What is your meta like?

By Shaneth, in UFS General Discussion

Other metas intrigue me.

Playstyles vary from meta to meta.
Decktypes vary from meta to meta.
Food may vary from meta to meta.


Back in the day on the STG forums, there was a meta talk. Dividing metas into countries, it looked like this:

United Kingdom - Control based (Void Tycho control dominated UK Nats for two consecutive years)

New Zealand - Aggro based (Home of the Auckland Rush/Popularized T2K 8HS Hanzo)

North America - Balanced, leaning more towards control (Top 4 Worlds 2007 was 2 aggro decks and 2 control decks. The finals were the 2 control decks)

The game is currently aggro-based, which is what you will get with only three sets in the current format. Since we cannot debate playstyles, I wish to debate decktypes. Here are some conclusions I've drawn up.

Florida - Seems like James Hata is doing pretty well over there. I've talked with Vik numerous times over the phone about his Hata deck. While many areas do not think Hata is at the top of the tier list, he took the SAS title. Although Vik lucksacked top 8 with a 2-3 record (sorry Vik, I had to!), he stayed true to his word and won the SAS with his Fire James Hata deck. Heihachi seems popular over there as well with I believe 4 players piloting him, and Keenan taking him to 2nd place.
Mindset: Hata's abilities are godlike, making him the best.

Michigan - There is a Kazuya/Jin deck off Chaos that runs over everybody. Apparently it mains Kazuya and sides into Jin if necessary. I don't have much info on it, but this is what I hear is dominating Michigan.
Mindset: Chaos is a terrific symbol. Kazuya has everything from stat boosts to board control. You side into Jin if you need to be quicker.

Pennsylvania - The main decks that do well over here are the ones that can disrupt the opponent on their turn; Astrid reversing with Pommel Smash and Paul Phoenix reversing with Gut Drill. These two characters are at the top of the chain here because they have disruptive capabilities in this aggression-based format. Chaos is high up there as well. The Mishima Family, especially Heihachi, is real effective over here, especially if they run Demon Slayer to counter Astrid and Paul Phoenix.
Mindset: Anything that disrupts your opponent on their own turn is golden.

Maryland - Earth Throw decks took the meta. Any Earth deck that built up for two turns then OTKed with Throws on the 3rd turn was considered to be top tier in this meta. These characters are Bryan Fury, Ragnar, Rashotep, and King.
Mindset: Throws are the best, easiest, and cheapest way to kill in this format.

I'm not really sure of anyone else's meta. If you post yours then I'll be glad to add it to the main topic. I believe that more light will show once we get reports of Store Championships.

The Meta for Oneida, NY, yay for having 5 people /cry:

The King player, your typical aggro throw player. Not really much to say, he tries. Runs off of Earth I believe. <- Aggro

The Cassandra player, he's the TO and also works at the shop, running the storefront more often than not, leaving me to only have seen it be played a few times, but from what I can gather and what I hear it revolves around fast midnight launchers and knight breakers. Runs off of Fire, I believe.<- Aggro

The Kazuya player, he switches back and forth on his symbols, I believe mostly between Death and Chaos. Staging areas go boom, yeah. <- Aggro control

The kid who changes his deck every week, he does this. It happens. <- Always aggro.

And me, the Jin player, typical set up, I guess. Running off Chaos. <- Aggro

Mindset: Hit hard, hit fast? Sounds pretty much what happens here, games usually end faster than they start.

So, it seems here that Chaos and Fire aggro are mostly run. I wouldn't expect anything less with the cards that are out at this point. I really expect eveywhere else to be similar and I'm surprised. Usually we stray from the typical meta.

