Screw all these discussions about obviously good characters (Asstrid, Hilde, Jin) or absolute garbage characters (Yi Shan), let's talk about those characters who have a hard time fitting in, and see what we can find...

I'm talking, of course, about:

Astaroth
Siegfried
Temujin
Zi Mei

Astaroth-

So, yeah, I've been clear on how useless I find Astaroth, but after viewing ways to abuse him, he's really not TOO bad. Off of Earth, you can abuse the Hell out of Maniacal Laughter to blow up your staging area, getting more pump for Asta, Stunning their stuff, and momentum for Hades Destroyer. Off Evil you can just use Intimidating Presence instead and G-Corp Leader so you don't truly lose what you blow up. Driven by Fear for finishing touches.

He has some OK kinda tricks with Kulutues* (good in conjunction with actions, like No Forgiveness!, Base Hold, etc), and of course, has a Powerful: 2 Throw.

I'm a bit more drawn to the ogre than I thought. Kulutues in conjunction with Maniacal Laughter to blow up committed stuff then using Astaroth's own ability makes for some stupid big damage pumps, especially when combined with his Terrain which is just aggrosauce.

Way to run: I'm not entirely sold just yet. I'm looking into Earth as his best option, but Fire has Driven by Fear and Knight Breaker.

Siegfried-

Mr. Reliable is just...too one-sided. Besides symbol shenanigans with Needs no Ally, he's just a very solid beatstick. At +4, you're almost guaranteed to pass it for free, generally 3-4 damage, and even if you have to commit 1, that's well worth it. As such, people often say he's a Throwdown char, packing Embrace, Flooded-Nile, and Close Throw with No Forgiveness!, but really, I feel he has a bit more potential than that.

Once again I'm siding with the Mountain on this side, I think Sieggy's Earth game helps him maintain his aggressive prowess. Of course, off of Life, you've got some more technical means, such as Knows When to Talk, Genius Alchemist, Eiserne Drossel, Hunt for Jin, Menuett Dance, etc.

Siegfried definitely seems fun, but my main issue is trying to justify using him over any other Earth aggro character (such as Ragnar, King, etc).

Temujin-

After seeing Temujin, I looked forward to building him. Of course, the harsh reality I quickly learned is that, really, it's just hard to justify running him. To me, his F is his crowning jewel, but there just aren't enough combos to make it matter. The only true saving grace he has besides his own abilities is his Descending Dragon Spear, which, to me, isn't as good as Midnight Launcher.

His E, also, I find kind of useless, because by the time you play attack #3, especially in Temujin, it's likely to be a combo, if not a game-winning Combo.

He isn't useless, but I'm just having a hard time justifying his use. I understand when Arrayed for Battle comes out he'll be a tad more, well, better, seeing as how -3 to your next Combo (or just use Trained Far and Wide) will definitely help pass multiple combos in a turn, but between Nursing a Grudge (requires damage dealt) and Forgotten Technique (requires momentum), I just have a hard time using him, even off Fire.

Zi Mei-

To me, I can only really define her as "I can play a big fricken Fury of the Ancients", which if it ever rose in popularity again, people would side Mark of the Beast. Anyways, Zi Mei I find to be the HARDEST character to build only because, once again, her character-specific abilities are so hard to utilize. Determined to be the Best just isn't very good. Ascending Zephyr is just flat-out good in anything requiring momentum that has Chaos (Steve Fox primarily =D). Autumn's Kiss has a better E IMO. And Fury of the Ancients is, well, her main saving feature.

To me, again, it's kinda hard thinking about using Zi Mei because of her R, because by that point, there are likely better characters. She has a nifty Enhance, but Ivy does 3 damage or less better than she.

As far as a hypothetical Zi Mei build goes, I considered using her off Air. I had Wipe the Floor and Shockwave Palm to try to discard their hand, Wheel Kick to cover their board, clear the field with Driven by Fear, Fury of the Ancients, Zi Mei E on the card, Zi Mei E Commit 2 foundations, Autumn's Kiss E, Mulitple 7 from staging area + momentum.

However, that was the only clever strategy I had, and it was both susceptible to anti-discard AND anti-multiple (and Calming the Mind).

So, in short, I'm having immense fits trying to justify using Zi Mei.

Fury Should be enough of a reason to jutsify Running Zi Mei. She can multiple it without running ANY momentum gain. I also Say Air would be best. Drossel makes all of her Fury's a huge 7 speed each. Of Course Stand Off helps her stay alive. And she can use Nina's support to get rid of a Mark of the Beast or whatever else is in thier hand. I think shes good.

I just attempted builing Zi Mei last week, and I think I did pretty ok. I do need one more FotA though.

Mostly my kill turn was play out Fury, clear with Driven by Fear, and then continue with the Rites, using Nursing a grudge to get cards back to my hand. Her abilities aren't as big a deal to me as I would like them to be. The extra momentum is nice, but as you said, Zephyr does a much better job.

I was able to pull out a seven multiple copies of FotA with Path out, which was funny.

