darklogos said:

my point is every game has busted stuff. i mean even pokemon has a banned card. i don't care how you look at it, icon supes, veteran destiny, protected x2 , is not fair.

It was R destiny that was even more broke because of how many you could spam on a team. The thing is I will admit a game will create broken things. It is up to GD to fix it as soon as it comes up. If GD doesn't do this then games become worse games. The problem I see is that GD hadn't wanted to agressively shake up the meta consistantly.

darklogos said:

You need cards in your hand in order to block ^_~

MarcoPulleaux said:

Ok so that is why looping is autowin.

trane said:

Pokemon banned one card in the Standard environment - Neo Genesis Sneasel - and it was only banned for the ~2 years it was in Standard format. Nothing is currently banned from Standard or Unlimited.

Though I know a lot of people that would like to see Stormfront Machamp banned...

What I meant earlier is that it is perfectly normal for any CCG to have a few "top decks", just that historically Sabertooth Games (the former owner of UFS) was extremely reluctant to ban/errata cards unless they seriously crippled the game in a big way. Fantasy Flight Games is adhering to mostly the same policy...

And the "top deck" of UFS has always evolved over time, but oftentimes only by a few cards at a time. Control has always been under-costed BS in UFS, going all the way back to Set 1 (set 0, even... hi penny arcade). The only format that aggro dominated was when a card so ill-wrought it actually ducked negation completely - without actually being non-negatable - was released. It was one of the few cards STG banned (go look it up... Defender of the Empire).

Any counters they tried to launch against control have historically been:

1. too situational to be useful

2. over-costed vs. the costless control it's trying to counter

3. exceedingly broken in their own right

4. usable by the control decks themselves

James is doing a decent job of setting this to right now but it'll be a long time before this game hits any kind of healthy balance again - notably, once the last of STG's sets bites the dust and we're in James's world. I still have faith that James can turn the game around over time, but right now, yes, it sucks enormously to play UFS. I haven't really enjoyed playing more than a tiny handful of games (maybe a dozen at most) since set 8's release, part of the reason I've been around a lot less lately. Playing an un-fun game hoping that one day it'll be fun again is taking its toll.

So why is control so cheap? Why isn't there damage debuffs or counter checks that have to be made for control? In most games control gets the big disad of lack of damage.

oftentimes it does, Death for example has always been hampered by a horrible attack lineup with one big finisher (Tiamat's Rampage was "the" Death kill card for a long time, you kill with Timmy or you don't kill).

the problem with limiting damage output on a given resource in UFS becomes that killing your opponent can often be done on an entirely unrelated resource. the overall best "one hit KO" attack ever printed - Concealed Shallow Swipe - has Fire/Life/Water, three non-control resources (well, Water is arguable, but it always has been). all you need is a control character with one or two control resources, plus one resource with CSS.

Feline Spike is similar. just have maybe one other attack in the deck you can chain with spike (e.g. ichi no tachi off Good for a good/evil or good/death character, or ira-spinta for an air character, etc) and once you're set up, GG your opponent in one turn off the mis-matched resource.

and anything you can come up with to try to counter a control deck can currently be countered by said control deck. very few viable answers to control that don't just get controlled back.

darklogos said:

When Set 8 was released the designers who made it decided to hell with balance and let's turn a game based on fighting video games into something more along the lines of Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (a game if you've not played, that can take HOURS to finish).

In block 1, you could theoretically win with most symbols, with the exception being Good (which was terrible). Symbols such as Life and Fire just threw monstrous speed/damage attacks at you till ya kieled over (we didn't really have 6/30 characters back then). Earth sat behind a wall of damage redux and just threw you around (literally). Control was rampant, with Void and Death leading the way. Either way, it was plausable to win with most symbols.

Block 2 things started to shift to a more control oriented scheme with the advent of Concealed Shallow Swipe. Just lock the board down with Evil/All/Death/Order and Swipe them away. Evil also had access to Absurd Strength, the most ludicrously undercosted and overpowered damage pump this game has EVER seen (and hopefully will ever see).

Anyways away from my nostalgia, I put the blaim on two main groups: The old UFS design team from Sabretooth Games, which in hindsight I don't think really knew what they were doing to begin with, and the current design team. Don't get me wrong most people won't agree with the latter of my statement, because they see Hata as the second coming or something. BUT he's known for a LONG time that there are massive problems with this game, and apart from the much warranted mass bannings back in the day, he hasn't really done much that's helped the game.

