Hey all, I posted a new article on my Throwdown blog, vikramas.blogspot.com . Me and Jay (Awaken) spent a good long while testing decks, it was like a blast from the past for me! I loved it, and I said I'd write more as my "training" for the SAS goes so these are my initial impressions after a marathon session. As always, any feedback/comments/criticisms appreciated. Enjoy!

I liked it Vik!

As you said in your article your next step is to do King and Astrid. It would also do you a good service to build a 'specific' fire build, and not a 'generic' one in order to determine just how strong a tailored fire 'deck to character' can be.

Other characters/symbols worth building are Steve Fox off of All, Zi Mei (a character that does have a 'specific' fire build), and a Kazuya (death/evil), Nightmare, or ZD deck. It seems like your first venture was 'mostly' attack oriented, there is a lot of semi-hard control out there in the way of destruction.

Finally, I'm hoping some of your builds are using Path of the Master becuase it is seriously defining re: the way damage is dealt in this meta.

EDIT: Once you've done all of that you need to build a 'top-tier' Nina deck, which isn't exactly easy to do, to ensure your attack numbers and other things in the other characters can weather her best attempt at hand control.

- dut

Agreed. One of the toughest challenges you can make is build a great Nina. She is one tricky MF.

She has most of the control she needs in her card already, and even though Ice Pick seems nice, I would only put it in a generic Death build with Midnight Launcher and Knight Breaker (7 damage, 7 damage, 12 damage?) with Rashotep/Ragnar support. Then again, Crushing Embrace of the Jotun, Sandstorm Throw, Flooded-Nile Throw or even Body Slam can do it better since they're all throws and can push some damage through initially, and doesn't need much of a setup, and doesn't completely prevent you from MULLIGANING (stupid Ice Pick grr).

Proficient Sniper is akin to Collecting Data. It doesn't get rid of all copies, but one goes bye bye FOREVER (since there's not RFG recursion right now), and you get to see through their deck, and there was some saying about knowing being half of the battle? By seeing through their deck you will 1) know what to call on Proficient Sniper and 2) know what to ditch with Nina because you now know what's in the deck, and how much it can do.

Eisserne Drossel, Perfect Sense of Balance and Keeper of the Watchers seem like good choices, as does Osterheinsburg (sp?) Castle Twilight if you want to re-ready those Ka Techniques.

Don't forget the Scroll of the Abyss. That Death E is sexy. And so is the asset destruction.

Yeah, those are good suggestions. I wish we had more time last night, still for about 20 games it was a good sample and preview of what's around. I definitely will take those decks a spin, thanks. dutpotd, the Fire deck actually is built with a specific focus and style that suits 3 rotating characters, so that's how we have it built. However, we will get around to some more character-intense builds like Steve Fox. And yes, we are using PoTM.

The Jin deck hada fair amount of control and general BS going on, so we did experiment with control/explosion hybrids. Honestly though, right now I don't think it's good enough. Aggro is really hardcore right now, me and Jay had about 1/3 of our games done by the second turn. Trust me, I would LOVE to find an amazing brutal control build with unexpected avenues of primary control methodology (restriction, negation, destruction) but it's not there, in my view. At least, not to the caliber I would like, so I'm more comfortable with aggro right now.

Alex, most of those cards you mention are already being put to strenuous use, lol! I effing hate Ka Technique and PSoB, they don't let me do my cheatyface things with Fire! :-(

I do love Proficient Sniper and would like to work them in my sideboard, but right now I'm thinking 4x MAC and 4x Paid To Protect. Don't how much I have to worry about discard, etc as far as total metagame goes...still that's always the last thing done, my basic deck outline is complete (I think).

guitalex2008 said:

7 Unblockable, 7 damage, 12 damage.

I like the article. I recently built the void King/Algol. Holy crap. It's so good. Totally good enought to rush through even the Standoff mechanic.

VikramS said:

Have you tried Zhao Dayiu with Twilight enbrace Destruction in his wake combo.....theres enough control for everyone there backed with intimidating presence and Ka Tech your opponent never gets to use his foundations

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

That combo looks tasty, but in reality it's very hard to pull off. It's a 4-card combo within a 6HS character.

That's what I was going to say, yes it's great but the setup is too slow for my taste. And without real good cc hax and damage reduction it's not like turtling is an option right now, either. I wish DIHW has just one less requirement, and it'd be perfect for my purposes. Then again, it would rpobably make it a little too easy...

I'd rather just loop Twilight Embrace.

Earth/Life or Death/Life split symbols have the best opportunities for brutal control right now. This leans towards Tira and Siegfried.

Life has Lu Chen support, and Knows When to Talk is one of the best control cards out there, after Torn Hero. There is also some tech damage reduction, such as Relaxing Model. Robes of the Grandmaster and Eiserne Drossel can be thrown in to make sure that when you do finally attack, it connects.

Earth also shares Torn Hero, but brings in Rashotep's support.

Death brings in Nina's support and Kazuya's support, but--more importantly--also Nightmare's support. Right now most real control is through foundation destruction and stun (of which Nightmare's support does both). The problem is that some characters (Bryan, Heihachi) can go off even with only two foundations in play. Still, I recognize that "control" in this set is more what we would have called "hybrid" in previous sets; there's nothing like Set 1-2 Dhalsim anymore (for which I am thankful).

