There are a lot of things to consider: person's element resistance (can get +20 water resistance) ,tactics running ( resistance tactics) , cloths , mags ,charms.

As for initiative , when you put Azura fang in the back and he got itachi in front , he wins ini. Move 1 ninja goes before move 2 ninja, unless move 2 ninja got 10k more ini.

Itachi is about 1500-7500 + sushi 200 so don't expect kabuto or sailor to beat them. No need to bring back no brain healing teams; they killed this game enough.

As for fair, water meta was way op. I saw a 88k person beating 160k person (I love lego vs medbeast?)

You c*e water main to beat itachi suasano teams ,just needs to spend closer to what other person spent on getting his itachi . Fair enough right :)

They are not going to change talents. They made people max out their water teams(5 star tsunade+5star sailor) now they put a counter so people will spend on new meta. Making new talents is a coding nightmare and costly.

There are no end game ninjas , meta change from time to time. Have to adapt.

In a 1v1, SB and AF are evenly matched. Scarlet blaze got ignite,shield mirror while azura fang got remove debuffs+ heal+ poison.

^You can win against most fire teams using sailor sakura and water main. Tell me how many f2p or medium spender can beat sailor sakura wm han and roshi teams .Add skill broken kurunei and you got a good team.Only problem you have is against a whale running susano itachi ,mm and shisui. They are not going to make countering whale teams that easy.If it was easy to counter, people wouldn't buy those premium ninja. lol

Problem is not fire vs water. They want to win high lvl sage with low power and bad ninjas.

Anbu itachi ,mm and sailor beating water only happens if you got bad refines/stones/tactics.Roshi can break the barrier and han can eliminate the buff.MM, kakashi beheading sword teams could have the same effect as anbu itachi mm.

Water is still strong but have to use some logic now opposed to running azura, sailor ,roshi, han on auto and winning people with 25-45k power difference.

If you want to compete high lvl and high power sage against whales, you need to drop some money. Team 7 beating whale teams not going to happen ...unless in scion meme universe. lol

There are water teams that can beat susano itachi teams but they involve : sage hashirama, shark kisame ,hokage tsunade.Or you could just run sailor saukura, water main and susano itachi+ deidara/another healer. Better yet, WM,sailor, shisui + susano itachi...fire main running the same team, won't have a chance.Fair enough right.