Yes he has released two rather good and balanced sets, but honestly nothing has changed. Order and Evil are still on top, and have been since set 8/9. We still hide behind a wall of grey and hit our opponant on our kill turn and that's about it. Oh, and for those of us who wanna use the whole: "Well an aggro deck won Can Nats!" Yes one did, and I congradulate the player on winning with a rogue deck nobody saw coming. Look at the rest of the decks, then look at what won Path of hte Master in the UK. Oh and while yer at it, look at the non Chun Li decks that were top 8 in PotM in the US. It's walls of grey upon walls of grey.

even though UFS is all about grey and green, it's getting beter. this year at worlds, an agro deck might win (probably not, but maybe). it's not just evil anymore, but order, air and to a lesser exstent, earth, fire, water, chaos, all, and good. i would say this game is improving since hata took comand. honestly mass bannings always turn people off of a game so the best bet is too wait for rotation, or play with the cards you have and hope to win.

B-Rad said:

True to an extent. I daresay, however, that any deck that runs Feline Spike as its main kill always has a chance to win. So, to say that no one saw his Air Mignon deck and didn't immediately think Feline Spike would be a fallacy, imo. I didn't even have to read past the character and symbol he was playing to know that his main kill would be Feline Spike. My second guess that I-Spin would be included was also correct.

For the record, i DID read his deck list on these forums and it's beautifully unconventional!!! 'Gratz to the Can Nats player!

Tagrineth said:

Here's yet another problem:

Both STG and Hata have made it apparent just how insignificant damage pumps are going to become by telling us such things as, "You'll be using Impressive Physique and Undefeated next block", both of which have seen 0 play, and I'm assuming any of Ragnar's cards will die the same death, except maybe Brooding, which has been pretty nifty.

The reason why damage pumps are so small is because they're so significant; they could turn 1 attack into a kill, under the right circumstances. They also remember the days of such amazing pumps as The Way of the Mightiest and Tenpu so they want to try making them a little more limited.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because control, the antithesis to aggro, is not getting the same bastardized treatment aggro is. I've already explained this several times; the chain-of-power for "control" starts and ends as such:

1. Commit
2. Negate
3. Flip/Blank
4. Destroy

As you'll notice a LOT of our game revolves around committing and negating, when it SHOULD revolve around flip/blank and destroying. I'll give an explanation.

Commit is the most powerful because, under most circumstances, committed cards cannot be used. Not only that, but they cannot be committed to pass control checks. As such, you've got basically a -1 to your control check per committed card, AND it cannot be used. What's worse, if it's committed on your own turn, it remains committed both during your turn and during your opponent's. Commit is extremely NPE, especially in the hands of Chinese Boxing.

Negation is second because, much like commit, it has the potential to make cards unimportant (if a card commits itself or others as a cost, negation LOLZ and thus makes their commit pointless). Negation is so strong because it outright stops something, says NO, and more often than not, saves your ass.

Flip/Blank is third because it's kind of like commit, in that it makes a card useless, but it doesn't actually commit it, AND it's subject to return face-up/unblank (unless it is hit by No Forgiveness!).

Destruction is 4th because it doesn't do what the above 3 do: it doesn't make cards useless. If they play an ability, it goes through. While destruction DOES get rid of the card permanently, most of today's destruction cards don't cancel the effect, and as this game has proven, stopping effects is more important than destroying their source, but letting the ability go through.

Anyways, not only has this game ignored this chain of power, but what's more, the top 2 are made so cheaply, yet destruction is so expensive (and flip/blank are brand new). This game is so heavily control-oriented because the control pieces that are printed actually matter, as opposed to the damage pumps, which are simply too balanced (No Longer Controllable is probably the best foundation damage pump, as it's the spiritual successor to Reckless/TWOTM).

All the mechanics I've already indicated that suck balls (speed increase, speed redux, damage redux, life gain) need to really up their ante, and Hata needs to stop printing such insanely cheap and prominent control pieces, and once again, they need to stop being so boastful in their "healthy" game and they need to learn how to properly balance it. That doesn't just mean printing more balanced cards, that also means banning or errata'ing troublesome cards. Every single regionals tournament to date has always featured the same cards, and Nats and Worlds will succumb to the same fate if Horvath and Hata don't get off their ass and start reading the reports, and then think to themselves, "Jeez, there must be a reason for this..."