The attack spread is pretty beastly on those symbols as well. Off Earth/Death you have a range of throws from Rashotep and Ragnar, not to mention solid attacks like Hammer.

Life has the biggest finishers, though, with Wrath of Heaven and Siegfried's Earth Divide.

Both builds have an efficient set of utility attacks. If running life, you might want some of Tira and Ivy's cheap hits to set up for an Earth Divide more easily, or you might want to focus on reversals (which set up for Wrath of Heaven and Earth Divide).

Shaneth said:

Its not as hard as you think though the only deck my zhao looses to is astrid and it has a real hard time with lu chen messing with my combos but i can manage

body of souls gives you essentially a 7hs when you either make an attack deal damage or use something like offspring to put it there

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

That's what I'm saying. Just loop Twilight Embrace with Body of Souls. It seems more basic and you wouldn't have to pack the Kazuya action that more than half of the time will clog your 6 card hand.

Shaneth said:

I love this deck alot and even just looping TE works against peoples staging areas but i like the extra kick when you need it you get out of Destruction....i only run 2 in my build and usually by turn 3 i can start the looping and when i draw the action its like icing on the cake

Algol really isn't that great - believe me, I have him built in my bag behind me. He's fun, and when you CAN get an Alshain Najm to hit it's cool, but it's just too telegraphed and one-track, far too easy for your opponent to just keep the one high block they need to shut off your entire kill turn.

He probably needs to run more off Chaos for Ascending Zephyr and the Zi Mei foundation that changes your attack zone (forgot the name), otherwise Najm just keeps getting blocked.

Tagrineth said:

A guy over here is running him off of All with draw acceleration. It works... somewhat, but to say it's zomg awesome would be doing it a disservice.

i would sugest giving hilde a look. she is not the fastest character in the world, but when she plays an attack t2-3 she kills. it is not that hard to luanch a 20+ dmg 20+ speed attack on turn 2. i have placed second at a pair of b3 tournements with her running her off of pure b4.

trane, I do like Hilde, but what do you do about Paid to Protect? It seems to me that card wrecks her, since you can easily block the attack.

VikramS said:

Although this may be true, it is almost the only card in the format that stops Hilde (so if your opponent isnt running Void, Fire, Earth your odds of winning are great).

Hilde is easily one of the best characters in the format. If your looking for answers to Paid for Hilde Hope for Ones People can help off of all of her symbols, Memories of a Nightmare' Blanking ability also helps off of Good, Fire has plenty of Stun that can lock it down.

So Paid to Protect can definately limit Hilde for a while but it by no means stops her cold.

Here's the problem I'm running into, with Hilde. My deck right now for SAS is Fire Hata. Even if she hits me for 20 on her second turn, on my second turn she is DEAD as a doornail. That's if I go second. If I go first...she might not even get to swing. Her low vitality + Paul's attacks + James' speed and damage boost + generic fire pumps and more James Rs + Nova asset = lots of damage, unblockable usually by the 2nd turn (3rd turn latest). So, as good as she is, I don't think she is equal to the top dogs.

So far in my testing, the best decks are Fire Astrid, Earth Rashotep, Fire Hata, Earth/Void King, Life Ivy, Paul Phoenix of Fire or All, Death hybrid with Hata or Jin, and generic Chaos aggro with either Jin, Heihachi or Kazuya. There are a few other characters that are strong as hell and being overlooked (Zi Mei and Tira come to mind). Everything is either too slow, requires too much setup or simply isn't good enough to compete, IMHO.

What do you recommend for the kill condition of death Jin?

What I have going is Shield breaker/Flooded Nile-Launcher-Breaker as the main combo.

Other pumps include Jin, All Life is Prey, PotM, and Kazuya's pump (discard character +4, commit for +2).

Push it through with Keeper of Watches, Drossel, War between sisters.

That's probably the best lineup, we were trying something a bit more wonky with the looping BS that Jin can do but that's a great lineup.

VikramS said:

hilde may not be the best character but if she gets out 4 foundations t1, she is almost gaurantee turn 2 kill. lets say you get out shadowwar, open road, stand off and hope for one's people. t2 you put a character on the top of your deck, play siren's call, play dual wielding (-8 dmg), either a second dual wielding (-8 dmg), or stand off (-4 dmg), shadowwar (-2 dmg), and hilde's e (-1 dmg) +any dmg pump actions from your hand (wariors path, aura of strength) usaully means kill. hilde just requires 4 foundations to go off, sometimes less. also most characters in the format have 26 health, not 28 so it is easier to kill them. she may not be the best char in the format, but she is certainly viable and fast.

VikramS said:

All of those characters you listed are amazing.... Ive played life Ivy and the ratio are just weired and can crew you over at bad times. But other than that I completely agree Vik.

Zi Mei is absolutly stupid with Path and Fury of the Ancients... its super easy to Kill t2

IDK if your draws have just been that great with Hatta vs Hilde but I have never seen that problem on a consistent basis.

Lastly I think Ragnar is a pretty sleeper character right now, with Heir to the Storm he is dumb. Easy Damage pump plus his numerous throws=win

Honestly we need another set like now... there is just not enough character variety out there right now.

Hey Grant, will you email me your Hilde list? I would really appreciate it, in return I'll send you my Hata list for comments/criticisms as well, thanks.