Congratulations to our new UFS World Champion James Hata, who is also now the newest member of FFG staff. I have to admit, the second statement excites me a lot more than the first for many reasons. First of all, we finally have a member of staff that has a good eye for competitive cards, which should directly translate into a more balanced game. Second, it's gonna be a real pain in the ass to get his staff card off of him. The age old joke about taking candy from babies ends with Mr. Hata, which means we can expect the card to be worth its weight in gold. All joking aside, however, the last month of UFS has left us with more information than analysts, so everyone who hasn't been in on ground zero for the last couple weeks has some serious catching up to do. Hopefully I can cover most of the major points today, and follow up with the predictions for the future in the next article. That said, let's get to it.

Ibuki

Let's talk about the best character in the game and why no other character but Ibuki can claim that title. Several factors all fall into place beautifully to make Ibuki the unstoppable force that she is today. First of all, there is no Ibuki that does not have the best symbol in the game, Evil. That, in and of itself is already a great start, as most characters with the pitchfork can already claim a significant advantage over their competitors merely for sporting the dreaded red symbol. Evil's dominance is well-documented and deeply understood by many of the best players in the world, and every one of them can tell you that one of Evil's few weaknesses is the lack of a kill card. Ibuki does not have that weakness.

A great player once told me that a great player once told him that the key to being dominant in any card game is to look for cards that break the rules. Kasumi Suzaku is one such card. Not only does it get easier to play as you play more cards, but each subsequent Suzaku is harder to block than the last-but you knew that.

The final component is Ibuki's newest incarnation. Is it better than her banned version? Perhaps not defensively, but on offense she definitely boasts more attacking potential early game that any other character in the game. It is not uncommon to play against Set 9 Ibuki and get hit by a Suzaku as part of your opponent's opening gambit. In fact, you should probably question the quality (or the luck) of your opponent if you don't catch a Suzaku or two in the first two turns of the game. Mix in the standard Evil fanfare and you end up with an already amazing deck made unbelievable thanks to the inclusion of these character-exclusive bombs. Every game with Ibuki turns into a cat-and-mouse guessing game where you're saving high blocks for the Suzakus while getting raped by Chain Throws only to get raped by Suzakus when you finally crack and block the Chain Throws with your high blocks.

Ibuki's path of dominance is very well defined in the aftermath of worlds as a there hasn't been a top 8 in months lacking the teenage ninja girl. In fact, just about the only challenge you run into when building Ibuki is how to dodge diversity, as her greatness hasn't exactly gone by under the radar. For team events, Ibuki is almost mandatory as a third of the team. You'd need a ridiculous reason not to run her, and "because I don't want to" should only make you question your motivations if you plan on trying to win anything these days.

As if you needed any more reasons, Ibuki is fast. Just so you get an idea what I mean, I'm talking "my teammates haven't even decided on pairings and I'm already back at the concession stand getting drinks" fast.

Mill

You need to have your mill plan firmly established and practiced if you're going to succeed in today's metagame. It can be as simple and transparent as nailing your opponent with 4 Suzakus turn 2, or as oblique as siding in 4 Fortune Tellers and 4 Deadly Rave, but the plan needs to be there, rehearsed and ready for top tier opposition. You only get an average of 2 losses per tournament and if your plans against mill aren't in order you might as well have stayed at home, because mill as a strategy is only becoming more popular and its technology is becoming more advanced.

The loss of Happy Holidays was only a speed bump in the ascension of this archetype. Even I have begun to experiment with Mill, something I would have angrily objected to 6 months ago. The Injury Assets have made it possible for these decks to dodge various sorts of aggro and lock them out in a stranglehold.

The latest successful version of Mill comes to us from our National Champion Omar, and his signature Voldo which is really a more advanced version of the Voldo Tristan del Valle was beating people with just after rotation. Let's also not forget Steve Kline's Order/Void Yun Seong masterpiece and that deck's break away success and you may start to get the opinion that Mill may be a great way to get yourself some tournament wins.

All of this is well and good, but these decks take a lot of skill to play, as well as foresight, and patience. You can't rush things with your mill deck or you'll find yourself running and getting your drinks at the loser's table, as some other guy tells the story about how he turned two'd your sorry behind at the winner's table. Playing Mill is hard, almost as hard as playing against it, but the payouts can be incredible as it almost guarantees the win against opponents who are less skilled than yourself, something that aggro decks cannot boast to be true.

