1x Christie Montero

Assets/Actions

3x Eiserne Drossel

4x Jolly Side

4x Frantic Search

Attacks

4x Cross Madness

4x Swing Kick

4x YS Dragon Tail Leg Sweep

4x Evil Sparrow

3x Fruit Picker

3x Knee Thruster

3x Know When to Talk...

4x Torn Hero

4x Atoning for the Past

4x Memories of a Nightmare

4x Regretful Existence

4x Researching Anywhere

4x Genius Alchemist

4x Relaxing Model

4x Searching for Family

24 Attacks, 68 Cards total.

7 HS with a ton of draw power and a lot of cheap attacks. This is what Ivy should have been.

Memories of a Nightmare, Torn Hero, and Relaxing Model help her stay alive for another turn or two while Researching Anywhere, Searching for Family, and Christie's form keep your hand full of blocks while you set up your kill turn.

Genius Alchemist is obvious.

Atoning for the Past fuels the Knee Thruster multiple for your next attack, and multiple copies lets you spam a few attacks to get the Fruit Picker combo if you need to.

Regretful Existence turns a handful of cheap attacks into 5 damage pokes, paired with Eiserne Drossel and your opponent won't be blocking much.

Jolly Side Blocks high and checks a 5, but it also keeps your attack string going a lot longer than expected. Also another way to spam kicks if you really want the Fruit Picker combo.

Cross Madness blocks high and is a nice way to finish an attack run for that last bit of damage.

Swing Kick and Dragon Tail hit low for 3 damage each, with Dragon Tail let's you gain momentum or clear your card pool in a pinch and can commit Regretful Existence.

Evil Sparrow is 3 damage for nothing.

Knee Thruster hits for 5, has a low block, and gives your next kick attack multiple 1.

Fruit Picker is not here for the combo. It has a good block and at 3H6 it can do massive damage when fueled by Knee Thruster and Drossel, or just giving itself a speed boost.

With Thruster and Picker and an Atoning for the Past this deck can occasionally turn 2 7HS characters. 5 foundations turn one actually enable the possibility of turn 2 6HS depending what your opponent has in their staging area.

The main objective is basically build, draw, block, draw, kill. A lot of blocks for low and high, mid having the lowest number of viable blocks for now. Meaning everybody's off zone strategy gets shut down quite easily.

Stand Off does nothing against this deck when your kill turn involves 8 or 10 attacks. The only issue coming from The Man Behing the Mask, but that's what Memories of a Nightmare is for.

Breaker only slows her down a small amount. Typically the first three attacks you play won't count toward progressive for the rest of the turn so you just have to check maybe a 5 or 6. Commit Regretful anyone?

The only problem matchups would involve throw decks. The new UR Acrobatic would be able to take care of that issue

In testing this deck can take down Zi Mei, Paul, and Astrid. Pushes through damage reduction and breaker like nothing, doesn't care about being blocked, and typically ends the game by suiciding your entire staging area while playing out a ton of attacks.

I will say here that this is not my final build. The deck has been tweaked to something a bit more consistent than what is here. However, given the recent activity on players trying to find the proper build I do not want to stifle creativity or promote lack of effort by giving a final build. This was the initial successful build I made, and in itself is very effective. From here it's just a matter of fine tuning to personal preferences and opinions.

Judas225 said:

As a person who's been doing some research on Christie, and who just recently read your comment in THE Christie Monteiro thread, I have a few comments:

1. You're running pure Life Christie, yet you're missing two integral cards: Ostrheinsburg Castle - Twilight and Path of the Master. TwinkieCastle is an absolute staple to any competitive Christie player, as Christie relies on making several control checks, and re-using foundations is simply amazing either way. Path of the Master is how Christie speeds up her victory. If you don't own any Path of the Master, consider Robes of the Grandmaster or Designer Clothes as substitute.

2. Not gonna lie, I highly dislike your attack line-up. The inclusion of Cross-Madness is cute, but I doubt it'll deal damage, and truthfully, your line-up is better suited for Siegfried. See, Life lacks damage pump, and really, with your line-up, you could just as easily run Ivy who can draw into more attacks. Now, while your line-up is ideal for passing more control checks, you're going to be dealing some serious weenie damage, and really, I do NOT see how you're getting through Stand Off with almost every single attack potentially being neutered by it. It's great for drawing madly at the end of the turn, but apart from that, you're not a very heavy-hitting Christie, even with Regretful Existence.

