Inspired by the Fire thread, I figure, what the heck? These kinds of discussions are quite a healthy learning experience for some of our newer players, and overall make for some good discussion.

In a word, I would describe All as underrated. Odd to be saying that, I know. No one doubts the power of All. However, there are still some that believe that the loss of things like Revitalize and Mil Rank really took All off the map.

It really didn't.

Rather, All just changed the manner in which it conducted itself. It still has what is probably the best character card in Alex. It has the beast that is Sakura. It STILL has a Jesus foundation base, second only to Order's foundation base. It can gain life and reduce damage in ways that should be illegal in some states. Imagine facing down a Sakura deck running a BRT+Grappling for Glory combo, along with her E, her F to get those Grappling's back out, Altered Mind and Body, Without a Trainer, Schoolgirl Innocence, hell even Chester's Backing. Make a Difference is probably one of the scariest foundations in the game. Talk about telling Defender loops to go suck it. Tough Outer Shell too.

So, let's talk. What do you think about All? If you had to ask me, it would be the best symbol if it weren't for all the Commital and Hacks that Order has.

The first thing I think about when I play All is The Lord of the Makai and Tira's Contract working in unison (I think that about every deck they share symbols with, lol). It's pretty devistating when your opponent relies on the attack dealing damage. Shuts down throws, can block off zone and take no damage. Great stuff imo. Of course you have Bitter Rivals. A power card to me, a soon to be amazing power card to me actually, with the new keyword changes. BRT is a no-brainer and I shouldn't have to say anything about it. Same with Chester's Backing. My favorite sideboard card, Fatal Disruptor, for when your opponent forgets to use Feline Spike's E:. You have Tag Along for your amazing action card. And you have Reppa and Ryu's Shin Shoryuken for kill cards.

All is pretty solid if you ask me.

Personally, All has Allways (pun intended) been my favorite symbol. Imo, it's perhaps the most versatile symbol in the game, as it affords access to - in addition to what you cited - damage pump (fight or flight), hand control (discard and cardpool control, thank you saikyo-ryu and Yoga Mastery), card draw and recurssion (numerous ways!), as well as momentum gen (thank you Lord of the Makai).

It has some of the best attacks in the game, including Seichu Tsuki Nidan and 8th Bill of Punishment (until April 11th, and then on in Legacy). And (for what we know of already) B3: Kuzuryu Reppa, Demonic Drubbing (under-rated card in a Meta that is so Momentum heavy), as well as the obiquitous Ryu's Shin Shoryuken...who knows what ShadoWar and SC4 will bring?!

As for characters, everyone is familiar with Promo Alex, the veritable poster child for All. But, my favorite character shouldn't be discluded either: 3.Terry is a Life-gaining freak with some of THE BEST Symbol spread in the game: Air - All - Chaos. Seriously, he's one of the easiest dual or tri-symbol characters to build, and he hits like a mack truck!

Here's a stupid combo that's worked incredibly well for me: Life Gain Character ability + Sakura's Shinku Hadoken (played as a Reversal) + Fight of Flight. Say hello to regaining 22 VP on your opponents turn!

Woot!

Anyway...All still has the power to Top8, but the list of characters that it can happen with is narrow: the aforementioned Promo Alex and 3.Terry. Maybe Sakura...

My 2 cents anyway...Good discussion tho'...keep it goin...

The only major problem all has going into B3 is its lack of a defense for olcadon's. Other than that, LotM, Unorthodox training, chesters, BRT, bitter rivals, saikyo ryu, tag along, KFT, Kuzuryu Reppa, neo (something) storm, lesser of many evils ect. is pretty disgusting and dumb.

Sakura has defense against Olcadan's via Natural Power. We've agreed that thanks to Sakura's F, she provides the best in-game defense vs. Olcadan's. However, your point does still stand, since not every All deck will frontline Sakura =p.

Rockstar-Thanks for reminding me about Terry. Can't believe I overlooked him, especially since he was one of those characters that made me go HOTSAUCE when I first saw him.

