Fighting Gamers Assemble!! Games, Sticks, and Pads Questions!!!

Fairly new to all the fighting game stuff, but I want to work at it and reach annoying levels of skill in the fighting game genre.  So, being a novice, thought I'd bring the questions to the experts on the board. 
 
#1  What are the best current fighting games? 
#2  Do you go Arcade Stick, Fight Pad, or standard controller?  Why that preference? 
#3  What upcoming fighting games should we be on the lookout for? 
 
Give me your expert answers, or add questions I'm too dumb to think of right now!

Street Fighter and BlazBlue seem to be the biggest 2D fighting games out right now, with Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the new Mortal Kombat coming next year.
I play both SF and BB, but without a doubt I prefer BB more. Mainly because of the over-top-action, story, and unique characters. 
 
I play with a fight stick now on both games, though. I'm still pretty much a newbie to the genre, and still too intimidated to start playing online. But I do enjoy them.

" Street Fighter and BlazBlue seem to be the biggest 2D fighting games out right now, with Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the new Mortal Kombat coming next year.I play both SF and BB, but without a doubt I prefer BB more. Mainly because of the over-top-action, story, and unique characters.  I play with a fight stick now on both games, though. I'm still pretty much a newbie to the genre, and still too intimidated to start playing online. But I do enjoy them. "

1. Brawl Minus, the weird Brawl hack with CEILINGS.
2. Standard controller, since it's all I know. However, good hint: stick with a standard controller. Fuck MadKatz and their tiny GameCube controllers.
3. I don't know, that Street Fighter vs. Tekken game? Mortal Kombat? MvC3?
   

" @ESREVER said:

" Street Fighter and BlazBlue seem to be the biggest 2D fighting games out right now, with Marvel vs Capcom 3 and the new Mortal Kombat coming next year.I play both SF and BB, but without a doubt I prefer BB more. Mainly because of the over-top-action, story, and unique characters.  I play with a fight stick now on both games, though. I'm still pretty much a newbie to the genre, and still too intimidated to start playing online. But I do enjoy them. "

Thanks for the response!  I got to check out BlazBlue and thought it was pretty sweet, I just wished they had gone with animated cutscenes for story instead of the pages of text! What kind of fight stick do you use?  Any particular reason you went with the fightstick over the other controller types? "

The two bigges right now is Tekken6 and Super street fighter 4. Blazblue is an amazing nr3. 
And yes it will probably top of with MVC3 and MK next year like ESREVER says.
I play BB ands SF and T6. but the prefered game is SF since it is the game that gives me the most nostalgic feel. 
Butt there are alot of other great fighting games out there Like: 
Street fighter third strike.
Guilty Gear series
melty blood 
Virual Fighter
and so on. and what game you prefer is all about what you want from your game. BB is very action over the topp speed and long combos. Tekken is ekstremely chalenging in the way it plays. and SF is more about mindgames than probably most people would ever agree on. 
 
And ofc I use a fightstick. And i use it becuse i feel it is easyer to manage in fighting games than controolers are. i don`t want to have to think about shoulder buttons when i play and the stick klicks right into where you want it and don`t have the ability to like jumpe when you are doing a qfc ( quartersuirkel forward) motion but don`t gett me wrong i know alot og people who kick my az with a controller. it`s all about preffrenses