Ok, usual stuff boys and girls, but FOR THE LAST TIME at last!

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Void Patch Tournament:

Date/Time: Friday 13th Febraury @ 6:30PM (I'd like to start half an hour earlier, as we always end up finishing later than I'd like, but if there's a problem, let me know)

Place: Colchester Games Club

Rules: No extra bannings this time, so Standard Rules apply, except every card in your deck must contain the Void Resource symbol.

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Hope to have a large attendance this month so we can quite politely say bugger off to the patch tournaments

Does "Standard Rules" mean block 2 or 3?

Block 3 I presume, as all the recent colchester tournaments have been.

Well, "standard" is still block 2 hence the question. If its block 3 then I can see TWOP running unchecked and the whole thing being fairly dull.

Don't be so sure, there are plenty of different tricks you can use to get around it, like enhance based draw power (Familial Loyalty, Son Of A Tycoon) or you could use No Memories to negate it. Sure, I wouldn't be surprised if TWOP gets used a lot, but I wouldn't count everything out just yet

Also, how come we haven't seen you in so long, Rob? You been busy, or you bored of us already?

Bit of both really. January was a bit hectic anyway and I'm discovering that I really have no interest whatsoever in block 3.

I managed to go a full month with no UFS and discovered that I didn't really miss it that much. With the way February's shaping up (even busier) that's likely to run to 2 months.

I'll see how things are looking when set 12 comes out and block 3 is actually a complete format, as opposed to what we've got at the moment.

Why no interest in Block 3, if you don't mind me asking? For us, the games become a lot better than it's been in a very long time, and I actually got bored in Block 2, trying to avoid playing, but Block 3's shaping up to be really fun and we've got more players than we had in Block 2 too, which is good. I guess not everyone feels the same

It just seems like all the decks ideas out there for block 3 are either bland or broken, I haven't seen anything inspiring at all. Add to that the heavy emphasis on control (which I hate, but that's a personal opinion) and I'm really reconsidering whether or not I should keep playing this game. Every time I've tried to put together a deck for block 3 I wind up giving up halfway through. I still haven't bought anything for set 11, and given that my standard policy up to now has been at least 4 boxes of every release that's saying a lot.

Rotation looks like it's going to take all the interesting bits out of the game while leaving all the boring/broken crap (BRT, Feline Spike, Defender, need I go on?). Like I said, I'm reserving judgement until set 12 hits and we have a full picture of what block 3's actually going to be like, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that this game's not going to get any better until sets 8 and 9 rotate out.

If it wasn't for the promise of ShadoWar, and now Tekken as well, I'd have been out of here a while back.

BTW, this isn't just a knee-jerk reaction to rotation in general. I understand the reasons for it and I was all in favour when block 1 rotated out. But then that was taking out the broken crap rather than leaving it in.

ChaosChild said:

(Post edited to put the words back in my own mouth!)

On the positve side, bye-bye Chain Throw, Absurd, Kunai, Suzaku, Ruru, Ukyo, Ibuki and Yun Seong.

From some of Sheffield's ponderings into block three, there seems to be a lot of control that could be out there. But there also seems as though there could be a lot of aggro, except the aggro has changed more than the control has.

After some games lately with Leona, Felicia, R.Mika, an uncommons only Olexa deck (Air patch), Lizardman, Huitzil and some other stuff, block three seems to have lots and lots of aggro switch decks.

Unless it's momentum > big move, the aggro seems to be more turn three now than turn two. Aggroing with E:'s to deal with life regen (Chinese Boxing), Rejection/damage redux (TKD Zephyr, Healer, Holding Ground), Owlface meta (either committal stuff, anti-destruction, Blinding Rage, Makai High Noble or just not care and spam through).

Aside from the non-Spike, Defender, etc, there's currently an awful lot of underused good aggro-bling cards (Annu Mutsube, Neo Raging Storm, High Tide, Darkness Blade, Mirage Body, Heavenly Pheonix Dancing Stomp, character only's, etc) all of which haven't really had much attention.

There's now more 3cc attacks than there ever has been before. Some of these have been overused, many are very underrated. If you drop down to 2cc, there's a lot of very, very good attacks (Melancholic Mercurious, Gaishiki Lunar Rebellon, Cobra Blow (Anakaris support in general), Hand-Stand Kick, etc)

Character-wise, there are some known and some unkown Block Three aggro candidates. Zi Mei is definitely "obvious," there's also lots of "potential" characters, such as Leona, Yang, Felicia, Soiree, Ralf, Terry, Yuri, Remy, Hugo.

Matt, don't put words in my mouth. Apart from Ruru (who's block 1 anyway strictly speaking) and Yun Seong I've never had an issue with any of those cards. And none of them were insanely difficult to obtain like Spike or Defender.

ChaosChild said:

I wasn't sure what you meant by "put words in my mouth," then I realised. Sorry about that... bloody forums!

On the block two/Ruru stuff, yeah they were easier to obtain (maybe Suzaku as exception, not sure). Was actually having the "difficult to obtain" block three discussion with Justin and Ross a couple of weeks ago.

Thinking back to block one or two, how much worse is the Spike/Defender/BRT situation than the original hard-to-get'ness of Power Up/Signature Style/Start Over/Psycho Power/Infiltrating/Penny Arcade/etc? Is it that Spike/Defender are kill conditions or that they are more powerful than the block one cards? Or both? In block one I didn't actually finish my set of Start Over until I traded for two in block two, after they had rotated. Something's telling me it's because Spike/Defender are win conditions, but I'm not sure how this stacks up.

