All Your Base are belong to Us.
All your base are belong to us.
Aside from bad grammar, this was a huge internet meme many years back. If you're not familiar with what I'm referring to, feel free to check out the Wikipeida article HERE. Since US Airbase has come out, people have been looking for a way to abuse it. During the lead up to the Path of the Master event, I was trying to figure out what I was going to run.
I had been randomly looking over cards, trying to figure out something that was not common place, that would be effective, yet different. For while I had thought about running a Temujin + Defender + Mega Spike loop deck. Then I caught wind of Calming the mind. I figured after the wave of Ira Spinta decks running across the meta, people would gravitate quickly to using the card.
First of all, I was wrong about how much Set 12 would be available, and how much of the set would be digested rapidly driving the meta change. However it did lead me to randomly looking through my cards until I came across the following deck.
::Dhalsim:: 
4x No Memories 4/4 +3M 
4x Multi-Hobbyist 2/5 +2H 
4x US Airbase 3/4 
4x Self Confidence 4/4
4x Billiard Player 3/5
3x End it All 2/6 +3L
4x Chinese Boxing 3/4 +3M 
4x Seal of Cessation 3/3 +2L 
4x Shooting Capora 2/4 +2M
4x Meat Eater 3/4 +2m 
2x Tira's Contract 2/5 +1L 
2x Aurelia's Companionship +0H 
4x Tag Along 5/4 
4x Clean Freak 2/3 or 3/3 +2 L
4x Family Heirloom 3/4 +2M
3x Inhuman Perception 2/5 +1H
1x Giradot's Leadership 6/3 +1L
This is the version that went to the Path of the Master. The first iteration of the deck didn't even have clean freak in it. That lead to the first person I showed the deck to say "maneuvers? I'm missing something... what is your kill condition?"
This is where I laid my revelation of Multi-Hobbyist + US Airbase + Self Confidence.
The response to that from the select folks I threw the idea by was summarized by "Wow, that's just...wow"
How did I get here? At first I misread Multi-Hobbyist, and thought that you gained the momentum if you failed the control check. So like a retard I was trying to combo my way around it by using Power of the Light to force my opponent to draw out their deck into their hand. Then as I'm re-reading Multi-Hobbiest, I realized wait a second. This is even easier. I don't have to make them draw. Multi-Hobbyist is just going to force all of their deck into the momentum.
It made the character selection of Dhalsim even easier. He had a 28 vitality, which was going to let him survive a fully multiple'd Feline Spike if one got shot at me early. Additionally his ability made getting the different parts of the combo that much faster and easier.
Due to the confusion this combo has caused when the cards are directly in front of a player, allow me to explain the whole thing one more time.
The first step is to get Multi-Hobbyist and some form of momentum to trigger it. Multi-Hobbyist is triggered after your opponents ready phase, so at the start of their combat phase. Family Heirloom was the perfect fit. As a static effect at the start of the combat phase, if Dhalsim is committed (which he is going to be pretty much every turn), I get a momentum. Because it's static, the momentum comes in before the window for responses.
Now that the multi-hobbyist is triggered, all control checks for your opponents turn, and the duration of your turn get +1. Failing of a control check for any reason will result in the player discarding a momentum, and their opponent gaining a mometum.
This is where the US Airbase comes in. When an ability is succesfully played at least once on a turn, any additional use of that ability requires the player to make a control check vs a 6 as cost to play that ability.
Enter Self Confidence. I discovered that the only totally costless F in the current rotation was Self Confidence. It happened to have Air, so meant that I didn't have to multi-symbol to make it happen. Eventually I would make the deck completely multi-symbol but we'll talk about that in a little bit.
On my turn, I would simply announce the F to Self Confidence. Nothing would happen, I would then do it again. This time it would force a check off of my deck for US Airbase. Only 16 of the 59 non-character cards in the deck had a 5 or a 6 check. Meaning roughly 73% of the time I would check something that would fail the US Airbase cost. Forcing me to discard a momentum, and my opponent to add the top card of their deck to their momentum.
Once this goes off, I just keep checking until my opponent decks out. Even though I would mill through my deck first, and remove the top 10 from the game, the remainder of the cards go back into my deck. Meaning that I will still have cards to check long after all of my opponents deck is in their momentum. 
