Since there is interest in character development I decided to go with Sophita. With this I’m going to introduce some new views on how to look at a character. Your feedback will be most welcome since it will help me refine article process.

We are going to use a scale of 1 through 10 to gauge several elements. More elements will be added in the future due to feedback and the need. Now lets define the categories.

Offensive/Aggro: This is scale is determined on the ability to continually apply pressure when it comes to attacks. The character must be able to kill in what I like to coin the DUT-ZONE. The DUT-ZONE is killing between turn 2-5. Can the character off its symbols one shot with one attack. All of these things are considered on the ranking.

Defense: The character needs to be able to survive each turn taking very little damage. Ease of avoid a kill turn is also determined in this.

Control: This is based on how much the character can disrupt their opponent.

Draw: This is based off of the character and the symbols that the character has access to. Strong draw will be looked at on a case by case basis.

Symbol spread: Does the symbol spread help support the character or just frustrates the player.

So with that defined lets look at how Sophita stacks on the gauges.

Offense/Aggro 8 out of 10
Defense 4 out of 10
Control 8 out of 10
Draw 8 out of 10
Symbol spead 10 out 10

Now let me explain each one of these areas. Offense wise we see that Sophita has a non-commital E speed pump. This way she can do lots of damage by pushing through attacks that seem to be slow. As the fight goes on she only picks up speed. She also has access to order, life and more importantly fire. All 3 of these symbols gives Sophita what she needs to kill.

Defense: Her card make it harder for her to block if you decided to use your e on your opponents turn. Now if your opponent is tapped and decides to push the attack then you can possible get a foundation back. You may force them to tap an offensive or defensive piece that will be down when you attack. While this is nice it is not that strong of a defense against highly offensive decks like Hilde. This lets you survive against other characters.

Control: Her first E is decent for control. But when it comes down to it she has access to a killer amount of stun and stun modification. I must say that she will bring the pain and start untapping things. This is where she will prove to be a pro at.

Draw: She has access to some of the best draw cards across all symbols. The only reason her draw rating is an 8 and not a 10 is that she is a bit pushed to get those elements out and then stun out. Life is the only symbol in which she has draw issues. Yes you can run Frantic Search but it doesn’t net you positive amount of cards.

Symbol Spread: At this stage of the game there are no better symbols to have. Order is starting to come into its own. Life has its own quirky aggro tricks to make her threat.

Now lets look at deck construction. I’m going to break deck construction down by tactic and not off of symbol. Playing blind off of symbol is a easy way to be read in the meta. There are many cards that played just because you can play them. I want to focus on what you are going to do with her versus what you are going to do with the symbol.

Offensive tactics:
Stun Sophita. To me this is the best option for you to run her on. Sophita doesn’t require a person to run weapon or kicks. So you can play any attack that has stun. One can easily look at Paul’s cards to start off with. The flaw of Paul’s stuff being slow is easily overcome with Sophita’s speed pump. Additional speed pumps can be packed but its nice when you face some form of speed reduction.

Weapon focus Sophita: The main reason you are running weapon Sophita is that you can Resourceful, Relentless, and Unstoppable Conviction. These cards end up giving the player a nice edge. You can do various combos with the weapon attacks. Not only that you can use the famous dragon lifter in your deck.

Kick sophita: This idea is more focused on life. Using the right build of cheap kicks and Rising Hilt or Laws Somersault Kick for a finisher you can kill most players in the dut-zone. Not only that Searching for Family will allow you to draw pretty well without problems. Speed pump and then playful switch for the kill. This setup works well because you don’t need to use foundations to pass checks. Most of Mitsurigi support can be played in this deck and be used effectively.

Yi Shan Cloning: You can choose to play Yi Shan’s attack. The advantage of this is added effects for control and damage. I don’t think this is the optimul build but it has elements that can give you an edge against decks that can’t mess with momentum. But there are more and more cards that jack with momentum so this is not as strong as when it was launched. This may be viable if we get some sort of momentum protection.

Defensive tactics:
No speed for U!: Sophita has the ability to speed redux a lot. Sisters of battle, p2p with Sophita’s second E makes almost every attack blockable. Remember your opponent can have negative speed. Silent Xia Sheng Stance is another card that reduces speed of an attack making it easier to block.

Mind Reading: Keeper of the watchers, needs a challenge, and Tia Wu Kick are options for you to see what your opponent has in their hand so you know what to expect on the next turn.

Damage reduction. She can do massive damage reduction if you go the Yi Shan attack route with Iron Body, and Distracting Taunt. You could also play Not Human, strange fashion combo. Toughest in the Universe, Stand Off, Wolfkrone Monument, Armor of the Forsaken One, Crown of the Forgotten Secret, and Valkyrja's Shield are other strong damage reduction elements that can be applied as you want. Even with all of these defensive options it won’t let you tank out anything you want. Getting the defensive setup is possible but your better invested in an offensive setup with a bit of defense here and there. But if you need to stall then here is something to help you.

Speed damage flip: Acrobatics helps you against any attack.

I’m not going to go into card draw since most of the draw options are straight forward. I would normally go into control but stun seems to be her strongest control.

That’s about it. Any further input place it below.

50+ views and no responses. Maybe this is not the stuff folks are looking for.

Having only just had a chance to read your post, I think it's brilliant, and that the only reason you haven't had anyone post on it already is that the forums themselves have been pretty quiet of late, and we've not had many new faces to the forums (which we should try and change sorely, as I think the forums and word of mouth are the key to bringing more players in).

Back on topic, I'm glad that someone else is seeing the potential Sophitia has. She has more than one parallel to her younger sister Cassandra, except that she's clearly a lot more robust, and has an ability that works really rather well on her opponents turn. Everyone knows that simple abilities like E Commit 1 foundation: Your opponent commits 1 foundation and E Discard 1 card: Your opponent discards 1 card are vastly more powerful than they look.

