how balanced is this game?

How open minded are you? How extensively are you willing to collect?

If you and your buddies are just grabbing some starters and some boosters, and then pounding that bajeebuz out of each other, the game is fairly balanced. (The Mai Starter from Set 8 is more powerful than the rest)

If you're going to play in the world championships - be prepared to go out and collect some cards to you have access to the resources you need to build a good deck. Last year a guy I knew from Raw Deal walked up to me 30 minutes before the start of the worlds, and said "I have this starter, and these few boosters. Help me build a deck so I can play today." Having never played before, and using a deck where myself and Duptd from Calgary donated a bunch of commons and uncommons to him, he finished 3-5. So with a slightly tweaked starter deck he still managed 3 wins in the world Championship.

That being said - there are some very obvious combos that at face value are very powerful. Can they be dealt with? Yes. Do you like puzzles? Do you like trying to figure out how you deal with certain problems? If you're willing to do that, then you will find that there is an incredible balance to the game.

On the otherhand if you just expect the game to be handed to you, and not to have to put any thought into the deck you're building or the game that you're playing, you may get frustrated.

Personally I find it balanced, and I really enjoy the game. The game has a lot of depth and that appeals to me. At first because of the mechanics the game seems a little confusing. Once you have the cards in your hand, and you start playing, it seems like a really simple / easy game. Once you start playing at a major tournament level, you get to see just how challenging and deep the game can be.

Just to give a little bit of background to where my opinion comes from - stylistically I lean towards control, I always have. Usually I've leaned toward soft control over hard control, but at the same time I can play aggro, and enjoy a good *SMASH* <as in "HULK SMASH!"> with the best of them.

awesome, well really looking forward to playing, i so sick of yugioh since everyone plays the same deck and everything else is meh.

i hope this ones good.

Rewpaws said:

You'll enjoy it. There's a lot of diversity, and there are so many different viable decks. Where abouts are you located?

Antigoth hit the nail on the head.

If you are wanting to play at the semi-competitive level to the most competitive, then you will HAVE to spend the time and money to get the high end cards.

I will say that the game is very balanced within each level of play. If you are playing a casual deck against a semi-competitve deck, then you will most likely lose, but thats how it is in any game.

There are lots of balancing factors in the game that help keep everyone happy, from the FREE distribution of prize support, to the format of Organized Play. Also, the next set should make it easier to get the said "High-End". If you are willing to go that extra mile then you will definitely be rewarded for your effort.

The one balancing factor in this game that I believe matters the most is that, at tournament level play, there is "Diversity". Diversity means that there can never be that "Dominant" deck per se, though you may see different versions of the deck, featuring different characters as the Main character. This encourages the developement of original ideas and helps keep the g ame healthy and balanced. Unfortunately, this doesn't help that any given deck featuring any one symbol can run any decent character and still make the top cuts. I think the pros outweigh the cons in the long-run as we have already seen how diversity plays it's part at tourneys such as Worlds or Nationals. With Diversity, only one deck featuring any specific character is permitted in the top cuts of the tourney. Meaning that only one deck featuring, say, Ibuki, no matter which version, is able to make it into the top 8, or top 16.
Every so often they will release cards that did get through testing that is more powerful than expected, but no ones perfect, and sometimes cards do need to get banned. For the most part, I believe that the cards are somewhat balanced, though some symbols may be more powerful than others. The most important thing that I would suggest to any new player is that you should play great attention to the interactions between symbols, and don't force yourself to run just one symbol. If you can find interactions between enough cards that share symbols, then you have a better advantage overall as you can then gt cards from a wider card pool, making it easier to find them.

If you do decide that you want to pick UFS up, and I hope you do, I would like to extend a Welcome on behalf of all of us. I believe that this game has one of the most positive playgroups and you can definitely find some great friends!

I find the game very balanced for my taste of the other CCG's I have played especially with the new cards James has been creating starting in set 11 .

