So, I finally got Internet! =D

So While I've Been Away...

I've been doing some general opining and have been thinking a lot about NEWFS as I have deemed it. As we all know, this game is the best its ever been and is finally where we have wanted it to be. There are very few things that can be considered “crazy”, but in time that will lessen I'm certain as we get more cool new characters and their mechanics and support to add to this game.

To be honest, I'm not sure what all I will cover in this article, as I'm pretty much just freestylin' it as I still don't have Internet =/. But, anyways, let's begin.

#1 Discard

If there's one thing that bothers me, it's the fact that they printed War Between Sisters and Wipe the Floor in the manner that they did. Other Nina support required you guess cards, and Kisheri is almost entirely dependent on other support, AND has no playable effects while Ancient Burial Ground is in play.

Discard is one of the most powerful mechanics this game has, and anybody who has either piloted or faced Dhalsim*, **Ukyo**, ***Cassandra***, and other such characters can definitely nod their head to that statement.

But...why is discard (or blind/themeless discard, as I call it) so bad?

1.Everybody has access to it. Wipe/War have no theme, no real cost, no restrictions. If War's E was a Nina Williams E, or required an attack deal damage, or had some other interesting way of triggering it, then it might be fine. But as is, it's Charisma with a block, simply slide it into your A/D/V deck of choice.
2.Discard > Speed, every time. Discard does something speed bonuses are intended to do: bypass blocks. While you may be trying hard to speed pump your attack by such limited means of Close Friends/Twilight Castle, or the ever-fun Drossel-Robes, discard saves you the hassle of caring what is in their hand. No use speed pumping if they can't block.
3.Has no real drawback/thought behind using it. Now I know the first response is, “Um, if they're running anti-discard?” Discard is not prevalent enough to necessitate anti-discard, and as I've always said, and apparently always will, but if an anti-discard doesn't have a universally agreed-upon good second ability, people will only side it at best (unless the game did indeed become discard heaven). If somebody ever goes to their sideboard after losing to discard, it's safe to assume what they're siding in and adjust accordingly. While a Torn Hero may sit on a board wishing it was facing a Paul Phoenix, War Between Sisters, and other such discard, is good almost all the time.

Discard, henceforth, needs to be theme/character-specific, always. The fact that War is a costed **Ukyo** and an unbalanced Cassandra* is just shameful. Now, please note, I do realize our game is a bit different, and that War/Wipe aren't the be all to games. However, no matter what game we live in, discard will always be one of the most powerful mechanics in the game...

...Unless we get better anti-discard and/or more cards that allow you to block from top of discard pile/deck/momentum/staging area (Nina's one foundation does not really count).

#2 Stun

Stun, as a concept, needs an errata.

When I first saw a Stun card, it was Close Throw. It had a very “stunned”-looking E Honda, likely stunned by the fact he got thrown by a woman like Chun Li.

Anyways, as I was new at the time and didn't own a rule book, I assumed Stun worked as such:

E: If your attack deals damage, your opponent commits X foundations. X equals the Stun rating.

I also thought maybe it worked the other way, like maybe:

E: If your attack is blocked, your opponent commits X foundations. X equals the Stun rating.

I thought of games like Soul Calibur, and how if you hit your opponent with a hard enough attack, they kinda slumped/sauntered, as if “stunned” by it.

Stun, in UFS, does not function as it should.

Any attack in this game is instantly made better by Stun, because it serves a dual purpose of:

A. Giving your attacks +X speed, where X equals the total stun rating in the card pool.
B. Commits your opponent's resources

So, once again, we have yet another game mechanic that overshadows speed pumps =/

Stun is not meant to be a no-brainer, which is why cards like Hilt Impact and The Boot don't have effects.

Just curious but...

...am I supposed to be “stunned” by the fact that the attack is coming at me? Is that where the concept came into being? Because I don't know about you, but if I'm Kazuya Mishima, a hardened fighter with the devil's genetics, I don't think any attack is going to “stun” me, let alone a boot...

I know this might just sound nit-picky, but let's reflect on what this card game is based upon: FIGHTING GAMES! The concept of being hit so hard you fall, cower, crouch, etc, is implemented in many games.

Furthermore, as I said above, Stun serves as a way to freely non-choice commit their cards so that they may not even be used, and give your attacks speed pumps (do the math).

