So, now that the set is "released" and we know every card in the set (do we have the pre-release promos yet?)...what does everyone think of the set?

Did Monsier Hata, our new designer, do a bad job or a good?

What are your favorite/least favorite cards?

How do you think this will affect the meta, both locally and on the competitive scene?

Anything that sounds OMG BROKEN or possibly a problem card? (might as well address it now and avoid the OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND threads, right?)

And, most importantly...was it worth the wait?

MegaGeese said:

I already wrote and posted my review, but I'll try to give some answers that aren't paraphrases...

1. This release just might be my favorite. Although I still maintain the best set is Fortune and Glory (although really, Realm of Midnight is pretty much tied), I think my opinion just might change. Really, really diggin' ShadoWar, big time.

2. Hata did the job we would expect from a world champion. As a champion, he realizes that every single card churned out should be viable to some extent, and that's exactly what we got. As far as characters go, I think the characters who will be high to top tier are going to be Ivy, Tira, Temujin, and Ragnar. I have yet to change my opinion on Cervantes, and think he's going straight into the binder.

3. That's a big question. There's no doubt our game has changed for the better, what with 16 highly competitive characters and equally competitive support, most notably the Combo keyword.

4. Hmm...I recall Lu Chen having an 8 difficulty 12 damage card, but I don't recall the rest of it. As it appears, nothing is too terribly broken since its brokenness generally lies in the Combo portion of it. Looks like every card is as powerful as you make it be in your deck.

5. Absolutely. There's no denying it.

One thing people need to start talking about nao...

CASSANDRA AND PADMA! =D

ALSO!

Discuss card art!

I'm not a fan of the Astrid art...she looks WAY too much like Vaan for my taste, with the exception of two cards (Determined and Resourceful), in which she actually looks like a woman.

MarcoPulleaux said:

Cassandra, while I ADORE her artwork..just doesn't seem like a good character to me. But Padma, on the other hand..I would run that character every chance I got...if my shop got their prerelease kits on time, which they didn't. -.-

I don't believe in the philosophy of wait until the next set.... cause if a product isn't worth buying, then it isn't worth buying. Mr. Hata did a very good job, but it wasn't worth the "wait" as i could have lost, and have lost some players due to the inpatience of my fellow players... I honestly think that it was a huge mistake jumping ahead in the rotation so early, and we should have been playing block 2 until last week when the sets officially rotated, the next time someone suggests that we rotate sets right after world's/Gencon I will tell them where to shove it. I only want to play complete blocks from now on, seeing as the last 8 months have been the most annoying/unbalanced games of UFS. Anyways, I am very happy to finally receive this set, and am very happy to see that agro has a lot of potential and there are a lot of anti control cards.

I'll probably post something more thorough later, but one of my favorite cards from a design standpoint is From the Hawk, Alertness. There haven't been very many fair ways to get information on your opponent's hand, and the random selection factor adds an interesting dynamic - both in sense of risk/reward for you once you've seen a card or two, and for your opponent to possibly consider hanging on to one more card just to help keep that Tag Along hidden from you. All of this out of a relatively simple, elegant effect. Great job on that one.

sir_shajir said:

I dunno, we lost players due to other cirumstances here, and since we're pretty much all aggro players in our hearts (except a few), we just tried to make it work in non-set-12 B3.

Right after Worlds/Gen Con? Yeah that IS a bit early to jump on the wagon. The thing is, for some, B2 was an extremely unpleasant format, and as such, would rather take anything else than it. That was our case, dunno about you, but that was the case over here (And one would say as soon as Set 9 hit over here, because we didn't go to Worlds.)

And, I'm pretty sure early jumping to next rotation is going to happen again this year - who in their right mind wants to play with LotM, Olcadan's, BRT, Battle Prowess, Rejection, Bitter Rivals and Feline Spike for any longer than they absolutely have to? These new cards are so much better and more balanced, people will be pretty eager to be free of the old overpowered stuff. (even if most of them don't *have* to be banned, they're still undeniably overpowered)

But this is all off-topic... on-topic, let's see... well, I'm still trying to decide if there's enough stuff here to really keep people from sticking with the 4-7 attack Spike, Spinta-lock and loop decks. Certainly, key foundations are a lot less safe, as are commit effects, but the ability to play that many more gray cards in a deck is still a sizable advantage, and there's no way anyone will be able to play all the various things that might cause the strategy trouble in the same deck. Well, earth might be able to, actually, but anyway I guess we'll see at PotM and the following week's regionals.

