Girl Power Previews, card strength, and perception of set releases
- hwangtwigg
- Jun 18, 2024
- 21 min read
Disclaimer: This article is dated and I wasn’t satisfied with it, however I figured I would still release it since I worked on it. Obviously some info may have changed or been dis/proven, but that is what speculation is for! Anyway, enjoy the fashionably late article!
Welcome back gamers, it’s yah girl, Pippa, back with some banger content. With the full set of Girl Power being revealed as of Thursday May 2nd, I wanted to delve into some of the most powerful and interesting cards from the next set. I also wanted to use this as a time to discuss the perception of set releases, card evaluation, and the reveal season as a whole. So buckle up, get some snacks, and let’s get brewing!
Perceptions and Expectations of Set Releases
Before I get into reviewing the cards of Girl Power I wanted to take a quick moment to talk about thoughts from the community leading up to set releases, and in part the perception and evaluation of cards as they are revealed. Girl Power, bluntly, has received a lot of flack during reveal season, with many players bemoaning the fact that a large number of the cards revealed are frankly less than playable, competitively speaking. So naturally, it is better for me to start with what made the previous set much more well-received.
The Dark Tournament ushered in a new design philosophy, where card power is much more related to rarity, with the commons of the set being effectively “blank” cards. Combined with attack cards generally being more tailored toward the characters they were designed for, and the number of generally “playable” cards generally has trended downward. This was made up for however with the Ultra Rares of the set being ridiculously pushed, with cards such as Battle Aura Release, Walk the Dog, and Armor of the Wolf being dominating and defining forces within the metagame, further increasing the divide between high and low rarity cards.
This also presents another issue, which is that while URs have gotten pushed, not all of them are equally generically strong. Cards like Shapeshifting Impalement, Double Tornado Fist, and 100% Power are certainly strong, but require more work to put into them compared to the generic strength others offer, while cards such as Knife-Edge Death Match, Rose Whip Barrage, and Suzuki Flurry are strong but effectively (or literally) character locked, making their usage incredibly niche.
When looking at the Dark Tournament as a whole however, the set is full of less-than playable cards. Only three characters have seen high level success (Byakko, Jin, and Younger Toguro), about 20 of the 86 attacks have seen significant meta-relevant play, along with a similar ratio of foundations. Jet Burn on the other hand has roughly 8 characters with high level success, with very similar numbers of playables from the attacks and foundations.
While I cannot predict or draw conclusions from Girl Power cards due to the set being unreleased, I wouldn’t be surprised for 3-5 characters to have high level success (more on them later), and going through the cards about the same number of attacks and foundations are playable compared to previous sets. This puts Girl Power on-par with the previous sets, and yet has received much more criticism than them. Why?
One of the biggest contributing factors is the prior-mentioned shift in design philosophy. In previous sets prior to the Dark Tournament, even the commons and uncommons has interesting text that made people think on them and consider their usefulness. Shifting them more towards stats and simple effects has reduced overall interest in the set, as fewer cards in characters’ kits “matter”, leading to an overall sense of incompleteness. The foundation design has followed with this, with foundations overall becoming simpler, with more “do a gimmick, get stats” foundations, with examples being the keyword and reveal support within the set. This further reduces the number of playables from each kit, meaning that from each character we only get 2-4 cards to consider, with the rest being relegated to the sidelines.
The other big contributing factor is that there are significantly fewer generally powerful URs within the set, as most are either gated, archetype locked, or not up to the power level of the Dark Tournament. The most powerful generic URs look to be Lightning Rod, Black Abyss, and Resistance Training, and compared to the bangers from the Dark Tournament, they won’t impact the game nearly as much. This is in part due to many URs in Girl Power being archetyped instead of generic, but also the sheer level of power the Dark Tournament cards had.
