So I want some good feedback - what does the game look like right now? My article was at best a stab in the dark at this point, just guesswork based on preliminary findings. I've done some reading on the forums and found good stuff by Jeremy about Paul Phoenix, and others have chimed in with their top picks.

Since SAS is a PTC event, the first as a matter of fact, I want to know - what do you guys expect? Who are the best, or most interesting characters? What resources are particularly brutal right now (Fire, I know, is UP there)? What attacks and strategies are popular? How do you like the new-look UFS and what is great (or not so great) about it?

throws and damage pumps will win sas, realest of talk.

top characters imo: Jin, Astrid, Steve Fox, Heihachi, paul, king, cassandra (with temujin orange card combos) and zi mei.

rashotep, zhao d and kazuya are also good, but too slow atm imo. once more shiz comes out they will reach their godly status.

jon herr and omar are also disguisting as well.

bryan fury is also, hella underrated. yi shan too.

that would be my pick for a top 8 at an event atm, if the decks were built correctly.

It seems to me the current meta is the more aggro thy is, the more games thy will win...unless they somehow block all your ****. There is one reason to run zhao daiyu. THe twilight embrace combo + destruction in his wake. But yes Kazuya is a bit slow...i tried it with 4 kazuyas last week and it seems it was hard enough to get them out. If you can construct a deck to somehow get all the kazyuas quite early then you will win for a +4/+4 to all your attacks.

Stand Off tech is needed. Pommel Smash and Hope for One's People will help. Siding Bryan Fury is pointless against it, really, because you're committing the foundations anyway.

Anyone with Air, Death and Void should pack as surprise anti-meta a few copies of Proficient Sniper, at least in sideboard. For Death, Scroll of the Abyss is a must against the "I throw you for 30 damage" side of things, and also takes care of Path of the Master. Ka Technique is an obvious auto-include for the same reason.

I hate to say this but everything's pointing toward either Death or Fire winning SAS, unless some magical Chaos Jin/Heihachi/Kazuya wins.

It's sad because I'm not planning to play those symbols but I know that will be the outcome. I *might* play Death.

For me personally, even though the deck I'm thinking of playing is Fire, I would of course prefer to find some unique control build. I need to actually PLAY some **** games before I can even formulate that far ahead though, sigh. Right now I have a freaking paper to finish, grr...

You can make a Death hybrid. Not hard to do, consider Ragnar + Rashotep + Nina + Tira + Nightmare and you have enough aggro AND anti-meta to rule the world. Plus most good Death attacks used right now also have Fire, so you get the best of both worlds.

VikramS said:

You ran into the same problem as me. I was playing King off of Earth since he came and was doing well... until i started testing again fire more and more. Torn hero and random grabs are just not enough to beat fire consistenly.

I will say that death if built/played well can be as good as fire. Jin especially.

Astrid is the person you need to be able to beat, she is by far the most consistant deck and will smash face. She is playable off all three symbols and just scary.

The next few decks in my eyes are kind of all over the place.

Chaos - Heihachi/Jin/Kazuya All three of these guys are really dangerous off of chaos, the common denominator is Spinning Demon/Merciless Fighter(heihaci doesn't need this) They are all fast, and they can all play a bit of control. All are better then people think.

Earth Rashotep - Control, Damage Pumps, and even some sneaky card advantage, the best control deck i nthe format probably, and does very well against astrid.

Generic Fire Deck 001 - This can be off a Multitude of people each with their own things. Jin Knight Breaker, Hata and Cassy Dragons Lifter/Flame, Ragnar Aggro, and Paul Stun are all common builds. Hilde's Weapon, Stand off, and paid to protect are all staples of these decks.

Earth Throw Decks - King/Bryan Fury/Ragnar , The ywill typically use similar foudnation bases but use different throws with similar ideas, make throw big, profit. King is the scariest but also the slowest of the three suprsingly. They are actually fairly control oriented, but can bring pain.

