I'm really tired of everyone talking about multisymboling. It's starting to get to the point where if you post a monosymbol deck or a symbol strategy discussion, it will turn into a discussion about how the deck can be improved by multing without citing how.

Multi symbol decks are not inherently better because they have more than one symbol. I've seen decks and strategies where in a deck that could easily Turn 2 or Turn 3 a player was posted and then it was suguested that the foundation base be split into 2 symbols which procedes to slow the deck down a full turn.

If your Multi deck:

Can't play out all the foundations you want to play early game because of symbol restrictions
Loses because it cant play its blocks/damage soaks because of symbol restrictions
Can't kill an opponent because it cant play the killing card because of symbol restrictions

Then its not a good deck. Period.

If you build a multi symbol deck that can play 2+ symbols without hitting thoes snags and then on top of that its not just for the sake of saying you did it (IE: your going into thoes other symbols to get pieces for a combo you wouldnt normally have) then its good.

Here's my real life example. I had a pure void deck, the character had order and void. It wanted to win earlier rather than later, and basicly just threw foundations turn one then started attack turn 2. If the opponent survived turn 2 then the attacks would become momentum and i could powerful kill them turn 3. Someoneinsisted that I splash LotM, stating that since my character was order and could splash it, the momentum generation would help me use my powerful earlier one and win faster and that I was basicly stupid for not doing it. And that would have made sense if more than like 2 cards in the deck actually had order on them. By including LOTM I was adding a card that would actually prevent me from playing out my other cards in hand on any given turn, so if I attacked iIcouldnt play LOTM and if I wanted to play LOTM I basicly couldn't play anything else that turn.

SO remember folks, multi symboling isnt the new black, it does not make you cool, and it will not win you games on the virtue of it being awesome or other such nonsence. The decks that win, multisymbol or not, are the deck that have the most cohesive reason to include every card they use and have the greatist synergy between that, and that can be a deck that runs 1 symbol or one that run 5 and a bunch of seals...

There's a way to go about multi-symboling. To be honest, most of my multisymbol decks are like this:

- Foundations all have the same resource.

- Attacks all have the same resource.

- Most attacks and foundations share two symbols.

This way setting up is obviously, brainlessly easy. Also attacking is a no-brainer. Then you only need to watch out for blocks and that's it.

Protoaddict said:

I'd almost say he was probably just trying to be helpful. His attitude about it was all totally wrong (and I know you're talking about it) but his advice is in the right place. The main reason to multi-symbol is because a lot of times, symbols that are easy to dual-symbol can make up for weaknesses that the other symbol has.

There's some to agree on here and some to disagree with.

First, if you've got a multi-symbol deck, there is a chance where you'll not be able to play out all of your foundations. It's part of the risk, after all, but you've either got to be able to mulligan the hand or be able to play the cards you can't chain on T1 on T2. If you can't chain off the other symbol on T2 either, then you've got issues.

Blocking is a different issue. A player has to have experience in knowing what to play and what to hold onto for their opponent's turn. Typically, if you don't have issues with the foundation part, the deck won't have issues with the blocking part if you're playing it smart. It does happen, but personally I'd rather have a multi-symbol deck that has that issue 1 out of 30 games (about right for a well-built multi-symbol deck) than run a single symbol deck that's got an exploitable hole.

Attacking, no question that if you're running attacks, they have to be the same symbol. You cannot leave your opponent alive due to the fact that your last attack doesn't chain. Doing so means your deck needs to go back to the drawing board to figure out your kill condition.

the only time I didn't run the same symbol attacks is when I was running an Air/Water split where I ran Kunai, 2 air/water moves (one being feline spike, hense the kunai) and Chain Throw.

guitalex2008 said:

That's exactly how I do most of my multi-symbol decks, and works like charm. Taking care that some symbols have very few attacks worth running, and that in today's meta you need to be able to deliver a significant amount of damage in one turn (if possible killing in one turn), you won't need to play both atacks and foundations in the same turn. And the huge amount of almost staple cards with infinity symbol make these even easier.

And there's some attacks like Feline Spike that can kill by themselves, so you can make your deck from another symbol as long as your character shares a symbol with it.

• Fred is aggressive.
• Therefore Fred's decks are aggressive.
• Aggressive decks hate multi-symboling.
• Therefore agressive Fred hates multi-symboling!

Sorry, I couldn't resist

The references to aggressive decks I do mean though. If a deck is planning to turn two, the deck needs to play all attacks/kill cards with consistency turn two. On turn one the same deck needs to consistently play as man foundations as possible to enable the turn two KO.

The only real exception I can think of is Block 2 Talim, where Chaos foundations turn one enabled a Good/Fire attack spam turn two.

It's not so much that, I'm actually playing a very aggressive multi symbol Talbain deck right now that works like a charm. My point is its multisymbol for a **** good reason, and every card has a synergy and a point in the deck and the concequences are weighed. Cards work with each other to overcome the symbol restrictions and to promote the kill condition.

