i love it, the best move they could have made, this probably just saved this game for my local playgroup,

It's real (if there's still any doubt.) I have video which i'll try and upload later. ftp isn't working at the restraunt.

Can you put it on youtube.

Awesome! I have exactly one starter from each of Shadowar and Soul Caliber, and THAT'S it. So much for Uk Nats....

Yes people its real~~~ im at gencon myself and it came right from the horses mouth steve himself!!! im sure they'll have it posted in a few days after worlds in the August SOTG~~~

B-Rad said:

Honestly it's so goddamned short notice I would expect nothing less than UK Nats being handled under B3 Standard.

Steve did announce that UK Nats would be in standard format. On another note, while I do love the switch to b4, I'm not happy with the dramatic decrease in character choices. Because of that, I plan to allow characters from b3 to remain legal at the store I scout at until my players and I are happy with the number of b4 characters. Hell, I'm even contemplating allowing some b2 characters >_>

I have to say that this news pretty much kills off my local play group. We have been pretty strong, at around 8-10 members, mostly all playing nearly pure 4-star decks. Throw in a local shortage of 5-star booster sets, and a common disinterest in Shadowar, and possibly Tekken, depending on characters. I will quickly see this group, who have in the past strived to create a Standard Legal environment, play purely Legacy decks, or stop playing entirely.

I have to point this out. Whenever an action by a greater power, ie FFG, causes assets that people have sunk time, money, and energy to severly depreciate in value, there will be apprehension and powerful feelings for and against it. This is the main reason that greater powers forwarn those that will be effected with enough time for a reasonable transition.

With all this said and done, Tekken had better be **** worth it.

Rolling with the punches,

Tinman

that doesn't suprise me at all I would think they would be doing this mainly because after worlds 4-point might as well be legacy anyways there are no more big tournaments or any tournaments besides locals anyways...

i dont want to hear anyone whine about the loss of value in cards....i own 2 platysets of Addes Syndicate and 6 copies of revitalize and i owned them before they were banned, if you want to carry on about the loss of value to your cards then you should stop playing

Awaken said:

It's not the loss of value in the cards, it's the short notice. We knew when Block three was going to hit WELL in advance, giving folks time to get rid of their cards to at least gain something from it.

Since Gary and Dave... Er I mean James and Steve don' t posess the brain power to actually realize how much money FFG can gain from promoting Legacy events (look at Magic the Gathering. Lotus' are still over 500 bucks and folks charge 20 bucks+ for good type 1 tournies), they've pretty much gave the middle finger to a LOT of their player base who, while may not like the current standard... Realize that normally, one is given notice before being told that they might as well light their cigarettes with their Blood Runs True and Ira Spintas, cause that's all they're good for now.

Well, this is BS as far as big tournies go, but my play group will just ignore it. I'm the scout and I'm sure no one wants to be limitted to 3 sets, therefor democracy rules and we play miniblock. Seriously, its pretty laughable that FFG would expect us to play with 2 legitamate sets and Shadowar. And wasnt there a rule about there needing to be 2 legal shurikens at a time? I highly doubt FFG has printed 6 pointed shurikens on Tekken stuff, so they're breaking an old rule (albeit a sabertooth rule).

Bottom line, I think this decision is a terrible one. Having no Street fighter set and a bastard set (shadowbore) is just a piss poor idea. But, I'll just choose to ignore it if it is indeed true.

It is indeed true; I was almost feeling Horvath's breath as he announced it.

Also, Soul Calibur is confirmed from October, so calm down.

Facts from today:

• Yes, the rotation is happening early.
• Boxes of currently legal for standard product was selling in the dealers room at Gencon for $20 a box. (This includes boxes of KoF 2006)
• The game state as it is, is not healthy, and is not currently conducive to brining in new players.
• There were players yesterday saying that "I'm quitting because I don't like block 3 environment, and my store refuses to play miniblock because players will not give up their blood runs true."
• Even in the "new environment" today, I heard complaints of "Aggro is unviable, there is no way to kill the wall decks."
• Players were complaining about cards that have been spoiled in tekken because "there is no way to deal with that in mini-block" at which point I pulled out my mini-block deck and showed the person cards that were answers to what they were complaining about and their response was "oh... this is really cool, I didn't know it existed."
• Rotation of 5 star cards will not occur until after Gencon 2011.
• Steve is personally looking into the rebuild of the OP system so that it's more balanced, fair, and accessible, so that cards are being equally distributed.

