I've been reading the forums and the Canadian forums and a few other forums on top of that. It seems that there isn't a lot of diversity when it comes to high end meta decks. Most the decks end up using the same attacks (this is funny inspite of the symbols system) that are designed to lock out or 1 shot your opponent. I'm a bit lost why. The foundations, assests, and actions being used a lot I see why the meta moves towards those cards that empahsize control. Without control it seems that you can't win because your opponent would out control you. In most card games with this much card depth the diversity is a lot greater. While some of the top decks aren't "rare" dependent I'm find many crutches comming from older out of print sets. I see cards like Rejection, Chester's Backing, Lord of the Maki, Shreading Viberto, etc used over and over again like you can't play a serious deck without them. My question is why haven't the meta made these cards risky? Most games do that very quickly. I don't see any new people comming in and having a chance at a tournament. A person is investing 200+ dollars to get many of the "staple" cards found in most of the deck listings I've read.

It all comes to a head to me that the game has been a bit static for a bit because most of the champions card have evil, air, or both. When I look at the top most used cards they end up sharing those symbols. I don't know if the champions can request their symbols but if they could then that is a smoke signal to look at things.

I like Chae. I thought her ability was pretty awesome. But now I find from different sources that she is a lower teir card for the meta. When I read it comes down to lockdown cards and the lack of control in general that evil has and the lack of higher damaging control attacks that air seems to have. But from different sites I've been to I've seen the same 20 characters rotated around over and over again. The main reason is their ability and their symbols that support some of the cards I've mentioned eariier.

So in the end my big question is where is the counter meta and diversity?

because people are unorginal and just want to win... its lame i know..

Well, the rival to heavy control is heavy aggro, but that simply does not exist anymore.

The reason why such decks as ***Adon***, **Twelve**, and *Xianghua* dominated in the way they did is because they managed to make small attacks ridiculously huge, so much so that your opponent was constantly pressured to the utmost extent for each and every attack, something Ivy (and really, Mitsurugi as well) wish they could do.

But we don't have characters like those anymore. *Yuri*, *Yi Shan* and *Siegfried* are s close as they get, and as you notice with the above 3, not only is there a lot of symbol difference (Yuri/Yi Shan/Siegfried ALL have Earth and Life), but they have big handsizes, as opposed to Yuri/Yi Shan/Sieg who have 6 and pretty mediocre vitality.

Aggro is getting...somewhere close to where it used to be, but really, even somebody like Leona, who has THE aggro symbols, isn't gonna cut it. Like I said, Adon, Twelve, and Xianghua all had FREE abilities that made even weenie attacks look stupid dangerous, and this current game doesn't have that type of pressure.

Also, Bitter Rivals discourages an assumed 85% of attacks, and the true counters to Bitters are far and few. Because of Bitter's existence, don't ever expect to play such cards as Spinning Beat or even a lot of Combo cards, because if you don't have an effective answer to Bitter, and you likely won't, then it (and its many copies) will eat your hand and block your attacks, which is yet another reason why Aggro is dead.

As I've said non-stop, this game needs not only a big(ger?) banned list, but it also needs to start costing cards appropriately, and/or release cards that have more situational effects, not just global control over an extremely prevalent game mechanic.

MarcoPulleaux said:

I couldn't agree more, the anti discard except for Big Cyclone doesn't hit bitter either, I cannot believe a card with the power of bitter rivals wasn't commit or unique

The other problem you run into is most attacks just cannot cut it against the attacks used in the top tier decks it is sad but true

Good cards (not the symbol) are good/broken.

tannerface said:

I'm going to disagree with that because I've found to many analysis on cards/characters of not being effective or as useful because x top teir can be combo more with these other top teir cards. Yes I'm new and I'm a noob but I've done game balance before in another card game and I've played lots of different card games over time. When every you limit access to cards you do so to diversify the meta. That is not clearly happening in this game at all when it comes to the national level. The champion cards are evident of that if and only if the champions could pick their symbols. Not only that I've noticed a lot of top cards are have Evil or Air. There are very few that don't. Again this is an issue when it comes down to excluviveness for the sake of diverstiy. When there are to many good or combo able cards within a small set of symbols that does in turn make those symbol or symbols broken. The problem from what I see is that good cards should have less resource symbols and generic ok cards should have more symbols. This would make it so people couldn't get 40% or more of the top cards in their deck and are forced to have holes in their decks. These provides massive amounts of balance because cards that only have 2 or 1 resource can be better cards that can't be combo'd with other resources making the cards broke. Now it can be said that this hurts sealed play or whatever but I haven't seen to many sealed tournament formats listed at all.