There are two stores, essentially the same people save for a few exclusives to each store:

1) Meta #1 is more casual. Except when someone brings a tournament caliber and/or Worlds winning deck pretending it's a fun deck and drives people out. There we may find:

Fire Zi Mei - Stand Off, All Life is Prey, speed pump, Fury
Chaos/Void Dual symbol Cervantes - Does awesome things when it works. Among them are First Rite -> Shadow Flare, Wild Storm + Genius Alchemist, etc.
Chaos Kazuya - "die or I blow your crap up" is the name of the game. Often ends in "die".
Chaos Heihachi - I've heard of it but haven't played it. Spinning Demon, NtD, characters...
Death Zhao Daiyu - Burn, remove. You might find yourself losing more life from burn than actual attacks. It's also difficult to fight it, you know, with having no staging area.
Fire Astrid - Has the most obvious win condition ever that nobody cares about. Seriously. Hard to approach, considering an attack might end in an 18M28 reversal.
Life Tira - I think. Also haven't played it yet. She goes bipolar and you go boom, or something to that extent.
All Christie - I tried. Stand Off wrecks her hardcore.
Death Nina - Read "All Christie" above.

2) Meta #2 is casual at the moment, because it's starting, but the aim is to make it more competitive, since our scout is Eithinis and he won't stop top 8'ing or winning regional events. ******.

its my hata deck fool :P

ATL SON! It's really hard to get a real overarching taste of our meta but i can list the individuals and what they play.

1. Drew/ShippuJinrai/Me- Earth King- 8 throws and my pet deck 3rd place sas 2/1st place sas 2.1. Deck is really just designed to abuse what i feel to be the two best cards in the format: stand off and potm. Doesn't try to t2k people but can on 7hs. Prefers to play the late game and kill with a pumped path at the end of a stun attack base. Aggro/Control (Hybrid deck)

2. Ben/Nfxon- Fire Zi Mei- Deck is super explosive. Can randomly just win on 2 in a lot of games even against 6hs. Lifters, heavy stun, and of course fury. Also very safe against mark of the beast on account of the foundation base ben runs. Deck is very good. Also runs path/stand off. Aggro

3. Dave/Sketch- Death Kisheri- Coolest hybrid deck in the format imho. Runs a very fast, very hard to block breaker launcher suite and kills very quick. OR the deck can take you into the late game with cursed blood fueling broken foundation advantage with defensive tricks like flexible body, cold and indifferent, and defensive keeper of the watcher activations. Deck is very cool and very versatile.

4. Marco/GeneralReaction89- Fire Paul- Marco sucks so its irrelevant. Just kidding... kind of. Standard Paul fare with lifter and a heavy stun suite. Aggro/control. deck.

5. Keenan/Makingsenseofus- Fire or Chaos Heichachi- 2nd place at SAS. This deck is carefully designed to rip the balls off of your opponent on turn 1 or 2 EVERY game. Deck is character light by comparison to other builds so as to reduce the chances of having bad early build turns. Best build of the character i have seen.

6. Kroswek/LordHamara- Fire Jin- Standard fire jin rush. Good clock. We know.. we built it :P

7. Ben L.- Fire Astrid- BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING. Standard, haxor fire astrid.

We actually have about 15 or so people but this is a good sample of some of the decks.

Overall, a lot of fire, a lot of chaos, some death, and im one of two earth players.

As far as the food meta goes, UFS food is usually buffet oriented rotating between chinese, pizza buffet, and southern food. Very strong imho.

my meta's dead :(

But I religiously play Ivy life aggro. BALLIN', although stand off wrecks her hardcore. :(

Just to add in in the Michigan description, we have some great chaos decks that are really showing their teeth, but Astrid and King are both just as good here as they are anywhere else.

Lot of Mishimas, Lot of Fire, and a little bit of all/earth.

Pretty much like everyone else with a strong meta haha.

Meta here in the STL area is pretty stale at the moment. I play Bryan Fury, and the rest of the play group looks like: James Hata/Kazuya(he switches from week to week), King Throws, and Astrid/Kung-Fu Grandpa(switches from week to week). The guy playing Hata and I have even started playing WoW just to pass the time during the slow season. We both managed to qualify for the championships in Chicago next month. But anyway, this is just another example of why FFG should be doing something during the slow season. not only to keep sales up but also to keep player base. FNKits are great, for the stores that actually get them. Our store doesn't want to get them because they think they would have to buy from FFG direct to get everything, right now they go through alliance(which I hate). but what can I do. Ohwell. I'll see you guys again when the tourny season starts.

