Post by keith0913832 on Jan 11, 2016 2:20:53 GMT 8
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to another revo article:) As mentioned, we will be taking a look at Follow-up this week, with the inclusion of colossal Follow-ups as well since they aren’t very different. Follow-ups are generally difficult to play as they must be played after something. Therefore, only a few superstars or tactics are suitable for playing or exploring Follow-ups. This article would help to give an insight on the different categories of Follow-ups, as well as some superstar recommendations as a whole. As usual, a short Q&A before we start:
Q: Is there an order to Follow when resolving effects? Here’s a scenario as example:
-I am Sabu (successfully play an Assault, put 1 card from your hand under your arsenal and opponent randomly discards 1 card)
-I have Climbing The Ladder in play. (Successfully play a Mean: Draw up to 2)
-When I play a Bulldog Lariat (Assault:Mean. I discard x cores and opponent discards x cards)
-I will have 0 hand after I successfully play Bulldog Lariat. Which effect would be activated first?
A: This a snippet of the official rulings for timing breackdown which can be found <HERE>:
7A: Effects you control (other than this card's text taking place when played or when successful played) that trigger on a Successfully Played card take place. In the event of more than one effect, you choose which order they occur.
7B: Effects your opponent controls that trigger on a Successfully Played card take place. Opponent chooses the order. (This is where cards such as Over Sell Maneuver and Sustained Damage are played.)
8: Apply effects listed on the card, unless these effects take place ‘when played’ or ‘when this card is in’ a specified area.
At 7A, we can see that the user has the option to activate either his ability first, or any other card effects first in his order of preference. Therefore, the user can choose to activate Sabu’s ability or Climbing The Ladder first. It is only at step 8 where the card effect will take place. Therefore, with reference to the timing breakdown, the player can choose to activate his ability or other effects first. It is only after that where the card effect will take place.
With that explained, let’s get it on!
The Follow-ups have been classified into 3 categories for easier reference. As usual, I will include the list of cards at the bottom of each category.
Non-Extreme Follow-ups
The first category consists of Non-Extreme maneuvers. There are only 6 cards in this category coming from R2. A common tactic for some of the cards below is Ring Psychology:Leg. Working On The Knee (WOTK) is an Assault: Mean Leg. Therefore, every successful WOTK will activate RP:Leg. Also, WOTK gains momentum if you have lower Fort when you discard 2 maneuvers. Therefore, if you were to run 3 RP:Legs, playing WOTK would allow you to take back 3 Legs from your ringside. Of which, 2 can be used to discard to allow WOTK to gain momentum. Other than that, the rest of the maneuvers are harder to find combos for but that is for you to explore!
Extreme Follow-ups with Fort Reduction
The second category of Follow-ups consists of Extremes that minus their own Fort when played by Extremists. These cards by themselves are already good cards to bridge your Fort. However, Extremists gets the better end of the deal since they are able to play them at a lower Fort. Extremes in general are also rather difficult to reverse. While Non-Extreme maneuvers have different reversals from 1st reversal to 3rd reversal style, there are not many cards in the game that can reverse Extremes. If played right, it is possible to hit first turn Colossals as well.
Extreme Follow-ups with Effects
The last category of Follow-ups also consists of Extremes, but these category of Follow-ups have effects that will only take place if you are an extremist. Since there is no limitations to the number of Follow-ups you can pack, it is possible to build an entire deck themed around 1 card. A discarding theme would find Flying Clotheslines to be very useful while a spongy theme would benefit a lot from Inverted Body Blocks.
RECOMMENDED SUPERSTARS
This is a list of superstars whom I feel are suitable for playing Follow-ups. Some Superstars are made specifically to play Follow-ups, while others have abilities that compliment Follow-up styles. *** would denote that this superstar is made specifically to play Follow-ups. ** denotes superstars that have abilities to compliment Follow-up styles. * are just superstars that COULD explore Follow-ups since their ability works for a specific Follow-up maneuver/type. Do note that these are just my personal opinion and there is always room for more ideas and discussion.
Kofi Kingston***
Kofi is a beast when it comes to Follow-ups. The main problem about Follow-ups would be that it has to be played after something. However, Kofi Kingston’s ability skips that requirement entirely. Therefore, he is able to play his Follow-ups easily as though they are not Follow-ups. In addition to that, his Follow-ups receive some protection against 0D reversals when he has lower Fort. Therefore, he is more than likely to pull off his Follow-ups. However, since his ability requires constant discard, it would be advised that he plays Pre-match cards that allows him to draw, such as Climbing The Ladder or McMahon Family Jewels. That aside, his Pre-match does allow him to take back 1 Non-unique card from his ringside to his hand every time he successfully plays a Follow-up maneuver. Either that or he can play cards that can be retrieved from his ringside as covered in the previous 2 articles.