I don't particularly care which errata they choose. The first one makes blocking that much more important, whereas the second one makes blocking a more important decision (take damage and leave ready staging area? Block and commit?). Whatever the case is, Stun is a concept that was not implemented properly, and for that reason alone it should change. That reason aside, Stun can also fall victim to the same treatment of discard, which is to be more character-specific and difficult to achieve.

#3 Speed pumps/speed reduction

When I first saw Rock Howard and Terry from the unreleased battle pack, I thought, “Wow, took them long enough.” Finally! A way to reduce speed!

...it's too bad that concept never mattered since we had +0-+2 blocks everywhere, so blocking was already easy enough. That, and both Terry and Rock could reduce speed...by discarding the presumed blocks from their hands =/.

For hours I've sat in my new apartment playing around with my jankass Siegfried deck versus my jankass Nightmare, and I gotta say, this game is stupid fun! Most games go to turn 4-6, most of them being epic comebacks at way below desperation for each of them. And while I've had games where both parties had giant gray walls and a full handsize, I've both blocked strings and pushed attacks through.

Rant aside: blocking is hard in NEWFS. It is. Statistically, you're gonna run about 14-20 attacks, and that isn't necessarily promising those attacks have good blocks (Tiger Claw, Dragon Lifter) or blocks at all (Crushing Embrace). Then you've got your 30+ foundations, all of which have no block or a +3, for the most part. The remaining 10 or so actions/assets are likely your best bet. Simply put, only about 1/3rd of your deck blocks well, maybe 2/3rds, but how many attacks are you really going to have in your hand? How many...do you want to use as blocks?

I realize most would say, “Well duh, that's where the strategy comes into play: block, and lose a valuable resource, or take damage but keep your attack.”

I don't think things should necessarily be that black and white. I think we need speed reduction reintroduced to this game, with abilities similar to Rock Howard when speed can go into negatives (or at least 0), and abilities like Jeff's Gloves where you can draw into blocks.

As far as speed pumps go, they truly do need to be the premier way of pushing attacks through, and NOT looking like Eiserne-Drossel, I might add. Eiserne should have been +1 speed, or a Tira E, because it's simply too stupid. Robes of the Grandmaster is the absolute most powerful a speed pump should be in this game (symbol-specific, 3/4 unique asset), and that's it.

Close Friends, Purified Body, From the Horse, Base Hold, these are all good speed pumps, and we need more things like them. Not even generic “+2 speed to your _____ attack”; make new ones that, again, are more themed, situation-specific, and character-dependent.

Speed pumps and speed reduction need to exist in harmony so that we don't have what we have now. My Siegfried build is jank, but nothing is blocked when I have Robes-Drossel and Tieh Lei Iron Thunder a hoopla of Tiger Claws into the momentum and Stun your board giving +4 speed to everything in the process (in addition to +4 damage).

Speed reduction needs to exist so +3 starts looking like a “balanced” block, and a Perfect Sense/MAC for speed pumps would be nice. However, like I said, speed pumps need to be THE way of pushing attacks through, not discard or stun, things that not just push attacks through, but deplete resources for basically free.

#4 Reprint Spiritual Center

I hate reprints. Every time a reprint thread comes up, I ignore it. I ignore it because a game moves forward best by not going back.

But as this game is attack-oriented like wow, we need some control, and Spiritual Center is one of those means of control.

I'm sure there are plenty more cards to reprint, and who knows? Maybe I'll come up with a list of them. But, for now, we need Spiritual Center. Couple of reasons:

1.First and foremost, it has yet another meaty +2 block on it
2.Doesn't stop a single character from crushing face, but slows down a lot of them to an extent
3.Has a good enough symbol spread

More about the spread, yes, I know, Death doesn't really need more. It has MAC and Cursed Blood and a whole host of top tier characters, I know.

But Death didn't top 8 SAS, doesn't have sufficient draw (it POM's the best though!), and could definitely use some more to handle with its common Flame counterpart.

Good and Void would love it. Good could always use cards to distinguish it from Earth/Fire/Life, and Void likes returning to its roots of depleting the opponent's options.

So, this is my one, and hopefully only reprint request: bring back Spiritual Center, and holofoil it =).

#5 Ban Path of the Master

...What? You're telling me you didn't expect this from a Shinji article?

I've already stated my purpose for banning this card a billion and one times, so really, I'm hoping there isn't much discussion (a simple agree or disagree suffices).

