"I'd rate Timber equal or better than Michael"

Please, please tell me that was a joke.

What is "joke?" I think Michael has issues. He is the best of the ELO legal Skeelz 5*, but they all have major issues. Unprotected 7 gap (really the absolute minimum on a playable ELO 5*) is made far worse by having a courage-based ability. Michael might be the best 5* in his clan, but that doesn't mean he's good for ELO. Damagewise, he is equivalent to Timber except Timber also gives your other guys bonus damage. If you plan on using Michael without courage to sneak in his damage, Timber is not much worse at that. If you lead bluff with Michael, you'll draw roughly the same number of pills as if you lead with Timber. Michael might be the better individual fighter, but Timber's ability affects the game state far more profoundly and should not be underestimated.

As of now Michael is better because he also activates Support abilities on Sasha, Sandro and Falkenstein. But if you take those 3 characters out of the hypothetical context, if you asked me to choose between a 7/7 with protected courage: +3 power or a 6/6 that gives your team +1 damage, Timber is at least equivalent to Michael. I have extensive experience using Timber- those extra 1 damages swing matches and should not be underestimated.

Kitsune, while you sometimes raise good points, your logic is demonstrably inconsistent and flawed.

For example, you explain the difference between Michael and Timber, and go on to explain why you feel Michael is not very valuable. But you also state that you feel Michael is the best 5* in Skeelz. However, by the metrics you listed, it's obvious that Logan should be your first pick: 8 base power, 8 damage that almost completely penetrates DR, no conditions attached other than a very reasonable Min, as a little bit of DR, life gain, heal etc makes it almost completely irrelevant.

Logan is still lousy. All of the Skeelz 5* in ELO have something lousy about them. Logan... can't KO and has a min. so he's a lousy anchor. 8 power is a lot better than 7 power but without anything else it's nothing special either; any 4* and 3* 8 base power character can beat him pill for pill, and he can't beat 7 power+attack manipulation either. Logan does not compare well to Corvus, and is even worse for many reasons when compared to Ozzy who is also terrible. I would prefer Aylen to Logan as Aylen can ideally fit into any round. Are there matchups where Logan is good? Sure, he probably terrifies Roots and GHEIST unless they draw Leviatonn.

If you play Logan first, there are far more terrifying characters to lead with such as Baldovino, Dalhia, Oraya, etc... Logan doesn't force your opponent to stop you; sometimes they can simply absorb him, and leading is only a secondary function of 5* characters. If you hit with someone else first, you greatly increase the chance of reducing his damage potential and fury potential- 8 is decent but if you are only getting say 6 from him that's terrible. In other words, he is only good if he is your first hit, but his gap is not good enough to be your only hit either.

Finally, if you think about the strategy of mono Skeelz, the role of a 5* is to be primarily a bomb and secondarily a wall. 8 damage is not a terrific bomb. So for many, many reasons, in most situations I value Michael and Aylen over Logan

But all are a bit lousy

9 is pretty standard. Askai, Glenn, Avola, Troompah and Owen all bomb for 9. Dregn bombs for 8 and can KO. At 8 you also have several characters with damage protected by SOA- note that Pussycats reduce Logan just as much as Fuzz, Cliff or Wardom. And these are bombs that can also wall! True bombs (which is the most useful for a 5* Skeelz) such as Karrion, Oflgn, Baldovino, Ditha, Aylen, Oujibway, Cortez, Hilly Billy, Oraya, etc... bomb even harder for 10+. So Logan's power doesn't add up to an ideal wall, and his damage, limited by the min. on his ability, doesn't make him an ideal bomb either. If I commited 5* to Logan, I'd feel like I was using a below average character.

For all my hating on Michael, I ended up getting to 1300 this week with this (not mine, someone else had already built it):

http://www.urban-rivals.com/presets/?id_preset=2514916

Michael does have some good matchups... he crushes anyone with SOA, especially Fuzz. I was also able to use him to outfight Blaaster a few times as well. My win precentage drawing him was pretty high, somewhere above 80% (and the % of hands where I drew him was pretty high too). With the addition of Falkenstein, Belle and Michael, I feel that Skeelz have gone from about a 60% win percentage against mono Roots/ mono GHEIST to now close to 75%, which is wonderful for this meta. Winning over 60% against Junkz too. Immune to Beeboy's copy bonus, and Randal/ Graff SOA duo is nice but the Bangers matchup is probably only around 40%, higher against Bangers mono because their 2* are lousy against Skeelz. Vortex is a bad matchup, T Gaank smashes Redra and Chiara. Skeelz need a better SOA. Hard to win 3 against Vortex.

Overall, Falkenstein has made an enormous impact. I was worried at first that 5 base damage is too low but it seems to be exactly enough most of the time.

Belle is very similar to Hawkins, a very hard to play character but has a huge impact. I always end up wasting some pills with her as people are not threatened by her yet, but eventually this will adjust. Fury is very worthwhile with her. She basically has two modes: 7/2 +2 pills or 7/4 +1 pill, which is wonderful for a 2*.

Also note that Clover, Spiaghi and Uranus were banned this week. The most common topend DRs this week were SOA DRs (Jeena and Bristone)- this is a matchup that Skeelz now own- Vermyn N, who *was* a lot of trouble but other than Beeboy, Skeelz matches up well against the rest of the Bangers- and Redra- this is the mirror match. Slyde- and Rescue- was a hard matchup for Skeelz this week. Didn't really hit too much of Marina and AS. The other DRs I ran into were 2nd tier DRs like Morgan, Pegh and B Ball. So this really was a week for Michael to shine. He will not be anywhere as good when those three come off the ban list.

Lol Michael looks wonderful on paper but less than 50% of the time actually works. My best bet would be... well I dont want to say this but Tomas seems to be the best bet as of now. most of the time Michael just gets reduced damage, and other times gets overpilled. courage is just too predictabe.

I think Tomas is very solid, and just 1 damage behind Guru Cr lol i know worse bonus but what else can you expect. I say wait for next Skeelz 5* release? 8/6 SoA would be sweet (not too op cuz useless bonus)