And as for another example of rankings not signifying quantifiable quality, I present to you... quazark's Rikuo deck!

MarcoPulleaux said:

who was pretty awesome. hilde will take that for a compliment.

Ninjazanus said:

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Mountain/Earth as a symbol. I actually think it is one of the more powerful symbols around with a 7+ hand size character that uses Hugo support as well as other mechanisms for draw…

Sadly Hugo himself is not a top 5… Neither is Yi Shan imo.

The problems with Hugo are manifold.

1. He loses hard to order committal and control hack which is a stronger deck format at the moment. Spinta really hates him, lockdown items also hurt him because his 3+ foundations that he may play first turn get reduced by one or two for passing things the next turn.
2. He doesn’t have an early game option to win. Yes there are some very nice damage pump items that respond to high vitality, but these aren’t enough to give him a valid option to kill anywhere before turn 4/5. In other words, an opponent, usually with a bigger hand size as well, can overextend themselves and not worry about retaliation. Hugo can’t make his own ‘right time’, it finds him after a lot of setup.
3. He can’t viably utilize any of the great cards off his symbols that have discard costs, at least until very late game when he has massive draw in play… Death is a discard symbol, so is Earth to an extent (see twop), so many great abilities off of these symbols rely on being able to discard the hand = Saikyo, Inhuman, Revanant’s, etc.
4. With one of the stronger anti-draw cards coming back into the meta (MAC) sub-par handsizes are going to suffer. There is no two ways about it.
5. He can eat damage, and will because he won’t be blocking more than 1 attack a turn (so few cards in hand assuming he builds)… but is this a good thing??? The answer is of course, no. Why? Because with one of the easiest free momentum pieces in the game gone players dealing damage early and with multiple attacks (see evil lineup or something else with combo in it) have a huge one up because they gain momentum for bigger attacks later or defensive abilities that cost momentum where other decks are now paying a bigger cost to gain the same amount of momentum.

I don’t doubt you had/have success with Hugo, especially in the past. The reason being a good 80%+ of decks played the setup for OTK game followed by the OTK. All of these decks allowed Hugo to compete and equally setup. As well, a lot of decks can barely do 40 damage… If Hugo manages a way to stop even half of it we are looking at opponent’s decks needing to deal 80+ damage to win the game, not a lot of decks can do this under the best of circumstances, even the OTK ones were looking at ~30-50 unblocked damage on one turn.

The thing is, I expect that to drop a little bit, down to say only 60-70% of decks that don't throw attacks until after turn 4 and a good setup. Reason being more attacks will be run, and drawing them necessitates using them to draw more foundations or more attacks... As stated above, Hugo is probably going to eat a bit of it and survive… But this isn’t the worst thing in the world for the decks throwing attacks as they will gain momentum for their efforts which can be used or recurred from, etc. Hugo then has to dedicate resources to life gain, momentum hate, and draw leaving control a distant 4th priority.

- dut

EDIT: let us not forget about 'if this attack deals damage' abilities, low handsize characters suffer hard to this becuase they often don't have the card volume to hold or draw into variable block mods...

quarzark said:

This man wins worlds

dutpotd said:

Obviously you cant appreciate his power until you actually play him. I built him mono earth and faced down owl face, Chester, Bitter Rivals, LOTM, BRT, Spikes, the works. Also, I built him with out any of those broken cards on priciple, just to show how dominant he could be. The only game I've lost with him in the recent months was against an Ivy deck that strung out 12 attacks (3 spirits and a gnome in there that I couldnt handle) 2 games in a row on turn 3 and 4.

Based on personal experience, I cant help but love the giant of a man.

Ninjazanus said:

Hehe, I like him too. And I have played as him (all 3 symbols) and against him (earth only actually), so my comments - although they may seem to come from a position of ignorance - are honestly not.

It is perhaps more obvious that you have played him too much and are unable to identify the advantage most, if not all, of the other top 5s mentioned have over him.

- dut

I have also played him, except I used broken cards. Like dut said ... well dut said everything.

OP- Nagase, andrew olexa +a new low, jeremy ray's seong mina, anything jon herr plays, akuma+a new low

All in no paticular order and all opinion.

dutpotd said:

I guess I kinda forgot this was on basis of character, where he is just a daunting 40 life and at least 4 hand size with a decent damage pump. True, Akuma, Seong-mina, and Chun li do seem stronger due to their savage abilities, but I dont know if they have the support quite like hugo has, especially after the ban.

