Please discuss this, no flaming or spamming. I want to hear what people think and provide some reasoning.

Donovan I think will be the new Ibuki of block 3. He's not broken, but he flows right and has great symbols. He would be great off order or death allowing them to draw cards and clear. He agro potential is very high and can hybrid very easily, and has great defense in rejection.

Ryu9 is very good at keeping his deck alive, and in the late game when you have only a few cards left in the deck, it is very easy to set what you need, and draw into it with his first ability.

I believe everyone is overlooking the sheer potential of Adon4. Having Air means Lord of the Makai for momentum generation, very big and free reversals will spell doom for the unprepared.

Sophitia4 came out an got ignored, but I expect to see more of her come March.

Galford3 The Galford Form + Stained Honor gets really stupid really quick.

Hanzo3... well the Hanzo Kick deck is running around, and there are no signs of any of it getting addressed. I've seen this deck in my locla area start trowing attacks on it own turn 1 (turn 2 of the game so Hanzo is readied) and kill someone. Hanzo himself is decent, not really something to worry about if it couldn't kick you to death.

Terry may not be really "influential" but he will be everywhere, those 2 extra cards do alot, more than most people would expect.

Yuri is like a new Twelve, she will be scarce locally, but she will sneak into something major and at least Top 8.

And then there is the new Ken... just... simply... crazy...

Ken
6HS
28VIT
Earth Good Void

E Commit: This attack gets -X damage. X equals half of this attacks damage (rounded down).

F Commit: Your opponent gains X Vitality, Commit X of your opponents Foundations, X may not be Greater than your opponents maximum vitality minus their current vitality

That Form could spell some NPE-Tastic times. I look forward to seeing it in action.

Talbain for the reasons that are pretty well established on the boards already.

Promo Blanka, if he every comes out, will be a giant pain in the butt. His ability to flat out just go "GIVE ME 3 MOMENTUM" plus the fact that he can run Dans Taunt make him fastastic.

Ibuki is not going anywhere. Lossing SuzieQ sucks for her but all it real does is lower her status from godly to awesome. I expect to see her primary build be off life in the near future.

Leona and Gill. 8 HS is 8 HS in any format and these are i think the only 2 legal printed 8 hs character in the game.

Koshiro is going to replace Ukyo I think and good on him for that.

Leona may have an 8 HS but the lack of any worthwhile ability and lack of VIT make her unplayable. Gill at least has the 8 HS, has Order and has an ability to increase his Max Vit, if he decides he needs it.

The Order symbol makes even garbage characters almost worth playing. Not quite there yet, but to make a person even consider playing Promo Sogetsu just because Order is such a monster menas the symbol as a whole is doing something right.

We actually just touched base on this with tonights pod cast we came up with these character.

Seong mina new one , Alex, Zi mei , Donovan , Guy , Gen , Akuma starter , Ibuki new one , starter sakura , Dan from domination , Sopihita new one , Jiviatima , Hanzo new one , Terry new one ,

I think Victor will see a resurgence, with Reanimated still being legal. I agree that Donovan is going to be VERY heavily played with Order being the monster it is. In fact, I agree with most of the above statements, although I believe that there are a few characters that have been missed.

Zangief:: is one nasty piece of work. He dominated our Earth patch, and with him being able to run the new Spinning Beat with the Death enhance, I am NOT looking forward to staring down 3H16's that blow up my staging area.

Morrigan: may not be as powerful as she should be at the moment, but I reckon with the next few releases that hefty damage reduction is going to become quite important, and nobody does it quite like she does.

Lizardman::'s Rejection loop is nothing to be scoffed at. Yeah, he only has 5HS, how many Feline Spike's do you need in your hand?

Speaking of Feline Spike, I think Felicia is going to dominate sooner or later, seeing as most of the momentum drop is form-based or enhance based. This means that it's quite difficult to stop Felicia having the momentum to use on her Feline Spikes.

Taki:::. I feel is something of a dark horse. She doesn't look to strong, but draw power you can't stop is something to be feared.

Perhaps more surprising than any of the above characters listed, I find it very strange that neither Meira brother has been mentioned. Alba is a dirtbag, simply put. Unless Arrogance has something done to it again, I can't understand why people are worried about Talbain when he's staring people down. Soiree is also a force to be reckoned with. His ready tech is obscenely strong. Anyone who gets double-time out of all of his foundations is a character I think is worth looking at.

I can definitely see Jivatma in the future, especially if people start to pick up on the fact that his best attacks are off Void. I can definitely see him T2 and 3'ing people left and right. And with the good support Evil offers, there's a lot he brings to the table.

