Completly forgot about need to destroy. Zi Mei will love that so much. give fury an extra multiple and you can blow up the face down foundation it gives you as the cost. Sexy

Sol Badguy said:

Definitely.

There's also Cervantes with Test of Strength.

Shinji, you also sometimes fail at logic. Nina is one of those times.

How can you say Nina's ability doesn't go well with her symbols because you can't force them to draw? There IS such a thing as the draw step. Nothing is stopping you from making a PHYSICAL note or what's the next 4 cards, then checking off whatever cards he plays so you'll know EXACTLY what's in his hand every time, while getting rid of problem cards.

Don't see the bad here.

guitalex2008 said:

shhhhh. I wanted Shinji to figure this out on his own...

Nina is deadly hot, a new mechanic at least. Well not new, but stronger theme of 'search and destroy' than I've seen before. It's obvious that Death and Void giver her a bit more, at least right now... I think SCIV will have some nice air characters though - air and order and water and good!

- dut

Sol Badguy said:

? She can't really use it like that, she isn't a male. Not as Sexy

- dut

dutpotd said:

Sadly I forgot about that

Still a good card to destroy for the multiple because you get a foundation back. Same for Manical Laughter(get a momemntum for the multiple 2 that she gives it)

dutpotd said:

That was the entire point. How in the f--k would I know how these cards impact the metagame? I don't even know how the metagame is since it hasn't even legally taken place until today. I'm merely opining, and as you witnessed, have taken many people's opinions into consideration. I still won't listen to people who tell me Astaroth's good, but I am listening to those saying Omar's good, etc.

Let me make myself clear on why Christie is so horrible, especially since MegaGeese is so offended.

Let's start with her symbols. Water, as I said, is dead. It has 3 current characters that have support: Lu Chen, Yi Shan, and Christie. All 3 have Life. Get it? Water's dead.

That leaves All and Life. Let's analyze the two symbol's list of characters:

All:

Paul
Christie
Algol
Ivy
Astrid

Life:

Christie
Ivy
Tira
Siegfried
Lu Chen
Yi Shan

Christie's very character is pretty much ONLY good with kicks (how else would she be used?). Now, of the All characters, you'll notice that Kicks simply don't exist. You've got Ivy with 1, Paul with 1, maybe 2, and I think that's it. Life has 1 in all of the characters not named Siegfried.

In the foundation game, I think Life suits Christie better, but hey, let's analyze both.

Now, my comment was that Christie is a second-rate Ivy. Let's compare.

Christie:

-Pumps kick attack's speed
-Can draw some cards to keep her handsize plentiful at the end of the turn

Ivy:

-Recurring draw
-Otherwise no progressive difficulty to attacks

Let's further analyze.

Christie has a speed pump, which, when used with Eiserne Drossel and Robes might look good...except by the time you're using Eseirne and Robes, you've pretty much made your attacks near unblockable in the current format. You're committing a foundation to give your attacks anywhere from +1 to...let's say 4, because it's really doubtful you'll get past 4 kicks, especially when you're making control checks, playing cards, AND tapping out due to Christie's E. My point is, it's just not a GOOD ENOUGH pump to really matter. Sure, it CAN push your attacks through, especially with Robes-Drossel, but at that point you could just be running another character WITH ROBES AND DROSSEL.

Her Draw is effective, and can net you a nice 3-4, but by the time you've played 3-4 kicks, you've committed some foundations, committed Christie, and may or may not have drawn into good blocks, if any at all.

Now, let's look at Ivy.

Ivy doesn't rely on kicks; she relies on weenie attacks, which are much more plentiful in the current game than kicks. As such, her options are much wider, I feel. Moving besides that, what does Ivy get. Ivy gets an otherwise character-only card that matters (screw Fruit Picker, it sucks): Switching Weapon Styles. SWS, when combined with Genius Alchemist, has proven that it generally eliminates progressive difficulty for the duration of the turn.

Christie would kill for that. Ivy having no progressive difficulty, recurring draw, and a very threatening Path of the Master, means that pressure can definitely be applied. When you're leading with Howling Spirits, each time your opponent takes damage from your weenie attacks, they're losing an additional vitality per copy. Even though Ivy does tap-out rather quickly, she has a plentiful hand, and applies much better pressure than Christie does.

Now, Christie can play a pretty alright aggressive game with her SSS loop and Path of the Master, stupidly drawing cards for each copy, almost making her F look like a joke. But as I've already mentioned, as soon as Side Flop hits the table, it's understood that Samba is coming at the end, and even if you have Robes and Drossel to pass them through, Christie must make 4-5-6 control checks over and over again.