3. Oh boy...what is up with your foundations? WHERE IS RESEARCHING THE PAST?! Where's Hunt for Jin? Perfect Sense of Balance? Life is amazing at protecting it's staging area, but right now, you're relying solely on Torn Hero. A player who gets out both Torn Hero AND Perfect Sense poses an amazing threat against anybody who can commit things. Researching the Past is an absolute no-brainer in its ability to tutor cards via conjunction with Searching for Family and the recommended Hunt for Jin.

I've built 3 Christies, All, Life, and All-Life hybrid. Your idea is pretty nice, but with a card like Stand Off and Paid to Protect being seen everywhere, not to mention blocking your simply low speed attacks, your Christie's going to have a mad hard time dealing damage. You're missing a lot of key cards, such as Lunging Brush Fire, which adds ANY attack (though in Christie's case, pretty much Kicks) into the momentum AND discards itself if it deals damage, meaning you can use the aforementioned Researching the Past to draw it back with Hunt for Jin/Searching for Family and repeat the shenanigans until you're ready to Combo bust them with Fruit Picker.

As I've said repeatedly, pretty much anything Christie can do anybody else can do better (with the exception of Fruit Picker, which, as of right now is just kinda "okay" seeing as how Path of the Master makes anything a kill, and even without it, Dragon's Flame and Midnight Launcher are extremely reliable). If you want to make Christie shine, you need to simply abuse her handsize, Fruit Picker, potentially her character abilities, and sometimes, the SSS loop.

As I mentioned this is not my final build. Most of the list is current except for a few specific things which I won't reveal here.

I see Path of the Master as the easy way out for people who can't figure out how to win without it. I don't run it as a matter of pride and dignity and the simple fact that I don't, and never will, need it to kill in any deck I make.

The Castle is a nice idea but it allows your opponent to reuse things like Ka Technique and Stand Off during your turn which is not something you want to happen. Robes would just take up space in my build and I see no real benefit from running Designer Clothes.

Cross Madness is effective for that last bit of damage at the end of a major attack string and is needed for the high block. Chances of blocking it aren't as good as you seem to think. One sure, but not two or three after dealing with my other attacks.

As far as Stand Off nuking my attacks, when I have a Regretful or two behind them I'm eventually going to be dealing a lot of damage. Realistically how many attacks are going to be hit by Stand Off and PtP? 3 or 4, even 5 sure but anything more than that is unlikely at best. And with Eiserne putting everything at 5 speed there's not a lot of blocking happening afterwards. 5 damage attacks start to add up after a while. Yes I said I can kill after 5 attacks have been stopped. With my current (not shown) attack lineup 8-10 attacks is always a constant threat at any point in the game past turn 3.

Right now I can block more attacks than any other character I've seen. Which generally means a lot of combos are going to be dealing next to nothing. Current record is 5 blocks in one turn. It's a lot more than people are used to seeing to begin with when I can consistently block your 2 or 3 attacks that are supposed to hit for massive damage. Something like Wheel Kick, Launcher, Breaker suddenly becomes something like stun 3, blocked Launcher, blocked Breaker. Oh you're done?

Foundations. Researching the Past is unnecessary for what it does. Hunt for Jin is nothing aside from a 1 diff without RtP. Now Perfect Sense is debatable. It is definitely effective but I'm not really willing to sacrifice any of my foundations for it. Torn Hero is just meant to make stun decks think twice, not stop them completely, but I have enough draw power to see it early on consistently. Even then most combo attacks are 3 or 4 speed and can still be blocked with one or two foundations ready. Faithful Bodyguard would force me to replace quite a few cards to be effective, even with my draw power so I really don't see it being used in this deck.

Simple fact of it is this deck works. Whether you see it or not is purely on you. It's definitely not the easiest to play but is definitely a lot more effective than you want to believe. It's up to you whether you want to play around with it or just write it off as another deck you can't understand enough to be effective.

I do see your gripe with Path. I also don't have Path in my build. But do consider several things.

