Welcome to another one of my Tech discussion. The attempt is to look at underdeveloped characters and overlooked characters and see what is accessible to make them better. Today we will be looking at White Crane. White Crane character card reads as follows...

F Discard x face down cards in your card pool: If the next card you play this turn is an attack, it gets +x speed. Only playable once per turn.

R Commit, discard 1 momentum: After your opponent plays an attack with at least 2 keywords , discard it from their card pool and cancel its effects.

When you look at her starting out she yells Lu Chen support. But she has life, water, and chaos. She is not an exact Lu Chen clone. I think what most see is the ability to capulize on Master's challenge, and Warrior poet.

Cards to consider of off life

flowing strikes

wraith of heaven

Scroll of the Celestral dawn

Know when to talk...

Know when to fight

Warrior Poet

Genius Alchemist

Frantic Search

Brazilian Beauty

Robes of the grandmaster

One with the Rythem

No forgiveness

Ice Coffin of the Sleeping Ancient

Researching the Past

Eiserne Drossel

This is just a start list for life. Note this is not a deck list but good options to think about for the deck. There are different things that help her survive in the current meta while building off her character card. There is a lot of disruption to have her to pull from. You can focus on reversals or kicks or kick reversals. Face down cards break up combo and No Forgiveness! help slow down agressive decks.

Now lets look at some cards that are off of Chaos that are note worthy...

Unnatural Grace

Scoll of the Abyss

her own agenda

treacherous offspring

Intolerant of Failure

Willful

Execution Technique First Rite

Communing with the Ancients
Always in Motion
Alaraph Achernar
Alphard Maliki
Eltanin Nath
Controller of Souls
Ancient Fighting Style
High Tide Anchoring
Curse of the Ancient Mariner
Dark Geo Da Ray
Beyond Humanity
Dread Pirate
Shadow Flare
Demon Slayer
Devil Gene
Lion Slayer
mishima zaibatsu leader
Spinning Demon

Chaos allows for a more agressive build while allowing for check hacking. Not only that there are some creative options that can be seen with some of the Jin/Kazyuma support. This is lineup fits the meta more but you can't use her Form unless you are playing someone using Lu Chen support. I doubt that her ability can get rid of multiplies.

The character main focus is negating disruption and bouncing kill conditions. Most kill conditions in this game have two elements on the card or they are combos. Its a character that is waiting for the ohh crap attack. While reversals maximize on her form it can also be used to make sure her finishers are unstoppable.

Well actually, I see no reason why her ability can't get rid of multiples.

The multiple I thought was an exact copy of the face down card. So it is an attack. Also POTM can pump multiples so it has to count as a normal card since it would also have symbols atributed to the card.

The multiples being attacks dosn't make them not face down cards.

Maybe you can play a multiple, use her skill to get rid of the multiples in your card pool, then perceede with another attack.

darklogos said:

yeah thats pretty much the way it works.....although there arent many multiples on her symbols except chaos i believe then she gets spinning demon and double face kick

I just had a thought for White Crane that seems to have some nice synergy with her ability:

Uses, these cards, probably in a Life deck splashing Chaos:

• Body of Souls
• Menuett Dance
• Lunging Brush Fire
• Solitary Assassin

Throw in speed bumps to taste (Robes, Drossel, etc) and maybe some Ivy Progressive stuff (Alchemist would not be bad)

Game Plan:

Get 3 Momentum. May need to more than splash Chaos for this. Treacherous Offspring, Maniacal Laughter are options, but life does not have much more than that. You could try throwing little attacks, but no assured gen there.

Play Menuett Dance. On a 6, it could be a bit of a stretch early game, but Chaos offers some options(again), and Life is not too shy for spamming foundations.

Multiple 3. That is 4 attacks, with speed bumps to match.

E with Solitary Assassin. Gen back the 3 momentum, but be sure to be organized with it.

Let the attacks ride. If you can, E with an Alchemist to negate the mother attack.

Form with White Crane. Depending on the deck, you may have some Warrior poets on the field that will go off first, which would only help.

Play Lunging Brush Fire. It gets a nice speed bump from Crane, plus any Poets that were used. And on a 5 (Including the Alchemist), it should not be killer to play.

E with the attack, and let it roll, speed bumping as needed.

Drop the Dance into your momentum, probably on top.

F with Body of Souls to grab it back.

Play it again for game (Hopefully. If they have any Learned From the Best on the field, you are screwed)

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Well, that is the best I can think of so far, off Life. Maybe someone could offer some other options for Momentum gen, as that is probably the thing slowing the deck down the most. I would also look into some Yi Shan Support, see if we can't get more recurring going on.

