I think we’re all on agreement SPD shouldn’t be on both sides.
I personally feel like it being on just Human side helps out Midori’s early game a lot and helps one of his bad matchups. (Zane)
But I do realize that having it just on Dragon side is more flavorful, but I don’t think the tool is required because his undercuts with dQ/dJ are so strong compared to other grapplers.
The issue with putting SPD on dK is that it’s just another 2 card DP for a character who struggles in his bad MUs due to having only 2 card DPs. In most cases you’d still rather glimpse a Q when you want to DP anyways. It’s giving him a buff that he doesn’t need, in an area he’s already strong.
Like, Midori has x.2 speed attacks and outside of the grappler matches it just kind of… doesn’t matter. There’s no incentive for footsies characters to reveal 5s and 6s at him over their usual 2s or 3s. So, SPD on hK does make his early game more Rook or Troq-like, but that’s not really a bad thing in my eyes. He gets a small boost to his 4s and 5s, which they could use anyway. Because his Ks and As are his only throws that preserve Dragon Form, there’s a bit more of a mindgame than against Troq/Rook too. “Am I playing against a Midori that plays his Ks in the early/mid-game, and will use only the threat of FDB to have me stop blocking when he goes into DF? Or is going to play 4/5 to punish that, and conserve Ks for DF so that he doesn’t have to power up for FDB?”
Yeah this.
I think and SPD on hK is a really helpful balance change (though I still worry about Ven).
If the price to make SPD hK a reality is also adding SPD to dK then maybe we just put it on both. As @FenixOfTheAshes says it would need Midori to drop out of dragon form to take advantage of his 4 or 5 attack in that situation. I could imagine more dJ being played as a very nasty undercut of high normals - which I also quite like tbh. I don’t necessarily see it as super game warping since dQ likely already undercuts whatever the opponent would play anyway.
I think its at least worthy of a note as “under consideration” for the time being.
But why do we need to pay a price? 
We’re making the rules here, no? It’s analogous to Gwen’s starter J or Quince’s single A - one side of the move gets an ability and the other side doesn’t. It’s not like human K is now strictly better than dragon K. It’s just different. Like human J and dragon J.
Oh I totally agree with you there. We have the power! 
Personally, I think having an SPD just on hK seems more feelbad than it actually would be in practice. Similarly, I don’t think having one on dK is really all that game breaking. So I guess I’m not too worried with either of those options.
What I don’t like is just putting it on dK. Regardless of the “rightness” of the choice, I don’t think that this change is required for balance purposes. Imo it seems pointless without also giving it to hK. Otherwise we’re just increasing the pressure on drawing 10* and 2* without giving him any new way to get those cards.
If there’s considerable lingering disagreement that doesn’t find its way to a consensus, I’m happy to add SPD for hK or hK+dK to the wiki as “under consideration” until we can test them out.
Edit: Oh and I added Gloria changes to the wiki. Also the BBB change where he gets range off of block damage instead of being blocked (good shout @FenixOfTheAshes)
All I have to say on Midori K is I’d throw a fit if dK did less than 17 damage
hashtag facts
Remember that dQ beats all normal attacks, and dJ already trades with or outright beats any normal attack played by ~15 chars in the cast. So SPD on dK doesn’t make dQ/dJ noticeably easier to land vs. normals in 15/20 mus.
MJ you have a good point on how SPD hK is more nuanced than it seems since using it early worsens Dragon Form later and it may open up his 4/5 normal in certain mus. It does unavoidably homogenize Midori’s gamplay though. I can see why the idea is appealing, but don’t see it as necessary and could go either way on it.
Regarding balance, I feel like there’s some misconceptions going around. Midori-Zane is not worse than 4-6 right now, and the stats suggest it could be even closer. Leontes has gone even vs. Zane in general and also gone even vs. Raziek. Defense Mastery and dQ go a long way against Zane. SPD on hK vs. on dK doesn’t really matter, both are about equally helpful vs. Zane (remember that Zane’s 2 is his only way to undercut dJ and combo into throw, so having dK beat Zane’s 2 matters quite a bit). The point here is that Midori does not need an SPD for balance reasons - the proposed Zane nerfs are plenty for that particular mu, Geiger doesn’t care about SPD, and BBB only cares a little bit and that mu can be more noticeably improved in other ways (like making BBB’s normals have to do block damage to set range and making Midori immune to block damage in DF).
The question here should be about flavor and gameplay - I initially brought the idea of dK beating 5.0 and faster normals up so Yomi Midori would align more closely to his FSFG counterpart, who only has a super armor throw in Dragon Form. The idea that Midori could take a hit and throw anyway as a human, but be incapable of doing so after literally turning into a dragon, is a massive flavor fail imo.
I could see SPD on dK or on hK+dK being a change worth keeping in our back pocket, but it shouldn’t be a primary change intended to solve any balance issues. It may even create one against Ven.
I disagree that making Midori immune to block damage in DF is in itself significant help against BBB. I would much rather have an extra tool to avoid range than have ranged DF turns become even more the win-lose point of the MU.
I think a big misconception here is what Midori’s problem actually is. It’s not his need for a “get off me” move, and it’s not card flow either. People are already incentivized to throw him because he has one of the best late games in Yomi, and the best among the grapplers. The problem is that Midori has no punishes. You are never that worried to throw him because even if you get poked or counterthrown it’s not that big of a deal. I think the best thing to strengthen early game blocks and therefore help his card flow indirectly would be to make his throws (and pokes) be more of a threat to encourage attacks. I think maybe the answer is making Q a 3cp move and giving Midori 4cp. Now he can get 4 card straights, throw into decent damage, even throw into Wrath of Earth! Yes that would take a greater toll on his cards if you fully capitalize, but it means that Midori gets more pop off of his human moves without actually making them stronger or more homogenous with Troq/Rook. He is already more of a hybrid grappler character so this would sort of lean into that.
