Well if you want to count staples in Order why does everyone leave out Juni's Spiral Arrow. It keeps everything you've just commited commited, and with order you can just keep pulling it back turn after turn with Tenacious. It turns orders commital effects into a hard lockout. Really sucks to play against, but it always confuses me why it doesn't get listed more offten when people talk about Orders problem cards.

Some UFS philosophy:

The Order staples are pretty much covered; however, staples alone do not make a deck "great." At the very least, player skill (i.e., mastery of in-game strategies) must be added to the equation of any deck's superior performance when that deck becomes indistinguishable from the rest of the meta-stigmatized decks. I'd also argue that deckbuilding skill, which is to say "foresight into future matches, how they will break down, and how to correctly manipulate such variables," is equally if not more valuable than player skill in staple-only deck. From experience, I can even go as far as to say that player skill and deckbuilding skill balance out on scales as auspicious as those that represent the Order symbol-- a deficit in one "tray" can easily be counterbalanced by a surplus in the other "tray." I believe that the real trick to UFS, in addition to the aforementioned considerations, is the selection of excellent tech cards for each top tier deck.

Seeing as the Order staples have been covered, I'll mention some other non-attack Order cards worthy of merit in my books (you know, the kind that, with some careful calculations, can put your deck over the top):

• A Year's Difference- draw power in a lacking environment? Use with care.
• An Efficient Method to Slay People- discard power that doesn't really adhere to a 1-1 card advantage.
• Buddhist Devotion- is it the best multi-symbol tech?
• Chain of Command- more discard power with a different twist. One alone is equivalent to AEMtSP, but 2 successfully resolved easily trumps it.
• Dormant for Millions of Years- the ways in which this card wins the foundation control battles are disturbing.
• Expelled Humanity- I don't know how relevant this card is anymore, but it can really give some decks the screw, especially mono-attack decks and any T2 Feline Spike.
• Familial Loyalty- streamlined discard option. Can have its uses if you just need another foundation with "good stats."
• Final Confrontation- surely a long forgotten card. Its counter I-Spin/any lockdown potential is *shoot me later* monumental. It's probably an awesome counterpunch to any situation where you find yourself horribly out-controlled/-built.
• Genocide- another card that can level the playing field, but this one requires very tactful execution.
• Holding Ground- was it mentioned? I think it's becoming an echo in players' calculations, but it laughs at most damage reduction and pump.
• Hwang's Protection- anti-ready tech (although really it's just a deterrent; the owner must ready something that turns up the heat), plus that +0 High block is rather appealing.
• Kabuki Artist- was this mentioned either? Excellent recursion tech.
• Kazama Ninja Arts- I just like its speed mitigation.
• Kazuki's Pyrotechnics- cards such as this that fall into the "all your attacks are blocked" category can really kill your opponent's morale if you can reliably recur them.
• Keep Your Cool- love the way that it punishes attacking, but it's easily played around. For optimal effect, you'd probably need to play some discard tech or any other card that attacks your opponent's hand.
• Prankster- can be difficult to use correctly, but it offers some nice rewards.
• Psycho Rolling- what an interesting card! How did I miss it?
• Secret Project- I just love putting the pressure on my opponents. To use effectively, you must work out a very precise series of events.
• Self Sacrifice- I know some other players like this card. I've been considering the card Seal of Dousing for a while and SS should work well with any Reversal. Perhaps a player can use A Year's Difference on their opponent's attack, partially block it, draw into a Reversal, and then SS their opponent's Staging Area away?
• Strife's Patronage- some more blocking tech. I never considered how easily this card can turn your opponent's hand transparent.
• The Bigger They Are...- was this mentioned? I can understand how it's less advantageous in Donovan, but I've gotten such a strong vibe from other players that this card weighs heavily in many games.
• Turnabout- just an amazing card with the proper timing.
• Ultimate and Immortal- can get quite nasty. It practically creates win conditions from any attack with the proper support.
• Yellow Gi- it's just so cool. The non-unique factor is also very enticing. Trust in your opponent to make worse decisions than you would!!!!
• blagh!!!!

"Oops! I did it again..." I'm not that innocent????

I sorely miss my old uber-posts, so it seems that I've made a little tribute to times long since past. It was a ball dearies...

Umigame said:

Honestly I didn't think of it.

But that sounds really, really cool. Early game disruption, late game Forethought lock.

Thanks! Gonna take a closer looksee.

ctr2yellowbird said:

Dormant seems to have phases of either being in or out of every deck I build that can run it. Weirdly, the card seems to be golden in Sheffield and a coaster in Nottingham (two UK neighbouring play areas).