Paul/Steve Punch - Comes in two flavors All and Fire, but both run incredibly alike and only have a few different cards(all has Boxing is Life/Bloodline Rebellion/Controller of souls Fire has Stand off Paid to Protect and Nursing a grudge for example), ive stated my preference, but The Fire one is by no stretch bad, and honestly, could be considered better in some circles.

Typically speaking those are pretty much the cream of the crop, BUT there is SO many good decks playable and the meta is open to rogue decks, things like Zhao Daiyu Evil, Good Seigfried, Zi Mei Air, Death Nina/Jin/Rasho, Ivy Life Spam, Void Algol, All Herr, and Chaos Omar are all incredibly competitive decks.

Water is the only symbol I feel like doesn't have a comeptitive build out there right now. It's choices are limited and often overshadowed by other symbols.

I really can't think of anything else to mention. Oh yeah, Mark of the Beast, Close Throw, Martial Arts Champ and Cursed Blood are all legal and reprinted, I figure you might of heard, but they are all nearly staples so figured it would be best to mention it if you havent heard,

Becuase it is such a small card pool it is relatively easy to examine and identify what works and what doesn't and vs. what.

My own opinion is that there are more characters that are playable, and although there are definate better's, the game is too agressive and slightly random (see below) to id a clear best.

Randomness of the game, the evolution to 6hs:

There are very few recursive abilities, and those that do exist are relatively slow or costly when compared to the average length of game. There is also fairly limited 'card drawing' options, most/all of them have the fire symbol, the best going to weapon/kick based decks, and some oddball draw techs off path of the master and some seldom used attacks. Becuase of this, a lot of characters struggle with finding any sort of consistency with their game. I'm not saying a character won't kill/win often, I'm saying the way in which it happens is spread across a number of different attacks, wheras in the past it was reduced to one attack or one combination of cards. i.e. there are multiple less predictable kill conditions in many decks, and fewer one hit kill methods. Of course, path kills are fairly consistent methods that some players use, but getting and drawing into the path, and the attack it is used on, often is different.

6hs characters are becoming more relevant, and this also means a lot of different cards, setups, etc. are being played. In the past, with 7/8hs I found it was much easier to draw into that '1' 1st turn foundation or asset that you were looking for.

Symbols:

There is a lot of discussion about the number of cards with the fire symbol on them. It goes without saying that this symbol is one of the strongest, if only becuase it has the most variety and number of cards to choose from, the vast majority of which have abilities that are decent or playable depending on the character and the situation.

All things considered there are still a few symbols that haven't fleshed out as of yet. What we have are a large number of characters that are playable off of 2 or 1 symbols, and not all 3. This leads to a lack of variety in character presentation, but is to be expected.

If I were to tier the symbols free from their characters I'd do so as follows -

Tier 1 = Fire, Earth, Death

Tier 2 = Void, All, Life, Chaos

Tier 3 = Good, Air, Evil

Tier 4 = Water, Order

Mechanics:

Speed. It goes without saying that have Fire (agression aspect) and Earth (damage pump aspect) as two of the 3 top tier symbols that we have a very fast and altogether abrupt meta. That is not to say that defense doesn't exist, fire and earth equally have some damage reduction techniques, and death has some serious denial aspects as well, some of which stems from the rudimentary ability to destroy staging areas. Milling, or the technique of outlasting the opponent, is 'almost dead' at the moment, but it does still exist for those who are willing to work for it and have some serious patience becuase there aren't as many proactive ways to have your opponent deck out.

Draw. I already said that draw is fairly lackluster, but for those that have it, it is key and quite prevalent. Damage pump is back, and in a big way. There are a lot of playable attacks, but the attacks themselves aren't usually 'multiple x' with big damage or the equivalent, instead the attacks are consistent and with techy abilities that suit the decks they are in, toss in pump and the game is over. I shouldn't say that raw damage doesn't come from attacks though, it does if together with the combo keyword, a more balanced reward for players willing to mix and match attack lineups and to work hard to manipulate draws and get 2/3 of the requisite attacks into hand.

