So yeah. My first draft for the new Balrog. I'm determined to find some way to make him insanely excellent.

EDIT: Now up to the seco

Characters: 0 + 1
1x :::Balrog:::


Actions: 3
3x 4/2 Yoga Adept +2M


Assets: 7
4x 0/6 Olcadan's Mentoring +0L
3x 2/3 Punching Bag +1M


Attacks: 15
4x 6/2 Crazy Buffalo +3M
4x 5/3 Monster Lariat +2M
4x 4/3 Dash Low +2H
3x 3/3 Chop +1L


Foundations: 43
4x 1/5 American Made +3M
4x 2/5 Blood Runs True +1H
4x 2/6 Lord of the Makai +1M
4x 0/5 Powerful Style +2M
4x 2/4 Sting Like A Bee +2L
4x 2/4 Visions of Destiny +2M
4x 1/6 Return to Southtown +0H
4x 0/5 The Tae Kwon Do Zephyr +2L
3x 2/5 Former Champion +3M
3x 2/5 Oral Dead +1L
3x 2/5 Red Lotus of the Sun +3L
2x 3/4 Bitter Rivals +2M


Total Cards: 68

A little thick at 68 cards, but I think I'm off to a decent start. The general deck idea is to drop a Blood Runs True and (hopefully) two or three Sting Like a Bee first turn. From there, push through a Monster Lariat with BRT, form up with Sting, and then proceed to create a massive swing in tempo by dropping 6-7 foundations. From there, feel free to punish the weak (sorry for the pun) with a string of hard hitting attacks, finishing the opponent off with a Ka-raaaaazy Buffarro. The foundation base is solidly ti-symbol, though most of it does chain off of All (to make the most of Monster Lariat). Kinda sucks that it wasn't one of Balrog's cards, since it'd make the deck so much better =(

What do you think? Is it off to a good start, or should I scrap the whole Sting Like a Lariat angle and go with something like Forethought, Stained Honor, Evil Plans, something like that?

After some thought, I decided to eliminate some of the cards from teh deck (most notably Criminal Past, which is amazing) in favor of streamlining the deck to be more aggressive. It's still a work in progress, mind.

I'd try adding Thug to the deck. It may help for damage.

If you have Gift for a Friend in there for what I think you do, then all your attacks have blocks. And thus, consider Jeff's Gloves because seriously, it's crack .

I mean seriously, only ONE card in the entire deck does not trigger Jeff's Gloves. It's almost too perfect. It's like the bastard child of Silent Step and Vast Resources.

OMG WE CAN EDIT (consider this a double post... sry)

Yup! I'm actually trying to figure out which is better, Jeff's Gloves or Gift. GIft has the lower block mod, so I'm trying it first =P

I like Thug, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be. It'd be great if I was spamming otu a bunch of 3-4 difficulty punches, enhancing on the last with Thug and Balrog, and then going directly into a HUGE Dash Low to set up a Crazy Buffalo, but...not sure. It was in, but I cut it for space. Let's be serious - Crazy Buffalo is the kill card. The other attacks are there to soften them up and get cards out of there hand first, as well as to build the maximum of 10 momentum I'd need to kill any character (self-E plus Pow:3).

But yeah...work in progress.

Maybe you could use Turn It On in here. So between Turn It On and Monster Lariat, you'd be able to draw a card for every type of card you play!

The deck is now on its second draft. I decided to get more agressive with it - the deck is trying to win on turn three, so my opponent would need to be able to kill me on turn two for Criminal Past to be particularly helpful. And while that certainly could happen...hey, that's what sideboarded Rejections are for, right?

this deck is agro! finally agro! very nice deck. Balrog is awesome.

MegaGeese said:

So yeah, my first suggestion is to update this strategy blurb

I think you might as well cut Sting Like a Bee, and perhaps TKD Zephyr - it's the only mono-All foundation in the deck, and your All chains are already doing fine for difficulty curve. Now, your Evil chains, those could use some low-difficulty drops, although I can't think of any particularly great ones that share another symbol (Manifest Destiny?)

The only problem is that Monster Lariat only shares all with the 'rog. If it had Chaos or Evil on it, it'd be another story entirely. I'm thinking about scrapping the Monster Lariat tempo manipulaton entirely, along with Sting Like a Bee, and just going for something else...possibly a bit more control (Chester's Backing, returning Criminal Past to the deck, that sort of thing). Iunno.

you should keep lariat. from what i see, unless you dramaticaly restructure your deck it is your most realible momentum combo.