I usually tell people that say something is not broken then I tell them this. Repackage and sell the top 15-20 seen cards in the national tournament and put those cards in locked package booster and hand them out to new players. If that makes you feel uncomfortable then it needs to be nerfed bad or banned. I'm not against rares. I'm against rare crutches. Since getting older cards at reasonable prices for this game is like pulling teeth then older the card equals "rare" many times. Promo cards should always be repackaged and be able to bought or have the abilities reprinted in a similar fashion so that people who don't have access to get promos can get them.

I say all this while listening to the podcasts dedicated to UFS. As I listen with twoheaded dragon open to look at the cards they talk about I realize that none of this is helpful for new players at all only expereinced players. As I listen to the podcast now on the Order resource I keep thinking "I can't buy this card so I'm screwed." This caused me a lot of anxiety right here. This tells me that even though they wanted to help new players they were in turn saying that you have no place in this game other then fodder for our wins unless you drop major money and buy. So much of deck construction is about having the older cards to play. The aproach and techincal thinking of podcastors lets me know that what they are saying is key to general and local meta's they come from. Thus these cards have an all purpose function. Thus these cards will help you in any meta. Again even though they are talking about order they are also bringing up cards that happen to cross over with air or evil. The problem is that symbol distrabution is not balanced out.

At first when I started playing I thought everything was pretty simple and straight forward. The more and more I read the more I see the focus being about foundation manipulation and attacks that do status effects so to speak. The more I read the more the game sounds fun and the more it sounds about having rare cards like every other CCG i've played. Again rare also include cards that can't be gotten anymore but are core meta. Normally this wouldn't freak me out but I signed up and got aproved to be a scout. I want the guys that play at the shop to have access to prize support. But since we are 1 of 2 stores in all of OK that plays we could potentially get people from a good distance to come into the shop and play. In all honesty the current meta does not sound fun to play against at all. This could potential kill my starting play group.Yes its like a month before the tournament, and yes we can practice a lot. But practice and basic decks doesn't stand up to the current meta at all. Their is very little and very poorly designed counter meta in the game. I say that after reading a lot and a lot and lot of message boards here and other places. The counter meta is always "tap more of his resources then yours!" So we end up with this whole foundation war before I get 1 or 2 shotted.

Currently where I play at healing is usful but the meta isn't like that at all because you will get 1 or 2 shotted. In that atmosphere you can't heal enough to stop death. In other games I've played handsize could not be exceeded but in this game it can be. So I'm just stuck thinking what did I get myself into.

The biggest problem I have is I don't see how to take steps foward at this point. It seems impossible. It seems impossible to catch up even more so it seems impossible to even be threatening or able to fight back in a game if my players played the current meta. I almost wish I coud make the tournament I commited to run "inshop" only so that over 6 months to a year we coudl build up cards and promo's to have a chance in a tournament setting.

Your points are unbelieveably accurate. Here is the downlow on most of this crazy old stuff and why nothing is done about it. You see the original designer was Dave freeman when the game was owned by STG. Now around the time of set 8 dave decided for some reason to through "balance" right out the window, and you can ask any vet. player about this. So the reason most of the crazy power cards like brt and chesters havn't and probably won't get banned is because it will kill off more players than it will get back. I mean think about it you spent all this time and money on all of these cards and they all get banned in one shot just before two of the biggest tournies in ufs, to some such as myself this wouldn't matter at all and I honestly wish they would ban half the crap that is overpowered (especially brt and chesters). However to others, this might be downright destructive. Case in point, addes syndicate is a card that got upwards of around 120$ on ebay I believe, someone I know bought a set of this card and about a week later it was banned. That meant instant quit for him, but for me it was one of the best things for this game.

