Hello all 
I usually just lurk around the Strange forums but I’ve been around for quite some time. All of that set aside, I am completely taken by surprise at the number of Dr. Strange players that have come around lately. It had seemed that top players were convinced that Strange was not worth learning which I was fine with (less matchup experience for them) but now, even Combofiend is showing off with him. For the people that haven’t wanted to use him until now, will this be a fad that blows over, or will Strange finally get the respect that he deserves?
I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m not sure as to where my head is at right now regarding Strange’s recent popularity.
I want him to become popular and a have bigger fanbase due to my love for the character, but at the same time I don’t want people joining up just to bandwagon because he’s the new “fad” (and more people learning the match-up is a pain as well ;)). Do we really want a bigger community with tonnes of people, or just a little group-get together family-type thing that we have now? Who knows, there are definitely pros and cons to both scenarios.
Strange is kinda awkward to play, and he is somewhat of a glass cannon; and he certainly isn’t the “easiest” of characters to use in terms of execution. So I honestly doubt that he will explode like say Vergil did.
But hey, who knows.
The most of those “new” strange players are Bolts of Balthakk players and dont bother with learning Strange as they should.
I agree with you there.
Some will stay, most will go.
There are only a few serious Doc Strange players who have stuck with him since day 1 because they saw the potential in his game.
We are all Hipsters here. Either way, we can be proud to be the Strange users from the time when he wasn’t cool. 
I’ve always loved Strange and his recent popularity has me torn. I went through the same thing with Nova when Infrit got second at EVO. Honestly though, I don’t think all the bandwagoners will stick with Strange because of the time and effort it takes to really get good with him. Nova was a different story because he really isn’t too hard to play at a beginner or intermediate level. Most bandwagoners will do one of two things: One, they will stick him as anchor and use Bolts, which isn’t a horrible idea, but Strange needs assists to be really exceptional, or two, they will try to learn the FOF loop and will either learn it and no go any further with Strange training or give up on him when they can’t do it.
Trust, Strange will become a hipster character once again!
Dont think so.
Bolts is a very very good assist, and the flame-loops are hella damaging. A lot of top players have decent execution, so I think they might stick to it. It’s great that we will have a lot of Strange players, but it is unfortunate that the majority of them don’t know about half of the stuff he’s got and we’ve developed. I believe the ‘average’ Strange will be an anchor, bolts assist, maybe TACs or setups into flame-loops and that’s it. The neutral game will be based on spamming SoVs, and the combo that kills out of it. It works, and since people are lazy, that’s what they will do. They could at least learn the x-factor infinites, like the ping-pong, in order to kill while gathering meter to feed the whole super-spamming neutral game.
Yes but look at what you said. TOP players. Yea sure a top player will stick with Strange and learn his ins and outs. I’m talking more about the stream monsters watching top players. After Infrit got 2nd at EVO, all of a sudden everybody played Nova, and many stuck with him. Why? Because Nova isn’t hard to play at an intermediate or beginner level. Strange’s potential is so much more potent when he has assists so like you said we will see alot of anchor Stranges. But Anchor Strange and Doctor Strange are two differently play characters if you see what I’m getting at. Anchor Strange is all about exactly what you described. But you play Doc Strange, on point for that matter, and you and I both know that Doc Strange is all about Spell Sequences, Teleport mixups, solid keepaway etc. The reason I say he will become hipster again is because to play Doc Strange, you need to learn him point or middle first so he can have assists backing him. Then after you really learn his intricacies, and you want to put him anchor then you can do that and be viable. And i’m sorry, when stream monsters can pick Vergil, Nova, Mags and numerous other point characters, unless they really really like Strange, they aren’t going to put in the time with him to make him viable.
Plus all those Anchor Stranges just spam calling Strange Bolts and eventually they get Happy Bday’ed for bad assist calls.
You sir, tell the truth. Agreed 100%
Bolts isn’t even an assist you can mash out. There’s no reason to mope about Strange being super punishable when your assist calls are terrible. If Strange keeps getting tagged, that just means you suck.
Me personally, I wish I didn’t like Strange Tales comics because it would be easy for me to let go of the character 
I was at a local and someone asked for Dr, Strange advice and before I could tell him anything, top players in my area literally told him to just use SoV and xfactor…it’ll be a while before other people level up with him with that attitude.
The only way we will see a lot of Strange players is if people work on his neutral game. More often than not I see people getting blown up using Strange, but people do know his combos and how to set him up.<br><br>The key to Dr. Strange’s success in this game is the utilization of his neutral game with L. daggers followed by M. daggers, or strategic placement of the grace of hoggoths and then throwing the flames to hope for a good crossip.<br>