... >_____<

I somehow managed to read the list of attacks as not-containing Monster Lariat. That's where that was coming from. I'm also not sure how good it is -- Lariat is about as good as Silent Step*, it's HUGE if you get a good string of foundations out of it, but with the number of non-All foundations I don't think it's worth it. If you switched to a 90~100% All base, you could definitely benefit from it hugely, but as-is... basically, by playing it, you pigeonhole yourself to a turn on All, even if it's blocked, and the draw only makes it so that you have a fairly good chance of getting what you wanted down.

That said, I think Balrog could support an All base pretty well - maybe splashing for Billiard Player, just to be able to use Former Champion every turn. Visions of Destiny+Lord of Makai still works, the piles of 0- and 1-diff foundations lets you easily pay your ability, Antisocial lets you build a little bit faster and draw some cards in a pinch... and in any case 6HS doesn't support playing the Evil control game very well

*SS works all the time it's down, but only when you're playing harder foundations, takes a turn to get down, no block, and doesn't double as a very solid move; a pretty even trade to Lariat

True enough. Of my 43 foundations, only 10 don't chain All, and it's the defense foundations to keep from getting boned (Oral Dead and Lotus) and Sting Like a Bee. Sting could absolutely be cut, because while it's a combo piece for the setup, it's not really needed and it rolls a 4. Antisocial is actually a much better choice, because it gives me card draw as well as staging area advancement at very little cost to myself. It's an excellent call.

I love dropping two Lariats and pushing them through, then dropping about 8 foundations plus an Owlface, then ending my turn with 12 cards in hand, though =/

Needs more polish. I think I'll put together a more control-oriented version and see how that works for me, then either make a choice or find the happy medium.

Next question - stacking the promo: good idea or something I should absolutely stay away from if I want to keep the deck competitive?

MegaGeese said:

Morning 'Geese,

Just thinking about your foundations in here, which chain all/evil, your non-5cc cards and what the mono-evil ones are doing for you. What about something like the following base?

• 4x 0/5 - All - TKD Zephyr
• 4x 0/5 - All - Powerful Style
• 4x 1/5 - All - American Made
• 4x 1/6 - All - Return to Southtown
• 4x 2/5 - All - Antisocial
• 3x 2/5 - All/Evil - Former Champion
• 4x 2/5 - All/Evil - BRT
• 4x 2/5 - All - Lesser of Many Evils
• 4x 2/6 - All - Lord of the Makai
• 4x 4/6 - All/Evil - Chesters Backing

The thinking behind this sort of base is for high checks. With Owlface (and maybe KFT), over 40 cards in your deck roll 5+. With Owlface included, you also have 16x 6cc's. You have 12x 0 diff cards (Owlface included), which should help early game. If you want to bring the difficulty down even more, switch Lynette's into main deck and Chesters Backing into sideboard (can't be played turn 1 because of the 2cc attacks/Adept).

That should give you a non-attack (and non-Yoga Adept) base similar to:

Actions: 3
3x 2/5 - All/Evil - Kung Fu Training

Assets: 7
4x 0/6 – Infinity – Owlface
3x 3/6 – Infinity – Lynette’s

Foundations: 39
4x 0/5 - All - TKD Zephyr
4x 0/5 - All - Powerful Style
4x 1/5 - All - American Made
4x 1/6 - All - Return to Southtown
4x 2/5 - All - Antisocial
3x 2/5 - All/Evil - Former Champion
4x 2/5 – All – Lesser of Many Evils
4x 2/5 - All/Evil - BRT
4x 2/6 - All - Lord of the Makai

Side deck: 8
4x 3/5 – Evil - Rejection
4x 4/6 - All/Evil - Chesters Backing

On upside, your checks are very high and your non-attack difficulties very low. On the downside, you lose much of your control and Owlface becomes a pain. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

Attack-wise, have you thought about Gaishiki Lunar Rebellion? It's a punch and also deals with Owlface quite handily.

As for stacking promo' Rog, I'd say not. It feels too slow, especially with Adept/Buffalo (and maybe Gaishiki) at 2cc. Early game instead maybe look for foundation spam. Hitting a 2cc on a 'Rog stack may be bad.

Very sensible. I feel somewhat naked when I play without Lynette's and Chester's Backing (that sounds dodgy...), but my original viewpoint was something like: okay, aggro deck means I need to push a Buffalo through as quickly as possible; as such, because Lynette's and Chester depend solely upon what the opponent has going on in their staging area (and it may be that they've nothing I want to copy [highly unlikely] or [also unlikely] nothing to negate), as well as their higher difficulties, it may not be worth playing it in the deck, since it takes my focus away from speed and punchiness.

