So, in going over characters for a deck, i stumbled upon Zangief from Domination. Why is this character not seeing play? Is it just the 6 HS that kills it?

He has numberically what may be the best stats in the game, with 2 abilities that match well with each other. He matches 2 symbols with Kaz Reppa which is one of the best attacks in the game and has a kill card in Neo raging storm.

On void he has access to a solid supply of card draw and prevention abilities, and selfless giving seems to have been made for him to abuse. On all he has access to all the crazy crap all has including makai, whirlwind, chesters, bitter, tag along, this list keeps going.

So is 7HS just so pronounced now that its all that sees play?

He definately has longevity, that's for sure.

I don't know about Standard, but he makes a mean Legacy character. One of the guys in my playgroup abuses Spinning Pile Driver with him. Flying Power Bomb's Action side, too. And he always seemed to get it out first turn, like it was taxes or something. =S

I think it's more a case that anything gief can do, someone else can do better. When he first came out, Voldo was still around and voldo's ability was infinitly better and he had evil.

he might see more play, especially since between Lone Wolf and White Gi, there shouldn't be too much of an issue keeping his hand filled, but I guess people want more abilities then a DR effect, even if it is a really good one.

If people played more attacks on a consistent basis he'd see more play.. as-is though his abilities will generally only get used a very small number of times per game, not really enough to make up the 6 hand size.

In other words, he'd be good to counter aggro if aggro didn't suck.

If we had spinning pile driver and contemplation were legal for block 3 he would see play .

But honestly I think it comes down to just aggro is a sleeping play style until we see full rotation. Once then he might be more playable or at least a board character for characters like Chun Li .

I've personally been working on him for a bit. I think he's one of the better characters out there, I just think that most people will go with the handsize unless the characer is either proven in major tournament (such is the case with characters like Rock), or if the character is Obv broken (See Talbain pre ban).

I really want Mill to be a consistently playable style... There has to be a few more styles of win than just aggro, control, and hybrid... I like having alternative ways to get things done.

I think if it ever was going to be in the current block, it would have to be given a lot of cards to make it work, but it'd be nice to see with zangief.

Lord Aries said:

Fixed.

when I originally started out my Earth deck idea, Ken was the headliner. Then I realized his abilities can't be used much, so I switched to Zangief, and again I realized his abilities really can't be used much. Leading to my switch to Sagat.

All-in-all, the issue becomes this-an ability that has a hefty cost that really won't be used too much. And Earth has so many options available to it that really overshadow Gief's ability. Look at Amy's Assistance. It essentially does the job for Gief at much less a cost. If you sit down and just gloss over Earth's foundation list, you just see so many good foundations that make an ability like Gief's obsolete-extra icing on the cake that you just don't need.

Now, in legacy, as Osei showed at legacy worlds this year with Pile Driver+Contemplation, and as everyone else has been pointing out, he's amazing. But in standard, he just falls to the wayside.

HolyDragonCloud said:

Haha I know I played him first round too bad higher caliber and Addes were still legal void just cries to that kind of cheating .

I think one thing is you dont want to ready your opponents foundations because these days its all about tapping out your opponent and keeping them that way not giving them more foundations to use to spam more foundations and them in turn use those foundations to keep you locked down with a healthy supply of BRTs forethoughts chinese boxings and program malfunctions

ive got gief built right now while i trasition to new idead, more of waiting for set 12, but hes been up against alex, donovan, sakura, chun li, and ibuki hybrid. and only kills himself when i get bored and try to attack, commiting most of my staging area for fweeeeeem and sardine's beach special.

earth has holes but zangief really doesnt care about em and survives

Ziephnir said:

I've played against this zangief deck. Used hulking brute and a giant of a man to draw WAY past his handsize and just pretty much dominated people from there. Best part was, he wasn't even running chester's backing. It was mono mountain. And it could not die. His E and a 10 handsize plus battle prowess was just ridiculous. Zangief is REALLY good.

Dual Earth/void, Gief can go Screw Pile Driver, using Angel of Evening to ready any foundation he wishes, as well.

Although that's a janky combo.

I'm starting to believe that its just the 6 HS. Ive been toying with different decks latley and every time i think i have a fairly strong combo for a 6 HSer the deck always falls apart in favor of some with 7HS.

I tired building a dhalsim deck (promo and set) using his abilities and his asset to the best i could, using reppa to power ways of punishment hand strip and then throwing a 0 low 15 damage lynx tail and it worked and did what it needed too. Thats a good deck, but as soon as i dropped the lynx tails, his asset, and him and replaced them with some other support like high tide and spinning beat and put scott mence in charge the deck just pummeled everything. Mences +1 hand size was so much more important than the 10 life point difference in the end that it was offencive.

and its not the first time its happened. i feel like with Absurd strength and most of the other hand punishing cards leaving play, 7 HS is just infinitley better than anything with a 6. The rare exceptions are characters that have some sort of draw abilitiy or some other utterly degerate ability. Alex is 6 HS but can draw more than a 7 HS character without real cost from turn 2 onwards, and a lot of people think hes too good. Talbain had the draw and the degenerate ability, he got banned. A lot of people suspect Sogetsu to be really good despite his hand size, but its tempered with a literal ton of card draw.

Zangief has arguably some of the best redux in the game. Is it just the difference between 6 and 7 HS becoming greater and greater?

There is definitely a difference, but they are attempting to weaken the 7 HSers. I mean look at the most recent characters. 18-20 vitality max. While 6HSers go from 26-32. They may need to make the difference bigger, but they are at lease aware of it and are making strides in the correct direction. One thing that they may need to do is set draw mechanics to only work for people with HS less than 7. That could even out that divide.

its the difference between aggro and control. if your trying to control your opponent a 6 HS is fine, you put everything relevant out and try to discard/cycle through the extra. in an aggro deck, you need the 7 HS because if you suddenly draw into your kill, but your foundations dont support it, your reduced to a 7-killcards handsize. and when its down to 3 or 4 because you cant get rid of the reppa, lunar slash and rejection/KFT/tag along in your hand because they might not be there when the chance to kill presents itself

Fred, you bring up a great point about Absurd being rotated out.

When the player I mentioned in another thread used his Chun-li deck, his primary concern was, in fact, for getting hit by Absurd.

When you think about it, nothing in block 3 punishes large hand sizes much like Absurd did during Block 2. Leona became much more attractive in a block 3 setting since one attack and an absurd won't mean deathm for her now.

HolyDragonCloud said:

And my guess is they'll never print anything that "punishes" handsizes like that again.

Let's face it, Absurd only punished momentum gain decks. Handsizes really didn't matter. I doubt anyone said "I'm going to play this character because the ONE EXTRA DAMAGE on Absurd means death to me!"

Well... Yunseong {promo} got hit pretty hard by Absurd. In terms of getting one-shotted by Hammered attacks, moving from 6HSer to 7 usually meant giving up 4 or 5 Hammer-life.

Protoaddict said:

I have been playing zangief since he was released much to the dismay of the players in my store.

Wafflecopter said:

If the guy had 4 Hammers in the course of a game, he either was extremely lucky or had a way to fetch for them. I distinctly recall Absurd being abused by 7HS characters about as much as 6HS characters.

i built block 2 mill gief, but then i realized how much better bishamon was.

trane said:

Real men mill with ::Zangief::

i assumed we were talking in block 3, no there would be problems for gief in block 2 but block 3 hes a tank