So everyone has been complaining about order lock down being this dominant symbol for a few weeks now, and to be honest i never really aggreed with it. But with the release of the new set I truly feel that whatever hold order may have had over the game is about to be CRUSHED by Chaos.

A solid amount of the cards that were seeing play in order also happen to share chaos such as the Mega Spike, Defender, Lord of the Makai kill combo. A lot of solid lockout cards share symbols as well such as spirit of athens and forethought, and a strong amount of other utility cards not only share symbols but have sometimes superior versions on chaos (build depending of course) like sprit of ling seng su over soichi jinmu or red lotus over makai high noble.

With the release of the new set however, chaos gets a truckload of support for not only different stratigies but super strong tech cards. Billy has a strong amount of readying tech which can help chaos overpower order. Ralph has some huge damage output cards and momentum control. Balrog brings back kill over multiple attack decks which a lot of decks may not be ready to handle. Even rock and geese bring some new options to the table for chaos including committing which is something chaos has almost never had.

So my new prediciton, block 3 chaos becomes the dominant symbol untill at least the next set. I think in the majority of tourneys chaos is going to have many slots at the top of any given event, with the others being taken by some version of combo Talbain (if hes not dealth with) and perhaps some crazy first turn aggro deck off air or fire or something with the few characters that can possibly do that (Felica spike / Elena). I think people will play Hugo and Alex and make top slots for most events off of stalling but I dont think either has the tools to really pull out a win under a control enviroment.

Next project is going to be split card Billy, as with his and Victor's support, Being able to pick up all of your attack cards as you want them just seems like a really good idea. It'll be interesting to watch players have to use Olcadan's to remove your attacks from your staging area instead of putting them into your staging area.

i believe has a solid point because i play to make choas deck but of course other chracter combination draw my attention. but i seriously think chaos has a fighting chance with all the new stuff out.

I also agree cause right now Chaos has a good line up of finishers top two being Tsunami Sabre and Moonbeam Slicer but come B3 they have been replaced with Galactica Phantom and Raging Storm and just Phantom alone says kill you and Raging Storm please this thing screams " Hey I wanna wreck face and tap out some stuff". I see that my birth Symbol has returned in a damaging way and i,m loving it.

I have a tough time saying "yes" to this but for a reason totally different then people might think...

I'm just going to say right now that out of all the characters we've seen in B3, Seong-Mina is hands-down amazing. She's got a huge vitality, loop shenanigans, female and water, chaos and order. Tri-Symboling with her is like making pancake batter, and that's what I think is going to be huge. Chaos won't be dominating over order because it's going to look back and say "hey, we work better together then apart!" and Chaos/Order decks will be running rampant.

But I also do agree. Chaos/Evil, Chaos/Air, Chaos/Water, and Chaos/All are going to be ridiculously strong decks. You have anti-control, foundation control, anti-olcadans, aggro (punch decks are going to be making a comeback, and hell, I see people possibly making Ranged decks now). It has great finishers with Great Gerdenheim, Neo Raving Storm or whatever it is. It has loops with Defender, Victor, and Mentally Unstable. It has CC-Hax with all the stuff you already know about, and it has Anti-CC hax with Destiny. I think people are going to be hardset to build their decks because quite frankly, there's just so much of everything you want to put in there.

my two cents.

Right now, I have yet to see anything - even Order, Evil, and Chaos - being able to compete with my Tri-Symbol version of Talbain w/ Mysterious Stance, Battle Prowess, and Rejection/Amy's Assistance + other mitigation and the All "Power Suite". The kill is 3 Spikes or 4 High Plasma Beams. So far, it hasn't lost and that's including against Legacy aggro.

I see aggro being more effective in Block 3 now with some super new attacks (Elena's finisher is awesome, among others) but really, I think the top decks for a while will be any version of Talbain, Chaos/Order bullcrap and All (Alex/Hugo) and Evil (Zi Mei, Ibuki - still, and others) primary decks with some splash. There are plenty of solid resources out there right now though, Good is really terrific and Death and Void are seriously underrated. So we'll see...I just wish Red Lotus and Chester's were gone though.

VikramS said:

I'm personally going on the assumption that something has to happen to Talbain. Be it him getting banned, a suite of cards to hose what he does coming out in the very next set, or something cause as it stands he’s completely aberrant to the game and really cant be compared to anything else.

If you take him out of the equation then you can start making real comparisons on powerlevel of the play environment, and that I think is where Chaos really will start to shine over order.

Almost every version of Talbain at this point are about as balanced as set one Cassandra was.

