Dragon's Flame makes me cream in my jeans a little... My Mid Weapon attack of choice is Fierce Twin Slash. yum

also, did I mention that Air/Chaos/Good Combo attacks look at Mentally Unstable and squeal like schoolgirls?

MarcoPulleaux said:

Yeah, it's pretty disgusting what can be done, im loving it . Makai, Natural Leaders, White Magic for the poor people, and then all the attacks are manifestable if you decide to mono fire or tri/dualsymbol it (which can EASILY be done this set). Those are just the attacks im liking the most for him since they all combo off each other and then his form to drop another combo into powerful 3. At first i was considering running the three executions for him but it just didn't seem worth it, especially since it ends in multiple (Although makai off each multiple, and then powerful dump the final could be pretty sexy)

Okay, lengthy tl; dr post now:

--Various Set 12 Props and Constructive Criticisms--

Because "negative" points tend to stand out to people, I'll preface this by acknowledging that this set was decidedly awesome, and James did a great job on this first set of his. That said, it was his first set, and to pretend that everything is shiningly perfect would be silly. There are always places for improvement, and as such any non-positive marks forthcoming are intended solely as constructive criticisms.

> No Split Cards: Big thumbs up. Thinking about it, it seems to me that split cards generally caused more rules arguments and cheatery than any actual benefits. Sure, there were a few cards where both sides would be used regularly - Infiltrating and Superior Witch come to mind - but there are plenty of other ways to add versatility to a card without the extra rules baggage and really tiny upside-down text.

> No 6-checks: Probably a good thing. They're not really necessary, as for the most part all they do is justify wholly weak cards or make good cards ridiculous. Having them reduced or gone might even bring back (gasp) character blocking! Although, I'm not sure it should be taken off the table entirely - surely there will be a few odd cases here and there where a 6cc might be a good choice, just so long as it isn't done on a whim.

> Attacks with more damage than difficulty: Good Thing. There was never really a reason why 4/3s rarely got past 4 damage, aside from thefact that that's just how it had always been. Even though attacks like Flying Cross Chop had never exactly caused any problems. Of course, it can be taken too far just like everything else, but 4/3 3H5? No problem.

> Foundations failing at blocking: Conceptually good, but probably could have been implemented better. I would certainly agree with never giving any foundation a +1 or +0 block, but +2s should be more readily available, and there are ways to do it without disrupting the play-more-attacks intent. Namely, to put the +2s primarily on foundations that encourage multi-attack strategies, such that any attempted 7-attack deck wouldn't want to be playing them anyway. Cards like Brooding, Iron Body Technique, Communing with the Ancients, etc. would all be fine candidates for a nice +2. In a sense, it feels like we're being punished for playing these new chain-friendly foundations when the idea is to reward that strategy.

> Combo: I honestly don't think any explanation is needed to describe how cool this is. Great idea.

> Tech cards: Props; the better majority of them have legitimately decent yet not great alternate uses, which is certainly how these cards should be. There sure are an awful lot of them, but we kinda need that much so it's fine. Hopefully it won't be necessary for future sets to be as narrow-answer-card-heavy.

> Linear Design: Exercise caution. Things like Ivy's setup and the three rites are very cool, but only in moderation. I'm not saying there was a particularly great shortage of modular cards in set 12 per se, but it is something that needs to be watched carefully going forward. I don't think I'm alone in wanting to avoid an MTG-like situation where the design team builds the majority your decks for you.

> More variety in costing: Props; Vitality loss, foundations that blow up, and (X+) costs are all fine ways to handle things that have been grossly underused. Good to see them being implemented with proper regularity. Possibly a few too many suicidal foundations though; it's fine for one set but it could get kinda ugly if there are this many in every set going forward.