1) Stand Off is a pain. It also doesn't have Death, Evil or Void so Memories of a Nightmare can't stop it. And without Path to boost a later attack, even if they do use Stand Off on the first three attacks and take the remaining 5 attacks (assuming the exaggerated 8 attacks in a turn), that's about 15 damage average with your low damage output. Meaning you're dead next turn because you're spent and they're not dead.

2) I made an All build that I am willing to bet MONEY on that it can build faster than this. Financial Troubles, Paul's Gi, Fatherly Love, Searching for Family, Temporary Being. And STILL before I get enough foundations out and draw enough to play 8 attacks, SHE'LL BE DEAD. Out-building the opponent does nothing against 30 damage throws. And neither does this deck.

I'm glad you like Christie. But she's not competitive at the moment. I've learned to accept that, and so should you.

Maybe the next set will give her enough stuff through All (seems Mitsurugi has it), Life (Xianghua's stuff seems to have it) or Water (Xianghua and Amy it seems) for people to care. Particularly, DAMAGE PUMP, because with the entire kick card pool consisting of Fruit Picker, Knee Thruster (which is a 2 check), Lunging Brush Fire, Theemin Menkar, The Boot, Neutron Bomb and an assload of puny 3-damage kicks, it's not happening yet.

Don't be so quick to criticize without trying this deck out for yourself. I've seen it in action and it is REALLY powerful.

It is not a particularly fast build. It doesn't need to be. It has a huge amount of defense in the form of blocks (in a good mix of zones) and card draw. It suffers against aggro throw, but not as much as you'd think.

It has a good mix of control from Siegfried's support and Lu Chen's.

It usually kills with all of those weenie attacks. Judas frequently spams 7 to 10 attacks on his kill turn, and each one gets boosted by +4 damage from copies of Regretful Existence. Spamming is no problem as the attacks (including the occasional Knee Thruster-induced multiple) don't add to progressive thanks to Genius Alchemist and Evil Sparrow's innate.

Cross Madness is really only there as a block, as first turn momentum gen, or as free attacks on the end of a kill string.

Build it. Try it out. Then come back and talk about its weaknesses. She IS competitive.

+4 damage by Regretful Existence to each attack? Implying you have 2 copies out AND are willing to destroy 2 foundations per attack?

I guess...

ARMed_PIrate said:

No. No, she is not. Not without changes including cards from this set.

I'm not blankly criticizing. I know Christie. I've played her since the prerelease. I've tweaked her around.

You're talking like you think I haven't tried a similar build. Marco did as well. Regretful Existence on a weenie kick makes a slightly less weenie kick. We know she can spam out 7 attacks. But when you tell me he plays out 8 attacks with +4 damage from Regretful, you're saying he's blown up 16 foundations. Foundations he could use for checks, committing for speed pump so things actually get to hit...

She needs actual, reliable damage pump. One that preferably doesn't permanently get rid of your foundations for minimal damage pump.

Christie does not get the luxury of living to get 16 foundations. Not without dying. I know she can get blocks. Hell, my All build has so many attacks in hand at one point, I'd be hard pressed not to find a block! But by the time she has enough foundations to pull off the incredibly overexaggerated attack string of death and destruction, it won't be turn 3, 4, 5 or even 6. At two throws a turn after turn 2, she'll be dead by turn 5.

I'm honestly confused as to why you started your post discussing a deck with a 7 hand size, 18 vitality character by saying that she doesn't need to be fast. In this meta? How long have you been out of the game? Just do you know, rotation happened after Worlds. Just kidding.

My point is that my intention is not to insult a player's ability or deck creativity. I'm only posting here because he was extremely, overtly exaggerating, touting that Christie was competitive, yet shows me basically Marco's build with Regretful Existence in it. Marco has tested Christie as much as I have. We're literally not talking out of our asses when we say NO, she is not competitive pre-SCIV02. She is incredibly predictable, other than Fruit Picker, her attacks' base stats leave a lot to be desired and without Path of the Master she has to spend an insane amount of resources and draw a nearly perfect hand to be able to kill a regular 6HS 28vit character. She relies on those Regretful Existences too much. Her attack lineup isn't also exactly large. The opponent only need look at Swing Kick to realize exactly what attacks you have in the deck, because you're running off of Life.

