Alright fight fans we have some big stuff to cover this month so lets get ready to rumble.

First I want to congratulate Mike Lowe from Canada, who knocked out all comers and took the US Nationals title last weekend. A very strong performance during a very long event. I also want to congratulate team UFS house for finally breaking their finals curse and winning the team title, well done guys.

Alright next, it was clear that the bans I announced last month are not going to be enough to make the current meta more fun and exciting. So for the second month in a row I’m bringing out the ban hammer and this month I really put it to use. As of right now the following cards are banned:

Bitter Rivals

Fei Long’s Forward Kick

Chun Li

Juni’s Spiral Arrow

Rejection

Forethought

Also for the first time in a long time I also have some errata:

Feline Spike - has the following change:

Felicia Multiple:2

Chinese Boxing - has the following text added:

 Only playable during your attack

Tiger Fury - add the following:

Sagat Only

This was done to open up the meta and show you how serious we are about getting the game back to being about fighting. We believe this will have a big impact on Gen Con and make World’s a much more fun and exciting experience for everyone.

Speaking Gen Con, the schedule was posted a few months ago and has been on the Gen Con site ever sense then but it has come to my attention that some people are not aware of it, so here is the schedule:

Thursday August 13th:

Wandering Master 

Sign up: 10 AM

This event runs until noon on Sunday. You register a 5 point watermark only deck that you play challenge matches with during the convention, whoever wins the most matches wins. I will provide full details in the next couple of weeks as well as during sign up.

Team Worlds

Sign up: 10 AM

Start: 11AM

After you get signed up for the Wandering Master event come over and show the world who has the best team in UFS!

Legacy World Championships

Sign up: 2 PM

Start: 4 PM

First turn kills, degenerate combos, and endless loops, who has what it takes to win it all? A bit of a later start time to give people who dropped from teams a chance to play. 

Friday August 14th

Singles World Championship Day 1

Sign up: 12 Noon

Start: 1 PM

This is THE EVENT, where we crown a new world champion who gets the greatest prize in gaming. Number of rounds depends on on how players sign up. the number of players signed up will also determine how many we cut to to go on to day 2.

Saturday August 15th

World Championships Day 2

Starts: 11 AM

For those who survived day 1. We will pick up where we left off from day 1. If possible we will play out to crown the new champion, if it runs too late we will finish on Sunday.

There will also be side events on Saturday to play in, these will be posted closer to Gen Con.

Sunday August 16th

Worlds Day 3 (if needed)

A possible sealed side event if we have any TEKKEN by then. If so we may run this on Saturday depending on how long the main event goes on.

Yes I said if we have any TEKKEN. We heard from the printer yesterday and TEKKEN will not be ready in time to legal for World’s, strangely enough from the sounds of it at nationals a lot of people will be happy about this. The pre release event for Tekken will be the 4th, 5th, & 6th of September, with the regular release the following week.

The Regional champions dinner is a real cluster f%&k. Setting the attendance number at 32 would have been fine before the economy tanked, so to say this did not go as planned is an understatement. I don’t want to exclude anyone so instead of a dinner that I hear was not well received by some anyway I have come up with a different champion prize. We will put together a special prize pack containing product from the new Tekken set, along with a promo pack that will blow you away including a bunch of the new promos being printed with sets 13 & 14. If I can have it ready by Gen Con I will hand it to the the winners that are there and send it to the ones who can not make it. If not ready in time I will send it to everyone as soon I it is ready, this way every winner gets a prize weather they can come to Gen Con or not. 

I look forward to seeing all of you at Gen Con this year and the new meta the changes will bring, I also want to thank everyone who I talked to at Nationals, it was really good to talk over topics and issues face to face without useless flame wars getting the way. I hope to be able to do the same at Gen Con.   

There you have it for this month, until next time.

See you in the arena,

Steve

Holy Moly!

The dude with the banhammer from last years Gencon doesn't even need to show up this year!!!

- dut

ps. I feel like I can breathe again, I'm going to build me some decks

pps. You have done again what you said you always have to do (and regrettably), make the tough decisions, and have made ones that sit worst with the fewest number of people. You've never been bad in my books Steve, and here's hoping everyone else sees your last two states of game as I'm sure you have directed them, at improving a game that we all love. 

I think I must have just crapped myself after reading this. Every card I wanted gone is. This is alot more then I ever expected.

HOLY CRAPPP!!

The state of UFS just changed immensely worlds will be a huge change from what Nationals was.

What will the prizes be for wandering master.

This is awesome!!!!!  VERY happy with these bans/erratas!  The only one that bums me out is Tiger Fury being Sagat Only, but that is small.  Pretty much every card that needed to be dealt with is gone, so excellent job!

Gaius Marius said:

Tuesday, you got Tiger Fury errated - you know that right?

lol. But yeah, OTK being limited to certain characters is a good thing.

Also, the wandering master sounds great!!! Akin to the 24/7 tourney, and with mini-block flare to boot!!! I have just clicked the book air ticket and sign up for all of the events at Gencon.

- dut

everything is awesome accept forethought. do we really need this banned. without spiral arrow it will be almost imposible to hardlock so why ban this card? over all very nice. i am pretty excited to play ufs now.

FFGSteve said:

All fine.

FFGSteve said:

Feline Spike - has the following change:

Felicia Multiple:2

Again, cool.

FFGSteve said:

Only playable during your attack

Ha.

Ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Ha-ha ha-ha-ha.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

FFGSteve said:

Sagat Only

Not so sure on this one, but liveable.

EDIT: AAAAAAHHHH!

I FIXED THE FORUMS!

EDIT again: -ish.

trane said:

It is still possible to hardlock though.

Mina + 2X Spinta + 2X Forethought = lock

Self Sacrifice + 2X Forethought = lock

This is a better safe than sorry banning in my mind - yeeha!!!

- dut

Cascade your 2 posts made me so happy kudos!!

Happy Banada Day, everyone.

I'm happy with most of the bannings overall. But the new prizes for the regional winners kind of sucks because I gave the win to another player because I was probably not going to make it to GenCon anyways and I thought why waste the prize to someone who wants it. Alough we kind of played a semi just messing around finals and I lost it would have been a totaly differant game, oh well I probably would have still lost to Chun-li regardless.

Best Canada day ever!!!

Well, Worlds is now a completely new ball game.

This is going to be the old days, blood and guts UFS. 

6 weeks to build your EVIL decks :)

Paul

HOLY F, Batman!

...all that and still nothing happened to Ira Spinta!  I'd much rather see Spinta as Jedah only than Tiger Fury as Sagat only.

Overall this just goes to show that if you complain enough FFG will ban the cards that make you cry.  If FFG was running the show back in Block 1, Yoga Mastery would have most surely been banned.