Homme Chapeau said:

Glad you like it, at the very least.

@NintendoMan: Very astute observation in that the playstyle of the pilot influences the effectiveness of the character. For example, I've seen Astrid players play conservative, essentially relying on her ability to counter, and I haven't found it to be as effective as pushing the action, and keeping a Pommel Smash or an Execution Technique First Rite in hand (easy to do with all the draw she has access to) in order to attempt to disrupt your opponent's turn, which is more evidence for me that being aggressive (with some intelligence, of course) is a good thing in this meta.

LordAggro said:

That is exactly how Astrid should be played.... Pommels as reversals stop so many characters kill turns its ridiculous.

@LordAggro - my post was directed at dutpotd, not you. The point was, his claim that Astrid and King are a fair bit better than other characters. My point being, real world results show otherwise. NOT A SINGLE THING DIRECTED AT YOU, SIR.

Would you like me to say something more constructive? Fine. Here is my opinion - James Hata, off Fire, with a Hammer + Breaker/Launcher attack lineup and a heavy Paul base is a better character in the format right now than either Astrid off Fire with heavy protection and Reverse Pommels or Eartth King with POTM abusing throws, cheap damage pumps and Earth defense. I will go so far to say that he is both of those decks worst matchup as well.

That is MY argument. It is a very specific argument, more practical than a tier ranking in my estimation but perhaps I am wrong there. Now I will explain bit by bit why I think so.

First, I have tested against Drew Maffei's King extensively and Brad Penstone's Astrid for the purposes of this claim. Both of those players are phenomenal, their decks are elite (the best versions of those respective characters that I have seen or played against anywhere). Let's start with King, which looked early like a bad matchup for Fire aggro. Drew even said that he had tuned it to defeat Fire aggro. The King deck has a lot of card synergy, more importantly than anything is running 4x POTM maindeck with 3x Bloodline Rebellion to hunt for them. The average clock for a King deck without POTM out is 5 turns, far too slow to compete with speedy Fire and Chaos decks. The average clock with POTM out early is 3 turns or less if the opponent fails to block the free giant Close Throw. King has the ability to turtle with Stand-offs, Undisputed Ruler, Ka Technique and so forth. However unlike Rashotep there is little to no tradeoff for the defensive abilities and he can push damage through faster and harder than any other character using Earth.

Against Hata, the matchup is bad however. This is because King needs to show me his blocks in order to get a free throw, an ability that Hata exploits very badly, not just with the zone-changing but knowing the exact mathematics of how fast I need to make an attack to force it through. In addition, Hata with Knight Breaker allows a good degree of control. The most important card in the Hata matchup is by far Torn Hero, which makes it difficult for me to use my stun effects because the cost of Torn Hero is effectively shutting down Hata and another key E ability. That could cost me a turn, or a game. However overall I would say that the matchup tilts in my favor about 60-40. Therefore, for all these reasons and more I would argue that King off Earth in this type of build is slightly less powerful than Hata.

Now, for Astrid, she is also extremely powerful. She has access to a lot of draw, good speed pumps and her ridiculous damage ability that her card pool exploits to the hilt. However her biggest weakness is that Hata also has all of those advantages combined with the fact that he can make an attacks' speed absurd and therefore disable Astrid's ability to block. The only card that matters in this matchup is Paid To Protect, not even keeping up with her draw abilities is taht relevant.

That is what I think, anyway.

Antigoth said:

Sorry Antigoth, I don't even have JJ on my list here (I knew I was forgetting a character or two). He is C+ or maybe a B, it really depends how/who has built him and who he is matching up against, granted one of his abilities really caries as to its effectiveness depending on the abilities of the opponent. In most cases, the Tag Along abilit is very strong and acts to cancel out the opponent, becuase this isn't a tick above, he is only on par with the best, as much as he is on par with the worst of character abilities.

- dut

dutpotd said:

Antigoth I actually really like that idea, granted he of course can use more support to help, but thats actually more then i thought and it sounds somewhat promising.