Yeah, All's only bad thing right now is that it has no Olcadan's defense. Without a defense to Olcadan's, your key cards are gonna take quite a hit.

I mean, unless you are Sakura and want to keep looping Seals, then be my guest.

This thread needs more Jeremy Ray. Number one all player in my opinion.

When I was posting the thread, I was thinking of ending with "Let's discuss the symbol that Jeremy makes sexy." But I didn't. >.>

Sakura does a better job if she loops those Natural Forces Shane =p

Speak for yourself HDC, I think All should be underrated because, as it stands, it's not very good this coming block. Everybody and their dog clammored that it was "the hot thing" next block. Last I checked, out top 4 dogs are Order, Evil, Water, and Air, with Chaos being either in there or near there.

All truly is garbage at this point in time. What makes All unique is that it has no set goal. However, that only makes it that much harder to justify using it.

Your Sakura scenario was extremely situational, and featured a lot of useless cards. Schoolgirl Innocence and Without a Trainer are pretty trashy; committing just to gain 2 or so vitality? Altered Mind is BARELY passible; it's generally regarded as filler.

Also, ***Alex*** is OVERRATED! Seriously, wtf is it with people? Alex is only used for his F, right? And his F draws him anywhere from 3 to 5 cards, right? Well, while that is good, I'm pretty sure a certain foundation we've wanted just got the word it's being reprinted. That, coupled with crappy symbols (hey guys, uh, Concealed is gone...), weakness to anti draw, oh, and here's a good one:

HE ISN'T DONOVAN!

lol. Seriously, Alex is being overshadowed with each set. He can't run Feline. He can't run Defender. He only barely runs Rejection. Iuno, I just...I'm getting sick of people who keep saying he IS one of the best, when they really ought to be saying he WAS one of the best. Alex won because he had Rank, Addes, and Concealed, all of which have been banned. He is currently plauged by Tag Along and I'm sure people will probably want to run MAC when it comes out.

As far as All's uses go?

I'd have to do some research, but I'm mostly just going to point out Bitter Rivals. They couldn't have given a card more appropriate stats: 3/4 keep this card from being super duper busted. Change the zone of any attack? Reveal your opponent's hand? Ditch their keyword ability attacks?

Like I said, All has versatility, and always will, but it's going to need to find uses for that versatility, and right now, it hasn't really got it. Sorry.

You're seriously underestimating the power of Altered Mind and Body if you're regarding it as "just filler." Gaining 2-8 vitality a turn by simply turning a card on it's side? I don't know..sounds pretty cheap to me.

I'd contest that Water belongs in the top 4. WAY too many of it's necessary cards are 4 checks. No protection vs. Olcadan's. No protection from CC hax.

Schoolgirl Innocence and Without a Trainer are not completely useless. I don't mind being able to gain vitality easily.

And, unless I'm really missing something...You're telling me that in a meta dominated by 7hs'ers...Alex potentially going to a 10HS with high life is bad? He gains lightning-fast building ability. Tiger Fury, the general replacement for CSS, though off-symbol, becomes god-like with him. Fight or Flight with any of All's high-base damage attacks=dangerous. I'm sorry, but an effect that draws me cards that starts the game out in play with the most minimal cost of Commit is not something I'm going to call overrated. Also, he can use the Life effect of TOS. Thanks to the massive hand you should always have, you'll have the fuel for it.

All has quite a few goals. It's just that, outside of Spiral Arrow lockdown, they are generic. Now, had you said "Order can do it a bit better," I would have agreed. But All can kill with Multiples (Lord of the Makai, Reppa as an example for an attack), Powerfuls (see Multiples, Shin Shoryuken as an example for an attack), or even big attacks pumped by FoF.

Let's be perfectly honest here... Very few people ran MAC back when it was out, and it shared no symbols with Armored Defense so anyone with those symbols wanting to stop drawing/card recovery had to have a **** good reason to stick a 2/4 with no block in their deck...

Two more characters to add to the great All characters would be Balrog and Remy. Balrog is what I would say that front runner of good 6HS aggro characters from the last set. Both his abilities make it easier to pump out a string of attacks and All punch decks are still scary. And Remy is ****-sauce.

