For what it's worth - we haven't had a shop selling singles in almost two years locally. It usually works out better, because the money you'd spend on singles, you just buy more boxes, get more stuff, and have more trade bait.

Stop being such a prognosticator. If this game has always been fun since day one, at what point would it lose its fun value?

Stop concerning yourself with whether your store will stock it religiously; tell them what you will buy, and they will help you out.

Stop concerning yourself with this game's popularity, or what you think will be its impending doom

and just enjoy the funnest card game that has managed to survive this long, and appears to be thriving just fine.

MarcoPulleaux said:

To awnser your questions, it never lost its fun value for me, and I doubt that it ever will. Ive played a number of CCGs including Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon, the last two breifly to help out some friends, and nothing even comes close to the amount of fun that UFS gave me. I concern myself with what my store will stock becuase when it comes down to it i'm the one spending the money on the game, and, I dont want to spend the $86.00 a box looking for one card when I can most likely dive into the binders and pick up the card I need, it's simply not worth it to buy the whole box for one card(even though the extra cards i get in the box are a bonus). I concern myself with the games popularity because it directly affects how many people will show up to a major event, the more popular the game the more players show up, and since I enjoy competitive play I want to have good large tournaments where there is a nice diversity of decks and players.

bloodocean said:

I whole heartlily agree with this. Although I think you mean "Psycho Style" instead of "Psycho Focus". The game has become a chore to play, especially since only a handful of cards ever see play now. Excluding sets 12 & 13, the past few sets were filled with countless amounts of useless cards that would never see play so players obviously pick the good ones.

I can see why people believe mill is the best win condition now since its so hard to either damage the other player or making sure they stay damaged. Battle Prowess comes to mind...

Come on guys...this is a card game based around "FIGHTING GAMES" why is it so **** hard to attack. I hope I can stay around past this current rotation into only 5 star shurikens, the new sets were great.

Ben Risolve spoke the truth when he said that card accessibility and organized play are the major requirements to reach the levels of MTG/YGO/Pokemon. Ben made a fantastic post, and everybody should study it.

SunJian said:

Contrary to this, many players have stated that 2007 was the best the metagame has ever been.

Worlds 2007 is still the best event I have ever traveled to. Even tho my homies weren't there with me, UFS was highly playable as 11 of the 12 symbols were tournament caliber ('Good' lacked horribly). That even showed in Top 16 where 10 of the 12 symbols made top cuts (Good and Water didn't make it). Top 4 showed how even the metagame was with two control decks (Vega/Rock) and two Aggro decks (Yun-Seong/Adon). Even tho both control decks were in finals, everybody I talked to afterwards was very happy to see a deck like Vega, totally unexpected, win Worlds, showing that anything can happen in that metagame.

The metagame then crumbled. Cards like Chester's Backing, Injury Assets, Revitalize, BRT, Addes Syndicate, and many others just did it for a lot of people. They lost faith in the game and quit, knowing that the people in charge of the game made grave mistakes that would be near impossible to recover from. Worlds 2007 had 188 participants, the largest tournament recorded in UFS history. Worlds 2008 had 118 participants, not even touching the pre-set 128 spots you had to qualify for. To myself and my playgroup, this told us that the game was dying, but we still play in hopes that UFS will get better.

One thing people need to look at is the cost of building decks. Worlds 2007, Olexa's Vega deck that won costed about $70 with really the only money cards being Start Over. Jeremy Ray's Dan deck that he made 5th place with costed less than $60. The next year at Worlds 2008, Jeremy's Alex deck costed over $500. My playgroup noticed that it was becoming a money game just like YGO, and although YGO is played worldwide, UFS is by far a different game. Because it has a small playerbase worldwide, UFS can't leap from step 3 to step 10.

Right now, I have no idea what to do up at Worlds 09. I might play, or I might just go there just to hang out with my homies. I tell you one thing tho. If I play and the prize support ends up being total **** like it has been since Worlds 2007, then that'll probably be it for me. Yes, I did get a Wii at Worlds 2007, but that is heaven compared to the poor people who didn't top 16 who got NOTHING. That's right, they got absolutly NOTHING. And you know what? I never saw many of those players ever again. I would give up that Wii to see them all playing again.

Let me bring something up...

STG very blatantly expressed their interest in slowing down the game. MOST people felt that turn 1 was unacceptable, and turn 2 should also seldom occur. Well, we've reached that game now, and people are complaining it's too slow. While STG 4-starred cards like Impressive Physique and Undefeated (which have not, and will not, ever see play), and promised us we'd use them, we finally have Hata who understands what a card needs in order to see play.

Although I personally have zero faith in FFG as a company, I DO have faith in Hata as a designer, and I think he realizes some of the things he COULD have done to make Set 12 better, and will use his learnings to make 13 and beyond better.

Also, let me just say something:

Pokemon and Yugioh do not require strategy. I can't speak for Magic, but that game looks like a combination of the two, meaning it's ****.