As much as i agree with you Dut, him being "on par with the best characters", on the other hand him being "on par with the worst characters" i find to be a moot statement. He still has 7HS, access to Cursed Blood and card draw/weapon support. Thats alot more in my eyes then say Rashotep who has somewhat of a similar ability. JJ is by no means bonkerz... yet. But looking just at his character alone I think its hard to say that he is not in the top 5 or so based on abilities alone.

As for the whole Hatta thing and him being on the same level or whatnot as King and Astrid. I think Hatta is a great character for sure, and FIre is obviously the best symbol right now. I think the combination of the two and the fact that Hatta actually has no bad matchups per se helps him tremendously.

But in all seriousness I cant see how Torn Hero isnt running around more then it is right now.... with all of the Stun and Fire in general its stupid. Granted I know there are ways around it, such as not using stun, but in that case torn hero has ultimately done its job in not allowing a key component of the deck

VikramS said:

See, this is the sort of stuff that I want to hear. Thank you for contributing positively to the discussion.

I inferred some of this when you posted your SAS -winning deck (congratulations, by the way). And yeah, anything that makes you reveal your hand to Hata** basically turns him into Bitter Rivals , and we all know how that turns out when attempting to defend. And Torn Hero once again earns its stripes as top-flight staging area protection against the big dogs in this game. And thanks for providing hard evidence to justify my S Tier ranking for Hata** , as you have reaffirmed my conviction that he gives even the most consistent guys in NewFS a hard time.

VikramS said:

Wowza! Well since the post above by you (not the one I quoted), that you are now saying was entirely directed at me (and not the meaning/use of a tier system, which I believe is what your strife is actually directed at), and since that post could be construed as sarcastic/rude and a blatant disrespect for the theoretical discussion we are having here... I will try to reply 'extra' civilly.

First of all - you are taking too much out of this, me putting Hata below other characters may or may not have anything to do with practical results. Keep in mind I have also seen all 3 of your decks (super kind of everyone at SAS to post them and all - that is what is great about this community) and I am not surprised, nor would I call it luck that you beat them both at the SAS. Not to say they were bad decks, just that King without an array of blocks and certain cards has a bad matchup, and that both of them were running some unorthodox items (our metas same characters have marked differences). I would say from my read of the reports that Brad's deck in particular sputtered against you in top 8. Not many people practice against a well pruned Hata and Astrid is very decisiony, you and Brad had arguably 2 very evenly matched decks but your decision making and individual card choices may have been slightly more polished ending up in your 2-0 victories.

In other words, results are not the be all and end all of tiers, they often enlighten players as to practical outcomes and for this reason they are highly valued. A good example would be Akuma, he was around for a lot of block 2 and all of block 3, but he didn't repeatedly see results until spring/summer of 09. That said, he was almost always up there on tier rankings well before that.

I don't think Hata is King or Astrid's worst matchup, but he is up there as a character that can contend... Personally I think Heiachi is worse for King, and I think Hilde is worse for Astrid. Heiachi throws bigger sooner and usually low zone, often doesn't rely on FtM, granted he has access to Chaos bumps that Fire doesn't, etc. Hilde is worse for Astrid becuase she can 1 attack her far better than Hata can. Hilde can pump +6 speed after turn 1 (all she needs is -3 damage), and can wall and kill with one well placed attack, wheras your deck (and most optimal Hata decks) will run 15+ attacks and rely on strings for early assaults. One of those attacks on the string blocked and a reversal with Pommel + survival that turn to attack next turn is likely Hata's death. Hilde also outdraws Astrid, and is one of the few characters out currently that can claim to that.

King, as with most Earth decks, are 'forced to play agressively' becuase they lack viable draw. It is also very easy to toss free throw. Oftentimes the difference between a good King and a bad one is the ability to time the attack. With Torn Hero and Paid to Protect (valued but not trusted should also be here to stop characters...) King has the tools to survive and attack with timing, however he is seldom played like that. King also has some very control based throws that limit card draw and with access to void can play a discard game as well. In general his flexibility and consistency (he draws into better attacks more often becuase of his recursive ability to do so after checking them) leave him distinctly different (in my opinion better) than Hata. As I'm sure you can attest, your losses in swiss perhaps, Hata is more susceptible to bad draws and checking key cards because he doesn't have recursion and becuase he doesn't draw as much as Astrid as quickly.