"Chaos/Order bullcrap"...it's like you had me in mind. I feel so special =D

i absolutely see Chaos becoming a force to be reckoned with. Even before set 11, I counted it among the top symbols of the block 3 format (with Air, Water, Order, and Evil). And now, Chaos gives my very control-oriented Order playstyle a lot more of the counter-control options I like, like Oral Dead and Red Lotus. I'm heavily leaning towards playing Victor at some point, simply for those two symbols (along with the fun bounce ability he has when combined with iSpin, and, of course, Reanimated to keep No Mems/whatever ready).

Chaos is also great at the splash, and pretty solid on its own.

One thing to keep in mind is that Order got Bison's new cards and Chaos didn't. That'll make a big deal in the control race. Evil getting Bison's cards and Basara's cards make a big jump in the control arms race. Evil will go back to what it was back in Block 1, tho, and that's a lack of really good kill conditions.

As for Wolfy, until we see results like we saw for AoP's in 2007, I'm not expecting any actions taken on him. So, have fun in Arizona and the GCC running against him.

Yeah, thanks

Dadgum wolfman.

You do make a good point about Bison, though. I wish they'd print another Chaos/Evil/Order character - the ones that HAVE been printed are amazing (*Geese*, *Duke*, and ::.Cervantes.: .

With that said, though...Order got some fantastic kill cards of its own, you know. And Chaos can't fail blocks nearly as reliably...

VikramS said:

I'm wondering if you've played another Talbain deck yet and what happened if you did. If my interpreation of the rules is correct, in such a match whenever one of them played a foundation then his opponent should be able to drop TWO foundations to his staging area. If both decks are prepared for not playing foundations and relaying on waiting for the opponent to do so, who would start playing foundations?

This mirror match-up can be as crazy as Ibuki** vs herself, with their R responding to each other R over and over.

And about releasing some silver bullet against the wolfman (no pun intended), I just don't see how as his abilities are continuous and the draw one doesn't happen in the combat phase. Even Rat Chaser was ruled by Tag not to work against that. The only thing I can think of is a foundation that prevents cards to enter a staging area during the combat phase, similar to Mortal Strike or Greed's Influence. With all the shenanigans involving that strategy since many sets ago (like Promo Yun-Seong), I'm surprised we've never had something like that.

I think they'e at fairly level peggings at the moment. I think Chaos is slightly more aggressive than Order, while Order likes to play the waiting game a little bit more. I say this because Chaos has a lot more in the way of damage pump cards, high checks etc (Commitment to Excellence, Soul Of Ling Sheng-Su, Tsurane Kiri etc).

I prersonally prefer Chaos, even though the best deck I've built (Donovan for Team Nats) was built off Order. I've always prefered to play quickly rather than wait for the right moment (I.E. Donovan ) for fear that my opponent might be doing the same. And as good as Order is for playing carefully until the right moment (Amy's Assistance, "Chinese Malfunction", High Plasma Beam), I just prefer to play Chaos.

I very much agree with the previous statements that say that Order and Chaos work better together rather than apart. I've seen some beastly decks built off both togethr, and thats before this current set (including my own Sophitia: Examples of this are Seong Mi-Na, Sophitia and I have a feeling B. Jenet: might see a resurgence (Chain Of Command + her ability and either Soul Of Ling/Sheng or Rapid Ares Style or even Realm Of Midnght? Ouch...)

I think the pitchfork is underestimated once more, which is the way I always liked it (ahhh, Breaker Mai, how I used to love your weirdness...). The trouble with it is, amongst the plethora of really decent attacks, (Reverse Flayer, Tsurane Kiri, Raising Storm, Dark Rending...) only a select few of them have 3CC's which causes a problem. It seems to be based mainly off commiting your opponents staging area with various attacks like Ichi No Tachi and Double Gale Fist, then a finisher. But most of the beef attacks aren't finishers in Evil, more combo attacks that set up the next one. The character ought to offset this. I see Evil Jivatma with Raising Storm causing problems for one. Evil Mai with Tsurane Kiri's not gonna get any nicer, and lets not even begin talking about Zi Mei...

I agree that chaos is tier 1 going into block 3. the fact that a lot of chaos cards also share order is goin to make my next promo guy even more intersting.

Chaos or Order...Order or Chaos.

Actually I'm going to go with neither. I don't think either rules over the other and that they're on fairly even ground. Both are strongest when you combine them. Part two of that is I think we're going to start seeing a bit of a decrease in single symbol decks in the top cuts except with certain characters, and by certain characters I mean mostly Talbain and Alex.

I think monosymbol decks can be just as powerful as multi-resource decks. I just think that there are so many Chaos cards that have Order and vice-versa that perhaps they do work best together rather than apart. I think that some resources do work better when compounded, while others seem to work better on their own. Fire is a great example of a compound resource, while Air is a good example of a stand-alone one. I think the reason people rate Chaos and Order so highly is because they work well both ways, and do so very efficiently...