Looking back at both Jet Burn and Undaunted Raid, the most pushed URs from those sets also pale in comparison to the Dark Tournament. Rejuvenating Smash and Tasty Riff are incredible cards, but they still compare unfavorably to Battle Aura Release, Walk the Dog, and Armor of the Wolf. While Jet Burn and Undaunted Raid were both great sets that were generally well received, the recency bias in having to compare sets to the Dark Tournament has highly skewed the perception of the following set.
I am by no means saying that Girl Power is a strong set, but having to follow one of the most impactful sets in modern UVS was bound to be difficult regardless, ignoring the design shifts which reduced the number of cards worth getting excited for being another blow to Girl Power’s perceived strength. Girl Power has also been working on a basis of focusing more around archetypes, further limiting the impact of the cards and the general playability of the set.
Another issue with the reveal season for Girl Power has been the order of reveals, and the perceived power disparity between the character kits and backpage. Character kits are filled with cards including the “mostly blank” attacks and uninteresting gimmick-related stat-stick foundations. This means that a full kit reveal includes cards not worth discussing, whereas backpage cards don’t have to follow the same design restrictions as full kits, meaning that they end up having a higher density of “interesting” cards.
Much of the discussion I have personally seen about the set started turning around once the mini-kits and backpage started getting revealed, with the common thread being that many of the backpage cards are better than the character-kit cards. While potentially true, it speaks more to the fact that the character-kits were bogged down with uninteresting and minimally playable cards. It also led with the first half of the reveal season being unimpressive due to the few number of quality cards presented as part of the set. This hurt the overall perception of the set, and while that has turned around it has overall impacted the number of players wanting to buy product for this upcoming set.
New Faces, New Philosophies
Moving onto the actual metaphorical meat-and-potatoes of the set, Girl Power is introducing a wide swath of varying characters, from returning favorites like Mina, Midnight, and Nejire, to new faces like Lady Nagant, Pony, and WOMAN. Before I talk about my favs from the set, I did want to take a moment to discuss the direction of character design (you should have seen this coming).
I have long lamented the fact that a majority of characters within the game don’t have distinct enough playstyles to provide different experiences between each other, and hoped that design went in a direction towards making more distinctively different playstyles represented on characters, and boy howdy have they delivered that in spades with the cast of Girl Power. Each character is usually doing something special and unique to them, either with unique effects or by imposing some interesting restriction on them, making even the “boring” characters more engaging in either gameplay or deckbuilding.
Characters like Toga4, Kinoko, and Momo3 present varying different styles of gameplay that hasn’t previously been represented, while characters like Mirko2, Pony, and Mina3 present different string patterns than just “jam everything on progressive”. Even the more “standard” characters do things in more interesting ways or with restrictions, with Woman being a unique take on the stat-stick 5hander with a very unique response timing allowing her to have ambiguous defense, while Nejire is a bit of a reverse-Shigaraki1 with her response, and Ryukyu2 imparts a deckbuilding limitation with extracting value from her offensive lineup.
Past those, some of the characters within Girl Power are just plainly interesting. Mei2 increases the keywords of her attacks (and potentially blocks!) which is something that hasn’t been seen before in the modern UVS era, being an awesome deckbuilding puzzle character. Lady Nagant gets a “free” small attack each turn, giving her some really interesting decision making in her strings and how she wants to support that concept.
The character designs of Girl Power are interesting, which is more important to me than having them be powerful but boring. Ultimately the issue however is that while these characters are interesting, they will often pale in comparison to the raw efficiency of characters that simply give stats instead of doing anything interesting. Even with this though, it gives me significant hope for the future of UVS in terms of the direction that design is heading towards.
With that out of the way, I didn’t want to go over every single character in-depth, though I will include my Power/Playrate/Sauce scores for everyone below, I did want to make a few specific callouts to my personal most-hyped characters of the set. I will be going over each character briefly, but I want to spend more time on the ones I am personally excited about.
First on the list and my most hyped character of the set, the American exchange student Pony is coming to UVS! She sports a theme of stacking horn counters on herself and spending them for various benefits, all of which are powerful. With speed modulation, attack zone switching, and also card pool clearing, she is an incredibly stable character as long as you’re able to fuel her costs. With draw power increasing with the latest releases, she will have ample fuel for her counter generation while also having cool synergies with cards such as Unabashed Manner, Avoiding Conflict, and Any Means Necessary giving her some very surprising and neat options and interactions.
