Is Mephisto underrated (I think yes)

[AmbroiseG]

Hi all, Ambroise here (I'm top 10 in elo for tag team).

I saw that all tier list for tag team put Mephisto really low tier (including mine), but I really think he is worth the try.

Mephisto ramp really fast, he has power gain and attacks, his weakness are that he has not much LP and that he needs a lot of cards to be viable (at least two copy of his base card). This at all made him low tier in all tierlists because low LP + need a lot of card + no blocks is a major weakness.

The thing is he is very sensitive to power buff. And he is very hard to block (as his twin serpents can be white or black depending on the situation, so using a block if the number of twin serpent is odd means that you'll block only one turn out of two).

A friend of mine started to play him a lot with fae folks. You start the game with + 1 cube (this is very good with him), you have entanglement (which is always cool), you have two fairy rings to heal mephisto (and eventually tank one attack if oppenent try to over agro you), and finally summoning redcap so you can attack with mephisto without a mephisto card.

This team is VERY strong and at this moment I still struggle a lot to beat it. It ramps faster than mordred, joanne etc and it aggro faster than chingh. To me this is a very good team.

It should also work but differently with shango (Cauterize and wall of flame only) or wild bunch (+1 cube + we ain't there to talk even if I think it's a bit less op).

I just wanted to reach out about this, I saw that a lot of people started over playing mordred, joanne and milady after the first tierlist came out. I recently saw a lot of mama brigit with last tier list posted and I hope I will see more Mephisto because to me he can be very op.

(I also tried to make Wong fei Hung works but for this one it is still very situationnal and right now he is not that playable).

[HiveMindEmulator]

Glad to see a new strategy post here! Personally I really struggle with Mephisto, but I do lose to him, so I would love to hear more detail about what you're thinking when playing him from people who are good at it!

Something I don't understand from your post: you say he ramps "really fast", but the numbers disagree with this. His starting card ramps 1 cube every other round, and he has 2 more of the same card and no other ramp. Compare this to Joan whose starting card also gives a cube every other round, and has 2 cards in the deck which do the same (plus attack **every** round), AND potentially more ramp from blocks. He's strictly worse at ramping compared to Joan. Mordred starts with +1 per round, so if you don't get all 3 Twin Serpents, you don't ramp any faster than Mordred. And Joan and Mordred are the mediocre rampers. Wild Bunch, Bodvar, and Golem ramp much faster. So at best Meph is an average ramper; I'd say he's below average.

But the thing that feels weird to me with Meph is that it feels like he **should** be aggressive because he has a lot of cards which deal damage, he has poor ramp, and he has a couple of huge swing cards if they race you (the block and Drag You to Hell). So you end up playing aggressively, then they have to defend, and you ramp slowly, but they ramp even slower because they are doing too much healing or blocking (some of which ends up missing because your coin flips). So it ends up being **aggressive** but somehow still **slow**, which makes it hard to wrap my head around. He may be one of the more skill-intensive heroes to play.

I feel like the strongest situation for Mephisto might be vs Maman Brijit, because Brijit has a lot of damage concentrated in one attack card which you can counter well with a lot of your cards: Fury of the Damned outraces it (and exact lethals if she hits the health loop); Siphon Soul is a big swing that keeps you full; and Drag You to Hell is a win condition.

I would love to hear other opinions and tips!

[Haunted_Shoebox]

His not having a clear gameplan is the perfect way to put it. He's sort of fine at everything but not in a way that feels like it justifies his fiddliness with managing the flips - it feels more like when the flips line up then he's at about the same level as someone like Joan (except Joan can support her teammate too), but when they get out of sync he's a disaster.

I have been using Drag You to Hell a bit more recently though. The way I most commonly see it used is as a "gotcha" to turn a winning position into a losing one - but that requires you to draw it on the right round and to guess the position right. It can also be used from earlier on as a pressure card - similar to Shango's Aflame - that you can line up with a strong opposing attack and force suboptimal play from your opponent to move that attack out of the way before it loses the game. Bonus points if you can force them to move it into a strong block of your own!

[AmbroiseG]

Hey Hive !
So really, I think objectively he's one of the fastest ramper AND he is aggro.
Let's consider that having at least two twins serpents by the turn 3 is a standard (I let Bode developp the official stats, I know it is his thing).
Joanne spreads her cubes, so she really gains one cube every 4 turns, when she add a lot of ramp card, she can go up to 1 cube every 1.5-2 turns but rarely more.
Mordred ramp faster but all of his attacks are situationnal, so he is not aggro, he is more ramping silently and taking opportunity to punish opponent.
Wild bunch ramps a bit more slowly exept if you find your one exemplary of the keys. The only way for bodvar to ramp is to block attack or meditate (and this is very risky), plus he rarely attacks before bear form. And golem is a monster BUT his ramp is situationnal. Against a good player, golem will be banned OR the player will take joanne milady, never attacks and just ramp and then golem is useless.

