Welcome back to another installment of Character "Gems" Corner, today we will be talking about a character that I when I saw that UFS got the KOF 2006 License I was hoping would be released, 4 set later we finaly get her.  Who is this character I speak of?  That would be Yuri Sakizaki, the Kyokugen Karate Chick, one of the most popular characters in the KOF/Art of Fighting Series.  The only disappointment I had when I first saw her release... was that she didn't do anything new compared to characters that were released before her time.  Add in the fact that she has an unusual symbol spread, including a resource that makes absolutely no sense with her or with her abilities, and you have a very hard character to build around.  Lets start by taking a look at the character:



Well first thing that hits us is the sub-optimal stats of a 6 hand size with 24 vitality, now back in the old school days of legacy this was your average character for a 6 hand size, but nowadays this is a horrible hand-to-vitality ratio, why would you want to play a character with that low vitality?  We'll get to that later on as I discuss her abilities.  The Symbol spread is very unique in its own respects, she is an [Earth], [Life] and [Water] Character.  Water gives her a good amount of reversals and card pool clearing abilities, as well as in recent sets a decent amount of direct and indirect card draw to help maintain a good hand size against opponents.  Life gives her vitality gain and speed boost shenanigans that will be very sorely needed for her to live through huge damage attacks late game or even a string of attacks.  Earth??? WTF??? ok besides the fact that this symbol makes more sense with her brother... and why she has it is beyond me... makes no sense with her character in the video game or her play style in UFS but I digress, this symbol gives her good damage pumps and some general damage redux to help her live longer.

Onto her Abilities, her first ability is not really new to the game but with some of the newer support becomes very interesting, "E:  Your attack gets +X damage.  X equals the number of resources your attack shares with your character."  Now as with most characters this means if you run your characters support attacks they are getting +3 damage, not only that but as most of us did in legacy she would run Clones and No One's Gonna Ever Keep you Down(No Eggs) and named Fire for No Eggs and named Life for clones to make Clones a 3M9 attack for only... 3 Difficulty.. WTF!!! yes it was always fun to throw those on your opponent very early in the game to bait out blocks.  Now with the Assets of Power and cards like Needs No Ally this ability can almost always give at least +2 damage to any of your attacks.  Her other ability isnt groundbreaking when you first see it but it does have a very annoying use(for your opponent), "E:  Commit:  Until your next ready phase, your have no maximum vitality."  Yes that is correct, she went from a 6 hand 24 to a 6 hand Infinity, well not really but with enough life gain I have seen on her opponents turn her live through attacks like Moonbeam Slicer and Fully multied Feline Spikes due to ridiculous Life Gain, only for her on her next turn to drop back down to 24 vitality but the ability is meant to be that panic button ability only to be used sparingly to save your life.  It takes the right person knowing when to use that ability to make her a very versatile character.

Now the burning question is how would you make her and with what symbol, well lets look at how most people have been playing her recently.  My first build of her was centered around her damage pump ability only, and it went very well until I ran into a reversal ::Lizardman::(stacking Promo Lizardman) deck that made sure he never took damage from any of my attacks, and well outside of the one fluke win that I milled him out on it didnt work very well, but what I found from playing her that day, she is a VERY easy character to build around the first ability.  The second build of her I had built around her Second ability mainly for our Life Patch tourny, and lets just put it this way... never and I MEAN NEVER build soley around that second ability without having a back up plan (and 2-3 Inner Circle that I didn't own at the time) because all that life gain does nothing for ya if the attacks are coming at you on your OWN turn and then again on Their Turn.  The Final time I built her was for the SEC Regionals and... well... I found out how prior to the official release of Set 12 that Life just didn't have the fire power to handle characters like Fio and Seung Mina3 or any form of "turbo-loop" decks outside of cards like Tough Outer Shell to stop the Defender Loops, but most of those decks main decked 4 Seals of Cessation AND/OR Blood Runs True to make sure you never get a use out of TOS... That being said I have played her off Earth, Life, Water, Tri Symbol and Earth, Life[the SEC deck] and of those builds I've found her off Water with MAYBE a splash of Earth in it to be the most effective method of beats you can have with her, so I shall attempt to unlock her full potential, (keeping in budget of course)

Character:  Yuri Sakizaki

Actions(4)
Teih Leih, "Iron Thunder" x4 [Earth, Life, Water]  +1H

Assets(3)
Inner Circle x3 [Earth, Life, Water]  2/4  Unique  +2M

Attacks(24)
Big Cyclone x3 [Earth, Water]  7/2  4M10  Ranged  +1H
Chi Disrupter x3 [Life, Water]  4/3  2M5  Reversal  +2M
High Plasma Beam x4 [Earth, Water]  4/3  3H3  Ranged  +1H
Leaping Snap Kick x3 [Life, Water]  3/3  3H3  Reversal  Kick  +1M
Yi Shan's Dragon Tail Sweep x4 [Earth, Life, Water]  3/3  3L3  Kick  +2L
Yi Shan's Spinning Backfist x3 [Earth, Life, Water]  4/3  3M4  +1M
Yi Shan's Tiger Claw x4 [Earth, Life, Water]  4/3  3H5  Stun: 1  +3H

Foundations(36)
The Gorgeous Team x4 [Life, Water]  3/4  +3H[B: 1]
A Means of Self-Defense x4 [Life, Water]  2/5  +2M
Altered Mind and Body x4 [Earth, Water]  1/5  +1M
The Bigger they Are... x4 [Water]  2/4  +3M
Battle Prowess x4 [Earth, Life, Water]  1/4
Chinese Boxing x4 [Water]  3/4  +3M
Familial Loyalty x4[Water]  2/5  +2M
Rapid Ares Style x4 [Water]  2/5  +1M
Soul of Ling-Sheng Su x4 [Water]  2/6  +2H


Sideboard
Tag Along x4 [Earth, Water]  5/4
Come Through in the Clinch x4 [Earth, Water]  3/5  +3H


To explain why I chose the cards I did lets look first at the only Action I chose to main deck, Iron Thunder was chosen in case of heavy discard in your meta and can reek havoc on your opponent's the other good thing going for this card is giving +1/+2 to your attack as an enhance.  For the Assets I only chose her character specific Asset in Inner Circle, this card has 2 very good abilities, the first one allows you to gain 2-3 vitality as a form as a last resort ability, the other one is by commiting 4 foundations and destroying the asset you get a damage bonus equal to the difference between your current vitality and your printed vitality(so this works whether above or bellow your printed vitality), good for if you went on a vite gain rush or if you got your butt handed to you and are going to go for the kill on this turn, also nice to use on a Reversal on your opponent's turn as they will most of the time not expect it.