Personal Thoughts:

• Effing man up and play legacy people. It's not the "degenerate morass" that people claim it is, that is as limited as people keep pretending it is. If more people were willing to try legacy, and play the game to have fun and explore what you can do with the game, it would be a lot more fun.
• I keep hearing people talk about the various block 2 decks that they really loved playing, and wish that it could be legal in the current block. Play legacy already... there is nothing wrong with breaking out those cards, and having fun playing with cards that you miss.
• This is needed to help get players in to playing UFS. It's a lot easier to get someone into a game that has a 400 card pool vs a game that has a 1400 card pool. What keeps boggling my brain is how small many peoples UFS collections are. Because of how many cards were released how quickly - people decided "rather then get a whole bunch of cards that will give me a whole bunch of different options, we'll get just a few narrowly focused cards." Which has lead to the problem the game has today.
  Hopefully with the smaller card pool, people will buy more cards from the sets, and take the time to try stuff they wouldn't have otherwise.
• Is this perfect? Probably not. Are people going to *****? No matter what FFG does, people are going to *****.
• Repeat - Man up, or Woman up, or get reproductive fortitude and play legacy. Use a local banned list. Try Legacy no block tournaments.
• People are far too stale with this game, and want far too limited of a focus. Stop trying to "build the best deck that's already been discovered." Spend time reading cards, using 2hd, and trying different ideas. Why is UFS house so good? They spend a lot of free time just throwing deck after deck after deck at each other, experimenting and trying different things until they find stuff that works and they feel is best.
• We need more open discussion of tech and how cards work.
• At the end of the day - can you have fun playing the game? What is fun to you? Stop and examine that.
• Scouts need to get creative about managing sportsmanship, and ensuring that creativity and sportsmanship is equally rewarded.
• In some of my games, I killed as early as turn 3. However because I would only throw one, two, or in a single instance three attacks in a turn, apparently I'm not aggro. I apparently have no concept of what Aggro is.

With all that stated... I'm going to bed... I have some cards to play in 8 hours or something.

I think the sharing of tech is the biggest issue in any card game I've played. It doesn't happen. Even when things are opened up a bit people keep small tweaks to themselves. The whole not talking about a certian person's mill deck is an instance of that. Why was it kept underwraps afterit was displayed at a public event? Why wasn't the person forced to adapt or save the deck for when it matters? If that happens on the boards what then happens in play testing groups.

I would say as a newer player that the biggest problem I saw before this announcement was everyone was used to getting abilities off for free and at little to no risk. That is all gone. Now a lot of players who played with easier decks will now have to reconstruct new ways to play. The new format kills mill because aggro will be faster. The new format kills execessive control because there are no such cards in effect. People don't have to worry about insane life gain because the only legal life gain is found in 1 foundation and 2 or 3 of Tira's attacks. Ninty percent of what people complained about the game is gone. Now we have to ask ourselves how creative do we want to get and are the developers going to reward creativity. Yi Shin is a great example of that. His cards are based around face up momentum. You get some nice bonuses if your Yi Shin. But what if I'm playing another character like Rashotep. Where is the pay off. It is there and it can work well with some of cards. In all honesty a new world of scary options opens up. But most people would say the complication of having to land Yi Shin's attack, use a foundation to make sure that attack lands face up in the momentum, and make the attack go through is to much to handle. I want the game to stop rewarding ease and start rewarding risk. Cards like Seifried's earth divide shouldn't exist. It makes huge damage to easy. There is no requriment that those preceding attacks had to land. If we dont' have insane life gain then we shouldn't be looking to have kill condition cards but cards that reward agressive play.

It would be nice if the commit one podcast came back or FFG do something and launch their own podcast. I think ideas need to be spread again in an easier to digest fashion. It would be nice to hear people explain to newer players the risk and rewards of the cards. At the same time the cast would have to push itself to be creative and strive to create varients in the meta and not just reinforce it like before.

ShadowDragon said:

when you say standard do you block 4 or standard b3

Antigoth said:

First off, I think in general this is a good thing. It will improve the meta, and all that most likely.

I really would like for legacy to be worth playing. I love playing legacy, but there is jack all support for it. And there really needs to be,

The suddenness of this notice is also a kickk in the balls. Those $20 decks mentioned... now a waste of time. And Fight Night was a HUGE kick in the balls to my LGS. We bought ten, and have sold 3. The other 7 are probably not ever going to move. Who wants to buy cards that can't be used anymore?

This may be good for the meta, but I challange that it's good for the game overall. By itself it will keep some people from quitting, but t is going to cause others to quit. On the same token while it may entice some new players, others are going to be turned away by the fact that they're only renting their cards for a year or two.

