Thread: Licensed Saki manga
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Old 2012-11-23, 06:58   Link #2397
night_sentinel
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Join Date: Apr 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Felyndiira View Post
I would say that Toki's ability is more powerful than Kasumi's in general. Both of them have excellent defense - Toki is also unable to deal into a hand unless if it's on purpose (SUBARA-chan) or if she has her ability negated by even bigger ability hax (Teru - and even then it's very limited). In fact, with her ability she should be able to, when the occasion is favorable, even shift the flow/give enough hints to an opponent's waits to prevent other players from dealing into a hand. With her ability, Kasumi has to rely entirely on completing her own hands and doesn't show the greatest speed in doing so, while Toki is much more flexible in adjusting her playing style. Basically, Toki = Kasumi in defense while Toki > Kasumi in offense.
While I do agree that Toki's ability is hax - I don't think that it exceeds Kasumi's and Toyone's by a wide margin. They're more or less in the same tier for me.

For example:
Toki's Defense = Kasumi's Defense
We agree on this, both Toki and Kasumi cannot be directly hit by virtue of their abilities. Toki would see the hit before it came and avoid it (except when she called riichi and thus can't) and Kasumi's opponents cannot make a hand that will be able to hit Kasumi (except when the wait in question is an honor tile).

Toki's Offense < Kasumi's Offense
This is where we are going to argue. I believe that Kasumi's offense is actually better than Toki's.

Kasumi should be faster than Toki when making her hand since she only draws from one suit. By the laws of probability she should be filling her waits very fast. On the other hand, Toki's one-turn precognition wasn't really that helpful in getting to tenpai early.This became evident to me when I played Saki style mahjong irl with my friends meaning we are able to "cheat" legally in certain ways. I picked Toki's ability a couple of times and to my eternal disappointment seeing what tile I'm going to get next turn wasn't very helpful in hand building except in certain situations.

Beside that, another offensive advantage that Kasumi has is the size of her score. Kasumi only draws a certain suit meaning she is guaranteed to get a flush (6 han) or a half-flush( 3 han) every single time along with whatever other yaku her hand can make. This meant Kasumi's hand is always going to be the size of a mangan and above.

Toki's Cooperative Play > Kasumi's Cooperative Play
I think this is what you are arguing in your post where Toki is ahead of Kasumi and I agree - Toki's cooperative play is miles ahead of Kasumi's. Kasumi's ability by its nature takes her out of the equation and almost makes the game like a 3p mahjong. There is no cooperation there.

As your post indicate, Toki one-turn precognition makes it very easy for her to cooperate with the other players. Of course, cooperation is only useful in certain situations wherein you need to stop an overwhelming player like Teru. For most of the matches, I think that its every player for herself.

Toki's stamina < Kasumi's stamina
I believe the biggest disadvantage that Toki has right now is her weak stamina. Toki can't use her ability indefinitely. In a team match, this isn't much of a disadvantage since you only need to play 2 hanchans a day, but this is a very big limitation in the individuals matches where you have to play all day.




Breaking it down like this, I just realized how hax Kasumi was. Forgot it in the wake of Saki's rampage on the table.

Anyway, I believe in most situations, it would be like this:
Kasumi > Toki

On the other hand, if you're facing a monster like Teru or Koromo or Saki and can obtain the cooperation of at least one player, I believe Toki's ability is more useful than Kasumi's.

Last edited by night_sentinel; 2012-11-23 at 07:27.
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