> Attacks with empty text boxes: Props; having some nice, simple cards is probably a good idea considering how text-heavy UFS can get -.-'

> 18 cards per character: On balance very good, though it varies from character to character. For most characters their theme was deep enough, or they had enough of them, that having 18 interesting and relevant cards wasn't too difficult at all. There were a couple, though, where it felt like it was scratching the bottom of the barrel a bit to fill the last few slots. Algol would be my top example, there are just so many cards with some minor variation on "discard, then draw" that I was left wondering why there wasn't an extra subtheme on top of anti-hax, or an expansion upon the asset hate or discard-rewarding seen on his URs. Probably worth watching for points where a theme might be getting overdone a bit, and there's a couple slots that are perhaps better used in some other manner.

> Rarity distribution: Obviously every player is going to be happy with this, not only with the URs but the uncommons as well. It used to be that saying "a lot of the game's best cards are commons and uncommons" felt like I was decieving people because uncommons weren't always that easy to get. Glad to see that being mitigated a fair bit.

Of course, the fact that generally fine-point nitpicks are about the only negative things I can find speaks volumes for how excellent a job James did. Very much looking forward to the future of UFS under his direction

...that wasn't a tldr version XD.

I realize they're trying to emphasize running attacks, but they should acknowledge that attacks are meant to get expended, not saved. Also, +3 doesn't block hardly anything; what were they thinking?

Fire is so ANGRY right now.

AND IT MAKES ME HAPPY! err...ANGRY

RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

For serious...Promo Zi Mei fire deck in the works. Stand Off is AMAZING.

And Shinji-+3 wasn't always the best block out there, but with the prevelance of it in this set, you'll probably be seeing people using them now.

HolyDragonCloud said:

...uh...not as blocks...=/

Only characters like E Honda, or people who can reduce speed can ever utilize +3. Most attacks are 3 speed or greater, making +3 almost an auto-fail.

I cba to post all my thoughts now. So I'll leave this and come back.

Order got the shaft here. Yeah, yeah. Order lockdown, stasis decks, yadda yadda. ANYWAY. What I'm saying is simple. These sets got tons of cards to boost almost every symbol. Order got two characters, Hilde and Astrid. Order has never been geared towards attack strings, or anything OTHER than control. As such, it's kinda of a bummer to see so many cards that nerf Order's gameplan, and so few that allow it to do anything else. Don't get me wrong - I absolutely LOVE both Hilde and Astrid (Astrid is probably my starter character of choice for the prerelease). It's just that it's not really enough to deal with stuff like Ragnar and Nightmare.

Looking at it from the other side - there's so many cards that absolutely kill lockdown (I'm looking at YOU, Siggy) and the like. I don't mind the hacking hate at all. But there are too many cards, in my opinion, that punish players that do like to commit things. Instead, a number of other symbols are given the tools to DESTROY things outright, whereas all I want to do is commit them. Flipping cards upside down in particular is going to be insane as a strategy. It's the new control tool, yeah...Order's just left a little high and dry. I'd love to be able to run a deck with my beloved Experienced Combatant and iSpins that can also play more attacks, since I like to play about 16 or so...always have. But now I really can't, which is a bit of a bummer.

At the same time, I like that my clairvoyant streak continues. I recall stating back when set 10 dropped that Earth was going to be HUGE in block 3, and no-one believed me. And then we got set 11, and it got a lot better...and now with set 12, it's primed to take a place at the top of the pile, alongside Air.

I like the move away from Spikes (I'll probably trade mine or sell 'em on Ebay). I love the return of character-only stuff that's GOOD. I like that Life is FINALLY getting back into the game.

And I like that I can actually see myself playing six handsize characters again! I'm going to break Lu Chen in half (WATCH ME DO IT), and try with Astrid. Yoshitora got a lot of love, too, and I'm definitely picking up my Earth characters again =D

MarcoPulleaux said:

If necessary, a +3 block will be used.

