[details=Summary]Master Menelker is an all around fighter like Grave Stormborne, he is also Master Midori’s brother. However, Menelker has many differences from Grave. He is tied for the lowest amount of health in the game but to compensate for he can deal a lot of damage and his innate, Bleeding Wounds, gives him disruption and card draw effects. In addition to drawing cards and forcing discard when Menelker hits with his black face cards he can also power up for black face cards. This allows him to have the tools he needs for any given situation and be able to protect his low life total.
Menelker has average speeds on his normals and throws. He also has the standard number of normal attacks, normal throws, blocks, and dodges. This goes a long with his all around fighter status. His normal stuff isn’t slow but it isn’t fast either.
Chaos Orb is the standard J attack. It has the usual speed of 2.4 and does a solid 7 damage for 1cp. Black J is a whole different beast. Menelker can stick it at the end of any combo for essentially free damage and card loss to the opponent. Getting 7 damage for free is very nice and it easily fits into any combo. If Menelker plays throw then J he goes card even for the turn and does 13 damage. If he normal attacks into it he goes card positive and still gets in damage.
The other side of J is Nether Orb. because of this attacks speed it is mainly used as a dodge follow up or to get a big punish on the opponent if Menelker suspects they will throw. It does 27 damage if Menelker can pump it up with two more Js. Just make sure to lead with the Black J in order to get those extra cards and cost the opponent a card.
Rising Dragon is Menelker’s reversal. And what a reversal it is. At speed 0.0 is will beat or trade with every other attack in the game. It can also do a total of 16 damage if Menelker pumps it with two cards. This is good damage for such a fast attack. Menelker does need lots of cards to do his biggest and strongest combos so pumping it might not always be the best choice.
It is no surprise that Black Q takes a great card to a whole new level. The same great stats plus card draw for Menelker and discard for the opponent. This means if Menelker hits with Black Q and doesn’t follow it up he will have gone card postive for the turn all from behind the comfort of a speed 0.0 attack.
Being able to power up for Black Q is a great tool for Menelker. It allows him to be safe and threaten a 0.0 speed attack almost whenever he needs to. Use this tool to your advantage whenever you can.
Now here is where Menelker gets some of his crazy high damage. Sweeping Claws can do up to 16 damage using only 2 of Menelker’s 5 cp! That can lead into insane damage. Take a couple of example combos
(+ means the card is pumped once ++ means the card is pumped twice)
K++K++J = 39 damage. This does cost Menelker 7 cards to pull off… but only if all those face cards were Red. If all of them were Black it would only cost him 4 cards to do 39 damage!!! and in addition to that the opponent is now down 3 cards which will take away their damage potentially keeping the low life (in health terms, I’ll leave the ethical quandaries for you to decide) Menelker safe from the opponents big combos. If Menelker hits with this all Black combo and both he and the opponent have 8 cards at the start of turn then at the end of the combo Menelker will have 4 and his opponent will have 5. This is pretty insane considering how much damage Menelker just got to do.
K++6A+ = 44 damage. This combo doesn’t have the potential for lots of card draw and discard that the previous combo does but it does do 5 more damage which give Menelker a greater kill range off of attack. Also, sometimes Menelker just doesn’t have all the Ks he wants to have.
What is even more impressive about this damage and card antics is that it all starts off of Sweeping Claws very respectable speed of 2.2.
If you thought that Menelker’s only way to mess with the opponent’s cards was with Black face cards you’d be mistaken. If Menelker throws the opponent with Bonecracker (either by playing it face down and winning or dodging into it) he gets to look at the cards in their hand, already this would be a stong effect but it doesn’t end there. He then gets to chose a card from their hand and discard it! This is massive. It allows Menelker to remove Jokers, get rid of aces, or remove any one of the opponents strong threats. It has other applications as well but the previously mentioned ones are a good starting point.
Bonecracker becomes even more of a headache for the opponent when it combos into Black face cards. Since it only takes up 3cp Menelker can combo into J or K which if the card is Black will make the opponent lose even more cards.
The disruption doesn’t even end with Black face cards and 7. Menelker has one final way of messing with his opponents cards and it is found on his T. The ability is called Into Oblivion. It allows Menelker to chose a card in the opponents discard and banish it (remove from game). The opponent then has to banish another card of the same rank from their hand or deck.
This ability gives Menelker great utility. A lot of people would have to worry about scary multi ace super attacks like Grave’s True Power of Storms or Midori’s Final Dragon Buster but Menelker can completely remove these threats. If the opponent keeps an ace in his discard pile (they have a chance to get it back in the power up phase which will happen before this ability can be used) Menelker can target that ace with Into Oblivion and get rid of two of the opponents aces. Then he no longer has to worry about those high damage frightening attacks, making his 70 health feel like more then it would otherwise.
Into Oblivion can also be used against Jokers. This is incredible for Menelker because he no longer has to fear the opponents bluffs (in fact the opponent they wont ever bluff after their jokers are banished) because they no longer have access to any Jokers. This makes Menelkers high damage combos even more deadly to the opponent.
The potential uses for Into Oblivion are many and varied. Just remember that if you banish a card in the discard that isn’t something the opponent can normally get out of the discard you are actually only denying them access to one copy of that card.
Menelker is another character with a versatile ace. The attack side, Dragon Breath, can be stuck on the end of any combo for great damage. Throw A+ will deal 27 damage. It can also be used as a fast single ace poke to deal with attacks that would beat Menelkers K. While not as fast as Grave’s single ace attack it does have higher top damage if Menelker has two aces in hand. At speed 1.2 it is as fast as a lot of the standard double ace attacks but Menelker only has to risk a single ace if the attack misses.
The throw side of Menelker’s ace is his biggest damage move and is the biggest damage that can be done in the game. It requires 4 aces but with it being a throw at speed 4.6 it will be the fastest throw in most match ups. What makes this even more impressive is Menelker can get rid of the opponents Jokers using Into Oblivion. Once Menelker has done this he can either play Death Strike Dragon or dodge (in most match ups) and if he gets it right there is no way for the opponent to escape taking 55 damage. Death Strike Dragon indeed.
So there you have Master Menelker. He is a high damage versatile all around fighter with lots of card disruption. If you like the idea of being able to deal damage while reducing the amount of damage the opponent will be able to deal to you and you don’t mind his only main down side of being tied for the lowest health in the game then check out Master Menelker.
Warning: I’d recommend that you do not use Menelker in friendly games against people that are new to Yomi. His discard antics can be no fun for people to deal with when they are just trying to understand what the game is even about.[/details]