The problem MAC faced in Block 2, and so far will face in block 3, is that all three of its symbols weren't amazing on their own. It was very hard to main deck the card. I'd often see it in Side Boards, but not usually main boarded.

I have to somewhat agree with Marco about All having versatility but no focus, however that in itself is a kind of power; unpredictability. Seeing an All deck means you generally don't know exactly what you'll be facing unlike other symbols such as air and order, although most All decks will have LoTM and Kuzuryu Reppa because they're such nice cards. What All does lack like others have said is control defense, I can't really think of anything except chesters to keep order or water from keeping you locked down but with a potential 4 boxing, 4 program, and 4 owlface good ol chester is going to be having a tough time. I find it odd that no one mentioned Psycho Style and Trapped in a Nightmare these cards are very nice control pieces for All but probably not so much for the other symbols on them.

If I were to run a deck with All I would dual symbol it with Chaos using Terry3 and simply try to draw into defender loop as my kill condition. But where I would run into problems is chaining well and of course getting the defensive cards to keep order/water from wrecking my staging area since they're such popular symbols right now.

On a side note water does have Clean Freak to deal with control, Nature's Force to spank owlface and chesters as always, it's just that CF and chesters are going to be prime targets for control but knowing exactly what your opponent needs to do to make their deck work gives you a chance to use your own control if you're playing CF on water which gets you boxing and program. My Galford deck (which I posted recently) doesn't have a really hard time with control but it can mess me up if it comes out early.

Shinji, you're crazy.

Please to be noting that I threw together an Alex deck without having ever tested it before for GCC, right? Went totally undefeated in games for Teams and fun games. Sure, it was boring as hell and I'll never play it again (not like that, anyway), but it was insanely effective. No experience + zero playtesting x stupidly good results = good.

Why do you think Talbain got the boot? Busted character made player skill a lot less important.

So All, right? It's not my cup of tea, though I do respect that it's very good. I've always wanted to try Sakura, so I'll probably come up with something soon. Balrog is a monster...I just wish I could find the right way to DO it. The Allrog deck I put together worked just fine...it's just that I know defense wins games and it didn't have enough of it. It had aggro out the wazoo (57 damage turn three = good), but I don't think it could stand a longer game.

Don't be forgetting Juni, either >=/

Ed: and MAC was STUPID good. Very much worth the mainboard, and still is.

I understand this an All thread, but there seems to be alot of disscussion on just Alex. Now before I get to him, I would like to say that each symbol is rather incomplete at the moment. So when everyone is like "All or symbol X has no answer's to Olcadan's", this is true but what it lacks in one department, it makes up for it in alot of areas. It has a strong foundation base, no quite Order, but a good one none the less.

Now on to Alex, I feel Alex is really good, he can out pace most characters rather easy. He is not Donovan, true, but Donovan isn't promo Ukyo. Alex has is a 28 vit body and the ability to keep that way he isn't trying to be Donovan. Alex does have an answer to Olcadan's, and its in his other symbol Fire. We all know that All/Fire runs well together in Alex, this provides 2 six checks and Olcadan protection. Also Alex plays one of the most important cards in the format, in my opinion, Yoga Adept. This card is like Solemn Judgment, or Counter Spell its that good. Plus Alex can use it to its full advantage too.

Is All tier 1? In the right hands yes.

Will it top? I believe Ivy already answered that

Is Alex good? See above

So we will have to see, I have a regionals coming up in 11 days in TN, so we will see if All or the mighty Alex makes a showing.

Good discussion thread guys!

In an All thread, Alex is going to be discussed. He's literally the face of All, and has been for quite some time.

I honestly feel that all is very overated to be quite honest.
What does all do vs order's commitment power and hard hack cabalities? How does it stop program malfunctions, experienced combatants, psycho styles, olcadan's mentoring, chinese boxings? Chester's backing can only go so far to protect your board, and to be quite honest it is not enough, and it gets blown up by charismatic with no problems unless another chester's backing is present. To compete with order, you really need something like anti order cards in your deck like red lotus, oral dead, chester's backing, destiny, revenant's calling which all only has 1 copy of that anti order quartet (evil has 4 btw, so you can sleep on that thought tonight if you want to), and chaos has 3 of those cards (which is why chaos /evil really beats the pants off most order decks).

