As we roll into the new year, I thought it would be nice to reflect upon the year that is 2008 and its' impact on the game that is UFS. We've had ups, downs, new cards and bannings. Lets look at the releases we've had to start

Feb: Cutting Edge and Domination

June: Deadly Ground and Realm Of Midnight

September: Flash Of The Blades and KF2006

December: Warriors Dream and Flames Of Fame

I think it's pretty clear that in terms of power level, 2008 has been somewhat shaky. This was mainly due, in my opinion to Febuary's release cutting into Block 2 with a bang. Blood Runs True, Addes Syndicate, the addition of Begin Anew to the already powerhoused Ibuki. Characters like promo Alex rose in this time along with Mai (who also brought with her the much talked-about Gorgeous Rejection combo), Akuma, Sakura (who was heavily overlooked at the time in favour of Mai), Yumeji and many others. Evil struck through the roof in terms of it's power because of this set and it was debated whether it was in fact more powerful than Void was when the game was released in 2006. This set also brought in the Block 2 rotation, which also sparked many a debate. The loss of so many cards and characters disappointed many, and understadably so (I miss my Tira and Ken ) but as far as most of us were concerned, it was the dawn of a new age. Whether that age was berated or welcomed is o this day under discussion. I unfortunately wasn't so keen on this block 2 as I originally thought I would be.

It was actually before Set 11 that the UK nationals took place. There was a bigger turnout to this event than there was the year before. This would be the last time that Tycho (in his current form) would ever take a championship title, and I remember playing Donovan. and deciding after having done rather badly in the tournament itself that I would never play Donovan again. Then of course June came around...

After an inital delay for the sets supposed release in May, we eventually got hold of Deadly Ground and Realm Of Midnight in June. And very happy we were about it too, or at least we were with Realm Of Midnight. Deadly Ground brought in the one thing that people both loved and despised: Ibuki::, those who had already grown to love Ibuki adored this new version of her, especially after the then recent banning of Ibuki: while those who had always dreaded being bombarded with Kasumi Suzaku's dreaded this one even more. Even the discussion on Ibuki couldn't even begin to look up to the discussion brought on by the biggest crime known to UFS... Vega::. As good a character as he is, he has undergone so many nicknames (Disney Vega, Vegay etc.) that it was almost impossible to take him seriously. As a Vega lover myself, I was exceptionally disappointed.

The real shining star of the June release however was the DS02 release. Apart from the bad character distribution (how many characters did YOU pull in your first Set 9 box?) this was very clearly an awesome set. Ira-Spinta, Feline Spike, Darkness Blade, Tsurane Kiri, Dark Force: Mirage Body, Change Immortal, Midnight Pleasure. All of these Super Rare attacks found their way into a lot of peoples decks and a lot of people's hearts. Donovan, Felicia, Morrigan, Huitzil, Victor and more are all extremly playable characters to this day, and people are currently calling for the banhammer on J. Talbain now as much as they weren't when the set was released. 6 Check Felicia seemed to be more the flavour of the day or Donovan.

Just after this set, was the time for all the major tournaments in the world, including Worlds, ECC and WCC, and my personal favourite, UK Team Nationals. Having not gone to any of the major tournaments in the US or Canada, I can only tell you that one of our very own Brits, Matt 'Hewittzil' Hewitt travelled an awfully long way to go to Worlds, and Top 8'd while he was there with his fearsome Hanzo deck (Go Matt!) and that James HAta, after having won World for the second time was brought into the design team for UFS. At UK Teams, there were approximately 12 teams, including 3 from our very own Colchester. Within my own team was myself playing Donovan:. (yeah, I couldn't resist him) Dan 'Nemesis' Austin playing Ibuki:: and Paul 'Theo' Watson playing our little dark horse: Sophitia:. After gruelling rounds of swiss, we finally ended up coming second to Patriot Games team of Ross 'Speedsta' ad his Sakura, Baz 'madeofwin' and his Talbain (great thank go to him for possibly one of the most fun games I've ever had) and Matt's previously mentioned Hanzo deck. After playing in that and the Midnight Brawl that followed which consisted of at least 18 people, we all got to know eachother a heck of a lot more than we did, and are grateful for it

Shortly between these tournaments and the release of Set 10 came the bannings everyone was talking about: Military Rank, Addes Syndicate, Revitalise and the Injury Assets. Now, coming from someone who's never really been that bothered about bannings (I just run a different card, it's not that big a deal), I think that people completely overreacted to this. The b***hing and complaining that came out of this was completely uncalled for and I think that that was more detrimental to the game than the bannings themselves were. For shame.