Astrid has the ability to control the pace of the game better than Hata, simply becuase she can reversal pommel or reversal multiple or whatever you want. She also draws more cards than most, has some unorthodox defensive pieces, and has insane reusable damage pump meaning mid/late game she is VERY dangerous over and over again, not one attack dangerous. What I find really interesting, and is perhaps why you think Brad relied so much on paid to protect, is that he has 3 +0 mod cards (all high) and 3 +1 mod cards (also all high)... These cards were also weapons, and he probably felt inclined to play them to draw with relentless... All of his low blocks and mid blocks for that matter were +2 or worse mods. Meaning all you needed to do was change to low and he would have a hella hard time blocking any attacks a) fully, or b) at all. I don't mean to bash on Brads deck, he is my friend and I was cheering for him to, and still wish he did, win the SAS (just a Canadian thing I guess). That said, where are the promo Astrids? +0 blocks. Where are the low blocks??? I count 7 in the entire deck, 3 +2 mods (these on leadoff attacks) and 4 +3 mods (these on spam). Um. You can't tell me his deck was built with a well pruned zone changer as an opponent in mind, you just can't. If Brad had 4 Ultimate Teams (all +2 lows) in there I wouldn't be saying this, but you had 1up on him, and after seeing the decks, had he beat you I'd call him lucky . All that you had to do was play attacks enhance with Hata and they weren't being blocked by Brad ( 'maybe half blocked'), especially after stun is played...

Finally, I know you were sarcastic... But just to be clear - I'm not hinting that you 'should' lose to characters placed higher on my tier listing when using ones that are lower down - my tier listing is a general look at who works better in most situations, not in particular situations. Also, according to your own report you lost two games in swiss, one to King, and one to Zi Mei. You can't later cite 2-0 victories against the former and decidedly say Hata is better than King becuase of it.

- dut

NintendoMan said:

I said... "becuase this isn't a tick above, he is only on par with the best, as much as he is on par with the worst of character abilities ". Par is par when a = a = cancel. A comparison of abilities is all I was doing, not hs or other stats, in that case he is probably better with a 7hs, but does his 7hs make up for an ability that is only ever on par with the opponent? And yes, he has a second damage reducing ability, I am not forgetting it, so please don't think I am.

imo, once his symbols get better overall he will easily be top 5, right now... top 12 maybe? Granted he doesn't have access to anti-commital, and a pommel or mass stun means he won't be stopping many a character at the moment.

- dut

Furthermore to my previous post, let me state that I apologize for my attitude earlier in the thread, re-reading it I was definitely pissed off for no apparent reason and as some have stated that is not constructive to anybody. However, even then, I am careful not to attack individuals but their ideas, so if something I said offended or angered someone then that is on me and again, I'm sorry.

Having said that, let me clarify exactly what I am trying to say here. I do not think blanket tier rankings/listings are of any value. NOT because I don't think the discussion has any merit, but because if you stay in the general it doesn't really get to the nitty gritty. And that's where you get a real idea of what decks stack up to what other decks.

CCGs are all about matchups. This is true of all CCGs that are played on any kind of competitive level. One of my all-time favorite Magic decks was Zvi Moshowitz' hilarious blue/white hybrid deck with 4x Voice Of All that was specifically designed to combat the dominance of Fires Of Yavimaya decks. The top 8 for that event was 7 Fires deck and Zvi's metagame concoction. He ended up winning easily.

Point being, SPECIFIC builds of SPECIFIC characters in SPECIFIC resources is much more valuable information in my mind. That is how you get a sense of which decks are consistently excellent against a wide variety of challengers AS WELL AS how those builds work, how they match up with other top builds, what to look for in that matchup, etc. That is my point. I don't want to discourage any kind of discussion on these boards, far from it - I simply would like to encourage more productive discussion.

