Card Release 04

New cards for Panda and Nina have arrived. These can be seen at the official Tekken Card Tournament site. As usual, I'll do a mini review on them now that they are out.

New Cards

• High Jinks: 24 Damage, Kick, After the attack, Focus & Cards =5: -1 card & +15 Prot

I like this card a lot. It is 1 damage less than the average of Panda's cards. It gives the ability to cycle through cards for any specific cards you don't currently have in your hand and after the first focus, you get a nice 15 Protection. The only bad thing about High Jink is, it isn't a punch. I would try not to have more than 2 in a deck as drawing more than 1 in a hand of 5 could be counter productive. If you are fishing for Ultra Kuma or Deadly Claw, remember that you can only focus once, as drawing Ultra Kuma on the 2nd focus (assuming the opponent blocked) you must block to activate it, and it is 3 turns of "no action" forcing a discard.

• Bear Slide: 28 Damage, Kick, After the attack, This card blocked: -10 HP & Keep card

Nice card, helps boosts heavy hitting cards into a better position. Not surprisingly, Bear Slide synergizes very well with High Jinks to position Bear Slide in the right position.

• Bear Rolling Kick: 20 Damage, Kick, Before the attack, Opp cards = 0: Card +20 Hit

Not a fan of this card. In the current Meta with Skull Smash, Direct Persuasion, Shisetsu Genman, Xiaoyu etc. it is difficult to ever catch an opponent with 0 cards (unless it is a Paul Player). When the ability goes off, it becomes 40 Hit which is pretty good. I would rather take a 30+ damage card from Panda's other choices.

• Bear Flail Kick: 20 Damage, Kick, After the attack, Dual Block & Opp cards =0: Opp -35 HP

This card is like Trout Sweep on steroids. Unfortunately, like Bear Rolling Kick, it requires the Opp to have 0 cards. As mentioned, kind of rare but when it does happen, you can guarantee your opponent will be scared to do either Focus or Block. Pair this with high damaging cards for more Trout Sweep Panda shenanigans.

• Bombshell Blast: 12 Damage, Punch, After the attack, Strike & Opp Block: +1 card

Pretty nice card, encourages striking immediately with Flashing Escape. Synergizes very well with Catapult Kick and the current Spin Low Kick to Right Upper. Pair with Right Backhand Body Blow for promising results.

• PK Combo to Deadly Scythe: 10 Damage, Kick, After the attack, Focus: K cards +6 Hit

Awesome card! Keeps the opponent on their toes and synergizes extremely well with ALL of Nina's Kick cards. I can see Nina kick decks become popular with the introduction of this card. Something tells me that this will get a nerf in the near future.

• Seoi Gyaku Juji-gatame: 10 Damage, Punch, After the attack, Strike: +1 card

The old Spin Low Kick to Right Upper without the 4 HP heal and a big fat UNIQUE addition. Still deserves a place in any Nina Punch deck and possibly any Nina deck. With this addition to Tekken Card Tournament, I sense a nerf in Kazuya's Skull Smash.

• Kneel Kick: 17 Damage, Kick, After the attack, Dual Strike: Keep cards

What an interesting card. Personally I feel dual strike abilities can be easily avoided by the opponent. I feel this is a tool for Nina to fight an 80 HP Kazuya or Xiaoyu. Kneel Kick in combination with Catapult Kick are all you need to go heads up with a Xiaoyu/Kazuya. Against other characters, I am not sure. Pair this up with Cards that require hitting for positive results.

Conclusion

With the exception of High Jink, Panda's new cards seem OK at best. High Jink and Bear Slide are the best of the lot. It is no coincidence that the cards are all kick. I think High Jink will add for more silly mixups with Panda. I hope the current "if the number of cards don't change for 3 turns, then they are all discarded" rule persists in the near future, otherwise Panda can block twice, focus, block twice, focus etc. and sucker punch.

Similar to Lili's new card release, Nina gets an inferior version of an old card (still good enough to go in any deck) and 3 pretty good cards. Bombshell blast recovers the card gained from the opponent focusing due to powering up Right Backhand Body Blow. PK Combo to Deadly Scythe is a great addition for Nina decks and opens up the floor for some really creative Kick decks.

Leave a comments, questions or anything. I will most likely make a Nina Kick deck in the days to come. I mean for reference, I am not really a Nina fan (lol).

Nina Deck - 01

Edit: Due to the changes from Balance Update 4, Nina's Spin Low Kick to Right Upper has been nerfed so hard to a point where this deck's strength is less than half of what it used to be.

So I've been told there are a lot of Nina's at the top. I was just having a little fun in the 1100 rating today, playing with the new cards and a "nuke" deck for Yoshimitsu, when I ran into two low 1300 Nina fights. I lost both of them, one was pretty close, if only the new cards had a little more juice then I would've been able to tie one of them (lol). Both 1300 Nina fights were back to back and both had very similar decks. I went to the Nina collection and scrolled through, looking for the cards I saw and multiplying them by 3 if they weren't unique. T
his is what I came up with:

The Deck

Nina

I am not sure what to call this deck. Tekken Card Tournament uses 3 categories to describe the stats of a fighter, Strength, Speed, and Special. I am not sure what Special means, I assume it's "tricky". This deck seems to have very high Strength and Speed, and I suppose the Special is average (whatever the hell Special means anyway). I suppose I will call it 1300 Nina to honor the 1300 Nina's who use this deck.

