...k maybe you didn't hear me. Yes, SUCH NOTABLE CHARACTERS as Heihachi, King, and Paul P DO win early games CONSISTANTLY, more often than not it is due to either stupid opponents who underestimate too frequently, or due to them getting crappy draws/checks. The better players, from everything I've read, manage to keep all 3 at relative bay, longer than 2 turns at least.

I know it's not like it's a promise, like "if you are THIS good, you can last THIS long" (no innuendo intended, but still funny nonetheless), but it's more of a statistical thing.

Also, that's how this game should play. Such powerhouses as Heihachi and Paul SHOULD go for early kills, because that's how they play in the game. King shouldn't, but Path of the Master makes him abusable in a way he definitely shouldn't be.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Cervantes can abuse CotAM more than Jin. Also decks banks on following combo : Cobra Clutch - Flinging Half Nelson - CotAM.

Why Cobra Clutch? It prevents you from upping control checks to play attacks, and it looks like you'd need 5-6-7...

MarcoPulleaux said:

High Throw. Find me another High Throw plox.

Homme Chapeau said:

Double Face Kick , which lets you run off Chaos .

vermillian said:

I want to adress this as best as I can without apear to be trolling or flaming. Thing is this more foundations is never a bad thing in this game. There are very few penalities if any for having over 6-10 foundations. Thus the game will always have foundation spam. Not only that because the check mechanism is based on progessive difficulity there is now way not to have a deck that fucntions that doesn't have foundations to pass checks. Its just not possible.

For a world of no grey to exist there has to be lots of 0-3 difficultiy attacks that one could spam to do damage. I would says that this would never happen. The next major problem stopping the wall of grey is culture. The games culture is built to expect a certain amount of grey wars. In fact they demand it. Look at all the demands for P2P. It is an example of grey wars. People don't really care that much about the other prerelease cards but p2p. So its not just an issue of rarity but meta demand.

There are decks like Heichei that don't need foundations but rely on a quick stun out kill. I fought a friend of mines Heichei with no foundations but a ton of character cards and attacks. He did well when he could make the checks. But what ended up killing his deck was the fact that he missed checks at crucial times. One or even 2 foundations would have won him the game. So unless there is a character in the future that ignores progessieve difficultiy and damage pumps look for grey wars to stay.

The commital issue I agree with you to an extent but I don't think your evidence backs up your position well at all. Hata doesn't need a lot of foundations kill if he has the right suppport. Hata gets a bonus for doing what happens in the game already. You can build Hata off of foundation spam but your better off building Hilde because she does what you want faster and with less risk. I will say we haven't seen the strongest Hata can be yet. Death and Air Hata have the potential to shake things up a lot and the threat will come from action cards more so then foundations.

If I have a foundation that is works for my deck and it commits any foundation for its cost I think that it is a problem "outside" of the character it was designed for. I think that more stuff should be character specfic and less generic. But that is not going to happen. The limitation is still put in place that during one attack they are commiting up to 4 foundations for a specfic effect. This can easily lead to a situation where the person can tap out fast. I would say that while commit 1 foundation is strong it severly limits what else the deck can do in a turn.

Nightmare is out of the player scope because most of his "destroy stuff" focus is out of evil and evil blows right now in comparison to the other symbols. Control Nightmare doesn't work well as other control characters. So you are stuck back with basic fire Nightmare that just punches to the face and ends the fight before destruction control becomes an issue. Thus making him a weaker fire character. When games end between turn 2 and 5 on average Nightmare's edge doesn't help much in NewFS.

Based on the check system alone foundations MUST out number attacks or the player will not be able to pass checks. If check hax never existed in this game there would be a move toward what your saying with a balance of checks and attacks but I'm sorry that is never going to happen. Check Hax alone make foundations nessecary for the game.

I understand your postiion but it is not practical at all and will not function without major game mechanic overhauls that would cause it to die. Progessive difficulity, and meta control are the two major reasons that your ideal will never come to pass. I don't agree with your examples and you could have picked Kilik as a star example of use of foundation spamming being the key mechanic of a character. I think that would have fit your arguement a lot better.

MarcoPulleaux said:

But still, not having any foundations out to help you pass checks is very risky when attacking. Check attax n' ur dun, like solitaire. Ukyo was one of the only fine examples of a decktype that was really consistent at killing without foundations, but when you look at it, he cheated with Psycho Focus and Kunai.

Shaneth said:

Lower Celtis is absolutely balls with this though.