My suggestion is to look at this set for more. Mitsurugi and Xianghua support. The deck can only get better by doing this. As it stands, it's Regretful Existence or bust, quite literally. Knee Thruster is sort of pointless without momentum, and for Atoning you need to deal damage. You need reusable speed pumps in here. More importantly, you need reusable damage pump in here. Imagine running a deck with only high kicks (Fruit Picker, Tiao Wu Kick, Leaping Snap Kick, Samba, Law's Somersault Kick) and tack on Mist Stance. She'll be far more dangerous with a Mist Stance because she doesn't need to randomly destroy her things.

I applaud your reserve, deck builder, but if you wish to make her truly competitive, look into SCIV02. It is needed. You need to speed this deck up tu win by turn 4 or less.

You know...just because you can't figure out how to play a certain deck doesn't mean it can't be done. I mean what's with the insults going around? I feel like I'm back in middle school or something where the only thing people ever did was talk **** and run away.

Pirate was exaggerating on the +4. Even if it did happen it's not a common occurence. Although at the same time why not blow my staging area? Committed foundations or an empty staging area don't matter if your opponent doesnt get another turn.

But it's obvious you'd both rather insult anyone who doesn't listen to you before you'd take the time to think. Seriously guys, looking at that decklist and you can't figure out how I get around Stand Off or manage to kill without Path of the Coward? If you would take just a few minutes to think the answers are right in front of you. But you won't do that. You'll use the next possible opportunity to insult me or whoever posts here because we've succeeded where you never will. Simple thing really. Don't blame us for you being an idiot.

Either step up or step off. Stop with the insults and stop with the idiotic assumptions and learn to play the game. I'll be looking for you both at every possible event. I'll be rocking life Christie all the way and your little schoolyard insults aren't going to save you. Or come on down to SoCal and get schooled. We'll be waiting.

Oh, and for the record, I'm looking at three possible cards out of the entire set. To go into my sideboard. Because she is just THAT **** GOOD.

If you can't tell the difference between insults and constructive criticism , then really, what kind of life have you lived?

I'm serious. We both gave adequately-explored insight into Christie, and if you read the thread created by Rockstar, you'll understand that Guita and I know our ****.

I just read the whole thing again. I get a few things out of it.

1. Christie dies to Stand Off

2. You're obsessed with the easily predictable and just as easily shut down SSS loop

3. You seem to think Christie doesn't work without Path.

Yet here I am with a deck that can easily get through Stand Off, doesn't fail to disruption or breaker, can adapt to any situation on the fly, can consistently go head to head with ANY deck in the format and come out on top, and still doesn't need Path to kill. And you assume I'm some kind of idiot because I don't run her the way you want to see her run? The simple fact of it is for whatever you think you know, you don't know ****.

But then I guess you're the all knowing master deck builder right? If you can't see it then it doesn't work? If you don't approve then it's not competitive?

I'll say it again. Step up or step off. You're not going to even consider the possibility that I've done something you couldn't, so there's no point trying to continue this discussion.

Oh and thank you for proving me right about the insult response. You've just made my day that much better.

Dude, enough with the one-man crusade against the Internet BS. I built your deck, CARD BY CARD, and I got the stuffing beat out of me by the following decks in my playgroup:

1. Astrid off Fire.

2. Kazuya Mishima* off Chaos.

3. Heihachi Mishima* off Chaos.

4. Siegfried* off Earth.

Why, you ask? She does not get the damage across in time. Plain and simple. These decks eat her alive before she can do anything. She NEVER WON A GAME. Stand Off neutered her so badly it was almost funny, and she only needs to fail 1 block for any of those decks to kill her easily (Lion Slayer, Spinning Demon, anything Siegfried or Astrid plays). Heck, I ran her against a Bryan Fury* deck off Evil and she STILL lost (Upper Claw to the FACE), and Evil is about the worst symbol he has on his character card. Look into SCIV02, it has quite a few things that already look promising (Tiao Wu Kick, Battle Tested, Looking for a Thrill, there's others).

Judas225 said:

I'm done trying to help your deck. If you think she's so good, go to a major tournament with it and win it. Just do it, then post back here. When you don't even make it to top 8, you'll know why I was trying to help you.

Get over yourself, will you?

the only one I feel is insulting people is you Judas. The others are just giving their advise based on their own personal experience.