Something that I especially wanted to note about Pony is the way her counter math works out on kill turns. Assuming you start a turn with no counters, you gain 2 every attack, which ends up working out to only playing on +1 progressive max for her first several attacks, extended if she has more stored up. This lets her string out very effectively, and in a world where card draw is commonplace, she can easily sling some silly strings at her rivals. She also enables any card-pool clearing synergies, with a notable one being the new Shoot Style: Knee Smash, a card practically made for her with the clearing and discard synergy. She also gets to use One For All: Full Cowling 8% Falling Roundhouse to its maximum potential, and she could easily make use of a kick-package under the Air symbol to great effect.
Next up on “characters that can cook”, we have the head chef herself, Toga4! Toga is a spiritual rework of a previous character known as Quan Chi, who originally was banned, rereleased with an errata, and then banned again. Admittedly, Quan Chi had several things contributing to his success, such as copying all enhance abilities multiple times a turn on top of a powerful repeatable response. Toga4 however is shaping up to be another spiritual rework of this once-banned character, however with many stipulations on her effect, with her copying one ability, once per turn, as well as her durability hinging on being able to land attacks.
Despite these adjustments I still foresee her being one of the better characters of the set, though it comes with a big caveat. She currently interacts incredibly favorably with Rando’s Spirit Gun, with the primary combo being to use your Toga4 once-per-turn to copy another Toga4 once-per-turn, repeat, and eventually copy another powerful once-per-turn. Follow this with Rando’s Spooky Gun, and you now have an additional four activations of Toga4’s copy ability, of which the possibilities are endless.
This interaction is highly likely to be adjusted in some form or fashion (from the future; yeah), of which I am torn on. Should this stay, Toga4 becomes a unique form of all-in combo deck where you try and assemble some Doomsday-pile-esque combination of cards to blow out your rival, which is unlikely what the designers intended for her (though intent is notoriously difficult to parse when it comes to TCG designs). If this interaction is removed, such as errata’ing Toga4 to only let her copy non-Toga characters, the deck instead becomes an interesting midrange deck focused on finding and using some of the most powerful tricks available to her, allowing her to mix up her options and combine the most powerful parts from a variety of characters.
As anyone who knows me knows, I love characters that present deckbuilding puzzles, and Toga4 gives me one of the most interesting puzzles to date. Figuring out ratios, the best effects, and the coolest options will keep me up for many nights, so don’t be surprised for a deck tech on this character in the future as I come up with the whackiest and most nonsensical combos possible.
Speaking of deckbuilding puzzles, Mei Hatsume2 presents another character that has a gigantic puzzle associated with her, in that she can increase the keyword ratings of her cards, which notably includes Breaker ratings. This will lead to unique attack lineups that try to take advantage of her ability, for both offense and defense. Her bottom enhance on the other hand is a flexible stat bonus for your Tech or Weapon attacks, which comes with a bonus draw and discard if you give damage, which soft-locks her into those keywords.
I would however expect her to focus primarily on the top enhance given that is the unique thing she has access to, with the bottom one being a nice bonus but not required to focus your whole lineup around. I could envision a list where she just runs as many solid Breaker cards as possible to endlessly stunt your rival’s offenses, while using keywords such as Stun or boosting EX and Powerful ratings to make offensive pushes. She is a wonderful puzzle that I am also excited for.
Last on the docket for the characters I am interested in, Lady Nagant makes her debut in Girl Power and comes with two interesting abilities, the first one being a cancel on her face, while the second lets her transmute a foundation into a small attack, which she can then either clear or cantrip off of. She isn’t particularly strong, however she does some very unique things that other characters don’t, which is what has me excited for her.
