Winners were Sean Canaday (King) and me (Jason Hawronsky) James Hata

How many players was there at each event.

LOL at astrid not winning a **** thing....

But shes getting alot of 2nd place finishes maybe its some kind of astrid curse haha

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

astrid isnt as top tier as everybody thinks, it just happens to be able to shut down fire decks easily with a reverse pommel smash( which isnt there all the time unless youre facing a lucksack player). and in most stores it seems people havent gotten over fire and seen that other symbols are just as good.

shes simple to build well but she is one big plateau, she doesnt get better.

Wow, vastly different lists Jason!

And yeah, Astrid is still top tier, but unfortunately she's no Paul Phoenix, whom I feel is infinitely better. While she can get more damage than Paul, Paul pushes things through more easily and has no problem with damage at all. Also, reverse Gut Drill > reverse Pommel Smash

MarcoPulleaux said:

I require Gut Drills for Zhao Daiyu

Chaos Zhao Daiyu? Surely you're mad! Mad I say!

MarcoPulleaux said:

I'd say it's Tri-Symbol but the only pure Death card in the deck is Proficient Sniper.

MarcoPulleaux said:

I say that because I think Paul is severely overrated. He has extremely limited deck building possibilities, although as more Stun attacks are released in his symbols, his usual deckbuild will change. Astrid suffers from the same problem, but weapon cards are more available (unless the set is SF, DS or KOF, so it's about a 50% chance).

I prefer Steve Fox using Paul's support, mostly because a punch theme can be easier to keep up with new sets than a Stun theme.

I am gonna jump in and say i too think paul is overrated. And i have been running a paul deck....

reason i say this is IMO a paul deck fronted by Cassie...or even Hilde, wins out over Paul. His extra commital is nice, but really not needed with all the quick stun he can play. T2 he is easily tossing out like Stun:5, and i doubt your opponent has more foundations than that at that point...

The only reason my deck is Paul and not Cassie is i don't have Cassie. Pauls dmg pump helps out but his R is where he shines, and only playable once per turn id rather have a 7HS to get the aggro out quickly.

Smazzurco said:

I think that all you people saying paul or astrid is overrated are crazy.

Astrid is the best deck in the format, seriously, it's not even really up for debate on a competitive level. She is not "unbeatable" or something, but she is the most consistant and most dangerous deck out there, with the best symbol and the best tricks available.

Paul is spectacular, Cassie and Hilde are his equals at best, and you are thinking pretty limited assuming a deck fronted by them would be better, since Paul's best symbol is currently debateable to say the least. Steve Fox is another great char, but suffers from so many incredibly poor matchups that fronting him solo is dangerous on a competitve level to say the least. Paul really has no bad matchups, there is no single card on his board he relies on to win(at least after he resolves his ability which should be before ANYTHING can be done about it) so even things like perfect sense of balance and torn hero are just things that slow you down, not stop you.

Cassie and Hilde are both great decks, and hilde is even flexible in her tricks, but saying they are better then one of the best guys in the format is ridiculous. IF you dont agree thats fine, but the results above speak for themself, a ALL Paul deck beating a Fire Cassie Deck Piloted and Built by Former Team and Single Worlds champion Andrew Olexa, if that isn't proof enough that Paul is on the same level, then I have no idea what possibly is.

failed2k said:

Eh... Torn Hero can still react to Paul's ability to protect whatever needs protecting.

Antigoth said:

If they have a momentum this is true, but really, there is rarely 1 card I NEED to commit on a kill turn, just a few cards that are better to commit then others, they key is knocking stuff down period. Plus there is other nasty ways to get around that particular card, again, its a speedbump, not a roadblock was my point. Them knocking sutff down on my board almost never matters, there is no single card on the table I rely on to win, and if there is, I probably already used it.

failed2k said:

Fair enough. Most Paul players I run into look at Torn Hero, and just stop using the stun/committ abilities. (I don't agree with that myself, but hey... that's how they play their game) I have found that just using Torn Hero to knock down a couple of foundations to reduce Paul's damage pump / commital ability can help slow down / stop the the kill turn from being a kill turn.

P.S. Next year can't come soon enough. You and I haven't had a game in far too long.

failed2k said:

Just thought I'd quote this, anyone who disagrees just hasn't really compared all thier decks back to the Astrid matchup. The problem with Astrid is she has very few, VERY few, bad matchups. Her abilities can't be countered in any reliable way, barring Rashotep which I don't consider reliable because I don't use Rashotep 'reliably'. She has access to the best cards in the format (fire, slightly better than most/all of the rest). She has her own support that directly assists her ability to outpace and acquire exactly what is needed to kill.