As for the future of this game, we have last years world champion James hata designing cards now. So hopefully, having someone who has played at the top level with the top cards, this game will begin to balance out and has been proven with the release of set 12 that honestly has had no broken cards in it (correct me if I'm wrong). The only downside is this game won't be truely back to it's roots until Dave's creations have rotated out which happens in about Febuary next year.

Edit- Also on a side note and with no disrespect, shouldn't this topic be in genral discussion?

welcome to the world of CCGs, hope you enjoy your stay

Tagrineth said:

As I stated before I'm not new to TCG's. I've played various mini's games as well. I have scouted/judged for various games. Thing is "Most" games make every other set counter the last set. Or the counter for the stronger cards are found in commons and uncommons the next set. But that doesn't seem to be the case. When I played heroclix there was a power called "perplex" it pretty much could boost or lower any stat on your figure or your opponents figures. This power was abused by a small point figure. So to counter this the rules changed and limited perplex for any stat to three. The abuse lived for a bit then it ended due to the errata. When you look at a card like Defender in this game that can allow for continual looping goes against the whole risk of playing attacks and blocks. The best errat woul be that the card pool can only be reset once. This makes the card useful but not abusable. If things aren't going to be errata then they needed to be reprinted in a small set for new players to get if the design team doesn't think its broke. That is what stops people from getting into older games is usually the immense back history you have to invest in. That is why a lot of card games have heavy retirement. Some look at it from a greed element but the fact of the matter is that new players need a chance to arm up. Six months should give them 1 1/2 to 3 sets worth of product to get them on fighting field with other players. Like I said I'm not new to this and I've worked with the last card game I played to help errata and create balance. The last game I played it had 4 resources and they wanted people to cross resource. I pointed out how some mechanics where uncounterable and that when you have mechanics that don't have only soft counters and no direct hard counters then you have a broke mechanic. The card tapping mechanic is the broke mechanic I see in this game. I say this after reading over 3/4th of the legal cards. I don't open my mouth without reading and on top of reading forums.

The short answer. Look at the people who attend most major events. It's the same people over and over again. Look at the decks they are playing. More often than not same deck over and over again, or at least same character.

I mean i would go to more events if i could, and i cant fault people who can in the least, but if you got something that works why change it so frequently.

I sympathize with a lot in this topic. As a new-ish player being really in it for about 2.5 months, I've been able to obtain some Chester's, Heel Snipes, Olcadan's, Bitter Rivals etc. but I still feel at a major disadvantage when I face people in tournies with Blood Runs True and... well, actually that's the only one but it's a huge buzz kill.

Protoaddict said:

Well, yeah, that's a mainstay in all competitive environments, but what I think he's arguing for is intervention by FFG themselves, not for players themselves to adhere to some invisible code of honor

I empthize with him, but the fact of the matter is STG/FFG have never done anything about problem cards such as BRT until after they have already run their course. By cards like BRT I mean box toppers. It has also been said a million times that promos need to be reprinted into packs. Honestly if BRT were gone it would make playing a string of attacks to use a combo ability much much easier.

tannerface said:

Make that BRT and bitter rivals

as for the topic things are getting better as like people have said before designers have changed and cards are being looked at more carefully i cant think of any broken cards that people want banned that have been printed in the last 2 sets but maybe im wrong feel free to name them if there are......but all we can really do is wait for rotation in feburary and i IMO things will be back the way they should be as long as the current designers keep going the way that they are

My advice would be though is to run the cards that counter the cards your having problems with if you dont like BRT run destiny or other CC hax negation....if you dont like chesters run something that stops chesters, like inhuman perception or prominent noblewoman....both of which are commons. Ive got a friend who even runs jealousy guarded secret in his R. MIka deck because bitter rivals eats him alive

tannerface said:

Tanner, do you not see a problem with this? If folks are really gonna whine, cry, and quit because their precious BRTs/Chester's/whatever else they spent a month's rent on get the boot, then do we really want them playing? Honestly if grown men/women are prone to hissy fits because their shiny cardboard can't be played anymore, then they really need to take a step back and look over their life's priorities again.