I MUST OWN TWILIGHT EMBRACE!!!! A PLAYSET ASAP! ANYONE GOING TO PATH OF MASTER HELP ME OUT i PAY CASH!!!!!!!!! ZHAO DAIYU IS THE GODDESS OF EVIL I LOVE HER!

I don't know how many people actually noticed but Foundations no longer have good blocks. Instead Attacks do. The lowest Block Modifier on a Foundation in the SC set was a +2 High Block....and there was only one of those. The rest are are either +3 or +4 blocks or no blocks at all(the majority are no blocks from what I saw). Attack on the other hand are what have the +1 and +0 blocks and a lot more blocks in general. This is great because it basically makes it so that you need to run more attacks in order to block. Of course I think this should have been implemented sooner because even though it helps we still have a LOT of amazing foundations with amazing blocks.

I think Hata did an amazing job. I don't think I have ever seen a set I liked more. as people have said Combo is one of the best things that happened to the game. It actually promotes running more attacks and the reward for doing so is well worth it in most cases. The Attacks in the sets are great and remind me of Legacy the more I look at them. Which is of course a good thing. I love that we are getting 3 check throws again instead of this janky 6/2 5-6 damage stuff that we have been getting in the past sets. On that note I love the fact that there are so many attacks with more damage than difficulty. This was a point I had brought up in another thread of things I would like to see more of.

As far as the Meta goes I think that all the symbols that really needed a boost got one. My only complaint would be that void didn't get any form of momentum gain....I am not asking for another Makai(even though I have no problem with Makai) but I would have liked something. Void has so many amazing multiples that I they can't really utilize well. White Gi just doesn't cut it IMO its not worth the deck space for me. Oh well maybe someday. Life got a huge boost and I think is playable now though I have seen some people disagree. Earth and Fire are really top tier symbols now I think. Earth was already a beast before this set but this set gave it even more.

Was it worth the wait? Hell Yeah. But please in the fufture do not make us wait this long -___-

Well, Void did get that Zhao Daiyu foundation, the 1/5 that RFGs to get you a momentum. Not incredible, but better than nothing. Momentum generation really shouldn't be as powerful as it has been up to set 10 anyway, and it would certainly appear that James is trying to tone it down a bit. Less momentum ramping = more need to play attacks = good thing.

Nothing is ever truly worth the wait. If they can't meet their own self imposed deadlines, then really they shouldn't have the job they have.

None the less the Shadowar (I didn't have the cash to play in the SC pre release) pre release was amusing, but I have a feeling some folks will be crying that aggro is smashing face too easily. It IS nice to see actual good attacks, given the fact a lot of the current attacks previous to this set just weren't worth running.

Cetonis said:

That wasn't Void =/

It was momentum gain for evil though.

B-Rad said:

Considering that every set this year is already delayed precisely to avoid delays... yeah.

Hmm...couple of things I want to comment on...

I understand completely the frustration vis-a-vis the delay. Even for us Brawl players, it was unnerving hearing constantly, "sorry, 'nother delay guys!" However, you have to keep in mind that the shift from STG to FFG wasn't going to be quick in the least, and that Horvath DID tell us that delaying all sets for this year (including the next cycle) will help so that, come 2010, everything will be back on track as it used to be. Besides, we're halfway into April; the next set isn't even too terribly far away. If you lost players to impatience, while I do understand, I'm calling immaturity on this one. Besides, you ought to be grateful; unlike last set, this one was completely worth any type of wait. Hell, I don't even own any of the cards, and may not for another month or so!

Feline Spike....ugh. While I've already mentioned that Combo will spawn a lot of creativity and uniqueness between decks, I have to agree with Cetonis, in that Feline is one of the biggest discourages to attacking that has ever existed, and for the most part makes Combos look like a bad idea by comparison. While we DID get a ton of 3 checks AND good attacks, the fact that Feline can STILL completely sweep games (because unlike Defender, who can now be blanked-out by RashoFried's support, negated by Algol, etc) is a threat that I think we're still going to see. I know everybody has the mentality of "calm the F down the set just came out, wait and see how the card's impacted", but really, only one Rashotep card came out to counter it, and that's pretty much saying nothing. The card can still indeed be the be all is all to decks, let alone the fact that there are a lot of new cards to help back it up when its played so that it goes through.

