Regional License Exam, Las Vegas Recap

Last weekend’s RLE saw some of the world’s best UniVersus players converge on Las Vegas to test their mettle as we head into Nationals season. The Game Design team took some time to provide reflections on the event from the weekend, and the surprisingly diverse metagame. Here’s how the team felt reflecting back on the weekend.

Shane Duckworth, game designer

I was excited to see Nicholas Ragan highroll in Vegas with one of my favorite attacks, Double Front Beat-Down!  Katsuki Bakugo is one of my favorite decks to gunsling with because of this card, and Nicholas opted to use Izuku Midoriya instead!  I saw a lot of neat decks as I walked up and down the tables during the Swiss, and this one completely stole my heart.  It takes proper deckbuilding and a solid skillset to pilot 1 checks effectively and harness their power.  Nicholas being no stranger to the game was able to use this deck to secure a slot in a super diverse Top 8 with entirely different characters being represented!

Zero difficulty foundations are extremely important when deckbuilding with 1 checks as they help with the turn 1 build.  I’ve played Universus since 2006 and seen so many times where people go first and open with a 2 or 3 difficulty foundation, only to check a 1 and forever write off 1 checks.  Then there is the other camp of players who embrace 1 checks and perform very well with them, some even going on winstreaks (Keenan Meadows playing Coffee Samba instantly comes to mind).  Nicholas Ragan’s deck had 30 total “spam” foundations, with fifteen 0 diffs and fifteen 1 diffs, showing he was completely prepared to bring Double Front Beat-Down to a RLE event.

Our upcoming My Hero Academia set “Jet Burn” adds a good handful of 0 difficulty foundations to the game, some of my favorites being One Man Inferno, Warm and Bubbly, and #10 Pro Hero!

Jeremy Ray, game designer

Going into the last regional before Pro Hero Nationals, I expected to see some people get a little weird and others pushing their “Go-To” decks. Nicolas Ragan brought the “weird” in spades with a high risk/high reward Deku 2 using Double Front that was my favorite list of the weekend, but the high level of mastery of their characters displayed by people like TC Dervartanian and Colby Cram were also a joy to watch. Lastly I cannot go without mentioning the back to back RLE winner Kevin Broberg, taking another underplayed but high performing character to a regional win, playing a version of the Death “Grenadier Bracers” Eraser Head 1 that just piles damage onto its attacks. We first saw it have success in the hands of Jose Norono but it’s mostly flown under the radar since. Nationals is right around the corner and you can’t help but look at decks with this high “conversion” rate (very few players using it, but big tournament results) as a deck to watch out for.

Clint Badger, game designer

I’ve had Jet Burn on the brain so much lately, it’s difficult to watch the top 8 without thinking about the interaction opportunities that are soon to arise from the upcoming set! With how much I play Twisting Azure Inferno in my own decks, I’ve had to become aware of the weakness points it has.

Has Twisting Azure Inferno gotten you down lately? You can take Best Jeanist’s style to be Always Cool and lock that attack at 4 damage! There won’t be any check boosting then.

Always Cool also doubles as insurance from any Nomus you may come across.

Heroic Endurance is a very efficient foundation, and the consistent damage reduction that it brings should be able to hold back Twisting Azure Inferno. I personally enjoy that an Endeavor card can help you consistently hold back a Dabi card.

If that isn’t for you, you could take a note from Ryukyu’s Vast Strength to remove the abilities from a pesky attack when it’s played. If canceling it is too much of an issue, you could block with Eri’s Smiles and force your opponent to play a foundation to their card pool, essentially canceling out the check boost from Twisting Azure Inferno!

On the other hand, Internet Sensation works really well with Twisting Azure Inferno, and helps keep up your damage boost throughout the turn… maybe I just need to play a few more games with my Gentle Criminal deck.

Timothy Friedlieb, rules manager

Another RLE and another great showing by all the attendees. We ended up with another diverse and interesting top cut, seeing 6 different symbols and 8 different characters! What I’d like to highlight about this event, specifically in top cuts, is the success to a top 4 finish by Brandon Jones playing Void Midnight.

I’m a huge believer in trimming the core of a deck down to a lower number of high count cards and increasing the amount of options you have to make your deck flexible and resilient. You definitely want to see some of your gameplan be consistent, but consistency only goes so far. Let’s evaluate Jones’ list.

Of his 23 attacks, half were composed of 3 different attacks at 4 copies each. Then we moved to 6 more being 2 different attacks, followed by the remaining 5 cards comprising 4 different attacks. 9 different attacks to allow for overcoming different board states. Similarly, of his 46 foundations, 28 were 4x count, with only a single 3x foundation. The rest were mostly singleton inclusions, with a few 2x foundations. Again, this means that the core of the deck is fairly consistent, while allowing the player many options to take advantage of.

With a top 4 finish, you can’t argue too much with the strategy. Congratulations to Brandon Jones, and I’ll be watching to see if he can deliver a similar performance during the Championship season.

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