Water has always been a second rate symbol, but in block 3 it has been given some powerful support. Such as: Defender, Chester's Backing, Hoyoku Sen, and Feline Spike. So we have great win conditions, and we have powerful support, and now I want to know how everyone feels about the role Water might play in the coming major tourney season.

Discuss

DEFlores said:

It should be good for this season I mean even last season a water ukyo deck hit top 8 at US nationals .

But I think characters like Mai and Seong Mina will make a showing. Im interested to see what comes up after april 5th when we have 2 east coat regionals .

Scubadude said:

Wait what now there's going to be two east coast regionals when and where was this announced ?

Water will be making top eight at almost every major event cause water now has too many ways to win by looping either offensively or defensively, stops attacks cold and makes aggro cry.

deathcritis1 said:

There is at least 3

One in TN with Scott Gaines group

One in VA that unigame is hosting

And the SCC I am hosting in FL

Water has always been top tier. Your whole post is based on a falsehood. My worlds 2007 teams tycho deck was water and it went undefeated and we won. This year we got 2nd and i was running water 12. Water has always been amazing.

Im not sure if water is amazing, it is certainly underestimated.
Water has the best attacks in the game hands down from reverse waterfall, to clones, to geri, to stomp, to CSS, high plasma beam, feline spike, and sardine beach special. Water has great utility attacks that give it flexibility like omnidirectional cluster bomb. Water has a plethera of cards that ready other cards and it has card clearing and card drawing allowing to spam out attacks while maintain card pool clear and consistantly being able to throw high damage attacks for a relatively low cost. And water has enough disruption (not control) to keep the control decks at bay while it is attempting thier aggressive game plan.

The main problem with water is that once the board begins to bog down with lots foundations, your opponents foundations will generaly win out because they have negation that you are missing and they will be able to control your board while you are unable to control their board.

sir_shajir said:

I think this really depends on the matchup. Don't forget, Water has Chinese boxing, program malfunction AND chester's backing, not to mention shooting cap to ready all of this stuff. Throw in Battle Prowess, aquakinesis and bigger they are and you got a fairy fast paced deck that has quite the board position.

Protoaddict said:

So does that mean your going to be playing water again this year?

I think water will be even better with cards like program malfuction , chinese boxing , chesters , bigger they are ect....

water as a standnalone symbol is really strong, but it really shines as a dual symbol/splashed in to a deck.

like order water is really thug nasty.

evil/water is pretty bonkers etc.

evil base with shooting cap is just so stupid good. shooting cap busts so many decks wide open.

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

I wouldnt discount it, i gues it depends what these next sets bring to the table.

Another great way to run the wind/water combo. The two symbols share alot of quality cards which makes chaining easy and they also compliment each other rather well.

*points out that a water ukyo made top 8 at last year's Cannats, the month before Arch hit top 8 at US nats.*

GouHadou said:

Yo.

I've been playing Water since set one. Way back with Tycho and Ryu's Tatsumaki Senpukyaku as a finisher. When Ukyo came out I did nothing but play him off all three of his symbols from the time of his release until the time he has/will rotate(d), with my primary Ukyo deck being off water.

When Kasumi Gaki was legal, water Ukyo had a 30% chance of first turn killing characters 24 vitality and under (IE, everybody competitive at the time) going second. Every turn after that was a kill turn. I chickened out on running my Water Ukyo at West Coast Champs 2007 and I payed for it by running into a wall of diversity with Yun Seong. This is the biggest regret I will ever have in my UFS career, and it taught me to play what I want to play and give the finger to what you feel diversity is going to be. (But you must admit, Defender of the Empire was too sweet to pass up at the time)

After WCC2007, I had 2 decks: A mess around deck, and Ukyo. Nobody would play Ukyo.

As Omar said, I top 8'd at US Nationals with a water deck, beating out two evil Ukyo in diversity (Gaines and Shoemaker right?), only to lose to the behemoth known as Alex in the first round of top 8 (PROMO RIKUO FOR THE WIN)

From my nearly 3 years of playing water, I can say this about the symbol.

Before the release of Feline Spike and Defender, Water was the best "rogue" symbol in the game. In an environment that was packed with Concealed Shallow Swipe and other 1 shot methods, the loops that Water created with Kunai and Landwalk often overwhelmed opponent's who only packed enough Injury Actions and Rejections to deal with a one shot.

It's foundation base wasn't the best, it's stars being Shinobi Tradition, Ibis Minuet, and Higher Calibur, but back then water wasn't about the foundation base. It was about the efficiency of its checks (the only 3 checks in my water deck were Kunai and Seal of Cessation) and the efficiency at which it could loop cheap attacks (Clones, Soldier of Sparta, and Genkotsu Stamp OR Agohani Gheri).