TULSA OK : We are still getting some advanced things of the game settled. We are having rules issues. I'm trying to get most of them ironed out. We play what we want. It is more casual then most places and a deck may get refined and then never see play because another card idea seems more appealing. The meta is based mainly sticking with the base cards that come with the character or designed to support the character. I think I'm the only person that hodgepodges stuff together.

Common Characters Played: Hilde, Ragnar, Zi Mei, Temeijun, Tira, Earth Rashotep, Earth King, Chaos Omar, life White Crane, Christie now and then, and Nina at random times.

Card pool is small but some interesting decks are being made. Chaos Omar did awesome for me this last weekend but we are casual group of players.

guitalex2008 said:

There are two stores, essentially the same people save for a few exclusives to each store:

1) Meta #1 is more casual. Except when someone brings a tournament caliber and/or Worlds winning deck pretending it's a fun deck and drives people out. There we may find:

Fire Zi Mei - Stand Off, All Life is Prey, speed pump, Fury
Chaos/Void Dual symbol Cervantes - Does awesome things when it works. Among them are First Rite -> Shadow Flare, Wild Storm + Genius Alchemist, etc.
Chaos Kazuya - "die or I blow your crap up" is the name of the game. Often ends in "die".
Chaos Heihachi - I've heard of it but haven't played it. Spinning Demon, NtD, characters...
Death Zhao Daiyu - Burn, remove. You might find yourself losing more life from burn than actual attacks. It's also difficult to fight it, you know, with having no staging area.
Fire Astrid - Has the most obvious win condition ever that nobody cares about. Seriously. Hard to approach, considering an attack might end in an 18M28 reversal.
Life Tira - I think. Also haven't played it yet. She goes bipolar and you go boom, or something to that extent.
All Christie - I tried. Stand Off wrecks her hardcore.
Death Nina - Read "All Christie" above.

2) Meta #2 is casual at the moment, because it's starting, but the aim is to make it more competitive, since our scout is Eithinis and he won't stop top 8'ing or winning regional events. ******.

This is for the most part true, yeah. We're a very aggro based playgroup with the exception of a few players, and a very casual group with the exception of a few players (myself included). We don't really rock our competitive decks locally to try to get more players and draw them in and all.

I don't necessarily want to make my meta really competitive, although it'd be nice, but I do want to run a few tournaments specified as a "competitive night" once a month or so and maybe throw up a box from the fightnight kit for prize.

To add to that, I play a Death Padma, Fire Nightmare, and Fire(i'll switch to All once my boxes come in) Paul Phoenix, and I have an astrid deck that I never play. I really want to play a chaos Jin, though.

Eithinis said:

We're a very aggro based playgroup

SoCal

I can't speak for Comic Cult (unless they bring it on Nov. 21 to Gameology's Store Championship - www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp ). But Gameology has a few decks that tend to lead the pack in consistency, while being consistently played by their players.

Russ - Astrid, off Fire. Solid utility and mid-damge attacks, and a pretty full suite of weapon assets. Promo Astrids.

NintendoMan - Heihachi off Chaos, with PotM and Communing w/ the Ancients' Chaos E for a dirty draw engine. Mostly Spinning Demon for a kill card.

NintendoMan - King Throws (Earth I think?). He hasn't really brought this to a tournament yet, but I think we'll see it in action soon.

James L. - Paul Fire. ZM's Wheel Kick/Dragon Lifter or several of Paul's attacks. Phoenix Smasher as a finisher.

Those are the tops. Other solid and repeated decks include:

Judas225 - Ragnar. (I don't remember which symbol, but I think it's Fire or Earth.) Lotsa damage pump. I think this one might have made the top spot a few times, too.

Judas/Helio - Padma off Death. All kinds of utility Death cards. Slick.

Helio - Zi Mei, running 1st, 2nd, 3rd Rites, and Fury of the Ancients. Kills fast or dies fast.

ARMed_PIrate - Void Cervantes theme; Bryan Fury Evil/Fire split (only a few throws); Air Temujin Combo theme; Rashotep/King Earth throw

Others that usually don't do so hot:

ARMed_PIrate - White Crane/Yi Shan/Lu Chen Life/Water theme; Chritie All/Life/Water theme; Siegfried/Hilde Good theme; Zhao Daiyu/Nina theme;

Shaneth said:

Eithinis said:

We're a very aggro based playgroup

Isn't everybody at this point in time?