Shaneth said:

Keep in mind - I know the guy and we're cut off from any tournament after the Canadian Nationals, and aggro was a very tough deck to beat in our meta. Target X's Adon deck still scares some people. What the rest of the world experiences tends at major tournaments to not have a lot of repercussions here because we know we're not gonna be affected by it unless it is one we can actually afford to go to. Which is why while a lot of players may have said Worlds 2007 was the best meta evar, it was the beginning of the end for him.

We lost more players due to the 2008 releases than the 2007 ones, truth be told, and we were between stores for most of that 2007 era.

I blaim two cards for killing this game (however that's not the main reason). Both conincidently enough came out of the same set. Blood Runs True and Addes Syndicate.

I remember back when Cutting Edge was being spoiled and we had a player base of upwards of ten people in Oshawa. One of my buds (I can't remember which) said Blood Runs True was going to change the way we play this game. Well it did, and boy howdy did it more or less wreck it.

Now my post isn't about how OP BRT and Addes were, no it's something quite different. My post is about what turned a game where you could compete with a deck that was 40 dollars (my top 20 Zangief deck ran 8 rares and no Ultras) to a game where you have to shell out paycheck after paycheck to be competative. At the time my Regionals deck that topped Swiss was over six hundred dollars Canadian. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS! Anyways I digress...

When Addes and BRT were running rampant it wasn't unheard of for Addes to be upwards of sixty or seventy dollars. Ahem excuse me, but when did this game become Magic? I know FFG can't control third party pricing, but a big chunk of the blaim could be put on them for the setup.

Having BRT as a starter boxtopper was insane and forced people to shell out a crap ton of money for a playset. Addes was one card in a set that had maybe five good cards that also contained a few hundred absolute **** cards. As such, it forced folks to shell out obscene prices for box after box (to this date it's the only set I've bought more than two boxes of) and even then, there was little chance you'd even see one.

The other main thing that is causing this game to die is it's design team, or as I like to call them, "Hear, See, and Speak no Evil." Truth be told, I do envy them. I'd LOVE a job where I can keep going over deadlines while not getting fired. But the fact remains, they cannot meet deadlines. I'm well aware that designing a card game is hard, but I mean come on... Folks on these forums have come up with sets of cards. Yes not 100 card sets, but I mean any idiot can make absolute fluff which 80% of most cards in sets these days seem to be. If they actually release Tekken whenever it is they're going to release it (Octobre of 2011 is it?) it b etter be absolutly meta warping, or this game is dead in the water. If I want to go play a game that takes six hours, I'll go play Eternal Struggle thanks.

B-Rad said:

A few notes -
1) There are things that the design team can't speak of that has caused the delays. They are completely out of the control of the design team. Unfortunately the design team has their hands tied, and professionally are unable to provide the reasons for what caused the delays.

2) STG was always "On time" because they printed several sets in advance. There hasn't been an FFG design team in place, except to oversee the last few touches of set 11. Hata didn't come onto the scene until late september / october 2008. The entire design time from March 2008 - September (6 moths!) was lost. In essence Hata lost over 6 months of design time. So while they're "Always delayed": Lets look at the game since FFG took over:

Set 9 - No designer in place, FFG releases it within a month of when sets were "expected". The process of getting it to print was overseen by everyone's favourite hobbit - Mr. Ledezma, who was hired for OP, but had to take on some aspects of design work while a designer was being brought online.

Set 10 - Still no designer in place, FFG releases it in *AUGUST* at roughly the same time as Gencon. There is much feather ruffling and complaining that a set is released during that time period. Entier essays are written complaining about how FFG is biting the hand that fed it by release a set in August. Printed at the same time as Set 9. A

Set 11 - 1 month late, comes out in December

Set 12 - Hit when planned because of the pushback due to Set 11.

Set 13 - Pushed back until after Gencon. It could have dropped before Gencon. However you would have had players complaining about a new set dropping just before worlds. How many people remember players seething because of Set 12 being legal for the Path of the Master?

So - In the last year - FFG drops 2 sets at or just before a major event. Players complain lots. FFG decides to play it safe, and pushes back the release until after the major event, to reduce confusion, and try to be more friendly to the players. Instead the players complain horrifically and decry FFG, and proclaim that it's the end of the universe because FFG is trying to accomodate their players requests.

3) When STG was designing UFS, you had Seth Morrigan, David Freeman, and Erik Yapple all working on the design process. Sabe was in charge of art direction, and then either Justin/Josh/Stacy were in charge of OP.
With FFG Hata's job encompass aspects of all the above jobs, plus does design work for the Call of Cthulhu LCG, plus some other duties as placed on his shoulders.

Why do I bring this up? There are expectations that many of the public have as to what they *think* the role of a game designer is. The fantasy of what people imagine Hata to be living is far from that.

4) People create unrealistic expectations - "The set must be absolutely meta warping" - what do you define as meta warping? What does Shinji define as meta warping? My guess is each of your expectations is probably worlds apart.

***

In another thread - Hatman called out for more discussion.
In a different thread Viewtiful Joe ask for more positivity.