Just to reiterate, it's an accelerator. It isn't a card that works “on paper”; it's a card that works, every time, in practice. Plus, it has everybody's favorite symbol!

I love Controller of Souls, I love Ancient Burial Ground. I do...

...but as I've always said, broken can never be made unbroken (it can only be smashed to pieces with THE BANHAMMER!).

The static effect takes away the intelligence from symbol-specific abilities (particularly the SSS loop, and other ways to abuse the three independently).

The R is free draw (even if its limited in response triggers), and as more symbol-specific abilities are printed (Toughest in the Universe, Mexican Sensation, SSS, Wipe the Floor, etc), the more it can get.

The E wins games as soon as it commits without interruption. Although my jank poor man's decks win just fine, I know that if I had some Paths in either, they'd win that much more. Hell, I don't even have my Christie built yet, but every time I look at it, I think, “Wow...Christie's really gonna suck when Path gets banned.”

I know “there are ways around it.”

I know “it doesn't always win games.”

I know “you can win without it.”

Still, I HATE knowing there's a card in my game that, as soon as I slide it into my deck, the chances of winning go up that much more (lookin at you too Drossel XD).

Now, let's not necessarily get that confused with “staples”, because really, a LOT of cards increase your chances of winning.

It's by how much we're talking. At this point in time, most characters run their own support, and if they don't, the rest of their support shares 2 symbols with it, for the most part.

This article has many more points than just Path, so, again, let's please refrain from circle argument about whether it's banworthy or not. I feel it is. I think that, in time, they will come to the same conclusion that it's just too much on one card, and that it creates similar scenarios to CSS and Feline Spike of past where people don't have to really think or work for their kill, they just spam enough attacks and brease through their opponent's gray board, then even throw so much as a Swing Kick or Fire Shadow and win the game like that.

#6 Symbol Discussion

I know, young game, but I still feel it necessary to discuss the symbols, if anything to conjure discussion. We'll go alphabetical:

Air: Like many other symbols (All, Good, Evil, Order, Water), Air is too often shared with repeating symbols (Death and Fire being most frequent) to the point where it makes running Air seem illogical. I first learned about Air when I built ::Taki::, or as I called the deck, “The Intelligent Deck.” I called it that because, like Air is modeled after (and the ninja that Taki is), the deck was about calculated strikes that required a lot of math beforehand, and I would constantly blow stuff up with Whereabouts to abuse both of Taki's Fs, and Ibis to discard cards from the pool. To me, Air needs to function more in that manner, where it has a very smart, not-so-brainless way about being the tempestuous wind that it is. While Zi Mei has given us some interesting cards that involve discard, the best one (Driven by Fear) doesn't really require much thought, and interesting ones like Always in Motion is too limited to be of much use right now. Air has some okay cards right now, but it really can't compare to the Skull and Flame it has on them.

All: All has some very niche uses...well...I mean it has only 5 characters with support, so it's pretty understandable. The only real use I can find for it, honestly, is All Paul/Steve, and maybe All Astrid for the daring. First off, All needs to lose the Flame, Coal, and Plant for obvious reasons. Second, All's going to need some universal cards. I know, I know, I'm a big preacher for theme and character-specific cards...but a little Genius Alchemist and Rivalry with a Bear never hurt nobody. I think it has the tools to be a standalone symbol, but it needs more, because boy are they far and few.

Chaos: Although most will tell you Chaos Heihachi is best (as would I), one closer look at Chaos will show you just how hard it is to run as a symbol. Algol, Cervantes, Zi Mei, and Zhao Daiyu's support really don't have too terribly many uses outside of their respective characters, with only Kazuya's support truly reaching-out. Furthermore, the damage output by Chaos is pretty much limited to the Mishima's and Kazuya's support. Chaos is just hard to run! But...it still has the most momentum generation (which is good for Dark Geo/Ancient Mariner/Fury).

Death: Death has a bit of everything. Damage and speed pump, foundation destruction, blanking, it's a **** good symbol. However, it really doesn't have any draw, and most of its characters wish they had better vitality (28 is pretty much the best right now). Still, Death has the best kill right now (not Path of the Master ), the best aggressive action (Unnatural Grace), best destruction action (DIHW), best speed pump (Eiserne), and access to stupid good damage pumps. It also has Ancient Burial Ground to oppose threatening Paths.