The Attacks I chose were varying in use, first I chose Big Cyclone for tech against cards like Bitter Rivals and all other discard techs, the downside to the card is the 2cc but with only 3 in a 67 card deck the odds of checking them are VERY low.  Chi Disruptor was chosen to as the title says "disrupt" your opponents turn by not clogging your card pool up to throw it as a reversal, as it can be played as a reversal immediately after blocking an attack, nice if I do say so myself.  High Plasma Beam or FWEEEM as most say is a staple in most decks that can run it as it gets bigger and bigger as the later it gets played during the turn.  Leaping Snap kick is a general purpose Reversal and at 3 difficulty with a 3 cc it is an amazing card.  All 3 of Yi-Shan's support attacks can add themselves to the momentum face up, and while face up they do amazing things, Tiger Claw adds it's "Stun: 1" to any attack you play while face up; Spinning Backfist by discarding a momentum effectively removes all keyword abilities from an attack that was played by reducing their ratings to 0; Dragon Sweep can add another attack from your card pool to your momentum just in case you need the clear card pool/extra momentum.

Foundation Base was a general water lineup:  The Gorgeous Team comes in the Mai Starter deck alongside rejections(remember these go in your binder for now) and should be easy to get if you have the right channels, this card as you are a Female character will loop any non-attack from your discard pile back to your hand to use later, so if you blew up Inner Circle too early pick it back up and use it as a block or play it again.  A means of Self Defense keeps your opponent's options limited by forcing them to destroy one of their foundations.  Altered Mind and Body allows through its static and its Form you to gain anywhere between 2(when 1 is out) and 8(when 4 are out) vitality a turn, with Yuri commited through her ability that makes her a 6/32 if she didn't take any damage.  The Bigger they Are... against most characters nets you 2 cards apiece for each you use.  Battle Prowess, what's left to say about this card its an amazing card, even if it does have a 4cc and no block.  Chinese Boxing is a Staple in every deck that can and SHOULD run it as it limits your opponent's options on their upcoming turn by locking down key foundations, also has an ability that gives you momentum if you wish.  Rapid Ares Style, boosts your block checks and helps make blocking a cinch even if the attack your blocking is 10+ speed.  The last card is Soul of Ling-Sheng Su which is amazing as it helps guarantee your Checks and rolls a 6, the block is just gravy on an amazing card.  I also when prepping this deck to test chose to put in Familial Loyalty for 2 reasons, one to kill your opponents hand if you have enough cards to expend from your hand on their turn, two the ability to re-fill your hand as you are attacking your opponent and the ability to make Fweem that much bigger is also a nice thing.

For the Sideboard I chose 1 Very Popular card and 1 that a LOT of people overlook.  The first is Tag Along, which despite its less than attractive stats and a lack of a block, is amazing as it has 2 very good uses, one is its form which lets you fetch back any card from your discard pile to your hand, amazing if you checked your kill attack or a key foundation to set up for next turn.  The Second ability negates any character ability that your opponent plays prevents it from being played for the rest of this turn, very helpful against Zi Mei and Akuma.  The other card is Come Through in the Clinch, why is this card so good... its stats it's a 3/5 with a +3H block the exact same stats as the now Banned Rejection, but with a VERY Similar ability that is not as broken, it allows you to reduce an attack down to 1 damage as long as that attacks current damage would KO you, a very good card to pack indeed, the ONLY reason it's sideboarded is the 3 difficulty, it can be added at will if one wishes to try it.  Well thank you for looking again, hopefully this will encourage more people to play a very underused character, until next time this is Nathan "NJBrock22" Spade, signing off...

Welcome back everyone to another installment of Character "Gems" Corner, today I have an unusual one for you folks to view today, this character was released back in set 9 alongside her fellow "Doll" and was considered a very high tier character for the Life patch tournies but after that was never played very competitively, who is this you ask?  Juli** of course.  Why is she played less nowadays mainly because of her hand/vitality ratio?, her abilities are sub-par?, her symbol spread is best used on a different character?  maybe all 3 but I will try to help everyone through why this character can be played and will probably be a force to be reckoned with.  Before we get too far let us take a look at the character in question:



A 6 hand size and 25 vitality isn't really very high when on average its anywhere from 27-30 with a 6 hander but she isn't terrible either.  Her Symbol spread of [All], [Life] and [Order] is an amazing spread when it comes to how you wish to play a character.  With All you have a wide variety of good life gain cards, good speed attacks and general board control.  Life you have Life gain, good speed pumps, some card draw and some momentum generation.  Order, well it's Order, what does it NOT have, outside of selective card destruction that's about it's only weakness, but when it can commit what it wants when it wants *see Megalomania & Experienced Combatant* who needs to destroy cards.

The Abilities are where she shines best, they complement each other so well that she saw some success when she was first released, but dried up for some reason, let us look deep at these abilities.  First ability reads as follows:  "E: Commit 1 other card in your staging area:  Gain X vitality.  X equals the difficulty of the commited card."  Amazing ability if you have 2-3 difficulty foundations mainly in your deck, add in the fact you can commit high difficulty Assets that you may have played and you're in business, being able to recover during your opponents attacks and yours by just commiting cards is always a plus.  The other ability reads as follows:  "E:  Commit:  Once per turn, your attack gets +X Speed.  X equals the difference between the amount of vitality you started with this turn and your current vitality(min 0)."  Wow... just WOW... a VERY good ability in legacy [Deceptive Look anyone?], this ability single handedly turns any low speed high damage attack (or powerful attack, ie Midnight Pleasure) into a fatal speed attack in no time if timed just right.  What makes it very good is it says DIFFERENCE between the amounts, Vitality minus current or Current minus Vitality, this is hugely important as it makes for very fun combos when timed right.