Set 10

Thanks to an early sale at Gen Con, we now have a very nearly completed picture of set 10 to work with and the initial impressions of the set as a whole are downright staggering, and not in an "OMG this set is the pwnz0rs" sort of way. The sheer pressure of the combined number of palms hitting faces registered on the Richter Scale. Between Seong- Mina's infinites and Soiree's foundation readying, and Jivatma's Evil support, you have to ask yourself "do these guys ever learn?" A set full of foundation readying and infinite combos is a recipe for disaster, all you have to do is microwave the sucker for a minute and add water. I suppose that if you want to buff other symbols you simply think of the most broken nonsense you want to do and apply it to symbols not named All, Order, and Evil, but even that isn't right, because all of Seong-Mina's infinites require momentum and have the Order symbol, which is one of the freaking undisputed kings of momentum as well as one of the undisputed kings of putting infinite combos together thanks to Military Rank (which is making news for other reasons, but more on that later).

At this point I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the original designers, and remind myself that UFS is still in the transitional phase with FFG, and I'm inclined to give it a free pass, like I would give up the front seat on the bus to a guy in a wheelchair, but when everyone else around me is chomping at the bit to break this set in half, I'm inclined to think crazy things like Hata is the prophesied Messiah come to bail us out of this nonsense and take us into the golden age of UFS. At least he'd better be. At this point I guess I can only be hopeful, like I am about Obama's chances at the presidency and reducing gas prices and global warming and all that, but when I see all of it written down I'm starting to think my expectations are so optimistic they border on irrationality. I've heard there's a problem with having cake and subsequently eating it, apparently.

Rest assured, however, that a more in-depth review of set 10 is on the way, as it already appears to be a more interesting set than set 9 ever promised to be-if infinite combos and readying effects that attract more ban hammers than any other effects don't really bother you, that is.

The Ban Hammer

Speaking of bannings, the popular notion on the grapevine is that September promises a flurry of activity from the ban hammer, and it's almost guaranteed that Military Rank and Higher Calibur are about to join Hugo's collection of cards in a parallel existence. This, however, is not enough, if the forums are to be believed, a list of other cards have incurred the ire of the general UFS community, namely Addes Syndicate and the Injury Assets (and also Rejection).

I personally, haven't seen an Addes since the SCC, but then again, there were also catgirls and unicorns running around at the event, which should give you an appreciation of the rarity of the whole scenario, but apparently the top finishers at the World Tournament featured the $50+ Super Rares (pronounced mythical creatures) like they were on sale at Wal-Mart and apparently playing against them is no fun. I would place them in the same category as Military Rank, in that they provide an amazing effect that would cost an arm and 7 years of indentured servitude in any other game, for essentially no cost whatsoever (barring the smoking hole left in your bank account from the purchase of a playset), but hey, this is UFS and I can honestly say I'm not surprised that this kind of stuff is running around anymore. Add Blood Runs True to the list (and the fact that Destiny was really a stab in the back all along), and you get a more complete picture of the kind of cards I'm referring to. We're talking about cards that could have their names replaced by their monetary value on the secondary market and other players would still know exactly what cards you're talking about.

"Oh, I'll respond with fifty dollars."

According to everything I've heard however, there are no plans for Addes Syndicate to go anywhere, because the card is "fair and balanced."

Just like Fox News.

Perhaps September can bring balance to the Force, but just like in Star Wars, I think the only way for that to be done is for Anakin to run around killing a bunch of Jedi, meaning FFG is going to need to do more than just ban 2 cards, and seriously consider some sort of drastic (and controversial) powering down of the metagame. Seriously, what's the worst that could happen? If the rumors are to be believed, the game is already bleeding customers left and right (a fact I really can't believe judging from all the new faces I've seen in just 6 month's absence) and the game's far from any semblance of balance as it is. It's almost as if that's how everyone wants the game to remain for the entirety of its existence.

To be honest a lot of people get very emotionally involved with UFS because it deals with characters and games that we love and care for outside of the cards, and I'm no exception, which is why many are prepared to love it at all costs, and others are too offended by the missteps of the previous staff to continue supporting it-at least that's my hypothesis as to why players rotate in and out so frequently. This recent rash of Soul Calibur promos is also under discussion as some rail against an environment flooded with Olcadan's Mentoring and Chester's Backing knocking at the door guaranteeing to turn some smiles upside down.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that FFG is actually watching cards in action instead of banning them on hypothetical premises, and I feel like anything they do can only be for the good of the game as a whole, but we hear less from those guys than Hellen Keller does, leaving me once again to my optimism that FFG is going to drop the hammer and everything is going to be right with the world, and Chester's Backing won't be the most unnecessarily printed back handed slap ever.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

-Ceejay