Smazzurco said:

Oh, that whole thing about costs and effects keeps changing on me. That's okay, I'd rather it work like this. Makes more sense to me.

This set is pretty amazing. There are answers to things with out cancels. There is Hand control (I'm a fan). More fire aggro (maybe a little dangerous).

Hata, ya done good.

There is no point in keeping cards in your hand if you are playing Yoshi because they will all go away anyways...Divider discards 4 cards. Unless you are keeping 5 in your hand somehow then its not going to matter. Just pack in the Anti Discard since Yoshi, Kisheri and Lizardman all do it so well.

Yoshi is great and all but his ENTIRE gimmick is discard. If you take away his discard in any way (by running ANY form of anti-discard), he's screwed and probably can't win anymore.

But yeah, he's definitely broken when anyone can sideboard cards that don't even have to match resources to combat him.

I remember watching J play Ryan at the um... SCC2? final, HanzoKick vs. Ibuki, J WoPed into a sided-in Soul Wave* game 2 and pretty much insta-lost right then and there, and game 3 he was sweating bullets the whole game figuring out a way to work around Soul Wave*. That one card effectively wound up beating him because he couldn't find a Bitter Rivals, which was pretty much his only other way to push the Kick. (it didn't help that Ryan double anti k'd his first card, which WAS a Bitter Rivals, for the time walk...)

Warrior's Path is pretty sexy right now. Soul Wave is a given if you can run it.

Ancient fighting style is prob going from a 2x card to 4x card in my heiachi deck. I have been using it to pitch useless cards on my opponents attacks and then drawing up.

Yeah Ancient Fighting Style will see even more play than before.

Why the **** is nobody discussing Deathcopter Attack?!

IT'S SHADOW BANISHMENT!

Because Mt. Devil Divider is just so sexy, it's kind of eclipsed the rest of the support for me.

But yeah, Deathcopter Attack is brutal. Unfortunately for it, it has 2 requirements that kind of rub me the wrong way:

1. It requires a Ranged attack as combo fuel. Realistically, how many good Ranged attacks has UFS had, ever? Off the top of my head, Bad Stomach isn't all that appealing to me, and Evil Mist doesn't have Order ...

2. Discarding a card is a very small price to pay, but it's a price nonetheless.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Yeah but theres so few cards that combo with it well. In fact Bad Stomach is probably the best one...

Ranged

Death

Ancient Ensnaring Sleeve Technique
Bad Stomach
Command the Sandstorm
Evil Mist
Lao Xie's Grinning Death
Two Deadly Rings Attack

Order

Bad Stomach
Raven's Claw

Void

Bad Stomach
Command the Sandstorm
Dark Geo Da Rey
Eltanin Nath
Evil Mist
Howling Spirits
Raging Gnome

Bolded the ones that I felt were any good.

Check out teh Deathzorz Combo:

Crushing Embrace of the Jotun - Command the Sandstorm (to blank they stuff) - Death Copter Attack (LOLShadowBanishment) - Knight Breaker

Lots of control checks to make. I hear there's a character that has Death that is kinda good at making control checks.

Also, for those wondering why Raven's Claw is bolded:

Hi! My name's Astrid! I block with a Ranged attack and reverse with Deathcopter Attack, totally screwing over their turn. LOOKS LIKE I CAN DO MORE THAN JUST REVERSE POMMEL NOW!

LordAggro said:

While I won't disagree with the multitude that share this sentiment, why was Ice Pick not so well accepted? It's requirements were a little tougher to satisfy, but hardly impossible.

ROTBI said:

And that is why

Also, Yoshimitsu > Nina, big time.

Furthermore, Mt Devil Divider works much better with Knight Breaker.

Tagrineth said:

First things first, does Yoshimitsu actually trigger from Pavilion? I didn't think you cold respond to static effects, althoguh the wording on Yoshimitsu might suggest that you can.