Let us look at some ways you can play her; a combo that was exploited late last mainly abusing her second ability was as follows:  a combo of Admiration plus her E: commit plus Chaos Flare; the situation was start at full vitality, use the E on chaos flare to go down to 1 vitality, and let your next attack have +24 damage if Flare dealt damage, also enhance with Admiration to go back to full(Speed minus printed is the vitality you pumped into it, this was done in case of certain abilities that could still half block an attack or allow reversals/Blood of the Innocent), and follow up with any throw most of the time Widow Maker, which unless it was Rejectioned(pre banning)... was always fatal damage.  Another way to play her is general life gain control, where you just hide behind a wall of life gain and rejection/TGT and wait for the right opening after your opponent over extends trying to kill you, this would mainly be done off of All/Order more than Life/Order or tri-symbol.  I will now try to build her to the best of my ability and attempt to stay on budget with her, though most of her cards are cheap now:

Character:  Juli2

Actions(7)
Death Cross Dancing x3 [All, Life, Order]  1/6  +2M
Kung Fu Training x4 [All, Life]  2/5  +1M

Assets(0)

Attacks(23)
Alaraph Achernar x4 [All]  5/3  3M5  Combo[Low] +2L
Dash Low x4 [All]  4/3  3L4  +2H
Double Cyclone Punch x4 [All, Order]  4/3  3L4  Ranged  +2L
Juli Spin Drive Smasher x4 [All, Life, Order]  5/3  3L5  +2H
Pommel Smash x4 [All, Order]  3/3  2H1  Stun: 1
Sniping Arrow x3 [All, Life, Order]  7/3  4H7  +3L

Foundations(34)
Admiration x4 [All, Life]  2/5
Commitment to Excellence x4 [All]  2/6  +1L
Completely Dominated x3 [All, Life, Order]  3/5  +1M
Criminal Past x3 [All]  3/5
Fight or Flight x4 [All]  2/4  +2M
The Gorgeous Team x3 [Life] 3/4  +2H
Return to Southtown x4 [All]  1/6  +0H
Trapped in a Nightmare x4 [All]  2/5  +3H
Tough Outer Shell x3 [All, Life]  4/5  +2M

Sideboard(8)
Lesser of Many Evils x4 [All]  2/5
Will for the Fight x4 [Life]  2/5  +3M

Now the reasons for what I chose:  The actions I went very slim on, I didn't even chose ANY assets the actions were 3x Death Cross Dancing and 4x KFT, DCD I chose because it is a fairly easy to get Rare and can in conjunction with cards like Admiration and any attack be able to give that bonus a second time to another attack or the same attack through it, it's also a 6 check with a good block.  Kung Fu is for any annoying actions your opponent decides to play to mess with your game, cards like Master's Challenge come to mind.  No assets were chosen because I couldn't find any common or uncommon to really fit into place, you can find Seals of Cessation or Seal of Structure if you really want to put something in there.

Attacks, I chose a basic lineup for All. Mostly Low attacks to help with Alaraph's Combo Enhance and help keep a card advantage over your opponent.  Pommel Smash is in there because it simply has the stats and abilities of hey, you're going to have 2 cards commited by this attack, one of YOUR choice and one of MY choice, always a nice attack to play.  There is a one two punch in the deck for trying to finish off your opponent, either going Spin Drive Smasher into Sniping Arrow or try to make Cyclone Punch high enough damage, or sit and chip away at your opponent's life until you have the opening to send through a seemingly unprotected attack to kill them.

Foundations, Tough Outer shell was chosen because it has 3 very good uses, well 4, it has a good block; it has 4 difficulty which does very well with Juli's first enhance; it has a Form that SHUTS DOWN Defender Loop decks which is probably gonna get negated by Seal of Cessation but that's not the point; and it has an ability that if you are a [Life] Character you get to discard a card and after taking damage gain vitality equal to the discarded card's difficulty.  You got an extra Sniping Arrow in your hand you really aren't gonna play yet, sure discard it you took 3 damage,  from that attack, ok I gain 7 now, thank you.  Criminal Past stares down huge speed attacks and says, ok I block it now, what are you gonna do, it doesn't deal with unblockables but it doesn't have to... Completely Dominated, this card was thrown in here for flavor and being able to let you chain over to Gorgeous Team when necessary, it also allows a nice bit of life gain if you give any speed pumps.  Fight or Flight is simple anti multiple or stick this baby on that Sniping Arrow for 4H14 staring at your opponent, nice.

Sideboard, Lesser Of Many Evils for annoying response wars that you do not wish to get into, and the Will for the Fight is there for anti-discard tech and will hopefully keep your hand full durring your opponents turn should you fail to kill him quickly.  This has been another edition of Character "Gems" Corner, thank you for reading and remember, SUPPORT LEGACY and Support UFS.

*note to brian, this is the real one*

Welcome my friends to another installment of NJ's Character "Gems" Corner, today we will talk about a character that was released only to those that trade well or buy a Box of Soul Calibur IV Starters that character is Cassandra6(as I call it), now this character is very intriguing for her 2 abilities and very very unusual symbol spread when you take into account her symbols from previous sets.  In the early part of this game she had two symbols in common at all times and that was [Void] and [Life], when Higher Calibur came out she was switched to [Life] and [Good] and moved away from the discard and speed mechanic they originaly gave her for a more draw and speed base.  Now we have a new version for us to play with so without further addue here she is:




So we are back almost to square one in the old days, she is a 7 hand size 20 vitality character, which is still not too bad as it is a little above what other 7 handers have in the current meta, and a very good symbol spread in [Fire], [Life], and [Void].  The three symbol choices for her give you many different options on how to build her for both legacy and standard play.  Let us look at the advantages of each symbol for her in each environment of play.