In the interest of that, let me use the SAS Top 8 as a starting point. I think those 8 decks are a good indicator of the the top characters, builds of those characters and matchups within that context. Others can speak about their own decks and such, I will go further and talk about Fire Hata in detail since he's what I know best in this new format, and explain matchups vs. those characters and a few others, so you can see what I mean. I also keep a notebook of all my testing so I have some data on that as well.

So, my argument right now is that Hata is the best character in the game. More specifically, he has extremely good synergy in the Fire resource and can take advantage of many different Fire attack bases in addition to a fairly standard Fire foundation base. Most builds run some combination if not all of the following cards: Financial Troubles, For The Money, Enraged Golem, Stand-Off, Communing With The Ancients (which I don't use), Brooding, and The Ultimate Team. Depending on the way you build your attack base, you can make greater use of other triggers for his response ability. For example, in my build I use a heavy Stun base along with Breaker/Launcher and Neutron Bomb. Matt Kohls uses Dragon Flame combo with cards like Hades Ax that fit that deck better. In my deck, that means that Best Friends is a key card for me, while in his version it is not necessary.

The deck is aggressive and it's strongest advantages in addition to those that are strictly resource-based is that it puts a lot of pressure on the opponent, and the speed of the the attacks is such that often they are not able to be blocked. The deck tends to attack on the 2nd turn 90% of the time and consistently hits for 12-15 damage with a single attack, especially if it is Hammer of the Gods. dutpotd and others have argued that one of the reasons King and Astrid are so good is because they are consistent decks, and I think that applies to Hata as well. His damage clock is very consistent, and he will kill you turn 3 at least 80% of the time. Weaknesses of the character are tendency to overextend since it is so aggresive and requires a lot of commit effects, and occasional difficulty against opposing stun heavy decks for the same reason.

vs. Heihachi (off Chaos with multiples and Need To Destroy) - Hata has a favorable matchup. The speed of both decks is relatively even and arguably Heihachi can be a shade faster even, but Hata's zone changing helps a lot in this match and makes gimmicky versions of the deck not effective at all. Keenan's tuned build gave me a lot of problems.

vs. Astrid (off Fire with draw, speed pumps and reverse Pommel Smash) - Hata has an extremely favorable matchup. As I said in my previous post, the entire match comes down to whether Astrid can keep and protect PTP. Otherwise, she gets steamrolled. I ended up 6-1 against Brad's deck in games, 3-0 in matches. The problem for Astrid is pulling off a block and reverse against Hata is really, really difficult. So she has to hit on her turn, which is not optimal for her and is often short of damage needed to kill a 28 vit character with lots of good blocks of any zone.

vs. King (off Earth with a few throws, damage pumps, control base and POTM) - Hata has a tossup matchup depending on how fast King draws POTM, favorable if it is not out early and extremely favor later in the game because King's hand reveal is a crippling weakness against Hata's zone-changing.

vs. Zi Mei (off Fire with Lifter, Fury and All Life Is Prey) - total coin flip matchup. Both are equally fast decks with similar strategies that revolve around stun, whoever wins the roll typically wins the matchup. the only thing in Hata's favor is his vitality is far better suited to survival than Zi Mei's is.

VikramS said:

Your apology for your hasty comments, that I understand were not personal but were in contradiction to tier discussions in general (your view is shared by me, particulars are best, but there often needs to be a springboard), will be taken well.

I 50% agree with your Heiachi comments, I think a well built Heiachi is on par with a well built Hata.

Hata does not have an extremely favorable matchup against Astrid. I've already pointed out that your results against Brad's deck are not surprising granted his deck is not pruned to combat a zone changer (and has very poor blocks overall, which isn't all that conducive to a reversal deck). Astrid has a slightly favorable matchup against Hata, most of this has to do with her ability to control the flow of the game and outdraw him. Your deck, in particular, taps itself out heavily (and discards cards for damage pump for hammer and for ultimate) meaning a smart Astrid can greatly take advantage and push through the 3+ attacks she throws, all of which will have mass pump for one foundation commited after turn 3 or 4 easily overcoming the 28 vitality barrier. All Astrid really has to do is survive your turn 3 attack and then her draw off relentless is downhill for your current deck. Once you sideboard in MAC you have a better late game chance, but it will then come down to your blocks vs. her attacks, and if she is stacking you will be surprised with the speed her attacks may come at you for...

