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Is Mei really that bad?


Jordon

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I've noticed for a long time now that the running opinion on Mei is that she's not overly competitive. I'm just sort of curious why that is? Mei was my second master and I've played her somewhat consistently since M2E and I've had good results. 

My guess is that she doesn't do any one thing particularly well and thus there is usually a more precise tool for the job when looking at a given scenario. Probably more than that, is her sort of inconsistency. Her damage output is situational as it can be very resource intensive and typically requires a very specific spacing on my opponents models. She can also shut down like a champ but again thats only if your facing a heavy Sh/Ca. Lastly she can move like crazy but only if her rail points are in position. 

However it's that versatility that makes her a pretty safe drop for me in the past and she can be a hard counter to a good many lists (especially Kang and ressers). With the hard worker upgrade her damage stays pretty consistent even if not super high. 

My only real concern with her now if that Ironsides has shot up so much that I can see people gravitate over to her as they sort of do a similar thing. Even if thats the case I still love Mei and I will never get tired of walking from one side of the board to the other to deliver a dropkick into a mob of enemy models. 

What are other peoples thoughts on Mei post wave 5? Is she competitive? does she live in the shadow of Ironsides? Do you still have a blast playing her?

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I don't think her W5 upgrades did very much to help her out honestly. I think Mei is good in TT because of recalled training and Toshiro (and the Shadow Emissary is actually good...), but compared to that, Arcanists Mei doesn't have that much to offer.

Now that the Charm Warder and the Obsidian Statue are coming out, this gap is only going to widen IMO.

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Mei's one strength is in being a counter pick to ranged crews. Malifaux doesn't have a history of gunlines for the most part and of course once you stop the gunline from destroying your crew, you have to actually do your work, which Mei doesn't really do all that well. Its a lot of set up when you can just take Marcus and go alpha them before they do their thing anyway. I would say that if you eliminated the top 2-3 choices in the faction from the field, Mei would see play. However, Marcus, Deep and Ramos can all do their thing with powerful efficency. Something that Mei has a hard time with. 

Another big problem with Mei is how card greedy she is. She wants to eat your whole hand up on her activation and that's just to bounce around the field and maybe take out one model with a combo chain, something that Toni can now do without as much set up and still survive into the next turn when she's done. Mei's infiltration doesn't bring a huge amount into the faction either. Kang is the only one that really stands out to me. Though it is worth pointing out that in my Mei crew I bring Sparks and Porkchop along with Laz and its a lot of fun, but not incredibly competitive. Mainly because its a lot of cogs to do one kinda ok thing. (Give Laz railwalk or vent steam). 

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Only played a couple of games with Mei Feng, but my main impression is that she's resource hungry, and not in the sense that Marcus and summoners are resource hungry, where they  spend soulstones or high cards to get powerful abilities to work, but more in the sense of never quite having enough resources to function effectively. Not only in one resource either, but in all of them. In terms of cards, every Railwalk jump drains a seven from your hand or your deck, and in combat MI6 means she sometimes has to cheat to hit and is always looking for severe damage, and her triggers are all after damaging so for the combos you have to chain several hits together. Defensively, Defence 6 is good, but again reliant on high cards, and her defensive trigger requires a success *and* a specific suit.

In terms of soulstones, her combos need specific suits, and while Def6 and armour+1 will tank weak attacks a serious damage dealer will smash straight through them, so she's likely to need stones for defence.

Then there's AP. She has the standard 3 for a master, and Railwalk uses one of those, which leaves 2 AP to either vent steam or attack. At weak damage 2, that isn't much, so she's relying on being able to chain attacks and railwalk actions together, which puts more strain on the cards.

At the same time, she's not generating many resources-her only source of card draw or healing is on price of progress which takes an upgrade slot and relies on a steady stream of kills, and she only comes with a cache of 3. 

 

Additionally, I feel like she's in the same awkward spot as Kaeris where she is both lacking the power of a specialist master in a specific field, or the genuine flexibility of a toolbox master. She falls significantly short compared to other damage dealing masters, but at the same time she only has one or two highly situational support abilities, so quite often if she isn't attacking, then she's not doing anything. Which in practice often means that what you get on the table is a bad damage dealing master.

 

The wave 5 upgrades, I feel, don't really address either of these much. She doesn't gain extra resources from them, and while she gets access to a few extra combos they still need specific suits and an unbroken chain of successful attacks.

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I love mei, she's probably my favourite master and I do find her competitive.

As stated she can shut down casting and range crews. She deals really well with arcanists and ressers. Also bringing kang means she is good against horror heavy forces too. 

Her mobility gets her around the field and now she can bring kang too to overcome his slowness.

Also if you do have vapourmancy (of course you do) then if not bringing someone along and you really need a triple vent steam then kick the target of your railwalk  (usually a railworker for me) for a whole 1 damage which he will usually repair on his activation due to me taking joss with bleeding edge tech.

Another bonus with vapourmancy is a cast 7 attack which whilst not high on damage keeps her steady against incorporeal and also has a range 3.