Earth: Earth is back in the flexibility business baby! It can control, counter-aggression, reduce damage (to the extent it can lol), pump damage, and Throw. Earth has a very impressive list of good characters with an aggressive and defensive prowess enough to make it the most “balanced” of the top 4. Earth either needs to block more or get more damage reduction, as that's really all it would need to keep up with the aggressive properties of Fire and Death.

Evil: Evil isn't on top, but don't worry, it's still scheming until it can come back again. While most people consider Evil bottom tier (understandable with almost every Evil character having Chaos and Death), Evil has more flexible cards than Chaos does, has draw and momentum in the form of Wonderworld Comics, a bunch of finishers, and an aggressive maniac (Bryan Fury) who chunks out Upper Claws and Lion Slayers for 9 damage minimum a piece! It looks hard to justify running it, but off Evil, you've got damage pumps from Astaroth, destruction from Nightmare, CCHax from Cervantes, Grace from Daiyu, and a bunch of stuff from Kazuya. It simply is not as bad as people say it is. Evil needs to just get more characters, hopefully ones without Chaos, Death, or Fire.

Fire: Wow...what really needs to be said here? Well...for starters, Fire needs to stop having All characters (Mitsurugi adds another to the list) lol. Otherwise, I think Fire's characters having lower health (usually 26) is a good thing being what it is right now.

Good: Ah...my favorite symbol is just barely its own symbol right now. Good simply...does not do much of anything right now. Every Good character has a Mountain, a Plant, or a Flame on it, again, making it hard to justify running, especially when you've got such characters as King, Siegfried, and Hilde to compete with. Good needs more Reversals, of course, and more aggressive cards such as Savage Fighter (although maybe not to that extent) or Pirate from Ryukyu. It also needs a bit more of a face in countering the meta, which is generally what Good's been best at.

Life: More damage pump, which is why I feel Siegfried is Life's best character. Life's staging area is a bad place to touch, it has the best speed pumps, but its characters are pretty much limited to Sieggy and Tira. Nevertheless, Life just needs some damage pump, which, looking at Mitsurugi's asset, it might just get some, and at that point, it'll still be in top 4, but may rise above Death.

Order: Has Cursed Blood and Bloodline Rebellion (plenty of Blood, but thankfully none that runs true...), and that's pretty much it. Besides the obvious getting non-Flame characters? Hmm...well, as of now, Order is pretty much completely aggro, which, as most people know, I feel Order's truest spirit is when it is Order-Control. Order's always had really badass control tactics, but I feel those are best abused with badass aggro tactics. With its Cursed Blood and Bloodline, it has a certain speed to it, as well as obvious top tier stars Astrid and Paul Phoenix. What Order needs now since it already has draw and damage pump is something like Perfect Sense and Ka Technique, and maybe a lil Robes' Lu Chen E (something like it) to bring it out to shine.

Void: Void is definitely a fun symbol in that it's...well...interesting. Right now, Void is probably the best control symbol with Controller of Souls and MAC to literally control stuff (by negating it), and Ka Technique and No Mercy to somewhat control the flow of the game. It isn't much on the aggressive front, but hey, that's what running King's for =). Void...hmm...it's definitely pretty good, but it's just...it's slow. It has no real kill button to speak of, so when it can up its aggro capabilities to more than just Throws.

Water: Is worse than Order is, which is saying everything. Water has two things right now: Jon Herr and Patriot Games. Water not just needs to lose Life, it needs to lose Air. What do I mean? Water has been paired with Air on far too many cards (every Chun-Li, Kilik, Billy card, plenty of others along the way), and really, they play similarly. While Air is more aggressive, Water is more technical, generally with adding stuff to momentum rather than discarding it, and playing more attacks rather than stronger ones. Water needs more generic good cards, and really, just more options in general.

#7 Conclusion

So, blah, just some rantings n' ravings just to have **** to say until Soul Cal finally ships out.

All-in-all, no matter how much people ***** about Fire, or how much I ***** about Path, I love this game, and look forward to seeing it expand, and how we won't see a cycle until 2011 (unless we need another 'drastic change' ).