The bad karma was soon rectified however, by the release of set 10. I think, however, that I like these two sets a lot more than most people did. I loved attacks like Wind Storm, Thunderbolt, Cutlass Europa etc and characters like Sophitia, Taki and Mignon. Of course, by this time discussion had shifted from Ibuki to Alex being broken and Defender was the complaint of the day. Admittedly, this set did seem somewhat more forgettable than Realm Of Midnight which it followed. But I liked it, and thats what mattered to me

After set 11's release we came across the UK Street Fighter Nationals, which again, was exceptionally enjoyable. I managed to top 8 in this one too with Akuma, but was shortly wiped out by a very odd but very powerful Makoto deck . All was fine though, as one of our own players, Kyle 'Zangetsu/Soki' won the whole tournament with his Elena deck. I possibly had one of the most hilarious games known to man with Daisy 'Saccharin' after she accidently threw a Kunai at me which went on to actually papercut me!

And now, at the end of the year, after another small delay, Set 11 is finally upon us, and after much promise, it seems like it has delivered on it's promises for the most part. It's balanced, it's fun, and it's very different to the rest of Block 3. Around this time was when most people decided to make the jump to Block 3, after hasving decided that Block 2 was no longer worth our time.

After 10 months of patch tournaments, 4 set releases, countless major tournaments, and a hell of a lot of complaining, I think we can agree that 2008 was possibly not UFS' best year, but I'm also very confident that 2009 will be a very very good year for it, especially if the new design team is anything to go by. Good playing, guys, keep it up

all in all a very solid review of a good year, it had its ups and downs but that can be said of any game. your right, the game at uk team nationals was without a doubt the best game of ufs i have ever played and i look forward to a rematch some time in the new year. once we get the asset sorted you'll have to send me your details as i remember promising you a few sets of our shiny new toy. anyways, sees you all in the new year, party long and party hard!

Fantastic review as always Joe.

I honestly think that 2009 is going to be the "make or break" year of UFS, after recent complaints, controversy and debate as to whether this game is viable any more regionals NEED to be a success. i'm not kidding either, if regionals don't succeed this game is doomed to a fate matching VS. system

Seriously next year we need to patch the holes, UK especially Joe we need like a gamers radar or some such and a bloody good way to attract more peeps.

Now enough of me crying havoc, I love this game and'll still play it if it goes bust, (sure some here will too) after all better than playing yu-gi-oh!

One last note: Should we take this game into our own hands? Seriously FFG aren't exactly helping much rather than being robotic overlords.

Let me expand my point; FFG are slow to act and make very poor decisions ( e.g when Steve Bromen ( twonk) decided to not make Zhao daiyu legal even though she was being distributed, LOL what the **** were you on dude you know you could've made her legal. you suck. not to mention the floating "limbo" promos.)

Who's actually going to stick to the minimum 32 palyers rule for regionals. Honestly.

To counter this, any events held by myself or local scout will be tailored to match everyone's needs ( floating promos legal and whatnot.) since FFG can't be trusted to make deicisons.

Well happy new year, let's replace this carppy year with a thriving regionals filled funfest.

- Hanzo.

EDIT BY 433: Do not get personal. Going after other people's opinions is fine. Attack the opinion, not the person.

Viewtiful_Joe said:

After 10 months of patch tournaments, 4 set releases, countless major tournaments, and a hell of a lot of complaining, I think we can agree that 2008 was possibly not UFS' best year, but I'm also very confident that 2009 will be a very very good year for it, especially if the new design team is anything to go by. Good playing, guys, keep it up

2008 cost us so many players I will want someone's head for this.

Possibly for nefarious deeds.

well just befor it is new year my fave moment of 2008 has to be my final game in the Uk team nats against victor dispite playing ibukie(it was life ibuki) I could not get any susakies through so i just resorted to doing it the old fashioned way and just beated through with Narutos looped with kunia but i swear that it felt like i played 10 Narutos it was such a great game.

so here is to a great new year of ufs and i hope every one finds succses!

honestly I thought it was a great year. Minus Cutting Edge/Domination (which I'm still under the impression that the whole **** set should be banned on the premise of making the game a better place, worst core set ever...) and the terrible, horrible prize support at worlds, I enjoyed the game. These past 3 releases have slowly built up my hope and joy of the game again, Seong-Mina makes me proud as being a super competitive 5 card HS, this past set has a lot of neat things coming with it and I love that keywords are important again, and I thanks to a great bunch of commons/uncommons/rares, it's easy to make a great deck again really cheap.