I'm extaordinarily impressed by this set, there isn't a character I wouldn't consider playing, including the promo characters (I despise Yun-Seong, but I'd still give him a shot) and I wat to truly exclaim that LIFE IS FINALLY GOOD! Life is one of my favourite symbols, and Xianghua is one of my favourite characters, and they just go together so well it could bring a tear to my eye. I love how she can pull off 3 different combos with that many attacks (Pointing Thrust, Playful Slice, Twisting Lotus Flow) and do them in different orders to get different effects, it just feels dead on for Xianghua. Yoshimitsu's power level does worry me slightly, but we won't know or sure just how silly he is until we play the cards for ourselves. Taki I think is a real dark horse for this set and could grow to be very powerful very quickly if overlooked. Mitsurugi is a perfect beginners' character, simple, but effective. Amy brings much needed, but subtle anti-throw techniques (Breaker, in and of itself, and reversals that actually sting) as well as more obvious ones like Strange Fashion. Sophitia is another dark horse, I reckon. For example, Hammer Of The Gods. It has Stun 2. Add in Sophitia's first effect for essentially Stun 3, then give it +3 speed using her second effect, giving you essentially as big a speed boost as her 7HS sister, but with a decent first effect on top of it. I say if Cassandra can do well, so can she. Yun-Seong has an obvious sort of power, and it frustrates me a lot, because I can't stand the character, but that card reminds me so much of Soiree, I can't help but want to play him. And Lizardman I actually think is a viable alternative to Yoshimitsu and Kisheri, despite not looking it directly.

Few ideas to add:

Master Of Ninjutsu + Hilde

Heir To The Storm + Mt. Devil Divider

Lizardman + Wipe The Floor

Ostreinsburgh Throne Room/Amarylis Spin + The Ultimate Team/Hammer Of The Gods

Deceptively Quick + Taki (Not sure if this one actually works or not)

Quick Exit + Path Of The Master

Evil Destroyer + Ka Technique/Dead For a Thousand Years

Tower: Ancient Gate + White Crane

ROTBI said:

In my book, they're A LOT harder to satisfy. Let's take a look:

Mt. Devil Divider:

A. You must have 6+ HP.

B. Your opponent must have 15+ HP.

That's not hard at all. This basically screams "lead-off unblockable that pitches your entire hand."

Ice Pick:

A. Combo (Kick).

B. Make a check vs. 6.

C. Have less cards in the RFG pile than your opponent.

Combo (Kick) is not too big a deal; her symbols have kicks apart from hers worth running, and it means it can Combo with itself. The check vs. 6 is annoying, since it's surely gonna make you commit something, but hey. The real problem lies in the third requirement; it eliminates "mulligan" as an option for you in the early game, makes you run support pieces that are useless to you otherwise (Unknown Son, for instance), and it's SLOW. Much, much slower than Mt. Devil Divider , which only asks you to check a 5 and have enough pump/attacks/both to finish your opponent right then and there. So yeah, a whole lot worse.

Just some of my quick thoughts after really looking at this set.

Life is going to be an amazing anti-meta symbol, hell it might be the new meta with the new kill conditions it got.The addition of acrobatic and access to torn hero and perfect sense of balance makes it a symbol worth looking into. Kisheri gets more hand revealing cards like tiao wu kick to piss people off.

I hope set 15 helps out evil the same way life got a major boost.

This set does give fire some new toys like another 1/5 foundation with abilties in the strength within. Hopefully set 15 gives fire the same treatment evil and earth got with this set. Its been said before but fire has enough support that we can afford to slow down helping the fireball out for a wee bit.

Also, this is the set that makes the terrain rule actually matter. I very easily can see myself as well as others playing the new stages. The promo Tower of souls might be worth running, for instance, in a life white crane deck with Taki's stage.

Overall, this is another great set by Mr.Hata. Nothing in here that screams broken and lots of fun char themes to mess around with and some cards to slow down the "rwar I pump throws huge and win .dec."

guitalex2008 said:

Incorrect. First Rite is a LOW weapon. The second card in Twisting Lotus Flow's combo needs to be a MID weapon.

Other than that I agree that off symbol shenanigans are going to be fun and effective in Xianghua.

CultKiller said:

Sure, let's make the 7th card she drew in her first hand a Mark of the Beast for no particular reason lol

Actually, with Inhuman Speed, you could potentially abuse any combo by changing the zone to fit the requirements for the combo. So, First Rite or Second Rite or whatever you use could be changed to a mid. As for the required speed bonus, Xianghua's symbols have plenty of it. Though, this would have to be done after setting up for a turn.

Corrode said:

except zone changes will go away after the attack resolves unless the effect that changed its zone says it lasts till the end of the turn or something.

8.3.0.1 Any non-continuous changes to an attack’s base/printed values will end after
the attack sequence has resolved.

Except that zone resets when the attack resolves, so the zone would be the same as printed. Unless, of course, you could some how give a speed bump to an already resolved attack, and change the zone during another attack's enhance step. But I don't see that happening easily.

-Tinman