with this months state of the game, the landscape of UFS is set to change, the bannings of olcadan's mentoring, chester's backing, and lord of the makai. Also the removal of foil cards (but they are so pretty), and the reduction to just one liscence per release.

Olcadan's - needed to go, but could have (and would have) lived with it, one of the few answers to problem foundations.

Chester's - no comment.

Lord of the Makai - about time, momentum should never be that free, or easy to get and with those stats.

What does everybody think? good, bad, or just plain ugly.

Benihime said:

Think of the line "as long as Order doesn't get too overpowered" with everything that's below:

Owlface - Mixed feelings. It needed to go, definitely, but we need something to deal with boards from hell. A base of Chinese Boxing, Prog Malfunction, BRT, Amy, Psycho Style, Charismatic (cries!) and Forethought looks a daunting prospect without Owlface.

LotM - No problems whatsoever. This serves to de-power Spike (or actually make you, well, set the card up first).

Chesters Backing - Again, absolutely no problems. Fantastic card is too fantastic.

So what does this do to the meta?

- iSpin-Spike will become a very annoying and easy two-hit kill.

- Heloooooooo Charismatic and Giradots. Welcome to multiple copies per deck (especially Charismatic...).

- To reference Babylon 5, Order Above All.

- The stock in Siegfried stuff just skyrocketed. Earth is top tier.

- Destiny will be a nightmare for cc'hack. While I'm not sure that Evil is completely dead, per se, the ball game just went 360. Evil definitely lost it's S'Class status... though it's probably still A'Class.

- This is more from playing Chun Li, but the effectiveness of a Chesters-LotM-Blinding Rage-Makai High Noble board (6cc's of anti'meta) has just completely dropped.

- Gorgeous Team - Rejection.

- In fact, soak decks in general (mainly Good and Water (waaaaaaaaaater)) just went up tenfold. Water probably joins Earth on the top tier. Owlface was about the only thing holding it back.

But, ABOVE ALL ELSE, the change I'm most happy about is the more relaxed release schedule. This is something that I and my wallet have wanted since UFS's inception.

Hewittzil said:

Matt, i gotta agree with everything you just said, especially the release schedule part, and i also completely forgot that charismatic even existed.

Benihime said:

Would I be right in thinking Benihime = Michael?

The release schedule part should really help Sheffield out. It was hurting us loads, now we don't need to collect so much or struggle with trying to split between two sets each release. Thank You Chuck Norris!!!

I'm genuinely excited about building UFS decks again! It shakes up the meta and allows innovation.

Hewittzil said:

yep i be he, and yea the schedule will help i know lloyd is really happy about it and so am i.

Owlface and lotm i have no quarrlas withs chesters i really think shouldn't have gone.

All i'm gunna say is play order lock now as there is little left to stop it, at least chesters could slow some of all that commital down.

Happy about the 1 set thing my wallet loves it, non foilly things with have to come from other card games .

Bit concerend about the diversity issues once block 4 comes in with the smaller lot of character choice.

Order will become extremely difficult to stop unless you really put your mind to it, but only in the sense that you'll need anti-commital now rather than anti-destruction. (Torn Hero now goes in every deck!). Air just keeled over and died at the extreme loss of 6 checks. 1st July marks the official death of the Defender loop kill condition. In all, I agree heartilly with all 3 of the bannings. Although in retrospect, people should try using Professional Soldier and La Superba now and again (especially Professional Soldier, which is far better than it is made out to be because of Lords existence)

I LOOOOOOVE the mini block format idea. Part of the reason I don't play this and build decks nearly as much as I could, is because there's just too much to trowel through when building a deck, so having a maximum of 5 sets legal at a time is perfect for me and new players. I'll be the first to hold the mini nationals (God, I hope they change that name)

The dropping of 2 sets per release is a mixed blessing. There'll be less to look forward to, but my wallet will certainly appreciate it!