Nagant is another puzzle, though in a different way from the other characters. A cancel is solid, but she self-stuffs her card pool for it, prompting the question of what could be used to either get around that or take advantage of it? Her form also asks this question, being a small attack you can launch once per turn, leaving you down a foundation and usually with a face down card in your card pool.
There are some obvious synergies, with the biggest one being a reliable way to turn on Stolen Goods, as well as the new card Grape-Pinky Combo Mineta Bounce (GPCMB), but past that there are less obvious ways to take advantage of the self-clogging. Acid Screen will ignore the progressive while also drawing a card, or the signature UR of Sniping Spy allows her to clear the face downs for big damage bonuses. Other non-obvious synergies exist in Small and Limber, allowing them to be rereadied when using the form as a card leaves your stage, though for max value it requires slight tailoring of your attack package.
While I won’t be pursuing Nagant competitively, I will likely be having her remain as a near-constant pet deck for this and potentially future formats going forward. She is interesting enough to keep my attention and she is unique enough to inspire joy in the varying play patterns she has available to her, even if she isn’t the most pushed character.
Overall I am very happy with how the characters in Girl Power turned out, and as mentioned prior I don’t expect many of them to be competitively relevant, but they are all successes in my eyes given their unique designs and gameplay styles. Below is the full list of my character rankings from this set and some quick thoughts on some of them. This set notably boasts the highest average sauce score of many of the past sets, and I for one will be having a blast brewing this set!
Itsuka Kendo: Neat character, being an 8hander from turn 2-3 onwards is very powerful, though she is very resource intensive with her enhance, as well as being soft-locked into mid attacks. I expect a few people to put in a lot of time into her and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her top events, though I don’t know if it will be a common enough occurrence to rate her strength any higher.
Mirko 2: Very interesting character, basically a mix of Asui1 and Bakugo1, two historically solid characters. I think she will be popular due to being a popular character, though I think she will exist in a similar space to Bakugo1 where she will be registered in droves yet will often miss out on frequent top cuts, though she can easily blow unprepared players out.
Mt. Lady 3: Interesting character, however, she often doesn’t do much and will struggle in the early game. She can go for some funny meme dreams by giving attacks like Double Overhead Hammer Fist a high Powerful rating and then proceed to spirit bomb the rival. I don’t expect her to see much play, but she will be a fun locals deck.
Ochaco Uraraka 5: Incredibly disappointing character, though she has some moves on Good with Mirio’s kit, as she can very easily abuse Phantom Threat and dunk unsuspecting players. She isn’t as bad as people think and is closer to competitive than not, however she only really does one thing.
Kinoko Komori: Interesting character that some people will spend a lot of time on. She isn’t too bad, she just takes a bit of time to get going. With YT’s nerf in effect, a lot of pressure upon her is relieved so she may find a niche spot within the metagame.
Nejire Hado 2: Interesting character, has a high sauce due to being able to tutor an attack every turn, however I don’t think she quite gets there. Ultimately she is a bit slow and without stats on face she really needs the rest of her deck to pull the offensive metaphorical weight.
Ryukyu 2: Very boring and the definition of a stat-stick character, however I think she will blow out unsuspecting players given her massive stat advantage and her unassuming bulkiness. She could theoretically gatekeep heavy string decks, but she won’t be popular enough to accomplish this.
Tsuyu Asui 4: Infinite Breaker is very cute, though as a 5hander with inconsistent hand-size fixing and no stats on face she will likely struggle. If you can figure out a way around her issues she could be a menace, but that is likely too much work for a middling character.
Woman: Arguably the best character of the set, she is a lateral character to Nomu, one of the terrors of set 1. Being able to blanket give +1/+4 is gigantic, and her response to play ambiguous defense is incredibly powerful to disrupt the rival’s offensive tempo. I wouldn’t be surprised for her to get similar success to Nomu, and will likely be a force within the upcoming metagame.
Women with Wonderous Wallops!