• 3x Blonde Bomb: 10 Damage, Punch, After the attack: This card appears: +20 HP
• 3x Catapult Kick: 10 Damage, Kick, After the attack: This card hits: +1 card
• 3x Flashing Escape: 40 Damage, Kick, After the attack: Opp Focus: Card discarded
• 3x Spin Low Kick to Right Upper: 10 Damage, Punch, After the attack: Strike: +1 card & +4 HP
• 1x Jab to Mid Kick: 25 Damage, Kick, After the attack: This card appears: 4th card discarded & +1 card
• 1x Assault Bomb: 25 Damage, Punch, After the attack: Opp Strike: +1 card & +5 HP
• 1x Crab Hold: 30 Damage, Kick, After the attack: This card appears: +2 cards
• Power Card: Nina - I: 255 HP, First turn: -100 HP

This deck has extremely high draw speed, and an average damage of 19.33 per card. Generally the 10 damage cards are for healing and card drawing purposes but after a while they also rack up some big damage.

Strategy

Focus to 3 cards, and strike. The reason being because Jab to Mid Kick appearing on the 4th position is a waste, as well as Crab Hold (you will be at "6" cards). Throw some guesses here and there for Flashing Escape. Don't let a 3rd position Flashing Escape go to waste. Block when enemy has 5 cards. Doesn't seem like there is much to this deck, but I could be wrong. If you've cycled through Crab Hold and Jab to Mid Kick, you can focus past 3 cards until you start the new cycle (revert to counting cards if you have no idea what I am talking about.

Conclusion

As a Yoshimitsu player, I don't feel there is a reliable answer to this deck. It just keeps healing and dishing out damage and drawing and healing. Magatama and Kimon Matagi cannot keep up with it, and when luck runs out, those 2 cards will just appear at different ends of 2 cycles (separated by 26 cards) and you will eventually bleed out. Reminds me of Xiao Yu, except Xiao Yu's heal is terrible and Xiao Yu's average damage per card is under 11. Currently, I am trying cards such as Iwatsubute, Poison Breath, and Mumyo Juji Ken to attempt to rush my opponents. Fun, but not very successful (lol).

Please leave a comment, or if you are that 1300 Nina player, let me know if the deck is off =].

Characters

If you haven't created a character yet then this information might be useful to you. As of the time of writing, the most successful characters in the "world wide championship" are Paul and Panda. I don't believe there is a weakest character or at least there shouldn't be (if there is one, it's definitely Yoshimitsu). According to the Twitter and Facebook page, each character is designed to be strong against some and weak against others. As of right now, Paul and Pandas are dominating the scene, with Nina and Lili not too far behind. Last week it was Xiaoyu and Nina. Next week it could be anyone, even maybe Heihachi.


Each character has a different play style and strengths and weaknesses. After I completed an "A" Yoshimitsu deck, I regretted it because I wanted to play as Kazuya. I will probably stick with Yoshimitsu till I have 3 of every card and all the SR cards, including the power card.

Kazuya is kind of an average fighter at first, but when his HP is low, his card effects tend to overwhelm the opposition.

Paul's cards have extremely high damage, but usually have negative effects as a tradeoff.

Law is a rather well rounded character with mid to high base damage and cards that negate the opponents card effects.

Yoshimitsu's cards are average base damage and the card abilities are quite weird. He has a very large assortment of tricks but the thing unique to him is the power to conceal his cards (not that useful at all) which is currently 'not working and will be improved/fixed'.

Xiaoyu draws cards fast. Her cards are usually 10 damage with the exception of a few. She is one of the few characters that will probably play strike more than focus.

Nina is a rather well rounded character as well. I believe she specializes in healing. Like Xiaoyu, she also has many ways of drawing cards without actually focusing.

Lili has many abilities, the ones I notice the most are her parries. I also see a lot of ways for her to draw cards without having to play focus, sometimes this involves the opponent drawing a card as well. She also have mid to high base damage on many of her Punch cards.

Panda hits as hard as Paul. She doesn't have much heal or any reliable heals but her SR card has the highest starting health and many of her cards come with protection to make up for the lack of healing.

How I picked my character was Law because I wanted to see him do a somersault in the animation (this never occurs by the way). After a couple games I got the feel of what the game was like (I only had bronze cards) and I began to explore the buttons on the user interface. It led me to logging out and because there is no option to create a password at start, I abandoned that account and made a Kazuya deck. I mustered enough credits to buy an ultra pack, opened it and got a golden Yoshimitsu power card. So I sold all my cards and started a Yoshimitsu deck.