She has lots of tools and lots of ways to accomplish things which is why I have done well with her even when running fixed crew at tourneys

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6 hours ago, WWHSD said:

The best things that Mei Feng has going for her are her big threat range, Vapormancy, and Kang. 

I seem to do better when I use her to support her crew and to surgically remove trouble models than I do when I try to use her as a beatstick.

I agree with this. When I try to use her too aggressively is when I lose. She's a defensive master until the other hitters have gone in then she goes and does her thing.

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Mei is not bad but she is underwhelming.  Several key issues:

  1. Generally the TT Mei is significantly stronger than the Arcanist, so why play Arcanist Mei if you can at all avoid it.
  2. She has construct synergy but taking lots of constructs with her actually hurts her crew flexibility a lot, no other real synergies and she doesn't boost her crew the synergy is movement based mainly for her.
  3. Card intensive attacks and also needs cards to stay alive, very hungry of control hand.
  4. She has limited hard counter in rezzers (mainly through Kang) but also plays directly into rezzers strength of melee durability herself, she is good vs ranged and does a lot of light damage which rezzers don't so much mind.
  5. She is solid vs gunlines but they are not a strong feature of Malifaux and the scheme/strat structure.
  6. In about 99% of cases Arcanists have a master and crew which do anything Mei does but significantly better; Marcus can usually bring the fast melee mayhem better than a Mei crew, Ramos runs (and summons) constructs much better than Mei, Kaeris and Colette can each do schemes with some durability better than Mei as well although both have their own notable flaws, even Raspy can run anti-gunline pretty well with Snowstorm and Ice Mirrors.  But really Sandeep and Ironsides are her death knell in Arcanists as almost any scheme/strat/opponent combo I can think off to run Mei would be better run with either of these masters.

So basically in Arcanist meta taking Mei is handicapping yourself in two ways she is better in TT so if you want Mei take her TT and if you are committed to Arcanists then there is really no combination of circumstances where Mei is more (or even closely as) competitive as the other Arcanist masters.  Its not that she is so weak she is an actual disadvantage (like say pre-errata Lucius or pre-book 5 Mah) but she is alongside poor Colette the current weakest master in faction with the added disadvantage that she has a stronger version of herself in TT as well.  She could use a slight bump, maybe even a simple bump in crew choice, in order to be really solid against the other faction crews (and honestly Sandeep needs to be slightly reduced so he is not as universally solid as his current build is). 

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Mei has some good games, but she is very much in the Scissors, Paper stone group of masters, whihc means if your opponent isn't playing the sort of crew she is great to stop, she is not so good. 

On certain boards, or with the right crew support she can be brutal, I've used Siesmic claws to kill 3 enemy models (Ulix, Sammy and Gracie) from near full in 1 activation, because they couldn't be pushed out of my claw range, (Combination of board, summoning pigs from Gracie and me moving models to trap them)  but thats eitehr a lot of set up, or bad play from your opponent. 

Other than those sort of situations she isn't a great brawler. She does a small amount of damage spread over a lot of models, which often isn't great in this game. 

She is one of the few ways to remove Corpses, and she can really punish Ca or SH heavy crews, but you don't know what you are facing until after you have picked her, so I rarely make the gamble. 

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I've found that I always have to put Imbued Protection on Mei for greater survivability and it's still rough when I play her in Arcanists.  TT just have so many ways to heal or dumb damage elsewhere that the chances of Mei dying are greatly increased in Arcanists.  

Bringing Sparks with her helps set her up a little bit.  He has an action to give blasts on moderate or severe damage to an enemy and that action has a trigger to give them burning.  So if the enemy is grouped up, she can lay down the hurt.  Mei just requires a lot of set up to get her to work.  Otherwise, she is just a support model and while it's great to put Reva or other master's at negatives on their CA/SH... it's very depressing to only have Mei do that.  

Although, I do believe that the new Press the Advantage upgrade does help her.  It's fun to Jackhammer something 3 inches away, use the mask trigger from Seismic Claw upgrade to push the model 3 inches away, push 6 inches into base contact with the model and get a free attack.  Then use the trigger on her last AP Tiger Claw attack to Rail Walk away to safety.  

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She's pretty amazing with the TT but her niche gets really small in the Arcanist side of the fence. TT Emissary and Toshiro alone are complete game changers for her and nothing on the Arcanist side quite compares. Arcanists have models that are better at what they do compared to the TT equivalents but not all that much and the ones on the TT side that are amazing are truly remarkable.

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She's also good in keeping your models where they are, for example against lures. And she's a good pick in Tail 'em. I agree, she should have the possivility to deal more damage, for example if in xy range to a friendly foundry model, or sth like that. But tham again, she is not supposed to be a hitter. 

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  • 5 weeks later...

