Post by keith0913832 on May 16, 2016 2:36:53 GMT 8
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to yet another Revo article! This week will be the finale for the 7 part Ring Psychology series. Big thanks to everyone who has went through the article every week I hope they shed some new light to new play styles. Anyway, this week we will be looking at the 3 basic RP cards from R1: RP:Assault, RP:Throw and RP:Hold. In general, these RPs are not as difficult to activate unlike the previous RPs we have covered. They also work best with the first reversal style as mentioned numerous times in previous articles so I won’t go there again. Instead, I will go straight into what styles and superstars fit playing them instead.
Ring Psychology: Assault
RP:Assault’s effect allows it to constantly pick up Maneuvers from your ringside, which is really suitable for aggressive tactics. It can be used in lieu with other RP cards since it allows the user to pick up more cards to satisfy the other RP card’s requirements. A good way to utilise this card is to use it together with RP:Arm or RP:Chest. RP:Arm’s damage addition would increase if you are able to pile up more Arm Maneuvers in your Ring, and what better way to do so than to have a recursive effect that allows you to return more Arm Maneuvers into your hand. RP:Chest’s recovery ability can also be used as many times as possible during your turn, so the ability to keep returning Maneuvers into your hand can work to your favour as well. To go back to basics, RP:Assault would also be the best way to save you from the aggression rule every turn as it would allow you to have at least 1 Maneuver to play the next turn if the current Maneuver is successful.
Recommendations:
William Regal
William Regal’s ability revolves around Assaults and Holds that are being reversed. Therefore, going RP:Assault is very suitable since you can pick up the Hold that has been reversed previously when you successfully play an Assault. If either are reversed, your opponent will have to discard 1 and overturn 2. If it is successful, you get to pick up another Maneuver to pressure him more. Either way, William Regal would easily put your opponent in a bad spot. Knee Lifts and occasional Snap Mares (that can be picked up by RP:Assault) would help reduce your opponent’s hand even more. Rinse and repeat until he runs out of hand from the constant reversing and dying from aggression rule, or until your Maneuver kills him off.
Dolph Ziggler
Dolph Ziggler’s ability is discard heavy in order to fully utilise his ability. Therefore, RP:Assault is a good way to negate the discarding factor. Drop Kick is a good Assault for Dolph as it allows you to look at your opponent’s hand. After which, you can pick up the type of Maneuver, either Throw or Hold that your opponent can’t reverse, and use your ability to discard for the next Maneuver to turn it into that type. It fully utilises Dolph’s ability and RP:Assault’s effects and they work together very well. Cores don’t really do much damage though, so the main focus will be to outlast your opponent. Therefore cards like Running Lariat, Bow & Arrow and Bulldogs are some recursive Cores that you can consider packing and using.
Umaga (Storyline)
Umaga’s storyline ability involves having as many targets in your Ring as possible. Therefore, it is only right that he can choose what targets he is lacking to play in order to maximise his ability. This can be fulfilled through RP:Assault when it allows you to pick up Maneuvers from your Ringside. To maximise this effect, you can consider packing either Dressed For Success or Underestimate The Competition to get some initial Ringside, or 4Ever: No Mercy to make reversing your Means more painful for your opponent. Do note that his ability allows him to draw UP TO the number of different targets so you can choose to draw 1 even if you have 6 different targets in your Ring.
Ring Psychology: Hold
Personally, RP:Hold has the weakest effect of the 3, but still, it is not completely useless. RP:Hold works differently from RP:Assault as this card gives you slight recovery. It is best to mix this up with your 1st Reversal Style so you can recur some reversals if needed. Alternatively, if you have an ability that can allow you to search your arsenal for Maneuvers, RP:Hold would be good since you can recover 1 Assault AND 1 Throw at the same time unlike RP:Assault where you can only put 1 back in hand.
Recommendations:
The Great Khali
Great Khali is a straight forward superstar for RP:Hold since his ability allows for a search every turn. By successfully activating RP:Hold, you can recur 2 cards and also ensure that you would have a Maneuver to play next turn. A great way to negate the draw for your opponent when you activate your ability would be playing Hardcore Hell, which will grant protection for your Cores from your opponent’s hand. Therefore, it will negate his big hand from the excessive drawing. To ensure that you are always on the low Fort side, you can go with Slap The Taste Outta Your Mouths and Short Arm Hammerlocks for more recovery. Once you hit higher Fort, you can also use Save Me From Myself to get yourself on the lower Fort while allowing you to re-use those Maneuvers that you removed from your Ring.
