BAN AND ERRATA UPDATE 02/04/2024
UVS Games Game Design Team
There are a few changes to the UniVersus Ban and Errata list this month. The Nationals events for all regions have completed and Worlds is right around the corner. The team has been closely observing the results from those events and while we are happy with some of the things about the Nationals metagame, there was a healthy diversity of winners and top cutting decks with not many games ending too early. We still believe there is room for improvement in play experience and symbol/character diversity.
Card Errata Update:
Bertolt Hoover, Living Weapon
Disarming Glance
Mimic
Nott's Flask
Recovery Girl
Bertolt Hoover, Living Weapon
OLD:
Enhance: Draw 2 cards and discard 2 cards. If the discarded cards are the same type, this attack gets +2 or -2 damage.
Response: At the start of the End Phase, transform Bertolt Hoover, Living Weapon. Each player chooses 3 foundations in their stage and sacrifices the rest. Only playable if a player has 9 or more foundations.
NEW:
Enhance: Draw 2 cards and discard 2 cards. If the discarded cards are the same type, this attack gets +2 damage.
Response: At the start of the End Phase, transform Bertolt Hoover, Living Weapon. Each player chooses 3 foundations in their stage and sacrifices the rest. Only playable if a player has 11 or more foundations.
Bertolt was designed with 2 main goals. The first goal was to capture the flavor of his devastating transformation. The Colossus Titan is a near unstoppable force, and even just the act of transforming causes incredible damage. The second goal was to create a character who would represent a difficult counter to decks who want to play into the super late game. We want to try and maintain those goals with this errata. But we want to create a less frustrating play experience.
Currently Bertolt represents a few issues. Firstly, he counters any deck that cannot output high damage attacks consistently and quickly. This heavily restricts the pool of viable decks in the format. We want to try and unlock those characters with this month's changes. That is why we have removed the damage reduction from the front side of the character. This should reduce the number of highly favorable matchups for Bertolt.
The other issue we wanted to address was the speed of his transformation. We saw as early as the first AoT set with Reiner, decks that were focused on very low interaction with their opponent as they rushed to their powerful transformations. This style of deck tends to be a negative play experience, and with Bertolt's very powerful Titan side, this once again became an issue. So we have adjusted the required number of foundations for his transformation, ensuring this is a tool that takes a little more work from himself, or a late game situation from his opponent to achieve.
Disarming Glance
OLD:
Response Flip: After an attack is played, players cannot play abilities that add cards to their hand until after it resolves.
NEW:
Response Flip: After an attack is played, players cannot play abilities that add cards to their hand during this attack.
Disarming Glance was intended as a tool to counter some of the stronger card advantage attacks in the game. Due to the original wording, it morphed into a tool that could completely shut down certain decks and strategies when combined with any ability that cancelled an attack before resolution. This is beyond the scope of our original goals for the card and as time has progressed, has become the primary reason people are playing the card. This errata brings the card back in line with our original vision for it.
Mimic
OLD:
Response [Once per turn]: After you check an asset, add 1 attack with a check value of 3 from your discard pile to your hand.
NEW:
Response Commit: After you check an asset, add 1 attack with a check value of 3 from your discard pile to your hand.
Mimic was our most represented character in top cuts during the Nationals season. The asset heavy unorthodox gameplan created a powerful set of tools that were difficult to interact with. Mimic’s ability to pick up any attack from his discard pile he needed provided a high floor through incredible consistency. This made him a high performing option as a competitive level that outpaced any other character.
Our errata for Mimic attempts to keep the interesting asset synergy intact, but lowers the floor and the ceiling of the characters power level by creating more difficult choices in his play pattern. Making the choice to pick up an attack is a much more meaningful one. Picking up early means losing out on his strong damage pump and waiting till later in the turn risks not checking an asset when it's needed.
Nott’s Flask
Gain’s the “Unique” keyword.
Ever since the ban of Risky Encounter, the “Casino” decks and popular cards in those decks have seen a dip in representation and success, except for Nott’s Flask. A single copy of Flask is a powerful offensive and defensive tool that also turbo charges your ability to mill yourself, potentially milling 6 cards per turn cycle. Multiple copies of Nott’s Flask not only did not decrease in value, but increased. Creating incredible defensive walls that reduced the need for blocking attacks and creating game ending scenarios where all the Flasks may be activated on a single unblockable attack at the end of an attack string. Adding “Unique” reduces the ability for multiple Flasks to completely take over a game, but lets the card still pack a big punch for a low cost.
Recovery Girl
OLD:
Response: After you take damage, build 1 foundation from your discard pile.
NEW:
Response: After you take damage, build 1 foundation from your discard pile committed.
Ever since release Recovery Girl has danced in and out of the competitive metagame. As new cards are released she is constantly gaining access to a plethora of interesting tools. She has become a favorite of some players who use her to assemble powerful combinations on their stage. The problem with Recovery Girl is she often proves to be a significant negative play experience for her opponents. Recycling defensive tools over and over to create highly polarized matchups, where based on how your deck is built you either have a highly favorable matchup or a near unwinnable one. We want to reduce the frustration of facing her, but not take away her ability to build the perfect combo machine. This errata significantly changes the way she plays defense, but keeps her ability to build the perfect staging area.
Our Card Errata and Legality Document is here.
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