Oh and to the OP, just kinda ignore Tag.. He normally doesn't have much to add to conversations he doesn't like.

The issue for me is more why hasn't the meta stopped this. The thing is in most games when something wins once or twice it doesn't win again. But that is proven untrue. In most games the community steps up and creates are hard block becaus the deck construction is predictable. That is not true in this game because the cards used are over a year old for many of these staple cards. This means that game development has had pletny of time to create anti-meta cards to make the current meta not as strong or risky. The problem with games that limit cards into any number of catagories or classification based on a resource type that one or a few resources become dominant. Original when i started playing almost a month ago fire symbol with Sagat was my thing. I got all the domination and and cutting edge cards. Our gameshop got the cards at an introductory price so everything was cheap only for this time through. I was doing awesome until i played my friends Mai starter. Rejection and goregeous team over and over and over again. This got annoying fast because not only did it slow the game down on my end it didn't hurt him hardly on his end. So the only thing I could do was build up a foundation field full of speed and damage pumps using Sagat to eventually 1 or 2 shot his deck with Super Tiger KI and Tiger Fury. Now another friend had another starter that got him Red Lotus of the Sun x2. That is how many copies he has. That was annoying to some degree but not overly strong until he comboed it with denial of power. Then I got frustarted and started loosing. Again I had to build for the 1 or 2 shot to win the game. Again playing Super Tiger Ki and Tiger Fury. Now if my friends both had 4 copies of Gorgeous Team and Red Lotus of the Sun then their decks would beat me almost every game. Some of the cards aren't that bad if you have 1 or 2 copies of them. But when you get 4 or more that can be reloaded on your turn then it becomes insane. It begs the question why don't a lot of these cards have a 1 or 2 per deck limit to stop abuse? Or would that be just as bad as banning the cards for this community? Even better why aren't the amount of certain actions limited per turn? I can see a resonable case for capping a player at tapping out 5-6 max cards in a staging area per turn due to opponents card effects. I can see rules that state one can only have max hand size +2 and if that is excededed discarding must take place. This allows smaller hand cards not to have bigger hand sizes and that larger hand size cards can't abuse even more their hand size. But sadly if changes like that would be made to balance the game the end result is that people would quit because the game would be vastly different then the game they started playing.

I'll say this from an new person looking in. If the game is to grow and expand and allow people who come in fresh to be able to compete then the following things have to be in place in any game...

A. There has to be 4-7 set proven tactics for winning that don't overlap with each other. IE Chaos main tactic can't overlap into order or Life's main winning tactic can't overlap into air or death. Or a discard deck for victory can't play the same tricks as an aggro deck or a control deck.

B. Special Effects need to have disads. IE if you play rejection it stays in your staging area for two turns instead of one and can not be removed by other card effects.

C. Reprints of cards that the tourney scene, not the company, view as stapples for victory must be reprinted in a small set or apear in starters if those cards are older then 3 sets. IE Rejection like card and chestors backing like card need to be in new starters and state they can not be played with or in conjunction with their original version.

D. Powercreep and Depowering must happen hand in hand. IE. It is okay for certian resources to have their day in the sun and dominat the meta but within 2 sets they should be dethroned due to the players and the game development working togther.

E. Tournaments need to have novice events or novice blocks for people to compete in that are genuine. IE Prize support for new players should be given and if there are a good amount of new players(less then 7-8 months playing) they should have a side tourney. After such time they would have to play in the main tourney. This was possible in heroclix because every player in heroclix had an id that had to be regestered after the tourney. When we had events that had age limits it was easy for the company to verify who was a minor and who was not by their ID. This is a lot harder to do in this case because no such tracking is done. But this helps you determine if your player base is growing, staying stagnant, or dying off.

F. Low rarity and newer sets only format. Heroclix had this to some degree and it helped and killed the game. They made it so people had to player with restricted format such as , this set only, D.C. only, Marvel only, or under x point value only. This did wonders until this was forced to be 3/4ths of the months play format and the judges had no say in what was played at all. Taking away the judges say on the play envoirment killed their Organized Play envorionment. But the format in of it self brough in more new players and gave them the chance to win some tourneys.

