Initial Impressions

Initial Impressions - Or, long day's journey into night (without the booze and drug abuse).

So I sat down with my friend and teammate Jay last night and played 6 straight hours of UFS. Man did it feel good! Like a junkie straight back into the vein after 9 months, it was a blast. In the spirit of competition, sometimes we can overlook the main point - to have FUN. And I was relieved and pleased to see the changes have made the game better than ever.

What did I learn? Well, it doesn't pay to be tentative in the current environment. 2nd, 3rd and sometimes 4th turn kills were the norm (in fact I think only two games got to a 4th turn, and none beyond). The attacks that Mr. Hata and Mr. Horvath have blessed us with are fantastic. Hammer of the Gods definitely lives up to its name and is quite abusive, on its own or as a setup card. All of the Earth throws are another example. They smash like the days of old, and having Close Throw back in the mix doesn't hurt. The wide mix of sneaky, useful and just plain great attacks is really perfect.

But let's get down into the nitty gritty. I have always been willing to discuss my deck ideas openly and will continue to do so, as I feel it only makes the community as a whole better if we are willing to share. The decks we were running were Earth Rashotep hybrid with throws, Life Ivy with deceptive tricks and plink attacks, Generic Fire with a rotating cast of characters (among them Paul Phoenix and Bryan Fury) and a Knight Breaker kill with stunners before, Chaos Heihachi Mishima old school style with a "block it or eat it" mentality, and a work-in-progress version of Jin Kazama off Death. I also wanted to experiment with Void King or Algol along with Astrid but there wasn't enough time to get them done yet.

Rasho is strong, as strong if not even a bit better than I thought upon reading him and his support. With his numerous blanking (bummer) abilities and Stand-Off, he is pretty resilient to even the most furious Fire assault. While there are a few amazing cards that deal with him - Pommel Smash, anyone - even in that there is a defense in the form of the BRUTAL Torn Hero, a card I already hate with a passion. With throw recursion tossed in he is hard to deal with. Still, our Generic Fire was pretty up to par. I mentioned the attacks earlier, it's not too fancy but the character options, amazing foundation base with card draw and pumps, and pure speed plus one-turn-kill potential if necessary is often good enough. Rasho and Fire are pretty even, and further testing will hopefully reveal the subtleties of this crucial matchup. For now, though, I would rank them the best of what we have.

Not too far behind, though is the lovely Life Ivy. She packs quite a wollop and with her support, especially that crazy action of hers, she can do some LAME stuff in a single turn. Like, a bazillion attacks maybe, with no progressive? Stack checks, or see what's on the way? Speed pump like crazy? I was primarily in the driver's seat for the Fire deck, and I was NOT happy with how close this matchup was. After some deck tweaking, with more consistency and a better ratio, the battle becomes better - a key is using the right blocks at the right time. She can go off real quick though, sometimes you get steamrolled with few foundations in play. I expect a lot of her at the SAS.

Finally we come to Jin and Heihachi. Both of these decks were played very little and performed poorly to be frank, but they have amazing potential - Heihachi is a BEAST with the right build and Jin is nuts of Fire as we all know, however even off Death he can unleash some serious bang. The interactions in some of the cards, with him and his character, are nasty to say the least. So those decks I will talk about as they develop more, but in rough patch form even getting swept they are not bad.

Overall, it seems to me the meta is wide open, diverse and creative; anyone has a chance if built optimally and everything is fair game. There are tremendous characters, the resource spreads give options that are very attractive, the attack pool is phenomenal and blocking is very relevant. Hey, what more could you ask for? Hats off to Steve and James, in this man's estimation their hard work and commitment to keeping this game going strong and healthy is really paying off. So stay tuned until next time, when maybe I can get even more in-depth after exhaustive play (or not, if my brain ceases to function). Till then, Peace.