-Tinman

Thanks for the feedback. When I get some time here I will post my current life White Crane deck. I focus on reversals and play with what I have. I will have to look deeper at your Body of Souls Idea. But lunging brush is a card that is a must in life decks in my opinion. It can flow really well into other strong elements and promotes aggro. I think that is something that is overlooked in life right now. The pure fact that Life can kill you with a thousand paper cuts and bring the pain is what makes it a flexible symbol.

White Crane x4

Actions

Frantic search x 4

Dragon of Mt Lao x4

Assets

Robes x4

Attacks

Leaping Snap Kick x4

Yi Shan's Tail Leg sweep x4

Peaceful Path Hold x4

Siegfried's Earth Divide x2

Lunging Brush Fire x2

Chi Disrupter x4

Foundations

Genius Alchemist x4

Torn hero x 4

Relaxing Model x 4

Close Friends x4

Capoeira Sytle x 3

One with the Rhythm x1

Hoping for the best x3

Faithful Bodyguard x3

Searching for Family x1

While dthe deck is more casual then most people would like it works pretty well. If I had more of certain rares then my numbers would be different. The main thing i found with Earth Divide is packing more then 2 is to much of a risk. I had 2 in my hand and 1 other attack and I found myself stuck unable to use the card. If I had Wraith of Heaven then I would sub that in there instead. I didn't go route of face up momentum tricks mainly because I had so many kicks in the deck that Christie's tech worked way better. It allowed me to force through my attacks while putting out consistent damage each turn. Dragon of Mt Lao is my only real damage pump but it has proven to be worth it since it also works as a speed pump. Faithful Bodyguard has been situational but when that situation comes it has been really worth it. Low difficulity attacks has been interesting because after a Lunging Brush Fire I can finish up without having to commit foundations.

I had a chaos version but I found its agression to be on the par of fire decks. With attacks like Lion Slayer it is easy to do heavy damage. If I had copies of Jin I would splash in Faithful bodyguard to jack with people.

With that build, why even run White Crane? Why not use a character with better abilities, like Sigfried or something? I just don't see any use to WC's F at all, and her R is only useful some of the time. I would at least look into Challenge the Master and Brazilian Beauty.

-Tinman

Tinman said:

up the number of searching for family (draw 2) add 4 warrior poets, add 4 master's challange {dropping frantic search because searching for family net's you cards instead of burning for a 3 for 3 trade with +1difficulty for the turn} drop the 4 robes, switch for 3-4 drossel, same difficulty, better check, has a block and 2 playable abilities, vs 1 playable ability unless you side into lu chen. the main reason to play white crane is the form, the response is an added bonus.

I don't have any master's challenge or Tira's weapon. The main reason I had the build I posted before with White Crane is to use her R. Her R is worth gold because a lot of kill conditions are combos. Blowing them up means not taking a ton of damage. One thing I thought about today was playing Knee Thruster into Wrath of Heaven or Earth Divide giving it a mulitple rating of 1.

darklogos said:

Except Wrath and Earth Divide aren't kicks, so they would not be multipled.

White Crane's R is, yes, a boon against things like Knight Breaker and the like, but it is really just a bonus. Plenty of decks use no keywords, or just one (Throw). The ability is pretty much not there in those cases.

Another thought I had for W.C. that was kinda silly: Mix Path of the Masters, Communing with the Ancients, and the Christie Loop. WC is more survivable than Christie, and already has 2 of the symbols. Communing would make playing the attacks easier (makes it at least checkable, instead of auto-6s). Path for Draw power, Use Brazilian + Challenge, or Warrior Poets to fill their card pool, then loop the Christie Loop.

-Tinman

Tinman said:

Thats what I get for seeing what I wanted to see. Ok. With what you gave I see the problem being how hard it is for her to dual symbol. As for the SSS loop it would do weak damage due to the fact you have no way of ejecting mid kick outside of Lunging brushfire since Samba won't go off. LBF will get rid of you midkick and itself but you just lost part of your combo. I will give you that there are a lot of good cards with only 1 or no keywords but most strong cards have more then 1.

Master's challenge is easy to get, and so worth it. Basically +1 difficulty for +4 speed.

Why wouldn't Samba go off? With Path out, you can play the ability, All symbol or no. That clears the mid back to your hand to keep going.

As it is right now, she basically only has 2 symbols, Life and Chaos, due to the symbol sharing across the board of Water and Life. I agree that duel symboling would be difficult, but as it is, Life lacks some of the push that other symbols have, either in CC hacks, or in speed/damage mods. WC is in a unique position to use Life in a new way, with a splash of Chaos adding in some spice that other Life decks will not get.

Of course, the SSS loop would only benefit from the Communings or For the Moneys. It could probably do just as well with Castle Twilight and some Alchemists, meaning mono-life is viable.

-Tinman

EDIT: And with Brazilian Beauty, CtM can get cleared for no progressive.

I don't play with PoTM so everything it does isn't always in the forefront of my mind.