Of course it wouldn’t be a set review without talking about the attacks of the set, and again I won’t be going over all of them but instead I will cover my favorites, though I will include my top 10 attacks of the set at the end! I also wanted to take a quick moment to discuss the now-shifted design philosophy of attacks (she can’t keep getting away with it!), so let me get into that!
As mentioned earlier, cards have shifted much more to scaling power based on rarity, especially in attacks, as well as character kits being bogged down with these less interesting cards with one of four attack slots being taken up with a “blank” card, with sometimes another slot being taken up with an uninteresting simple card as well, such as the uncommons from Mina, Mirko, and Momo’s kits from this set.
Past that, an increasing number of attacks are featuring static abilities, usually with effects that would normally exist on enhances. This has implications in terms of timing and some unintuitive rulings/interactions (see Sniping Bolt), but also simplifies the game down to fewer enhances, which may be a sign of things to come however I will opt to forgo any speculation on the future of the mechanics of the game.
I am currently mixed on this new direction, though I don’t necessarily think it is a bad thing. It certainly simplifies the game, especially in how it can simplify the skill expression within the enhance step and ordering effects, however the impact isn’t as noticeable as if it were on a majority of cards, where there would be a large shift within the game. My biggest concern is that playing enhances is a large portion of “playing the game” and removing that part of the text removes a way of interacting with the game. This could lead to a simpler overall experience, however at the cost of less skill expression and level of interactivity.
Past those cards however, many new cards within the backpage are also simpler, however they still have interesting effects or use cases. Girl Power features what I would argue is one of the most solid backpages of recent sets. Many of the cards have unique use cases and help flesh out the set in terms of the various support offered, as well as packing good effects that couldn’t find places within the now hyper-focused kits, having the backpage “save” the set.
Ultimately I think that the direction of the attack design is potentially worrying, but we will have to see how it is reflected within future sets. I am glad that high rarity cards are worth money due to being very pushed, though the large quantity of draft-chaff un/commons make the set a bit frustrating to open, such as with the Dark Tournament, given the relative uselessness of the majority of the cards you open.
Moving on from that, I did want to discuss some of my favorite attacks from Girl Power. One thing that I believe design is doing right is making ultra/rares interesting and powerful, and many of the higher rarity cards are worth discussion, though I don’t quite have time to cover all of them so as with the characters I will go over my favorites briefly.
I wanted to start off with one of the best attacks in the set, with Lightning Rod does several powerful things, with it being an amazing defensive trick that also snags a momentum as well as building 2 temporary foundations, it is pure value town. The free momentum allows some solid shenanigans while being stapled to a potent defensive effect in Deflect: 4, giving you early game acceleration for various momentum based gameplans. The two temporary foundations also provide incredible value, whether it be for passing checks or for spending them as cost for commit or destroy effects, or even both at once. Lightning Rod does come with a drawback of having a 2-check, however the payoff is well worth it if players are able to get over their dyophobia.
Moving onto another tremendously powerful card, Patchwork Baby is the definition of a build around, being a gigantic payoff for attack lineups focused around enabling it through a variety of keywords. Patchwork Baby can easily get to over 10 damage, though that often requires playing it on several progressive, which is part of figuring out how to exactly enable it. Even on its own however it is at worst a 5-Mid-5 with Stun: 2, as well as dual EX and Powerful 3 ratings, which both Armor of the Wolf and Walk the Dog have shown how powerful those keywords can be at such high values. I could see Patchwork Baby showing up as a general value piece, though it will truly shine in decks built around enabling it.
Speaking of value, one of the least assuming attacks in the set is Turbo Speed Dash. A simple 4-difficulty 4-high-4, it packs EX: 3 and a response to draw a card if it dealt damage, and to draw a card if the rival has 8 or more foundations. Notably these effects are on a response that triggers on resolution, meaning that it will always check both conditions, and due to them being separate you can often draw at least one card, often two if it hits. As a simple cantrip attack it won’t be winning games on its own but it will be a pivotal piece in decks looking for additional card advantage.