Anyways, I'll go ahead and conclude there and let people comment as they will. For those interest, I've updated my tier list =) (arranged alphabetically)

S Tier

Astrid
Heihachi Mishima
James Hata
Jin Kazama
King
Paul Phoenix

A Tier

Bryan Fury
Cassandra
Hilde
Kazuya Mishima
Nightmare
Ragnar
Rashotep
Siegfried
Steve Fox
Tira
Zi Mei

B Tier

Astaroth
Christie Monteiro
Ivy
Jon Herr
Lu Chen
Omar Chavez
Padma

C Tier

Algol
Cervantes
Nina Williams
Temujin
Yi Shan
Zhao Daiyu

Cool story bro

I think you're over reacting to path a little. Yeah, its good. In some decks. Some decks abuse the sh1t out of this card and make you wonder why it was even printed. But odds are these decks can't win efficiantly without it. The thing is, that without path, these decks get slowed down to the point where by the time they can win, they have to eat through 13-17 foundations worth of stand off to do so. A lot of fire decks couldn't care less about running Path because they already have SO MANY damage pumps. They hit like a train with or without path. Its the decks like King, Ivey and lu chen who absolutely NEED path to keep pace. Right now, with all the power of fire and chaos, having path in the meta actually kind of serves to balance it out and give everyone a chance. And there are plenty of ways to tech against it, or play around it. Does your opponent have path ready in play? If they do, don't be afraid to eat that 7 damage midnight launcher to the face and hold out that high block for the path'ed knightbreaker you know is coming. Also, the card Demon Slayer is some super exciting tech against path. Block an early on attack, then tell potm to gtfo. Not to mention controller of souls which, while being far overpriced (as in dollars) in the current meta, actually can save your ass randomly. There is no denying that they may have kinda messed up distribution of the awesome promo, but if you head out to regional events or just look on the trade forum, you will probably find some people with some extra paths for trade.

As for the symbol analysis, most of it seemed pretty on target, however, a few things I would say about some symbols:

Earth don't need ANYTHING. Its as balanced as being overpowered can be right now and more DR would only lead to a less exciting, more frustrating and turtle friendly game. Stand off and paid to protect are EWW all by themselves, not to mention that trying to commit pieces against an earth deck can be way too frustrating. Add in the damage pumps and you have one symbol that really doesn't need a whole lot more support. I've seen it keep up with fire simply by dropping a torn hero in its staging area.

As for the chaos analysis, it really isn't too hard to put a chaos deck together. Its just very difficult to put a unique chaos deck together, as the current card pool only leaves a tiny bit of room for differentiation between one build and the next. Practically every chaos deck will be running the same attack line up and 3/4 the same foundations.

Also, we really don't need no spiritual center. The game shouldn't be focusing on letting people wall, and it REALLY doesn't need another foundation with super good stats that allows Rashotep to set up longer and make more people's lives hell. I could maybe see a card like this that has worse stats and a crappy block on it, but negation has a very limited place in NEWFS and shouldn't be easily spammable with a good block to boot.

Is discard really that much of a threat right now? There is SO MUCH tech against it. In your article you kind of dismiss the nina williams "Guess what’s in my hand" discard, but I would probably say that's the most efficient discard in the format right now. Trying to enough war between sisters to truly impact someone’s hand seems way slower than just lobbing all of deaths attacks at someone and waiting until they run out of high blocks. Also, cold and indifferent is one of the hottest cards in our incredibly limited format. You see paul, you know your going to call dragon lifter or pheonix smasher. Zi mei? get rid of that FURY! Heihachi? Spinning demon. Jin? off fire? Knight breaker or launcher. The list goes on. I would say that the discard pieces you have a problem with are really too slow for the meta right now anyway, and that if (and I really hope this doesn't happent) we get slapped with enough control pieces to make viable turtle discard decks, people will start putting stuff like ancient fighting style, warriors path, recon, soul wave and tei lei iron thunder in side board, which those turtle decks will see and then cry likes tiny children.

As for the stun portion, your probably right. Stun is **** good. Then again, its the best defense against standoff, and there are 6 symbols that have decent tech against it (Torn hero, perfect sense, undisputed ruler). Once again, it seems like more of a "we'll see" kinda thing. The "if it deals damage" thing could make it a little more balanced though, or it could make zi mei's wheel kick the best high block baiter of all time. OF ALL TIME!

With all the stun in the current meta of course, extra speed pump just kinda seems like a way to say "my previously hard to block attacks are actually unblockable. And lets face it, you aint gonna have no anti speed pump foundations up when you is tapped out nao that aint happenin ya dig?