I think you should play her off of Fire, dood. All Life is Prey is too good to pass up =/

That way you can do the utter BS the fun way with the Rites/Wheel Kick into Fury, pop foundations for the Multiple, give a nice speed pump, then PotM the first one and Your Life is Dinner the rest. pewpew

Pretty much, Zi Mei is a mostly-blank 7 hand size character with the name "Zi Mei" (for FotA)

Tagrineth said:

And ya know...She gives it an extra Multiple 2....With her effect. So she's not really Blank...

Hey, excellent insight guys.

Well, like I said, my proto Zi Mei had 4 Wheel, 4 Wipe the Floor, and 4 Fury, although there could've been room for First Rites or Shockwave Palms. I also considered being stupid, running Menuett AND Fury =D.

All Life is Prey and Fury seems pretty cool, it just depends on how foundation-happy you get. Remember, All Life needs some foundations to actually commit, kinda hard if you blow too many. But in a responsible player's hands, I can understand.

Well that's pretty cool. Any other contributions?

The best way to utilize bottom tier characters are as blocks in a top tier character deck... Seriously though, Astaroth is a really good sideboard character for any fire/earth agro character (of which there are many).

The way I use bottom tier characters are with a strong mix of the fundamentals followed by the tricks they afford, usually a new/unkown tech, that players won't expect. If you do that then they are actually quite viable.

Sadly, the fundamentals at this point, and on most characters you named include using fire (the most well supported symbol)

ps. Temujin is actually quite workable with the oddball tech off of good. If you want the build I can send it to you.

- dut

No mention of Christie on this list? Do you have a soft spot for the brazillian beauty?

Also no mention of Ivy... even though she's nowhere near bottom tier most people believe she is because she "needs" to use her action card, which is total and complete bull.

Dut - yeah, go ahead and EMail me your Good Temujin at [email protected]

guita - I tryed to stay away from any new characters simply because I don't feel they've been out long enough to really warrant any tier. I mean, everybody's up in arms to run Paul, but has he proven his worth quite yet? I don't think so (but I'm sure he will).

Also, hearing the way you used Christie was, well, certainly more inspiring.

As for Ivy, she doesn't NEED her action, but there's simply no reason to not run it.

I'm just glad not to see Algol on that list. I always felt he has been ranked down unfairly.

Anyway, I find it interesting that a number of the above characters have Fire on them. Now, I know this thread is more along the lines of "Using Bottom Tier characters with their Support" but any number of those characters could be the face of your standard {Insert Fire Character Here} deck. Just an observation. Hopefully Fire begins to smolder a bit, so we don't wind up with a standard Fire card Retinue following just about any character with orange on it. We don't want a repeat of Block 3 Earth.

As for Siegfried, I have wanted to try him off of Good for some time now, looking at his own support mixed with Temujin, King, and Hilde. The only issue there is needed Temujin Combos, or some form of speed bump to push a big Earth Divide through. King support also offers some interesting Throw support and recurring, that From the Mouse could abuse. I just have not looked into good at all, ever since my old Felica Deck.

-Tinman

I didn't list Algol because it's a love-or-hate thing, with my end being on the hatred end. I simply don't like him. I don't like how he has to wade through MAC to work, how his big killer Alshain Najm is EXTREMELY unreliable as a kill, and how while you may CALL him a draw character, he is not; he is a hand management character, and that's kinda pushing it seeing as how while Algol may appear to dig for answers, he's realling just milling himself to mad pump Alshain Najm.

He's fun, no doubt. He is cool in how he can discard unimportant cards in the pursuit of better ones, be it discarding attacks for foundations, or the inverse.

Nevertheless, I don't really care for him. His R is pretty OK, I guess.

Plus, the thread's intention wasn't necessarily how to use bottom tier characters (seemingly contradictory due to the title), but rather, how to use the characters I listed, because as much of you are discovering, 3 of 4 have Fire, with the other having Earth/Life, thus bringing up my point: does Fire/Earth/Life's existence overshadow certain characters from mattering?

Thus the point of my thread and asking for opinions.

i have to admit i love astroth and from previous post you have annoyed me by putting him down so much when i think his ability with all the destroy one foundation support is awesome, but it's cool your seeing that he is usable, and the fact now that your saying even though you think these characters are bottom tier they are still very usable.

EVERY character is USABLE, my whole point is that if a character becomes TOO overshadowed, and does not have enough UNIQUE, INDIVIDUAL pros over its peers, then they become, basically, useless.

Although I'm still basically unconvinced with Astaroth (as I'm already liking Bryan Fury much better), Kulutues* is generally E Commit 1 foundation: +3 damage, and of course, that damage can only increase. As for Hades Destroyer, it isn't the best card out there, but for one momentum its 7 damage (4 if blocked), 2 momentum is 9 damage (5 if blocked), and so on and so forth. As for Astaroth himself? Well, his R isn't very good in the current block. His E is best abused when you have stuff that destroys your foundations. With Astaroth, the name of the game isn't even to have a huge grey area, but to kill quickly with whatever it is that you do have.

