Deck first, card choice justification below (aka WHY ARE YOU NOT RUNNING WIPE THE FLOOR)

Kisheri

Attacks: 16
4x 5/3 +2L 4m4 Shockwave Palm
4x 3/3 +3M 2m2 Two Deadly Rings Technique
4x 4/3 --- 3h7 Midnight Launcher
4x 5/3 +0H 3h5 Knight Breaker

Actions: 3
3x 4/5 --- Cold and Indifferent

Assets: 4
2x 3/5 +2M Scroll of the Abyss
2x 2/5 +2M Path of the Master

Foundations: 37
4x 1/4 +3L Cursed Blood
4x 2/5 +3M Ka Technique
4x 2/5 --- Perfect Sense of Balance
4x 2/5 --- Keeper of the Watchers
4x 2/5 +3H Maniacal Laughter
4x 2/5 +3L All Life is Prey
4x 1/5 --- Treacherous Offspring
3x 2/5 --- Intimidating Presence
3x 2/4 +3M Flexible Body
3x 2/4 --- Unstoppable Warrior

Sideboard: 8
4x 2/4 --- Martial Arts Champion
4x 2/4 --- Valued but not Trusted

Short and sweet, it's a Launcher/Breaker deck with a 7hs character in front of it. Two good mids to get the ball rolling, one of which doubles as a finisher on its own. Kisheri's own sick speed pump pushes everything through regardless of what blocks the opponent's holding in their hand. Staging area **** with Intimidating Presence and Maniacal Laughter, along with the stun: 2 from Kiss the Rings. Hands get wrecked from responding off of Kisheri's own E and Keeper of the Watchers, which is playable on the opponent's attack to trigger the response. Unstoppable Warrior blows things up real good to boot, but may go out for Azure Knight (5CC, block, +5 is easy with the amount of self-exploding my staging area does)

Defense-wise I have Scroll, the backbreaking Cold and Indifferent, and the absolutely amazing Flexible Body along with a decent block suite, especially for a Death deck.

Why no Wipe the Floor? Once Kisheri goes legal people will probably start boarding in anti-discard, and it being a low makes my KB combo a lot more difficult to pull off reliably. I prefer no 2CCs in here so no Lion Slayer , I want to know I'm going to hit that 4+ foundation drop on 2 if I get stuck going second, especially with her low vitality. I prefer to be able to scout a little bit first on the discard end before walking in to Soul Wave, Gut Drill, Warrior's Path, etc. Aside from that, her speedpump is so ridiculous that most attacks are going to get pushed through anyway - I'm more concerned with taking care of Stand Off or Paid to Protect on the table than worrying about the +2/+3 blocks in their hand. If they hold characters, I get +6 speed and suddenly most of my stuff is basically unblockable. If they hold Breaker to block my Breaker, I get +5 speed, and when committed out... yeah, good luck with that one.

Sideboard deals with the usual suspects - MAC isn't in the main because the 4CC hurts her R, and Flexible Body is more important to help stay alive. VbnT stops Rashotep or whatever, basically.

Thoughts?

Things I'm looking at are PotM count, foundations I've missed, things like that. I'd like to fit in Undisputed Ruler, just not sure what I'd be able to justify cutting.

The attack line up doesnt really work IMO. I know Midnight/Breaker is a formidable combo for any death character.

In my deck im running attacks that are all of zone but they hurt when they hit.

Also id lose the cold and indifferent for SA symbol of protection, you will be suprised how helpful SA is..

Nemesis said:

I think Sa becomes weaker when opponents know how dangerous it is to overextend in this format. Cold and Indifferent essentially does the same thing in damage redux by elminating the extra damage a player will benefit from Combo attacks like breaker, Neutron, lifter, etc. I like the C and I tech Dave. GOOD ONE DAVE!

We just need to find that answer to ancient burial ground now.

KA Technique much..

Scroll blows it up too, Ka is better off blanking Stand Off or suchlike.

Nemesis, you say the attack base 'doesn't work'. I'm curious as to why, and what you'd reccommend in its stead. Launcher/Breaker in a non-Mishima seems to me to be the way to go - otherwise you're looking at Leg Slash, Cleave, Jotun, etc. To me it doesn't seem quite as explosive.

Spinning Demon

Lion Slayer

Leg Slash

Flooded Nile Throe

Evil Mist

Sadistic Cupid

theres a few other attacks that could be ran over Midnight/Breaker..

I said the Midnight/Breaker didnt work because to be realistic getting 4 Midnight Launcher and 4 Knight Breaker is alot harder than getting a few common and umcommon attacks, to make the deck work smoother than needing a combo for it to work better. Thats my opinion of it, you dont have to agree with what I have said but I feel I have made my point...

While those attacks are more accessable it doesn't make em kill faster.

Most of those wont do a ton of a dmg on there own nor can you use unstopable warrior on most.
I can see slash in the deck, lion slayer rolls a 2, spinning demon is cute but requires a character that can abuse its E.