All has great offensive capabilities, but it's days as a symbol to be truly feared have been marked. with plethora of hand disruption abilities, damage pump, and lesser of many evils which can be really bad for some decks (like order if you catch em with thier pants down).

All is a mid-teir to low teir symbol in reality. It doesn't have defender loop, it's doesn't have an awesome finisher like feline spike, spinning beat, mercurious meloncholy, sardine beach special, high plasma beam, darkness blade... where's all mid ranged and finisher attacks, where????

MegaGeese said:

What a lot of you guys aren't reading is that I never called Alex a bad character; I said he's overrated, as in, you guys are giving the guy way too much praise. We've all built him, and we all know he generally does well. As it stands, he's probably the premier All character. I'm likely alone, but a character who's only use is a one-time draw 3-5 cards or gain 3-5 vitality just isn't anything to write home about. Like I said, F Commit: gain or draw 3-5 IS great! But I think people are so used to how good Alex USED to be, and not how he is nowadays.

Talbain got the boot because he was broken; All had nothing to do with it

MAC is pretty much in the same boat as Alex, and thankfully, I'm not alone when I said that MAC had such terrible symbols on it this year that most people ran it off or dual symbol. MAC is 2/4 no block, which means it better be awesome as Hell. Well, MAC ended up being awesome because of all the Alex spammage.

Balrog is teh shizz, and I haven't even built him (although if I did, I imagine running him off Chaos). Maybe Ivy will help All out

As someone who's played Alex since about his inception I have to agree that as of block 3, All is very quickly floating downriver into the mid tier. It's /ok/ and can win every now and again, but I doubt it'll do anywhere near as good as it did in blocks 1 and 2. All has a hard time spamming out stuff as truthfully a lot of their 1/5s and 0/5s aren't exactly earth shattering. So if you go with a turn of Chester's, Bitter Rivals, BRT, BRT that's a difficult turn! My god I mean it's a 4/4/4/5! Not impossible, but when thrown up against symbols that can spam like a champ (*cough* Air/Chaos *cough cough*) that's certainly less effecient, regardless of how many cards you have in your hand.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Yeah thats how I built him. So easy to toss 2-3 Great Gerdenhiems in 1 turn

sir_shajir said:

No offense, mate, but you somewhat contradict yourself in these two paragraphs. All's mid-ranged and finisher attacks: Kuzuryu Reppa, Demonic Drubbing, Ryu's Shin Shoryuken, Sakura's Shinku Hadoken...all of which i mentioned on page 1 of this thread...New attack that looks quite sexy: Fire Kick (6/2 w/P:3 ability...STOOPID!).

Lest any of us forget, All shares a lot of cards with other symbols, cards that are pretty insane: LotM, BRT, Tira's, Chester's, American Made (gonna be a hot card this upcoming block, don't sleep on it, Peeps!), and Lesser of Many Evils. Yea, LotM and BRT are now associated with Order and it's stupid Defender Loops, but these cards are both used liberally used in All decks, too, and to great effect.

HolyDragonCloud said:

no voldo love? *sniff* i will miss him...

sir_shajir said:

to this i'd say: order doesn't have a big awesome finisher. not one worth playing. (plasma fweem is conditional and rarely a 1 hit ko in the early stages of them game). not one NEARLY as good as shinsho or Fire Kick. and all/order share reppa. that's plenty of damage output.

you say all doesn't have defender loop, but it can splash for defender just as easily as order splashes for feline spike, so that argument is out the window.

GouHadou said:

If the title of the thread were Tech Talk: Omar, I would have said Voldo. =p. You're like the only person I know to pilot Voldo to such success.

all is actualy rather one dimensional: alex. it has plenty of finishers, it just isn't quick enough to beat agro and not good enough control to beat control. i would say all is 5 or 6 on a tier list. good, just not quite good enough.