failed2k said:

Gill also won a much minor-er event in scope, but with decks that were not exactly seen before.

I have to disagree with gill being that great. I think he is good mind you, but I truly feel that any 7hs order character with the same or better vit and a useful ability or 2 are infinitley more useable. Im not sure we have as large a sample of tourney results to be judging this just yet, but that being said ill stick by my theory. 8 HS is actually 1 too many cards opening turn. you cant play 8 cards first turn going first, even a 0 difficulty will cost 7.

Any given 7 HS character with proper symbols can drop 1 forethought, 1 spirit of athens, and 3 other foundations against Gill and lock his 8 HS out of the game just as easily as anyone else. Additonally other characters will have access to The anti K, which makes the lock that much stronger. 8 HS dosent mean a **** thing if you cant play 1 card. And while gill statistically has the best chance of drawing a lock based Purely on hand size, other characters abilities lend themselves more to getting key pieces in play.

Gill is also one of the few characters in the game right now that can actually die to chip damage because he cant run rejection. ISpins will eat him in a big way. As more characters are released in block 3 and hopefully the symbols balance out a bit more, i suspect we will be seeing Gill less and less, or perhaps as Deaths leading man as opposed to order.

Also on the topic of Seoung Mi-na. I know a lot of people like her and tout her abilities as gangbusters, however i've never played against her where she was able to get to her loop before I killed her or locker her out of the game. 5 HS prevents her from getting a Hax lock into play first turn like other characters are able too.

Mai did Top 8 last year at U.S Nationals and Jack Chang played her.

Protoaddict said:

Seoung Mi-na isn't run for that lock, it's a convenient twist of fate that she has chaos/order and can run the lock. The reason to play her is to I-spin twice in a single turn. Her 5hs isn't so much of an issue that The Bigger They Are and Aquakenisis don't take care of.

As far as Gill is concerned, if he was a blank 8/20 with JUST the order symbol as you state, he'd still be run. I don't play lock-down order anymore, so I'm much more content with Donovan. Other people are right though, he's only one regional (it was a pretty 'big' one though in terms of calibur of players) and if he wants to prove himself a contender, he needs to top more. Oh, and the reason to run him is because he's an 8HS with order AND a symbol that's on Feline Spike. Heck, you are talking about Chaos/Order on Kyo as if it's the only way to run him when I think he's sick on Earth.

I'm willing to agree that we'll disagree on that though.

quarzark said:

You must first get those cards out. And in a 5 hand size, the chances of having one of those cards in your hand is not that great. An opponent with a 7HS has a much better chance of getting things out to lock your necessary pieces out faster than you have the chance to play them.

And I'm certain any deck packing CC Hax will keep their stuff ready for when you try to play your draw-power cards.

I'd just like to point out that, once again, Shinji is talking out of his rear.

Impending ban of Lord of the Makai? You sound so certain.

I shook my head at that notion as well, Brett. If the direction of the game is to be shifting back towards using more than one attack to kill an opponent (or at least as I hope for the direction of the game to be shifting), Spike and Defender are much more likely to be gone than Makai. Again, this is strictly my opinion. I certainly do not speak for Steve, Paul, and James when it comes to the matter of bannings.

Protoaddict - Thanks for the inadvertant support. Also, I prefer Seong Mi-Na off Water. While she can run lolDefenderloop, she doesn't have to, and I used Defender's Seong Mi-Na ability more than its enhance. If you doubt Seong Mi-Na's abilities, I can send you a Seong Mi-Na water build, and after you build it, tell me how much you appreciate her

Drewkasa - Thanks for clarification

quazark - I'm just refusing to believe a character without an ability is good. I mean, isn't Rikuo the worst character in this game due to the fact that he has no effect? What if Rikuo had an 8 handsize and Evil? Would things still be the same for him? As for Kyoshiro, my first build actually abused his R with A Mysterious Fighter. He has uses, and in Earth, he has the broken TWOP. However, he's pretty much used as a 13 hander for Defender shenanigans. Also, I still stand true that Donovan is better than Gill in every way. He, too, can run Feline Spike, and unlike Gill, can clear his card pool to help it pass, while the opponent is stuck cursing the fact that they wasted blocks on your Order attacks only to be a surprised by the Water-only Kitty of doom.

Holy Dragon Cloud - At this point, I'm not only doubting how many of you guys have ever played a Seong Mi-Na, but also, how many of you guys have ever played Water Seong Mi-Na? Personally, I think that's her best symbol. Nothing quite like stunning their entire field with Shadow Blades only to clear the way for unblockable Kitties.

Archimedes - I sound so sure because their credibility is at stake. As time has advanced, both STG and FFG have come to my side of thinking that bogging this game down with counter after counter doesn't work. When Hata came in, sure, he could have errata'd all those cards, but no, he came in with an iron fist and said ban ban ban, and for a time, our game was rid of BS. I've already stated, in-depth, my positions on what cards need to be banned (BRT, TWOP, Feline, Defender, Rejection, Makai), but as far as Makai, it is a free momentum engine that has lead to degenerate BS comprable to Kunai. As has been said, the PRIMARY way of generating momentum should be through attacking. However, there have been cards like Natural Leader and Nine Lives that get around that, but are still considered acceptable. Lord of the Makai is just E: +1 momentum. It doesn't help that it's on a 2/6 +1-MID with 4 symbols. It also doesn't help that 3 of its 4 symbols are top tier, and have all the necessary counters to counter whatever counters might come out. Unless the next sets are about nothing more than punishing and negating momentum (and from the looks of things, it isn't), then the card needs to go. It discourages most other forms of momentum generation, and as it currently stands, is bar impossible trying to get a copy with the set being out-of-print n' all.

