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.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The NEW UFS Podcast, check it out!
Hey guys, there is a new UFS podcast running now, and it's pretty funny. Here is the link to the first episode, enjoy! - http://ufspodcast.aslum.net/CCR_Episode_1.mp3
Monday, September 28, 2009
Back To Basics
Back To Basics - How To Return To UFS in two weeks (after nine months of inactivity).
Normally, whenever I wrote about UFS, I always had something specific to say. This time, however, I find myself in a strange position of being out of the loop. Perhaps I was barely IN the loop in the first place, heh. Having decided to return to the game, though, I think it's interesting to examine the process of working back into competitive shape a bit.
This isn't the first time in my life that I quit a card game, only to return. There's a little game out there you might have heard of, Magic: The Gathering? Yes well, at last count I had quit and returned to MTG at least 5 times. Sometimes, it was a simple reason - like the metagame being horrendous, the primary reason I took an extended vacation from UFS. Anyone who played Magic in the Urza block or Mirrodin block eras, or even as far back as the infamous "Black Summer" of 1996, knows how unfun the game had become. UFS, when I quit, was much the same way. Too many BRTs and Chester's Backings running around, not to mention the murderous (literally) Feline Spike. Our local playgroup, partly due to my own preferences, loved to tinker with control decks - and at this period we were building 75-85 card decks with literally every bag of tricks. They were so boring to PLAY with. Play being the operative word. It is very aggravating to build a deck with so much negation, simply because neither you nor your opponent have any true interaction. Attacks, hah! Who needed those? I think our best decks in this era - including my SAS-winning Athena deck - had at max 10 attacks. AT MAXIMUM. That is not good for a game that is billed as a fight simulation of sorts. It's pretty hard to attract new fans of fighting games if there isn't actually any, um, fighting!
So, now we as a community are all aware of the impact to the meta, and looking at where we stand now I can't help but feeling giddy. As far as I am aware, and I could be wrong so please correct me if this is the case, only 3 sets are currently legal for standard UFS play - SCIV: Tower Of Souls, ShadoWar and Tekken 6. Looking over the cards last night, as part of my "studying" (while pointedly ignoring my actual studying, thank you very much), I found a lot of changes very intriguing.
First of all, the potential of Combo attacks is fantastic, and the card interactions that can result out of pulling them off is wonderful. I remember when James first got to FFG, we had a conversation about making series of attacks more useful and he mentioned this mechanic in its' infancy. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be this good, or fundamental. For really, the best attacks in the game now revolve around their combo potential and effects/enhances, in order to get that massive damage off. That is a fair and reasonable tradeoff for all that power - restriction, based in drawing and playing a number of attacks in a defined sequence. For all the smashing that Knight Breaker provides, it comes with a good drawback.
Speaking of which, even if you don't pull of that KB killer and wreck your opponent's staging area, well guess what? The solid stats of bygone days are back as well, except in much more vast numbers and quality basic attacks across the board. I'm loving the new policy on Throws, something that speeds up the game and acts as a balancing factor to turtle control. The lack of decent throws for aggro decks to put pressure on control was one factor in the dominance of Gill Wall decks and the like after I left - a small factor but significant. FFG has reversed that policy and thankfully now we are seeing the results.
I'm sure those of you who were regular readers of my UFScards column will recall (and I've already restated it for those who weren't) my penchant and fondness for control. I am told that control is severely crippled in this format and has few attractive options. From a cursory glance at the card pool, this is NOT the case. I see great potential in certain characters for heavy control with few attacks, particularly Rashotep and Algol. Again, I have yet to play a single game in the new format, so take what I say with a heavy grain of salt. But it seems to me that Algol's ability combined with Alshain Najm's combo enhance screams out for abuse. Oh, and he has Void...
Still, right now UFS is in a good solid place with it's aggro options. James Hata, Jin, Ivy, and Pommel-Smashing Astrid seem very promising. Without really knowing what the meta is like, these 4 characters definitely strike me as very fast with lots of potential. All the characters are playable, every character has decent to great support and the blocking system/throw overhaul has done wonders. In essence, UFS is back and legitimately better than ever. And, maybe, so am I??? Back, at least. Better than ever, that remains to be seen. Until next time, guys and gals, Peace.