First we have Fire, in standard format Fire is a Symbol that is starting to turn into a wild card symbol, it has been thrown on many good cards that just... well... have another top tier symbol on it [Evil], [Death] or [Order], with the most recient release of set 12 this is starting to change as we are seeing a lot of support for Fire coming out and giving Fire a huge push back to it's block 1 status as amazing.  Fire is most noted for its sometimes EXTREME damage pumps, usualy now through Ragnar and Hilde's sets as they give nice damage pumps for either a little life(in ragnar's case) or at the cost of the attack having its damage been reduced(Hilde's case) but having a speed pump to make it worth it(Hilde's case).  Fire in Legacy was a hybrid of both Speed and Damage pumps which is mostly seen in the early days through Misturugi's support, it's main weakness is that it has to fall back on other symbols from time to time due to a lack of ways to counter PURE Control.

Life in the standard environment prior to set 12 was considered a low tier symbol with only a few good things going for it, mostly life gain and ridiculous speed pumps.  Post set 12 release, it has almost everything it needs to once again start swinging blow for blow with the big boys, the addition of cards from Tira, Lu Chen and Yi Shan's sets have made Life once again a contenter.  Legacy you have many good choices of cards from defensive cards like Idylic Kamui Kotan to set up cards like Widow Maker to Killer cards like Elleyu Kamui Risse, Midnight Pleasure and Sophitia's Guardian Judgement.  The main weakness for Life is that it seemingly has no goal and the other symbols with which it shares on a card are usually superior, key word usually.

Void is the strongest contender of the 3 symbols as it has seemingly kept true to its routes through the times of the game, it started out early as a discard and general control symbol.  To this day it still is a control and discard symbol.  Some would ask what is the advantage and disadvantage of this symbol.  It still has very little support going for it compared to the other symbols, and as with Life and Fire it usually shares symbols with either Death, Evil or Order and is usually outshined by those 3 symbols.  'What does this symbol have that others don't have?' that is a good question the answer may be that this symbol can dual or even tri symbol better than Death, Evil or Order sometimes can as a versitility issue can come up with Evil, Death or Order's kill turns may be stopped short by off-symboling.

Let us look into her 2 abilities before we get too far down into this lesson:  The first ability is a simple one:  "E:  Reveal an attack from your hand:  Your attack gets +X Speed.  X equals the block modifier of your attack.  You may instead discard the revealed card to give your attack +X damage."  Well this is an amazing ability in a way a re-print of Unrequitted Love but better.  This ability gives you the versatility to attack at will against your opponent, usually getting rid of attacks you do not feel like playing or by pumping your attack up to speed that they have to block it.  You can use that as a mind game, Play an attack, reveal an attack with a nasty enhance of "if the previous attack dealt damage blah blah blah" and you can scare your opponent into blocking the attack only to play an attack from your hand that has "If the previous attack in your card pool was blocked..." it can be used as a very good mind game against your opponent, always keep them guessing.  You can also discard that card if you do not want it at the time your attacking them in hopes of drawing a better attack later if you wish to, or if your opponent has shown no possibility of blocking you can discard your attacks to really put on the hurt and maybe finish them off in only one turn of attacking.

The Second ability while it looks useless can actually become quite tech.  "E:  Commit:  If this attack deals damage, each player discards 1 card."  At first glance that ability looks utterly useless, but after second glance and seeing her symbol spread, people have overlooked one very important card in the game that in standard play can make that ability outright dumb, that card is Neferious Deeds, as it by commiting one foundation can ready her just to use that abiltiy a second time, or even a 3rd or 4th time this turn if you can time them right, and do I need to mention this ability can be used on your opponent's turn just to help speed up the possible kill on your opponent's turn.  Void also, especially in legacy, has a lot of card draw shennanigans that it can pull and help make it to where you discarding cards can at one point seem painless for you but outright frustrating for your opponent.

Now that we've looked at the 3 symbols and her abilities, how are we gonna build this character, well I could just make her mono-void, but that would be too bland for me, I personally have made her Fire/Life legacy for my tourny play and she has been amazing, so I think we will try something a bit different here, she is gonna be to my best attempts and trying to keep in budget a Tri-Symbol deck.

    Character:  Cassy6 [Fire, Life, Void]

Actions(4)
Neferious Deeds x4 [Fire]  2/5  +2H

Assets(6)
Hualin's Shop x3 [Infinity]  3/6  +0L
Ready for Anything x3 [Fire]  4/3  +3L

Attacks(20)
Aleraph Achernar x4 [Void]  5/3  3M5  Combo: Low  +2L
Lynx Tail x4 [Fire, Void]  4/3  3L4  +2H[B: 1]
Razor's Bite x4 [Life, Void]  3/3  4L2  +2M
Reaping Hook x4 [Void]  5/3  3L5  +2L
Shadow Exit x4 [Void]  4/3  2H4  +3H

Foundations(40)
A Means of Self-Defense x4 [Life]  2/5  +2M
Chain of Command [Void] x4  3/4  +3H
Distractible x4 [Life]  2/5
Genius Alchemist x4 [Life, Void]  2/5
Journy of Repentance x4 [Life]  2/4
Kyokugen Karate x4 [Life]  2/5  +0H
Prominent Noblewoman x4 [Life, Void]  2/5
Researching the Past x4 [Life, Void]  2/4
The Glare from the Abyss x4  [Void]  1/6  +3M

