I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test...

-"Changes" by David Bowie, co-written by John Lennon

Alright so, long time no see people! I apologize in advance for my extended break from writing, but sometimes real life intervenes. I have been busy searching for a real career that actually utilizes my degree some extent, rather than the terminally boring office job I once had. In between that and finding more time to spend with my girlfriend (and playing cards of course), it's been hectic. And honestly, for a long time I had nothing to write about! The meta for Legacy has played out to it's temporary coda much as I suspected it would, and I also feel that the conversation starters on the boards have eroded as everyone braces for the coming of set rotation. So, without further ado, let's finally get to it, starting with my trip report to STG (there are still problems with the recording of Steve's interview, but Omar is working on that for me):

I was fortunate enough to be invited to visit the Games Workshop building for a few days in December, a.k.a. the home of UFS. It was an exciting opportunity for sure and I had a blast. As I said, I should have written about this a month ago but in a weird way, with the previews already trickling in and the revealing of ShadoWar's Yi Shan, what I saw and learned while I was there becomes even more apparent and relevant to the upcoming changeover and what you're seeing now.

First things first - I landed on Thursday, the 13th of December, FAR later than I expected to. My lord, it was a horrible day to travel! I was delayed out of Southwest International Airport, my home base, and delayed AGAIN out of Atlanta. I finally did land in Memphis around 6:30 pm and Dave Freeman was there to pick me. We spent the 30-45 minutes of traveling to get dinner just chatting about life and the path he took to his current position at STG. It was a very informal interview, but I can give you some idea of what it was like at least. Dave is a very interesting guy who had a somewhat circuitous route to the gaming industry, but from what we spoke about it was something he wanted to pursue because of his vast experience with hobby games growing up. I found it fascinating that he majored in music and was originally planning to make that his career path, but through a lot of different converging points he ended up doing something instead that he is just as good at and clearly loves. I gotta say, right away it was awesome just shooting the breeze with him about all sorts of topics.

Then we went to meet with the head honcho at a McAlister's Deli for our evening meal. I refer of course to Sgt. Steve Horvath, the CEO of our beloved cardboard flopping. It was terrific seeing Steve again, and all three of us chowed down on nachos and and sandwiches for what seemed like forever (2 1/2 hours or so, actually). Once again, naturally we discussed UFS, and there was some stuff that we talked about that I can't reveal. Mostly, though, Steve was very open about my thoughts on the where UFS is headed and what the metagame and strategy was like from how I saw it. Also, I got to hear two of the creators of the game talk about every aspect of it that you could imagine, which was amazing. One very interesting discussion that cropped up during the dinner was about the nature of competition, especially pertaining to collectible card games. Both Steve and Dave gave examples of how they had won games in a particular game in the past when their opponent made a critical play mistake, and Steve's contention - one I agree with, by the way - was that individual skill level at games is defined by mistakes and minimizing them rather than an arbitrary barometer of success. We talked about Hata and Kohls and how I haven't seen them make many (if any) mistakes in a tournament setting or even casual games, which helps to explain their consistent success. So it went on from there until the "friendly" waitress all but glared us out of the restaurant with her seeming force of will as they were closing. We split with Steve and left to the hotel to drop off my things and figure out the rest of the evening.

Yes, the REST of the evening despite already being close to 11 PM. See, when STG first offered me this tremendous opportunity, I knew I wanted some company as much as I knew it would be wrong to ask for someone else to be flown down with me. I called Omar Chavez, aka Mr. GouHadou and Team Worlds Champion (as he won't let me forget) and asked if he could meet me there, despite the short notice - we only had a week to plan it out. He managed to wrangle it and STG had no problem, so we were all set. Except once again, planes are the enemy! Flying out of New York was an unmitigated disaster that day as there was a terrible blizzard and the airport was almost shut down. I thought for sure he'd never make it to Memphis.