No worries, had enough problems with these forums.

As for the older power cards, I've not seen anything with the scarcity of the stuff from set 9 (especially Feline Spike). Even when I couldn't pull a copy of one of the older cards out of a box they were always available for sale somewhere. I've always been more than willing to spend money on my hobbies (which is why I have a house full of GW stuff and RPGs) but if the cards aren't out there that's not even an issue (not that I'm actually after Spikes, but you get the point). Even Penny Arcade turned up on eBay with surprising regularity. And as for Suzaku, I pulled 5 copies out of (I think) 6 boxes.

Anyway, this appears to have gotten somewhat off topic. Joe, sorry for derailing the thread with my rantings.

It's alright, I wouldn't worry, it's a discussion worht having

I think the problem lies in the fact that people who play UFS competetively always seem to buy boxes at a time, and aren't happy when they don't get cards they want, which is understandable; in 24 packs of cards, you should be able to pick up at least 1 copy of said card, right? To be honest, I must say that I personally have found the Block 3 chasers to be easier to get than the Block 1 ones. It took me FOREVER to pick up a playset of Power Up and even longer for Signature Style. It took me 2 weeks to pick up a playset of Feline Spike and I currently own 6 of them, and have owned another 2 on top of that. Blood Runs True I've gone through 3 playsets of (but I know for a fact that that was luck on my part for having worked in Lingards at the time rather than the card being easy to get). I am, however, struggling to find copies of Neo Raging Storm, I only have 2 of them *hint*. Going back to the point, I think that luck becomes more of an element when you buy a few packs at a time rather than whole boxes. Everyone in our meta has chase rares of some form. 2 of us have a set of Spike, 2 of us have sets of Defender, Galactica Phantom, Spinning Beat, Neo Raging Storm (the only one I don't have a set of..). Ira Spinta's seem to be all over the place somehow, when I've heard so many people complaining that they can't get them.

Perhaps the key here is to actively build a deck that doesn't involve cards like Spike and Defender, so that you don't find yourself chasing them after all. I have lent out my Defenders to Kyle so that I can't use them and be tempted by them. Feline Spike, admittedly, I am running, but I could change it within my Morrigan deck if I felt Spike became bland. It just, well, isn't

Well to put things in perspective, I've gone through 6 boxes of RoM and not pulled a single Feline Spike or Darkness Blade (I own one copy of each through trading and that's it). Now I appreciate that that's down to the crappy distribution on top of the rarity but still...

Neither of these are really cards I'm after though, I've just noticed the complete lack of Spike when going after other things. I don't chase the borderline broken stuff, my policy has always been that if I hate playing against it and think it should probably be banned then I'm not going to inflict it on anyone else (which probably explains why I don't win more tournaments). I have 3 copies of Defender that have only seen play once (SC nationals). The only time my Revitalizes were ever used (pre-ban) is when I lent them to Liall, same with my BRT.

I guess the other difference with the block 1 super rares is that they were very rarely game-breaking in the same way the block 3 stuff is. Power Up and Sig Style were hard to get and were very good cards, but they tended to be utility cards rather than bringing you victory in their own right. Otherwise super-rares tended to be character-only attacks, which I'm fine with. You didn't get game winning one hit kills that any character could use or foundations that could shut your opponent down cold as super-rares or impossible to get promos. Some of the stuff in set 11 (Spinning Beat for one) shows that this is a tendency that isn't going away just yet.

Even Tiamat's Rampage (the closest equivalent to Spike in block 1) was only a rare.

Add to this the fact that we are still in a very heavy control environment, which is a playing style that doesn't sit right with me given the game's subject matter. Anyone else remember when the F in UFS used to stand for fighting and not foundation?

This is all stuff I've been thinking about a lot over the last 6 months or so. I've found myself sticking with the game more because of the people involved and less for the game itself, which is a real shame because I used to love this game. I still think the game itself is brilliant, it's just been let down by a solid year of crappy card design and distribution to the point where it's not the same game it used to be.

I'm not going to stop playing or anything (this isn't another of those "I'm announcing my retirement" posts), but I am going to be cutting down on the amount of time, effort and (especially) money that I've been investing in UFS until I see some sign that it's recovered. Frankly block 3 isn't it, maybe block 4?

Since I couldn't make it...Who won then?!

R.Fluxing said:

Dan, with Chun-Li.

Wheeey grats to Dan!

Final standings was:

Dan with Chun-Li9
Kyle with Sogetsu2
Matt Clark with Akuma6
Me with Dan2
Jonathan with T. Hawk4
Matt P with Akuma6
Chris with Basara2
Paul with Sogetsu2

(I think, 5-7 is a bit hazy)

Wasn't too interesting, Void is pretty slow so most of the matches went to time (especially since after round 1, we extended the rounds by 5 mins). Got a Zi Mei as a prize, but it was either that or another Zangief.

Most of all, we were glad we've finished these patch events. I mean, they were fun at times, but after a year of them, they get a bit boring. At least we can play open format once again!

I think next official structured event will be... Egyptian Temple event? I'll be looking forward to that - and so will Sagat4.

GREY CARD, GREY CARD, GREY CARD, GREY CARD, GREY CARD, ORANGE CARD, SAGAT E, TWHACK!

ChaosChild said:

I feel exactly the same way Rob, I really do! *Sniff*

Still Tira in set 12