So, all in all, he can be abused, but like I've said about him, he's reliant on two things:

1. The opponent having a bigger staging area, and
2. How much bigger is it?

6 handsize or not, you're going to need your foundations, ESPECIALLY if you plan on destroying a lot of them. He's good, but I simply do not like reliant characters, versus those whom can depend on themselves.

Such is the reason I like Siegfried. My only beef with Sieggy is that, outside of Soul Calibur* (Hi Stun cards!), I'm much more a fan of Earth Ragnar, Bryan Fury, King, and Life Tira, Lu Chen, Cassandra, then I am of Siegfried.

However, Siegfried is definitely one of the most dependable characters we have, so I guess if you like a character who isn't dominated by MAC (Algol, King, Ivy to a lesser extent), who has basically free abilities and damage pump, and who has 2 top tier symbols that don't have that many cards in common, than yeah, I can see how Siegfried can be used.

Temu and Zi Mei I still remain situated about. I love Temu, and wanted to abuse him, but as I said, he only has two things going for him: his F, and Descending Dragon Spear, which I'm...kinda not too hot about. His F can be pretty tricky indeed, but that's about as far as his list of pros goes.

Zi Mei I realize you CAN abuse Fury of the Ancients best in her, but there are better characters off all her symbols with better, more reliable kill switches.

I agree that in Ivy there's no reason to NOT run her action card but the general consensus seems to be that she NEEDS it to win.

Turn 2, with only an Osterrheisburg Castle: Metrosexual Vampires, and two Genius Alchemist/Prominent Noblewoman, it's not hard to empty out a hand of attacks by checking nothing but 3's.

Razor's Bite (Genius/Prominent, ready Genius/Prominent, commit with Ivy to draw 2 cards), Evil Sparrow (ditch for no progressive), Evil Sparrow (ditch for no progressive), Cross Style Madness (Genius/Prominent, ready Genius/Prominent, commit Genius Alchemist to draw 2 cards), Raging Gnome for 3, Ivy F for another Raging Gnome for 3. 25 potential damage turn 2, without counting Path of the Master or the action card itself.

With the action card, it would be better to start with Swing Kick or Cross Style so that if you make only 3's you won't commit the one Genius Alchemist you need to make the action not count.

Mm, well that's the kind of intuition I'd come to expect from the creative master Alex.

Of course, I don't care because I don't care about Ivy =p

Based on our recent testing, which is substantial, I would say that Zi Mei is top tier when built/played right off of fire. The deck even beat decks utilizing The Devil Within and Mark of the Beast. After the stun and speed pumps it is very hard to block that first Fury with your Mark of the Beast.

can't figure out how to edit my post above, so here's another.

I would try her off of fire instead of the air version before dismissing her. She is quite good right now and if we had to play at a team event tomorrow my team would be Zi Mei, King, and Astrid.

mattkohls said:

Yeah her Fire build can be quite nasty. All Life is prey becomes insane pumpage. How do you handle Devil Within though?

mattkohls said:

Geez Matt, way to contradict Shinji's thread title!

Everyone, go grab your Torn Hero's and Paid to Protects! Lest you want to die a nasty death against Fury of the Ancients ^^ (I still have nightmares about Fury after my run in with Paul at worlds, I won Zi Mei sleeves at the Tekken prerelease and my hands shake now whenever I draw cards!)

- dut

Well Matt, I 'spose your findings are as good as any, especially if you actually have seen Fire Zi Mei in competative play!

I can SEE how she's good; Fury will never be an attack to underlook in Zi Mei. However, my main problem is simply that Fire has more reliable kills and better characters.

Seigfried can be a monster killer now days. Needs no ally is the obvious starting place. You only need to get 2 or 3 of those in play. The next thing to do is start looking at the earth and good tech that is out there. Yi Shan support and a few select of his attacks makes him more then a steady tank it makes him a monster. He can play throws but he doesn't need throws. If you want you can go life and stick with most of ivy's attacks and mix in some other stuff here and there. I think the fact that stun is big now makes Soul Caliber a more powerful card because only a few decks can get rid of it before they stun. Consistent damage matters now. Most people have only thought about +2 or +3 damage he can do with needs no ally. But he has a far stronger damage potential then most think. Can he get Ragnar numbers? No I don't think so. But he can bring the pain every turn. There is no such thing as a small attack with him.

darklogos said:

Ive been running siggy since even before the cycle and i can tell you that if your using his support correctly then you can get +5 to all your attacks easily +6 even in rare instances and i just love how your staging area cant be touched when you have torn hero, regretful existence, and soul caliber.

Plus my Attack line up with DGB, Close Throw, Yi shans tiger claw, and siggys other attacks i can use path of the master to give my attacks massive damage

I'm not too sure I'd even run Needs no Ally in Sieggy...

MarcoPulleaux said:

It does end up as a dead foundation at some points but its very useful when you actually do use it

It might not seem like much but that extra +1 or +2 definitely helps when your playing 5 or 6 attacks