Sideboard(8)
Willful x4  [Fire]  2/5  +2H
Bounce Back x4 [Fire, Life]  2/5  +2M


A Simple deck at first glance but I know a lot are going to ask me "Why are you running so few blocks???"  Well in the imortal words of Steve Horvath "This is a fighting game not a game of who can get the bigger board first" and as he said there will be less and less good foundations with blocks getting printed on them so we have to make due with what we have from here on out.  First I chose the Neferious Deeds as the only action to main in the deck for its simple tech abilities and it can help you keep yourself ready in a pinch, or re-ready cards like Bitter Rivals and other cards if they get tapped down by your opponent.  The Asset choices were for simple reasons.  Ready for Anything is such an overlooked card that people just see the 3cc and go... NO!!! me on the other hand I recognize 2 very good abilites on it, the first one you probably won't use much but the second one most people will be able to, since she is a [Fire] character you can commit it and a foundation to get 2 cards to your hand, remember you're constantly discarding into your ability if you're going on a damage rush, every card in your hand helps.  The other asset I chose is Hualin's shop, this very good promo asset is amazing for Dual and Tri-symbol decks as it makes chaining virtually flawless, by blowing it up as a form you can name 2 symbols that are on your character and make your cards have at least 1 of those symbols have BOTH of those symbols, so those sometimes 'broke chains' now become a complete resource chain and help you to build that much quicker.

Next we have the attacks, I chose void for this chain due to the fact it has some nice attacks going for it now, Lynx Tail and Reaping Hook don't need any explaining, A. A. on the other hand has a nice ability on it to allow you to draw 2 cards with it's combo E, and if you don't like either of them you can discard one and draw another card with the other e, so it's not a bad card, the only drawback is you are usually checking against 6 difficulty minimum at times unless you have the right pieces in play.  Razor's Bite I chose because it's like having Glimpse of Fate in play for you and it gives you knowledge of what you need to play for the rest of this turn, 4 speed should be good enough for you to have it deal damage.  Shadow Exit can lock down problem enhances in your opponent's staging area (Gorgeous Team anyone?), and has nice base stats.

The Foundation choices are spread out from general control to combo help.  Distractible is in for damage reduction abilites, whereas Kyokugen Karate is in there for the ability to RFG your attack that you discarded for your enhance to double it's effectiveness, very usefull on your kill turn.  A Means of Self Defense is in there to help clear your opponent's board on their turn and hopefully keep you one step ahead of your opponent.  Journey of Repentance is in there for anti Olcadon's tech, Prominent Noblewoman(or THE HORSE!! as we call it) is in there for to say no to life gain.  Chain of Command is a card to help losen your opponent's grip on their hand by killing it durring their turn due to you blocking, an amazingly overlooked card due to it's stats and sub-optimal block.  Researching the Past is a re-print of Fortune Teller, just less powerful, and can make sure you get exactly the checks you need.  Glare from the Abyss is not only a 6cc but it helps keep your opponent's hand low and the last card Genius Alchemist helps you keep the difficulty of your cards down by chosing ONE card in your card pool to not count towards progressive difficulty for the turn.

The Sideboard Options were chosen due to my meta, it will probably be different in every other meta.  Willful was chosen due to it's ability to just side in and deal with control check hacking like it did not exist, very helpful against Blood Runs True and Akuma6.  Bounce Back was chosen in case of response wars that happen durring attacks and can help you make your attacks very high speed and near impossible to block.  Remember I tried to keep this deck on a budget and this was the best I could come up with, I appologise if the deck looks low tier, but it is ment for a new to intermediate player to come in and play and get comfortable with before buying/trading for the cards he needs to make this into a monster.

Thank you again for reading this and I will see all of you again soon with another edition of Character "Gems" Corner, this is Nathan "NJBrock22" Spade signing off for now.

Here are the top 8 decks from the 2009 Canadian National Championships.

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Welcome back to another installment of Character "Gems" Corner, today we will be talking about a character that I when I saw that UFS got the KOF 2006 License i was hoping would be released, 4 set later we finaly get her. Who is this character i speak of? That would be Yuri Sakizaki, the Kyokugen Karate Chick, one of the most popular characters in the KOF/Art of Fighting Series. The only disappointment I had when I first saw her release... was that she didn't do anything new compared to characters that were released before her time. Add in the fact that she has an unusual symbol spread, including a resource that makes absolutely no sense with her or with her abilities, and you have a very hard character to build around. Lets start by taking a look at the character:






Well first thing that hits us is the sub-optimal stats of a 6 hand size with 24 vitality, now back in the old school days of legacy this was your average character for a 6 hand size, but nowadays this is a horrible hand-to-vitality ratio, why would you want to play a character with that low vitality? We'll get to that later on as I discuss her abilities. The Symbol spread is very unique in its own respects, she is an [Earth], [Life] and [Water] Character. Water gives her a good amount of reversals and card pool clearing abilities, as well as in recent sets a decent amount of direct and indirect card draw to help maintain a good hand size against opponents. Life gives her vitality gain and speed boost shenanigans that will be very sorely needed for her to live through huge damage attacks late game or even a string of attacks. Earth??? WTF??? ok besides the fact that this symbol makes more sense with her brother... and why she has it is beyond me... makes no sense with her character in the video game or her playstyle in UFS but i digress, this symbol gives her good damage pumps and some general damage redux to help her live longer.

Onto her Abilites, her first ability is not really new to the game but with some of the newer support becomes very interesting, "E: Your attack gets +X damage. X equals the number of resources your attack shares with your character." Now as with most characters this means if you run your characters support attacks they are getting +3 damage, not only that but as most of us did in legacy she would run Clones and No One's Gonna Ever Keep you Down(No Eggs) and named Fire for No Eggs and named Life for clones to make Clones a 3M9 attack for only... 3 Difficulty.. WTF!!! yes it was always fun to throw those on your opponent very early in the game to bait out blocks. Now with the Assets of Power and cards like Needs No Ally this ability can almost always give at least +2 damage to any of your attacks. Her other ability isnt groundbreaking when you first see it but it does have a very annoying use(for your opponent), "E: Commit: Until your next ready phase, your have no maximum vitality." Yes that is correct, she went from a 6 hand 24 to a 6 hand Infinity, well not really but with enough life gain i have seen on her opponents turn her live through attacks like Moonbeam Slicer and Fully multied Feline Spikes due to ridiculous Life Gain, only for her on her next turn to drop back down to 24 vitality but the ability is ment to be that panic button ability only to be used sparingly to save your life. It takes the right person knowing when to use that ability to make her a very versatile character.

