They're normally preparation games for the upcoming events, so while we play these games they're with ITS rules.
I'd rather tempban Neko Oyama, he's sorely in need of an update now that all Domaru get dual wielding. Also Yu Jing losing another character after the Uprising debacle is fucking bullshit.
I can't find the original point it was brought up, just a reference to it from @xagroth on January 24th. https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/february-releases-are-on-the-horizon.930/page-15#post-20205
Except we already lost 4 characters with Uprising. We were left with a whole 2-3 but no, that clearly wasn't enough.
Meaning it's on the Spanish language forums. I'm not able to search well on the Spanish page, the best candidate I can find is this: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/primer-desafio.1370/page-2#post-19894 But it seems @xagroth linked and referred to the official information page for information that profiles would get updated, and I must say that aside from Xi and Kusanagi, they have chosen some pretty damned ineffective characters in need of updating. Not much of a challenge there, and I assume that Xi was chosen because A he's the only choice and B banning Sun Tze v2 would have meant banning Sun Tze v1 and I assume that v1 is in a very good place and they don't actually want that one changed or gone and also C Xi was the only choice since they recently nuked all Yu Jing characters*. * Do note that JSA is still considered Yu Jing, but for obvious reasons I don't think they were interested in changing (1) one of the best and most used Engineers in the game or (2) one of the most important lieutenants for their Sectorial in game nor (3) that one character that was recently announced to be nuked and remade. So Xi is a no brainer. And sad for Crane lists.
Have I been living under a rock or something? Been playing ISS at tournaments for the past 1,5 years and I've never heard anyone in my life go "zomg nerf Xi pl0x!", now he's "problematic"? Lolwat. Exactly how much do you want him to cost exactly? He's a Celestial Guard with FO and Madtraps. Like, none of his skills are remotely expensive, so why anyone wants a price hike or even want to pay for him, if he was at the 25 point range, is beyond me. I don't mind nerfs on those things that deserve it, like the new Su Jian but Xi is now apparently so OP that Crane links will cease to exist without him? Wut.
Xi could use a slight points hike, but nerfing him right now is asking for a huge shitstorm about why him and not the ridiculously optimized Leila that comes in the same box.
I'm splitting the dire foes box with a friend of mine, and when we opened it up we found instead of Xi we'd gotten half of a posthuman. A clue, obviously.
Well... Tarik Mansouri doesn't look to me Ineffective considering his Fatality N2 XD. They probably will change him laterally so he won't be a beast if linked with 4 khawarijs in Ramah (the Haqquislam crew was betting on Yasbir for a buff...). Andromeda needs a total rework, but the model's pieces make a Silhouette reduction something unlikely (since her left hand is over the dog's head, and you need to glue it to her arm), which is a shame because banning her and Voronin for an upgrade is a great opportunity to remove Guardian altogether (just give them Martial Arts or better melee capabilities, for simplicity's sake). Kusanagi was a total surprise, since Hellois had made a spoiler on a spanish Podcast during the Majorca's satellite Tournament. I imagine they want to laterally change her aswell, and if both of them lose the +1SWC of one profile I would fear for Juana's and some other Lt's extra SWC. Incidentally, Stephen Rao was very low on the betting pool :/
I can see how losing the gluebots, flamethrower and No2 in the Crane link can be a hit for some people, but I actually stopped running Xi with the link on a stable basis - It's not that he's bad at all, it's that he's 7 points more expensive than the CG mook I'd typically bring instead. Yes those 7 points give you a lot, but I'd usually opted to cut the price as much as I could. Right now, the Crane/CG hacker/CG control device/two maybe-lieutenants clock in at 114 points - And I usually find I don't really want to spend more than that on the link (I do at times bring the FO CG instead of the combi rifle versions, depending on the amount of shell games I care to play). Also, as pointed out elsewhere, it's not like YJ really has any other character they could have hit with this ban anyway (due to the JSA split basically walking off with all our characters). Sun Tze, being a recreation, would have made very little sense.
Considering the BS14, ODD, and NWI, that's around the right price SWC wise (compare to Vet Kazak) More egregious are the 2 SWC on the spitfire Prowler and HMG sineater.
I think xi will be back before the others, remember these characters are going in to testify. I imagine the xi will roll in the with his iss lawyers and a bunch of evidence that point to him not colaborating and he'll be exonerated and be back in no time. Turns out that data was just coincidences and false positives.