To me mephisto well played is like a mama brigit with a soul embrace at the beginning exept that mephisto is I think a bit more aggro and a far less control so it's a bit of all in (you have a lot more of attacks slot).

For example with fey folks (to give him +1 cube at the start), he outrace a lot of ramp or aggro compos, he can have an odd number of snakes or activating his middle bar trigger to be imprevisible with his attacks.

I mean I don't play bad, but when I play against my friend, I have a better winrate if I ban mephisto.
I'm almost sure he is underrated and I can't wrap my head around how to counter mephisto/Fae.
He is always at least 5 cube at turn 3 and attack each turn without condition. If you play defensively and block, he's still ramping faster than you and will punish you elsewhere. The only way to win is to attack with each characters on his card, to spread the damage recieve and focus the damage dealt, but then he still have soul siphon and drag you to hell.

Complicated, trust me.

[ausar1506]

Hey Ambroise, lovely post! Going to add my 2 cents here ‘cause I really like your attempt at putting some spotlight on the unpopular black and white fighter.

Hades Noir is a great champion design, and I really love the character. When I play unranked, I have been whipping out that specific fighter for fun quite regularly. After 150+ games of snake shenanigans, hell portals and Shang Tsung soul sucking, the verdict is … *drumrolls* … :

- Mephisto is indeed D tier! (and probably the worst fighter of the bunch, which is impressive knowing Fey Folk exist!). Cue the sad violin noises.

Now don’t get me wrong, the champion is playable, fun, and can win. But statistically you will be unfavored against key matchups, and to climb reliably avoid this fighter like French people avoid work.

The reasoning: Mephisto suffers heavily against the most picked and popular champs. Saber light (Joan) and Emo Knight (Mordred) both heavily punish Mephisto. And golem well… The amounts of game I played golem and Iron Miked him out of the game is unfortunate and yet delightful (just too low HP).

Mephisto puts consistent damage, but Joan heals and damages you back, has a better life pool, and has easier conditions to attack and ramp. And she doesnt need to ramp much better, at attack 3 she does 6 value against an aggro Fighter like Mephisto. In my experience Joan rarely struggles against Mephisto and also provides utility. A-tier against D-tier for you unfortunately. The only real way to win is threatening Drag You to Hell whenever you can, or relying on your partner.

Mordred literally cannot lose. Wild statement, but he takes away any Drag You to hell attempts because he kills you with block attacks, and his HP is so high that he can afford to make many more mistakes then Mephisto. Good Mordred players will just avoid backstab unless necessary. The dream as Mephisto is to outplay Mordred Blocks with well placed chains of snake switching, but you will always will be at disadvantage because Mordred can tank a few hits (especially with only one snake card), wait for Mephisto to play another serpent, and now Mephisto is locked unless they decided to play a third one but that makes Mephisto’s patterns very random. Honestly Mephisto VS Mordred always makes me think of the “Look at what they need to do to mimic a fraction of our power quote”.

Now don’t get me wrong, Mephisto is playable. He has good synergy with Brigit, and he is a self-sufficient fighter (he has self heal, and one of the best in the game at that!) And he can scale pretty fast in right conditions. His manipulation of the coin can be really cute with well placed heals if you know how much damage you will take. And his deal 4 direct damage is really good early! You can win semi-reliably with Mephisto against some off meta comps.

But Mephisto is unfavored against all the high tiers (Milady is fine but Milady is Milady you never truly know what will happen), needs a lot of effort and fine tuning, and unlike Bodvar or Fey Folk, you can’t count on the Rock to save the day. The sad truth is, Mephisto is betrayed by what makes him so unique: a do-all unpredicted fighter that can do everything but worse than everyone else. Jack of all trades, master of none. And have i said he has criminally low HP? I probably have. I'll say it again anyway.

Hypothesis: Denied!

Stamps Seal.

(Obviously take my take with a grain of salt. And if you ever want to showcase your idea, send me an invite and we can play some games.)

[AmbroiseG]

Good point, I'll try more joanne to counter him.
Have you tried with Fae ? Like the +1 cube makes him ramp really faster and it's+2 if you manage to suicide another fae folks.
I play very meta (milady, joanne, mordred, mama) I just don't play much golem and I just struggle to beat this friend.
I'd be glad to test it out against you I really want to see if I can win consistently with him.

[ausar1506]

Hey Ambroise!
I would love to test it out with you, I'll send you a friend request.

[Sa angreal]

Gotta say, I really agree with Ausar - I avoid him at all costs. And, also Shango. if you want to know why, I'll explain, but I think most people probably think the same so I'll leave it for now.