Now the burning question is how would you make her and with what symbol, well lets look at how most people have been playing her recently. My first build of her was centered around her damage pump ability only, and it went very well until I ran into a reversal ::Lizardman::(stacking Promo Lizardman) deck that made sure he never took damage from any of my attacks, and well outside of the one fluke win that I milled him out on it didn't work very well, but what I found from playing her that day, she is a VERY easy character to build around the first ability.  The second build of her I had built around her Second ability mainly for our Life Patch tourny, and lets just put it this way... never and I MEAN NEVER build soley around that second ability without having a back up plan (and 2-3 Inner Circle that I didn't own at the time) because all that life gain does nothing for ya if the attacks are coming at you on your OWN turn and then again on Their Turn. The Final time I built her was for the SEC Regionals and... well... I found out how prior to the official release of Set 12 that Life just didn't have the fire power to handle characters like Fio and Seung Mina3 or any form of "turbo-loop" decks outside of cards like Tough Outer Shell to stop the Defender Loops, but most of those decks main decked 4 Seals of Cessation AND/OR Blood Runs True to make sure you never get a use out of TOS... That being said i have played her off Earth, Life, Water, Tri Symbol and Earth, Life[the SEC deck] and of those builds I've found her off Water with MAYBE a splash of Earth in it to be the most effective method of beats you can have with her, so I shall attempt to unlock her full potential, (keeping in budget of course)

Character: Yuri Sakizaki

Actions(8)
Rejection x4 [Life, Water] 3/5 +2L[B: 2]
Teih Leih, "Iron Thunder" x4 [Earth, Life, Water] +1H

Assets(3)
Inner Circle x3 [Earth, Life, Water] 2/4 Unique +2M

Attacks(24)
Big Cyclone x3 [Earth, Water] 7/2 4M10 Ranged +1H
Chi Disrupter x3 [Life, Water] 4/3 2M5 Reversal +2M
High Plasma Beam x4 [Earth, Water] 4/3 3H3 Ranged +1H
Leaping Snap Kick x3 [Life, Water] 3/3 3H3 Reversal Kick +1M
Yi Shan's Dragon Tail Sweep x4 [Earth, Life, Water] 3/3 3L3 Kick +2L
Yi Shan's Spinning Backfist x3 [Earth, Life, Water] 4/3 3M4 +1M
Yi Shan's Tiger Claw x4 [Earth, Life, Water] 4/3 3H5 Stun: 1 +3H

Foundations(32)
The Gorgeous Team x4 [Life, Water] 3/4 +3H[B: 1]
A Means of Self-Defense x4 [Life, Water] 2/5 +2M
Altered Mind and Body x4 [Earth, Water] 1/5 +1M
The Bigger they Are... x4 [Water] 2/4 +3M
Battle Prowess x4 [Earth, Life, Water] 1/4
Chinese Boxing x4 [Water] 3/4 +3M
Rapid Ares Style x4 [Water] 2/5 +1M
Soul of Ling-Sheng Su x4 [Water] 2/6 +2H


Sideboard
Tag Along x4 [Earth, Water] 5/4
Come Through in the Clinch x4 [Earth, Water] 3/5 +3H


To explain why iI chose the cards I did lets look first at the Actions I chose to main deck, both of which are Starter Exclusive Cards and should be easy to get a hold of, Iron Thunder was chosen in case of heavy discard in your meta and can wreak havoc on your opponent's the other good thing going for this card is giving +1/+2 to your attack as an enhance. Rejection is a staple in most Evil and Water decks for obvious reasoning, reducing an attack to 1 damage AND netting 3 vitality is always nice.  The Assets I only chose her character specific Asset in Inner Circle, this card has 2 very good abilities, the first one allows you to gain 2-3 vitality as a form as a last resort ability, the other one is by commiting 4 foundations and destroying the asset you get a damage bonus equal to the difference between your current vitality and your printed vitality(so this works whether above or bellow your printed vitality), good for if you went on a vite gain rush or if you got your butt handed to you and are going to go for the kill on this turn, also nice to use on a Reversal on your opponent's turn as they will most of the time not expect it.

The Attacks I chose were varying in use, first I chose Big Cyclone for tech against cards like Bitter Rivals and all other discard techs, the downside to the card is the 2cc but with only 3 in a 67 card deck the odds of checking them are VERY low. Chi Disruptor was chosen to as the title says "disrupt" your opponents turn by not clogging your card pool up to throw it as a reversal, as it can be played as a reversal immediately after blocking an attack, nice if i do say so myself. High Plasma Beam or FWEEEM as most say is a staple in most decks that can run it as it gets bigger and bigger as the later it gets played during the turn. Leaping Snap kick is a general purpose Reversal and at 3 difficulty with a 3 cc it is an amazing card. All 3 of Yi-Shan's support attacks can add themselves to the momentum face up, and while face up they do amazing things, Tiger Claw adds it's "Stun: 1" to any attack you play while face up; Spinning Backfist by discarding a momentum effectively removes all keyword abilities from an attack that was played by reducing their ratings to 0; Dragon Sweep can add another attack from your card pool to your momentum just in case you need the clear card pool/extra momentum.

