Did hardcore, dedicated control lose it's way? Did it find itself unable to cope with the increasing speed of the format? Matt Kohls was able to push a hybrid deck through in 2006 Worlds; a brilliant combination of maximizing and exploiting Tira's aggro capabilities along with backup from Evil's support to combat the expected Void presence enabled him to secure the championship. Despite his smart advance planning and success, control remained the most popular and effective option for quite some time. It's hard to say whether there was an exact tipping point, but I believe the apex of control-oriented decks was the Central Canadian Championship, won by Stephen Liu with his version of Cassandra that incorporated the then-recently released Dark Hado (SF03). The combination of foundation denial, action negation, AND control check hacking in addition to the usual Void control elements was far too insane to not have STG intervene at some point, since even if you went purely aggressive there was still the possibility of forcibly failing your checks. Thankfully, they did so sooner rather than later and yet, control still did not evaporate overnight as a few hopefuls no doubt wished. This was most evident when examining the results of the Canadian Nationals that took place a few months later, in May - 6 of the top 8 decks were pure control decks off either Order or Void, and the remaining two represented one Evil hybrid deck (Promo Tira) and of course the winner, Fire aggro Matt Kohls piloted by Jacky Tang. The fact that a purely aggressive and blazingly fast deck was able to get past a field of control and actually win a major tournament was significant in the changing of the guard occurring in UFS, but still not as significant to me as the fact that control still reigned supreme, as I wrote at the time.

 
The timing of the Canadian Nationals, in May, seems really interesting when you look back at it now. In February, The Dark Path and Soul Arena were released and, pardon the expression, all hell broke loose. UR Talim and Abyss were errated right away, and both still caused their fair share of problems. Talim had an infinite combo and Abyss was just plain stupid. This is the same time frame where we were subjected to One-Armed Maneuvers/Rolling Storm and Manji Ninjtsu combos (first with Erode the Human Soul and then Shield Bash/Angelic Grace/UR Zasalamel). UR Adon was doing unspeakable things with various throws followed by a Bo Rush, for which I am at least partially responsible (sorry). Ryu's Asharu Senku had nasty combos with UR Sagat, Promo Ukyo, and naturally **Ken** as well. It was mostly the Degenerate Zone for a while there, with turn 1 and 2 kills being the norm rather than the exception. And ironically, traditional control was frozen out of the entire meta. This didn't take long to rectify, and eventually the meta did settle down. Control returned in full force at CanNats. Had it been a few months earlier...who knows what would have happened? Yet it did not, and it wasn't until after all the erratas and bannings that control re-asserted itself. Many mourned.

 
In the intervening time before Worlds itself, several major tournaments took place that give us a clue as to when the meta really began to permanently shift. James Hata took US Nationals with a hybrid ***Cassandra*** deck that was unusually aggressive for a Death-based design, with Cassie's speed pumps pushing attacks through for violent amounts of damage even as your hand was being stripped. Will Simao took the West Coast Championships with a Void SakuraUR Vega off Evil. The two results most suggestive of a paradigm shift were Joshua Lowen's victory in New Zealand Nationals with a hyper aggressive UR IbukiUR Dhalsim. In particular, despite the varied control and unique tech present in James' deck, a Fire deck defeating a Void deck was very, very good news for the future of UFS (if in all honesty not being such good news for me personally, heh). It should also be noted that most of these Top 8's had diverse and balanced representation. Perhaps Josh's victory in New Zealand really proved that change was here to stay - a primarily Water-based deck winning a national tourney would have been all but unthinkable a few months ago. that was capable of 2nd turn kills, narrowly defeating Jean Cox and his hybrid deck and James Hata's second big win in a row over my own Void

With this as the backdrop for Worlds, anticipation and curiousity were high as to what could potentially win and the final 16 contained more than a few surprises but further confirmed that the meta had solidly congealed into a delicate balance where aggro was definitely fast enough to hold its own and control decks everywhere were forced to speed up or ship out - and a hybrid deck that took the best elements of both was the victor in the end. Out of the 180+ competitiors, nearly 2/3rds of the decks played were pure aggro. The most popular character was Yun-Seong, with 15 players brave enough to weather the diversity storm. 10 of the 12 resources made up the Top 16, and there were exactly 7 aggro and 7 control decks (and two Evil hybrid decks, Tira and Vega). In the end, Andrew Olexa became 2007 UFS World Champion in a tightly contested 3-game match against Stephen Liu's Methodical Fighter Promo Rock deck, Void being the main resource. Just prior to Set 6 becoming legal, it appeared that Evil still ruled the UFS universe.

You may be asking yourself why this little jaunt down UFS history is relevant to today's meta, in which you could argue that aggro rules supreme. My answer to that, and my theory on metagame analysis, is that before you fully understand where you are, you've got to understand how you got there. Since the releases of Set 5 and Set 6, aggro has exploded onto the scene to the dismay of control players everywhere. Starting with Rare and Promo Yun-Seong and his support pieces such as Whereabouts Unkown and Bird of Prey, moving on to Ibuki and her supporting cards (most notably Shinobi Tradition, Kunai, and Kasumi Gaki), and continuing the trend with new challengers in Jubei, Luise, Rare Astaroth, either of the two new Cassandras, and more than the characters themselves some individual cards have enabled aggro to really pull ahead in the race, while control struggles to redefine itself. Absurd Strength is present in droves, and for good reason - it lives up to it's name. Pieces of Eight and Rigorous Training are good stopgap solutions, but come rotation you have to wonder whether there will be enough answers to deal with such a large damage pump. The same goes for Way of the Mightiest. Unrequited Love can do the same for speed, and it's re-usable. There are some major new attacks to watch out for; Treacherous Ballade, Quartet of Oblivion, and Moonbeam Slicer being among them. Irresistable Force is sick with Dark Hado (SF04) out, and Scourge of ZeusHigher Calibur. This is not to say that control did not get any effects to even out the tilt; Ruler of Southtown can put the game into a stalemate until control is established; Brethren of the Coast and Won't Settle for Second Best! help to slow the game down for a bit and every card has a block, which is not a bad thing at all. makes both UR Adon and Promo Adon and Matt Kohls even more dishearteningly quick than they were before. And perhaps the most effective and comprehensive answer ever arrives in 

Ultimately, as I'm sure you've all noticed in your own games and matches for the last few weeks, aggro has become the predominant overall strategy, as currently it's the archetype with the biggest bang literally and metaphorically. There is too much stuff out there right now that can come for your entire life total with almost no setup at all; draw a Chain Throw and a couple of Absurd Strengths and depending on the situation you could possibly one-shot your opponent right then and there. My point is that this is a dramatic turn of events in the game from this point even a year ago, and one to keep an eye on and prepare for. I was playing my Dhalsim against a buddy's Matt Kohls deck this weekend and in one contest he did so much damage to me on his first turn (going second) that the only chance I had to win the game and the match was by drawing a Power Up for the Seichu Nidan Tsuki in my hand, blowing up my lone foundation to make him discard his last two cards and checking a Seichu at 6 while needing to roll a 5 or better to win. Which I did, to his chagrin. But when UR Dhalsim has to 2TK Matt Kohls to stand a chance, it says quite a bit about the current state of the game, no? Join me next week as I will discuss some specific power decks in the current meta and possibly take a closer look at Andrew Olexa's Worlds-winning UR Vega. I will also try and compile a list of the Top 10 current players in the world along with their achievements, which should make for good discussion fodder at the very least! As always, feel free to drop me a line on the boards at my thread or via PM or you can email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Till next time...