This is my two cents being from the place that many of you are at in other games. I've been established, on top with a lot of rare and expensive cards/mini's. I know how loosing that edge you invested in takes the wind out of your sales a bit. But when I found that the games I demoed went well and people had fun...until they went to a tournament. Sometimes it was the resource difference in the shop, and sometimes it was sharks from outside the shop that made people walk away from the game. Things like commons and uncommon formats became keepsakes because they retained not as invested players and shows who bought skill and who actually earned their skill. Please don't take this as a statement I'm directing toward any of you or any of the past champions. But that was the case in some other games I played.

I think that the only reason that so many decks are still winning and people arent packing ways to deal with them is that there is so many different deck you have to worry about you dont have room to combat them all and still run whatever your deck is trying to do.

Its much easier in the long run to build something that can win on its own merits than to try to build something that counters other peoples efforts directly.

There are still 6-7 more unique builds in any top 8 when you compire this game to YGO for instance.

tannerface said:

I'm stunned to find somebody else who says my exact point...

Also Tanner, to all those people who ***** about "Oh I spent so much money on these promos!", I'd simply say too bad! Much like Higher Calibur and Addes Syndicate, you SHOULD have known such power cards were gonna get the boot, ESPECIALLY in today's game where the newly-created "Chester's Wars" is becoming extremely popular throughout the tournament circuit.

It's a COLLECTIBLE card game. Expect to spend lots of money, and expect to see your cards get banned or changed. To me, I'd say the banning of such cards as Chester's and Blood would invite new players, because now they don't have to worry about staring down global foundation control and a CCHax to end all CCHax.

Of course, Bitters STILL discourages both keyword attacks AND the very point of dealing damage. I think the only TRUE counter to Bitter Rivals is speed pumps, but while your attacks may go unblocked, who's to say they'll go undiscarded? =/

That is one thing tha didn't make sense to me is that a lot of decks don't have speed pumps but have damage pumps. I don't see how they do damage at all? Is it because the control element checks a bunch of foundations so the other person can't block or what is it I'm missing.

If all else fails, a big damage pump forces your opponent to block. Maybe they tried to go all-out last turn and won't make that block? Or maybe they screwed up and don't have any blocks on the right zone left? Whereas a speed pump, if they couldn't block anyway, big deal; or, they'll just use Rejection and problem solved (whereas, if you have 6 +dmg cards, and you need 2 to make a fatal attack, they need SEVERAL rejections to live).

Also, a popular strategy is to use CChax to make your opponent fail the check for their block, mainly because Akuma and BRT make the block harder than similarly costed competitors that use direct speed pump, AND the hacks can be used for lots of other things besides forcing a failed block.

And there's also Bitter Rivals, so your opponent needs to hold a grip full of blocks on every zone or eat a big shot through a half block.

Yea really an evil deck will most likely just rely on brt and mabye kung fu training, and if it is olexa they will rely on his abilities very heavily.

first thing i would like to say is i love heroclix. but i would have to say that you can't say it was balanced. icons surperman, the probability control power, skrull ms. marvel, etc. there were a lot of broken stuff. i won every that i played for the last year of heroclix and it wasn't balanced. new players would quite after i pulled of some crazy kill with hypersonic and prob control. my best sugestion is too build something unique. if you can't afford chun li, play something else.

Protoaddict said:

Yeah, this is true.

And speaking as someone who just bought his first Chester'ses for ~70-80 bucks total, I still wouldn't mind seeing it banned or restricted in some way, and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing every copy of Blood Runs True collected and recycled into textbooks or something.

trane said:

Icon Supes forced hypersonic to change. Prob control needed a limitation on how many time it could be used in a turn or it needed to turn into a poweraction. The problem with heroclix mechanics was its formula and it not being tweaked. The special power thing was not done properly. Skrull Ms. Marvel was a mistake but the desinger thought that i was ok because Dr. Strange with tk owns her bad.

Another problem heroclix had was that it didn't have outside playtesting for their last 2 years. I know because I had a local player that play tested that divulged that heroclix shutdown outside testing.