I look forward to 2009, I hope FFG works out it's problems that it's been having, I'm not as vehement as the previous poster, but if this game is going to be successful, FFG needs to keep it's player base happy. Not by catering to our demands to have cards banned (though if there are enough complaints, obviously something needs to be looked at) but by getting us our packages and promos on time, more support for tournaments of all kinds, and maybe a little advertising instead of us being the hidden secret of the CCG world.

and ShadoWar has to not suck.

I thoroughly enjoyed 2008 in UFS. Granted, it was my first year in the game, but still. Im really liked most of the sets, and the only real issue I think I had all year was the kinda sucky rare distribution in the sets (not even the number of characters, just the Rare/SR ratio, and lack of god packs), and the lack of support at Worlds.

Beyond that, my complaints are very few and rather meaningless. Like how much I miss my now-banned Ibuki, Revitalize, and Guile's Chin ='(

I liked 2008 but we did have difficulties with the merger and even losing Ledezma and Paul having to step in after US Nationals . So that being said with no developer until September it is as good as it could be expected lets just hope UFS stays on track and we have a strong 2009.

Hey guys, I reall enjoyed 2008, as it was the year I got back into the game and actually started to be competitive. If 2009 sees us going back towards un UFS rather than 'I have this card= I win', then I think all will be well. The last sets as has already been said are the most balanced and, dare I say it, playable I have seen in a long time, so I hope the new base set will keep up the standard for the future.

UK Team nationals was one of the most fun things I have done with me clothes on (although swimming is a close second!) and the UK SF nats gave me the boost I needed to see that listening to all the excellent players here and giving anything a go has made me a much better player than I used to be.

So here is to a 2008 that finally started going up at the end, and a 2009 that will keep this game on the right tracks!

P.S. All the UK peeps, its been awesome on the gaming scene, cheers!

i enjoyed 2008 becuase it was my first year in ufs. in 2009 i hope we have some more agro! i play agro in every game i've ever played ecxept ufs. if they made good agro i can get back to my normal style.

quarzark said:

All major tournaments have had horrible prize support, not just Worlds.

Fiddlestix said:

The last sets are definately a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned, grabbing at combos rather than one shot kills. Definately vying for Soul Calibur IV rather than Shadowar, but if Shadowar will pull more players in from games like Magic etc, then I'm willing to let it slide. Also, I dread to think what the most fun things you've done without your clothes on are!

Tournament support wasn't so bad over here in the UK, SF Nationals and Team Nationals had some pretty good prize support. We were all nicely surpised to see Heel Snipe turn up for SF Nats, for sure. However, as I've said on many occasions, we would all really like to see FFG, and I may send an email saying this unless someone already has, that we need more than just two prize support cards per month. Where is the incentive to travel around and play in more tournaments if you already have all the prize cards in one fell swoop? Having more than 2 would make character promos more exciting again (it doesn't help that people keep spoiling them, so we don't get so excitable when they do come out...) and would make doing ore than one tournament in one place worth doing. Blanka and Zhao Daiyu we've known about for months, can we not just chuck in Rock Howard and Ninon just to make everything a little better for everyone as opposed to having them both come out at once on another month giving us nothing to get excited about? What do you guys think? Should I ask for this?

Viewtiful_Joe said:

Hence why FFG cannot be trusted, UFS it's the game in your hands.

Hanzo said:

it would be extremely nice to have blanka and rock howard but, i agree with hanzo, FFG canot be trusted.

Riiiiight...they've only improved the game since they've been here. Why place any trust in someone who's given us no reason not to?

trane said:

Sigged

MegaGeese said:

Honestly, unless you have been favored by FFG, I can kinda sorta get where they're coming from. 2008 was NOT a good year for UFS on our front, due in part from FFG's involvment in the game. The only good point in 2008 is that we got a WHOLE lot more players, and that was by moving our tournaments to another store, where a ton of players who'd never heard of the game before saw it was fun and joined in.

However, late promos (EXTREMELY late promos at times - we're talking three weeks late ), lackluster prize support, presentation of dubious quality (yes I made a point especially for the foiling in Set 11 - what of it?) and a general feeling of the company not giving a crap (even though it's not close to the truth, it's still the feeling I sometimes get) about the game, can lead to a general distrust of FFG, and while nobody has to accept this opinion, there's factors that can definitely lead to someone thinking as such.

2008 was an interesting year for me. Though UFS as a game was on a rocky road of good and bad experiences, I made even more of effort to go to tournaments outside of Nationals. Let me just compare to the tournaments I went to in previous years.

2006
I started UFS in April, and didn't start with tournament play until I tagged along with some Raw Deal players, and found out the venue (in Reading) also held UFS tournies. I went to 3 of the monthly tournaments and the SNK01 Pre-release, but shortly into 2007, their player base dropped completely.