Not really important, but I agree, while it's obvious that people played Block 3 to help them for the impending shift, that shouldn't have been the actual, sanctioned tournament form. Now that set 12 is out, it can be. Whatever the matter, as I'd pointed out in my article, the lowest of tiers got the most support, while the highest of tiers got little to none.

My local players asked me "why am I buying thsi set then?" in response to me saying "ok everyone. Foundations aren't rocking as good blocks anymore and their abilities aren't going to be as hot as things like Bitter Rivals and battle prowess, as far as raw power".

I didn't really know what to answer other than "its going to be like this, I think, from now on..."

...

Void got momentum generation on algol's anti-discard action. Searching for a challanger or something like that. it is e: if this attack deals damage add a card to your momentum. Not much but its better then nothing.

vermillian said:

Because the attacks will make you weep tears of joy and the abilities on foundations are fine as well?

Yeah, not like there's cards that make other cards NOTHING or anything xD

Busted takes on a whole new meaning with this set...balanced busted <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I'll put up my thoughts when I get home from work. Gotta go earn the money I throw at this game >_<

All I can say is Pommel Smash wins games, especially when Astrid gives it plus 14 damage easily.

Im in love with this set. I really am. Astrid, Ragnar, Temujin, and then Siegfried, Astaroth, Nightmare, this set is totally heaven.

Honest to god a solid set. So far as I have read through the cards and played with them the attacks make the set shine and are really the best part. Basically 2 full sets chock full of good attacks, and most of them 3 control checks? Yeah a great win for everyone...esepecially since ALL symbols got a great spread of attacks.

This is an amazing set as far as casual play goes. When they ran the 3rd aniversary event at our store and used the cutting edge starters there were so many draws due to the card pool it was unreal. When we ran the prerelease today I think there may have been 1 draw...a HUGE improvement, which I think everyone was happy to see.

Just my personal opinion on everything. I think you'll see more of the attacks ran out of this set more so than the foundations. The balance in this set was great and pushes really more towards running attacks...from this point on if you throw out whats been in block 3 before it. The fact that you can still run an amazing deck from the earlier cards (with almost all of them having blocks and good ones) and just splashing in a few of the new foundations (Nursing A Grudge FTW!!) with the better attacks, the deck is going to be stronger.

Dont get me wrong, I love this set! It's great, and really gave me all the confidence in the world in James. I think he is taking the game in the right direction, and has really leveled the playing field for almost everyone.

My only disappointment is that there are so few Combo cards. Obviously, I mean that this set is the only release to have Combos XD. I wish we had a plethora of combos, but, in time, we sure as Hell will.

Speaking of which, is anybody else having the absolutely terrifying task of building a deck with Combos? Obviously UFS has always been a "put the best attacks in your deck" kinda game, but now, it's "put the Combo components in your deck" >_>

MarcoPulleaux said:

Not really, actually. I'm looking into something like a lineup of this for Temujin:

ATTACKS (16)
4x 4/2 Dragon Lifter [Combo(Kick), S:2, Weapon] 3H4 (Air, Fire, Good) +4M
4x 4/3 Grappling Knee Strike [Combo(Weapon), kick] 3M4 (Air, Fire, Good)
4x 5/3 Dragon's Flame [Combo(Mid Weapon, High Attack), Ranged] 5M4 (Air, Fire, Good) +1M
4x 5/3 Swooping Hawk Lunge [Weapon] 5M4 (Air, Fire, Good) +2M

What im looking at with this is, Dragon lifter combos off kick (grappling knee strike), grappling combos off weapon (dragon lifter, swooping hawk), dragon's flame combos off swooping hawk + grappling knee, and grappling knee combo + dragon lifter combo = +4 speed +4 damage on dragon lifter, pump the powerful into any (and run bitter to push it through) and you've got some ballin deal there, AND it's completely themed. I thought about throwing in a ragnar throw in there for the powerful pump, but it really seems unnecessary

Eithnis, it appears you and I have the same idea. Actually, I was thinking of using Hurricane Punishment as the kick attack for Dragon Lifter, and possibly even Omnidirectional to get momentum (albeit, it isn't important when you're running Makai and Natural Leader). Also, The Forgotten Technique is just too stupid to ignore. If you ever want to kill anybody, that is most certainly the way to do so.