Characters who have Chaos and Order will be big. Lots of overlap for the dual symboling, which helps a lot - the symbols also synergise very, VERY well. Any character who has both symbols can be a veritable nightmare to go up against - Sophy, Seong-Mina, Kyoshiro, even little Yumeji (The Price of Foolishness with her asset...). I just lost my train of thought. It had something to do with Ira-Spinta, but now I don't remember =/

Of course, most Order characters already have a leg up. Juni may well be my block 3 character of choice, since she commits absolutely everything in sight. I've only gotten in a couple of matches using her so far, but she *consistently* locks out every card the opponent plays for several turns at a time (if not almost permanently) with ease.

Raphael and Talim are also extremely good, but haven't gotten a lot of attention (which is okay). Raphael has so much potential it's scary - 18 damage throws? 8 speed Spikes? Or even the second ability, which is insane with attacks with a lot of utility. Toss in Questionable Motives and you have a high-speed aggro machine. Talim stops pumps, which can get pretty annoying. She also has lots of momentum generation and crazy good speed-pumping abilities. Both are well worth watching out for, imo.

Promo Bishamon. That is all.

Soiree has been mentioned already. He's so GOOD! You can really play him with any kind of attack string you like - OTK, weenie rish or regular aggro, big damage control swipes, whatever. He's a killer in blue leather, seriously. DON'T underestimate him.

And I'm glad someone else mentioned Domination Ryu. He's very, VERY good as well. Solid symbol spread that just needs a few more links between symbols to be truly fantastic again (Vast Resources is godly for him right now). Access to a lot of very good control pieces, plus anti-control and a lot of solid kill options, on top of being the anti-mill and having crazy good draw makes him a very solid character (which reminds me, GREAT vit/HS ratio).

And, of course, we've still another set to take a crack at in a couple of weeks.

Sweet, this is the kind of discussion I been wanting to hear

I feel block 3 is going to be a blast, plus it will be inviting to newer players as well.

Thanks guys keep it up.

Ender Dragon said:

I have to build this. This has to be one of the best aggro deck ideas ever. Low diff attack, High diff attack, low diff foundation, Spike.

Sprinkle this with Shooting Capoera and various other things like that and voilà.

MegaGeese said:

Off Void he gets ONE thing over his other symbols - Soiree's support, mixed in with his.

**Juni** - Her commit ability slows the game down dramatically, good stats and symbols, not too difficult to multi-symbol.

**Guy** - Two very good abilities, makes your opponent play unorthodox to be able to block any attacks.

***J. Talbain*** - Already spoken about, already annoyed with

*Zi Mei* - Good damage boosts are more difficult to find in non-action form, hers stands out.

**Morrigan** - Possibly a surprise to some, but if we continue to see the trend of people running only 10 attacks in their deck and the lack of RFG recursion, she may make a comeback.

::Sakura:: - Argue if you want, but since she's been out, she's made more top cuts than any of the other Block 3 starter characters. While Revitalize was legal then, her recursion and life gain are really good even now.

**Huitzil** - 5/37, ability to keep opponent's board committed, and with Earth getting more support, he'll be a steel wall to fight against.

Playing a bit with the new Balrog...

Honestly, if his support is up to par, he will be VERY annoying, stacked or not, to play against. I don't think he'll be that influential until deep into B3 play, when more sets have come out, possibly with delicious punches ('cause other than Demonic Drubbing nothing really stands out as good punches to use with him) His 5 HS is deceiving, and since he's got All he can use Lone Wolf in case he depletes his hand completely. With 5HS, that's not hard to do.

::Adon:: + Knee Gatling I could see making waves (seriously that card is extremely underrated - I made a ::Siegfried:: deck with it, just to see if it works, and with Darkhunter of the Night, it works swell.), but nothing to the level of a character that is a must play.

So my vote'll be with the "classics", Donovan, Ibuki, new Ken, Promo Guy (Chaos/Order with sexy abilities? Hell yeah), etc. etc.

MegaGeese said:

Can't forget Frogase... Damage redux and momentum gen.

Pretty much echoing what people have already said, Ibuki is going to be huge out of any of her symbols, she can play at such a fast pace that its hard to keep up. Alex is still a beast and All is probably the best symbol in the game right now in my opinion. Promo Guy this dude is straight up nasty an insane symbol spread and built in speed pump and momentum control, pray Fire doesn't get a ton more damage pump and speed pump. Seong Mi-na+Ira Spinta=Roflsauce. Kyoshiro is pretty fantastic, lately I have been messing with him and he can get a turn 2-3 kill almost 100% of the time, go go draw power! HanzoKick is going to be good, but its not the end all be all deck right now in the format.