Instead of designing cards - why not someone post a thread of what they would like to see cards do? What mechanics would they like to see. Hata is very open to input from the players, he just does it in a very quiet fashion. Indicate what you would like to see from future sets.

Damnit antigoth stop making sense! While, i really wish set 13 would be here by now...what you say sounds reasonable for the worlds going crowd (I'm to broke to go).

As for expectations, I hope the set is as good as set 12 or very close. I want to see characters with support and abilities that seem close to their ingame version i.e. all the SC IV chars from set 12. I don't want to see chars like disney Vega ever again...Vega with damage reduction...really? I don't want meta warping, these cards shouldn't be like set 10 and previous sets. I want the set to mesh with 12 so my mini-format is fun and reminds me why I got into this game in the first place. No more battle prowess, abelia's, morgan, spam foundations with crazy good blocks. I don't want to be punished for attacking by my opponent, unless I stupidly overextend. And finallly... I want a playable version of Vega. Make that happen and uh I'll be a happy camper.

Antigoth said:

What this game needs at this moment in time is something that is so amazingly awsome, so jaw droppingly good that people will go "wait a tick, what is this". It needs a "stun" factor again(no pun intended). That is what orginially got me interested in this game. When I saw it being played I looked at the cards, and I saw something that was so cool. Cards like chain throw, criminal uppercut, promo yun-seong. They all had bitchin abilities. They all for lack of a better term "spoke to me". They wispered all the things that I wanted in a card game. At that time ufs was fast, furious and in your face. All decks were viable from aggro to mill, and then cutting edge came out with the one card that started the chain reaction, the one card that would act as the catalyst, Addes Syndicate. That was the beginninng of the end in my eyes. When addes first hit the shelves, me and shajir, the one who started me in UFS looked at it, at its symbols, at its diff and control and its ungodly good ability and said "oh my god, here is the one card that is the most one sided, pain in the ass card I think i've ever seen, and I love it". that was the start of the reaction wars and what I see as the total board control style that is popular today. It can ultimately be traced to one illegal play at that years Canadian nationals. One player(I forget who it was), looked at addes, then looked at The Curse Broken and thought commit your board. This is how that combo worked. So he plays a attack, hacks with BRT, negates his own BRT with his own addes, reacts with the curse broken, and then proceeds to set up a recurring loop with his addes and curse brokens, resulting in his opponents entire board being commited. Now as I stated before this was a illegal play because it was later ruled that addes syndicate can not trigger off of your own reacts, but it was still the start of the trend. When it ws banned my playgroup let out this enromus sigh of relief because one of the most degenerative cards in the game was gone. Then it all went to ****. After cutting edge came Deadly Ground and Realm of Midnight, and as we know that brought with it cards like Ira-Spinta, Realm of Midnight, Feline Spike, Dark Force:Mirage Body, Donovan, Program Malfunction from Realm of Midnight, and Juni's Spiral Arrow and other cards I cant remember from Deadly Ground. these cards changed the meta to a "one shot your dead" playstyle. After those sets came the death blow in the form of Flash of the Blades. That set brought us the wonder cards, Defender, Seong mi-na, Sophitia, End it All, Inhuman Perception, ForeThought, Healer and Tenacious. King of Fighters was no better bringing cards like Chinese Boxing, Alba, Arroganance, Battle Prowess, and Hanzo. All of this combined to make the perfect environment for control decks to dominate. Decks like lockdown Gill, lockout Seong mi-na and lockout Akuma were now possible, and while they wouldnt see play until recently, they had all the peices already in place for there eventual rise to the top as top contender decks. The final peice of the control meta puzzle came in the form of Chun Li::::. from Warriors Dream. She became the most overwhelming force in the game. Able to use all of the aformentioned cards, and cabable of lightning speed and incredible endurance a chun li deck was a monster to face. Able to pop off a first turn spinta thanks to her R ability, she could keeop your staging area whiped clean of problem cards before they became a problem and fuel her feline spike at the same time. With her in place the puzzle was complete and straight up beat your face in aggro couldnt last in the meta. decks that needed time to set up like Gill or akuma could barely contain a Chun Li deck that was build correctly. Chun Li decks would rutinely top eight at major events, and then it finally happened, She won a major event. This year at US nationals, Canadian player Mike Lowe piloting his badass Chun Li deck won, and subsequently added Chun Li to the ban list. To wrap up a rather long post The game is starting to turn around, but not quick enough in my veiw to give it the same lure that it gave me when I first saw it played. Is UFS going to return to the days of glory it so enjoyed? or is it going to fizzle out and die? these are questions that I dont know the awnser to, but I do know that the player base will have a huge effect on the awnsers to those questions.

Shaneth said:

Thanks.

Smaller games becomming money games is almost always due to difficult to get, exceedingly playable or even required cards. generally this includes busted UR's and promo's. that you need playset's of. I think BRT is likely the prime example of that in UFS.

honestly I have said my bit, i just felt a need to say thank you for the compliment