Ninjazanus said:

hugo is brutal, i have played as him and against him multiple times. he may top 8 at worlds, but he won't win. hugo is good, but he misses the critical elements of other top tier chars like akuma, herr, seong mina, promo chun li, hilde, etc. and despite the fact that the bans make him much better, he is still outpaced by most of the best chars in the format.

Having Death and access to good enough draw see to it he isn't...necessarily out-paced. Cursed Blood + Buddhist Devotion (in conjunction with his draw) not good enough for ya?

MarcoPulleaux said:

Hugo is a unique character in that his 4HS should be a negative, however, he is basically a 6 HS with his ability, and A Giant of a Man + Hulking Brute with his ability, Cursed Blood, Buddhist Devotion, and a variety of other draw off of All means he can cheat.

However, his opening hand is still going to be sucky...

My only concern when looking at Hugo is his offensive options; without outside sources, you're a 4 HS when you go aggressive, which doesn't give you a whole lot of options (and seriously dissuades going for the "attack rush" strategy). However, I fully expect him to do very well, and as I said before, he's borderline top 5 to me. However, I think *Yi Shan* is slightly better, because of the following reasons:

1. 6 HS all the time, not just when playing foundations: This is more useful when you're planning your attack than anything else, but it does open up a few more options that Hugo doesn't have access to, like not having the necessity of running draw to ensure a surefire attack strategy, thus liberating space in your deck.

2. 29 HP with a static E for at least -2 damage can be even harder to bring down than 40 HP: If your opponent relies on attacks with Multiple or a rush of attacks, taking down Yi Shan can be quite a chore (maybe even more than Hugo), especially when you have the option to upgrade later on in the game.

3. Free E damage pump > non-free, HP-dependent damage pump: Let's face it, folks; Hugo's 40 HP is there for a reason, and that reason is that you're gonna take a few shots to the jaw before you take your opponent out. That means that his damage-boosting E is not only expensive (you only start with 4 HS, after all), odds are it won't be at full strength. In this case, Yi Shan wins big time IMHO.

This is why I think that Yi Shan is better. Why I think he's top 5 are the following reasons:

1. Built-in tanking: TBH, good luck T2'ing Yi Shan with a series of attacks (you could run a full Spike followed by a full Hoyoku-Sen, and you STILL wouldn't put Yi Shan down). This gives him some pretty strong staying power, and gives him a decent shot at taking the 7 HS guys down.

2. Free damage E: Hey, since when is +2 damage FOR FREE something you can ignore? The fact that you can upgrade it afterwards if you like just makes it even more bonkers.

3. A fairly strong symbol spread: Good is and has been strong for some time, and Earth and Life are an up and coming beasts after the recent bans. That means that regardless of what your symbol focus is, he can make it work.

I know 6 HS or less is anathema in these forums unless you're backed by some bonkers draw power (Seong Mi-na, anyone?), but Earth has some draw, so I think the One-Eyed Dragon of Mt. Lao has a shot.

Yi Shan has one major flaw:

Draw

IMO, Yi Shan's best choice is Earth, hands-down. Inhuman Perception totally hates upon his feared enemy: Tag Along. Hulking Brute is pretty much a necessity if you ever want to get anywhere.

Also, as would be expected, the bans helped Yi Shan definitely. Not only did they have little affect on him, but Yi Shan can go back to what he does best without fear of Rejection: THROWDOWN! Throws were pretty much made for our earth aggro super stats (Yuri, Siegfried, Yi Shan).

Once Earth (or any of Shan's symbols) get some better draw, I think he might start mattering more (also, while Zi Mei may be his rival, her damage pump is better, and she has control properties, while all Shan gets over her is some OK damage redux)

MarcoPulleaux said:

if agro comes back yi shan will be beast. for now though he is decent but not good enough to top 8.

trane said:

I know the Meta between this year and last year is different, but i think the bannings and erratas have certainly made a T8 finish for The Dragon quite possible. Consider that at last year's WC Championships a Yi Shan deck DID T8, and this was amidst all the Military Jank, Addes Syndicate, Rejection, Shinobi Trads, and BRT (and w/o a lot of the answers we have today) garbage being legally played.

I thnk Yi Shan is a great choice for Earth beatz to start making some noise again!