Game Design Reacts - NA-East RLE Reflections
Bill Stark
Last weekend was the NA-East RLE in Rochester, New York. With Nationals quickly approaching, it represented a big opportunity for new strategies to define themselves and cards from Undaunted Raid to begin making names for themselves. The event didn’t disappoint! Here’s a roundtable of reflections from UVS Games members after the weekend.
My thoughts? I loved seeing the variety of characters representing different symbols in the Top Cut. Diverse formats are more fun to play, and Rochester was nothing if not diverse. I was also pleased to see Repeated 100% Smash represented but not at a level that felt disproportionate. That card has been threatening to dominate, but it looks like players are adjusting after a few weeks of playing with it.
Jeremy Ray, game designer
For me, the most exciting dynamics that played out this weekend were the innovative new attack lineups that showed up in top cuts. Our winner Kevin Broberg playing an Echo-centric lineup behind good symbol Momo Yaoyorozu 1, utilizing an overlooked powerhouse in Double Trouble was my favorite of the weekend.
On top of that, things like Tim Keefe’s and Davon Pina’s variants of the Death Fury lineup backed by Bakugo 1 and Bakugo 3 respectively, Garett Brett’s Void Weapons-ish Midnight, and both of the Evil "good stuff” lineups piloted by Scott Dejarnette’s Soramitsu Tabe and Constantine Andriotis’s Toya Setsuno respectively, using some overlooked attacks like Tentacle Strike, Amphibious Ambush, Needle Stab and both packing Inverted Knife Throw and Tetra-Terror Onslaught.
This weekend was one where creative deck building really shined bright and I’m excited to see how the decks from this weekend impact the metagame moving forward!
Shane Duckworth, game designer
In a character-driven game like UniVersus where a lot of characters are competitively viable, you never actually know 100% what to expect when playing through an event. You can streamline your deck to focus on hitting its primary combo or win condition as cleanly as possible, or you can diversify your options to cover a wide variety of matchups (your character's abilities do play a role in this).
Our players at the Rochester RLE proved that both methods work, with a handful playing decks close to 50 cards and another handful playing decks that contain close to or exceed 70 cards!
With five booster sets deep into the My Hero Academia block format, deckbuilding has gotten extremely interesting. There are lots of really good cards and it becomes difficult choosing what to put in your deck and how many copies of each card. Players exercise the skill of identifying which are the core cards their deck needs to function, which cards are necessary for survival, and which cards supplement their game plan.
Players such as Dylan Ferreira (Amajiki), Scott Dejarnette (Tabe), and Kevin Broberg (Momo) chose to play lots of 1x singletons in their Top 16 decklists, broadening the range of abilities they could pull from throughout the tournament. The most notable decklist was Garett Brett's (Midnight), who chose to play 24 different singletons in his 75 card maindeck!
Timothy Friedlieb, head game designer
I loved the incredibly diverse top cut of both characters and symbols. There were 9/12 symbols represented and 13 unique characters. That’s quite exciting, as players are finding new tools to make their favorite fighters potent in competition with a plethora of different strategies.
We’ve seen Wesley Bittner, a long-time Kyoka Jiro player, pivot his deck to the good symbol. Garret Brett stays true to form with another giant control pile (75 cards!). Jacob Masur, the King of Retro, made a great run at the event, landing in Finals with his usual style on Earth Nomu. The format is looking wide-open with most symbols making a good showing.
For me, I think the stand out deck this past weekend was Evil Soramitsu Tabe, piloted by UVSUltra’s own Scott DeJarnette. His list has a lot of fun options and switches it can flip to adapt. When you combine the large amount of disruption built into his attack line and foundation base with Tabe’s on-face damage output, this deck can certainly control the tempo of a match. I look forward to seeing this list show up again.
Clint Badger, game designer
It’s so nice to see an event where so many different symbols are making top cuts! Only All, Life, and Water were missing from the top 16, and I have faith that they can prevail in the coming months.
It is particularly enjoyable to see two members of team “human garbage”, Toya Setsuno and Soramitsu Tabe, both make top cuts under Evil. The team has to work together, after all!
I love to see a top 16 that is shared between multiple world champions from UVS’ past, and new players hungry for the win. In addition to our HLC Champion Kevin Broberg winning the event, notable names include Garett Brett and Tim Keefe, the only two players who have won Worlds Singles championships in back-to-back years! Garett toppled the competition at world championships 2015 & 2016, followed by Tim Keefe taking home the championship in both 2017 & 2018.
There are many new names in this top 16 worth keeping an eye on going forward, and I for one am excited to see what interesting builds will start to emerge in the meta coming out of this event!
Up next…
The next big event is Regional License Exam - Las Vegas on September 30-October 1st! We're excited to see what decks people bring!
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