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Does this S-Class Darkstalker have what it takes to fight in the S-Tier?
http://forums.jascogames.com/forums/showthread.php?11476-Death-aggro-mill-Duo
While his configuration of the Wombo-Duo list ended up being different from what I messed around with for a little bit, the sheer level of excitement present when we stumbled upon the combo was infectious.I couldn't sleep as I built, tuned, hated, dismantled, and rebuilt decks all night long. I haven't had that much fun simply pulling cards out of my storage box for ages.
For those of you who only looked at the decklist, here's the trick.
1) Have Hakkesshu of Death in play
2) Poke with Etoile/Nivose (Which they will probably block) or Wings and Claws the card into your pool (as adding the Reversal is the COST of the ability).
3) Follow up with Mistral or Finale Rosso. Activate any E's you might want to activate (such as Duo's Mill E), then combo your attack and add itself to your momentum, aborting the attack.
4) Play another mistral or Finale Rosso, enhance with Hakkesshu of Death, picking up your first Mistral/Rosso. Activate any E's, combo the attack into your momentum.
5) Repeat the process until you run out of life to pay.
This trick is really coo!. In Duo you can theoretically mill them for a bucket of cards should the game go long and win, but I had two problems with the deck.
1) You're playing a Death deck, and Death is kinda doody right now. You lack any sort of meaningful interaction on the board, particularly against Ever Hopeful, and against large game ending attacks like Trinity Geyser or Shiranui-Ryuu: Kunoichi-no-Mai.
2) Even if you combo-off you're not guaranteed to win the game. Yeah, you can count your opponents deck and do a bunch of math, but you're still at the mercy of Duo's enhance eating enough cards. If you're devoting this many deck slots to a combo you should pretty much win the game within a few iterations of the loop.
So, presented with these problems, I wanted to construct a deck that
1) Packed more interaction, both offensively and defensively.
2) Won the game reliably should I combo off.
I don't know if I've succeeded, but this is what I've come up with and it's pretty damn fun to play.
1 Jedah
3 Felicity House
1 Swarm of Bats
3 Etoile-Filante
4 Finale Rosso
1 Mistral
3 Tornado Kick
4 Nero=Fatica
2 Kersplatt
2 Spreggio
2 Unquestionable Loyalty
2 Ever Hopeful
1 Out of Control Giant
3 Hakkesshu of Death
3 Celestial Being
3 Stunning New Look
4 Caught Red Handed
4 Balanced Fighter
4 Ophidiphobia
3 Wings and Claws
3 Improved Design
2 To Cleanse All Souls
2 Second Chance
4 Muay Thai Prodigy
4 Designed for Combat
3 Short Fuse
Now, whenever I usually play a combo deck I don't want to be hovering upwards of 70 cards, but Jedah is more of a grindy-control deck that just happens to try to be assembling an “oops, I win” button as the game goes long. Let's take a look at the loop now that we're fronting Jedah.
1) Have Hakkesshu of Death in play
2) Poke with Etoile and hope they block (usually via pitching a momentum to it) or Wings and Claws it into your card pool.
3) Finale Rosso/Mistral. Jedah enhance to put a card into their card pool. If you have an Improved Design in play you can also get an activation. Combo Rosso/Mistral.
1. Cool side note here: If you don't have a Tornado Kick in hand you can do iterations of the combo until you control check one and add it to your hand with Improved Design.
4) Other Rosso/Mistral, pull back first Rosso/Mistral. Repeat the process.
5) Tornado Kick the opponent, or play all your Nero=Faticas for freeeeeeeee.
“But Arch!” you exclaim. “You're a base water deck and you need an off symbol death card to combo!”
That's where Felicity House comes in. When you are playing a “normal game” of UFS Felicity House not only cheats an extra card into your staging area, allowing you instant access to Ever Hopeful/Unquestionable Loyalty, it also grabs back random blocks from your momentum allowing it to function as defensive card advantage which Jedah sorely lacks. And when you're comboing off and the opponent bounces your Hakkesshu of Death? Cheat it back into play with Felicity House and keep going.
What I like about this deck is that even though you have a bunch of combo pieces, they all contribute value if you're just playing a fair game. Both Hakkesshu of Death and Wings and Claws, in Conjunction with Jedah's response and Felicity House, help your hand stocked with defensive options. Finale Rosso and Nero Fatica are respectable attacks in their own right. Mistral is really the only attack that doesn't serve a super useful auxiliary function outside of comboing but I wanted one more piece of redundancy for assembling the combo and having a cheap attack can help you get that last card you need into their pool if you're going for a Tornado Kick the hard way. It might even be correct to play 3 Finale Rosso and 2 Mistral, just to shave down the difficulty cost of doing iterations of the loop.
Do I think this deck is tier 1? Probably not. The competitive format is super hostile to decks trying to do cute things like this. Do I think being able to say “Hey, look what I can do!” then putting 10 cards into the opponent's pool and T-Kicking them for a bajillionty is sweet? You're damn right I do.
Darkstalkers is owned by Capcom
The Universal Fighting System is owned by Jasco Games
Cover art owned by Capcom
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