Its not so much as getting the breaker combo off more or less as they're just better attacks that do more damage.
I'd run cleave or jotun over all the attacks you just listed.

Nemesis said:

Ah, I gotcha. You're saying that it's a total pain in the ass to even GET 4 launcher/breaker, so swap it out for commons/uncommons. I think there was a misunderstanding there. I'm with Nfxon on most of that though - I don't want the 2CCs, Leg Slash is really good and if I had room it'd probably be in there. Spinning Demon is mediocre without someone like Kaz or Jin or Heihachi to throw character cards at it - that said, it's crazy good in those decks.

Yeah the accessibilty of the card is a moot point. If you plan on attending major tourneys, you need to have your deck optimized regardless of the cost. Plus shiny cards are COOL!

That being said, the damage return on breaker/lawnchair is the highest death has to offer outside of Mishimas in this current format. And even then its an entirely different deck. Plus in this deck, its IMPOSSIBLE to block.

You like Keeper of the watchers at a 4 of dave? I know the ability synergizes with kisheri but 19 life doesnt lend itself well to lower block counts.

And holy crap shockwave has a low block! I THINK I FOUND JESUS!

I think Azure Knight is path on hard mode. If you want to do that then bump your path count up and just use the extras for that sick 2M in the upper right corner.

And i still think that wipe the floor needs a spot somewhere in this deck. 7HS rushdown can afford 18 attacks main and would almost love it for the blocks alone. Death especially. I like something like this.

3x Shockwave
3x WTF
4x Kiss the Rings (every time dave come around my city...)
4x Breaker
4x Launcher

Shockwave is only good when you have a bunch of momentum to dump. Its kinda like buffalo headbutt but doesnt have the utility to justify a 4 of. Let me know what you think.

HAI BEN!

Sketch said:

That actually makes sense...

however if they dont board antidiscard WTF is prolly too good to pass up (especially with PotM). The extra discard also essentially gives you away around PtP, which can bone you otherwise. Stand Off and Burial Ground is still a problem though.

As for things you may have overlooked... i dont really think you overlooked them, but i have seen both O Castle and War Between Sisters in other builds (including my own). These of course call for less foundation destruction (on your part) and more reliance on Discard, but are great options none the less. I would Also look into maining Soul Wave just for anti Burial Ground... the 4cc blows though

After testing this deck for about a week now against a handful of opponents, notably the King that took Day 2 of SAS and a motley of Astrids, Zi Meis, Sigfried, Paul, etcetera, this is what I've come up with.

Wipe the Floor is crap without something like Lion Slayer behind it to make it exciting. 16 attacks in here is the way to go, Shockwave/Rings are both fantastic for the deck. With Wipe the Floor gone, Path of the Master is -way- less exciting and can be safely cut for another x/5 foundation without the deck really losing any pace, probably War Between Sisters at a 2x or 3x. Nightmare's support is amazing in here, Intimidating Presence gets bumped up to a 4x. After a handful of test games with it, Azure Knight is garbage (obvious, yeah) and will be cut for Heir to the Storm or something similar once it hits prize support. Unstoppable Warrior is unnecessary, gets cut for Brooding for more spam.

Cold and Indifferent is absolutely backbreaking in this deck. Rolls a 5, ridiculous defensive ability, Kisheri trigger, lets you scout, etcetera.

Only thing that needs to somehow make it in once legal is Power of the Edge.

Why is the Azure knight garbage? I almost always get +5 damage out of mine. is it the 3 difficulty?

Have you tested with Ymirfang?

Sketch said:

Assuming of course people use Paid to Protect, or more speed hate if it comes out in the next set (which I doubt, unfortunately).

Kisheri is worth running on the back of 7HS with Cursed Blood access, hand scouting and speedpump in Death, and occasionally devastating discard.

Wipe the Floor is unexciting because all it really does is discard cards from my opponent's hand, and if the anti-discard comes in it basically does nothing that Kisheri can't do on her own. I have other ways of gutting hands in the deck (War, Kisheri's E, Shockwave Palm, Keeper) so dedicating an attack slot to doing -just- that is marginal, really. Keeping the attack base focused on KB combo instead lets me run a few less attacks, therefore more foundations, therefore better Cursed Blood activations and CC average. With few exceptions, I -always- want to hit a foundation on Cursed Blood - this deck is just as much about controlling foundation pace as it is about discard, and the further ahead I get, the better off I am.

Ymirfang is pretty good, yes. Unfortunately its an asset and rolls a 4, and that's something that I really, really want to minimize in this deck - between her R activation and playing an effective 7 difficulty attack as my killshot, the more 5CCs the better.

Azure Knight is one of those foundations that, to me at least, is exciting on turn 2 then gets worse and worse as the game goes on. You try to quasi-grey war against King or Astrid or something and this foundation effectively becomes blank by turn 3.

Again, these are all my opinions and should be taken as such. If you see gaps in my logic, please call me out on it - that's what's discussion's for, and all.