Hata (in particular your build that is heavily routed in stun and destruction) has a slightly unfavorable matchup against a defensive King deck. Especially one that priorizes getting Torn Hero out first or second turn.

I think Zi Mei has a very slight advantage over Hata, but only because she can throw more damage with one attack and is not as susceptible to bad checks on attack 2 or 3. That said, Zi Mei has unfavorable matchups against a few characters that Hata does much better against.

Hata is up there, but I find your insistence that he is on par or better than a number of much more consistent characters is heavily routed in the results of the SAS. Had you lost one more match in swiss, or had you been unlucky against an early potm from king repeatedly your view of Hata would be slightly diminished (this is just my opinion).

- dut

I am really liking this discussion, since it's the only real insight that I can get on the tournament meta (living in Puerto Rico and being a college undergrad means that my tournament accessibility is nonexistent, really). So please, keep going.

That's a fair point of disagreement, I will say that my testing is not solely as a result of SAS. Before SAS, we ran Hata against 10 different characters in various builds and he was 50-50 or better in all of them (including our house Astrid which was different than Brad's to be sure). I have no problem if your testing has yielded different results, again that is why I value specificity - I can only refer to my experiences and my testing.

I do not insist that he is better than everyone, really, I only make the case that in my experience so far he has been the top deck accounting for different builds and metas. As to the rest, I have no real qualms with anything you say, except the one statement "All Astrid really has to do is survive your turn 3 attack and then her draw off relentless is downhill for your current deck." A) that often doesn't happen and she dies, B) even if she lives, despite my heavy commital I usually end my turn with 3 foundations played or open + Hata so I can block at least one massive smash.

I think Drew's build of King is very good, and very defensive and definitely gives me problems, but at the same time overall I do think that matchup is in my favor a bit, so I disagree slightly with you there as well.

Again, not insisting he is the best, merely that's my claim and my case based on pre-SAS testing in-house, with other metas and during and after SAS. I welcome the difference of opinion for sure.

I truly believe you can block one massive smash, that is why Astrid would give you trouble post turn 3, every attack is a massive smash becuase of her character damage pump.

Hata is definately a top tier character, I am very glad your experience and your desire and sucess with sharing it with the forum community has shone a light on that.

Becuase Hata can change zones of attacks he has a spot of consistency in that a strong player (yourself among others) can identify what zones the opponent may have in his/her deck and even to an extent in his/her hand. The ability to do this turns more of your attacks into unblockable attacks (any attack can deal quite a bit of damage), the speed is just icing on an already very tasty cake.

I'd be interested to see, after your experience and the SAS, how many players agree that Hata is tied or stronger in 'general' (tier wise even) than Astrid and King.

It seems to me, by way of the OP and eariler Shinji, that you have convinced at least a few players that Hata is indeed on par with Astrid/King. There is quite a bit of parity around the top, and that is the nature of an agressive game. Still, your Hata is very conservative, many 5 checks (in comparison to the number of 4 checks), no 2 checks, etc. I'm wondering if you have other Hata builds in mind, I certainly have tried out a few different ones that employ different strategies and different risk/reward curves. Hata is a joy to build, granted you don't have to worry 'as' much about defensive measures (he has strong vitality, and strong defense with the ability to change the opponents attack zone as well).

If you couldn't tell, I really wish I had the money/time to go to the SAS like I had originally hoped... Not that I would have utilized Hata. And herein lies why I shouldn't be surprised that you are such a strong proponent of Hata in this thread, it goes without saying that you would field someone you wholeheartedly agree is the 'best bet' to win as would have I.

