u/MrPillow01

I have only about a dozen maxed-out Brawlers that I've been using for Ranked, and most of them are long-range Brawlers like Pierce.

I was feeling the need to be able to play a space-maker (like Kenji) and a safe-DSP for Heist (like Kaze). And to expand my horizons, I decided to impose myself a challenge for reaching Legendary 1 after the season reset:

1. Always pick Kaze in Heist, and Kenji in all other modes

2. If one of these two are banned or picked, pick the other one

3. If both are banned/picked, I'm free to pick any other Brawler (though this happened only ever once, somehow)

Before this challenge I had almost never played the two. I unlocked Kaze using credits and levelled her up, while Kenji is already maxed in Ranked so I didn't need to level him.

I ended last season on L2, so I started from Diamond rank, where I familiarized myself with the basics of using the samurai-ninja pair. When I reached mid-Mythic, I watched some guide videos to learn and apply more advanced techs. The final stretch from M3 to L1 took the longest effort by far—due to season reset everyone in the lobby was peak Legendary or Masters players (and once I even faced and lost to a Pro ranker).

At some point I felt that the maps I got started mattering a lot. I learned that Kenji is one of those Brawlers who can win even unfavoured matchups as long as you can out-skill your opponents, but that's just not easy on open maps such as Shooting Stars. And neither on Knockout, I found out. There were also times I had the first pick and the entire opposing team could go for Kenji counters (yes, I did become the Bad Random with max Kudos a few times).

In the end, a week after the reset, I managed to reach L1 with a good Kenji game on Open Business. This is not an achievement to brag about by any means—I'm sharing this only because the game has been feeling stale recently, but beating this challenge felt fun and fulfilling, so I thought I can maybe inspire others to do similar stuff.

Anyway, here are a few observations I can make after this "training regimen" of about a hundred Kenji-Kaze ranked games straight, as someone who's previously mostly been using long-range Brawlers:

Kenji is all about his instant wide-AoE 2k slice attack, its so good! And it's why you should really hug your walls with him. The most frustrating thing with him, though, is when you need to use your healing gadget but can't when you're stuck in a basic attack animation. Also, aiming his Burst can be surprisingly difficult, and I still sometimes struggle to make it connect.

For Kaze, learning when to switch to her Ninja form was the hardest thing to figure out. So far, it seems I've landed on the philosophy of, basically, to "always stay in Geisha, unless you need Ninja." Also, making her Geisha Super hit the safe was much easier to learn than I was led to believe. Aiming basic attacks in the Ninja form is hell, though.

More broadly, I've also gained a newfound appreciation for strong anti-tanks like Otis and Crow. I've played Otis a lot in previous seasons, and this time I was on the recieving end of his attacks and mute. It sounds corny, but I did gain valuable new perspectives after leaving my comfort zone by taking on this challenge. Hope you enjoyed this if you read this far!

The draft went Crow —> Leon, Ruffs (me) —> Alli, Shade —> Bull (my recc.). Banned Brawlers were Edgar, Collette, Najia, Kit, and some others I'm not remembering. We won the match but it was quite close.

Alli and especially Shade are good on this map due to the amount of bushes and walls, so I believe Ruffs's wall-breaking ability was very important in this match. However, the Leon and especially Bull in my team also like bushes and walls, and at the same time, the opposing Crow likes a more open map.

Considering all this, how should a Ruffs player approach wall-breaking in this match? If you can, please give a priority list. I personally broke walls mostly on our side to not get spawn-trapped, but honestly was kinda random with it.

I am the happy owner of a currently-C0 Varka, but I'll unlock his C3 after getting Nicole. I wonder if there are any other Varka mains in a similar spot!

In case someone asks why I'd do such a thing, the reasons are

• When I pulled for Varka, I was, and still am, lacking in in-game resources (e.g., Mora), so it's been taking me a very long time to build Varka. I still don't have a 4pc Winds set levelled up. Since I view obtaining constellations as a "finishing touch" that completes my characters' builds, it'd feel unsatisfying to unlock Varka's C3 before finishing the rest of his build (mainly artifacts).
• I want to personally evaluate his power levels at every constellation level. I am going to measure his DPS at C0, C1, C2, and C3 using the testing dummy. I would've missed the chance to do this using Varka's premium team with Nicole and compare it to other teams if I unlocked C3 on day 1.
• I want to properly experience Varka's C0 attack combos before I forever lose access to them after unlocking C1+.
• There hasn't been a practical reason to unlock his constellations in terms of me clearing endgame content. Even if I could clear one Stygian Dire stage with a C3 Varka, I wouldn't have been able to clear both of the remaining Dire stages with my other teams, so unlocking C3 wouldn't have made a difference for my current Fearless clear.
• Edging with Varka is kinda hot?