Non-Storyline Jeff***
Non-Storyline Jeff works very similar to Kofi as he is able to ignore the Follow-up requirements on his Follow-up maneuvers. But unlike Kofi, Jeff doesn’t need to discard a card and that would mean that he is able to keep his hand at a reasonable size. Since he doesn’t have support that benefits him from playing Follow-ups, he would have to come up with tactics that would make the Follow-ups work for him. One simple tactic to use would be Ring Psychology. Since Ring Psychology covers all targets and the 3 basic maneuver types, you can play around with them to see which one works well with you.
Non-Storyline Jeff works very similar to Kofi as he is able to ignore the Follow-up requirements on his Follow-up maneuvers. But unlike Kofi, Jeff doesn’t need to discard a card and that would mean that he is able to keep his hand at a reasonable size. Since he doesn’t have support that benefits him from playing Follow-ups, he would have to come up with tactics that would make the Follow-ups work for him. One simple tactic to use would be Ring Psychology. Since Ring Psychology covers all targets and the 3 basic maneuver types, you can play around with them to see which one works well with you.
Jack Swagger***
Jack’s ability allows him to search for a Follow-up every time he successfully plays a maneuver. Very often, the bad thing about using Follow-ups is that you either can’t get the first maneuver off successfully, that maneuver got reversed on overturn, or you don’t have a Follow-up to continue the beating. Jack Swagger solves 2 of the 3 problems. His Pre-match allows him to draw a card and put 1 Follow-up under his arsenal. This allows him to have a higher chance of solving the first problem about finding maneuvers. Since his ability allows him to search, the 3rd problem is solved as well. Therefore, the only problem to tackle would be how to not let your maneuver get reversed on overturn. The easiest way to solve this method is to play 1D maneuvers. These maneuvers would reduce the chances of it being reversed on overturn and Jack would be able to use his ability to search for his Follow-up as well.
CM Punk, Balls Mahoney, King Booker**
This 3 superstars work slightly similar to Jack Swagger in a sense that they are able to get the Follow-up into your hand after successfully playing a maneuver. While King Booker is able to pick up any Non-unique, Non-hybrid maneuver, CM Punk and Balls Mahoney have to settle for more specific cards. CM Punk would have to choose between Half Crab and Arm Grapevine while Balls have to choose between Extremes. However, the downside of this group of Superstars would be the possibility of the previous maneuver being reversed on overturn, preventing them from playing the Follow-up. While Balls and King Booker has cards or ability that require discard, CM Punk would have trouble settling those ‘dead’ Follow-up cards.
Tommy Dreamer, Non-Storyline HHH, Non-Storyline Great Khali, Non-Storyline Umaga, Non-Storyline Ric Flair, Non-Storyline Rey Mysterio **
These superstars are grouped together because they are able to solve the problem that above superstars face. While those 3 search for their Follow-ups immediately when the maneuver is successful, these superstars each have abilities that can search for maneuvers anytime during their turn. Therefore, they have the liberty of waiting for the maneuver to be successful before deciding whether to search for those Follow-ups. This helps to avoid the problem of having unwanted Follow-ups in your hand. That said, do take note that Ric Flair and Rey Mysterio are restricted to only a few cards that they can search for.
Storyline Jeff, Kurt Angle and every Extremists*
Both superstars have Pre-match cards that allow them to be considered Extremists. Therefore, they will get the bonus when they are playing the 2nd and 3rd category of Follow-ups above. However, they will still have to fulfil the Follow-up requirements. Although playing other styles work better for him, Kurt Angle could look into playing Extreme Follow-ups since his Pre-match considers him as an Extremist, and his opponent has to discard 1 card in order to reverse his Extreme. Therefore, it would be easier for Kurt Angle to pull off a string of Follow-ups if his opponent is not able to discard the card to play the reversal.
Test, Storyline Batista and Marcus CorVon*
These superstars have abilities or cards that reduce the Fort of either their Means or Colossals. For Test, there shouldn’t be a problem hitting a Colossal on the first turn of the game. Suicide Dive is 13F but will get a -3F if played by an Extremist. Since Test is an Extremist, his Pre-match grants -2F for his maneuvers and he is able to reduce his Colossal’s Fort according to his opponent’s Fort, his Colossal Follow-ups can be played easily. While Test has to depend on his opponent to get discounts on his Fort, Storyline Batista grants -6F for his colossals. Therefore, his Missile Dropkick can be played after a 5D maneuver on his first turn. Not bad of a move for a Big guy! Marcus CorVon will get a -5F from his Pre-match + his ability for his maneuvers, allowing him to hit some heavy Extremes on his first turn as well.
CONCLUSION
Follow-ups in general still face many obstacles in the current meta. Since they do not possess very strong effects, they can often be forgone for other maneuvers. That said, Raw Deal is afterall a card game where we look to challenge ourselves. Why not pick up one of the above superstars to give Follow-ups a try. I’m not saying you will win every game, but it would definitely be satisfying if you can pull off victories with this not so popular line of maneuvers. We are coming to an end of all these introduction articles. Next week, we will be looking into Colossals. As usual, feel free to leave your comments or questions below and we will look into them in the next article!
Till then, happy Raw Dealing and have a nice day!