2007
Went to UK Nats, Soul Calibur "Worlds", and UK Team Nationals at Gen Con UK. 2007 made me realise my potential of being a great player rather than a fanboy. This was mainly due to my success of playing Air/Earth *Sagat* for so long, practicing and tweaking my deck. Colchester also started holding pre-releases, which made us more tournament hungry.

2008
Went to UK Nats again, but at the UK Team Nationals, got to know the players I had met the previous year. I decided it was about time I had made the effort to come to their events too, so along with Joe, started to attend pre-releases in Aldershot, Cambridge, and the UK Street Fighter Nationals in Loughborough. I discovered that travelling is a bother, but well worth it for the fun of meeting new faces and having great games! Colchester held most of the Patch events and Joe started the Ladder League, which consists of monthly tournaments.

The introduction of Block 3 was a bother to me at first, as I had just grown accustomed to Block 2 by giving up *Sagat* and fortunately taking up ::Sagat:: in time. However, I found out at Team Nats that ::Sagat:: wasn't for me - it was in fact **Dan**. I loved discard back when SF01 came out and was strong as ever, and noticed that it would rise once again come Block 3's rotation. Come the release of Flash of the Blades, I had great fun playing my favorite Soul Calibur character ::Siegfried::, and then moved onto ::Adon::

The Patch events, while fun and refreshing at first since we hadn't tried restricted format, have gotten a bit repetitive. However, Joe's restricted format events have caused me to build different characters such as **Luise** and **Kula**. Overall, the year changed me from a collector to a player, something I have never done with a card game.

2009
2009 looks very promising to me, and my experience of tournament play in 2008 has encouraged me to do even more travelling. For starters, I'm going to be attending a Patch event in Swindon (other side of the country to Colchester), and we have more events from the Ladder League. The regionals also look like an opportunity to branch out to other areas of the UK, while at the same time once again testing my abilities as a player. I'm looking forward to it!

Homme Chapeau said:

2008 featured the game's creator, STG, being bought by Fantasy Flight. As things tend to be rather hectic, frenzied, disorganized, etc (pick your own adjective here), late promos don't surprise me. Yeah, that sucks.

However!

-More players
-Tournament rules finally being updatedPool: 3
-Totally reworked set 11 to balance it out
-Higher Calibur, Syndicate, Injuries, Military Rank, Revitalize, and CSS all banned - which had all been clamored for for some time
-Non-release of more Injuries
-Ralf, Dan, etc - multiple characters that people had complained were never printed, apparently to the detriment of their desire to play

Versus:
-Late/lackluster prize support (already covered; also note that the much coveted Ukyo and Ken, and now Blanka and Zhao Daiyu, are out)
-Bad foiling (bad foiling is bad, but bad foiling or art on excellent cards is still excellent cards - looking a gift horse in the mouth is bad)
-The company doesn't talk to us as much - they'retoo busy making it a better game. This also was covered BEFORE the merger - it's not a surprise

Maybe I'm biased. I met Paul - he seems like a pretty cool guy. He played in the sealed tournament at Worlds. Beyond that, I'm going through the same deal everyone else is. But again, maybe I'm biased - I'm used to YGO, where UDE gives less of a crap than FFG, to the nth degree.

You can only legitimately blame FFG for so many of 2008's shortcomings, you know.

MegaGeese said:

I'm saying that there's people who simply have not been as favored by FFG be it by circumstance, location, etc. As you have said, you met Paul Bromen. I can think of many people who haven't. I can think of many people who haven't met Steve Horvath. Hell, even after being at a tournament that he won, I have never met James Hata! I can think of many people who, prior to FFG obtaining the game, had never even heard of FFG. I'm also saying that these people CAN feel pretty **** pissed at the company if their concerns aren't resolved to satisfaction. Is it justified? Meh. Just that I get where these people are coming from because until maybe November of this year I pretty much thought the same. You gotta understand that not everyone is privileged enough to have met the people responsible for the game. All they see is a very slow shift towards what was and a rather annoying mantra of "Just wait guys it'll be awesome." for the past year or so.

As far as some of the points are concerned, they're debatable. My problem is this : I understand that discussion of the company's policies and actions is kind of frowned upon here (mostly because there's a lot of negativity in the air), but to outright say that some people aren't giving them a fair shake after so long, when these very same people AREN'T being given said fair shake, well, that's just not cool y'all.

O, I understand where they're coming from - I just like playing devil's advocate.

Plus I'm getting kinda tired of all the aforementioned negativity. Sucks the fun out of the forums, y'know.