I will try your deck out, you must have some hidden secret inside it since you are so full of confidence in it, and are arguing positively about this deck even though nobody seems to agree with you..

Would you care to evaluate your deckstrategy abit more? like how you are killing people?

Judas225 said:

I just noticed this line.

How do you want us to make correct assessments of your deck's capabilities, and how are you to prove us wrong (because apparently you're so intent on that) if you don't actually post what's in the deck? That's just... it doesn't make sense to me.

We know the deck can spam. We know it can draw. We know it can clear cards from the card pool and keep some in the card pool not counting toward progressive. We also know that if needed, it can provide a bit of damage pump (and the expensive cost of blowing something up, or committing one for +1).

Is there anything else?

Like I said, I already mentioned ideas to make it better, you do whatever you want to do with it. Please let us know if you win a major tournament with it.

they arent really giving advice. they are criticizing just because he didnt build the deck their way and found a new strategy

pballr93 said:

I have never seen you around here, so if you made this username just to flame me, please go away. I have half a mind to think that you're Judas as well.

If you read everything I wrote, not only did I give my reasoning as to why Christie was not top tier, I also offered advice as to cards from the new set that could make the deck better. His Christie build was not unusual, nor was it different than the many builds I've seen here, which do not do well in this turn 2-3 meta.

I know what Christie is capable of. I also know Ivy does it better because she has better card draw. In fact, triggering Ivy once already makes Christie look bad because Ivy will have a pseudo 8 HS with 8 more vitality than her.

I also know what Christie is NOT capable of. I just gave my opinion. He can take it or leave it, but when he insults me for simply giving my opinion, it makes him quite frankly sound like a douchebag.

And THAT is the first insult I write here.

He needs to take constructive criticism well instead of simply touting that his deck is competitive. Even Vikram Sareen, an excellent and well-respected UFS player, posted his deck and asked for opinions, changed his deck accordingly and took it to win an event in the regionals event in Ft. Myers, FL.

He would listen to advice then make his own decisions, but he would NEVER insult anyone for giving him what he thought was bad advice. Kind of how he did when I suggested he swap out Knight Breaker (one of the best cards in the game) for Cleave. You know what he said?

He said that he preferred the high block on Knight Breaker, and it also had the destruction and even though it may not happen often, the possibility of the combo. Gracious much? He could've gone "LOL no" but he didn't simply brush off any advice.

He also didn't automatically think that because the deck wins some games, that his deck was competitive enough for the meta. He should learn from Vik and learn to take criticism.

^ What he said.

Also, I would like to post a small list of cards I think you should consider in Christie off of Life from the new set:

Acrobatic - Saves you from Throws and Multiples big time, and can be turned into offense if you have enough spped pump. Probably more of a Side Deck piece, though.

Just Kidding - Speed pump with a block OMG!

Looking for a Thrill - Absolutely sexy with Christie 's E . Gives you damage pump.

Loves her Blade - Not fast, but could be useful.

Possession Stance - Not the fastest way to eliminate large amounts of progressive difficulty/set up Fruit Picker (requires momentum), but undeniably effective.

Quick Exit - Spam fodder that gets you an extra go of any commit effect you may like to use.

Tiao Wu Kick - Great stats, and Stun = good.

The Strength Within - Good card, even without the Fire E . And see Just Kidding for what I think of its effect.

From these cards, I'd say the "Add me ASAP" ones would be Looking for a Thrill , Quick Exit , and Tiao Wu Kick . Speed boosts are not so high a priority thanks to Christie 's E , but should still be considered because they can help push Christie 's first attacks of the turn through (or at least make for a tougher block). Possession Stance is nice as a way to make sure that you can pay a fully combo'd Fruit PIcker after a certain point in time, regardless of what you check.

I think Unrefined adds a lot in Christie. I tweaked my deck around to a Life build with Mist Stance and Jyurakudai (to make attacks that aren't high into highs and change the zones of high attacks to something like low after Mist Stance's pump kicks in). She can happily turn 3, repeatedly as a result of the extra damage pump, which makes me happy.

Unrefined also softend the blow of Stand Off because the opponent is not blocking the attack. Just one or two of these out and Stand Off truly becomes too overcosted for the opponent to consider it.