In some groups Death and Stall Off decks are very common, we don't even have a Rashotep, and the only earth we have is a siegfried smash deck. (Although i'm working on a king.). We've also in general always been an aggro playgroup, with the most dominate decks being like Twelve, Adon, 'Gief, Ukyo, Yun-Seong, etc. back in the day. Yeah, some control players, but not a whole lot.

Rochester has been on a bit of a hiatus, no one showed the last 3 weeks. But before that it was fire fire and more fire.

ARMed_PIrate said:

NintendoMan - Heihachi off Chaos, with PotM and Communing w/ the Ancients' Chaos E for a dirty draw engine. Mostly Spinning Demon for a kill card.

Just a heads up, it's an Evil E, not a Chaos E.

I'm sure that particular deck runs PotM.

MarcoPulleaux said:

ARMed_PIrate said:

NintendoMan - Heihachi off Chaos, with PotM and Communing w/ the Ancients' Chaos E for a dirty draw engine. Mostly Spinning Demon for a kill card.

Just a heads up, it's an Evil E, not a Chaos E.

PoTE lets you play it.

PoTE? Power of the Edge? I don't think so...

Now PoTM? Yeah, that would do it. F**king card.

Im guess our meta is pretty standard as well its mostly aggro i dont think we have any real control decks...im running choas omar and earth siggy

Theres the standard Astrid/Hata/King/Heihachi but no PotM which in a way is a good thing for our meta

A couple of White cranes and a few padmas and i think that might be the only decks that we have built at the moment

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

Theres the standard Astrid/Hata/King/Heihachi but no PotM which in a way is a good thing for our meta

If you don't have any, come up to my store championship on Nov 7th. Each participant will get a copy :) and you can more than likely trade for more.

Dunno if you have any connections with Craig Roberts (umigame) but I am sure he is rounding up players to carpool up to my event.

Yeah, was a typo. it happens :o

Shaneth said:

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

Theres the standard Astrid/Hata/King/Heihachi but no PotM which in a way is a good thing for our meta

If you don't have any, come up to my store championship on Nov 7th. Each participant will get a copy :) and you can more than likely trade for more.

Dunno if you have any connections with Craig Roberts (umigame) but I am sure he is rounding up players to carpool up to my event.

ive got my playset i got them off drew...and another player got his at gencon

we just havent been using them because the decks we have built are better without them...i dont run them in my omar ive been playing because the attacks only share one symbol with him and the other guy has been playing hata and hes not running his either

as for the other players ones just completely opposed to it and wont even try and obtain them and the king player wants them just doesnt have the resources to get them

As for the Store Championship we already got plans to play in charlottesville on the 7th sorry

My metagame is non-existent at the moment, and I certainly don't agree with that mindset. J. and I believe in experimenting with everything, so much so that I haven't played with Hata once since SAS weekend. I've been busy tinkering with Death and Chaos decks instead, screw Fire.

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

As for the Store Championship we already got plans to play in charlottesville on the 7th sorry

VikramS said:

My metagame is non-existent at the moment, and I certainly don't agree with that mindset. J. and I believe in experimenting with everything, so much so that I haven't played with Hata once since SAS weekend. I've been busy tinkering with Death and Chaos decks instead, screw Fire.

That is what most of my guys have been doing. We get pissed about some deck and go about to try to make counters. This has pushed us a lot in play. I think that most don't want to go through the back and forth of testing. That is essential in our meta now because its easy to put some obvious power above a more subitle card. Demon Slayer is a good example of this. If it gets in the card pool it can jack with opponents trying to stop your next attack. Yes you do loose a potential momentum but its worth it to push another attack through. It wasn't until I played Omar did I really look at chaos. It wasn't until I did a writeup on chaos did I really call into question why the forum ranted and raved about certain cards. Then I realized that most players only see a card by itself. A card with a character or a card with another card. Most tactics don't go beyond 2 card combos. Three to four card combos/interactions is where the complex meta lies that fosters inavation.