'm sure they'd rather play those than characters who aren't their favourite just for better effects.

I pick the char first, based on fanboyness, then build the deck around it in the most competitive and powerlevel high way I can manage.

That is pretty much the official method of the entire Olexa Playgroup to be honest.

I look for interesting abilites/symbol spreads. I usually have a character in mind when I build a deck, but sometimes I want to build a symbol, and look for characters with that symbol.

failed2k said:

I do this, except that "most competitive I can manage" usually ends up only semi-good.

But after I do that I will very often try adapting the deck's use of its core symbol to another character I like. It usually ends up changing the deck into something else, but it generally starts with "I've got this Water/Good/etc. deck I like using character X, I'll try to see how I can adapt it to character Y who I also like".

I always take a character and take every good card on multiple resources and see what I have to work with . A lot of my building often merges into a dual or tri resource deck. So I guess my philosophy doesnt work for single resource building all the time haha...

I usually build a deck based around a symbol or two I want to play, and then find a character. Sometimes it can be hard to find a character that matches the 2 symbols I want to use (especially if I don't look first.) But since there are only 3 symbol combinations that have not been used on a character so far, it tends to work out.

And for anyone interested, the 3 combos are All/Earth/Order, All/Life/Water, Fire/Order/Water. The only 3 I cannot find in my binder (And I own every character) and I could not find on THD.

Sometimes, I will find a character I want to play, or try out, and build a deck to take the most advantage of their abilities.

I've really only played what I considered two competitive decks in the block two format.

One: Huitzil* who was played merely for his terrible hand size and symbol spread. Anyone who got hit with this giant robot can attest to the nastiness. He was a card, fortune and glory, and marginally making a 4hs character work as kind of a challenge for me So he was built on a character and synergy with one card, that devolped into something else.

Two: Ukyo** rediculous abilities + evil symbol. No brainer he had top tier written on him from conception. Again chosen for character.

Recently though I find I build a deck then match a character over it that provides good synergy. Reverse engineering maybe? or I start with broken character

Either way I think players should build both ways just to expand their horizons!

Viewtiful_Joe said:

I do that too ^^

Yeah i tend to choose character first, then work around that.

Gasp Shajir you said br0%en, LOCK THE THREAD AND BOARD THE WINDOWS!

Heh seriously though in the beginning it was just characters I liked: Whether it be 5HS UR Zangief or Promo Charlotte (my first ever Promo won ). It didn't help mind you that the symbols I played were Void and Fire either though.

These days I look towards abilities before anything else. Bisamon has a five hand size, but has a stellar ability. Same could be said for folks like Dan, Promo Balrog, or the new Promo Zagief.

I build decks based on characters I've liked from games (Vega, Voldo) as well as just some cool-looking characters that would rock for my wind deck, which I have about 8 now.

It really depends on what I'm doing. My starting point for building decks tend to fall among the following:

• The ability seems strong, and I want to see what I can do with it.
• I want to accomplish "this" <whatever this may be>, and character X will help me accomplish this.
• Prove a point <See 4 HS Gaira mill from Can Nats 07>
• Testing to see if something really is "broken"
• It's a popular deck type, and someone in my meta has to run is so that the other players can figure out how to deal with it.

I don't have a specific rhyme or reason behind what drives my building. I also frequently build extra decks for my significant other, or friends, so I have to keep them in mind when starting with a fresh deck.

I can start with a Character and build multiple decks to test for the best build in particular metas... I like characters with unique and good effect, good symbol support and good character support, like Block 1 Dhalsim or Block 2 Ibuki or more recently Talbain

or

I can start with a non-character card, e.g., Block 1 & 2 8th bill (punching Dhalsim + 8th bill) or Block 2 Self-Sacrifice (Alba, Sophitia, and Athena) and build decks around it.

or

I can start with a concept and find cards and characters to optimize the concept, e.g., Block 1 CC hack (Super-rare Vega).

Whatever works that gives me a competitive deck with consistency and better yet some surprise (headache) for my opponents.

I typically get a character, think "Ohey, that sounds cool/interesting, time to build a deck". And then I fiddle with it until I find what I like best. A good example for this would be Soiree, which started out as a tri-symbol deck used to loop Ira-Spinta like mad. Now it generates momentum and gives you a Love Tap.