But what im gunning at is people are promoting multisymbol builds like its a new thing. You could multi a deck since set one. My 2007 worlds team deck was multi. But so many posts are just "splash order" or whatever have you, with no real explination as to why you should. Multisymbol decks are simpily not any better or worse that any other builds, its all a matter of the cards in the deck and why.

Yeah...don't do it cause you can, do it because you must.

My Athena deck that won SAS was a lot of fun and worked well despite some difficult tri-symboling, but I only arrived at that point because I had tested like crazy with a bunch of single and double resource decks and had found them wanting. Athena gave me the exact resource spread I wanted and allowed me to play a control game at my own pace with hand refilling every turn, or go balls-out aggro with Kiris if I needed to.

guitalex2008 said:

i definately agree. atacks should always share the same symbol. i think agro decks are a litle harder to multysymbol than control. but realy any deck can be multi symboled, just only do it when it makes the deck better.

VikramS said:

Honestly, sometimes the opportunity (Example, newest Rainbow Mika sharing Earth/Void/Water, which makes it that every card in the deck can possibly have two symbols in common together, most likely Earth and Water, if not three 'cause you're playing one of her foundations, her action or asset) is just too good to pass up, depending on the deck. That's when doing it because you can is all right. If it doesn't hinder the deck, why not?

I just follow the rule of take a character of cool resources take a pile of good cards put them in a deck and make your opponents hate you it has worked on various occasions for me .

Scubadude said:

way to completely fail to contribute anything. i can't WAIT to talk to you in the interview

I say just play what you want. If you want to multisymbol, do it. Do what it takes to accomplish what you want out of this game.

But what others think, thats up to them. And what works, that's only proven. If multisymboling is going to make your deck better go for it. If not, don't do it. That's how I see it at least.

I tend to stick with a main symbol (Order, or whatever works best for the deck), then slowly incorporate other cards from other symbols that I like and that add extra function to the deck or supplement/complement it well.

In short - I don't do it just to do it. I take what is available to me, and then decide what works best.

Despite knowing that a lot of the time, it is generally better to bi/tri resource decks, I don't actually like doing it. I've recently done it with Void/Water Chun-Li and it's almost slightly less fun to have to keep track of which cards have which resources (admittedly Chun-Li is a character who is exceptionally good at multiresourcing and Void and Water go very well hand in hand) than it would be off just the one resource. Most of my decks have been monoresourced, including my most competetive deck to date; Order Donovan and currently Death Remy. I've just enjoyed it more that way. Generally, I think that much like everything else in UFS, it's all a matter of taste.

Viewtiful_Joe said:

i have definately done most of my decks off one symbol. but i agree with you, some decks have to be multi symboled (my night terror death/evil).

TO me multi symboling is a sub par thing. If its your cup of tea to inhibit yourself and force yourself to go onto 12 diffrent train of thoughts while playing. More power to you. To me a single symbol deck will always dominate over a multisymbol. the sheer fact of the only thing that is holding a single symbol deck back is the control check. A single symbol deck will always move at a faster pace than a multisymbol deck, example being a multisymbol deck is for characters that ususally end up stalling the game out longer than it needs to be. i might be wrong on that but thats what it always ends up doing.

like... Me myself i have played multisymbol decks and won alot of the time but i never turely have fun when im doing it. Simple fact being i cant stand having to think 12 steps ahead because i have ONe card in my hand that dosent share 1 symbol with the others in my hand. I like only to think 1 or 3 steps ahead not a million that ends up being for a moot point once they play one block or one card and have to RETHINK those 12 steps.

but thats just me i like simple push button receive bacon. Or twist and push button to receive bacon.

Like kazuki...

GouHadou said:

Scuba's contributions are NOT forum posts.

This is somewhat rediculous imo. To me a multi symbol deck can be far stronger then a pure symbol deck the problem is that not every deck can be a multisymbol. Currently my only Multi symbol deck is a tam tam off of chaos/wind. I did have a Tri symbol Tira deck though a couple months back that went undefeated for almost two months. Its very difficult to play multi symbol but it can be powerful as it gives the character access to more of its potential then it would off of one symbol. All in all it comes down to the player as some people like multi symbol decks and others dont. Just my two cents ^^;

I'm more of a fan of 1 symbol decks, but the darn patch events have prevented me from building anything multi-symbol. However, I have found some symbols are easier to spread than others, Chaos and Life being good examples.

Multisymboling to me has always been more of a question of identifying which symbols work well together and building decks to take advantage of those symbols' strengths. Obviously not every symbol combination works well with others (which reminds me, does anyone have that multisymbol chart from way back when, preferably updated for the current block 2/3 enviroment?) and I try to take this into account when working on a deck.

Scubadude said:

How many top cutsat worlds has that netted you?

Centipede said:

Man, that's just plain rude.

Really don't need that type of negativity on the boards.

wilding, don't take it to heart.

while it was a low blow, he could have easily said "oh, and how many champion cards did that strategy put you on?" or something similar. i personally don't mind the exchange because if you walk in dressed as a fool, and expect not to be called one, then you're a fool, and stupid to boot.

plus they know each other (not something you could have known) and they're both big boys that can handle a joke