Anyways, she is beatable, but (not trying to insult anyone) when steered by a experienced player with a unlimited build (i.e. full card access) she is going to beat, instead of be beaten, more often than not.

Obviously Paul is disgusting and not overrated, almost entirely due to his synergy with standoff/for the money, i.e. the ability to somewhat dominate the resource game early in many situations (only drawback early game situation is first turn torn heros).

Some things I don't agree with posted before... Pommel as reversal is better than Gut Drill as reversal (my opinion). As to Paul being better than Cassie/Hilde it is pretty close if you ask me. My only concern on the direct matchup is the Hilde/Cassie that uses the Good or Life symbol to play Torn Hero well. As stand alone characters (not the matchup) I'd say the 7hsers are 'slightly' more consistent, but whether or not that makes them 'better' is a whole nother debate, granted the potency of Paul's extra 1 commital goes a long way early, and the extra vitality counters the 'slightly' more consistent nature of a larger handsize. You are really comparing 2 dimes and 1 nickel with a quarter in this case.

What is interesting with Paul vs Cassie/Hilde in this case is the handsize issue. Perspective tells you that Jeremy is very comfortable with the lesser hs characters, with an immediate and well documented competitive history as Mina (5 hs), Sakura (6 hs), and Alex (6 hs), vs. players like Olexa who seem to prefer the extra handsize in competitive forays for 'whatever' reason. In other words, I'm saying personal opinion is likely all that separates these 3 competitive character cards in the minds of most players.

- dut

dutpotd said:

I agree with the PS > GD sentiment. The only thing that makes it close to me is GD being discarded and playable for free. PS's ability to choose one of the committed cards, not limited to foundations, makes it more useful, and mandates your opponent have momentum to Torn Hero it. Whereas GD's stun 2 is welcomed by an opponent with 2 TH's at the ready.

Also, Mi-na is a 5-hander only by print. Not meaning to nitpick, it just tickles me when people site her as a great 5 handsize character, that's like saying promo Galford or promo J. Talbain were 5 or 5 handsize, respectively. Mi-na was a solid 6-hander.

Let it be stated just for the record that I'm not that crazy.

The reason Paul is overrated in my opinion is simply because there isn't a whole lot of flexibility involved in the deckbuilding. Torn Hero is usually now maindecked (or if not, sideboarded) simply to deal with Paul (not to mention the nice TH stats).

The three non-stun attacks Paul would ever run are: Gut Drill (gets stun and disrupts the opponent's turn), Phoenix Smasher (also gets stun, boosted by stuns) and Neutron Bomb. Problems with each?

Gut Drill - only ever really useful as a Reversal for Paul, so he can use his R and add more disruption. Otherwise, it becomes a nuisance in the way of Phoenix Smasher.
Neutron Bomb - The card is amazing. It also, however, comes to disrupt Phoenix Smasher.
Phoenix Smasher - Forces you to only use Stun attacks if you want to pack on the insane amounts of damage. This isn't a bad thing, but the biggest drawback is basically losing the ability to use Neutron Bomb in that attack string. By itself, even without the combo, Phoenix Smasher is an attack with great stats though, but if the opponent is not stunned and disrupted, the attack will most likely be blocked.

Note that this is my opinion.

Now let's take a look at Astrid. Delicious stats, great damage pump, great synergy with her support, stupid continuous effect that should've only worked if she was ready at the very least. What does this mean for the androgynous viking woman? Any and all weapons with any of her symbols are immediately a disruption threat for her opponent. Obviously her build will probably not change greatly in order to maintain the amount of weapon cards in the deck to a maximum, but her attack lineup will probably be drastically different between previously-similar builds, and VERY drastically as the card pool increases.

Astrid is therefore, logically (and my logic may not be the same as others), more versatile than Paul will more likely ever be.

Jeremy

You also neglected to mention that comparing Cassie and Hilde to Paul IMPLIES that Paul is being ran off of Fire.

Neither Cassie nor Hilde have All, meaning it's hard to compare, even though yes All does have a lot of Fire cards. The primary reason I list Paul as better than Astrid (and by the coin, Cassie and Hilde) is BECAUSE of Gut Drill, a trick that only he can do off of All (and to a lesser extent, Cassie can do off Life, but probably won't).

SO

Yes, Astrid is one of the easiest, most flexible characters around with the most obvious damage potential (my friend's raw starter Astrid has racked up 14 damage per attack, if not more), and while she hasn't yet won anything yet, it's only a matter of time, especially with Soul Calibur being as it is.