Sometimes, it'll be "hum, I want to make a mill/aggro/control/combo deck that wins/does X thing" and find a character with the right symbols/ability for the job, and go from there. A great example for this one was my *Felicia* for the Broken Leg event, who used nothing but low attacks and would frequently nail people with a 9 damage Valkyrie Turn on turn 1 (going second), or my ***Donovan*** deck built to use Self-Sacrifice; this last was a case of noticing a card with amazing potential, and putting it in something that happened to be able to play the ability to full effect. That said, he's very aggro, and that's a very heavy control piece, so it's not in his actual playstyle; it's more of a taunt than anything else, really =/

And then there's the usual fanboy in me; it leads to all kinds of things, like my immediate choices of Sankuro for Earth Patch and secret character of awesome for Water patch. It also explains things like how I can love bad characters, just because I like the character, or how I can come to love characters in-game because I like their UFS incarnations (Ibuki, Ukyo, Chae, Soiree, etc), or "I want to make a really brutal Ken deck, time to put the thinking cap on!"

Starter Ken + Searching for a Real Challenge + TWOP = <3 (add a dash of Dark Force for more fun!)

I do not really have a method for character selection, but I usually do not start with the character first. Often is the time when I'll wait for some inspirational combo, and that sometimes involves using a specific character's ability. With my Worlds and CTN Yun-Seong, I was originally considering what I could do with a bunch of some Set 10 cards that I thought had great potential. Namely, I wanted to do some good stuff with Lightning Sword and/ or High Plasma Beam (< that's before it was "good"). I was mulling over the best possible symbol, matching foundation base, and then character choice for LS and HPBeam that would allow me to capitalize and showcase on those two cards. On the way home from a tournament, I considered Yun-Seong and how he would let me use all my Dark Messiah and Ultimate and Immortal twice per turn. At the same time, I also wanted to cash in on the Order Aggro craze that I had noticed. Furthermore, I was relatively experienced with Order at that time having built my silly Tri-Symbol Athena that I had to take apart because CSS got banned (< I also started that deck way before it was "good"). I refined Yun-Seong a month after it was built with MGoose's help and it was no longer your typical aggro deck.

In the same vein as "inspiration," when Set 9 came out, I wanted to do something with any of the new cards that caught my eye. One of those cards was Ready for Anything. I immediately tried a Mr. Karate-turned-new-Zangief deck with it at home after the pre-release and thought that the deck was utter rubbish (I tried to do too much too quickly with 5 and 6HS). Maybe two weeks later on the way to a tournament, I was considering how nobody even looked at Adon1 since his errata (as far as I knew) and what I could do to show his faceless critics up. Adon1 is (I think) the only form of card pool clearing that Fire has, it doesn't matter where the attacks go, so I really saw some niche potential in him. It didn't take me very long to realize that Adon1's effect was exactly what a Ready for Anything deck needs, and that Challenge the Master and Taking the Bait (+ Misdirection) added another layer of synergy on my attack turn. So yeah, I was hurling 10+ damage Neck Chokes, Jumping Shotei, Clones, Cutlass Serendipity, and Forward Kicks in no time at all.

Currently, I'm thinking about a Block 3 deck that retains the level of control that I'm used to. Having said that, I figured that things would be best if I crossed 3 symbols: Air, Earth, and Order. I get a full range of all the good foundation control that I need, plus the foundations that I'm interested in generally match 2 of those symbols. But my character options blow because I need at least 7 HS to multi-symbol effectively, considering the terrible draw/recursion in Block 3. I remembered my good times with Seal of Structure, a completely overlooked card period, so perhaps that can substitue for the Order symbol. Still, the best charcater that I am left with for my purposes is Chun-Li3 and she rotates. I've looked at my other options and the new Hanzo (I'll cut FLFK if I need space to achieve my goals ) is looking like a fine choice because I can swap my Order symbol chaining for Evil and I don't lose a thing. Now, if only I had access to my cards...

If any reader can discern my answer to the OP's question, good for them because I'm somewhat lost myself. In any event, I don't really care about my character choice at all; I just want to play specific cards before good cards and to find the best way to do that. I need motivation to build a new deck, and I need motivation to improve it after I build it. My cardinal rule for building a deck is that the deck must be doing something that I have not seen anywhere that is fairly unexpected. Gotta be different from the rest of my comrades by any means.