Yes, FFG does want this game to be more attack-oriented, which is why I keep saying Feline and Defender discourage that. Feline and Defender both get rid of the need and desire to run multiple attacks, because with Feline and Defender, it's unnecessary. The rest of the cards (BRT, TWOP, Rejection, Makai) are for other reasons.

HolyDragonCloud said:

Donovan and Rikuo.

Well, if you look at it critically. HDC:

Feline Spike takes two momentum to play to its fullest potential. Two momentum usually entails having two attacks connect, ending the turn, and sending them to the momentum. Alternately, given the AIR symbol present on the card, you can do various tricks to generate momentum quicker.

The thing about either A) Attacking or B) Other tricks OUTSIDE Lord of the Makai is that none of it is free, therefore opening it up to being controlled.

Same for Defender. Either you attack and get momentum, using Defender as a bit of a finishing flare or you jump through a whole hell of a lot of hoops to generate enough momentum to create a loop, leaving you open to being controlled as a combo deck is like to be.

Lord of the Makai enables the stupidity. Without Lord of the Makai, Spike decks are 1-2 turns slower (which is HUGE in this environment) and Defender loops become much more complicated to pull off. Without Lord of the Makai, cards like Blood Stained Fate and Ikari Warrior suddenly become much more relevant.

But enough of my thread high jacking.

It's interesting to see Gill doing so well at tournaments lately, especially since he essentially follows the "It's 8 HS with ~overpowered symbol of choice here~" mentality that put Evil Hanzo into the top 8 last year (~watches Shinji put foot in mouth~). It also speaks huge amounts of detail as to how absurdly powerful Order is at the moment.

If I absolutely positively had to rank the symbols in order, it'd be as such.

1) Order

2) Air

3) Evil

4) Water

5) Fire

6) Chaos

7-12) Everything else

Character choices suite play styles, THEN tier order in symbols.

I just have one thing to say to you Archimedes...

Natural Leader

Natural Leader shares 2 symbols with Feline Spike, and instantly give it the two momentum it needs to kill.

but yes you're right on the money.

I'll trade Lord of the Makai out for Natural Leader any day.

It's a 3/5 foundation (in decks that typically want to run ChiBoxing/Chester's Backing and MAYBE Mentally unstable, then a whole lot of 2 and 1 diffs) that commits itself and trades a card from your hand.

2 momentum for a cost, as opposed to endless momentum for free.

My partiality towards Makai goes to the fact that it has All on it. However, the needs of one symbol don't outwiegh the beefing of three symbols already strong in the momentum-gen department.

As for that tier list, I wouldn't quite say Fire is that high. I'd probably put All at that position.

Archimedes said:

Right on the money.

I wouldn't even mind LotM if it's stats were atrocious. Like Girardot's.

BTW, Rikuo wasn't the 16th deck-quarzak (whom if i recall was the rikuo that finished the highest) finished a place ahead of me in 26th. Miser sandbagging into Ibuki was the 16th deck. Donovan was the other of the two I was missing.

HolyDragonCloud said:

correct, out of the 3(!) Rikuo's that were there, I did best with a record of 4-2-1. Considering my losses were to Olexa (Swiss champ) and Jeremy Ray (9th) I was feeling pretty good at the end of the day. Got a full set of Requiem for a Moth for free for doing that too...

Also Arch, your list is almost correct, except that Fire isn't THAT good right now as compared to say... Earth.

quarzark said:

Then none of you are playing the fire decks I'm playing :3

Also, it should be noted that Rikuo has seen a top 8 appearance at Nationals.

Archimedes said:

nope, no one in my area plays fire but me, and as much as I love the symbol, I'm more content to wait until set 12 and midnight launcher + other unreleased goodies before saying how awesome it is.

But on a note, Akuma::: + Expelled Humanity + Manifest Destiny = hilarious.

reminds me of the ol' Ibuki+Anti K+Megalo trickery, but not nearly as good.

HolyDragonCloud said:

nope...

but Expelled Humanity has order and can commit those lovely characters

To the people that said that 8 Handsize Gill sucks because he is a blank 8 Handsize character:
Go learn how to read, he actually has a relevant ability in that he can gain 3 life for the cost of 1 handsize. Hmm, what does that mean? well when you burn through your deck really quickly, you might want to lower your handsize so you don't mill through your deck so fast.

Although Gill is an 8/20, when you actually sit down and start playing him, he feels more like an 8/26-8/29 because his ability gives him that mobility to just gain back just enough life so that he doesn't die and he can let his foundations do the talking, i've played games where i was at 1 life, and me gaining 3 life made it impossible for my opponent to kill me anymore, next turn, me being at 7 life just sealed my opponent's hopes at a victory. To be honest, in Montreal I ended taking a total of 15 damage the whole tournament, never lost a single game (that's right game, not round) and finished every game with over 20 life. Oh and I 2-0 everyone (except kin who I drew with and then he gave me the victory in finals) with 15 minutes on the clock (which is key for a chain smoker...)

quarzark said:

Akuma

Seclusion their check, Manifest a card, reversal off a New Low, Akuma first E to commit the rest of their board.

Fire's possible impending improvement could make that combo a lot more useable.

Well, the card you typically want to be a New Low'ing with is Ira Spinta.

But yes, here's to hoping towards the new set.

sir_shajir said: