Now I Believe Shinji (Marcopulleaux) was the one with the tier list who claimed that Paul phoenix was "Instantly added to the top tier list." I honestly don't see why.

My Reasoning being because as you all know I fail to produce coherent paragraphs:

• He's just a standard 6/26, whilst i'm aware that the boards think that 6HS> 7HS in NEWFS i honestly think otherwise.
• His abilitys are sniffable, a Single commit if you play stun means you HAVE to run stuns to use him effectively, and his damage pump is garbage, it Should read E Commit 1 card in your staging area: This attack gets +x damage, X equals the cards difficulty, as opposed to his charcter just sitting there being Paul phoenix.
• Another thing doesn't the phoenix smasher combo not work at all? It reads "Paul combo" whereas Paul's name is Paul Phoenix, the other character combo cards have their charcters full name so why not Phoenix smasher??
• Must run stun |_| Severely cripples his options TBH.
• If you bump into a life deck or hell even any deck packing serious anti commit like Torn, Balance Etc. and it's over for you, your main strengths turn to squat, so he pretty much auto loses to life.
• He's not Rashotep, Jin, Astrid or King TBH

Now i've built three different versions of Phoenix one off of each of his symbols (Yes even order) and his win percentage against the currently established top tier characters (See last bullet point) and his win percentage is quite low, granted i've only tested the fire build but seeing as thats his strongest symbol the outcome for the other two decks looks fairly grim. Mathcups here:

Fire Paul vs. Earth King- King wins 6-2

Fire Paul vs. Earth Rashotep- Rashotep wins 6-4

Fire Paul vs. Death Rashotep- Rashotep wins 6-5

Fire Paul vs. Death Jin- Jin wins 6-3

Fire Paul vs. Fire Jin- Paul wins 6- 4 ( honestly I feel this was just the Jin deck being terrible and a stroke of luck on Pauls' part =/)

Fire Paul vs. Fire Astrid- Astrid wins 6-1.

I hope the results speak for themselves and I'd love to hear your opinions and counterarguments....

Cheers

Dan

On a side note could we please add Ragnar to the top tier list? He has the three best symbols in the game ( No joke) He can OTK, He can Swing, tank it out, is incredibly fun and when Heir to the storm comes out he's just gonna be **** awesome!

When torn hero comes out, obviously you dont stun. Paul's game is all about early game. I triple sourced my deck and was NEVER source locked. Also, you can react with the R before balance can be used because the offending player gets to respond first. Of course if they have more than 1 out then it COULD be bad. Also, the difficulty +x dmg thing is already pretty good, especially since is reusable on every attack. Games with Paul shouldn't last too long, with his low speed attacks, and all easily blocked with mid blocks, if games last too long yes it IS (most likely) game over for Paul. I played my friends deck last week and her pauls dropped about 25 dmg on turn two.

Same here as Hayamachop says.

Paul gets to attack full blast turn 2/3, committing you out while you're at it (and even if you've got one Torn Hero out he may still stun) and hitting so **** hard you can't do a thing... He won our local Block 4 tournament last week and actually killed quite often turn 2!

If your paul did that poorly to those opposing decks, I don't think your paul is very good.

One of the biggest myth's is that paul autoloses to Anti-commital, so horribly incorrect I don't even know where to begin.

Stun is the strongest keyword mechanic in the current meta, keying in off it is nothing but a good thing.

6hs is superior in the current meta, a lot of people refuse to accept this, that is okay, but it doesnt change the fact that I would rather have a 6hs and a decent chunk of life then a 7 with less then 20.

He is one of a kind in his ability to commit anything for what is essentially free.

I think he is great, competitive char, it seems like people have a lot of different ways to run him , and I dont agree with most of them, but Paul offers a very compettive build.

Is he better then King/Astrid/Rasho/Jin/Heiachi or anyone else who is considered very comepttive right now?

I wouldn't say that.

But there isn't a single deck up there that I just listed that Paul isn't effective against. Rasho? Commit him before he can blank. Astrid, Commit her and watch her reversals lose their teeth. Paid to protect and standoff slowing you down in those oh so everywhere fire decks? Stun and commit out their board and watch them struggle to defend with just blocks. Admittedly, he does struggle a little with King, but clever deckbuilding can get you around that rather effectively.

I agree that his damage pump is nothing special, but how many games have you left a person at 5? or 3? His pump can be the difference in winning a game(which happened for me yesterday).

I could write 3 paragraphs about how he can play through anti-commit fairly easily(Perfect Sense of balance is actually pretty terrible against him, Torn hero on the other hand is pretty effective, but not crippling). It requires playing the deck different, a change in approach, and good deckbuilding.

Paul is one of the best chars to reward innovative and smart deckbuilding. Astrid is color by numbers, and Rashotep is almost too complicated and techy to work a lot of the time. Paul rewards good ideas and good synergy.

failed2k said:

hmm you seem to know your paul... could I trouble you to take a look at my paul deck in the deck forums?

failed2k said:

Paul feeds off of Stun so powerfully that it really doesn't matter whether or not he really Stuns.

if paul has the resources to stun against your anti-stun he can stun anyways.

failed2k said:

seriously everything he said.

IMO the only thing he really lacks is a speed boost to better push stuff through when they are tapped out.

Opponents Torn Hero doesnt do much when you go Wheel Kick + Dragon Lifter + Smasher with toughest

I think Paul is actually one of the most all around characters out there.... I honestly think your build has more to do with it then anything...

