TEPPEN: Foresight Newsletter 2

foresight2
  • Overview of news this week.
  • EX Grand Prix
  • Grand Prix
  • Deck Feature

Hello all and welcome back to the Foresight Newsletter #2. Let’s look back at the buzz for the past week.

thisweekbanner

Official TEPPEN tournaments occuring in Japan, where ingame vanity emblems are part of a reward for winning a tournament! It looks as though there are 2 tournaments occuring on May 3rd for Japan players. I, for one, am proud of TEPPEN’s esport scene in Japan

seasonpass5

We are at the last week of the season pass missions, if you bought this meta’s season pass, now is the time to grind on those missions.

TEPPEN Community Circuit Series (TCCS) hosted the Ultimate Showdown of 8 high level TEPPEN streamers this past weekend with 4 hosts breathing life to the matches, Horrible Chopstick, James Chen, brokenfierce, and NinjaNam. You can view the matches here with in the moment commentary, roller coaster ups and downs, edge of your seat moments on Twitch!

https://www.twitch.tv/teppen_community/videos

TCCS and the contestants will be back at it again on April 26th 1PM PST, Sunday on the https://www.twitch.tv/teppen_community/ channel.

exgrandprixryuexgpexgpryuqr

Ryu Shinku Hadoken

Hero Art: Shinku Hadoken

Deal 7 damage to target enemy unit.

This week's EX Grand Prix features Highlander format. Highlander is one of the synonymous names to Singleton, meaning one of a kind. Cards in your deck during Highlander format may only be of one copy. As you can see in this Ryu deck list, there's only one copy given of any card in the deck.

In addition to the singleton format, there is also 200% MP boost. Meaning MP, the resource used to play cards, is increased by 2-fold. I believe this mechanic was instilled to even the playing field for mono-color and dual-color deck building options. Normally mono-color decks have an advantage, but the 200% MP boost creates a faster environment where dual-color decks can keep up with mono-color.

My first venture to figuring out this format was building an aggressive dual-color Chun-Li Hyakuretsukyaku black-green deck. Everything was going well until I ran into a Ryu that just seemed to keep me controlled throughout the match. I quickly realized, black-green one of the best aggressive color combinations with strong defensive options did not hold a candle to Ryu Shinku Hadoken.

For that reason, I believe that Ryu singleton decks will be the more dominant deck options coming into this format, with their ability to play units and answer board states throughout the match. Shinku Hadoken, the Hero Art, also pushes that edge to answer anything that would be problematic. Even mirror matches will attest to skill, I am very excited for this format.

It's note-worthy that traditional Zero Exodia and Denjin will not be as viable in this format.

didyounkow

Did you know you can play EX Grand Prix Free Matches ahead of time via Coliseum Tab? Sometimes the queue won't have players, however I was able to find 3 matches last night, it is to be expected that players around the globe are excited to play this format. Go ahead and join in!

grandprixxcsxcsqr

X Charge Shot

Hero Art: Charge Shot

Gives “When HP is boosted: Gain +1 Attack” to all friendly units.

Last week we said that X Charge Shot was the way to go. All I have to say is, it seems like it's taken a lot of popularity. There is an update from this week's list from last week's list. We took out Wire Snatch and added in Shattered Horn. What I quickly realized, was that Wire Snatch is awful for this format, because the format is slower, destroying your opponent's units is really important. Wire Snatch reset the attack line for one of my units and I missed the kill shot on an enemy unit.

The addition of Shattered Horn has been a great and welcomed one. I recommend when using Hakkei or Shattered Horn to take free kill shots at opponent's units, is to bait other actions before hand. Baiting other cards beforehand and using Hakkei/Shattered Horn in the last moment make for amazing plays and leaves your opponent stunned when they get j'baited. 

keijimaedakeijiqr

Zero Exodia

Hero Art: Rakuhouha

  • Deals 4 damage split among enemy units.
  • Deals 7 damage split among enemy units instead. <Memory>: 4
  • Deals 12 damage split among enemy units instead. <Memory>: 10

This week round 2 of the Grand Prix has opened. Do not forget to queue up! I decided to try out a different deck list this time around to gain more knowledge of the format/meta. This Zero Exodia deck list belongs to Keiji Maeda, a solid player who contributes deck lists in the TEPPEN Community Discord https://discord.gg/teppencommunity. I consider myself to be able to read deck lists and find meaning beyond looking at composition. Looking at Keiji's deck, it is very refined for the meta. This deck plays the same way that the traditional Zero Exodia deck plays, defensive and ramping up for that X Hunters.

