Er, so I've had a look around and couldn't find an obvious "noob thread", or "utter noob faq", so I'm just gonna post here. If my questions are already answered elsewhere someone point me in the right direction or whatever

So anyway, I'm an utter noob, I've never even played a ccg before. I decided to get into ufs because me and the mrs like board games and card games and I'm a big fan of capcom and snk video games. In fact my only vague experience of a ccg is cardfighter's clash on the neogeo pocket color (which is superb)! I do have some experience of tabletop / miniatures games however, mostly games workshop stuff (bloodbowl). My first question then is, am I likely to be able to play ufs without putting a massive amount of effort into learning the rules in obsessive detail? I've got some cards, I've been through the online demo and it doesn't seem too daunting, but we're yet to play a game as we're waiting for our starter decks to arrive. How easy will it be for me to teach an even bigger noob (likes uno!!!) once I understand the rules? Bear in mind that I am dependant on the printed rules and/or online content, not experienced players who can show me how to play...

Secondly, I bought the akuma/ryu battlepack for us and managed to pick up a box each of fortune and glory boosters very cheaply (which are already all unwrapped, sorted into number order etc). I'm assuming what I've bought is still "current", but I can't find any info on what the hell this whole block rotation thing is. Do older expansions get retired? Have I picked a reasonable starting point for a couple of noobs or should I be looking to pick up something else?

Somewhat controversially, is there a more basic and noob-friendly ccg we could look to play first, then come back to ufs once we've mastered that?

My last question is about deck building. I see there is a seperate subforum for deck building, but as a noob nearly everything in there means very little to me. I guess stuff will start to make more sense once we've played a few games, but is there any kind of guide up somewhere with some very basic info on how to go about building a deck? I guess we'll just use the vanilla starter decks at first, but after that... I know I need to match one or more resource symbols, but I can't even find any info on what my maximum deck size can be, what kind of combination of foundations and attacks I should be looking to use (in terms of quantity) etc. Help!? Minimum 60 cards, max of 4 copies of each card, so 60x4=240 card maximum deck? Seems massive!?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read and respond!

Lo!

OK, I'm sure if you find a local playgroup, they would be more than happy to help you get started. Every UFS group I've seen so far has an awesome collection of people. The game itself is like alot of ccgs, easy to play, challenging to master. I may be biased, but I think its awesome, plus all the newest sets have a wonderful look at giving the game a balanced and aggro feel, just like the actual games!

OK, the Ryu/Akuma battle pack and Fortune and Glory and a decent place to start. If you want to play Legacy (every set released so far) then that's a good place to start. The game also another format called Block Three, which is basically the last few sets:

Realm of Midnight (Darkstalkers)

Flash of Blades (Soul Calibur)

Tower of Souls (Soul Calibur)

ShadoWar

Domination (Street Fighter)

Deadly Ground (Street Fighter)

Warrior's Dream (Street Fighter)

Cutting Edge (SNK)

The King of Fighters 2006 (SNK)

Flames of Fame (SNK)

For getting something more current, look at teh Starters for "Tower of Souls" and "ShadoWar", as these are the latest "base set" (I.e. the start of a block, and will take the longest time to rotate out).

These are a good place to start a collection, as these sets contain some excellent bits and pieces. As for deck building, all the cards in your deck must share a resource symbol (the three little symbols, like a flame, or a little plant!). The minimum deck size is 60 cards, and you can include up to 4 copies of each different card in there (so if you use 4 copies of every card you want to build the deck with, you would have 15 different sets of cards in the deck!)

OK, hope thats some help! Honestly, best way to learn the rules is to play with someone who has played before, as some of the bits can be a bit confusing, although if you need any clarification there is a rules forum for help!

Gonna guess your from the UK from your handle (I'm observant me!), if so there is a dedicated UK forum just fer us Brits, so if you want to contact a play group, that may be your best bet for further info.

Cheers dude!

Fiddlestix

To be more specific, the other format is called "standard constructed" and consists of all cards with 4 and 5 pt. ninja star in background. Also what we're nicknamed as block 3...

Right. There is also no maximum deck size, most people just tend to run 60-64 for consist draws or such. The best place to start is probably the Soul Calibur 4, and ShadoWar sets, although that is mostly for if you decide to start attending tournaments at some point(as most support is for the Standard, or Block 3 format, which includes any card with a 4 point or 5 point shuriken on them, they are in the sets that were listed in an earlier post). I personally think that UFS is a great first card game, It was mine, actually, and I picked up magic afterwards and still main UFS. Once you get the basic mechanics down, it snaps pretty quickly.

Hey gents, thanks for the replies. Its good to know what sets are tournament current, although I have no plans to play competitively at this point. It seems a bit daft to me that this info isn't obviously displayed on the website...

For now I'll stick with what we have and learn how to play. If I really get the hang of it and enjoy it I might think about picking up one of the more recent sets (I take it tower of souls is soulcal4?), although as a street fighter fan first and foremost I must admit they don't appeal to me as much. Maybe I'll wait until some new capcom or snk ip starters come around again!

Right, now I'm off to lurk in the UK forum for a while