Talk me into playing your main

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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Here’s everyone’s favourites: updates!

Menelker: damn he’s fun. I’ve got the newbie’s tournament coming up, and I’d love to play him there, but I’d hate to ruin someone’s party.
AAAA is even cooler than Grave’s AAA because of added damage, because it’s either a 55 damage throw or an up to 44 damage attack, and because Into Oblivion on a Joker is something that exists. Since it’s easy to threaten good damage off a combo with Menelker, the opponent is pressed to use their Joker, if they have one, and even if they try and save it for DSD, Bonecracker is a damn good ability, on a great throw nonetheless (I’d expect that on a much slower throw, if anything). Also, whose idea was it to make Dragon Breath an ender with 2 CPs? TPoS is a 3 cards 45 damage hit and dodge confirm, but AAAA can be a 44 damage hit/throw confirm or a 55 dodge confirm.
The footsies are also really good on this guy: being able to recycle a 0.0 DP which lets you draw a card and make the opponent discard one (in terms of card advantage, you go card even, but the opponent goes in -2), while threatening at the same time a Bonecracker throw. If you can’t be bothered to gather all 4 aces, you can also threaten an early/mid game dodge confirm into Dragon Breath.
I also stand by my theory that every card, even the weakest of the normals still looks like a lot of fun.
The main problem I had with Menelker is that the character guide on these forums is a bit hard to read. I’ll definitely try to hone my Menelker in the future.

Troq: I’ve played around 10 games with him, enough to know what I feel towards his playstyle. I definitely enjoyed playing Troq, as it always is with characters that have some kind of hype card (Beast Unleashed, in Troq’s case). Although this isn’t as strong as many other tonsofdamage plays, mainly because it’s much slower to build it, it’s still a great threat to the opponent.
Hype aside, however, the rest of Troq doesn’t really appeal to me. The normals are… normals. I enjoy having dodges on my grappler, but I always feel bad when I end up using my 10 as a dodge because of War Stomp, and at the same time I feel bad using it as War Stomp because of the dodge. I also feel strongly about Troq having only 3 CPs. With an additional CP I would have had to at least take into consideration longer straights, instead of simply dismissing them most of the times because it’s better to use the worst cards as blocks instead of worrying about interrupting a 4 hits straight.
If anything, this makes it a bit more ambiguous on the opponent whether I’m going to attempt a mixup on KD.
And, finally, his face cards. IMHO, they are pretty bland. J and K serve almost the same purpose, with J dealing less damage and not working on shields, but having more priority against attacks, while K is more damaging but also more risky. Typical risk/reward balance. Q goes mostly unnoticed: it’s a slow DP that Troq definitely needed, but losing to every other DP, and even when it lands it’s just 9 damage, nothing incredibly strong. It’s not even going to catch many throws because who challenges a grappler with throws?
TL;DR: I played Troq. I mildly enjoyed Troq. I don’t feel appealed to play more Troq. Troq throw u.

Geiger: I mildly enjoyed Geiger too. I must be honest: I believe I played him VERY suboptimally. It always felt like I was leaving something out or I missed a great opportunity to do something else. Either way, in my first game I managed to bring it back from just 8 HPs left against 40 something, and managed to close it with my very first Time Distorsion combo.
I LOVED using R&D and basically searching through my deck for what I needed, while also setting up the next turns (and if I didn’t like what I had for the following turn, just powering up for aces would shuffle my deck). I also enjoy a lot, conceptually, Time Distorsion, although I haven’t been able to manage my hand well enough to use it properly.
On the other hand, it might have been my fault, but some times I felt like the first turns just didn’t manage to work out. I happened to draw into basically no time spirals, and thus making both R&D and TD useless in my hand while also not being able to use them freely because I’d need them later on to make it back. The only out I had to that situation, other than trying to play my best footsies with normals, blocking as much as possible and trying to catch throws, was powering up for aces and use them to fuel R&D to improve my hand.
I don’t know if I was unlucky or if Geiger is this susceptible to his starting hand.
I might try him out again when I get a bit better at the game (and maybe after getting a lot of experience against him), but as of now it left me not wanting more.