Blocking. Deciding what/when to block is still as important as ever, but for the times it is up against throws. Throws make blocks somewhat irrelevant, and although throws are in and very playable with 3 control checks all over, they are also balanced with typically poor 'on-attack' numbers when compared to their non-throw counterparts.

Assets. Assets are key and are typically harboring game-changing abilities. Which makes sense, granted they don't all have dual uses that foundations are more or less gauranteed to have (to pass checks). Asset destruction is lagging behind, it exists, I just don't see it 'as much' as it probably should be used in a meta with such influential assets around.

Discard. As much as I hate to say it discard is back moreso than speed pump. And although there is some viable speed pump, it really only works well in certain circumstances. There is a lot of anti-discard, and I think decks that go the route of relying on discard, which a lot of death/void decks can and should probably go, will have to be extremely wary of bad matchups.

Destruction. We are seeing a lot of decks that do a lot of damage and by destroying their own resources to do so. What this leaves them with after an attack is an even poorer defense. Of course, following up with throws to finish the deal can sometimes still work, even after reducing resources to near nil... In any case, getting more out of foundations, by first commiting them, then destroying them, is the new in thing.

Stun. Hugely important is the comeback of stun, and therefore the few answers to stun become equall if not moreso important. Some decks can reliably work with stun and multiple attacks instead of speed pump. Not only does stun assist in removing the ability to block it also jams up pesky resources that would otherwise be used to reduce damage (see stand off) and the like. What control does exist in the game is severely limited becuase of stun, namely Death/Void decks that don't outbuild or run anti-commital are sometimes left answerless early because they are fully tapped.

Characters:

There are some stand-out characters, two of which stand-out because they break part of the Randomness of the game... These being the King and Queen of UFS (King and Astrid). King recurs attacks, and therefore doesn't suffer from the 'I didn't draw an attack' syndrome, and Astrid draws and searches for weapon cards, in general attacks, like no other. The ability to do so is somewhat shared by the viable 7hs characters, those being Herr, Hilde, Cassandra, Zi Mei, Tira, and to some extent Padma and Christie.

If I were to tier the characters:

Tier 1 = Astrid, King, Zi Mei, Hilde

Tier 2 = Jin, Heiachi, Paul, Cassandra, Rashotep, Steve Fox, Ivy, Kazuya, Brian Fury, Ragnar, Omar, Black Popscicle, Through the Defenses Lady, Nightmare

Tier 3 = Tira, Nina, Sigfried, JJ, Jon Herr, ZD, Temujin, Cervantes, Christie, White Crane, Marius Gaius, Yi Shan, Padma, Astaroth, Lu Chen,

It's pretty bad that all I can come up with is 3 tiers... But that is saying a lot about the viability of most characters. I might be missing someone/something here though.

- dut

You want a competitive symbol that has bits of control? Play Paul Phoenix. Selective staging area commit, entire board commit, and the damage pump to put down every character in the game no problem.

I have to disagree with dut on a few parts.

Consistency:

Consistency in this meta has simply changed faces, not disappeared. Instead of running that one set of killer combo cards, a deck is forced to run a solid base of foundations and attacks that can perform similarly in a multitude of combinations. Any deck that (currently) waits for a kill condition is going to get swamped in a game of damage catch-up.

Characters:

Why is King so high? And Jin/Heihachi so low? If this meta has shown anything so far, its that Jin and Heihachi are high teir, and King is a bit too slow to be higher than mid teir.

