Heya guys.

It's been 5 days since the amazing as new banlist came into effect and i've been playing around with more decks than other. I was wondering what everyone's top 5 Charcters list was in the US meta?

My personal list ( Uk player)

Top 1. Promo Zi mei

2. Promo Gill

3. Starter Akuma

4. Jon herr

5. Realm of midnight Felicia

Zi mei- What can I say? Death and evil and fire is a brilliant lineup ( death) shes' a Female, problem committal, free damage bonus and promotes Aggro. Perfect, the best character in the game hands down IMO.

Promo Gill- 8Hs with death and uhhh... good 8Hs is 8HS

Starter Akuma- while he might struggle for a kill condition now he still is probably the strongest charcter as far as being a charcter alone is concerned.

Jon herr- Can you say consistency?

Felicia- Uber aggro and Feline spike is Feline spike.

Your lists would be really appreciated guys

Thanks

Now useless Hanzo

Haven't played any games under the new banlist, but just from gut feeling:

1. Hilde

2. Victor

in no particular order:

hilde

akuma

john herr

promo blanka

seong mina

Hugo is numbah one!

Astaroth and Astrid look like they have a lot of potential aswell

Hilde

Gill

Akuma

Donovan

Tira

In no particular order, little thought and with zero post banning play testing:

-Promo Blanka off of death. Death lost nothing with this upheaval. IMO it was always almost there and balanced. With the booting of the broken stuff it has easily risen to the top. Blanka gives death the momentum for Dancing menuette and POTE when it's finally released.

- Zi Mei off of death or evil. Evil will be shifting back to agro-hybrid roots and what better character is there for this role? Evil has a ton of damage pump that it was never able to use b/c broken cards had to be played. With the decline of order and the booting of owlface evil can lose cards like Oral dead and Lotus the builder is feeling particullary agressive.

-Andrew Olexa off of Air. Even with all the cards lost, Vega clone boy can easily generate enough momentum for heavy hitting cards like menutte and mark of the beast. Throw in a new low and bam ghetto feline spike. Also nutty is a new low with zi mei's wheel kick.

- Donovan off of death. Use shredding Vibratto and be amazed how crazy it can get. I got turned two'd last week while playing Hata 2. Thats 28 life in one turn on turn two...felt like legacy lol.

-Hilde, until people start sideboarding Yang 2 against her... i know I can't be the only person to think of that.

Akuma - Lost next to nothing in the bans. His mere existence says that you can kill off at least one of your opponent's cards every turn, and that's not even including Seclusion. While Destiny kills him and his R, his E Commit is one of the most broken in the game.

Donovan - Unlike Gill, he actually has abilities and isn't popular due to a DEAD ARCHETYPE.

Seong Mi-Na - IMO got more powerful thanks to bans. Still abusing Ira-Spinta better than anyone, still a tank, and with Feline Spike gone, good luck killing her.

Andrew Olexa - More CCHax BS that this game doesn't need, mixed with A New Low and Ira-Spinta.

Zi Mei - While she can't seem to ever win events, she certainly seems to top 8 every single one of them. She lost next to nothing from the bans IMO.

Sakura, Promo Guy, Zi Mei, Zangief, Hilde.

...

#1 = Akuma, or Gouki as I have been recently told.

There is no denying this, have a strong Akuma player play against a strong Zei Mei player... Although close, the Akuma player actually deals damage on par with her (can push through early attacks with hack) assuming he knows how to block, the Akuma will almost always come out on top. It is close... This sometimes becomes a case of who gets what first, red lotus vs. manifest. Akuma wins in my mind becuase he has Yoga Adept first turn, and can turn the opponent's 4 foundation run into a 3 foundation turn, or a 3 foundation turn into a 2, etc. This is big. Top on Anti-k and Akuma can be pretty mean.

What you have to realize is that Akuma's weaknesses are a') hack response, aka willful or well planted destiny, a) response negation, b) anti-commital, and c) the fact he can't run Tag Along... He is the only character left in the meta that I feel like I am actually starting a foundation behind against which makes him #1 for me.

#2 = Felicia

I'm not gonna beat around the bush, Feline Spike can kill better now with Rejection gone... and overcoming her 6 hs isn't hard with water/air... she also comes with 27 life, which is a lot for an agro player to hide behind. Also, no Bitter means that all of her attacks (Spike/Spinta/Snipe) stay in her hand. I'm biased becuase I've been building Felicia for almost a year now for a buddy of mine who more or less strictly players her and Leona (also a contender btw), and he is always VERY sucessful with her, and was today winning our weekly with ease against my Donovan in the final, 2X Feline Spike turn 3 = death, and not the symbol.

#3 = Zei Mei

She has similar weaknesses to Akuma. Basically, a well planted Torn Hero with momentum can hurt her early. Again... no Tag Along. Death helps, becuase it has counter, i.e. it's own response negation.