- dut

My crew and I agree that in our opinions Hata is the best character in the meta as of right now. Like Vik stated during Hatas attack run, its very rare to see Astrid being able to block any attack unless she has a ptp out, thus limiting her reversal ability. Also looking on both characters typical attack strings Hata has a much easier chance of surviving Astrids rush then vice versa. Lastly all Hata really needs to pop off is a mass of fire foundations and his own E. to tap to fuel his free R. Vik stated it best at SAS, if Hata has 6 foundations that commit to do things, his response now reads R: your attack gets +6 +6. Astrid seems like she needs particular foundations to help fuel her card draw and her dmg pump. Odds are Hata will nab fire foundations before Astrid nabs paying respect etc. This being all my opinion of course so nobody pitchfork me pls.

InsanoFlex said:

Not a pitchfork - thank you for sharing your opinion. Correct me if I'm wrong but you were at the SAS weren't you?

I don't disagree with your analogy above, it does say +6 + 6. It says that once though, and then what? Those foundations don't ready. Every one of Astrid's foundations say 'commit for +6 damage after turn 3' and it only get's worse. So, one attack isn't blocked becuase Hata gave it +4 speed, now he has fewer foundations to pass the next, and fewer to pump the next = likely one attack is blocked and that is sometimes all Astrid needs to reversal pommel, or just to block - survive and have you fully comitted come her turn of BIG damage attacks - +6, +6 +6 or more.

I 100% agree that part of combating Astrid is speed and thereby mitigating the threat of reversal, and this is why Hata has a 'more' favorable matchup against her than many other characters. However, a really smart Astrid will always have a way to reversal pommel...

- dut

In addition to what Alex said, to answer your question Garrett I have messed with two other builds of him. One is a different Fire build with a near identical foundation base but very different attacks utilizing Dragon's Flame combo as the primary kill, and not as much stun. This is the version that Matt prefers, although he did like our attack base a bit more since it was really synergistic without being dependent on KB combo. the other build is James' own build of his character card, although he prefers Death. It also uses KB combo and a lot of common foundations but features more controllish elements and is not quite as fast as pure Fire but perhaps a shade more durable in the first 3 turns because Death is good at slowing your opponent's options.

I found that in getting their lists and talking to both, J.'s original lineup seemed to suit me and the deck style a bit better so that is the version I ran with, and when I got the foundations finalized we ran it over and over again against our 10 test characters and the worst he did was against Heihachi, and that was 8-5 in games in my favor anyway. So overall I found that the build was pretty stable, not necessarily the best overall at that point, so that's why I decided to run it at SAS.

After the tourney and discussing it later with Ben, Drew and Dave, I revised my opinion a bit to what it is now, that he is the best character of Fire in the format. So for your info, that was how my process progressed.

Your example does make sense... But you are quickly forgetting about Astrid's foundations, which are probably greatly similar to yours. If one of them is PTP she might be able to block, if she knows you are going to off zone it she need only reveal her hand and probably show 3 or more weapon/keywords now it's 27 - 3, she might cancel your standoff, or have her own stand off, - 4, she might have her own ultimate team, -3, she might have Shadowar, - 2 and +2 to block whatever you throw next (assuming you pass it). She might have Memories that stain it's armor and blow a brooding after the -1 or force you not to use the -1 vitality enhance. She might have her shield and -4/5 damage. You never know after turn 2 she could have a lot of zany defense out ^^

A 'good' Astrid will have something that enables her to survive past turn 3 against practically anything. That is how you build an Astrid, that is the number one stipulation becuase it enables her big damage stuff later. Defense first then overwhelm with many big attacks.

Chances are, all she needs is 1 damage reducing foundation and she will survive your 'one' attack. We are also assuming you comitted more or less out trying to kill her this turn which means she can probably pass 3 or 4 attacks back at you and kill you the next. We are also assuming you checked a 5 for the Hammer, turn 3 with 6 foundations means you only have 4 if you check a 3, now what? Let's not even get into the scenario where Astrid is playing with Breaker Keywords and Paid to Protect which a good one very well may do...

The defensive abilities of Fire combined with Astrid's ability (incentive* even) to sit back and survive is what makes her slightly better than Hata (namely he commits a lot of resources to 'trying to kill her' and any reprise is his death).

- dut

* the incentive is better draw than most with relentless and a growing damage pump turn after turn.

