I posted this elsewhere, but realize that this is probably the best place to post this. I run a game store in Lubbock, TX. We are starting to get people into UFS, and soon enough we will have enough people to run tournaments. I have searched and scoured this website as well as others, and the one thing that is stopping me from going full force ahead with this game at my store is the lack of answers to all the questions. I need OFFICIAL answers to these questions, as well as others i am sure to come. I am sure they are out there to find, but they aren't easy to find, as 4 or 5 people at my store have been looking for them. I'm hoping someone on here will point me to the answer or just answer them. Thanks for your time.

1. I have a copy of the rules, and the banned list. It hasn't been updated in a while, is there an up to date version?

2. Are the Warhammer cards legal?

3. What are the tournament formats? Is it similar to magic where only certain sets are legal? What is most popular?

4. For a store and gaming community just getting into this game, what advice would you as a veteran player give to me/my players?

5. How many sets come out each year?

6. What sort of tourmanet or prize support can our store have access to?

7. Is the game fairly balanced? there is nothing I hate more than a horribly unbalanced game.

1. No updated version as of yet. The only cards to have been banned since are: **Ibuki** , Concealed Shallow Swipe , Higher Calibur , Addes Syndicate , Military Rank , Revitalize , Bleeding Internally , and Broken Leg . With that said, the cards Arrogance and Maternal Instincts were both errata'd.

2. No. The Warhammer cards were never intended to be legal.

3. The tournament formats are Standard and Legacy (though there is also a Team format, it ultimately falls under Legacy or Standard). Legacy is a format where all non-banned cards are legal - every set, in other words. Standard format is similar to MTG, in that only certain sets are legal. We are about to enter Block 3 for the Standard format; any card with a 4-point shuriken is legal for play (so long as it hasn't been banned, of course). Any card without that four-point shuriken is NOT legal. The sets that are currently legal are: Set 8 (Domination/Cutting Edge), Set 9 (Deadly Ground/Realm of Midnight), Set 10 (King of Fighters/Flash of the Blades), and the newly released Set 11 (Warrior's Dream/Flames of Fame).

Additionally, a handful of cards from Set 7 (Fight for the Future/Darkstalkers) are also legal; they all have the four-point shuriken on them.

4. No advice I can give, other than to try to attract as many people as possible. I'm not a scout, so I'm not sure how much help I can be here.

5. Four sets per year, plus a ton of promos.

6. Like number 4, that's one to take up with a scout.

7. The game has become a lot more balanced over the past two or three sets, so no worries about a horribly unbalanced game. Some cards ARE more powerful than others, but not in such a way that it breaks the game. At this point in time, almost all of the 12 main resources symbols are quite playable.

Also! As a fellow Texan, welcome to the game! I'm part of the group from DFW. If you'd like, I can give our scout your email address, and he can help you get set up, try to build a playerbase, etc. Welcome to the game! =D

Good luck getting official answers on the weekend.

If you are interested in official answers, it is best to email [email protected] as he is the organized play dude for the card games FFG runs. No FFG employee regularly check forums. The only official answers we get on forums are seldom, and also ones for ruling questions, which are official in the way that moderators have been assigned to provide an official consensus (until otherwise ruled, which doesn't happen very often... the stuffs not rocket science, but some obvious wordings and such are often over looked...).

Game on. (and yeah, it can be fair, but, like all customizable things with an isolated player base, its tough to see the forest from the trees sometimes)

L.A.

Welcome to the game! Glad to have you jumping on board. Just to echo and confirm some of the things covered by Geese / Vermillian:

FFG themselves do not usually provide "official" answers to responses on the forms. They prefer to deal directly with customer through email. That being said, there is a rulings forum , and the rules arbiters for that forum are: GouHadou, Korrin, Tagrineth, and myself.

While we are not FFG, our rulings are binding, and official. Usually our answers outside of the Q&A area are as close to official as you will often get on the forums. <P.S. Verm, our rulings are often achieved in consensus with James if they are anything outside the norm.>

Vermillian's link to Paul Bromen's email is 100% on the ball. Paul is awesome and baring illness, vacation, or major events that keep him out of the office, is really good at getting back to folks. "Official" Stuff out of the way, lets move on to Geese's answers:

~~

1) Correct - We are currently working on a major revision to the tournament rules, including the addition of floor rules, and a separate banned list document. We expect to have all of those available from the main page within the next month and a half.

2) Correct.