#4 = Olexa

I think he is significantly harder to win early with, menuett isn't feline, in more ways than one... But a calculated Olexa, one that abuses what air still has for control, can probably win most games in the middle stages.

#5 = Herr

I think he is great simply becuase of his consistency. Playing 4 foundations 90% of games first turn is a very strong proposition. I think water is maybe his new strongest symbol...

Honerable mention - Mina... I think she is a bit easier to play against now (no flames please!!!). She used to be really powerful becuase of the combined pick apart/comeback game that Ira and Olcadon's provided as a group. i.e. Spinta away Olc answers and go with that. Now that Water/Life/Earth are all a bit more playable (less Olcadon's) Calming the Mind might be used more appropriately, if not mainboard, then in a sideboard for sure, and this can hurt her huge... I think her toughest matchups are Chaos, Good, and Evil... maybe Life. Definately something that can run Tag Along also hurts.

I think that Hilde/Yang/others have very strong first/second turn agro option... I also think that they are overshadowed 7/10 in a long game becuase of what they dedicate to the early game.

There are a lot of other characters that are viable, Frogase/Gen/Guy/Tira/etc.

I don't buy Gill as a top player without something very solid to build towards. What a lot of people need to realize is that the reason his 8hs was amazing was becuase he could pass 4+ cards a turn, fearing only 4 2 checks, maybe 6-7 depending if you go spinta. Aside from that, very few 3s, and that's it. When you can be 85% sure of hitting a 4, you build a lot faster. I think Gill w/o few attacks is not that great. He can still do plasma beam... But yeah, this isn't as easy as it looks.

I agree that Gief is powerful, but very few players are collected enough to play him well enough to win consistently. There are also a lot of answers, and run off of fire/evil/order that answer the character. Also, MAC hurts 6hs a lot... Espeically ones that don't have response negation (shy of seal of course). A well placed TOS also kills a lot of Gief in my opinion. It'll be interesting to see what happens here.

I played as Donovan today, albeit an extremly wonky trisymbol using Darkforce M Body (I got to get over this card somehow)... He is good, definately a contender, and I understand the Vibrato sentiments. Just don't think he is top 5, top 10, for sure.

- dut

Akuma - Hands down I think the best character in the game. He can play control or aggro with his ability set and symbols, and combos HUGE with some cards (Heel snipe). Multiple Viable builds as well.

Nagase - Numbers dont lie. 7/22 with a momentum generation abiltity in a field which just had it's good generation stripped. 3 viable symbols. Once again a character that can also go control or aggro and has amazing combo potential (Ntype, The bigger they are)

Zhao Daiyu - I fully believe she is the most powerful 6HS character in the game (including alex in this equation.) She has access to what i would consider the single most powerful attack in the game right now, and that is over Ispin and Spike and anything else. Twlight embrace is just that good. Both incarnations of her have abilities that are relevant to the current state of the game, including automatic hatred for tag along. More control than aggro i think but i can see it going either way. In the long run probably would lose the aggro vs aggro match against akuma or kimei but all the same.

Hildie - She does massive damage by playing control pieces. No other character does that. High aggro potential and if she fails to kill shes got a staging area full of redux. Rejection leaving also boosts her crazy amounts cause she didnt use it anyways, and she really didnt lose any tools from the recent bannings. The very nature of her character is aggro and control at all times, which is crazy.

Donovan - He also sorta stands out in a crowd. His ability set is unique and free. Hes got great symbols, and has the fundamental 7HS.

IMHO, far too much of the background of this question hinges on how much we'll see the big-handsize Order decks, or whatever form of proactive commit effects you can come up with. For example, Fire Zi Mei really doesn't have many options against getting her ass turned sideways three ways to Tuesday, but she's got some absurd damage potential with Fury of the Ancients, as well as fairly strong aggressive commit options of her own (Pommel Smash, her R) plus optional Spintas, Yoga Adepts, what have you, which together make her a terror for any deck that just wants to sit back, slow the game down, then win with a very strong mid/late game.

That said, I really think it's impossible to argue that Hilde doesn't have a place in the top 5. She's got the biggest T2 potential of anyone in the game -- she drops a Healer T1 and you can't deal with it, make sure you have a Seal down or something. If she can protect her board, she can drag the game on for hours against aggro decks. She's even got a healthy build speed -- only requiring one attack to land means very few dead cards or low control checks, and access to Cursed Blood and Buddhist Devotion on two symbols plus Order's draw options...