So at this point, I had spent 17 of the 60 cards in the deck building the combo. The rest of the deck could now be spent focusing on making the combo happen. Billiard player is an auto-include. It helps parts of the combo hit the table faster. If on the opening turn I Dhalsim a Billiard player into play, and then happen to check a Family Heirloom(FH), I can then use Billiard Player's F to drop it into play committed. Even committed, FH's ability still works, and generates momentum. So if I also drop a Hobbyist on my opening turn, that means at the start of my opponents turn I can trigger the ability.
Billiard Player also allows me to drop Airbase into play. Which even if it's committed, it's effect still triggers. Outside of that, there are so many different things that can be done with Billiard in this deck that I could write an entire article on the sheer brilliance of that card.
No Memories was the next card into the deck. I realized that between Dhalsim & Billiard Player, getting it into play wouldn't really cause me any issues even though it was off symbol from the air that the rest of the deck was being built off of. Sharing both Death and Void, eventually it would be a keystone to allowing this deck to actually be a tri-symbol deck.
So many of the cards over time seemed like an Auto-Include. Clean Freak as the only attack (suggested by Mr. Macek - thank you!) was brilliant. So many times my opponent has let the poke for 1 go through. More importantly it's allowed me to ready Dhalsim if I go first, or late game has allowed me to Billiard Player Self Confidence into play, and then ready it to go off.
Giradot's to help search for parts of the combo. Meat Eater to help defray momentum costs. Aurelia's to help reduce the amount that I mill, and protect myself against larger decks that are large in an effort to be "anti-mill"
End it All's F seemed really good at first. On my kill turn, it can help either eat through some negation, or in some cases stop it outright. The 6 check sucks, but the symbols are golden for what the deck is doing. Chinese Boxing, Shooting Capara, Tira's Contract & Meat Eater I really don't think need an explanation.
So how did this do in play? In tournament play locally before heading to the Path of the Master, the deck was completely undefeated.
Every time I played the deck, my opponents didn't know what was happening until after the deck had exploded on them. Even after seeing it once, it would still manage to go off, as they would race to try and come up with a way to stop them.
So how did it fare at the Path of the Master?
Round 1 - TCO's Leech.
Nilton has spent the car ride down being briefed by other local players on how the deck worked. He built Night Terror, and included all the control pieces to stop the deck. Night Terror stops the Dhalsim abilitiy, so that bought him some additional time to drop his control pieces.
The first game was a very long, very slow chess match. When 15 minutes was called, I conceded the first game, seeing where it was going, and at least wanting to pull out a draw.
Turn 1 the first part of the combo hit. Turn 2 the rest of the combo hit. During his second turn, he dropped Lynette's to copy my Inhuman perception, and sighed... knowing where the next turn was going. Turn 3, I Dhalsim to drop the last piece. He Night Terror R's to cancel. I Tag Along to cancle - which he stops with In Human Perception. Tag Along #2 - He stops with BRT. Tag Along #3 - He nukes with the Anti K' - finally Tag Along #4 gets though, stops his ability, and drops the self confidence into play. Boom. Game.
Time was called while I was sideboading.
0-0-1
Round 2 - TCO's Boring Ryu.
So here's the second Winnipeg player I get to face. Along with Nilton, this was the third member of our Regina Road Trip cronicled HERE.
Corey is playing Astrid, and Game 1, I go first, drop Meat Eater + Hobbyist, meanwhile putting Self confidence into play. Turn 2 I drop USAB via Dhalsim, and he shakes my hand. I was sitting between Matt Kohls, and Andrew Olexa, and the looks on their faces notcing our game had wrapped that fast was interesting.
Game 2 took a bit longer, and was a bit scarier. I still got the combo down, but it took a turn or two longer. The turn before I went off, he exploded on me for 27 damage. A super close call.
1-0-1
Round 3 - UFS House's Paul Bittner.
He was playing a Feline Spike promo Morrigan deck, whose secondary kill is to grind out a mill on the opponent. Game one, the lock came down without him even knowing what was happening.
Moving onto Game 2, the lock came down quickly. I said "Do you need me to check through the whole thing?" to which he responded "I've got nothing better to do, so you may as well."
As I'm doing the checks, Jon Herr, Paul's Room Mate starts looking at the cards in my staging area and discard pile. Trying to be a nice guy, I didn't think of the long term ramifications of this. (Jon was sitting at the table next to us.)