One of the other big ticket URs in the set is Black Abyss, one of the cards forecasted to make a significant impact on the meta going forward. It is a basic off-zone attack with a minor check bonus if it deals damage, but the big part of the card is pumping stats while in your momentum, scaling exponentially with the number of copies you’re able to find. It already slots into several relevant decks, with the primary ones being Amajiki and Toga3, being additional big win-conditions for the deck in their consistency to reliably stack multiple into their momentum.
It also has notable synergy with Piercing Thorn Lances, one of the reprints of the set, giving you great setup for quickly shoving them into momentum to quickly take advantage of the scaling stats. This will also likely be the chase UR of the set due to needing to run multiple along with other URs being less splashable. Overall it is a great card that will find a home within the top decks of the format or potentially develop new decks to compete within the metagame.
Finally I wanted to touch on some other notable cards from the set, but I don’t have time to do deep dives so you’ll have to settle for my short ‘n sweet thoughts, so buckle up (again) for some rapid-fire reviews!
Canister Creation Strike / Net Launcher: Two very similarly shaped cards, just with varying costs. Both let you build something in, with Canister being the easier one while Net Launcher costs a momentum but is otherwise “more free”, while Net Launcher gets stats “easier” while Canister requires a momentum. Very solid cards that I expect will feature as a core in various control builds and provide incredible flexibility in mid-long length games.
Audio Reverberation: Another secret rare that puts a large amount of strength into charge-focused lineups, but the primary draw for me is the ability to de-build the rival, putting pressure on the rivals’ stage while also being a massive 7-damage low attack that is very threatening on its own.
Big Fist Bash: While the traditional effects on the card are fine, the most notable part of this card is the gigantic Breaker: 3 rating, which is capable of stopping turns all by itself. The additional utility of being a string ender and attack recycler are bonus icing on the cake of one of the most potent defensive pieces of the format.
Recipro Turbo: This card single-handedly will be carrying the kick package on its symbols for the next few years given the power of this card alone. Even in non-kick centric decks it could find a home as a cantrip, or as a game-ending attack with an outstanding EX: 4 rating which makes it ridiculously easy to get into unblockable territory.
Big Fist Overhand Punch / Lizard Tail Splitter / Blueflame Eruption: I am grouping these cards together as they continue to print cards with increasingly potent draw power and/or card velocity, and these are three of the most powerful ones from the set. Other cards can go in this category, but if you’re able to meet the conditions of them (or for Lizard Tail Splitter, find room), they will greatly enhance the consistency of your deck.
There are plenty of other cards that I didn’t discuss that are worthy of praise, so just as a vomitted list;
Blueflame Surge, Sniping Spy, Overwatch Trigger, Acid Splash, Gargantuan Grapple, Deterioration Palm, Barrier Buster, Luna Ring.
All of these cards either get the neurons firing and are incredibly good in specific scenarios or generically solid cards, such as Luna Ring blowing people up in Karasu, or with Gargantuan Grapple being a momentum, Breaker block, or Stun: 2 opener. Overall the underwhelming cards are very poor, but this set has plenty of awesome cards that have personally been giving me a wonderful time brewing.
Fantastically Functional Foundations
Of course no set review would be complete without discussing the foundations of the set, and Girl Power introduces plenty of awesome foundations that support both old and new strategies, as well as giving some special support to some previous characters. Again I will be delving into some of my most hyped cards, and then will continue with short blurbs about other cards I am excited about, so let’s get cooking!
If anyone knows me, it should come at no surprise that Size Specialist is my most hyped foundation from the set. Being able to manipulate resources and cheat builds is such a cool mechanic, and this card captures that wonderfully. The true icing on the cake is the large number of foundation manipulation effects within the set, with Canister Creation Strike and Momo3 being able to easily cheat it in to use and abuse over-and-over. It also pairs well with foundations that have either effects on build or abilities directly relevant to defense, such as New Training Method or Cooperation Offer. This is the card that will easily become a Pippa staple and I am beyond excited to brew with and around this card.