My rankings, excluding the new promos, as I have yet to see them in action:

Tier S: Astrid, Jin, Heihachi, Zi Mei, Hilde, Ragnar

Tier A: Paul, Bryan Fury, Cassandra, Rashotep, Steve Fox, Ivy, Omar, Nightmare, Nina, Algol

Tier B: Kazuya, Tira, Sigfried, JJ, Jon Herr, ZD, Yi Shan, Lu Chen, King

Tier C: Astaroth, Padma, Temujin, Cervantes, Christie

Tier S and A offer some of the most powerful characters out there, with a slant towards those that can dish out the damage the fastest, or with the most punishing results. Astrid can push lethal reversals, Hilde can Hilde. Jin and Heihachi can push attacks like no other, with easy kill options turn 2 or 3.

Tier B and C are those characters that have kill conditions, but their health, symbols, or method open them to being out aggro-ed, or killed before they can go off.

-Tinman

Tinman said:

You don't disagree that much, in fact not much at all - except for King. You must not have faced many Kings...

In any case, your point on consistency was what I was trying to say - namely that it isn't there in the same fashion and that different attacks all hold value and not a single set (more often than not).

I personally think both Temujin and Christie are better than Lu Chen and Yi Shan in most cases. I also think you have a 'bit' too much stock in Ragnar, Heiachi loses hard to a deck that knows how to block and shouldn't be on par with Astrid, not yet. And Jin probably isn't there either.

All in all, other than the King issue, I don't disagree much at all with any of what you've said.

- dut

Tinman said:

So I can clarify, King is faster or on part with Jin an Heiachi no problem. Namely, King can toss out x+1 attacks to anything Jin and Heiachi can throw out, and 1 of them without needing to commit any resources. Even though King doesn't have damage pump on him all he needs is one foundation that repeats damage, hungry, mexican sensation, etc. and he is getting the same type of damage pump that the others are by tossing it onto an extra attack.

x+1 attacks is faster than x, which is usually all Jin and Heiachi can do, granted they are both heavily reliant on draw to throw more attacks, something that King doesn't necessarily need to get the extra attack in.

- dut

dutpotd said:

Having played both King and Heihachi in this format almost exlusively.... King is better right now.

As dut said Heihachi fails hard core to good blocking and when he cant draw (whether it being negated by MAC or not drawing well), King essentially says screw it., Ill play my hand and then play an attack for free hopefully with a PotM bonus. And because he can do this build and fling for free, he can hide behind Stand Off prolly better than any other character. Not to mention the sheer fact that King uses Throws. Throws define this meta. Only reliable speed pump in the format is Drossel and Robes, if you cant run those you have to rely heavily on throws/great draws to push enough damage through.

Right now Heihachi needs speed pump for all three symbols. Fire is fire, Earth in my eyes is his worse symbol, and Chaos is THIS close to being good. It sadly just has a few too many fillers with no blocks to speak of. Chaos has the potential to be best by far and needs just a lil more cuz Spinning Demon and Hunt is On is like Absurd Strength with his ability. Plus who knows maybe hell be a stacker character like his offspring and have even better synergy with the other Mishima Support

dutpotd said:

I agree pretty much with what dutpotd said, EXCEPT the bolded text. Lu Chen ** 's offense may be a bit flat, but toss in a few of King *'s throws for the guaranteed momentum that he so desperately craves, Robes of the Grandmaster as 1 of the 2 speed pumps that will give you good mileage in this meta (and you can, and probably should, run the other, which is Eiserne Drossel if you go for Life ), and access to the two most damaging attacks in the game pre-pumps ( Wrath of Heaven and Siegfried's Earth Divide ), and you have yourself a strategy (and trust me, your opponent WILL want to block your Reversal , and even if he doesn't, he's not blocking your finisher). Also, what he can do with a Gut Drill is **** near obscene.