MarcoPulleaux said:

? It doesn't imply Paul is run off of a symbol that he shares with 2 other characters... I know that Smazz was making that comparison in particular later in his post, but his earlier statement about Paul being overrated doesn't appear to be symbol specific. In any case, it doesn't mean that Jeremy's comparison was limited to symbols, in fact it looked moreso like it was a comparison of 'optimum Paul which arguably includes All cards' vs 'optimum Cassie which arguably includes Fire cards'.

Now, the debate re: whether Paul is better off All utlizing Gut Drill, Fire without Gut Drill, or a combination of both with/without Gut Drill is a different debate.

I highly disagree w/ Paul being better than Astrid. Comparing the ability to selectively commit something to what Astrid brings with damage and reversals results in a clear winner at this point in time and likely will remain as such as sets are released. Astrid is more consistent, there are a lot of answers to Paul, and even the undenied ability to commit 1 specific target is not as strong as the damage threat and keyword addition Astrid brings to the table, the damage is more consistent and potent throughout the match with Astrid, and the lack of an answer to Astrid's abilities (static) puts her on a different threat level.

Paul is not overrated by most, but in the case where someone rates him higher than Astrid I do believe that is overrating him...

Also, w/ respect to quitalex I think the lack of flexible deck design has very little, if anything, to do with a characters rating. If a character is limited to using the best cards in the game, the fact that he is limited to them doesn't detract 'much' from his rating. In the same way that Astrid is limited to utilizing many/all weapon attacks and is still rated highly Paul is limited to attacks that provide an element of control/stun and is still highly rated. Similarily, King is limited to use some throws, he is also deserving of his rating, Zi Mei limited to her attack, etc. etc. I also think that, granted Paul can only use his ability once a turn, he will use a lot of attacks that don't have stun, far more than the 3 you listed...

- dut

I can see that, dut, but not running stun attacks hurts him more than it helps. Stun is a for-the-rest-of-the-turn resource removal. As a result, it also acts as a for-the-rest-of-the-turn speed pump. A simple Stun:1 acts as a turn +1 speed to everything because that resource is definitely off-limits. That said, it's more than illogical to not run insane amounts of Stun in Paul (Neutron Bomb being perhaps one of the few cards he should run that aren't stun cards).

Paul's R should focus on either extremely problematic foundations or defensive characters/assets. But he should have more Stun to deal with the rest of the staging area, so that later attacks that are pumped with Ultimate Team, Enraged Golem and/or Path cannot be blocked or otherwise dealt with.

How else is Paul supposed to deal with problems like Stand Off or Kilik? He must run as much stun as possible. With enough stun and a solid foundation base, even committing Torn Hero won't save the opponent from losing.

failed2k said:

BUT WHAT IF YOU NEED TO BLOCK BECAUSE YOUR KILL TURN WASN'T.

Uh Toughest in the Universe, etc. etc. etc.

It's not like only Foundations can protect you.

dutpotd said:

You're right: Astrid is much more consistant in racking-up damage.

You know what Paul Phoenix is more consistant in?

WINNING ACTUAL TOURNAMENTS

MarcoPulleaux said:

umm... how often/many tournaments do you play in, weekly, monthly, etc.? Astrid continues to do extremely well and often wins wherever I play. If you count one or two store reports on this thread, in which we are unsure if Astrid was even involved at the same level of play, and base your opinion that 'therefore' Paul is better you are short changing yourself and giving far too much credit to individual metas and not the community as whole.

I'd place large sums of money on the community, or more 'tournaments', having seen more wins by Astrid than Paul.

- dut

You know why Astrid doesn't seem to win tournaments? Because none of them are willing to run Raven's Claw, which is quite possibly the most disgusting attack she has. Running it and her own assets will make one single Raven's Claw enough to be nearly unblockable and overkill.

Play it (4M4), first E on Reaver's Axe (+1/+1), second E on Reaver's Axe (+2/+2), Jimmy (+2/+0), blow up Jimmy for Raven's Claw E (+2/+2), Valkynsverd E (-1/+3), Astrid E. Excellent as a reversal, which she can play it as for being a weapon.

Grow some balls and run a 2, people.

guitalex2008 said:

qft (the part about using Raven's Claw, the reason she isn't winning is a bit more complicated and kin to why we didn't see Chun-li win much before nats started hitting, i.e. her PotM and prior track record of many tops 4s, also see Akuma and Zi Mei), you can also feasibly run Dragon Flame in her, the ranged on it also benefits from Reaver's axes second e...

I guess my rationale for Astrid not winning anything big ye is that there are more than 1 or 2 top characters, that doesn't stop these top characters from being slightly better than characters right below them in ranking, which is the situation Astrid vs. Paul.

- dut