Rifle Arm is another seemingly boring card but will have wonderful utility, functioning as a solid offensive and defensive piece, that is also specifically good with and against pokes. I wanted to talk briefly that this card is a perfect design in that it is functional, not complex, and has a variety of use cases that give it specific strengths. The biggest issue is that this card is competing for a 2-difficulty slot as a “speed reducer”, but it notably has the utility of being able to help push offensive pressure through with the speed increase, making it “trade up” on stage presence if used for speed, especially early on, making it a great card for helping wallbreak the rival. It also forms a neat package with Unsettling Aura to guarantee that you don’t perish early-game through the wall of powerful defensive effects they provide. Overall I expect this card to be one of the unsung heroes of the set and to be surprisingly impactful whenever it is played.
Moving onto one of the most hyped cards of the set, Disarming Glance is set to be one of the most impactful cards of the upcoming format, partially due to a quirk of the rules (pun unintended). If an attack is dropped it is not considered resolved, meaning that players can Disarming Glance, abort the attack with a variety of methods, and then as the attack never resolved it locks the rival out of card advantage effects for the turn. While this may be adjusted due to the ruling being unintuitive, for now the card will be a pivotal piece in evening out the playing field with all of the decks whose goal is simply to draw all the cards and slam them onto the table. Even past this interaction, if it gets adjusted, Glance is a wonderful card at helping prevent the rival from accessing their card advantage and velocity effects during important attacks, meaning at the very least it will see sideboard play.
I also wanted to take a moment to discuss it compared to its counterpart from set 3, Can’t Escape Me. Both it and Disarming Glance share the space of “2-difficulty foundation that stops card advantage effects”, and I am of the opinion that Can’t Escape Me has been historically run less than it “should” be, due to the power of card advantage effects that have existed within the format. Disarming Glance opens up this option on two new symbols, but I would still argue that Can’t Escape Me is the better card even with the cheese that Glance offers, due to the targeted nature of it as well as the killer deadlock ability stapled to it.
In fact, several cards of the set are either lateral versions of cards or cards that exist in similar spaces as others either in the format or recently rotated, with Ready for a Rematch being Gotcha with +1 difficulty and control, Defiant Stance being Study Group Leader, and Steadfast Resolve being Self-Sacrifice. While some people may dislike reusing/reprinting similar effects, I believe it is great for the game in order to bring back either successful cards or events, as shown with some of the most successful, cool, or interesting cards being reprints, such as Showdown or the new Seeking Entry being a reprint of Weight of Memory (which will be one of the best cards of the set!). UVS has such a great variety of systems and mechanics that some overlap will happen, but I believe that lateral reprints or effects are good for the game generally, unless the mechanic being reprinted is poor for gameplay health.
Finishing with my slight tangent, the last card I wanted to discuss is Seeking Entry, the prior-mentioned foundation that is a reprinted effect from back in ye olden days. Being one of the most hyped cards of the set, it is a perfect counter to the gigantic influx of card advantage we have had in the recent format. Being able to match card draw effects consistently while also packing some board disruption is very powerful, and I expect this to be one of the standout cards from the set, especially moving into the future.
The Class in Review
Overall, Girl Power started off poorly but made a severe comeback in the latter half of the set, which ended up containing many more solid cards than all of the full-kits, but the set is still full of interesting and powerful cards. Personally, I am beyond hyped and have had a blast brewing so far, and there were so many cards I wish I could talk about but didn’t get a chance too, though I may mention them in the future.
I think that the changes of rarity=power is a more complex subject, which will need to be evaluated in the future, especially with a 300-card set arriving in Attack on Titan late this summer. Ultimately I believe it is mostly a good thing, though it is potentially worrying when factoring in the cost of having a fully "optimized" deck in a game historically generally budget for a wide variety of players, though again that is to be seen as this trend continues into the future.
As always, thanks for tuning in, and expect semi-more consistent posts now that I am getting back into the swing of things, and look out for a Godzilla challenger series product opening on my Twitch in the coming weeks! Thanks again, and until next time!
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