It's also worth bringing up how insane Gut Drill is with Paulie.

You thought Astrid's reversal Pommel Smashes were annoying? You ain't seen nothing

Wafflecopter said:

It's also worth bringing up how insane Gut Drill is with Paulie.

You thought Astrid's reversal Pommel Smashes were annoying? You ain't seen nothing

You ain't seen nothing yet b-b-b-baby. Here's something that you're never gonna forget.
I'll start singing that song every time i play gut drill.

Hayamachop said:

Congratulations, you are banned from all future Austin events.

Just kidding, lol.

If you don't get why Paul is top-tier, you may want to think about what made Promo Zi Mei top tier: similar situation.

Paul Phoenix is the "Yo Dawg, I heard you like Stun" for UFS right now. It's hella good.

failed2k said:

Hey jeremy, what is your king build doing against paul to make the match so favorable? I am playing a very control heavy build of earth king with undisputed ruler and torn hero main and i am having a tough time staving pauls offense. What are some key cards in this matchup? What mindset do i need when i approach this match? What are some key plays i need to be stopping? Right now im just trying to blank damage pump with ka technique and tapping down random other pump with torn heroes on the stun. Is there anythign else i can do?

TripsEX said:

Yo dawg, I heard you like Stun so I put a Stun in your Paul's Gi so you can stun while you stun while you stun.

Seriously, Paul's Gi is quite possibly one of the best cards in the format.

Paul HIMSELF is really not that good. He's like... an aggressive Rashotep, except that Rashotep's blanking has no counters at the moment, whereas a Torn Hero/Perfect Sense of Balance might help the victim live through Paul's attack strings by committing key cards like The Ultimate Team, For the Money or Paul himself.

It's his SUPPORT that is incredibly solid. Phoenix Smasher itself, without the combo E, is a 5/3 3M6 with a block on it. NONE of Paul's foundations have checks lower than 5. Only Paul's asset, which is WORTH the lower check, sports a 4. Only Turn Thruster has a 2 check, out of all his attacks. Both his actions are 3 checks. Also his symbols have plenty of (unwarranted) support. But Paul himself is incredibly overhyped. He would make an awesome sideboard character if only you weren't forced to use Stun attacks to use his control.

The OP does bring up an interesting point that I had discussed with my playgroup. Kazuya, Christie and Paul's main Combo abilities can't be played because their Combo keywords don't have their full names like the characters. Nothing incredibly gamebreaking, as a simple functional errata will do the trick (and if anyone tries to prevent you from using the combo on Fruit Picker, you probably have the right to bonk them in the head because that crap is hard lol).

Tbh, I'm somehow not surprised he can get past King. I think I plan on running Mr. Phoenix-san as a sideboard character for my Steve deck. He's a scary dude, much as I may not want to admit it (since I HATE Paul; GO KUMA!). But I don't even see Phoenix Smasher as a need, either - there's PLENTY of other ways to mess people up with him (see Turn Thruster).

MegaGeese said:

MegaGeese said:

Stop telling people about the sweetness that is Turn Thruster, dude...and yeah I hate Paul in-game too, but in UFS he's a beast!

ShippuJinrai said:

Torn Hero's Early will slow his aggro game down, so it makes it harder for him to run right into your face. Chip away with throws early without overstretching, then go for a big turn before you think he is going to get through your torn hero/ka techniques and try to put him away. torn hero's early is key, because it slows him down a lot and if he tries to play through it, and you can punish him. It's tough to deal with his draw stuff so try to keep cards in hand to drop for financial if not anything else.

ROTBI said:

Turn Thruster is a beast, especially in a Steve Fox deck. Sorry, but I happen to like 4/2 5H8 punches with Stun:1 and a +1 mid block...

Yep, and that's without Steve's own pump, Boxing Is Life, etc. Turn Thruster is definitely deserving of that 2.

guitalex2008 said:

/ego

failed2k said:

That helps a lot Jeremy thanks. So all i have to really do is stay alive until about my turn 3 or 4 and try not to get damage pumped out. Torn hero his pumps early to force him to either a.) force him to build on his attack turns which makes me live longer or b.) mess with his math so he leaves himself overextended. Thanks a ton for the help. Ill be approaching the matchup a little bit different. Its weird how this is one of the few matchups where i WONT mulligan aggressively for standoff. So my key tech here is like undisputed ruler, torn hero, ka technique, anything else im missing in the main deck?

And sorry to kinda thread hijack but i guess Jeremy is the only one paying attention to me lol so it works out.

You go for mainboard Undisputed? Interesting bit o' tech. I'd have sideboarded that, but, then again...it makes a LOT of sense, since the best kill cards at the moment DO have keywords that they use.

I've yet to put my King deck together due to lack of Tekken binder ;.;

ROTBI said:

Then you'll feel better in T6 =).

Why are people hatin' on Paul's E? In this format, +1-3 on anything is generally important, especially when you do something like use Brooding then Paul to commit it, or commit something then blow it up with Heir to the Storm.

MarcoPulleaux said:

My fav target for Pauls enhance on a kill turn at least is ultimate team. I use the enhance on ultimate team commiting a different foundation(usually getting +3 to my attack) then commiting the ult team with paul for another +3, it's a little steep cost wise, but +6 damage on a kill turn for two foundations is not a bad thing at all.