2-0-1
Round 4 - Umigame
This is a promo rock howard, order control deck rocking Juni's Spiral Arrow. Game one, he didn't know about the combo, or what to expect, and I was fortunate. I had a hard time getting to my respective pieces, but finally I got to them, went off, game in the books. Game 2, the combo came much faster, and the only delay to the whole thing was Craig using Lynette's to copy USAB to blow it up as a last ditch effort that bought him two turns. Finally everything's in place at the start of my turn, Craig shakes my hand, and we go report.
3-0-1
Round 5 - Jon Herr - UFS House (& Eventual PotM Champion) - Playing his 2008 Canadian Nationals Champion Self
Yeah... so... I'm a bad player, and when someone not involved in your game goes looking through your stuff, it means when you face them two rounds later, they know exactly how to stop your deck.
Opening turn he pulls off two Anti-K' against my Airbase. Due to that I have a hard time getting another copy of my airbase down, and he's got control pieces in place to stop me, before he eventually beats me down.
Game 2, he strings back to back tag alongs over four turns, while he sets up before the eventual kill.
Defeated, I think... I should be able to squeak out a win in the next round to make top cut.
3-1-1
Round 6 - Matt Kohls - Third and final member of UFS house rocking Chun-Li.
Yeah... so Matt knew what my deck did, and immediately Mulligan'd for what he needed to keep my at bay.
While I drew all the combo pieces, I couldn't draw a no memories to stop the Sprinta, or pass the control checks to get my seal of cessations into play. Very frustrating, as his deck built around looping Sprintas shoved all of my combo pieces into the momentum, and then kitty spiked me in game 1 & game 2 .
3-2-1
That ends my Path of the Master report.
Based on experience - I think the End it All can come out, and be replaced with something else.
The rest of the deck is solid as it is.
Some FAQ's:
Q: Why aren't you running Chester's?
A: Multiple reasons; 1) It's a 4 Diff, which in light of all the other 3 and 4 diffs, and everything else I'm fighting to get down with Dhalsim, it's just to much. 2) I only own 4, and Daria needed them more for her :Ninon: then I did. 3) Seal of Cessation adds better chaining, is a better check for the combo, and is a less situational responder, that stops more then Chesters does, and is negated by less then Chesters.
Q: Why don't you put in these other cards that are 5 and 6 checks? <list a half dozen different cards>
A: The deck needs to have as few 5 and 6 checks as humanly possible so it does not deck itself out. It's a careful balancing act. I invite you to try building the deck with those cards, and without. Let me know which was more effective.
Q: Wouldn't a 7 HS character help you get your combo faster?
A: Not at all. Dhalsim's ability is silly. Being able to drop cards straight into play actually provides more speed then an extra handsize. Especially when comboing with cards like Clean Freak, Tag Along, and Billiard Player. Additionally all the 7 HS's are much more fragile, and none of them give me the mutli-symbol options like Dhalsim has given me.
Q: Is there anything in Set 12 that makes this deck faster?
A: No. One of the reasons why I chose to run this deck at the PotM master was I wouldn't have to hunt down set 12 cards to make the deck go. If you see something you think will really make this deck tick, feel free to let me know. The other reason why I ran this deck, is that while there are some cards in Set 12 that will have a minor effect on the deck to stop it, there are very few things that negatively impact this deck overall in set 12.
Q: Are you running this deck at Canadian Nats?
A: I don't know. I suspect that even if I don't run it, there will be others who will be running this deck there. I've seen a few folks excited to play this deck after word of it got out from the PotM event.
Q: Once your opponent knows how the deck works, doesn't it automatically loose?
A: It really depends on what control pieces they're running. It also depends on draws. Do they get exactly what they need to stop me or slow me down? Do I get the draw where I go off turn 2? It really becomes an if, then chess match.
If on the otherhand they're running something like an All, Good, Order, or Water - there's very few control pieces in those deck that stop this exclusively. (Yes, All & Water has Chesters, but I've got Inhuman and Seal of Cessation to deal with Chesters)
At the end of the day, any time where your opponent knows exactly how your deck works, and has the control pieces to stop it, your odds of loosing are increased. That's the way it is.
Q: So what do you call this?
A: All Your Base Loop. <Props to Macek for coming up with the name.>