Quince: Quince was a revelation to me. As a Rook main in FS (which, for who doesn’t know, is a vortex character), playing Quince felt very similar to me. It’s not easy to get the first damage in, but once you get your first Positive Spin it’s time to vortex the hell out of the opponent. Also, isn’t Two Truths OP?
About JQK: J is a great card, with a fast damaging attack on one side and a dodge on the other (it’s like a 2 with 9 damage on the attack), Q is a strong but slow throw (that doesn’t KD) and a weaker pilebunker, while K is a dodge and a quite weak throw. Making those, overall, underwhelming cards really strong thanks to Positive Spin feels very cool to me.
Flagstone Tax, on the other hand, feels like a more powerful Troublesome Rethoric. You can setup low risk high reward situations with it and positive spin, and I personally used it to recover a completely lost game by calling attack AND dodging.
Patriot Mirror is good, nothing to say here. The block damage makes it relatively easy to use the ability, and if it hits the mixup you are setting up is really strong.
I didn’t play many games with him because I realized it might have taken me some time to understand fully how to use him (though he looks less complicated than I thought at first) and I wanted to move on with my games. However, I’ll definitely try him out again when I’m done with all the characters and see what he’s capable of.

Argagarg: all of my fears revealed to be true here. I found the games with Argagarg more or less easy to play, but quite boring. I don’t know what the real MU is for Arg vs. grapplers, but I had a pretty easy time both vs Rook and Troq, but it might have been luck.
I played one game in which I was getting DESTROYED by this Rook, with like 4 HPs left while he had 87. I managed to turn that around because I stocked up on Crash and Flow, making it more or less safe to attack him and keep his throws in check. The only thing I was scared of was Rook Armor and with no handy way to land a KD off an attack that was a good reason to be scared. I had to test my luck with blocking when I thought he was going with RA, and I luckily got all of them right.
This was the most tense game I played with Arg, and even then it felt a bit underwhelming. I’m glad I got to understand how he works, but that’s probably it for me.

Jaina: I’ve got mixed feelings about her, TBH. I’m sure there’s something about her playstyle I haven’t fully grasped yet, but at the same time she seems straightforward.
I like Burning Vigor (especially in order to fetch more K and not having to worry about attacking with your dodges), I love Unstable Power and I enjoy burning my opponent to death with Smoldering Embers, with which I managed a checkmate in my very first game with her.
There’s really nothing bad I can say about her (maybe that her Q is 0.2 instead of 0.0, which would have fit the character better, IMHO), but I also don’t have especially kind words for her. Heck, I even pulled a A+++ play, but I didn’t feel anything special. I think she might sit out of my games for a while.

Because of the short time span for which I’ve played each of those characters, I might have gotten the wrong impression on any of them, but this at least serves as a starting point.

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Menelker only gets one pump on his aces so it’s a maximum of 22 damage hit confirm. I would also prioritize your own fun over other’s, so if you like him go for it.

Troq is bland but powerful, so I can understand not getting attached. J is more like a weaker Q than it is like K.

Geiger’s early game can definitely vary depending on his draw, but it usually works out since his hands with spirals protect his hands without spirals. One trick to TD is that almost any hand with two aces is a pretty good TD hand, so you can always power up->play TD.

Two truths is indeed OP. Flagstone Tax is not as good as Troublesome Rhetoric, Troublesome Rhetoric is quite good.

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I don’t know how I got the Dragon Breath wrong (I’d also have sweared I had played A+++ once, but I must be wrong).

What I meant with Flagstone Tax is that if Quince had Troublesome Rhetoric instead, it’d be a worse fit for his playstyle.

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Nah, as Quince I’d love to have Troublesome Rhetoric. You can use it to set up win-win scenarios really effectively, where calling out a Positive Spin option gets them basically nothing. Like, K-spin backed by TR on throws when you’re trying to whittle Quince down would be just miserable for the opponent, really strong stall tactic.

That said, Quince is card-starved whereas DeGrey is fine going low on cards, so it’s not a perfect tradeoff, but in lategame situations I’d absolutely rather have the option to go “you can choose to lose combat or to hit me for incredibly low damage” with the option to call them out.

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Right. Lifegain is stronger than cards on average because it’s value now, as opposed to the potential of getting value later. In lategame situations specifically Quince could die with a hand full of cards, Tax does nothing for you there. The opponent gets to choose if they think the card-life tradeoff you get is worth it for them. Whereas TR could essentially set up no-win situations for the opponent.

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