Normally, whenever I wrote about UFS, I always had something specific to say. This time, however, I find myself in a strange position of being out of the loop. Perhaps I was barely IN the loop in the first place, heh. Having decided to return to the game, though, I think it's interesting to examine the process of working back into competitive shape a bit.
This isn't the first time in my life that I quit a card game, only to return. There's a little game out there you might have heard of, Magic: The Gathering? Yes well, at last count I had quit and returned to MTG at least 5 times. Sometimes, it was a simple reason - like the metagame being horrendous, the primary reason I took an extended vacation from UFS. Anyone who played Magic in the Urza block or Mirrodin block eras, or even as far back as the infamous "Black Summer" of 1996, knows how unfun the game had become. UFS, when I quit, was much the same way. Too many BRTs and Chester's Backings running around, not to mention the murderous (literally) Feline Spike. Our local playgroup, partly due to my own preferences, loved to tinker with control decks - and at this period we were building 75-85 card decks with literally every bag of tricks. They were so boring to PLAY with. Play being the operative word. It is very aggravating to build a deck with so much negation, simply because neither you nor your opponent have any true interaction. Attacks, hah! Who needed those? I think our best decks in this era - including my SAS-winning Athena deck - had at max 10 attacks. AT MAXIMUM. That is not good for a game that is billed as a fight simulation of sorts. It's pretty hard to attract new fans of fighting games if there isn't actually any, um, fighting!
So, now we as a community are all aware of the impact to the meta, and looking at where we stand now I can't help but feeling giddy. As far as I am aware, and I could be wrong so please correct me if this is the case, only 3 sets are currently legal for standard UFS play - SCIV: Tower Of Souls, ShadoWar and Tekken 6. Looking over the cards last night, as part of my "studying" (while pointedly ignoring my actual studying, thank you very much), I found a lot of changes very intriguing.
First of all, the potential of Combo attacks is fantastic, and the card interactions that can result out of pulling them off is wonderful. I remember when James first got to FFG, we had a conversation about making series of attacks more useful and he mentioned this mechanic in its' infancy. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be this good, or fundamental. For really, the best attacks in the game now revolve around their combo potential and effects/enhances, in order to get that massive damage off. That is a fair and reasonable tradeoff for all that power - restriction, based in drawing and playing a number of attacks in a defined sequence. For all the smashing that Knight Breaker provides, it comes with a good drawback.
Speaking of which, even if you don't pull of that KB killer and wreck your opponent's staging area, well guess what? The solid stats of bygone days are back as well, except in much more vast numbers and quality basic attacks across the board. I'm loving the new policy on Throws, something that speeds up the game and acts as a balancing factor to turtle control. The lack of decent throws for aggro decks to put pressure on control was one factor in the dominance of Gill Wall decks and the like after I left - a small factor but significant. FFG has reversed that policy and thankfully now we are seeing the results.
I'm sure those of you who were regular readers of my UFScards column will recall (and I've already restated it for those who weren't) my penchant and fondness for control. I am told that control is severely crippled in this format and has few attractive options. From a cursory glance at the card pool, this is NOT the case. I see great potential in certain characters for heavy control with few attacks, particularly Rashotep and Algol. Again, I have yet to play a single game in the new format, so take what I say with a heavy grain of salt. But it seems to me that Algol's ability combined with Alshain Najm's combo enhance screams out for abuse. Oh, and he has Void...
Still, right now UFS is in a good solid place with it's aggro options. James Hata, Jin, Ivy, and Pommel-Smashing Astrid seem very promising. Without really knowing what the meta is like, these 4 characters definitely strike me as very fast with lots of potential. All the characters are playable, every character has decent to great support and the blocking system/throw overhaul has done wonders. In essence, UFS is back and legitimately better than ever. And, maybe, so am I??? Back, at least. Better than ever, that remains to be seen. Until next time, guys and gals, Peace.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
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