Finally, I don’t know if I would put Ragnar on the A tier list. He is just another fire character with a little more life and a pretty meh damage pump in comparison to what other characters of that caliber can do. Also, I would add Zi mei to the top tier list. Mark doesn't stop her as much as you wish it would. She pacman's people all day and doesn't afraid of anything. True story. And I would move algol up a tier. Contrary to popular belief, he DOES have a kill condition, he is SICK with path, and any character that can run stun and for the money kinda auto moves up anyway.

Other than that I agree with most of everything you said.

The ONE problem I have with Stun is Wheel Kick and Need to Destroy. The other day I threw out a Stun 6 french toast and ripped apart my opponant's board. Torn Hero and Perfect Sense are really the only good things that stop it, and even then there are ways around that.

On your stun debate, I should add about the boot: consider getting kicked in the balls, that'll stun you for a few seconds, won't it? Then there are the attacks that would stagger your opponent when blocked as you mentioned, so it's hard to classify it under a single category, so I find that before hand is although an odd, but logical choice being that it's directly in the middle. Because seriously, if you kicked away your opponents leg as he was about to kick you in the wilderberries, you'd lose nothing from it, aside from of course the little energy of kicking him away which was done via that control check. I think I just contradicted myself.

When Hata was listed B tier I said people were retarded. Now Vik came to town and whooped ass with him and he jumped to S.. I wonder how much longer until you all figure out Omar is an S also...

Immortal-JyNxX said:

When more people use him =p

Immortal-JyNxX said:

MAC pretty much keeps him from being so...

Oh and swap the spots of Cassie and Daddy Mishima..

Your articles always make me smile. I do disagree with/(would like to elaborate on) alot of stuff you put forward - namely:

1) discard isn't that scary... yet. - yes void/death/air have access to fairly heavy discard, but these symbols also have less access to damage pump in general - and saying setup with path and war and then attack is getting slow enough that it isn't top tier anyways. I also think there are some decent anti-discard cards (soul wave and algol's attack are both quality cards with good dual purposes). That said, I agree with you on the 'leave in sideboard aspect of these' and think if discard get's more teeth you will see more mainboard of the anti-discard cards.

2) i understand your 'this doesn't make sense' argument. At the same time one could say, yes - you are supposed to be stunned that this is coming at you (see Nina's spit attack!). Or, stun could replicate the times in fighting games where you are vulnerable becuase you are moving forward, or have bad priorities, or are left open for a move after your opponent does some erratic movement or for another reason. All in all, if stun received an errata to match what you would normally consider stun to be in a fighting game then there would need to be another ability (with a different name) to replace it that commits before the block step... We would call it 'awe' or 'fright' or something like that, indicating a characteristic of the maneavor that reduces the opponent's ability to use his/her resources to their fullest to defend.

3) speed pump is important, and implementing 'too much' speed reduction would probably see the game become much more defensive in nature. Similar to the way throws define a part of the meta, characters that reliably give attacks speed (Hata, Cassie, Hilde) are usually top tier. The reason being that damage pump is quite accessible atm and in relation to damage reduction which, in general, is worse than the pump. This means speed on a pumped attack is a very reliable strategy. Where I disagree with you is when you say 'blocking is hard'. It is for some characters, but for many others it is very easy. Any character that runs 6+ character blocks and 18+ attacks is probably really good at blocking, with a lot of low block mods, likely some varied zones, and usually the ability to recur character cards (the hunt is on) means without speed pump and off-zoneness these decks block a lot. I also would like to point out speed reduction is seemingly coming into play, I think Christie has a card that will reduce speed by at least 1 in most cases, and we all know about paid to protect by now.

4) Spiritual Center does stop a single character from crushing face... Hilde. It is also fairly anti-path and other large single damage or speed pumps. Currently we have a meta that leans on both sides, some characters do one big pump, wheras other do a lot of little pumps, and some just do both (see Astrid). In any case, I don't think it needs to come back, especially in a game where momentum is hard to accumulate (see also war between sisters), it would/could drastically speed the game down.

5) path could be banned if only to slow down King, a character that is the best or at least tied for the best in the meta. Currently, very little slows him down. Personally I have voiced my opinion, wait a few sets is probably best, but likely it will shine in store tournies as more people lean to King, and more realize what it does in Zi Mei and that she is top tier, and the spot light will be too bright to ignore it for long.