Foundation Base was a general water lineup: The Gorgeous Team comes in the Mai Starter deck alongside rejections and should be easy to get if you have the right chanels, this card as you are a Female character will loop any non-attack from your discard pile back to your hand to use later, so if you blew up Inner Circle too early pick it back up and use it as a block or play it again. A means of Self Defense keeps your opponent's options limited by forcing them to destroy one of their foundations. Altered Mind and Body allows through its static and its Form you to gain anywhere between 2(when 1 is out) and 8(when 4 are out) vitality a turn, with Yuri commited through her ability that makes her a 6/32 if she didnt take any damage. The Bigger they Are... against most characters nets you 2 cards apiece for each you use. Battle Prowess, what's left to say about this card its an amazing card, even if it does have a 4cc and no block. Chinese Boxing is a Staple in every deck that can and SHOULD run it as it limits your opponent's options on their upcomming turn by locking down key foundations, also has an ability that gives you momentum if you wish. Rapid Ares Style, boosts your block checks and helps make blocking a sinch even if the attack your blocking is 10+ speed. The last card is Soul of Ling-Sheng Su which is amazing as it helps guarentee your Checks and rolls a 6, the block is just gravy on an amzing card.

For the Sideboard I chose 1 Very Popular card and 1 that a LOT of people overlook. The first is Tag Along, which despite its less than attractive stats and a lack of a block, is amazing as it has 2 very good uses, one is its form which lets you fetch back any card from your discard pile to your hand, amazing if you checked your kill attack or a key foundation to set up for next turn. The Second ability negates any character ability that your opponent plays prevents it from being played for the rest of this turn, very helpful against Zi Mei, Akuma, and now Chun-Li9.  The other card is Come Through in the Clinch, why is this card so good... notice its stats it's a 3/5 with a +3H block... lets see what card has almost those exact same stats and shares Water with it... that's right Rejection, this card does the exact same thing as rejection, the only hitch is the attack's current damage has to Kill you, then you reduce it down to 1, it's basically a 5-8th rejection that you can pack, the only reason it's sideboarded is the 3 difficulty, it can be added at will if one wishes to try it. Well thank you for looking again, hopefully this will encourage more people to play a very underused character, until next time this is Nathan "NJBrock22" Spade, signing off...

Welcome my friends to another installment of NJ's Character "Gems" Corner, today we will talk about a character that was released only to those that trade well or buy a Box of Soul Calibur IV Starters that character is Cassandra6(as I call it), now this character is very intriguing for her 2 abilities and very very unusual symbol spread when you take into account her symbols from previous sets.  In the early part of this game she had two symbols in common at all times and that was [Void] and [Life], when Higher Calibur came out she was switched to [Life] and [Good] and moved away from the discard and speed mechanic they originaly gave her for a more draw and speed base.  Now we have a new version for us to play with so without further addue here she is:




So we are back almost to square one in the old days, she is a 7 hand size 20 vitality character, which is still not too bad as it is a little above what other 7 handers have in the current meta, and a very good symbol spread in [Fire], [Life], and [Void].  The three symbol choices for her give you many different options on how to build her for both legacy and standard play.  Let us look at the advantages of each symbol for her in each environment of play.

First we have Fire, in standard format Fire is a Symbol that is starting to turn into a wild card symbol, it has been thrown on many good cards that just... well... have another top tier symbol on it [Evil], [Death] or [Order], with the most recient release of set 12 this is starting to change as we are seeing a lot of support for Fire coming out and giving Fire a huge push back to it's block 1 status as amazing.  Fire is most noted for its sometimes EXTREME damage pumps, usualy now through Ragnar and Hilde's sets as they give nice damage pumps for either a little life(in ragnar's case) or at the cost of the attack having its damage been reduced(Hilde's case) but having a speed pump to make it worth it(Hilde's case).  Fire in Legacy was a hybrid of both Speed and Damage pumps which is mostly seen in the early days through Misturugi's support, it's main weakness is that it has to fall back on other symbols from time to time due to a lack of ways to counter PURE Control.

Life in the standard environment prior to set 12 was considered a low tier symbol with only a few good things going for it, mostly life gain and ridiculous speed pumps.  Post set 12 release, it has almost everything it needs to once again start swinging blow for blow with the big boys, the addition of cards from Tira, Lu Chen and Yi Shan's sets have made Life once again a contenter.  Legacy you have many good choices of cards from defensive cards like Idylic Kamui Kotan to set up cards like Widow Maker to Killer cards like Elleyu Kamui Risse, Midnight Pleasure and Sophitia's Guardian Judgement.  The main weakness for Life is that it seemingly has no goal and the other symbols with which it shares on a card are usually superior, key word usually.

Void is the strongest contender of the 3 symbols as it has seemingly kept true to its routes through the times of the game, it started out early as a discard and general control symbol.  To this day it still is a control and discard symbol.  Some would ask what is the advantage and disadvantage of this symbol.  It still has very little support going for it compared to the other symbols, and as with Life and Fire it usually shares symbols with either Death, Evil or Order and is usually outshined by those 3 symbols.  'What does this symbol have that others don't have?' that is a good question the answer may be that this symbol can dual or even tri symbol better than Death, Evil or Order sometimes can as a versitility issue can come up with Evil, Death or Order's kill turns may be stopped short by off-symboling.

Let us look into her 2 abilities before we get too far down into this lesson:  The first ability is a simple one:  "E:  Reveal an attack from your hand:  Your attack gets +X Speed.  X equals the block modifier of your attack.  You may instead discard the revealed card to give your attack +X damage."  Well this is an amazing ability in a way a re-print of Unrequitted Love but better.  This ability gives you the versatility to attack at will against your opponent, usually getting rid of attacks you do not feel like playing or by pumping your attack up to speed that they have to block it.  You can use that as a mind game, Play an attack, reveal an attack with a nasty enhance of "if the previous attack dealt damage blah blah blah" and you can scare your opponent into blocking the attack only to play an attack from your hand that has "If the previous attack in your card pool was blocked..." it can be used as a very good mind game against your opponent, always keep them guessing.  You can also discard that card if you do not want it at the time your attacking them in hopes of drawing a better attack later if you wish to, or if your opponent has shown no possibility of blocking(through Bitter Rivals or having no hand) you can discard your attacks to really put on the hurt and maybe finish them off in only one turn of attacking.