Personally, my picks for the rest are Ibuki (she still has Defender loop (= plus T1 potential), Akuma , Gen and Sagat . The latter two are just based on the strength of the Earth symbol -- I might be wrong here, but I think it's got WAY too many tools to simply survive for way too long, a bundle of things for the control war, some really insane damage pumps (in orange, blue and grey varieties) and hell some decent mill options (WW Warriors)

Protoaddict said:

Mhm!

dutpotd said:

The whole appeal of Gill was his 8/20 (amazing stats) which, coupled with Aquakinesis, meant he generally drew into what he needed. He could pass Combatant, Malfunction, AND Chinese Boxing in one turn, along with Forethought, and begin the lockdown lameness courtesy of Juni's Spiral Arrow. With JSA banned, the entire decktype of Gill's Spiral Lock is now dead, and while Gill is still 8/20, he lost his entire appeal, and now has a hard time being viewed as better than Donovan, who as I mentioned, has ACTUAL effects, ones that definitely give him the dominant edge over the now-dead Gill (Gill, in short, is Order's Hanzo).

And people need to really watch what they say about Hilde. Sure, she's been relatively successful in the past (albeit there was some confusion about Cage Arena), a LOT of people said, during the release and press of Set 12, "AGGRO IS BACK BABY! ESPECIALLY FIRE AGGRO!", and then the only time Fire aggro ever mattered (from my research of every regionals posted) was Tagrineth's 6th place Astaroth, and Protoaddict's 1st place Akuma. Of course, only Tagrineth's Fire Astaroth was a REAL fire aggro deck (mindless spammage of high-damage attacks), and it only got 6th (which IS an accomplishment, but not top 4).

As such, while Hilde isn't the same as Fire aggro (she's in her own tier, much like Hanzo was), I'd reserve judgment, and wait until some tourney results head in about Hilde. Hilde's hype died away (which, again, I think was due to Cage Arena, but having never used Cage Arena, I never cared to learn of the controversy), and it, unfortunately, is being revitalized once again. Just like Hanzo, she will top 8, definitely, but she more than likely will not win because of her myopic win condition. Just my thoughts. Still, I'd try listing characters who have ALWAYS done well.

Also, as dutpotd said, I too think Felicia is up there. As she is the only one who can use FSpike effectively, she not only is the only one in the game with the best kill in the game, but also, she's the only character in the game who doesn't have to be afraid of opposing Feline Spikes (unless in a mirror match). Simply put, in the current metagame, facing any Air/Good/Water character, you'll wonder of their win condition. Against Felicia, however, you know exactly what you're up against, and the REAL danger that WILL happen. Also, she has the best card pool clearing ability in the game, and baller symbols (Good for the uber protection, Water for the uber aggro).

1. zi mei

2.gill

3.blanka

4.felica

5.promo chun li

Goo said:

Win

playing foudations on first turn is really good, just to get kicked in the mouth with her mutiple next turn.

Goo said:

My thoughts exactly. People always said Elena was better, but to me, Chun-Li was always Elena with Air and Water (versus Fire and Good). I'd say use Chun-Li's R in mad conjunction with Natural Leader, Soul of Ling Sheng Su, and Aquakinesis.

Can anybody say turn 1 boot-to-the-head?

Kind of non-sequitor, but if a Hilde deck had Fire-only cards in it even before the bans, it was a bad deck.

And now that all of the cards that were Hilde's obstacles are banned, the only thing left is Tag Along which already has an answer.

...or Healer/Holding Ground to return her uber attack to nothingness...

Just play smart and those cards aren't a problem (Alluring Beauty, Experienced Combatant, Ira Spinta, Seal of Cessation, Cobra Blow for Healer only).

Every name is taken said:

Just so I follow you right.

You are saying that a Pure Fire Hilde deck, pre bannings, was bad no matter what?

failed2k said:

ESPECIALLY if it was a Mono-Fire deck.

All of Hilde's speed comes in the form of Good and Order: Buddhist Devotion, Cursed Blood, Aquakinesis, The Bigger They Are...

A while back I had some Fire only cards (Bitter Rivals, Manifest Destiny, and No Memories) but replaced them with much better Hilde-synergistic cards. Bitter Rivals, while a great card, doesn't really fit in with this deck. No Memories I replaced with Distractible because it stopped every E I cared about. Manifest Destiny, again a great card, but for purposes of Hilde, Alluring Beauty is much better and the cost of discard is pretty much a non-factor since you have a huge handsize + Aquakinesis + The Bigger They Are... + you only need 2 cards max in your hand (usually one, Cobra Blow isn't needed) to kill.

Also Cage Arena and Assassination Arts don't chain off Fire which in my opinion are the two biggest nails in Fire Hilde's coffin.

I remember right before Team Nats started my teammate (FenMiHuo on these forums) kept badmouthing my Hilde on the basis that he regularly crushed his friend's Fire Hilde deck, then got schooled by my Good/Order Hilde many a time come Ohio.

In no particluar order:

1.) Akuma

2.) Zi Mei

3.) Hidel

4.) Donovan

5.) Blanka

6-10.) Olexa, Zangief, Gill, Felica, & promo Guy.

MarcoPulleaux said:

i always liked promo chun li, and now that the pack version is banned maybe she will get some much deserved love.

Every name is taken said:

Out of curiousity, outside of BRT, since you don't use KFT, how do you deal with Tag Along?