Tyd and Taljion are the only 3* Piranas I would use. At 7 power and no true fighting ability, Ector has too much trouble winning fights. For him to score a hit requires you to risk wasting too many pills, and 6 damage isn't worth it. 6 damage wont win you the match; whiffing on Ector with Piranas will likely cost you the match. If you have Ector, I would upgrade him to one of the 4* such as Scubb, Sheryl, Coleridge, Raeth or Sting, all of whom I'd rather use than Ector. Sheryl's pill manipulation, Coleridge's extra 1 power, and Raeth and Sting's ability to win fights over Ector are all worth the extra *.

With Coleridge: Against ability SOA, the trick is to use Coleridge to force out your opponents' SOA character immediately. SOA is least devastating against Piranas if you can get your opponent to use it on the 1st round.

With Sheryl: This depends on how many other pill manipulators in your preset. I think 3 total is the correct number, 4 is too many. Dalhia, Scubb and Hawkins are all better pill manipulation characters, but for instance it is easy to make mistakes with Hawkins so you could have Sheryl instead of Hawkins for instance, or if you are using a different 5* like Lizbeth or Ahkab.

Fair point Kitsune, I guess.

Ector does have more trouble winning his round than his 3* counterparts. However in reality, it's only really a 1 pill difference. I'm not underestimating the difference that 1 pill can make to a match, but Ector offers 2 extra gap potential than his counterparts, as well as DR resistance. He's obviously also vulnerable to ability SOA (or GHEIST/Roots if in half without his bonus).

Going back to the 1 pill difference say between Ector and Tyd, Ector can be the difference between needing to win two rounds or three. Food for thought.

I take it you also don't like Pan.

Some bullet points on All-Stars:

The most common power for ELO characters is 7. A 7 power All-Star gets a 7-5 power advantage which is huge and often insurmountable even with a pill advantage. Thus any All-Star can be improvised into a servicable wall. This allows All-Stars to play defensive (i.e. win over your opponents' hardest hitters). However it means characters with natural 8 power are very useful against All-Stars.

Resistant to SOA. Very few SOA characters have 8 natural power. Therefore Marina, Saki and Jessie are all natural trumps to SOA characters.

Two top 20 3* characters. Saki is a topend 3* character, likely the best 3* character in ELO now that Olga has been banned. Randy has that freakish 6 damage. His ability is best against high natural power, yet the AS bonus gets even stronger against low natural power. He will generally at least go pill for pill against other 3* characters and hit harder. SOA is a weakness but his whole clan is generally strong against SOA. AS has 2 3* characters that can be used to answer 5* characters.

A topend 2*. Jessie with virtual 9/4 stats is likely the most well rounded 2* in ELO. As an additional bonus, she is a good answer against DR.

Two -3 min. 1 DRs. There are few DR abilities better than -3 min. 1.

Better than average damage due to Jessie, Randy and Quinn, roughly on par with Uppers.

Saki answers SOB, and it's easy enough to splash SOA as well. Also, SOB is common on 2*s but rare on 4* and 5*s.

@JO3SHMO Yeah I don't like Pan so much but at least he doesn't have a min. Any Piranas that doesn't have pill manipulation should be able to function as an anchor (the character you play last). Ector's min. means that once in a while you are screwed if you need to Fury with him, whereas Pan can always Fury to 8. Nightmare can also be built to resist DR, while it makes less a difference that Ector is DR resistant; you'd rather beat Ector and DR Tyd or Raeth instead anyway. Finally Nightmare has better poisoners so life gain is actually useful for them. Nightmare doesn't have the good options at 3* that Piranas have; Edwin is a good power reducer but Nightmare is loaded with power reducers and they die to SOA and protection. Cutey has the problem of being 6 power.

@fotaoku: Sakrohm has amazing characters but they are all permanently banned. I don't know why Sak keeps on getting characters that are strictly inferior to what Junkz, Uppers, Montana or Sentinels get; maybe so they don't get even more OP in extended. Sak's ELO 5* characters are terrible compared to Junkz and Sentinels.

@Kitsune:
You're still overlooking a few strategic points. Ector is one of the highest gaping characters in Piranas. What's more, unlike almost all of Piranas, he goes through DR -- this is essential in a low damage clan. Having him in your hand allows you to harass your opponent with cards that it's not desirable for them to fight: Taljion, Puff, the unpredictable Hawkins, attack manipulators from another clan, etc. Depending on how your opponent reacts to those cards you are likely to gain a low-cost life advantage or a pill advantage. That pill advantage, in turn, helps Ector secure an easy hit.

Look at it this way: Opening with 1-pilled Taljion when Ector is in your hand essentially transfers Taljion's round-winning advantage to Ector (unless your opponent lets Taljion through, which is even better!)