3) Correct - But for added clarity: Standard format is where only current block cards are legal. Current legal block are cards with 3 and 4 point shuriken. Rotation will occur in March with the release of Set 12. At that point Standard will be cards with the 4 point shuriken + what ever the next block symbol will be. We are currently in what is referred to as "block 2" because it's the 2nd block of cards. March will be the 2nd rotation, hence Block 3. If you are looking at starting to carry the game competitively, there is nothing wrong with saying that "All your tournaments are block 3", so your players do not have to worry about tracking down 3 point cards for the month and a half they have left of them in standard format. (I'll write more about this in a little bit)

4) Personally, my biggest advice is to have fun, and not take this too seriously. Unlike the games of Magic/Vs. etc, there are no cash prizes on the line. While UFS can be a competitive game, it doesn't mean you have to behave like you're playing poker, or you're playing in the Pro-Tour for M:TG. Be friendly, inviting, and open to discuss different aspects of the game. As players go through the learning process with the game, there may be immediate reactions that something is overpowered. In reality there are many answers, and they just need to be found. UFS is deceptively simply, but much deeper then some realize.

Create an environment where players are rewarded for experimenting and trying new things. <Skipping to #6> Each store can book tournaments through the organized play site through that site you can both register your store, and register someone as a "Scout." Scout's are tournament organizers who are responsible for booking events on a monthly basis, running them, and finally reporting them back to the FFG OP site. In some cases the store owner / manager is the scout. In other instances (like in my case) the Scout is a veteran player who takes care of it for the store owner. The types of events you can organize are as follows:

Standard - You can organize either a singles or teams event. For each standard tournament there is a prize pack of 6 promo prize cards.
Legacy - You can organize either a singles or teams event. For each Legacy tournament there is a prize pack that consists of older prize cards that have rotated out of the prize pool. If I remember correctly stores can organize up to 2 legacy events a month.

Special - Currently the special event for February is Path of the Master: VOID. If you run one of these events you will receive a prize pack that contains 2 void patches which are used to enter into the special event at FFG in April. Additionally the remainder of the prize pack will be rounded out with multiple copies of that months new prize support. Each shop can only run 1 of each different special event. (These events are time sensitive, and usually have to be run during a certain period.)

With those prize packs, there are a number of different ways that they can be distributed. Since there are six cards, personally I would recommend distributing them through as many players as you can, using whatever you feel is best for your playgroup. Does one go as a random door prize? Do you have your players vote for best sportsman, or most creative deck? Find out what is going to be the best incentive for your players, and distribute accordingly.

Please note - Scouts cannot win prizes from the prize packs. They are rewarded with 2 promo cards per event they run (usually there is a Max of 5 events per month). Currently for the Path of the Master events the Scouts receive the applicable patch the next month as long as they've reported the event.

Additionally there are "Hobby League" cards - which are designed to reward weekly attendance over a 6 week league. To get a league kit, simply request one from your distributor the next time you order a booster display from your distributor. If for whatever reason your distributor doesn't have them, contact Paul to make arrangements to have one sent. Each league kit is designed to cover 8 players.

So... getting back to wrapping up #4 - Demo the game, show it to players, get them physically playing the game. Personally I've found that just explaining/showing the game can be a little confusing, and the game is most addicting when you can hand them a deck and start walking them through the action with their cards in hand.

a few more footnotes -

• UFS expanded into Singapore earlier this year. They jumped into the game with Set 8 (SNK's Cutting Edge & Street Fighter's Domination) What they did to make the game accessible for all their players was state that their "Standard" tournaments were only going to allow from set 8 on ward. That way they did not have to have players chase a previous years worth of cards to be on the same level as one another.
• Some stores are already choosing to run block 3 only events. (they prefer to work with the smaller card pool, among other reasons) You are certainly welcome to do so as well.
• UFS is designed to work with all the cards in the card pool. If you jump into an artificially limited block, you may find certain things overpowering because the answers to those cards are outside of that card pool. (For example until set 11 came out, block 3 did not have any answers to discard. However in standard there was answers to discard if you were willing to play with all of the cards included in the standard format.)

5) Correct - Added Clarification - Each "Set" of the 4 releases contains 2 smaller sub sets. So set 12 that is coming out in March is the new base set. It will be the largest set of the year, totaling around 300 cards. (This is unofficial, and just a round number close to what's been done previously) The two subsets will be Soul Calibur IV, and Shadowar. Each set will have its own starters and boosters. Subsequent to that, the remaining sets will usually be around 200 cards, and contain 2 100 card subsets. These sets release about once every three months. There is a pre-release event that each store can participate in.

6) Covered above

7) Is the game balanced? Yes*. Fantasy Flight has a watch list of cards, and if there are interactions that are too strong, or harm the balance of the game, they can and will ban cards to ensure the long term health of the game.