Back to my trip, now Dave and I are chilling at a bar and we've been assured that Omar will join us shortly. Turns out shortly means another 3 or so hours later! We leave the bar at around 1 AM upon learning the news that Omar is delayed again, and Dave graciously decides to show me his home in the meantime. Dave, Bill Altig, and Gary Dubell all live in one house together, so it's kinda cool to see how well STG employees get along outside of the office. When we got there, Gary told us that he had just gotten a call from Omar telling him he landed and he was headed to the airport to bring him back to the house. Dave showed me all sorts of neat stuff while we waited, and his room was littered with Set 8 cards all over the place, which naturally I grabbed right away and started going through card by card. Despite already having seen the set spoiler by virtue of being a scout, looking at the actual cards themselves and the art was really cool. Since this is supposed to be an informative piece and we're near the release, I don't think I'll get into trouble for telling you the the new Sagat is a complete beast with a borderline-insanely powerful ability and that there is a new Start Over - at a higher cost - but it has ALL on it! After this, we played some Guitar Hero where I demonstrated my prowess at Freebird on Expert (5 stars, yes) and Dave showed me how he kicks ass at Amplitude. By this point Omar showed up, I harrassed him for sucking at flying, and Dave dropped us off to our hotel for the night with the stipulation to be ready 8:30 am tomorrow morning. So we just had to stay up till 5 AM playing UFS, right? Which we did. Apparently, Block 1 vs. Block 2 is pretty bad because Omar proceeded to destroy me in every match approximately 6 consecutive times with his two Type 1 monstrosities (Victor and Life toolbox fronting Demetri then Alex) against my near completely Type 2 arsenal. I didn't feel too bad about it though since he was a cheater! Boo for Order and Law and Size Matters + Mystic...

Friday, December 14th

 We still managed to wake up on time, and I looked like Death warmed over because of nicotine withdrawal. Don't smoke, kiddies! It causes all sorts of issues - not the least of which is headaches when you're out. We stopped at a gas station so I could feed my addiction and Dave could feed his - corndogs, far less sinister. We got to the office and immediately I was impressed by the giant figure guarding the gates to the Games Workshop building. It was funny to see regular suit and tie employees all day too, as the corporate offices are there as well. Thankfully I got to spend all my time with the fun people instead. I saw Justin, Stacy, and George and said hi, and got their character cards if I didn't have them already. I had met everyone at Worlds previously except for Sabe and Anna, and so I got to meet them for the first time. Both were really quiet though, and didn't say much while I was there. We headed out see the bunker, this gigantic gaming area right next door to the office where Erik told me that they had been painstakingly sorting cards for the last three weeks. Yes, that's right, they do it themselves.

After chatting about all sorts of stuff with Justin and Stacy, and checking out George's mega-database with every card in UFS on it (except the attack/speed numbers are in the wrong place, go figure), the real fun began. Games! Dave was the first victim available to play me. I had like 7 decks on me, all Block 2 except scubadude's Morrigan, but mostly I stuck to using this trip as an excuse to test my Evil/Fire Hybrid Cody deck for Block 2, which was undefeated in the local tourneys. Here is the decklist I used, for reference:

Starting Character:
1x 3/6 ***Cody***, 7HS 24V, Death/Evil/Fire

Character Blocks (9):
4x 3/6 ****Cody**** +0M (Fire)
3x 3/6 ***Cody*** +0M (Death/Evil/Fire)
2x 6/6 *Cody* +0M (Evil/Fire)

Foundations (25 + 4):
4x 4/4 Pieces of Eight +2H (Death/Evil)
3x 3/4 Trade Your Passion For Glory +2M (Inf)
2x 2/5 Grim Stride (Death/Evil/Fire)
2x 2/5 Oral Dead +1L (Death/Evil)
2x 2/5 Brethren of the Coast +1L (Evil)
4x 2/5 Higher Calibur +1M (Death/Evil)
4x 1/5 Unrequited Love +3M (Evil/Fire)
4x 1/5 Megalomania (Death/Evil)

Actions (4):
4x 1/5 Absurd Strength +1M (Evil/Fire)

Assets (2):
2x 3/3 Seal of Cessation +2L (Inf)

Split (4):
4x 2/5 or 3/5 Clones

Attacks (16 + 4):
4x 5/3 Chain Throw (Fire/Evil)
3x 5/2 Seichu Nidan Tsuki (Fire)
3x 4/3 Widow Maker +2M (Fire)
3x 4/3 Ken's Low Roundhouse +2H, Breaker: 1 (Fire)
3x 3/3 Kunai +3L (Evil)

Total: 60 + 1 cards

Sideboard (8):
4x 6/3 Infiltrating +3H (Evil)
2x 3/3 Seal of Cessation +2L (Inf)
1x 3/4 TYPFG +2M (Inf)
1x 2/5 Grim Stride (Evil/Fire)

Dave was running a pure Fire aggro ****Mitsurugi**** deck focused on both his abilities and using Challenge the Master to spam out a whole ton of cheap and effective attacks and either lead or finish with an 8th Bill. It was a good deck but he even admitted that it wasn't as tuned as it could have been. First game, I was able to cancel his CtMs consistently and after stacking Red Cody, I won with Seichu as a reversal. Game 2 he got off on me and pummeled me to dust. Game 3 was far different, as I got control early and tossed a lot of Chain Throws with Absurds and KLRs for the win. We had a rematch as well, with I believe the same deck, which I also won 2-0 in fairly short order. Afterwards he said that his attack base needed some work and I agreed but told him that I loved the concept. He didn't have his staff card handy so I am owed two by Mr. Freeman in the future.

