I play tested my Xianghua deck against my Mitsurugi deck (both are posted btw). Xianghau pwnd him 2-1!

Game 1:

Mitsu goes first. They both play foundations turn 1. Turn 2, Mitsu goes Mist Stance x3 (They kept drawing into each other) Full Moon Disemboweled Xianghua 12H19.

Game 2:

Xianghua goes first. Foundations turn 1. Form Needs No Ally turn 2 declaring All. Genius Alchemist, Looking for a Thrill, and 2 Financial Troubles all pass. Mitsu plays PotM, ends (Seriously the only thing in his hand he could play that turn.) Turn 3 Xianghua Forms, Playful Slice into pool, 2 Flash Needle no multiples. Mitsu plays 3 Mist Stance, checks the fourth (what is up with this guy?) FMD, reacts with For the Money, but X counters by committing herself out. FMD fails. Turn 4 Xianghua Forms with Playful Slice, 1 Flash Needle multiple 1 but kills Mitsu without getting to the multiple's enhance phase.

Game 3:

Mitsu goes first. Foundations all around yet again. Turn 2 Mitsu has FMD but no actions, plays some foundations. Xianghua Forms Playful Slice+ Triple Botta+ Waterfall and Acrobatic GG.

Naturally I've excluded most of the enhances as well as the fact that I succesfully used Xianghua's R each time I dealt less than 5 damage. Didn't try it any other time. Just wanted to give you the jist of the playtesting and looking forward to building more A-S Tier decks for Xianghua to pwn. Any questions?

No offense, bro, but your Mitsurugi* deck needs some SERIOUS work. I left some suggestions for you (to be honest, I prefer him off of Life , but that's just me), but your defensive arrangements are really, really bad, and NewFS won't let you get away with having a poor blocking scheme.

To be perfectly frank, Mitsurugi shouldn't have any problems killing Xianghua. Mitsurugi poses monstrous threats off any of his symbols, giving +3 +2 to a properly-built deck's attack line-up. You can pretty much run any attacks you choose in Mitsu, but off Life and especially Fire, Mitsu can run a stupid good Throw game, enough to make Xianghua really choke hard.

The best part about UFS is that nothing's for certain, and in this metagame especially, no character is too terribly better than the next. A good Xiang could Stun-out what little Mitsu can build with (little in comparison to Xiang's godly building speed) with a typical Wheel Kick - Dragon Lifter, F to add Rhythm Halt or something, then Twisting Lotus Flow, repeat til dead.

Mitsurugi, unfortunately, is going to see mad play, much more so than Xiang I'm sure. Mitsu is up there with James Hata and Siegfried for balanced and overall smashface aggro characters that make the big boys (Ragnar, Bryan, Astaroth) fear for their tier.

Xiang has her uses, but truthfully, Mitsu should win more against her than the other way around.

Still, she's plenty viable. Using her R to Communing, Stand Off, etc is stupid obvious.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Truthfully I don't worry about any of that. There are no tournaments around here so I just play block 4 for fun. Competetive play doesn't happen around here so building wacky deck ideas is far more enjoyable than building A-S tier decks. I only slapped Mitsu together to give Xianghua something a little different to test against. Since fire is everywhere (according to these forums) I never actually play it. I prefer to think outside the box. Nobody is playing Xianghua competetively. As it stands she's my favorite game character that has been released in a set so far. Therefore I am much more committed to making her a viable deck than I am to Mitsu, especially since I hate him in Soul Cal 4. XP

Sorry if everyone got the idea I actually cared how well Mitsu does in play, I only care that I have fun playing Xianghua at this point.

Does anyone know if they'll be releasing Kamikirimusi, Shura and the others at anytime?

CultKiller said:

I'm not sure I'd say nobody. The set JUST came out, so I'd say give it time. I'm pretty certain there haven't been any tournaments since the set's release, and even if there have been, we're gonna need numerous reports to truly tell us how characters fair (though my money still says Taki is balls).

The characters you mentioned will more than likely never be released since they are property of their original owners I'm sure, not BandaiNamco.

Not to be a ******, but unless your reports reflect the metagame, they aren't really all that valid. I mean, my Ivy deck can pwn scores of people, but until my Ivy deck consistantly wins reputable tournaments against top-of-the-line decks, nobody's going to care that I have a string of luck on my side.

But props for trying to bring the topic to the attention. As you've noticed, I already made a Xianghua thread because I feel she's definitely the most underlooked character, and making her work is going to be a bit tougher than others, but I've built one I feel really capitolizes on her strengths. Hope to hear you weigh-in on it

MarcoPulleaux said:

I'll corroborate on Ivy being top notch. I've heard of two completely different builds do particularly well. Two builds at the extremes of the spectrum.

IMO, an Ivy deck using Valentine* and Regretful Existence might be something. It may look counter-intuitive to Ivy's strategy, but I think its been proven by now that Ivy relying on SWS and her R simply does not work.

MarcoPulleaux said:

It's her F that's absolutely nuts. Her R is really just in case you want to kill nao and can't.

CultKiller said:

Xianghua* will be played competitively; just give her time. She requires more of a shenanigans-oriented mind, that's all.

I dunno about you, but Mitsu in SCIII was a heck of a lot more annoying (more damage).

Since Kamikirimusi and the others are promo characters (and some are licensed to different companies), the jury's still out on them, I'm afraid. I wouldn't be surprised to see them in prize support further down the line, though.

Sorry if I came off as ******-y, btw.

CultKiller said:

pretty much never. They don't have the licence for those characters, when I was at the path of the master event, I had asked Hata if they were going to release Kamikurimusi {and by extention the other bonus characters} I was told he had created the standard 18 card support for Kamikirimusi and Namco told him he couldn't use it, her or the others because they don't have the licence for those characters.

kiit said:

WHo are these characters and what game where they in?

darklogos said:

...SCIV?