Some notable mentions of this deck, Miraculous Awakening is a fun card that does not take space up in the deck, using the card will not disappoint. It has the ability to bring back a card that has died on your field into your EX Pocket. Normally I save this card for last, but sometimes I will have to use it on a weak target, and that's fine. 

Demonic Intimidation is very important to save against the X Charge Shot decks. Do not use this removal early. The best time to use Demonic Intimidation is when you cannot remove the enemy unit by other means and you really want to make sure that whatever you remove your opponent used their resources on that card, for example, Charge Shot and action buffs. Patience goes a long ways for Demonic Intimidation.

Lastly, Calculated Guidance is a tech card by Keiji, one that I fully agree with. This card is best used against anyone using Civilization Rebel Sigma, when Sigma has their revenge activated, they become a 2 cost and you can steal it with Calculated Guidance.

Overall, there are 3 true contenders for this format: Zero Exodia, X Charge Shot, and Albert Wesker Dark Destruction. Personally, I am inbetween Zero Exodia or X Charge Shot for the final round of this Grand Prix. I did play numerous matches using Zero Exodia against X Charge Shot, some I won, some I lost. It really comes down to Demonic Intimidation, Zero needs that to beat X, and if Zero does not have that, X Charge Shot runs Zero over every time. However it is possible for Zero to get those Demonic Intimidations in time. It is important for X Charge Shot going up against Zero to be conservative with their MP and not invest too much to get countered by Demonic Intimidation, however it is necessary for X players to keep buffing to keep units alive, just not all eggs in one basket.

Good luck in the second round of the Grand Prix! I will see you in the final round. Next week's newsletter will include my experience with the final round.

deckfeaturealchemystalchemystqr

Zero Zombie Rush

Hero Art: Rakuhouha

  • Deals 4 damage split among enemy units.
  • Deals 7 damage split among enemy units instead. <Memory>: 4
  • Deals 12 damage split among enemy units instead. <Memory>: 10

This week's deck feature brings a familiar face with some new! This deck list belongs to TEPPEN Community player alchemyst. I first stumbled upon this decklist in Kyle P's stream, Kyle P who is one of North America's strongest players on the global leaderboard, was tearing it up.

Check him out on his stream! https://www.twitch.tv/kmfp

With everything, I'm cautious by nature, something about this deck list was different and as cautious as I was, I instantly could see a lot of merit to this deck list. This deck list is called Zero Zombie Rush, for more information about the original version of this deck, find it here in the Season 5 Meta Snapshot: https://teamrankstar.com/meta/season-5-living-meta-decks-tier-list-by-iowa/. However there's a new engine in this deck list, it brings the Weakness engine, which is powered by New Generation Reploids and Kolin.

This deck list we lose Mad Massacre numbers but gained Murderous Spikes. The difference between this deck and the predecessor, is this deck has the ability to make more power plays utilizing Weakness, a card generated by Kolin. Being able to reduce the attack of enemy units allows us to make effective unit trades, save life in case of direct damage Weakness is like a 1 MP gain 3 life, and synergetic plays between Weakness, Murderous Spikes, and T002-Tyrant.

At first, I thought this deck was equal footing this the predecessor, with different tech options. However, I am tempted to say that this deck list is actually better than the traditional list. With the ability to guarantee kill shots with Murderous Spikes instead of using Mad Massacre which is a RNG option, and having more utility options, I believe this deck is the same deck, but better.

asakumaasakumaqr

Akuma Ashura Senku

Hero Art: Ashura Senku

Move a friendly unit to a random board slot. Grants “<Veil>: 10 seconds” and “Immune to damage: 10 seconds.”

Another brief deck feature for this week, Ashura Senku Akuma. This was a deck list idea I ran into ladder and lost to. I took what I saw and made it better. The goal of the deck is to bring out many Astalos, continuously buff them and bring them out, then use Ashura Senku to guarantee big flight damage. The deck is very aggressive, fun, but can lose to some blow out plays. I really enjoy this deck because the are many edge of the seat moments with it and when piloted correctly, will dodge many counters in TEPPEN.

data

I would like to take the time to introduce the collaboration between this newsletter and TEPPEN Community members DurianIRL and Teemotay. Between the 3 of us, we are working to bring TEPPEN data, statistics, and numbers for the community. Stay tuned as we are actively working for next month's meta.

Hello!

Have any ideas/comments for the newsletter? Feel free to comment using GamePress' amazing comment section feature. Newsletter content will not always be the same each week, which opens the opportunity for new content.

Author(s)

Anthony Tu aka iowatheboat

Long time casual gamer, new content maker for TEPPEN

  • TEPPEN Discord/Reddit Leader
  • Twitch Affiliate Streamer
  • TEPPEN Meta snapshot writer

Comments