So why isn't more 3 max per deck and 2 max per deck limitation on cards. Every time I listen to the podcast i hear the same handful of cards rambled off over and over and over again. Why aren't these cards limited to 2 per deck instead of banned. On top of that why isn't there a foundation and attack requirement. If you require a deck to have a minum of 50 percent attacks then it makes the game more agressisive. If you make it so that you can only have a set amount of foundation in your staging area it makes it so that foundations become enhancements and secondary functions to combat instead the essential focus. Then you could tone down the damage pumps. Stop people from going past their max handsize and you solve a lot of problems right there. If you could only play 20 foundation then ira-spinata and other cards that destroy foundations become risky because the other player has the chance to play something more deadly on their field. Again there are a lot of simple things that other card games do to balance themselves out by restricting use of mechanics when those mechanics become to dominant.

it is truwly because people r lazy and dont want to think for themselves so no one can create and think orginal

While I'd like to agree with ya, I'm afraid at this point it's hard to think outside the box so to speak. There's just such a power curve in the symbols, that a Life Leona deck isn't going to stand a snowball's chance in hell against an Evil Akuma or Order Gill.

darklogos said:

Because that doesn't solve the problem of broken card is broken. I've had scenarios where ONE Blood Runs True was giving me the hissy fits.

What's more, I've ONLY ran Feline Spike in 2s ever since I got 'em, and they've ALWAYS been my kill switch under most circumstances.

It doesn't matter how many copies you're sporting; you're gonna draw 'em sooner or later, and they're gonna win you games. Ban the BS, leave the rest.

What are the good evil and order attacks and such? All I see now a days are Water and Air everywhere to run to run Feline spike. Besides Knight Breaker, I dont see anything else that is worth using in evil... but maybe I'm missing something?

OhSteven said:

Evil Cookie Cutter Blueprint: Ichi No Tachi or similar card -> Reverse Flayer -> Midnight Launcher -> Knight Breaker backed by Communing of the Ancients or something

Dunno about Order, probably just splash symbols for a finisher

Restricted lists are garbage. They dont address the problem of a card, they mask it by uniformly making it less likley to be played in any given game. If a cards is broken you ban it or eratta it because its broken.

I will say that there is one exception to this rule. There are some cards that only become broken when redundant with themselves. Typically a card like this just needs a unique stamp to help balance it out, and really thats' what the unique stamp is for. But there are a few select cases where just having up to 4 copies of a card in your deck can lead to its breaking, but that is based soley on its effect. These cards should be restricted, though I don't think there should be a restricted list in this game, cards like that should have the limitation of 1 per deck printed right on the card.

The example I want to use is Divination, though I dont think this card is broken at all but it does illustrate an effect that is more powerful when redundant. Also why this card dosen't see more play baffles me with how the mulligan rule is written. One copy of Divination in your deck only ever does its thing, regardless of how powerful it is, you get your 2 cards from the RFG. No huge deal, we have seen this effect before. 4 copies of Divination in your deck however lead to something unintended, divination being able to recycle other copies of itself. So one copy of divination will lead to you being able to get all of the ones in the RFG pile back, along with some other cards. This leads to a powerful anti mill scenario that isnt possible with just one copy of this card.

In cases like these where the cards effect has unintended rammifications when the card is used in multiple in your deck that prove to be too powerful, the card should be restricted. However once again that should be something the PT team and Designers consider when a card is being created, not a magical list we all have to carry around with us to validate.

Every name is taken said:

Typically, Order kills by keeping your staging area in complete disarray with Chinese Boxing + Programmed Malfunction, and then hitting you over and over again with : Defender + Mega Spike, or Kuzuryu Reppa multipled out + Fweem!!! Note, they also love looping I-Spin for more crazy stoopidity!

MarcoPulleaux said:

What you are missing is the 0. slot (i.e. even better than commital), and that is straight up removal = Ira-Spinta.

- dut

RockStar said:

order also has spiral arrow, and lunar slash.

"The reason why damage pumps are so small is because they're so significant; they could turn 1 attack into a kill, under the right circumstances. They also remember the days of such amazing pumps as The Way of the Mightiest and Tenpu so they want to try making them a little more limited."

...........................

Tenpu was spam, it wasn't a "good damage pump". LOL

Tagrineth said:

it wasnt that it was good so to speak its good for what it costed you can get 4 1/5 foundations out easy and thats +8 damage yeah you have to commit alot of foundations but at that point youve spammed alot of other cheap foundations that it doesnt matter

except that the target kill turn during that time frame was turn 3. turn 4 at most. you won't have four Tenpu out turn 3-4, on average, and there were better raw damage pumps at the time.

Tenpu seems to me more like the kind of pump we'd be looking at for block 5, apparently.

Block 5? ****, I thought we were still postulating block 4...>_>

Blah...iuno, something tells me Hata has read the forums, or that people close to him have informed him of each and every regional which has happened since Set 12, and I'm certain, before Worlds hits, he will make a statement.

I realize that's retarded coming from a guy with zero faith in FFG and its elected officials, but eh, it's kinda interesting to magically see a large portion of the forum magically agree with things I've been saying since day 1...