bikinilord said:

Go play chess?

The game has luck in these aspects:

1.) Drawing your cards each time you are prompted to draw. This is mitigated due to the concept of how many cards one draws typically, in the course of a turn (fill up to your hand size during your turn) and game. And the games mulligan rule. And by what cards you put in your deck and how many. This is about the same IF NOT LESS luck based compared to other TCGs (due to more than just one card drawn).

ALSO many cards in UFS (most actually) play more than one role. For instance, many cards have a block on them, allowing one to stop attacks, IN ADDITION to being an attack itself or the game's resource type, foundations. Many cards without blocks even have multiple effects for them to operate as offense or defense... and so on.

2.) Control checks. This represents your ability to pull off the 'half circle forward punch' style from fighting games. Every card has a difficulty. This difficulty is overcome by discarding a card fromt eh top of yoru deck and comparing its 'control' ( a number on the card ) to your card's difficulty. If its equal or greater you've played it. If not your turn is over. HOWEVER this luck aspect is mitigated by your FOUNDATIONS which are cards you have played in prior turns. You can use these once per turn to make up the difference that you failed your control check (to play a card) by.

So in both of the games luck based aspects, the game pushes very strongly to have them be a part of a skill based system and when you should push your luck and not and all that.

So yes. Luck. But much less than many in many ways. Otherwise... go play checkers.

Every TCG has it's different flavor and taste. I play YGO and love it. But I hate how bad the metagame is and the heavy amount of cheaters that the Duelists have to face. I experimented with magic but I think it's about the same as YGO. Chaotic is pretty awesome and the gameplay is awesome but be warned! You have to have awesome cards to win yet it doesn't have metagamers that bad. I've yet to really play UFS in a tourney yet considering I've started only a few weaks ago and just bought my deck today. But the gameplay I've seen is very analytical and like someone said earlier risk management. I don't see a huge rush for rare POWER cards that cost as much as yugioh's crush card virus (cough 300 dollars cough). I give it a 4/5. I only went down one point because of the steep learning curve but after a few matches you'll have it down.

koreymfh said:

it's possible to build a yugioh deck that realy messes with people who have better cards but in general, the game kinda sucks.

UFS is better than yugioh but how it ranks compared to magic depends upon who you are.

I would say UFS and MtG (and similar CCG's, i.e., most popular ones on the market) are like apples and oranges. It is easy to compare Magic to Yu-Gi-Oh! or Bleach (my personal favorite variation on Magic's formula, although sadly recently canceled), but UFS is a different type of game, really. It's like comparing turn-based strategy video games to fighters. Each has its own merits, and it depends on your mood and style for your preference.

Off the top of my head, the only game I can think of (I know there are others) that is similar to UFS would be the DBZ card game -- not the newest one, but the one before that, with the Hero and Villain decks, and the Z-Sword counter.

What would be interesting (and a mindscrew) would be a hybrid of the two varieties -- a game in which you play creatures/characters/whathaveyou, and use attack cards/etc. to designate their actions.

Waits patiently for someone to tell him it already exists.

Uhh... yeah... Vampire: The Eternal Struggle... where you control your vampires, they take different actions, can fight your opponents vampires, and you attempt to oust your opponent.

I knew there had to be one; I just hadn't played it myself.

Oddly enough that's the second time Vampire has been mentioned to me in CCG conversation in the past couple of days.

MardukZero said:

IMO - a great CCG. At this point it time it's my back up game to UFS.

+1/2

Great game. Furiating multiplayer aspects, and table balancing issues you just can't do anything about. Normally I'm ok with losing the game due to circumstances almost beyond my control. But not when a game of this game takes 1-2 hours, with no (fair) rules for me picking my cards up and throwing in the towel if things aren't going my way or if I have to go pick someone up that I thought already had aride, or ... several other random reasons one would want/need to leave a game before its 1-2 hour conclusion.

So yeah. Great game though none-the-less. I very much recommend it. Just be ready to give it your all for two hours max, and don't be too terror stricken if even a really really good deck loses because of other people's reactions to it...

Man I like VTES... its game / multi player balance just drives me fits.

And no. it is NOT multiplayer like that vomit-fest magic the gathering multi-player where its all against each other, or some kind of three or two headed thing... really you just have to try VTES to truly enjoy multiplayer at its best, as initially designed from the very get go.

Word

I mean, I like this game a lot. I just don't have the drive right now to keep building decks with the newest stuff, and am saddened that that's basically what you have to do here to compete.

Overall, I would give this game a 7/10. Its multiplayer does kind of suck, though, I'll agree.

As you are saddened by your inability to build one deck, and never have to innovate it with occasional changes to the meta and / or newer cards that come out (ie. supporting the company that makes the game in the case of the latter), others would be saddened by the opposite:

Decks that were good and continue to be very good since the very first set that was released...

If you like that kind of a game, might I recommend Vampire the Eternal Struggle, and YuGiOh (and to some extent Magic the Gathering, because no one pays attention to that game's formats for casual play anyhow, and just play always play format Type Whatever).

Those are the two extremes, and I would argue that no one including myself would say they cling absolutely to one side or the other. I dunno. I prefer to play the characters I like the most, either because I'm good with them in the videogame or because I just like them, period.