Next was the big interview with Steve, which Omar recorded on his phone but we have been unable to transcribe due to technical issues, although that may be resolved soon. But it was a good 30 minutes of his time and completely informal with almost nothing off-limits. I asked just about every question I could think of with regards to block rotation and the like and he was very forthcoming. There was word on new licenses off the record that I can't discuss, but everything else was on record. He assured both me and Omar that Legacy will be a supported format at major events, in some capacity, but they hadn't worked out specific details as of then. He said that they will try and follow a schedule every year with semi-major events like AoPs in the early part of the year, US Nationals in June, other Nationals events either before of right after Worlds and Worlds for sure fixed in August. He was surprised when I broached the subject of perhaps some discontent among players as to the Assets of Power themselves. Both Omar and I explained that while we felt that all the Seals were playable and that some would prove their worth in the future, Seal of Cessation was so far ahead of the other eleven in terms of playability, flexibility, and value that it overshadowed everything else. Steve's thoughts were that right now it fills a necessity and that in time it would balance out in favor of the other seals. While we were in the middle of the interview, Steve got the extension for the SCIII license literally in his hand in front of us and we witnessed him sign it. Other topics of discussion were the recent spate of bannings and how in-house testing and outside testing works, and so on. It was a terrific and open interview and I promise that I will have the complete transcript for you as soon as my Hotmail stops sucking and lets me actually look at the damned recording. 

 By this time it was getting close to lunch, but I got a few more games in. Justin and Stacy had been busy all day and the only real time I got to hang out with Justin was when he took me to the designated smoking area and we just talked about his new Master/Apprentice program and why it was implemented. He said that the main thing was that the "bring a friend" promotions weren't successful at growing the player base because players would just bring someone who didn't care about the game all that much just to get their free cards, like their moms or girlfriends. We also just talked about life in general and also the then-upcoming BCS title game between LSU and OSU, which I assured him would be won by the SEC team for the second straight year, For those who don't know, Justin is an OSU grad and I'm a UF grad and I ride him mercilessly for it, heh. Hey, it turns out I was right!

I came back and played a quick match with George, as he was the only staff member to beat me at Worlds and so I had vengeance on my mind. He was playing a dirty ShadoWar character who, without revealing too much, has one ability that can stop keyword effects. Since my deck used Seichu Nidan Tsuki as a finisher, this was not good. And he was running Set 8 cards like the recently previewed Addes Syndicate. Unfortunately, both games he rolled horrifically and had to either commit his character or I used my TYPFGs to do it for him. He died a swift and horrible death in about 15 minutes and I exacted my revenge for the Sankuro beatdown he gave me at Worlds. Since I already had his character card, he gave me another copy that said "You're the Best Around" on it, which I gave away as a prize to the winner of my tournament the next day when I was back home. 

Right before lunch, I wanted to challenge Steve as he was the guy with the hardest-to-get card in my estimation. He gladly accepted, especially since I was playing Cody and he was playing Yi Shan (if you haven't seen what he does, check out the flier here: http://www.sabertoothgames.com/ufs/pdfs/yi_shan_redemption.pdf). This was pretty much the nightmare matchup for Cody, and was astoundingly difficult to play against. Game 1, I also had a marked disadvantage in that Steve's build was off Good and I couldn't Infiltrate away all his damage redux until after sideboarding. Ironically, I added the Infiltratings to maindeck after my trip. Anyway, the first game was a complete beatdown on me. No, I never stacked Cody, but I did roll all my TYPFGs and I swear I tossed about every attack in my deck at him and he was STILL at 14 vitality! Meanwhile, a steady stream of Air Backbreakers and Piggyback Tulisons for 2 damage extra apiece kept bashing my head in and Steve won the first round. Since we were all running late for the lunch break, we decided to postpone the match the rest of us in the office that hadn't left yet all decided on Wendy's for lunch - Steve, Dave, me, Omar, Tom, and Erik.

Wendy's was fun, with all the talk centered around classic videogames, me and Omar trading Chappelle's Show quotes which went over Steve's head, and why Promo T. Hawk kinda sucks (the reasoning on his ability's cost being so steep was that he can basically be a discard character and they thought it would be really powerful, just so you know). I think Goo called Omar also and I talked to him for a bit, which was nice. We headed back to the office and discussed the crappy new Burger King ads on the way. I found it funny how much Steve hated that ad, as a CEO. His perspective was that Burger King basically alienated it's customers for a lousy advertisement and might have cost themselves a bunch of patrons for absolutely no reason. It makes sense, but only a CEO would think like that! Also, they asked me about CCGs in India and whether there was a market there, after I asked about Japan's market. I promised to smuggle in some UFS to my connections there at some point in the future.