I've already spoken on why Yi Shan** has been underrated (he covers the fundamentals of the game in stellar fashion; all his attacks have great stats, most of his foundations flip 5's, and he can buff and debuff using the same mechanic), and he's been more consistent than what he appears to be on first glance. I recognize that he's not the easiest character to run (you'll be running his attacks almost exclusively, and some of his other support as well, and the fact of the matter is they sold his second E a bit short, its cost should have been Commit 1 foundation ), but I can think of at least 8 other characters that I think are worse off overall.

dutpotd said:

I don't see how you can say that King is faster than Jin and Heihachi, when Jin and Heihachi both have access to some of the best draw power in the game right now, and King has access to none. Sure, King can throw one attack each turn, assuming he has the resources to dump any other Throws he has in hand at the time (BTW, commiting King is a fairly big resource early game, as he cannot be Stunned). But Jin and Heihachi can string together high damage attacks without trying (Jin with any <5 difficulty attacks, Heihachi with Spinning Demon at the least). King requires build up to actually push any damage through, aside from the 2-3 damage that might get through a half blocked Throw. Against King, Heihachi and Jin side in their Paid to Protects as DR, and use their multiple character cards to block and draw.

Basically what I am saying, and I can evolve this a bit later, is that Heihachi and Jin throw X attacks a turn. But those X attacks are twice the damage of King's X+1 attacks, meaning Heihachi and Jin just need 3 attacks, while King would need 5 (in hand). King, at the same time, does not have the draw power to assure that he can string those attacks together, meaning he has to beat Jin and Heihachi in the building department, again with limited draw power. And, sure, if King were to play out his hand, and PotM the attack, I highly doubt he could reach the needed 40 some damage to really make Heihachi and Jin sweat in those early turns, whereas Jin and Heihachi can easily throw attacks Turns 2 and 3 that will bring King down early. Spinning Demon is one, Paul/Nightmare stuff is another, Astrid/Hilde stuff could even work. Cervantes/Algol attack might also be able to make a sizeable dent early game, but the symbols get a bit fuzzy.

Then again, I am working from a different micro-meta. You might have some exceptional King deck that I have never seen, which could explain things. You might also have some weaker Fire builds, which would explain things as well. I can evolve this in a bit, and see if we can get some in depth comparison.

-Tinman

Tinman said:

Jin cannot throw out attacks that are 'twice' the damage as the ones King throws out. Namely his access to damage pump requires setup, i.e. even a character a turn puts him at turn 3 or so before he can start pumping all of his attacks, and even then they are likely blocked w/o speed pump in many cases.

Heiachi's damage pump is not necessarily consistent early game and in order for him to be fast he needs to draw into a) attacks, b) character cards or more attacks (which probably means you have a lot of bad checks in the deck), and c) likely needs to have speed pump to put on any sort of hurt.

Access to draw power does not = to a pseudo 7hs w/o needing additional resources on the field. Which is essentially what King is. King has auto draw, and you are probably using path with at least one symboled card... or you are using his mask asset, both effectively increase his handsize greatly, and selective draw to boot - i.e. you get to choose attacks, draw off the top of the deck doesn't do that.

You are also forgetting the biggest drawback Heiachi and Jin have, that being that they both rely on character cards, which aside from being good checks and good blocks aren't overly useful in Heiachi and in both cases are 'that turn' dead draws if not accompanied by attacks. A first turn where Heiachi draws 2 character cards w/ little foundations really slows him down.

What you are also neglecting to take into account is that as King gets to his x+1 attack if the opponent has 'half blocked' the first couple x's the +1 is that much harder to block. Let's look at a possible great King turn 1 and 2.

Turn 1, Path and 3 foundations, not hard to happen with zero diff and 1 diff Earth cards.

Turn 2, throw - commit 1 to pass (maybe none), recurring damage pump on foundation not comitted, a 7 damage throw.

Do you block? If you do you know the X+1 will be harder to block and with Path out will harbor more damage? Ok... you take 7.

throw - commit 1 again to pass (maybe none), recurring damage pump on last foundation ready, another 7 damage throw.

This time you are looking at your life and think you can half block this and the last attack, becuase neither of his attacks had stun (sometimes one might... and yes, King doesn't 'just' run throws) Ok... you take 4 and have a card in the card pool.

