The King of Fighters XV Challenger Series: Card Combos

With The King of Fighters XV Challenger Series releasing this Friday January 30th, it’s time we share some of our favorite combos. Let’s take a closer look at some of the card combinations made available with this new release.

Using Your New Characters

Team Hero’s captain Shun’Ei loves filling up his card pool to get the most out of his damage bonus enhance. A great way to do that is by using actions that both replace themselves and exclude themselves from progressive difficulty once you mount your attack.

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No Tact is another cheap way to stuff your card pool, and it pairs particularly well with Phantom Singulation in a longer attack string.

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MeitenKun really wants to deal damage to the rival as soon as possible, and as a 5-hander, he has his work cut out for him. Destructive Entrance is an attack you can open with that can reach 8 speed without any outside help, making it a tough prospect to block.

The nice thing is that if you manage to trigger MeitenKun’s response, you can then use MeitenKun’s Form ability to build the face-down card added by Destructive Entrance’s Blitz ability. This allows Destructive Entrance to move to your momentum at the end of the turn.

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Spirit Slash is a great card for MeitenKun to build with his Form ability. Find a way to commit MeitenKun, then build Spirit Slash to trigger its ability and net yourself two foundations.

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We’ve established that MeitenKun really wants to deal damage. Conversely, that means your rival really wants to block your attacks. Load up on effects that punish blocking, and your rival will have nowhere to turn.

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Ultimate Combination is one of my favorite cards in the game, and Benimaru is probably the best character to use it. Convert your foundations to momentum, then get it all back in one flashy burst.

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This interaction comes straight from the Challenger Decks themselves, but in case you haven’t noticed yet: Benimaru can use the printed Powerful: 1 ability on Benimaru Collider to draw a card, then grant it Powerful: 2 to draw a second card at the cost of another momentum.

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Isla’s ability to improve her checks on Ally cards puts her in a great position to utilize some of the more expensive—but powerful—Ally attacks in the game. You can stock up on 6-difficulty cards and still find opportunities to play them outside of your opening attack.

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Going second, Isla can reliably play Cynthia Utrom on turn one without worrying about a bad check. That’s the kind of bold play no other character would dare consider.

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Hadir grants the potential for interesting loops when you can find Form-speed card draw. Isla has exactly the symbols and tools needed to make that happen.

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Heidern’s enhance allows you to look at your rival’s hand and discard attacks if you have exactly three attacks in your card pool. If you want to activate this ability twice in one combat, consider cards like Rapid Rescue that can remove themselves from the count and bring you back to exactly three.

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Stock up on Enormous Axes in your stage so that when the time comes, you’ll have plenty of foundations to keep readying Dolores using her response ability.

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Comboing with Older Characters

Historia Reiss uses Revered Hermit extremely well. She triggers the foundation-build portion of Hermit’s ability, and Hermit leaving the stage gives you an opportunity to gain Wall counters again with future Hermit plays.

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While it won’t win the game outright, Nesh placing Lust for Battle on top of the deck can generate solid value. Botan has the symbols to make this happen, and she loves big-damage Throws.

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Team Hero XV adds another layer of redundancy to my Bubble Girl + Fan Favorite + Science Bros deck. Use Team Hero XV to grab Fan Favorite, use Fan Favorite to grab more Fan Favorites, then eventually grab something like Tinker’s Touch. Just like that, you’ve found five or so triggers for your Science Bros starting from a single card.

Hang Ten is exactly the kind of attack that loves repeated stat bonuses—how high can you go?

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I hope you found some fun and interesting ideas in this article, and that you’re excited to see the full impact of the KOF XV Challenger Series on Universus.