That's why, as I said, PTP is the most important card in the matchup. If she has it, she can live and has a good chance to win. That's why Pommel Smash is in my maindeck too, for lame crap like that and I side out a Launcher for the 4th in the match.

Basically, long story short, despite her defensive abilities it boils down to A) me going first which is a huge advantage B) how effective her defense is setup by the end of her second turn and C) Paid To Protect. Even still, I do believe it is in my favor. And one of the reasons I run no 4CCs and 18 attacks in 60 cards (not 59) is because I do check those 5s frequently and of course the Stun + For The Money helps.

It sounds like your Astrid is very nasty, I like that. I'm trying to help you understand how nasty Hata is as well, lol! I look forward to playing it out at some point, perhaps at the next Canadian event I can swing by with Omar, or of course this year I will be at Nationals and Worlds (thank the lord) so hopefully Hata is still relevant by then.

Pommel Smash Reversal is disgustingly amazing. Also, it's good to see the Vik we all know, adding great insight to the conversation!

VikramS said:

Thanks, my Astrid is nasty eh, the guys up here will get a laugh at that (or just be plain mad at me tomorrow)...

I will definately see you later this card season, becuase I do travel a lot, and I'm sure I will also be at Nationals and Worlds lest there is a major disaster. It is going to be a really fun year of cards!

- dut

Funny thing is that even after all this discussion over who is the greater character; you guys still missed the greatest character in the game. It's not James Hata or astrid... In all honesty it's cassandra. Her potential to just destroy any deck is disgusting. We have tested her and she is strongest fire character at the current meta. She has 7 handsize and can outdraw Hata and stun out astrid while using a plethora of attacks to finish her opponents. Oh yeah the most important thing in this game is speed at the current moment... which cassandra is the strongest option. When we start to do our tournament runs I guess you guys will see.

-Shajir

Oh trust me, she's my next project I just don't have her yet. But Cassie + Lifter is gross.

Lifter is insane in cassie... +4 to all speed attacks and 4 damage to the last card in the string if you need it.

Following on the example stated by Vik you did mention Astrid has methods to handle the "one attack" to stay alive but remember the aftermath of what just occured. The big dmg thrown by Hata honestly doesnt completly tap him out and his cc's allow a second attack to be thrown. According to this example Astrid is in bad shape after this attack. God forbid he throws a neutron bomb which does allow a third attack to be thrown for free. Either case arguing situations (he can have but she can have) isnt my forte. All in all to me it seems like Astrid requires key pieces while Hata only requires fire foundations that fuel is R while also beefing with there own E's regardless of what they are (ex Hata throws low 11 for 24 but if Astrid has ptp, Hata has 40 foundations to Astrids 4 ptp's). Odds will always favor Hata in this format because his abilities synergize with the basic game mechanic, playing foundations. Every grey card is a weapon, even without the keyword. Excuse my lameness with that last line

I havent really read too much of this thread as I do not typically believe in character teirs in a void like this, but I cannot believe that ZD is so low on the list. She may very well be a one trick pony, though as new cards get printed who knows, but that one card trick is one of the best cards in the game. Twlight Embrace is like an I-Spin with a 3 check. Twilight embrace later in the game is like 2 ISpins crammed into one. How is that a bad trick to have.

Shes a bit predictable, in so far taht anyone playing her will be playing her for Tbrace, but she may be the only character in the game right now who can play the control game without having to go for turn 2-3 uber pump attack/stun/POTM sillyness. I haven't tried her on every symbol just just a cursory look through her cards reveals on death she has tons of foundation denial in Tbrace, Cursed Blood, and nightmare support. She has definite kill cards in embrace, midnight launcher, etc, without having to run POTM and using that slot for a foundation, and she has a good amount of speed pump to push her attack through with Tiras Terrain, Drosel, Invoking the ancients, and even Fury of the north which actually combos with drosel.

I think she has tons of potential because she does things that people are not used to, but honestly we all know that one card can come out and completley break a character, so I'm not sure these list can ever truly be accurate. Lists like this work in video games where they originated because things don't change. This is a CCG. things change.