Upon arrival at Games Workshop, Steve got busy for a bit so I wandered around for a while as I waited to resolve our battle. I mostly looked at the Set 9 printsheets and the promos that you all just got this month, among some others and the ShadoWar characters. STG works 3 sets in advance, so things that might appear imbalanced now have answers in the future. This explains why Absurd Strength was such a problem at first, but now it has more answers in the form of Stone Mail, Spiritual Center and the like. What I loved about Set 8 was that, for the first time since the Ryu/Akuma Battle Box, my baby Void control comes back in a big way. There are all sorts of neat control pieces without the ubiquitous power of Yoga Mastery that are still equally effective. The other cool thing is the resource-enhanced bonuses that Set 8 has in abundance. For example, a card may have a certain ability and then a second ability that is only playable of your character has a particular resource that is usually better than the generic version.

After exploring for a bit, as well as looking over at the Champions characters and assets, Steve called me over to finish the match. I sideboarded out 3x Ken's Low Roundhouse and 2x Seal of Cessation for 4x Infiltrating and the 4th TYPFG. Game 2 progressed much better for me, as I got an early TYPFG out and was able to push a decent amount of damage through. Then I got a look at Steve's sideboard card - Red Lotus of the Sun, a brutally powerful Kyo card from the upcoming set that can R commit to stop an effect that negates, destroys, or commits one of your cards in plays. Yes, that's right, a foundation answer to TYPFG and Infiltrating! How convenient. Except that he only had one out. He made a play mistake not playing out his second one, because the next turn I baited it with my TYPFG, he canceled, and I blew up the world AND followed it with a Pieces of Eight and 3 foundations. He never recovered and I used POE's form ability to cancel Yi Shan and his damage redux and Seichu'd him for game. Game 3, he got foundation hosed and I started the game with 3 Infiltratings in my hand, so it got ugly quickly and a few Chain Throws + my favorite multiple 2 finisher gave me the match. Once again, I got hosed out of a character card though as Steve couldn't find his, so he rainchecked me. The guy has a whole box of foily Yoga Masteries sitting around in his office and he can't find one copy of his card, unbelievable ;-)

It was almost time for me to leave, because me being an idiot I left all my stuff at the hotel which basically added up to an hour less time for me than I would have normally had. Still, I couldn't go without facing my main man Tom Kohler in a few matches. I decided to switch it up since Cody was undefeated on the day and went with my Life/Chaos :::Cammy::: against his Void Lizardman. First game, he played out his whole opening hand (!) and I nearly FTK'd him with Cammy's Low Roundhouse x2, **Spin Drive Smasher**, Kunai, and all I had to do was roll a 5 to pass the lethal Moonbeam Slicer and I failed and died the next turn, aargh. Game 2, I got wailed on by all sorts of discard + throws and Forsakens. Ow. I then challenged him to Cody against his ridiculous Evil Ibuki deck that I had already looked over earlier in the month, so I knew how sick it was. Cody was viciously beaten like a rented mule by multiple Suzakus and Night Side Stance cheatery. It's fitting that Kohler was my only loss, as it was payback for the Dhalsim vs. Hanzo horror that I subjected him too at Worlds. I also started a match with Erik and his crazy mill Yun-Seong that was going rather badly until Dave reminded me that we had to leave now, to catch the flight. Ah well, another time perhaps, Mr. Baddest Man in Gaming.

All in all, it was a tremendous and unexpected opportunity, my only regret being that the trip didn't last longer and we had such short time to plan! Omar stayed till the next day and caught a movie as well as visting a local meta, which was cool. I wish I could say my trip ended on Friday but alas, 3 flight delays and a missed layover later I ended up stuck in Atlanta for the night. AND I had another postponed flight the following morning, yikes! One thing I learned from this trip - never fly anywhere in December, ever.

I hope you all enjoyed this report, again I wish to sincerely thank Steve Horvath for giving me the chance of a lifetime, Omar and Dave for the company, Tom for holding off on his vacation so I could see him again and everyone else at STG for making it a blast, and the staff cards + extras that all my players loved. My thoughts on what I experienced basically reaffirm my faith in the company and the direction of this great game, and all of that was supported by the cards themselves and the intelligent and dedicated designers behind them. I have great hopes for ShadoWar as a license as well, and you should all be excited because it looks AWESOME and has a terrific and well-mapped storyline going for it. If you have any questions or comments on this piece, please don't hesitate to PM me or email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Until next time, my peeps...

-Vik