My only problem with Sophitia is the same as my problem with Paul and Cassandra. They seem to be a little too reliant on the Stun keyword and commiting their opponents foundations, meaning that Torn Hero and Perfect Sense Of Balance sorely wreck their day.

I'd also like to note that having played against someone using Sisters Of Battle against my Xianghua deck that speed reduction is a lot better than you might think!

Like your article, sure am gonna keep looking at this subject because I want to build Sophitia but haven't yet got the cards I need for her (a bit behind on Tekken and hardly any Quest for Souls yet).

I've thought of using a pretty standard attack lineup for Sophitia Stun :

4x Zi Mei's Wheel Kick (Air,Chaos,Fire) - Stun:3 Kick

4x The Boot (All,Fire,Order) - Stun:1 Kick

4x Neutron Bomb (All,Fire,Order) - Kick Combo(Stun)

4x Dragon Lifter (Air,Fire,Good) - Stun:2 Combo(Kick)

4x Mark of the Beast (Air,Fire,Good) - Weapon

Mark of the Beast is slightly outsider here but it's damage output and multiple hate is golden.

Would probably build her off Fire with Order splash, using Paul's, Mitsurugi and Astrid's stuff with a few cards from Amy and probably Cursed Blood.

Stall Off is also good with her IMO.

Anti-stun could hurt, but why stop stunning even if they've got Torn Hero? You can still play even with a few pieces down, no need to stop stunning if you've set up well enough.

Thanks for the responses. Here is the thing I found with her and Mitsirugi. You can build her super cheap and go with any angle you want. She isn't dependent on rares, or certain assets. If you have the right foundations that focus on your attack lineup then you are golden. I wish I could get a copy of her but she was a prerelease only card.

darklogos said:

you seem to have contradicted yourself there...

kiit said:

No I don't because you just can't play "life" you have to play "life kick" to get the draw advantage. If you try mix life kick with life weapon your draw becomes crap when you need it. I've tested this a lot. I had to pull 2 rising hilts from my deck because in key moments I couldn't draw into more cards. Her life draw sucks if you don't want to play "life kick" you are stuck playing Frantic search but in this game you need positive gain from draw and not equal or negative gain. That's why her rating is an 8 and not 9 or 10. Her one symbol that is pretty good has crappy draw options. I'm sorry researching the past/hunt for jin combo is pretty crappy draw.

darklogos said:

there are atleast a few other life draw but it requires you to either get hit for 4 or more, or have all {or path} and hit for 5 or more {at the cost of your foundation base}. or mist stance, form draw a card, give speed to your next attack {true it replaces itself 1 for 1 but it also gives your high attacks +2 damage and your next attack speed which could make up for the lack of outright gain}

there is technically one other option I can think of but it would involve silly combo type things {and for best effect multiple resources}. path {to allow you to use the good form on scroll of the celestial dawn} scroll the the celestial dawn, and taki's terrain and a bunch of attacks {each time an attack deals damage each player adds the top card of their deck to their card pool face down, F commit discard 1 momentum, both players add all face down cards to their hands, then respond with unorthodox style {yoshi ultra action that pretends to be dark heart to keep their pool full}

frantic search is more of a filter than a draw, if there was some sort of life based card pool clearing for actions, you could use it to filter for certain cards (like combo pieces)

kiit said:

You mean like a card that discards up to 2 actions from your card pool...yeah too bad life doesn't have one of those.

I'm surprised you didn't mention in her Defense the Throne Room/Not Human/The Ultimate Team combo, or in her offense, Throne Room/The Ultimate Team/Hammer of the Gods...

Throne Room/The Ultimate Team/Not Human/Hammer of the Gods = makes Order a hell of a lot more playable.

When you compare life's draw that all of it is circumstantial and fire and orders is not very circumstantial it makes life pale in comparison. Mist stance allows you to draw one card but you are not gaining cards in your hand. Your hand is staying the same. Sophita wants to be able to play 3-4 cards in a turn to push for aggro/control.

darklogos said:

guitalex2008 said:

I didn't think about it. I like the idea. I wonder how much damage on average is that going to knock down.

darklogos said:

Hammer of the Gods then suddenly becomes, well, godly. Pardon the pun.

You talking with Hilde right?

darklogos said:

Not JUST with Hilde, but Hilde's a pretty obvious choice for this lol

I mean in the whole "my block mods are high but I only need to block once to shut down your turn but you're stuck with screwed up block mods" way.

Pretty much you would end up with 2 cards in your card pool and you could reduce down damage in a crazy way. It only works if your not stunned out. but man this something to work on.

sent friend request.

guitalex2008 said:

Yeah. What I've been thinking is using that same Order Aggro strategy against foes, then when it's their turn, use my ready foundations (that didn't need to be used due to Stun) to tap them on their own turn. Also, her speed redux E works in perfect harmony with Throne Room if only because it simply makes it easier to block, and then get the full, printed force of Not Human and Ultimate Team camping.

If you're afraid of Torn Hero and Perfect Sense wrecking your day, run a deck focused around speed and simply use Mitsu's cards and the like. Life or Fire, it's all good, both can kill just fine without Stun.

However, I'm definitely gonna say she's yet another Order character to add to the list of characters that stall behind The Ultimate Team. Cursed Blood gives her the necessary foundations to out-build the opponent and tap them on their own turn.

You bring up a good point about Cursed blood. It is a card that will give her a build edge. If she gets it out turn 1 or 2 then she is going to be leaps ahead of her opponents making the DUT-ZONE kill more possible.