It's not so much that people don't want to play them. It's just that a lot of the cards people will use will pack +3 blocks, and at certain points, they're probably going to haved to be played as such

HolyDragonCloud said:

More or less, yes. a +3 is not the horrible end of everything that it could be. It's near unplayable as a block, but it doesn't mean it isn't playable, especially in late game; You shouldn't end a blocking turn with no foundation commited anyway (unless you're air or water or void that is ;P)

MegaGeese said:

In the grand scheme of things, i dont really think its fair to say that order got the shaft here. Yes this will hurt order in limited possibly, but if you only play order in drafts, you either need to rethink your strategy, or order has been that strong that you could stick with order every time.in block, I like to look at it this way:

order has 10 tools and (insert symbol here) has 6 tools. (these numbers really dont mean anything.)

The easiest way to balance the current game/meta/block is to simply even things out.Give order maybe 2 tools in the set and give the other symbol 6. Obviously it looks like order got the shaft, but it was already ahead by a landslide. If anything, i would say that void or all got the shaft. but we will see in the time to come how strong the symbols are with the new set

MarcoPulleaux said:

Reverse Flayer->Midnight Launcher->Knight Breaker.

You can thank me later.

No, you misunderstand. I understand getting fewer cards in the set, since it helps the others out.

My issue is the massive shift that the game has just forcibly taken with this set. Order's been groomed to do one thing very, VERY well so far, and that just got nerfed to all hell by quite a few cards. It can no longer do what it's meant to do...and since it got very few new things to help adjust itself to the new world we're facing, it's going to be rough going for a while.

And Arch - SHHHHHHHHHHH...don't tell anyone

THE KNIGHT BREAKERS WILL BE MIIIIIINE

MegaGeese said:

Yes Order has been groomed to do one thing very well, and has essentially dominated the environment because of the flood of retarded committal cards it got combined with the backing of game lock hacks in BRT and Forethought and the game breakingly easy win condition of Defender.

It didn't get nerfed, it got brought down a few pegs by two or three symbols which I guess were deemed to be the symbols that are to rise up against it.

I know you love Order Mr. Geese, but I think you're taking an incredibly alarmist stance right now, especially since the set has only been available for a few days now.

Nah, nothing like that. I don't normally play crap like Defender. To me, Order is resource control, which is my favorite aspects of CCGs. My issue is well-founded, I think. The game got a lot of ways to deal with hax/committal. That's great, because it helps diversify the meta and gets stupid janky one-shots off the market, since you can't go "30 damage attack, BRT, game" as reliably. I hate that, but I do it, because it's effective.

However...when that's really all the symbol can do? Kinda sucks.

I'd be arguing this point no matter what symbol it happened to, really. I was pretty bummed that Life was pretty much crap in a block 3 environment for the longest time. Loss of it's best cards hurts BAD.

Basically - I understand that someone had to get the short end of the stick with the "making the game more attack-oriented" and all. I get making control weaker. But at the same time, shouldn't it still get a little something that will let it function in this new "more attacks" meta? Not like, UBER attacks or anything...just a little something to tide it over a while.

The best Order attacks are all geared towards lockdown or running very few attacks...

Edit: In short - at least give it a chance to do something else =/

MegaGeese said:

Name a price. Seriously.

Nothing in these sets even comes close to the raw power of that card, other than Tira's UR Meneutt Dance and that is because it is basically a watered down version of the same thing. Better ststa not as many Keywords. It will become the new chase kill card.

If there had been something to weaken FS I would understand the move away, but as it stands it got no weaker - no multiple hate really - and even got things to beef it up.

So seriously, name a price and I'll take them off your hands, or I'll trade you any UR I pull in the new sets. ANY.

Archimedes said:

Printed damage, Arch.

Though I'm sure you weren't implying that Knight Breaker would get a +14 boost instead of a +7 boost.

Plus, I think Tsurane Kiri would fit the build better if it's on Evil, just in case you manage to pump it.

HolyDragonCloud said:

True but if your attack gets rejectioned then they still take one and then boom big attack . Not saying Keri isnt awesome just with hammer gone unless your playing zi mei flayer is probally better.

Except for the awesome Astaroth damage pumps...Way of the Mightiest has come back to us.

Kiri is not a Fire Attack....But Flayer is =)