The Second ability while it looks useless can actually become quite tech.  "E:  Commit:  If this attack deals damage, each player discards 1 card."  At first glance that ability looks utterly useless, but after second glance and seeing her symbol spread, people have overlooked one very important card in the game that in standard play can make that ability outright dumb, that card is Neferious Deeds, as it by commiting one foundation can ready her just to use that abiltiy a second time, or even a 3rd or 4th time this turn if you can time them right, and do I need to mention this ability can be used on your opponent's turn just to help speed up the possible kill on your opponent's turn.  Void also, especially in legacy, has a lot of card draw shennanigans that it can pull and help make it to where you discarding cards can at one point seem painless for you but outright frustrating for your opponent.

Now that we've looked at the 3 symbols and her abilities, how are we gonna build this character, well I could just make her mono-void, but that would be too bland for me, I personally have made her Fire/Life legacy for my tourny play and she has been amazing, so I think we will try something a bit different here, she is gonna be to my best attempts and trying to keep in budget a Tri-Symbol deck.

    Character:  Cassy6 [Fire, Life, Void]

Actions(4)
Neferious Deeds x4 [Fire]  2/5  +2H

Assets(6)
Hualin's Shop x3 [Infinity]  3/6  +0L
Ready for Anything x3 [Fire]  4/3  +3L

Attacks(20)
Aleraph Achernar x4 [Void]  5/3  3M5  Combo: Low  +2L
Lynx Tail x4 [Fire, Void]  4/3  3L4  +2H[B: 1]
Razor's Bite x4 [Life, Void]  3/3  4L2  +2M
Reaping Hook x4 [Void]  5/3  3L5  +2L
Shadow Exit x4 [Void]  4/3  2H4  +3H

Foundations(44)
A Means of Self-Defense x4 [Life]  2/5  +2M
Bitter Rivals x4 [Fire]  3/4  +2M
Chain of Command [Void] x4  3/4  +3H
Distractible x4 [Life]  2/5
Genius Alchemist x4 [Life, Void]  2/5
Journy of Repentance x4 [Life]  2/4
Kyokugen Karate x4 [Life]  2/5  +0H
Prominent Noblewoman x4 [Life, Void]  2/5
Researching the Past x4 [Life, Void]  2/4
The Glare from the Abyss x4  [Void]  1/6  +3M

Sideboard(8)
Willful x4  [Fire]  2/5  +2H
Bounce Back x4 [Fire, Life]  2/5  +2M


A Simple deck at first glance but I know a lot are going to ask me "Why are you running so few blocks???"  Well in the imortal words of Steve Horvath "This is a fighting game not a game of who can get the bigger board first" and as he said there will be less and less good foundations with blocks getting printed on them so we have to make due with what we have from here on out.  First I chose the Neferious Deeds as the only action to main in the deck for its simple tech abilities and it can help you keep yourself ready in a pinch, or re-ready cards like Bitter Rivals and other cards if they get tapped down by your opponent.  The Asset choices were for simple reasons.  Ready for Anything is such an overlooked card that people just see the 3cc and go... NO!!! me on the other hand I recognize 2 very good abilites on it, the first one you probably won't use much but the second one most people will be able to, since she is a [Fire] character you can commit it and a foundation to get 2 cards to your hand, remember you're constantly discarding into your ability if you're going on a damage rush, every card in your hand helps.  The other asset I chose is Hualin's shop, this very good promo asset is amazing for Dual and Tri-symbol decks as it makes chaining virtually flawless, by blowing it up as a form you can name 2 symbols that are on your character and make your cards have at least 1 of those symbols have BOTH of those symbols, so those sometimes 'broke chains' now become a complete resource chain and help you to build that much quicker.

Next we have the attacks, I chose void for this chain due to the fact it has some nice attacks going for it now, Lynx Tail and Reaping Hook don't need any explaining, A. A. on the other hand has a nice ability on it to allow you to draw 2 cards with it's combo E, and if you don't like either of them you can discard one and draw another card with the other e, so it's not a bad card, the only drawback is you are usually checking against 6 difficulty minimum at times unless you have the right pieces in play.  Razor's Bite I chose because it's like having Glimpse of Fate in play for you and it gives you knowledge of what you need to play for the rest of this turn, 4 speed should be good enough for you to have it deal damage.  Shadow Exit can lock down problem enhances in your opponent's staging area (Gorgeous Team anyone?), and has nice base stats.

The Foundation choices are spread out from general control to combo help.  Distractible is in for anti-rejection and other damage reduction abilites, whereas Kyokugen Karate is in there for the ability to RFG your attack that you discarded for your enhance to double it's effectiveness, very usefull on your kill turn.  Bitter Rivals needs no explination, A Means of Self Defense is in there to help clear your opponent's board on their turn and hopefully keep you one step ahead of your opponent.  Journey of Repentance is in there for anti Olcadon's tech, Prominent Noblewoman(or THE HORSE!! as we call it) is in there for to say no to life gain.  Chain of Command is a card to help losen your opponent's grip on their hand by killing it durring their turn due to you blocking, an amazingly overlooked card due to it's stats and sub-optimal block.  Researching the Past is a re-print of Fortune Teller, just less powerful, and can make sure you get exactly the checks you need.  Glare from the Abyss is not only a 6cc but it helps keep your opponent's hand low and the last card Genius Alchemist helps you keep the difficulty of your cards down by chosing ONE card in your card pool to not count towards progressive difficulty for the turn.

The Sideboard Options were chosen due to my meta, it will probably be different in every other meta.  Willful was chosen due to it's ability to just side in and deal with control check hacking like it did not exist, very helpful against Blood Runs True and Akuma6.  Bounce Back was chosen in case of response wars that happen durring attacks and can help you make your attacks very high speed and near impossible to block.  Remember I tried to keep this deck on a budget and this was the best I could come up with, I appologise if the deck looks low tier, but it is ment for a new to intermediate player to come in and play and get comfortable with before buying/trading for the cards he needs to make this into a monster.

Thank you again for reading this and I will see all of you again soon with another edition of Character "Gems" Corner, this is Nathan "NJBrock22" Spade signing off for now.

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