Then again...that sort of mindset doesn't really explain either Red Lotus or Oral Dead =/

That's an amazing foundation lineup there, as it rolls very well and has great spammability, making Lariat a great way to speed the game up as I see fit. I'm going to swap that out with the current one sitting on the dining room table, and then see about playing my roommate once he gets home =D

I think Chester's is more of a side card in this particular case, since it does have the higher difficulty, and really only helps if the opponent is playing thigns worth negating. If I'm playing Ralf, Geese, that kind of thing, their staging area has a lot less effect on me than their actual character. This, of course, raises the question of why I'm not mainboarding Tag Along (d'oh). As for KFT, this deck was envisioned as being a potential choise for team play, with the team consisting of Talbain and new Chun-Li (or R. Mika) - both characters who will need/make better use of KFT than 'rog, who's pretty happy with just Yoga Adept for action negation. Speed is a non-issue for this deck, particularly because it builds very quickly, and then drops very hard-hitting attacks in rapid succession. With the one I have listed up top, the minimum damage on a kill turn was 59, I think (and that was only putting 3 momentum into each of the two Crazy Buffalo dropped at that time). So long as Bert or So Bitter is there to push the damage through, it's a total non-issue.

I'm thinking about dropping Punching Bag; however, the regular E on the asset side is extremely useful in this deck; I totally understand exactly why its Unique...

Didn't think stacking would be a good idea. The thought of getting free checks or card draw was appealing, but stacking never seems to be a viable competitive strategy, with the possible exceptions being Yi Shan and Cody.

That's incredible feedback, btw., good sir. Absolutely incredible.

have you perchance considered going the BIG PAUNCH! route?

what would that be? well, off of chaos you get Crazy Buffalo**, Glactica Phantom, Great Gerdenheim, and SPECIAL MISSION: Swing Tomahawk. With Balrogs E: and some of chaos handy hand destruction, the deck basically goes

1) Fancy Chaos Stuff
2) BIG PAUNCH
2a) Fancy Chaos momentum stuff and balrogs E
3) BIG PAUNCH
3a) Fancy Chaos momentum stuff and balrogs E
4) CRAZY BIG PAUNCH
4a) you hit them with a CRAZY BIG PAUNCH.

mayhap I'm just being silly, but it seems like something would provide endless amusement and falcon punch comments across the board (and a thinning in your wallet because of the attacks only).

on a more serious matter...

since Hewitt pretty much took the All/Evil route, I'm going to go the All/Chaos route.

-4x Sting like a Bee
-3x Oral Dead
-2x Bitter Rivals
-1x Visions of Destiny
-3x Chop

+3x Kung Fu Training
+3x Demonic Drubbing
+3x Lesser of Many Evils

List of foundations (36 total) should look something like:

4x TKDZ 0/5 (All)
4x Powerful Style 0/5 (All/Chaos)
4x Return To Southtown 1/6 (All/Chaos)
4x American Made 1/5 (All/Chaos)
4x Lord of the Makai 2/6 (All/Chaos)
4x Blood Runs True 2/5 (All)
3x Visions of Destiny 2/4 (All/Chaos/Evil)
3x Former Champion 2/5 (All/Chaos/Evil)
3x Red Lotus of the Sun 2/5 (Chaos/Evil)
3x Lesser of Many Evils (All/Chaos)

Red Lotus, an awesome card, is your only card without All on it, thus, Lariet is easy to spam afterwards. Also, your first turn foundation spam would be very easy to finish up.

Lesser of Many Evils and Demonic Drubbing are something you would have to test out for yourself. Demonic Drubbing dual-symbols, has a +1M block, and is a 4M6 attack rolling a 3 check. It's a scary little hello to start off your attack string and fast enough to give them possible problems with blocking. Lesser of Many Evils is up to your discretion.

Lastly, DON'T DROP PUNCHING BAG! it's just too good. it's a cheap and easy punch to throw out when you need one, it's a punch for balrogs ability, it's life gain in a desperate "oh crap situation" where you might lose the game if you didn't have it, and as you pointed out, it's E is just amazing.

Just wondering, where the heck is Fight or Flight? It'll make it so you can actually kill without having to use Crazy Buffalo

The problem with BIG PAUNCH is that they have BIG DIFFICULTY =(

Otherwise, it's not a bad idea. I even have the cards for it, down to the GPhantoms and Gerdy.

Fight of Flight was something I thought about...and then dismissed, due to the 4-check, low spammability, the inability to continue pumping (Buffalo tops out at 12?!), and the fact that American Made pumps all of my attacks to "I should probably block this" status for free, while also being a "free" block (comes to staging area). The defensive option is nice, but the 'rog wants to beat you senseless and steal your girlfriend before he should need it. Additionally, Fight or Flight works really well, but isn't that awesome without an attack of at least 8 printed damage (Monster Lariat isn't good enough, imo). Examples currently include the first part of Spike, Great Gerdy, Death Puppet, DBlade, that kind of thing.