In terms of deck balance, it is as stated above. As for individual cards, well, as posted in the other thread there were some growing pains over the first 2-1/2 years or so. Because UFS avoids many of the basic ccg conventions - i.e. monsters/creatures - they kind of had to figure out proper power levels through trial & error... push the envelope on mechanics that aren't seeing play until its clear that they went too far, scale back mechanics that seem too powerful until they just aren't being used, until eventually a good balance is found. Add on to that the fact that while they all played the game a lot, none of the staff had really played at a high competetive level, and you can imagine there were some overpowered cards printed here and there. Some have been banned, while others have not been found problematic enough to warrant such action. All in all, I'd say there's around 8 or so cards legal right now that fall under the category of "never do this again." Far from devastating, but worth noting. Aside from those few odd mistakes, individual card power has naturally become more and more balanced as time goes on, and took a big leap when FFG hired James Hata. (reigning world champion)

Pretty balanced, but in the ensuing months, it'll become even moreso.

Much like a lot of fighting games, the majority of people look to the "tier" list, which generally lists all 12 symbols, and their placement is determined by how good they are. A tier list is created to reflect recurring statistics of how symbols place, and for the most part are agreed with.

However, I will tell you this much: much like a fighting game, the best deck is the one you built yourself, and that you feel most comfortable with. Although when you look at recent tournaments you'll find a LOT of consistant results (Donovan wins a lot =/), you really shouldn't feel the need to conform just because of that.

For me personally, I try to find characters and combos people don't often think about. Give you an anecdote. I fell in love with **Mai** when I discovered how stupid her Turn 1 Kill possibilities were (and even stupider turn 2 kill possibilities). Well, about two months before worlds did I discover the combo of Bitter Rivals and **Mai**, which basically states that any time a player plays an attack, the opponent discards one of their attacks PER COPY of Bitter Rivals. Now, during this time period, Bitter Rivals was seldom-seen, so I didn't have to fear opposing Bitter Rivals (and I had counters anyways, like Stun lol). Anyways, I built the deck, and kept it from June until last month. It has never even been close to defeated, and after looking at Worlds did I realize...I could've won it. I mean, duh, I can't predict the future; who knows what could've happened? But, I really could've gone far.

Like I said, you have to build what you like, and what you personally feel comfortable with. Although, at the time of Worlds, the popular characters were people like Ibuki (who had already won a big tourney prior), Cervantes, Ukyo, Athena, etc etc, I wouldn't have used them. I would've had an extremely underrated, underused character.

I hope this helps, because as I'm sure you'll find out, the game seems a lot more balanced if you use your own creativity. Right now, there are about three or four cards causing headaches and NPE (negative play experience) all over the place, but if you build your own stuff, it'll all feel a lot better.

Antigoth said:

melbourne florida,

i dont know anyone whos even heard of this game

in found it by accident

man i cant wait to play this game

Yes, it's fairly balanced. I'm the type of player who would build a deck and use it because it's of a certain character or combo. Then play using it until I get bored and build another one. I find many ufs players are similar in respect to diversified playing so you'll most likely not face the same deck, however, on the competitive tournament level you'll see lots of similar decks of the top calibur symbols.. currently evil and order with air trailing not too far behind.

You are now warned though not yet orientated. Welcome to the arena. I hope your ufs orientation turns out well and that you'll become and remain a part of this community.

Rewpaws said:

Sweet another FL boy awesome dude I live in fort myers if you need a play group to show you the game feel free to come down anytime your always welcome . Also I am hosting FL's regional the south coast championship in may make sure you come down for it if you have any questions shoot me an email.

[email protected]

Doesn't (didn't?) Florida have a rather large play group?

vermillian said:

Well where havoc is at there doing great from what I hear . Southtown has been struggling losing some players and we are in the same boat. But for us I think its the economy more then anything cause all the CCG's are suffering . It just seems everyone wants to play DND or RPG's since its a cheaper investment.

Rewpaws said:

you stuck with yugioh that long? you are a better man then me. once i realized i was never going to acquire dark armed dragon or judgement dragon, d draw, alure of darknese, etc i quite. UFS is a whole lot more balanced, and control oriented than yugioh. sometimes i miss killing my oponent turn 2 or 3 every game, but i realy like ufs and its a change from the quick/broken kills of yugioh.

trane said:

thats a relief although i did manage too wreck a few of those decks with my insects

nyah XD

Rewpaws said:

yeah i managed to wreck those decks decks with gravity bind weeny normal rush

trane said:

Felicia going second can throw a feline spike that turn fully multipled. Go shadow dragon go!

what's this about my Felicia? >_>

man i'm gonna miss that deck when rotation hits...

vermillian said:

yes, but i was talking about the metagame. it is harder to 1st or 2nd tuen kill then in yugioh.