And changing up my decks is something I enjoy doing, but I enjoy it a lot more when it's my decision rather than the game's. The issue IMO lies with how tightly character cards are tied to specific deck types, and the ebb and flow of the dominant strategies in UFS.

But then again, I certainly don't think it would be better if the characters and their signature cards had no personality whatsoever. Maybe I really don't know what I want from this game anymore...

Touche. Well, if you've noticed recently (assuming you're stil buying cards for it) each set has had fewer characters in them now. This means fewer characters, which kinda makes things... different than how they were at least! lol. Not sure if that's good or bad for ya!

I'd prefer that we start designing sets to be legal for three years, not two... or maybe 2.5? lol

Part of me wants to keep the blocks going at the current rate, just so we can see how long they can go adding points to the shuriken before it becomes hard to tell which cards are legal.

After my first tournament playing Yi Shan, I have to say the the learning curb is a brain buster compared to YGO, MtG and Chaotic but I find the game quite addictive. Back when I first stared UFS, I honestly ranked it as my number 3 game next to YGO #1 and Chaotic #2. As of now, for non-tourney standards, the chart ratings are still the same for me. Now for the purpose of tournaments and actually investing I'm making more of a change making UFS my #1 favorite tourney game with YGO as my #2 and Chaotic as my #3. To tell you the truth both UFS and Chaotic are slowly taking YGO's place as my favorite cardgames. These two allow for me to have fun win or lose because you're having a ball just battling. Unlike YGO where guys make you hate losing to them just due to their nasty attitudes and terrible gaming manners.

Really? I don't play YGO, but most of the players where I go seem to be really good-natured. Magic, though, plays this trope pretty straight: some of the regulars won't even respond to a "Hi" or a "How's it going?"

I also went to UFS after playing quite a few different card games, and what attracted me to the game was all the characters available (for a fighting game fan, that rocks) and the general laid-back atmosphere surrounding the game. In this, it actually reminded me of the WoW card game, where you don't have that much broom-up-the-*rse people who're ready to shoot "JUUUUUUUUUDGE!!!" every turn and who consider you like sh*t because you don't have that *** (insert number with lots of zeros)$ card or just because you play the game to have fun. With UFS, I just manage to have fun at nearly every single match (I rarely don't have fun playing this) and the atmosphere surrounding the game is full of fun and communication between players, which quite a few other games are lacking (That's what got me off Magic - playing just wasn't fun any more). My three top CCG games are actually 1.UFS ; 2.World of Warcraft TCG ; 3. Magic. I can't input the other card games because I rarely play them (although I'm not against a game of VtES)

In general I do not like TCG environments that are totally unreceptive to OTHER card games, and who can't take any criticism about their game...

WoW TCG for instance seemed to think that sicne their game was similar to MtG, and had the heroes, 'better' resource system and had more unique things like Raid packs and now Arena / vs. packs that they are superior and got quite elitist about it when you try to talk about other games.... this is AFTER playing a few casual games with these people.

In general I'm kinda tired of the entire ONE TCG mentality that most TCGs exhibit. That is why I'm excited about the decrease of set releases in UFS as it will make it easier to try out some other games (perhaps some of FFG's LCGs, like the uupcoming Warhammer Invasion LCG! )

vermillian said:

I once said this long ago about how it's all about preference and what you said kind of reminded me of my earlier statement. Playing various TCGs and CCGs is quite fun since it's hard to get tired of card games if you're playing as Astrid one day in UFS, using a warrior-deck in YGO the next, using a Angel Deck in MtG after that, followed by using a M'arrillian Deck on Chaotic then back to UFS. Do that in a week and it's rather hard to tire of CCGs. But through playing these games I learned about what I like and dislike about each game.

Speaking of that ONE TCG mentality I know what you mean because I went to my first UFS tourney at the local hobby one sunday and when I went again to play YGO another sunday I got looked at like I joined the CULT! The my friends chuckled because I always fumble with different games, the others looked at me like I was gonna burn down below. If all you play is one game then you'll get tired of it and all other TCGs before you play it. Just don't play too many like I do and end up broke just getting started! lol

I've played a ton of card games. Pokemon, young jedi, yugioh, magic, Fullmetal Alchimst and UFS. I think UFS is my second favorite right behind FMA, but FMA is discontinued, so UFS is the obvious choice to stay current with.

The concept of UFS is really what brings me in. when I started playing, I thought to myself "Astaroth is my favorite fighting game character, I'm going to build a deck with him". So I did, and it wasnt half bad and to this day, I refuse to play a character I wouldnt like to play in a videogame.

Well first and for most i have played more CCG then i would like to ever tell but most CCG that run off a theme tend to fail when the theme is over i have notice like YuGiOh when the Anime or Manga die the game will die but one thing i can say about Magic or L5R is since they are not based off a theme that they can expand there idea to the sky limits i like theme base CCG but knock other CCG like Magic because you had a bad experience or don’t like the mechanic of the game is really no reason to dislike a game if you where getting mana screwed it is because you did not have enough mana or you did not mana shuffle I mean I can go on all day with how to fix a magic deck or how I enjoy magic but there is no reason here because I am here to learn about UFS not put it down or put down any other CCG that I have played just remember if is was not for Magic we would not have UFS right now