This presented a huge weakness though, with how reliant water was on loops it had a huge weakness in Armored Defense. With only Olcadon's Mentoring at the time, Armored Defense+Protection easily spelled game for water decks (ask the two losses I had at Nationals. Both to Order decks with Armored D).

But at the time, water was the best Rogue symbol in the game. You just had to know how to play it.

Now?

I hate the direction water is going. It's too obvious, too in your face. There are no TRICKS to it, and the Johnny in me dies a little inside when I build a water deck.

It's currently standing near the top symbols in the game, with arguably only Air being the better aggro symbol. People who play Water as a control deck, in my opinion, are playing it wrong. Water needs to be played aggressively, using a handful of Chinese Boxing/Chester's Backing to spot check problematic foundations and Battle Prowess/Altered Mind and Body to hold off against more aggressive decks. The sheer reality of the matter is that while you have a decent chance to go into at MOST the mid game against the true control decks in the game, you're going to lose if you go into the late game and let them shore up Forethoughts and BRT's

Gorgeous Team is nice, the only problem is that it bogs down an already top heavy deck (Chester's, ChiBoxing, and Seal of Cessation are more important). With access to Tag Along, I think that the smart player should just forsake Gorgeous Team all together, and use their Rejections and Seals properly instead of spamming them all over the place.

The Bigger they Are and Aquakinesis both speed up your clock, further giving evidence to aggressive/mid range tendencies.

Water's biggest weakness? Still no real Olcadon defense.

Waters glaring problem right now I think is its trying to do the same crap that air is doing but cant do it as strongly. The amount of cards they share is almost a design flaw.

Water also lost the flavor of its attacks. It has lunar slash and spike and im not going to say they arent game winners, but water has always been more about loops and not so much about big multiple one checks. Water loses loop pieces like Geri, Ibis, It already list Deatly ill, Gekotsu stamp, shotokan, shinobi tradition, landwalk, and kunai. Some of them get iffy replacement pieces like shooting cap replacing shinobi, but thats not quite the same.

I think waters biggest shot at dominating is going to be in the form of Nakarurus stuff splashed with Sogetus crack foundations, even though its heavy control its also very aggressive damage while doing that. I wanted to believe Dhalsims stuff would be a great addition too, all the speed damage switching, but its all too limited to him.

But new base sets are around the corner, I have to believe all water really needs is a solid trick or loop card and its back in action.

Archimedes said:

Thats a very nice writeup Arch.

Although I never played Water before this last Worlds I have picked it up recently and have found how much of a utility symbol it is. It is so diverse with commital, reversal, tons of recursion, life gain.

The only thing I dont agree with you on your writeup is arch is about water in the late game, true it isnt pretty when they have a board full of CChax which is waters worse bane however its not a bad matchup because the game comes to a standstill with all of the Life gain and Recursion water has access to. In todays metagame of only 8-12 attacks Rejection and Battle Prowess allow for long games.

My only disappointment with water at the moment is its looping/damage boosters. Its hard to win a game throwing 4 Speeds for 5 one at time while trying to fend off Spike. Sure you can figure out a way to utilize spike but that card just doesnt seem to be Water's forte

Sardine Beach Special and High Plasma Beam ftw.

Arch basically said everything I wanted to say. Water is still very aggressive though, with Donny-boy being downright brutal in speed (not quite promo Ukyo, but hopefully that doesn't happen again >_<) and starter Sakura is one of the most annoying characters to play against. Solid base of characters, great foundations, some of the best attaks in the game, and access to almost every important Action in the game. Yeah, Water's looking pretty good.

NintendoMan said:

Actually water just got a pretty decent damage booster in the way of Big Dreams. Big Dreams with a multiple is quite painful since it gets a bonus based on the number of cards in ALL card pools. Save it for the last multiple if your opponent has blocked the early attacks your usualy looking around 1 foundation for +5 damage on average at the end of an attack run.

Protoaddict said:

Wrong

During the first block, Water was most certainly usable (because honestly, all symbols were usable first block). But top tier? Debatable.

Last statement, the one about Water always being amazing? Look back to the time period between Domination/Cutting Edge and Realm of Midnight. Water didn't exist, and was dead last in the tiers from Feb 08 - Jun 08 (until Realm came out). It had nothing. It had Flowing Gale, Genkotsu, Shinku Hadoken, Rejection, some okay stuff I guess, but no true pilot, no true use, and the only real Water character was **Ukyo** (who, as we know, was far superior off Evil at that time, having access to Addes, Red Lotus, and Reverse Flayer).