SSS Loop is a redeming factor, as can One with the Rhythm. However, by the time you've built your cool aggro Christie using speed pumps and Path of the Master, or your ultimate SSS Loop that builds turn 1, loops turn 2, you could've built a more reliable character.

I plan on building Christie because I merely enjoy her theme. But still, it's so hard to justify running her when her only character-specific abilities and cards are Fruit Picker (which again, doesn't really work yet), and the SSS Loop.

So, sorry, I still say Christie sucks. Maybe you'll prove me wrong, maybe I'll prove me wrong, but she's Fail Tier.

MarcoPulleaux said:

I can't agree, but yes - Christie will get better as more kicks with her symbols are released.

That said, I don't think she's fail tier now. I think any character with a 7hs and the ALL symbol is a pot of gold. You know how **** hard I fought to find an ALL character with 7hs in block 3, there are none!!! Except for Sean... And then Herr, and I wasn't going to use him in a tourney he's playing in.

This is a different block, but what I am saying stands, 7hs is an advantage except for bad matchups against King's junk, and even then it is still seeing more cards early which means more than anything else.

Christie also plays a different rythym of game than other characters, including Ivy. Christie will throw out attacks turn 2 (maybe even 1) just so that she can draw more cards, i.e. she is constant pressure if she wants to be. Poke, poke, foundation, foundation, draw draw. It's even better if you can poke, poke, clear, foundation, foundation, foundation, foundation, draw.

In any case, she will be played, and she won't be top tier, but she won't be fail tier, she will be mid tier until more kicks come out and then she will be mid/high or high in the right hands.

- dut

Average set is average. This is not bad, because broken sets = early rotation.

Terrible art is terrible. This IS bad because I will struggle to play every card bar maybe 2 in the same way I struggled to play Experianced Combatant.

dutpotd said:

Good luck. Ways of doing so in the current format aren't too terribly easy (beyond Atoning for the Past, which is one-shot, semi-reliable clear).

MarcoPulleaux said:

I'm pretty sure her attacks clear themselves to - hand, or momentum under damaging circumstances. Too lazy to read now but correct me if I'm wrong.

- dut

ps. Alchemist does share 2 symbols, and can make the attack followed by foundation stuff work fine for her.

dutpotd said:

dutpotd said:

Thank yooooooou.

And at least you recognize the potential for PotM stupidity with Christie, Shinji, which was one of my points about her. Also worth mentioning is this SSS string, right? Suppose you get tired of checking against a 6, and have only the two attacks in your cardpool. By that time you've stufkc about 5 cards in their card pool and have caused a fair amount of damage. You either drop the kill, or play out foundations and then F to end your turn with a hand still full of cards. It becomes a constant pressure game, since having a block for every zone becomes imperative. And as for a kill...I heard that +9 damage from Path is a lot =/

It's also worth noting that people are doting on Life as a god-tier symbol. We already know how good 7HS is...is the math really that hard? =/

She may not be god-tier, but she certainly doesn't SUCK.

I don't think Christie is bad. But I agree with Marco that the only real way to use her would be her loop with an active One With the Rhythm or 2. At least this this time. Also I don't think is even is an F tier atm.

Well when ya gots a point ya gots a point. Few things I'm worried about:

1. Correct me if I'm wrong...but I simply cannot think of a Kick that's a kill condition (ignoring PotM).

2. Keeping a block of every zone isn't imperative. Go ahead, hit me with Flop-Slip and clog my pool with two cards. I'll high block Samba lawl.

3.. Momentum generation is hard to fill One with the Rhythm. I realize blocking doesn't really exist in this format, but unless you're gonna use Throws in her, even strings of kicks don't necessarily promise kicks.

Like I've said, I plan on building Christie, and you've brought forth some interesting points Mega. Bah...we just need more kicks, and with the next set being SOUL CALIBUR (weaponslawl), I don't expect that to happen =/

MarcoPulleaux said:

Designer Clothes is Hawt.

MarcoPulleaux said:

dutpotd said:

Next set is Soul Calibur, meaning very few to no kicks.