Wave 5 hasn't changed my list, her new upgrades don't add much although I may use the any trigger one sometime and none of the new models do much for her imo 

50 SS Arcanists Crew
Mei Feng + 4 Pool
 - Price Of Progress (1)
 - Seismic Claws (1)
 - Vapormancy (1)
Emberling (3)
Joss (10)
 - Bleeding Edge Tech (1)
 - Imbued Energies (1)
Kang (9)
 - Hard Worker (1)
 - Imbued Energies (1)
Willie (6)
Rail Worker (5)
Rail Worker (5)
Arcane Effigy (4)

 (exported from CrewFaux)

You can swap out price of progress to taste but I find it useful. the emberling is probably my main scheme runner sometimes supported by willie or rail workers depending on opposing crews.

Mei is used for protection until I feel she has the time to go in supported by Joss and Kang (few times I have been overly aggressive with her is when this list doesn't work).

the list has got me some podiums and even tourney wins so it does work, but more so if you get to face ressers :D 

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@katadder Thank you very much for your list :).

I just built everything today and it is ready to be primed :).

What i thought about, was a Carlos Vasquez making the list together with some gunsmiths, so you can stay vapored as the gunsmiths shoot out of the cloud against burning targets :)

Is Willie this good with Mei?

Sounds like a fun list :D.

I would like to see more lists and try them ot or adjust :D

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I just like willie for a 6SS model. has some armour ignoring ranged attack, stops people wanting to charge in and even on dying can deal damage. also if fighting constructs/undead he can get kangs assistance at range and being foundry can also make use of hard worker.

its probably more because everyone but joss and the effigy are foundry and joss doesn't need the foundry assistance and I tend to run themes a lot in arcanists

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A model that I've found myself bringing very often with Mei is Sparks.  He can turn a friendly or enemy model into a construct and give them armor +1 as a 0 action and has a trigger to use his other 0 action to give a friendly Construct fast.  If you make an enemy into a Construct and have Kang, all your allies get +'s to attack and damage vs that enemy model.  Willie is great for ignoring this armor (and is just a good model overall) or giving Sparks the Foundry specific upgrade.  His aura is interesting but usually won't come in to play much since he stays in the back.  He also has an ability to make moderate or severe damage done to enemies produce blasts which pairs well with Mei's + to damage vs burning units on her Tiger's Claw attack. 

In regards to upgrades, I personally like to bring Press the Advantage which allows you to chain attacks and actions a lot more cleanly.  A fun little combo is to Railwalk within 3 inch range of an enemy to get a free attack to Jackhammer Kick, use a Mask to take the Tremors trigger from Tiger's Claw to then push the model another 3 inches away (and hopefully into a group of enemies), take a Tiger's Claw attack from the trigger on another enemy model if able and then FINALLY push the 6 inches in to base contact with the original model.  All this on one ap.  Finally, Press the Advantage gives a trigger to all MI actions that lets you take the Railwalk action so you can use this to jump out of combat or to another target to potentially set up for the combo I mentioned above.

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I have a local who's very much a fan of Mei, having started the game with her.  Based on his recent lists, a few specific models jump out as being very useful to her.

1) Mechanized Porkchop: Practically custom built to facilitate rail walking.  By himself he's a pretty durable construct who's a good early activation to set up later turn shenanigans.

2) Union Steamfitter:  Solves a lot of problems for mei.  Between fishing cards out of the discard and applying Reinforced Sheet Armor to stuff, the Steamfitter is frankly bonkers.

3) Sparks: I'm so sad he's this useful to Mei and not Gremlins.  Some people plan Mei crews to have tons of constructs, really she just wants 1 big one and maybe 1 or 2 more.  Sparks can take any of the arcanist's big construct beaters to 11.  He's there mostly to wind up every turn, but also to pack with explosives when convenient.  He's also not incompetent with his big wrench in a pinch and his Aura will just wreck support masters of all stripes.

One thing worth noting on his use of Mei Feng is that her job changes drastically over the course of the game.  In early turns her job is to provide a mobile bunker that can help her big hitters get to the front line unscathed and ready to go (Rail Lines is great for this).  Starting in turn 3; she's problem solving for him.  She kills a model or two, does some scheming, applies pressure to support models and generally makes a huge nuisance of herself while the rest of the crew gets stuff done.

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  • 4 weeks later...

With Sparks in a Mei crew, where do you get the Scrap markers from to run Metal Platin...? 

It seems to be quite card intensive and turn-sequence-limiting to use the Steamfitters to cook up scrap for an ability that only lasts one turn, otherwise you sort of need an Arachnid or Joss, which is eating into a lot of the crew points total

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3 hours ago, madaxeman said:

With Sparks in a Mei crew, where do you get the Scrap markers from to run Metal Platin...? 

It seems to be quite card intensive and turn-sequence-limiting to use the Steamfitters to cook up scrap for an ability that only lasts one turn, otherwise you sort of need an Arachnid or Joss, which is eating into a lot of the crew points total

I don’t think that Metal Platin is something that gets used every trun.

Mei’s foundry models are discard hungrry enough that I don’t think you’d have the cards to spare for the Steamfitter to be making scrap. 

Metal pigs poop out scrap so that should cover you enough to make Kang a construct, give him fast, charge in and wreck fools, and then have Mei Rail Walk to him on a key turn.

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