Ok, I want to talk block 3.... I just got into the game, and I'm having fun, so are all my friends.

I understand how block 2 was, and how the meta was when everyone was playing so much control and all that crap with foundation wars. 90% foundations, with just one or two different attacks in the deck, and I realize that feline spike is well... its *&^%^$# (only because I don't have any, but locally no one has any where I live.)

So, what is block 3 going to be like? do you think we will still see decks that are 80%+ foundations? Can we expect combos to come out? Is control still going to rule the day?

sadly from block 2 to block 3 its only going to get worse

Attacks like feline spikes and defender loops are going to rule the day while the rest of the deck is tuned to control what your opponent does and to make sure that one attack will get through.......im hoping that with the release of newer sets the game kind of balances itself out a little bit more

it still seems like a game of who can get more control but the new sets might change this

Remember last year when mill dominanted and evil was pretty quit and then set 8 dropped and changed everything ....

Set 12 will impact the format dramatically we will be getting previews for set 12 very soon as well as some awesome reprints .

Last set IMO opened the door a lot more for a more aggro-style deck, but I definitely agree that the meta isn't there yet. You CAN play aggro, but I don't think it's a possibility that you're going to be able to play a deck without control-oriented cards.

Explain defender loops....

Lord Aries said:

Defender is an asset that can, at the cost of 1 momentum, add an attack from your card pool to your hand.

It shares a symbol with Lord of the Makai.

Lord of the Makai gets you 1 momentum with no cost.

See where this is going?

Wow, broken much? How can an infinite combo be just 2 cards...... That sounds horrible to play against.... how is that legal or fun, or balanced?

I guess, they would have to clear their cardpool in order to play them, but there are a lot of characters that can do that.

Well, i went and looked up the cards, to see..... And yes, thats stupid.

Why is that fun? You just play an attack, play another, and pick up the first going back and forth playing them infitely.

Lord of the Makai is stupid (only because I don't have any... if I had 4, I would say that its balanced).

Having played in a pseudo Block 3 format since Set 11 arrived (yes we're short on Set 12 to complete it, but we find it more fun that way), I can happily say I prefer Block 3 to Block 2. As much as control orientated decks do play a lot more consistently than aggro does, aggro has made something of a comeback in Set 11, as has been stated in the "Aggro... is it still dead?" thread, mainly due to the existence of the much maligned Chun Li. I've played agaisnt and with a few different builds of Chun-Li and the simple wreck face with Hoyoko-Sen, Feline Spike and insanely good checks build seems to be much more consistent than a more control orientated Void or Water deck. Trust me, I've played this deck a lot, and it's how aggro is nowadays. Just because half your deck isn't made of attacks, doesn't mean it's not aggro. Cards like Heel Snipe were a step in the right direction for aggressive builds. I find characters like Chun Li need to exist, as powerful as they are, in order for control decks to fear aggro, as they rightfully should.

Set 12 ought to bring a lot to the table because of it being a base set. Look at how The Dark Path and Soul Arena morphed the meta, and then look at how Cutting Edge and Domination mangled it. To be fair, I think a little ban-flavoured cleanup is in order for the meta to shift to a different place to the grey wars that led Block 2. I, for example, do npot like the existence of Lord Of The Makai or Olcadan's Mentoring. I think they change the meta far too much because you have to build around them in order to have any chance of winning. Would you play MakaiHigh Noble or Blinding Rage if Olcadan didn't exist? Would you find youself playing more attacks or other methods of momentum gain if LotM didn't exist? I also think this new keyword ability could change things rather a lot as long as it's well thought out enough. I only pray that keyword after keyword isn't released, lest people become confused as to which ability does what, like Magic can do (Magic's a great game, I just don't like how they expect you to know every keyword)

In all, I'm loving Block 3, although this is mainly due to what Set 11 brought to the table. There's much work to be done to suture the wound that was Set 8...

in block 3 there are 3 kinds of deck types that will see much play(sorry mill): control, hybrid, and aggro. control has defender loop, order and chaos shenanigans, and turn ending cchax. it is fronted by donovan, kyoshiro, seong-mina, hugo (if you go with tanking), andrew olexa, and gen to a lesser exstent. hybrid decks may only run 12-6 atacks but there goal is to go for a t2 or t3 win, and if that is thwarted, hang with order in control wars. the best characters for this strategy are hanzo, donavan, kyoshiro, andrew olexa, akuma, promo guy, adon, chun li, zi mei, chun-li and promo alex. agro can kill quicker than hybrid, but has more trouble hanging with control after turn 2-3. air is agro's favourite symbol. chun li, felicia, adon, zi mei, ibuki, hanzo, rare alex, and promo alex are some of the only charecters that can consistently agro in my mind. of course some decks don't fit into these categories, and mill still has promo bishamon, but this a general block 3 outline.

Lord Aries said:

There are a lot of answers to stop the loop with even more coming in set 12 with Mac. Most decks have been established to deal with it so if that is your only kill you will most likely get stopped.

I'm pretty sure trying to figure out how block 3 is going to work out as an official format is kinda futile without seeing set 12. Especially with James' different design outlook, as well as the increase in the number of playable cards per set - even if you were to argue that we already know 80% of the card pool, in terms of the *playable* card pool that percentage is much lower.