6) Symbols - I've talked to before and here is my current view of them (your discussion is more or less accurate):

Tier 1 - Fire, Earth

Tier 2 - Death*, Void, Chaos, All,

Tier 3 - Life*, Air, Good

Tier 4 - Order, Water

* Life is maybe Tier 2 in some characters and Death is maybe Tier 1 in some characters.

7) Characters - I don't have any big problems with your listing, some subtle differences between what my tier listing would look like and yours, but nothing outrageously wrong.

- dut

As is becoming the norm, I have some disagreements with your tier list. I'll explain my choices as best I can:

A Tier:

Astrid - Basically consistency incarnate. Game in and game out, she remains among the most reliable characters out there. Hata's gonna have to be careful about what cards he slaps the Weapon tag on...

Heihachi Mishima* - Block or die is the name of the game with Grandpa Mishmash. You can't say enough about a turn 2 Spinning Demon coming in for 30.

James Hata** - Huge attacks, coming at you with lightning speed, and he packs plenty of life, too. 'Nuff said.

Jin Kazama * - He is great at the fundamentals; his attacks pass easily and hit hard.

King* - Hooray for free throws! Recursion and guaranteed damage make him about as consistent as Astrid , and that's saying something.

B Tier:

Bryan Fury* - Damage that can't be reduced, and plenty of it, along with lots of life. Good times.

Cassandra* - Good life for a 7 HS fella, along with easy speed for some nice Combo strings. Throw in The Ultimate Team and Paid to Protect , and you can address worries about having bad blocks on your attacks to fuel her E .

Hilde* - Little Miss Ring Out is not consistent enough to make the A Tier yet...

Ivy* - She can bust out some aggro madness at record speeds, but stopping her is not impossible (blank / blow up Gay Vampires , block her attacks, kill her first, negate her draw, I can go on).

JJ* - I haven't actually seen him in play yet, but messing with decks that are more heavily dependent on their characters to motor (most of the A Tier guys) can't be all bad.

Kazuya Mishima* - His E is great. His F has proven to be more limited than what we might have thought initially.

Nightmare* - Getting to 4 damage isn't hard in Death and/or Fire , and his destruction isn't as costly as Kazuya 's.

Omar Chavez* - Martial Arts Champion cramps his style, but he's still pretty solid.

Padma* - That bleeding ability is pretty fun to use, and can make for a pretty consistent offense.

Ragnar** - Lots of HP, a solid damage pump, and some sweet stuff that only he can take the most advantage of (hello, Stormhammer and Heir to the Storm ).

Rashotep** - Blanking has turned out to be a more balanced mechanic than what we initially thought...

Siegfried* - Plenty of damage to go around, on a symbol that sorely needs it ( Life is the way to go with him). Sweet.

Steve Fox* - Pommel Smash and Paul Phoenix* make him cry, and the punches out there right now aren't all that, but that's where the complaints end.

Tira* - The Gloomy Side / Jolly Side mechanic requires some serious thinking as far as deck construction is concerned, but she has great potential (hellooooo, Wrath of Heaven / Siegfried's Earth Divide with Multiple: 1 ).

Yi Shan** - More consistent, and stronger than what you might think. He works best off as a straight Earth aggro deck, with his character support as a supplement, which can push him over the top.

Zi Mei** - Giant Fury of the Ancients kill turns are all well and good, but she just hasn't proven to be all that consistent without it.

C Tier:

Algol* - TELEGRAPHED kill, and most of his abilities aren't really straight draw (more like hand flushing).

Astaroth* - No real reason to run him over Bryan Fury* or Ragnar** right now, if you ask me.

Cervantes* - His first R is better than one what might think, the second R is more trouble than what it was worth.

Christie Monteiro* - Despite what others think, I don't think she's too squishy for the current meta; I think she's just a bit too slow. Maybe Path of the Master can fix that...

Jon Herr* - There's not all that much for him to steal on his symbols. Hunt for Jin makes him giddy, though.

Lu Chen** - Out of place in the current meta. The momentum is too hard to generate off of a generic offense, and he needs to build too much for his E to see real play. Plus, I don't know if you've noticed, but Life finds it hard to actually kill people.

Nina Williams* - She can be infuriatingly controlling, but her ability to actually kill someone is in question.

Temujin** - No real use for his E , and his F isn't as useful enough to justify only having 26 vitality.