Also, NO FOILS?! I'm sorry if you guys think me childish, but NO FOILS?! How can I magpie stuff IF IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME?! Ah well, guess I'll just have to live with it.

I'm in two minds about this whole thing. Whilst Olcadon's going is sweet as you like, I really didn't have much problem with the other two. On the flip side, which archetypes get stronger?

- Aggro has fewer ways of removing those troublesome foundations that stop people being able to rush/storm through their opponent

- Order lock down: how do we stop this? Red Lotus and Torn Hero? Hmm, only good shares both of those? Everything else will be over-whelmed. Also, this is the most boring deck archetype to play (sorry Viewtiful!) as you sit doing nothing whilst your opponent locks everything down on your side. Speeding up the game? This kinda is the opposite, don't you think?

- Order loop - kinda died a death, nevermind!

- Evil Negation: kinda obvious

- Turtle decks: this again has become very easy, especially since Earth can stall to build for Tiger Fury, then use *** to stop the block.

Will these reduce the grey wars? I don't think so, in fact I see it getting worse since you won't have as many options to deal with problem pieces, meaning people can do what they like without fear of being stopped.

That all said, I think the change will be interesting and give us some major changes that will stop the Oh So Dull Chester's Wars that seemed to take over in the top tier decks.

P.S. Loving the reduced schedule, WALLET SEZ TA VERY MUCH MATE!!!

Umm, I love the bannings and agree with all of them, I just wish that Feline Spike and Blood Runs True had joined tham. It's now really hard to get rid of Destiny, which weakens Blood Runs True somewhat, but then again you have to actually pass the check to play it.

The loss of Lord of the Makai hasn't weakened Feline Spike at all in my opinion - Air has momentum generation by the bucket and Water has Natural Leader - you only need one copy in play to fully fuel a Feline Spike, so in my opinion the format hasn't been fixed yet.

There's also the repeated unwillingness of FFG to errata or ban Bitter Rivals, which now reads "E: Your opponent reveals their hand and discards an attack". As there is no longer any easy way to destroy it, it is more than a little annoying since it means I'm still not going to touch any attacks which have keywords on them unless they can one hit kill my opponent the turn I draw them.

Hmm, my thoughts...

Bannings - was expecting BRT to be on there, and I'm VERY glad Spike isn't - I've always been pro-spike, and I honestly don't beleive it's banworthy, although an errata to make either the E of the Multiple Felicia only might have been nice...Otherwise, happy with all 3, especially Owlface.

Foils - TBH, I was expecting them to do this when FFG took over, as FFG have, to my knowledge, never done foils before. It'll be a bit of a shift in mentality, but I don't think it will actually have an effect in the longrun.

The new OP looks quite interesting, and about time - I said ages ago the OP system needed a huge overhaul, god knows who designed the original one Nice to see some exclusive character promos in there too, and I really hope the $50 kit is available here in the UK (Steve, any ideas?)

Set releases - hmmm, I agree it's a mixed bag. One license and release is nice, but is 99 cards too small - guess we'll see in July when Tekken rolls around.

Kev

I had just designed my new deck then this happed and now it is VERY diffrent.

Olcadons i am happy about(i havent played it in ages but i have had to put 4 to 8 cards in every deck to deal with it.)

Lord i dont mind there is other momentum generation.

Chesters i think will change things the most. not maby in deck construcktion (olcodons does that as it frees up so much space) but with the mentality of what will be played as there is no chesters to hold things back.

LotM and Owlface: I'll miss them but I can't say I'm surprised.

Chester's: That one IS a surprise, I never thought that one was banworthy.

The lack of any mention of Bitter Rivals is annoying as hell.

No foils? Just in time for them to actually release a licence I give a **** about? Typical of my luck really.

New OP? More cards that I can only get through attending events, with no local stores that will be running them. No comment.

I think Chester's was very strong, but it was a combination of being very strong AND a 6-check with powerful symbols that got it banned, not just the level of ability it had.