It's great to see the uber-posts back. Far more interesting reading than normal posts.

...maybe with an exception to the Britney Spears lyrics though!

Did someone say Order control? =D

Order control really does depend on HOW exactly you want to control your opponent. If you like to commit stuff (Chinese Boxing, Psycho Style, Program Malfunction), then you're going to play a bit differently than you would if you like to modify control checks (Forethought, Spirit of Athens, Blood Runs True). And then from there, you also have to work out your win condition; Defender loop, Kuzuryu Reppa, High Plasma Beam, Neo Raging Storm, and a string of attacks backed by Personal Style all fall into this category.

And from there, it's lots of tech options, character selection, etc. The more you work within your symbol of choice over time, the easier it is to come up with a decklist for it, and things that carry over from deck to deck. Example - I'm a Donovan player, through and through (the old one, at least). Realm of Midnight's ***Donovan*** is actually very open-ended, because for Order, it gives lots of room for personalization - you can take the Defender route, the Personal Style Method (my favorite), or just throwing lots of big attacks out with checks boosted by Realm of Midnight (a promo foundation). You can even go the Self-Sacrifice route, if you want to make people put their entire staging area back in their hand. After months of not playing him, I can still throw together a very solid deck for him in under five minutes.

Other characters can do other things. Hardlocks typically involve things like Juni's Spiral Arrow, Secret Project, or Ira-Spinta (easily my favorite attack in the game), often backed by commital power and check hacking.

The big ones have already been covered up above, but for an Order *control* deck, the top contenders for deck space should always be:

-Experienced Combatant (Domination uncommon)
-Blood Runs True (starter box promo)
-Forethought (Flash of the Blades uncommon)
-Makai High Noble (Realm of Midnight uncommon)
-Program Malfunction OR Chinese Boxing (Realm of Midnight uncommon/King of Fighters common)
-Assassination Arts (Cutting Edge Super Rare)
-Cutting Edge (prerelease promo)
-Amy's Assistance (general prize support promo)
-Charismatic (Warrior's Dream rare)

General staples for Donovan (some depend on choice of kill condition):
-Rejection (starter deck rare)
-High Plasma Beam (Realm of Midnight uncommon)
-Kuzuryu Reppa (starter deck rare)
-Lunar Slash (Flames of fame rare)
-Neo Raging Storm (Flames of Fame super rare)
-Malevolent Genius (Warrior's Dream uncommon)
-Mega Spike (Realm of Midnight rare)
-Defender (Flash of the Blades super rare)
-Personal Style (starter deck rare)
-Lord of the Makai (Realm of Midnight box topper)
-Strife's Patronage (general prize support promo)
-Sonic Boom EXTRA (Warrior's Dream super rare)


General good/amazing cards in Order in general:
-Ira-Spinta
-Juni's Spiral Arrow
-Will for the Fight
-Distractible
-Final Confrontation (fantastic yet underplayed)
-N-Type Human
-Adopted
-Holding Ground
-The Bigger They Are (shoot for 5'6" or under to play this)
-Tag Along
-An Efficient Method to Slay People
-Aquakinesis
-Familial Loyalty
-Chain of Command
-Chobi Jishi
-Combat Programming
-The Price of Foolishness
-Sniping Arrow
-Crack Counter -> Vaulting
-Cutlass Europa
-Dio-Cega
-Dormant for Millions of Years
-Double Cyclone Sock
-Evil Plans
-Expelled Humanity
-Fatal Disruptor
-Genocide
-Gift From a Friend
-High Tide
-Great Gerdenheim
-Kabuki Artist
-Lightning Sword
-Lone Wolf
-Nagase's Unrelenting Fire
-Omnidirectional Cluster Bomb
-Ultimate and Immortal
-Outsider
-Prankster
-Secret Project
-Shadaloo Crime Syndicate
-Yellow Gi


If you decide to follow the path of Order control, be ready for a long and tough road ahead of you. It's certainly a massively rewarding road, if you're a control player, but it will be long and hard, and you will face many hardships along the way.

Jeebus...I sound like one of the trainers from Random Kung-Fu Movie X, right before the training montage begins =/

MegaGeese said:

Ya, I've already had my fair share of "hard times" trying to build my order decks. Everything's just so hard to find these days.

and incredibly predictable, when seeing my friend was running ::Sophitia:: for our first block 3 event, I rattled off cards and guessed probably 95% of the deck list. Of course, even if you know it's coming, doesn't mean you can do anything about it.

quarzark said:

Ya, there's alot of cards in block three that I like to call "f*** you cards." Because in all honesty, those cards screw you.

Gummy Bear said:

Second it's F***you thought, man.