King plays 2/3 foundations depending on the difficulties in his hand.

auto attack throw - commit King, path with (let's say 2.5 symbols a card, which is realistic if he's running his own support is anywhere from +10-+13 damage) 15 damage throw. Even if you block you now have taken 7+4+8 = 19. Next turn you know your opponent will draw an attack, i.e. King auto gets one... If you had 3 blocks in hand, and thought you could block all 3 and miss the path you are taking 4+4+15 = 23, if you block all 3 (likely needs character cards or you are ditching 3 attacks, harder to counter next turn) you are still taking 4+4+8 = 16. This is a lot of damage to take when you 'blocked' 3 attacks...

King has thrown out 7+7+15 or 29 damage on 3 different attacks, he has also built 2/3 foundations, and probably has 1 block in his hand. So, you have a block and 5/6 foundations out and path w/ 29 damage thrown turn 2.

This is an ideal case, but other cases involve walling up with 4 foundations a turn followed by a 4/5 attack turn on turn 3/4. Why King is fast is that he can 'fetch' attacks, he can also build and attack in the same turn, which a lot of characters, especially Jin and Heiachi who clog with many attacks or multiples, cannot do. Jin and Heiachi are often left 'just' barely not killing an opponent, but having gained nothing re: build that turn have a hard time finishing the deal or defending on the turn coming back. King is rarely ever fully comitted to start a turn becuase half of his turn has been foundations, instead of 'just' a string of attacks.

King is not slow, and King is not mid tier... Just becuase a character doesn't have fire doesn't mean they aren't top tier, fire is not the be all and end all of UFS at the moment like many want to put it out to be.

- dut

THAT. a thousand times THAT.

I agree that King has potential. I agree that Fire is not the only symbol. I have just never seen a King deck that wowed me, either in my meta, or posted on the boards. That is what I have based my statements on. Without a deck to back up claims of a powerful character, I can't say that a character will perform as theorized or not. If it wasn't for my lack of Path of the Master, I would enjoy trying out that style King, seeing how it works. But again I will say, I have yet to see a deck that wowed me.

-Tinman

When I play King I always discard a 5 diff throw during my review step. Why would anyone else do something like that? I'll play the attacks I draw, then play the throw I ditched for free. I don't see Kazuya and company ditching their attacks every time for no reason. Truth is he has the best discard pile recursion of attacks in the game right now (beats Resourceful by a mile), him and Jaguar Mask means he doesn't really need to draw attacks. He'll Jaguar Mask, play the throw, build with like 3 foundations, King's F, Path and he ends his turn with three cards in hand.

Who can say they deals upward of 20 damage while playing foundations AND ending his turn with 3 cards? Not many.

Mind you he doesn't NEED Path with all the Earth damage pump, but Path is the easiest way by far. Hate.

OK OK, so King is great.

But...what are his weaknesses? Seems like having some copies of MAC out pretty much F him over royally =/ *is clearly not a King player*

MarcoPulleaux said:

It really depends, though. A King off of Good in Desperation can take out the MACs with Hope for One's People.

No matter what I do though, even with discarding a throw, there's always two or three other attacks rearing their ugly head in my hand. Of course, this is a GOOD thing, but not when you're trying to free throw.

Also, MAC doesn't stop free throw, but it does stop Jaguar Mask. A smart King player will just abuse the simple, free +1 damage from it until MAC is no longer an issue.

MarcoPulleaux said:

How exactly do they F Him over? I mean yeah the kind of hurt his assets Form but why exactly does it mess him up?

Wasn't clear on the wording on King's F, and too lazy to do so.

Tinman said:

It's kind of weird to say 'has potential' and then mid-tier him... or maybe it isn't.

It is all well and good to base what you say on practice alone, it is another thing to be able to recognize and admit to a character threat without having seen one in person. The latter is a skill that will win you your fair share of tournaments. So will knowing the counters to said character, which means knowing exactly what works and what doesn't against him...

Proxy the Path. Wow yourself.

- dut