Zhao Daiyu** - Can you say one-trick pony? Twilight Embrace is where she begins... and ends.

The reason why I have no S Tier is because that would imply a 3-tier difference between the ones at the top and the ones at the bottom. That tells me that either the tiers are too close together as far as the power levels are concerned, or that there is an impression of dominance for some characters that I just haven't seen yet.

Immortal-JyNxX said:

Whoa whoa whoa someone actually said James Hata 2 was B tier, for real? As soon as I saw him I thought hes at least in the top 3 characters in the game, arguably the best. 28 life (more then average) two of the best symbols in the game (fire&death), cheap costing offensive and defensive zone changing, and a free respone that pushes fires already prominent damage pumps higher alongside the speed pumps that fire doesnt normally have (speed+stun). This IMPO is what you gather from just reading his character card. How can anyone possibly think this guy is B tier?

A very good question.

This is a very interesting, well thought article. I do agree/disagree with some of your points that I would like to elaborate on:

Discard - As one of those aforementioned old school discard players, I can tell you that discard is NOT bad. War Between Sisters also has an ability that mocks multiples, so it's not simply Charisma, and it's effectiveness when combined with other cards is brutal right now since you can use it on their turn and hit another card on yours. Wipe The Floor is a phenomenal attack that sets up a lot of jank and has amazing numbers all around. You forgot to mention the most single powerful discard in the format however, Cold and Indifferent. This card is bonkers. I don't care about how you "guess", if you are a smart player you will be hitting something everytime and you get to see their hand and blocks at the very worst! That card is far better than people think, I use it in my Rasho deck along with WBS and it rocks together and slows my opponent down A LOT. It's also hilarious to play after a Launcher, call "Knight Breaker" and watch your opponent weep. Oops. This also counteracts your 3rd point, discard is actually very tricky to use properly. The people who think it's mindless are the ones who lose. You have to be careful and vigilant with it and use it at the right time for max effect, and if you can do that it is really rewarding. Again, Cold and Indifferent is a perfect example, a card that most ignore but I see as totally nuts.

Stun - I like your suggestion, but I doubt it will change. Stun is really powerful right now but cards like Torn Hero are brutal for it, still overall I do think it's too easy to murder people with it. I should know, I just abused Hata like mad with that particular Keyword.

Speed - Yes, we do need speed reduction, badly. Only because, one of the few negative consequences of newFS is that blocks are even more valuable than they were before. People are running cards that are below optimal even in tournament decks because of the blocks they have. I think speed pumps and speed reduction should be at or around 3 at all times, and that's it barring specificty requirements.

I love LOVE Spiritual Center but it's too strong, speed reduction should be number specific more often than not.

Bannings? Honestly, POTM is my second choice, For The Money is far more broken in so many ways. Path was my WORST card in the deck all day, people use it as a crutch. Do you know how many freaking answers there are to this card? A lot. For The Money, however, was easily abusive as hell in at least 5 Top 8 decks. POTM does NOT, I repeat does NOT blanket make a deck better. You must use it properly and make use of it's amazing damage boost in the right way to max it's potential. Hata is one deck that suffers for it's place in there, and my Rasho deck doesn't use it either for other reasons.

Symbol and tier discussion, eh...who cares? You can make pretty much anything work right now if you are clever. For example, I literally two seconds ago just figured out how to make Nina work, and actually be good, so I'm going to mess with that and see where it goes. And most of that deck will be off Void with Death splash. I think these discussions are somewhat irrelevant since literally anything is possible with the diversity in the card pool. Herr can do loops and stuff of Water, granted it's weak but it's there. So really, SAS is a good indicator of the competitive meta but beyond that, exploration is key!

VikramS said:

The anti-commit is not brutal, it is complete crap. "Oh yeah I stunned your Torn Hero noes you get to commit stuff that doesn't help me kill. Why? Because with Toughest in the Universe I don't need PotM and you can't exactly commit my hand."

Trust me sir, if I see it across the table it definitely makes me think twice, especially if my opponent has momentum. Those two cards commited can kill a whole turn, very much so. Even Perfect Sense of Balance can be crazy good when used properly.

Or if your opponent has two Torn Hero's and momentum.

VikramS said:

Makes you think twice. Thinking twice and doing it anyway means the card has FAILED.

But thinking twice and seeing that you're better off not stunning, thus leaving the opponent with opportunities to survive, means the card has NOT.