Demonic Drubbing is an excellent attack...particularly in the Victor deck I'd put together for playing 2-on-2 with Talbain; stuff the opponent's few foundations into their momentum, and then force them to either play foundations by putting them back in their hand, or play nothing at all. Just doesn't really fit that well here. Then again, it could be that I've been sucked into the "low difficulty, low speed, but very high damage" madness of Karin (long story). At any rate, I rather like the spammability of Chop, being a 3-drop attack that always clocks in at at least 4 (self-E).

Question time: what use would Lesser of Many Evils serve in this deck? Ideally, I'll either be using Bert or 'rog to push through my giant attacks of punchiness, and they're both based on responses. Perhaps I'm missing something here...?

Still working on the deck; believe me, it's not anywhere near satisfying me (hey, I just started testing it recently, after all). It's a work in progress, but one that I feel very confident will suit my needs. He's aggressive enough to eat face (......), but has the potential for some very solid control options as well. I'll likely find some kind of happy middle. I'm already quite certain that what he does best is play out 4-6 attacks in a turn with enough power in each hit for either of the last two to wipe out the opponent if they had full health (the first two to four hit four 5+ each).

This deck misses Military Rank sooooooooooooooooooooooo much =(

Edit: Gaishiki Lunar Rebellion is something I've given some thought to playing. I'm going to stick with the Buffalo for a while, but if I do end up with an Evil punch string, it's totally going in.

Thanks for all the input. Keep the feedback coming! Never know when someone will say something to break the code!

Punching Bag, Soul of Ling-Sheng Su, Soichi Jinmu, and Balrog himself (+4 to the check of the next punch, and it doesn't even need to deal damage) laugh in the face of high difficulty, but I see where you're going with it.

Lesser of Many Evils stops their Rs but it also stops Balrog and BRT on your side. So yes, it does not help when I think about it, although I remember running it in my Rikuo deck when in fact, if there were no Rs allowed, I wouldn't be able to actually do my Pillar of Flame/Rhythm Break combo at all (but it did get some oral deads used on it).

The card that should have been mentioned, being just as awesome but more suited to your deck, is Commitment to Excellence. All/Chaos, rolls a 6 check and a nice block, and gives a damage bonus to every attack in your deck except Crazy Buffalo.

Commitment is increadible and just flows so nicely with the Rog.

What about Former Champion or whatever that one is called that bounces all of your punches back to yer hand?

Anywho's it's late. I'm runnin the Rog tommorrow for our local tourney. I'll post the decklist and me and you can shoot the shite Geese on how to make Rog get paid.

-Yeah, Matt's ideas are very good. VERY good. The deck plays better with his suggestions for modification. RAWR
-Commitment to excellence would be GREAT in this deck
-I'd really like to replace Chop, because it annoys me =/
-Visions of Destiny, while nice, isn't entirely necessary
-Gaishiki is being sideboarded, due to heavy asset play
-Chester's Backing switched to maindeck
-This deck is really, really ugly. Get off two Monster Lariats in one turn and you'll see what I mean >_<
-Crazy Buffalo is really great. However, American Made (and now, CtE) makes every attack come in for at least 4 damage (since it gets into my hand so easily...I'm MADE IN AMERICAAAAAAAA *electric guitar riff*)

So yeah. If I were to play this for a singles event (as opposed to teams), I'd make room for 3 Kung-Fu Trainings somewhere.

Current decklist is as follows:

Characters: 0 + 1
1x :::Balrog:::

Actions: 3
3x 4/2 Yoga Adept +2M

Assets: 9
3x 3/6 Lynette's Shop +1M
3x 0/6 Olcadan's Mentoring +0L
3x 2/3 Punching Bag +1M

Attacks: 13
4x 5/3 Monster Lariat +2M
3x 4/3 Dash Low +2H
3x 3/3 Chop +1L
3x 6/2 Crazy Buffalo +3M

Foundations: 31
4x 1/5 American Made +3M
4x 2/5 Blood Runs True +1H
4x 2/6 Lord of the Makai +1M
4x 0/5 Powerful Style +2M
4x 0/5 The Tae Kwon Do Zephyr +2L
3x 2/5 Former Champion +3M
3x 1/6 Return to Southtown +0H
3x 2/4 Visions of Destiny +2M
2x 3/4 Bitter Rivals +2M

Splits: 3
3x Antisocial

I'm probably going to cut Lynette's entirely, as well as Visions. From there, I'd like to work out a way to add:

3-4 Chester's Backing
4x Commitment to Excellence
1x Antisocial
1x Dash Low (once I get another ;_
1x Return to Southtown (once I get another ;_

If I cut Chop (likely), I'll probably toss in a fourth Punching Bag. Chop's nice and all, except I check it far too often, and it can never go to momentum =/

Beastly deck is slowly getting beastlier...