Edge (Non-storyline)
This idea is roughly based on Joewi’s Edge deck awhile back. The purpose is to abuse the R3 0F Maneuver/Antic hybrids as Antics every turn. While he can’t do much damage if he focus purely on Cores, the discard effects from the hybrids are good. Uppercut and Arm Wringer would be your best friends as they would help to disrupt the 2 places where he can reverse your Maneuvers; hand and backlash. Occasional Forget The History(s) would help increase the chance that your opponent will run out of hand quicker. Since you might be playing an Antic as the first card of your turn sometimes, it would be good to run a few Taunt You All I Wants to save you from the occasional aggression rule if the Antic gets reversed.
Jack Swagger
Jack Swagger’s ability allows for searching of a Follow-up after you successfully play a Maneuver. This is important as you can possibly link everything up seamlessly. Let’s say you play a Scissors Hold for 6D. Immediately, activate RP:Hold’s effect to bring back eg. a Sidewalk Slam or Flying Kick. After which, use your ability to pick up either one that you put back. If Scissors Hold is not reversed from arsenal, go ahead with a protected Follow-up from your ability. If not, you can always use All-American American to put that Follow-up at the bottom of your arsenal to draw a card next turn.
Ring Psychology: Throw
RP:Throw requires abit of a pre-requisite before it would work, but nonetheless, a strong draw engine would benefit the player, especially against hand disruption decks. My personal advice to run RP:Throw is to use Elbow Smash and Scissors Hold as your Assault and Hold to satisfy the requirements. They are chosen because they can be picked up constantly from your Ringside, which will allow you to keep playing them. They would also provide for your initial Fort so you can save space for other Means and/or Colossals.
Recommendations:
Sheamus
Sheamus is the obvious choice for RP:Throw since it works so well with his ability. Personally I have tried this out and it was still an OK deck. Not OP, but definitely one of the best builds for Sheamus in pure VR format. By using Elbow Smash and Scissors Hold as mentioned above, you can satisfy your RP:Throw relatively easy. Once that is done, focus on throwing in painful Throws to activate your RP as much as possible. The downside to this however, is that your hand would be huge. Therefore, cards like Samoan Drop would allow you to shuffle back and draw a lesser number of cards. Similarly for re-use, Save Me From Myself (SMFM) would be a good Antic to pack, especially if you are focusing on Means and Colossals. Do take note that for SMFM, the choice of removing is dependent on you. Therefore if you need to remove 20D and u have a 19D, 5D and 15D in your Ring, you can choose to remove the 19D followed by 15D to keep the 5D in your ring, OR you can remove the 5D and 15D to keep the 19D in your ring.
King Booker
While RP:Assault and RP:Hold have effects that allow you to choose cards, RP:Throw only allows you to draw something that you cannot choose. Therefore, with King Booker’s ability, you would be able to maintain a healthy handsize, while choosing cards with his ability through the help of RP:Throw. In order to activate his ability, he can put 1 non-unique non-reversal card from his Ringside to hand, after which he must discard 1 card. Therefore, the additional card drawn would give King Booker a wider choice of what to discard instead. With King Booker’s retrieving ability, he can always pick up what he discarded, or possibly even work towards having more targets in his Ring to pull off multiple Momemtum-ed Superkicks.
Matt Striker
Matt Striker’s handsize is extremely difficult to maintain due to his high expense when using his ability. Although it pays off, the deck will not be sustainable if there is no strong drawing engine. RP:Throw could be used to negate that if he focuses on getting his Throws into his Ring. The true potential of his ability lies in the fact that he remove key Maneuvers from his opponent’s hand, thereby increasing the chances of him eating the aggression rule. Thus, maintaining a strong flow of Throws is important. One way of playing would be to focus on the Maneuvers that allow you to search for other Maneuvers, such as Snap Slam, Knee Breakers and Lariat. This would keep the inflow of Maneuvers to play, as well as increasing the chance of activating RP:Throw more often. Another method would be to reinforce your ability by cause more discard effects. Certain Extreme Maneuvers can do so, and Matt Striker can get benefits from playing them since he is an Extremist.
CONCLUSION
With that, we have come to the end of the 7part series. As usual, there are many more ways to use each RP card, and it is very possible to mix them up, especially with the 3 in this article. Always step outside of your comfort zone and try different builds and maybe unorthodox methods. You will never know what results you get. As always, feel free to leave your comments or corrections for any mistakes in the comment section below and I will address them accordingly!
Till next time, thanks for reading and have a nice day!