MegaGeese said:

and thats without robes or drossel

I have to say both arguments have solid points; Christie isn't gonna kill anybody without her SSS loop AND One with the Rhythm AND the momentum it requires. I don't know about you guys, but that's a bit specific. Though Path of the Master makes her go bonkers, guess what? It makes ANY character insane (which is why I don't see it lasting very long in the current format as a legal card, it being the last vestige of the Infinity mistake and all), AND it allows ANY character who shares ANY of the 3 symbols to run the combo (well, helloooooooooooo, Cassandra* with a Yi Shan's Tiger Claw in hand; you see why PotM has GOT to GO?!). If we disregard this, however, it's a solid loop you can run with Regretful Existence nom-noming the foundations you're committing to pass that periodic 6 check to make them hit for 5 instead of 3 (which is very solid damage, btw), and/or Tira's asset readying your stuff continually (One with the Rhythm combined with Robes or Drossel won't let them block anyway). Remember, the loop doesn't have to be truly infinite, just arbitrarily long.

As for the tiers... let me just say I disagree on the fundamental organization of the tiers. I don't believe there IS an F Tier in NewFS yet. I have yet to see a character and think, "Well, he/she's absolutely useless, why did they even print this?". There is a C Tier for the more one-dimensional characters, but they're all playable and they all can win; they just are more predictable/difficult to work correctly.

As for Yi Shan**... I agree he should have had 30 Vitality; the face-up momentum theme isn't the fastest kill condition out there (that title belongs to Ragnar**'s redonkulous damage buffing), and you don't necessarily draw into your great tanking support on time every single game. A bit more health would have been nice. However, my extensive playtesting with him have shown me he's a solid B Tier character (the 30 HP would have made him an A Tier or maybe even an S Tier character, IMHO). I can tell you he runs a whole heck of a lot better than it looks on paper, even against momentum hate. I survive Astrid's high-damage onslaughts and smack her back, though I do admit she has an advantage if the game goes beyond T5. I scoff at Nightmare*'s foundation destruction (that deck has yet to beat me 2 games out of 3). I am wholly surprised at how well it runs, frankly.

As a last argument for my point, I would like to add that you have 3 characters in your C Tier (Temujin, Nina Williams, and Algol) that I believe to be weaker than 3 characters that are in your F Tier (Astaroth, Yi Shan, Zi Mei). You might wanna fix that...

I don't think that Nina is THAT bad. She is the most difficult to build character from this set, no doubt, but besides rashotep she is the biggest control character. She just does it differently. Her form of control is getting rid of problem cards before they can hit the table. The fact that the card pool is still 3 sets makes naming cards pretty easy. Between Cold and Indifferent, Proficient Sniper, and herself she can really slow down her opponents kill condition. Then, between Wipe the Floor, and War Between Sisters and the opponent won't have much of a hand either. She has the ability to control her opponents tempo, as they desperately try to get their key combo card/action/kill condition.

Now I will say that everyone who shares her symbols can make use of these same cards, but her ability adds that extra umphf, you know?

Bpet said:

Her ability makes some of her cards worth the while.

Honestly though, Pro Sniper in Kazuya makes me hot.

LordAggro said:

Fruit Picker, Law's Somersault Kick. choose your poison. Either way, it's obvious the the loop is only going to be played to bait out blocks, particularly high blocks, and then you go in for the kill. LSK with just the loop in the pool is +11 damage with Path, and that's on an attack getting +5 speed with just it's own enhance. Fruit Picker doesn't even need the Combo enhance - Path just adds 12 to its already sizable base damage of 6.

Stop making me want to play Christie just to prove people wrong ;.;

MegaGeese said:

By all means, play Christie. I dare you. As a matter of fact, I dare you to play her AND post it on the Deck Building forum! lawlz

I stand corrected after re-reading Fruit Picker and Law's Somersault Kick: Christie CAN kill without SSS, which makes her a whole heck of a lot more interesting.

While blocking Christie's loop is easy, it's not as easy as you make it up to be.

Why does everyone insist that the "Side Flop, Slippery Kick, Samba" have to be performed in that order? You can do the same loop starting with Slippery Kick, then Samba, then Side Flop. Or start with Samba, then Side Flop, then Slippery Kick. So tell me, which zone are you keeping a full block of in hand; high, low or mid? I tell you, if you fail to choose right you can take anywhere from 9 to 12 damage for your mistake.

Honestly, I think a specific 3 card combo that gives you the ability to attempt any number of 6 checks and for each success you deal 3 damage and get another try isn't very threatening. Honestly, I would reserve my blocks until you've already done the loop a few times, so you tap yourself out to pass the control checks.

Other things you add to it -- like Path of the Master, that's actually strong tech -- might make it efficient, but unless you're in an extremely dominant board position, or I made a huge mistake/lost a huge gamble, it's not at all threatening.