Maybe not a perfect solution, but i think it gets more to the heart of things than clumsily tacking on more special moves.
A very common progression in BBB-Midori is:
Definitely helps Midori to avoid range being triggered against his DF blocks, and not taking massive block damage at range from Junkshot. The change also helps a lot vs. Geiger, which is another big benefit.
Now I’m really tired and just spitballing stuff, but turning 9 into block/dodge is probably the only buff midor8 needs. I’m not sure wh6 I didn’t th8nk of that sooner. If he really needs help against bbb maybe the answer is just to make Bbbs Q a bit slower so j can get him out of range.
Point 1 still happens, because you do not need to respect Midori who goes into Dragon Form early. So he’s still going to range against BBB in the early game.
Assuming he has DF at range, if BBB has a K, it is serious danger time for Midori. If he doesn’t attack into K, he loses DF and is still at range. So he still needs J, Q, or Joker to get out of range and maintain DF so that he doesn’t get put right back to range again the following turn.
BBB doesn’t need to K throw when they’re up close to get rid of DF. He can normal throw and then use normal attacks to get to range after that happens. He’s also a character that can attack into a throw using his 7-attack, so you can’t guarantee keeping DF by combat revealing K throw.
The only scenarios that the Dragon Form buff help him is if he is at range in DF and BBB doesn’t have a K, or he has just escaped range and has sufficient tools to defend himself from an attack/throw range. These two positions are already advantageous for Midori, right now. The DF change just makes the stakes higher.
The point I’m trying to make is that the MU doesn’t change with this buff. Midori still really needs to accumulate the right cards quickly and hope that BBB doesn’t have a K. Midori still really needs to not take too much damage or spend too many resources when he goes to range, or he risks just being put right back in. BBB doesn’t need to respect this Midori any more in the early game than before. Midori still can’t just go into Dragon Form without specific tools to avoid range, because he’s still constrained in what he can reveal while in Dragon Form. He still has to deal with a dominant speed attack attack in the mid and late game, and will be in a position where he has to play cards to avoid being thrown out of DF and into the standard BBB/Midori MU.
Nice analysis, I see I was overestimating the difference it would make. Also thanks for that RoboHeadbutt->Throw tech, I hadn’t realized that and may have use for it in the future. 
So it’s only a slight buff vs. BBB.
I think it helps vs. Geiger a lot though, which is definitely the more difficult mu to address since there are multiple ways to make BBB worse vs. Midori but we don’t want to do anything other than slightly nerf TD on Geiger’s end. Being immune to block damage in DF means Geiger can’t easily beat block/throw from Dragon Form Midori, and makes it much more difficult to checkmate Midori in general.
I spent like 20 minutes writing a big long reply but realized that maybe Midori as he currently is should be played way more like Troq and I’m pretty excited at the idea? So… I think this is wrong, but it got me really excited to try some shit in a game I’ve been playing for three or so years?
That said, the reason I think this doesn’t really solve Midori’s problems is that he (and Rook to a much lesser extent) is weak in the early game not because he doesn’t have good punishes, but because his punishes are all risky. He’s kind of like Rook that way. Rook has great punishes for early throws! 10J10, 10Q/Q+! But those plays are really weak to conservative block/attack ranges.
More CP for Midori means some spectacular damage in the mid and late game, but doesn’t significantly alter his early game. You still can’t throw into 78, because next turn you have less gas to threaten that level of punish. You still can’t 456J+ for the same reason. His straights get better, but straights take time or luck to accumulate. The dream of dJ78J+ for 40 is p sick tho.
Whether anything ever comes from this thread, I’m honestly really grateful for the opportunities it provides to discuss present day MUs! In theory we could have threads for MU discussions, but I feel like more substantive, diverse, and lively discussion happens as a result of debates about possible balance changes. I guess because the kind of change someone suggests already contains a lot of information about what they see as character weaknesses and facts about specific match-ups.
edit: Also probably because we’re a competitive bunch, and so a collaborative sharing of knowledge motivates us just a little less than sharing insights in order to correct what we perceive as errors. 
edit edit: the fastest way to learn everything a player knows about a certain character or match-up or approach to the game, is to claim something about [X] that is very wrong, and then sit back as three people write essay after essay correcting you
edit edit edit: the above is a truly deep self-burn
Ahh @mysticjuicer I see we have converted you to the way of balance discussions *sits in spinning chair stroking one of my two white cats* 
The spitballing continues! What if we reworked the “discard 10 to get 2” ability into a special block on his 9…
9* Feast Your Eyes on the Dragon (thanks @fenixoftheashes)
When you block an attack or joker with this card, take no block damage, discard this card, and don’t draw a card from blocking. Search your deck for a 2.
Obviously it’s missing “glow yellow and throw the opponent automatically” but it’s actually pretty close to the counter in FSFG. Probably just missing “slap the opponent for 4 damage and deride them for their lack of honour.”
In all seriousness a special block that avoids chip damage works against Geiger and (reworked) BBB normals. Late game it would be played more for its dodge side anyway so having a move that tapers off is probably fine.
I know special blocks are Rook’s thing so I don’t necessarily expect people to like this idea, but I saw an opportunity to instigate more correcting essays so I had to take it 
Edit: I did almost suggest that it should “fetch a 2 or face card from your deck” but then I thought about poor Gloria with that mechanic