Water, as it currently stands (or in Block 3), is top tier. In the top...3 or 4 I'd say (a lot of people say Air is better than Water, but I highly disagree). As has been mentioned, it has the two best kill buttons in the game, the best defensive card, a harem of top tier water chars, and well-balanced mix of control, aggro, and tech.

As fun as Water is, I gotta say, Water is truly a janky Order as it currently stands, and as much as I appreciate symbols branching out, and not just repeating the same ol strategy (thank God it's been a while since we've seen Water discard from the card pool stuff), Water, as I just said, really looks like a second-rate Order as of right now, with some differences being Chester's and Rejection. Once Water loses Feline and Defender (because there's no way in hell such crutch cards won't go unpunished in March or April), it's, in my opinion, going to be much more balanced and much more fun, although I'm not sure how it'll stand up to the likes of Evil and Order.

Good symbol is good. IMO, Sogetsu is the new Ukyo, but I haven't built him, so I wouldn't know.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Yes, because one water deck top 8'ing at CanNats and me beating out two evil Ukyo decks in diversity at Nationals2008 doesn't poke holes in your argument at all.

Top Tier if you knew how to play it, mid tier if you were (and I hate using this term) a scrub.

________________

@ NintendoMan: Regarding the late game, I see it as a nightmare because Water has no persisting Olcadon's defense. They can wait and pick apart your staging area.

Archimedes said:

Uh, it doesn't. Tiers aren't determined by a one-time stroke-of-luck event like the one you bring up; they're determined by weeks, months, and/or years of continuously testing that theory over and over again before it starts to look almost like a fact.

Congrats to your Water Ukyo top 8; access to Awakening, Clones, Flowing Gale, and Genkotsu certainly isn't something to shake a stick at, even if you're against Evil. However, my point is "Water, as an entire symbol, was absolute bottom tier at the start of Feb 2008 until Realm of Midnight came out". Just because you took a Water deck to top 8 during that time frame means next to nothing. If during that Nats there were throngs of Water decks, and the majority of them placed highly, THEN your argument might hold water (no pun intended, but still funny).

When you look at all the other symbols during that time frame, you look at Water and just notice how it's barely even a second-rate aggro. As I said in my controversial article, Ukyo is as broken as they come, so really, bringing him up isn't exactly the best defense. You can list all the "good" Water characters that were available at the time all day if you so desire, but it still wouldn't bolster anything. Water sucked. It had the ever-predictable attack line-up of Flowing Gale, Dee Jay's Crouching, Clones, etc. Now, they were a few variations, like the occasional Suzaku (although during Feb 08, Ibuki wasn't banned), but as a whole, Water didn't have nearly as many options it has today.

Water is Godly right now. But during that 4 month period, Water was garbage.

MarcoPulleaux said:

o_0

were you like, missing from that period or something? Water was amazing through all of '08. The main problem with the time frame you're listing is that you happen to be naming the time period of "Here is an Evil or All deck, go win with it." At that point in time, pre-Realm of Midnight you basically ran an All or Evil deck or got beat by said All or Evil deck, and any symbol that wasn't those two just didn't do as well. Starter Terry loop was still playable, as was Twelve, Ninjitsu, and Move to the Rhythm. If you stated maybe that it was a one or two trick pony, doing either loops or Ibis or both, then I'd agree, since those were the dominant Water decks, but it was never close to bottom tier...

and as far as Feline Spike/Defender go, seriously, you think that's going to mess with water? That will if anything simply hurt maybe order decks that like using Feline Spike as a kill because they can (and seriously, order can just copy paste in Lunar Slash if they love 1 check multiples that much), and Chaos. I haven't bothered putting those cards in any water deck I've built in the past 3 months, and I have no intentions of starting.

There is almost a water based deck in the top 8 of every major event I have ever been too. Water has many of the games most controvercially overpowered cards, some of which had to be banned (Kasumi Gaki). It was a symbol that could go aggro with the best of them and could run combos and loops better than any other symbol.

The water Foundation of power is in my eyes nothing short of the most overall powerful of all the FOP's
Clones and Soldier of Sparta are silly cards that should probably have not been printed at their power level
Kasumi Gaki, Nuff Said
Kunai - Landwalk
Genkotsu stamp
Geri - Ibis
Shinobi Tradition + Shotokan
Twelve + Xndl + Clones + Dee Jays Crouching Roundhouse + Ibis

Theres more, I just wont be going into it. As it has been said Water was perfectly top tier, its just that Evil and All were, well Broken Tier.

Protoaddict said:

I agree with all but the FOP's of waters being the best while its good its mid tier in my opinion . The top tier ones I believe are emptiness , ruthless villainy , and a dark end .