On a personal level, I wish they could have at elast made the announcement earlier. I spent nearl $100 bucks on boxes of cards. I thought they'd be good for another 4-6 months... not for one more week. In a lot of ways I wish I had quit when the first rotation happened. STG said they were going to support legacy, but legacy support has never been anythng but a joke.

---

Sorry for the typing mistakes, am using a very tiny Eee PC and my fingers are a little too big for it.

Didnt read all the posts but i did watch the video.

This game is already weak here on the west coast, now i feel it will be killed.

I have tons of 4 point cards that are now garbage. I lost tons of money having 1-2 playsets of just about every recently banned/erratta'd card, and i was fine with that...it was good for the game.

I don't see this the same way....o well, at least i can get back to playing arcade games competitively...

For all the people who keep complaining "my cards aren't going to be worth anything..."

Shut up and play legacy.

Seriously. Get over yourselves and play the game.

UFS isn't a game that's all about the prize support. People play it because they like playing the game.

People play it not because the cards are worth a lot of money - they complain about it when the cards are worth "too much"

If you refuse to play legacy, It's your own fault that no one wants to get any legacy cards.

5 star only is like UFS at the start. That's what everyone's been wanting to get back to playing. (Aparantly)

If that's not what you want - play legacy.

You'll get a prize pack for it, just like you'll get for standard. Considering the number of people who aren't here at worlds right now - the coolest prize in gaming obviously doesn't mean that much, because they're not here trying to win it.

For what it's worth:

I play legacy.

I had recently traded for extra sets of things like Chesters and LOTM just before they were banned. I've got a lot of "trade fodder" over and above my playsets that is as you folks complain about "worth less because it's legacy only."

Am I complaining? No. Am I just going to go and play the game, and enjoy myself? Yes.

I like playing the game.

I'm going to play standard.

I'm going to play legacy.

I'm going to play Legacy Draft.

I'm going to play legacy no block (legacy cards that outside of starting charcter may not have the block symbol printed on them)

I'm going to play legacy 6x10

And I'm going to have fun playing UFS.

Seriously people - stop bitching & complaining. It's poisoned UFS, and is as much of a reason for its current state as anything else.

will you marry me Antigoth?

Awaken said:

It is legal in Canada.

And his kilt is mrowr.

darklogos said:

They killed off C1P because FFG wanted to do their own thang, by the way. Plans MAY have been scrapped.

You'll get a prize pack for it, just like you'll get for standard. Considering the number of people who aren't here at worlds right now - the coolest prize in gaming obviously doesn't mean that much, because they're not here trying to win it.

Crazy Elf said:

You're safe

I actually like the fact that they're doing this so early.

I got into the game right before rotation to b3 and I've never really used all that much 4-point stuff. Ever since Shadowar and SCIV came out I mostly play cards from those sets. Mostly because that's all I really have... xD

I do agree with Antigoth on all of his points. You people really do need to stop complaining and just suck it up and play legacy. Legacy is great whether you like it or not. I'm going to play it, and I think everyone else should too. Just because cards aren't usable in the current block doesn't make them worthless.

I seen the video of the announcement yesterday and right he said sets will rotate someone asked if they would be supporting Legacy more and Steve said "there will be prize support, people can play it have a good time with it, but the main format is what the game is about". If that is their take on it why should I care when they really don't even care. I don't really care to play a format that when I do go to an event I won't be playing because pretty much every event is a Standard event (worlds, team worlds, national events, and regionals have all been Standard events). A lot of people around here (what's left of us) didn't want to play Legacy, some of us sold and got rid of the stuff when it was rotating (I have absolutely no block 2 rares or ultras or promos) now because they decided to rotate 8 months sooner I just have to "shut up" and play Legacy? I don't want to play Legacy. I know by choosing to play Standard only that my cards won't be worth much after they rotate and they won't always be worth money and I really don't care about that, but when you tell me 3 weeks in advance they are rotating that's crap. If you want to play Legacy that's fine by me, but most people don't play it. But I guess now we all have to just shut up and start playing Legacy because the game sucked so bad that they had to rotate everything out 8 months sooner? That's a reason to play something. Because all those broken cards aren't going to be in Legacy either with even more broken cards right? Oh wait they still will be.

I think it's funny the people saying "just play Legacy" are the same peope complaining about how boring and crappy block 3 is. Well all those cards are in Legacy how much differant can it be from the current meta? Why not just shut up and play block 3 for 8 more months?