I've never agreed with the Infinity cards concept, and Olcadan's in particular, so I'm almost dancing (not quite dancing, I'll explain why shortly) that it's gone.

Lord of the Makai, I picked up 4 early on, and I've found I haven't been able to build an Air deck without them, so this is a good thing, I don't like auto-includes.

One set per release? Someone mentioned that once the coffers got a bit more filled at FFG, they could try releasing one set every 2 months instead of 3, so 6 releases per year instead of 8, this would allow all licenses to be represented.

Also, this helps as it increases the likelyhood if me buying boxes, since I don't think I've ever had a double release where I bought boxes for both, I just picked one of the two sets releases, bought boxes for them and traded for the other set. WIth just one set being released each time it's much more likely I'll buy boxes as I have a greater chance of obtaining-in-boxes-and-then-trading-for-what's-left.

Was hoping for some Tekken previews but they'll come eventually.

Not in the slightest bit arsed about the foiling, so no problems there.

Overall a nice SotG, no real problems.

Now onto why I'm not quite dancing: Chinese Boxing still exists in the game, my most hated card. It can nullify twice the opponent's staging area (at least) by itself, the only other card with that sort of power is Clean Freak, which is a 6/3 Asset, not a 3/4 Foundation. I don't agree with Chin-Box being able to be used on either turn, especially since the committed foundations don't ready again for 4 turns if committed on opponent's turn, and 3 turns if committed on Chin-Box player's turn.

That card needs to go as it's not condusive to a positive playing environment, especially since it's the biggest drop in the huge ocean of Order's commit control (I have no problem with Order being about committing your opponent's resources, it's good to have a symbol like that, but given the IMMENSE amount of OTHER committal order has I don't believe this card should be able to do what it does for so little.

If Chin-Box was gone I would be dancing.

as much as i love lord of the makai i'm glad to see its gone, momentum generation should never be that cheap, easy or have stats that good, now its gone, quite a few other cards become a lot more balanced, e.g: nagase,yoshitora,tira's contract, multiples in general take that little bit longer to set up, it slows down defender loop but doesn't stop it(its still possible to go infinite, it just takes a spot of ingenuity)

chesters needed to go, lost memories was enough of a pain in the ass back in the day, making it a 6 check and having it gain life is a recipe for cheese. now its gone the bison support should finally see the light of play, and getting through control walls of air and evil becomes a tad easier.

owlface is a tough one, i always saw the need for it, even if it annoyed the hell out me seeing 4 staring me down from my opponents staging area, now its going to be much harder for many symbols to deal with problem foundations, evil/death/fire has the nightmare foundation destruction support as long as you keep hitting them hard, order/water share chinese boxing and program malfunction to deal with problem cards, water also has clean freak and kid sister which i feel will start to see more play as methods of dealing with the remaining cheese. the death of owlface does devalue a lot of cards, blinding rage becomes a 1/6 with a very situational ability, same goes for makai high noble, controller of souls is still powerful but not as essential as it once was, now we can build decks without worrying about our staging areas getting sytematically raped turn after turn.

so in conclusion, order lock gets both more and less obnoxious, it cant destroy your problem cards but you cant destroy theirs in return, chun li will still be very strong but i dont think as fast as she was which is definitely a good thing, destiny will see play in every deck that can possibly run it and damage redux is about to start running rampant, mill decks ahoy!

Olcadans Mentoring - This would seem everywhere, so decks that never really had any defence for it would more often than not lose ( Water ), I agree with the banning

Chester's Backing - Any deck that could run it would have it in there, It would make cards that would work better against other resources a bit redundant ( Experienced Combatant, Saikyo Ryu ) cards that would make you pay a hefty cost to get its effect.

Lord of the Makai - Probably the fairest banning, 1) Feline Spike is harder to hit with fully 2) Defender loop is now alot harder to pull of. It also has the same effect that Chester's Backing does, being any deck that can run it will run it..

Also all 3 of them had a 6cc so it will be very interesting to see what people will run as replacements for the recently banned cards..