* Each person has their own different opinion of what is and is not balanced. I really can't speak to your own personal experience and preference. You are able to take many different characters and have all of them be viable possibilites to win a tournament. There are many different deck strategies, and while some are certainly more obvious, it doesn't mean that those are the only choices.

Hopefully this has answered your questions! Again, welcome to UFS!

Antigoth said:

I'm sorry, but... who is 'we'? Do you mean 'we' as in "we the entity of UFS, and I, as a representative of that game, in that I organize things, make articles for it, and play the game, am a part of, we", or did you suddenly pick up some official FFG capacity? ... or are you a playtester and violating some kind of NDA and/or a playtester whose NDA DNE?

Wow... thanks for the answers to my questions, and shame on you Vermillion for Hijacking my thread

vermillian said:

I am a rules arbiter sanctioned by FFG. It is stated on the FFG forums here . Sorry, I thought I covered that at the beginning of my original post.

Alongside Tag, Omar, and Kev, we've recognized and acting in an "official" capacity since approximately April.

It has been public knowledge for some time that the tournament rules are being reworked. (This was acknowledged long before these specific forms.)
Additionally in recent rulings that we've had to post we have been told by James to specifically state that certain issues will be covered in the upcoming tournament rules revision.

My apologies if this has caused any alarm.

~~~

L.A.,

Any time.

I also want to say that I was confused like all hell when you started talking about 3 or 4 star shuriken... i looked at some of my cards and didn't see the shuriken for like 40 minutes... I know it was right in front of me, but I didn't see it at first.

Lord Aries said:

I totally get you. There was a post on the old forums that we had showing the different card types for the blocks. I have linked to it then for any other new users who may be viewing it.

Lord Aries said:

1) Never be afraid to try new things : Various formats have been created by the makers and players of this game, and trying them out can lead to new and interesting things. Of course this could happen further down the line, but for deckbuilding this can also lead to new and interesting things.

2) Never refuse a player : This is probably the chief reason why the game has survived and thrived in Montreal for now. In fact, one of our players was grabbed by the balls (okay, figurative balls) and has since then become arguably one of our top players, her Sakura deck easily beating out some of my best efforts in deckbuilding (but then again I'm a shoddy deckbuilder and a shoddier player so... yeah. Her deck is still awesome though). Give the tools to any player to learn, and you'll find that the game, while there's a lot to take in at first, can be very easily learned. It also helps to have someone with the patience to teach newer players (Thank you very much Sean for yours and your uncanny ability to teach UFS). Even if they just want to play the game casually, welcome them with open arms. You'll find that "casual" UFS can soon turn into "competitive" UFS, and sometimes in a manner of minutes.

Of course if a guy starts to be a **** scout has to take it up to him but that rarely happens.

3) Collaborate with the store owner : We collaborated with Mike (One of our shop's owners if not sole owner, but generally the one we talk to the most) and generally understand things. He's helped us tremendously by featuring the game (an untested and unheard of game before we came in, to boot!) prohiminently in his card box/booster display, and that has helped us. Meanwhile, we fostered an environment where people play this game to have fun, and I suspect we've attracted a lot of players due to that. I know of at least one that restarted UFS because of our sense of camaraderie rather than the actual product! (Although he does like the game, he just didn't keep up with it)

4) Keep up with the forums/website... sparingly : You may find this strange advice from me, but don't take everything you see here seriously. Serious posts are serious, to meme it up but generally, most people here are friendly and wish each other no ill-will, even if the tone of certain discussions can border on the poisonous. This keeps in mind with the next point.

5) If you have the money, travel! : This is one of the main advantages of UFS - Live, these people are crazy fun to be with. I still remember fondly my 2007 Canadian Nationals experience, my Rivière-du-Loup AoP (mostly because of Cass/André/Mike and Ren), my 2008 Canadian Nationals experience AND my 2008 ECC experience, in which I finished ALMOST last. Even in losing, you can have fun in larger tournaments, so if you can afford it, you should travel, even if your decks are sub-par. You'll learn so much more, and have the occasion to do some very advantageous trades (At the ECC, Target X traded a Sniping Arrow for a Feline Spike, completing his playset, for example).

Of course, as far as playing the game is concerend, I'm allegedly the worst guy to give you advice other than play what you wish. There's a good chance it'll end up doing better than I ever did at any rate.

Antigoth said:

Nah its cool. Just checking the whole NDA violation bit, should it exist. Yeah I knew Tag and Omar were Rulies, missed your name on there somehow. I don't frequent it much. But why are rule's dudes working on the rules book? Well actually that makes total sense, but still... rock on!

And hijacking threads is good for bumpage, right?