Over the past few weeks the team at Jasco games has been closely monitoring the My Hero Academia only format used at Provisional and RLE events. After analyzing several weeks worth of data as well as interviewing players from diverse play communities across the world and observing our own internal playtests, we’ve decided to make the following changes, effective Monday, April 24th:

Mashirao Ojiro 2 receives the following errata to its first enhance ability:
- Old: Enhance: This attack gets +1 speed and +1 damage for each different printed attack zone in your card pool.
- New: Enhance: This attack gets +1 speed or +1 damage for each different printed attack zone in your card pool.
Mashirao Ojiro 2 receives the following errata to its second enhance ability:
- Old: Enhance [Once per turn]: Add 1 attack from your card pool to your hand. Only playable if there are 3 different printed attack zones in your card pool.
- New: Enhance, Commit: Add 1 attack from your card pool to your hand. Only playable if there are 3 different printed attack zones in your card pool.
The card “Ready, Get Set, GO!” is banned in the My Hero Academia only format.

Length of Games and Ojiro

One of the key elements of a game being “fun” to play is ensuring all players get to participate in the core gameplay loop. Showing mastery, after all, is the motivator for many gamers and the thing that makes playing games enjoyable; failing to get the chance to do that in your favorite game doesn’t feel fun. One of the things we look at as we examine data from events is the length of games and whether their current pacing allows for both players to have a fun experience and feel the chance to demonstrate mastery during the match.

In the present meta, Ojiro 2 decks are negatively contributing to game length. This has led to a detrimental experience for players as many feel the games end too quickly, before they’ve had a chance to participate in the experience.As a result we’re taking the action to provide errata for Ojiro 2.

Why errata and not a banning? One of the strengths of the UniVersus TCG is allowing fans to experience characters from many of their favorite worlds combined together. Because the big characters in those worlds are a key driver of interest in UniVersus, it’s a problem removing one entirely from the game. That’s why you’ll see us bias towards errata for adjusting character cards while bannings are reserved for non-character cards. Speaking of which, let’s talk about “Ready, Get Set, GO!”

Deckbuilding Decisions and Ready, Get Set, GO!

The banning of “Ready, Get Set, GO!” may come as a surprise. However, the function of the card creates an undynamic gameplay experience. Its Response effect is very powerful on the first turn, allowing a player going second to surpass their opponent’s resource building whenever they open with the card in their hand. Additionally its Form ability is an almost cost-free cycling ability that makes the impact of including the card in your strategy practically “free.”

That means the only decision players are left with if they can play “Ready, Get Set, GO!” is whether to play it in their maindeck or keep it in the sideboard for all games in which they’re not on the play. This is a non-decision, creates an unfun non-play decision in deckbuilding, and is not the type of game decision we want players to be forced to make. As a result we’re taking the pre-emptive action to ban the card alongside the shift to Ojiro to prevent it from becoming a 4-of that leads to both unfun game play and unfun deckbuilding.

Why Not More Changes?

Bans and errata are powerful tools to help ensure fun, interactive gameplay in the UniVersus TCG, but they come with costs as well. Accordingly, we try to minimize our use of them with the aim of making necessary adjustments with as few changes as possible at any given time. That doesn’t mean we won’t make any additional changes if necessary as they come up, and we will be continuing to monitor the health of our formats in the coming weeks to examine the impact of these changes. It’s important to give you, our players, the opportunity to adjust to the changes and to see what new strategies come from them.

What’s Next…

As I said, we’ll continue monitoring results and feedback from our audience to determine if any additional changes are necessary in the future. Care to join the conversation? Make sure to follow us on social or join these communities:

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