Happy New Organized Play Year

Looking Back at 2024 and Celebrating 2025

Zoe McNamara here—Wow, what a wild year! As I sit down and look back at what cards and games I gifted my friends and family this past holiday season, there's one thing I know for sure: everyone in my life got something from UVS Games. Good thing we had enough STAR TREK: Star Realms in stock! And the love for the Solo Leveling decks… that felt good!

As we celebrate this past year and the end of our 2024 OP, there’s so much to look back and learn from. Every time I get to attend our premier events or chat with local players, I hear firsthand what you loved and where we can do better. If you have a few, go grab some tea, and let’s chat about this whirlwind of a year.

Booster Sets: The Good

Three IPs across four sets gave us a chance to really showcase what makes UniVersus special. I’m especially proud of how we wove the spirit of our game into such awe-inspiring worlds.

The retro alts in YuYu Hakusho were a nod to our legacy, with game design led by the ever-passionate Jeremy Ray. He first shared his vision for the retro ALTs during a car ride to Mox Boarding House last year, and that moment of excitement still sticks with me. I am going to have to find my way to Nationals this year to get the next YuYu retro alt! 

Girl Power celebrated the most consistently powerful custom art of any of our MHA releases, it’s packed with badass energy. If you’ve got a grid of CH-ALT cards, lay them out and just soak up that strength. Our characters are all about action, and their expressions practically leap off the table!

Then there was Attack on Titan: Battle for Humanity. We managed to bring the resource-scarce world of Paradis into a symbol-constricted set. Integrating Isayama-san’s brutal vision with our resource symbol colors was a big, bold move. Playing my Chaos deck this holiday with its vivid magenta—symbolizing rage, despair, sacrifice—I’m filled with awe. The way we integrated this depth of narrative into UniVersus was no small feat.

Booster Sets: The Learnings

Of course, not everything went smoothly. Day one erratas? Too many tears were shed. We aimed high and missed a few targets. Our team has been working tirelessly to prevent those egg-face moments in the future. I believe 2025 will be a better year with the safeguards we’ve put in place.

Our Titan of a set? We bit off more than y’all wanted to chew in our desire to grow. Next year, no set will have more than 215 cards—and personally, I’m relieved. Growth is important, but let’s focus on growing our community rather than our set sizes. That said, it was joyful to see so many of you repping Battle for Humanity at regionals. 

Challenger Series: One Year In!

I can’t believe it’s almost the one-year anniversary of our Challenger Series! Bringing the ultimate debates in fandom to life across the table —from Spike vs. Vash? Who is the ultimate kaiju? It has been such a thrill. The series has also allowed us to test the waters and build relationships with new licenses (Critical Role fans, looking at you!).

But with innovation comes learning curves. Should we release decks in pairs? Quads? Solo (Leveling 😂)? What’s the right number of characters per deck? What’s the optimal drop rate for collectors’ boosters? What content should we highlight in our booklet? 

Our first hurdle was differentiating Challenger Series from Clash Decks. We initially used the same packaging, which confused both retailers and players. By the time we hit Critical Role, we upgraded to foil board, and for Godzilla, we introduced a window front. But it’s the lenticular character cards in Lower Decks that will really take things to the next level. Beam me up!

Challenger Series is a great way to bring experienced CCG players into UniVersus. The competitive out-of-the-box decks, plus the collectors’ boosters, offer a taste of the alt art and print treatments we’ve worked so hard on. The reticulated varnish on the Ghidorah Alt Art might just be my favorite card of the year—so lush! ✨ But we know that drop rates have been inconsistent, and that’s been hard for you to keep track of. We’re learning from each release, and 2025 is all about refining a more consistent and predictable experience.

We believe that the Godzilla unboxing experience was the best for players. For our future in-development products, we will be seeking to match that.

Clash Decks Exit/Enter Starter Decks

Clash Decks were our only deck product before last year. They had to juggle complexity for veteran players while also trying to onboard newcomers. The feedback was conflicted: some were too spicy for beginners, and after Attack on Titan, for some, they were too simple. Starting with Critical Role next year, we’re rebranding them as “Starter Decks.” These will come with a quick-start guide on the back of the playmat, perfect for someone who’s just had a demo or wants an accessible entry point to UniVersus. 

Board Games

We are already into our second printing of STAR TREK: Star Realms—what an incredible collaboration with the brilliant Wise Wizards Games! The reprint will feature brighter card prints to really make those thematic frames pop. And trust me, this is just the beginning of our partnership. We’ve learned nothing but good things from working with Wise Wizards. If you are headed to GAMA next year, we should have more to tease by then!

Accessories

So many killer playmats and card sleeves! But we all want more variety, right? In 2025, expect some new categories to show off your UniVersus love. Keep an eye on the prize walls at regionals, where we’ll be testing some jaw-droppingly cool, limited-quantity stuff.

UVS Sales Powered a Year of Success and Big Plans for 2025

Hi there!  I’m Mike Dunlap, and I’m the head of Sales for UVS Games.  When I joined back in February of 2023, there were a lot of processes and teams that needed to be built, but over the course of the past 2 years I’m proud of just how far we’ve been able to come as a team and as a company.  My team and I often work behind the scenes where we bring products and events to local game stores, mass market stores and online marketplaces.  We do everything we can to keep things running smoothly, and while we aren’t always perfect we saw a number of successes in 2024!

• We launched our first Challenger Series product with the Cowboy Bebop & Trigun Stampede Challenger Series in January

• A number of products sold out over the course of the year, including Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament & My Hero Academia: Dark Hero Arc Challenger Series

• We had a summer dominated by Godzilla

• A brand new demo experience was delivered to stores throughout the world

• And we had our biggest release ever with Attack on Titan: Battle for Humanity
  

We definitely heard from folks that there are things they would like changed, and every challenge is an opportunity to get better!  First and foremost, we will be changing how in store play promos are delivered by changing to seasonal promo packs with the TMNT release.  These packs will deliver more variety and a fun way for players to engage with weekly UniVersus play in store.  We’re also going to keep iterating on our demo experience!  There are a number of ideas we are currently exploring, and we are always looking to improve our ability to teach UniVersus to new players.

We’re also going to amplify what we’ve been doing well in 2025!  We’re bringing a number of great IPs to UniVersus while also continuing to improve our products, communication and processes to ensure that the right products deliver on time to customers.  You’ll see some great IPs join our game this year, a more measured release schedule, we plan to be at a few different consumer conventions (including overseas ones!) and there is a commitment from us to increase the overall quality of what we’re doing.

I’ve had an exciting 2 years here with UVS Games, and I’m looking forward to many more years of being able to deliver great games to our enthusiastic fans throughout the world!

New Year of Organized Play

Start the 2025 Organized Play cycle off right with a fresh addition to your deck! As we settle into the new year and wrap up the 2024 Organized Play Cycle, UniVersus is here to keep the momentum going with the Patchwork Baby promo card. Themed to celebrate the new year, this card featuring ALL, EVIL, and ORDER symbols.

Whether you're closing out the 2024 cycle in style or looking ahead to what 2025 has in store, Patchwork Baby is the perfect way to add a little flair to your game. Orders are now open on the UGN Rewards Store, and cards are expected to ship around late April 2025. Don’t miss your chance on this limited-edition promo—make sure it finds a home in your collection!