Homme Chapeau said:

The deck in our area tends to kill in this fashion

Double Mittwoch - Feline Spike - Multiple - Multiple - Feline Spike - Multiple - Multiple

or

Double Mittwoch - Double Mittwoch - Feline Spike - Multiple - Multiple

Maybe I can post a deck list, with the players permission. He was Top 4 at the DC regional.

Homme Chapeau said:

Actually playing the Promo Balrog off of Air for Block 3, gives you Charlie's Fierce Punch, Hallowed Slug of the Heavenly Conquerer, K:A:M:I:K:A:Z:E, Omnidirectional Cluster Bomb, Power Stream, Power Charged Elbow, Rekka Shin Ken, Ryusei Raku**, SPECIAL MISSION: Swing Tomahawk, Sakura's Shoryuken, Tiger Fury.

Add in the other attacks that are still legal and there is still Treacherous Ballade and Quartet of Oblivion, plus some other good ones.

Not all of the attacks are good, but there are alot of them.

Great discussion guys, keep it up.

Hatman, this is for you...

new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Hatman, this is for you...

new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

throwing my 2 pence into the hat,

J.talbain is an absolute monster, played him for the first time at uk teams and won the final against viewtiful_joe's frankly quite terrifying donovan.

donovan is amazing, both as an aggro and control character.

maxima in my opinion is highly underrated, free life gain is nothing to scoff at, and with fantasy shop you draw cards at the cost of life then just regen at end of turn.

alba, with or without arrogance he's disgusting, he laughs at hanzo kick by forcing him to play non attacks to clog up his card pool, same is true of most other infinite loops, a true devil in the making.

temujin when he becomes legal will be awesome,built as a 6 check deck, lord of the makai makes for +6 damage to all your attacks!

zi mei, enough said.

night terror, he trumps so many characters its not even funny, same goes for basara.

felicia, be it promo or momentum gain version, the cat really has the claws for dirty aggro decks.

yuri has the potential to be completely nuts, they throw an attack, you enhance to remove your life cap, gain as much life as you can, block, reverse, enhance with domination, laugh.

akuma = gay

yi shan, ways of punishment + 10 damage feline spikes = bang your dead

victor, not as indestructible as he once was, but still a degenerate combo machine.

alex = uber gay

morrigan promo and 3dot are both superb and will only get better with time.

there my picks, I'm sure i'll think of more after i post this but hey ho

throwing my 2 pence into the hat,

J.talbain is an absolute monster, played him for the first time at uk teams and won the final against viewtiful_joe's frankly quite terrifying donovan.

donovan is amazing, both as an aggro and control character.

maxima in my opinion is highly underrated, free life gain is nothing to scoff at, and with fantasy shop you draw cards at the cost of life then just regen at end of turn.

alba, with or without arrogance he's disgusting, he laughs at hanzo kick by forcing him to play non attacks to clog up his card pool, same is true of most other infinite loops, a true devil in the making.

temujin when he becomes legal will be awesome,built as a 6 check deck, lord of the makai makes for +6 damage to all your attacks!

zi mei, enough said.

night terror, he trumps so many characters its not even funny, same goes for basara.

felicia, be it promo or momentum gain version, the cat really has the claws for dirty aggro decks.

yuri has the potential to be completely nuts, they throw an attack, you enhance to remove your life cap, gain as much life as you can, block, reverse, enhance with domination, laugh.

akuma = gay

yi shan, ways of punishment + 10 damage feline spikes = bang your dead

victor, not as indestructible as he once was, but still a degenerate combo machine.

alex = uber gay

morrigan promo and 3dot are both superb and will only get better with time.

there my picks, I'm sure i'll think of more after i post this but hey ho

I'm liking the following...

Sakura****: recursion is always worth looking into. Sakura is almost like a selective 7 hand sizer with big vitality.

Zi Mei*: built in damage pump along a built in manifest destiny (only better). visions of destiny is quite saucy with her.

Guy**: momentum denial, momentum generation and a nasty speed pump all rolled up in a nice 7 hand size package.

Night Terror*: staging area control and character ability control make him an awesome side deck choice at the very least.

Sophitia****: basically a block 3 Athena with different stats.

Yeah I'm waiting for a good Night Terror deck to pop up it block 3, aside from that the new promo Ukyo will be good.

What about Startter Mai and Promo Rera