Plus, there's no reason to believe that nothing will be banned come March/April - they explicitly said several months ago that they weren't going to take any non-emergency action until rotation, so just because certain arguably degenerate cards have been left alone the past 4-6 months doesn't necessarily mean they're here to stay. (Though many may just be sufficiently answered in Set 12)

Scubadude said:

Martial arts champ? reprinted?

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

Ya you didnt hear our SOTG podcast?

Scubadude said:

I must of missed that part lol

Block 3's not too bad. It's an incomplete block and there's still Set 12 left before you actually have to play it. Yeah, control is annoying, but it's a heck of a lot better then **Ibuki** was

So what you are saying is that UFS has degenerated into 'net' decks, much like MTG did a while ago, and to compound the problem, most all of the best cards are limited circulation promo cards, AND they are impossible for me or my friends to get without dropping some serious money into ONLINE stores, which does not help our local gaming store, AT ALL....

This is a serious roadblock, we might need to reconsider this game. Its fun as it is, but if there is no point in buying card packs, because the only good cards are ultra stupid rare/promo, means my store can't make money from the game. Perhaps we will look into another game that we CAN make money on... and is fun to play.

UFS is hardly netdecks. The one problem UFS has is that multisymboling is actually remarkably hard to do when compaired to color splashing in magic and such so a lot of times decks tend to have a dominant symbol. Any given symbol has a logical selection of cards you would use just because they go well with what the symbol does. Theres no reason not to play lock down and control on order, its what they do best and its what you would pick them for if you played them, so your going to run forethough, etc.

That being said what winds up happening is that you see a lot of very similar decks in tourney play, even if the characters or the flair is different, just because thats what makes sense. In very few circumstances would you not run Kaz Reppa in a void deck that used Ways of punishment, they team up too well. Since your now using thoes 2 cards using The glare from the abyss only makes sense, both because it knocks the last card away plus you need 6 checks to pass reppa.

This will change with the next release im sure, just because of the sheer amount of new cards we will get. But this honestly happens in ALL games. I havent played magic in ages but i remember from way back when if you ran blue you ran counter spell, it was as simple as that. Every symbol in this game has at least one card that you basicly have to run unless your deck is completley abberant, just because it makes sense or you would run a different symbol, and then that lends itself to the naturally complimentary support.

Lord Aries said:

i wouldn't say most of the best cards are circualation promos. yesterday i bought 6 packs of flash of blades and got a defender and a playset of forethoughts, one of the most sought after cards in the game, which happens to be an uncomon. I would say if you compare UFS to mtg or yugioh, you will see that ufs is a whole lot cheaper.

I only have two words to say...

Wild Mongrel

UFS has a lot of Wild Mongrel's. They're everywhere for every symbol. Also, as was stated above, there is almost no net-decking in UFS, just a lot of similar cards in decks running the same symbol. You can however make like an Earth, Water, or Order deck with nothing but commons, uncommons, and starter deck rares. Net-decking is stupid in this game anyway, because there are always things that belong to your own personal playstyle. I have a friend who will never play a 2 check, no matter how good, because he always checks them. I have another who will stack as many 6's in his deck as possible, even bad ones, because he likes checking 6's.

Personal playstyle > net-decking.

quarzark said:

personal style realy does efect the game. for instance i never run 1 checks because i have never played a game with a one check in my deck in which i didn't check one of them. even if owned spike i might not run them.

I wouldnt compare UFS to magic, its more like VS. Basically if you want to play a symbol (like if you wanted to play Xmen) it just makes sense to use certain cards like people said before. Thats how it was made to work. But when you add in characters and kill conditions the variety spreads. this along with diversity which people have to avoid keeps this game from being anywhere near as bad as magic is. Also, yea a lot of the most sought after cards are uncommon, and theres a few UR's that a really dumb but they can be played around. You dont need feline spike to be competitive. And lord of the makai is a box topper, so its not like it wouldnt promote buying packs, you would actually have to buy entire boxes >_>

Another example of personal taste - I hate, HATE playing 2-checks. But I'm a total 1-check *****.

The exceptions to that rule are Ira-Spinta and Yoga Adept. LOVE THEM <3

But yeah. As a newer player, you haven't been playing quite long enough to remember how block 2 started - people were complaining about aggro. It used to be that if you were playing against one of the old Adon decks and lived past turn three, then something was wrong with either the opponent or their deck. Seriously. My first major event (GCC 2008), I got T2'd by both SR and promo Adon, and I hated every minute of it. I mean, it was hilarious, but not exactly conducive to drawing in new players.

Games swing from aggro to control as a natural part of the development process. Last year, the game swung to control. Simple as that.

Olcadan's, btw, was a very, VERY easy to get promo - it and the Shops were released as the Card of the Month promos a while back. Simply put, you got one for buying 6 packs, or a starter and three packs. I miss the old card of the month promos, actually =/

FenMiHuo said:

another big diference between ufs and magic is that ufs has 12 symbols where as magic has 5. this means that ufs will just be more diverse to begin with.