If you’ve been in the Universus social channels over the last couple days, you’ve likely been overwhelmed with the conversation about the changes to Organized Play this year. If you haven’t, I’ll catch you up really quickly. At Major Regionals this year, Swiss rounds will be split into rounds for Standard to start the tournament and the last 3 rounds which will be reserved for Draft. If you are in the Top 32 when there are 3 rounds left, you’ll make it into the Draft portion of the event as there will be a hard cut to Top 32. As such, if you aren’t in the Top 32 after round 4 or 5 (depending on attendance) your done for the main event.

Now, there are other changes as well that players appreciated (Top Cut rounds timed at 90 minutes, etc.), but the above change AND the change that after all 8 rounds of Swiss are played, there will be a cut to Top 8 to determine the winner… well let’s just say these changes aren’t being received favorably by a vocal part of the community. But I’m not here to report their opinions, I’m here to give my own.

Let’s start with the biggest change, the cut to Top 32 after round 4 or 5. I don’t hate this. Yep, that’s right. I don’t hate it. I think that this is NOT the best way to do this, but if I go to an event get to round 5 at 3-1 and have a high pressure match that puts me in Top 32 or sends me home… I’m pretty happy either way. Moments like that are why I play the game; when everything is on the line. So, selfishly, I like the idea of cutting the field twice with two watershed moments for my weekend.

Now, a LOT of people don’t like the idea of telling 70%-80% of the field that you can’t play more than 4 or 5 rounds after you came all this way. Here’s where I agree with the criticism. I mentioned earlier the current implementation isn’t the BEST way to do this. I think a perfect way to implement this is let everyone play all the rounds of Swiss on Saturday. Cut to Top 32 Draft after Saturday is over. Sunday morning at 8am, we draft. That should be able to start play by 9am. Three rounds of draft should be able to finish play by 12:30pm. Cut to Top 8 and deck check the 8 decks. Play should start by 1:30pm. Two 90-minutes rounds should take us to ~4:30pm. Then we play one untimed round for the final. Check my math, but that gives EVERY one everything they’re asking for and allows UVS Games to show off the Draft format which is a major selling point in TCG’s today.

…IS MORE ON BRAND FOR UNIVERSUS THAN ANY OTHER GAME THERE IS!

-Shock2k5

Small note about Drafting At All and why I defend it. I think the Draft Format is a thing that can grow the game. I know last year, my store held Sealed events and they were VERY popular. A lot of players weren’t in love with their Constructed decks, didn’t know how to build to their playstyle, or (mostly) just wanted to level the playing field with a limited Format. Sealed and Draft gave them that, especially the younger players. I think showing it off at 3 events a year, when players can run their Standard decks at several LQs and LCs is a reasonable change. Requiring players to play in multiple formats per event IS MORE ON BRAND FOR UNIVERSUS THAN ANY OTHER GAME THERE IS! Universus was BUILT on multiple formats! Every event I’ve ever been to has advertised multiple formats! Why wouldn’t THIS game, show off their best assets on their biggest stage? This isn’t chasing MTG or anyone else. It’s being true to itself.

Small note about Math. Saying players who are 4-1 will be cut from the Top 32 is just incorrect. I was looking at the HLC (because UVSG doesn’t have the other premiere events on their site anymore 😡) and in round 5, Table 16 was occupied by Tyrell Scott (2-1-1) and Chris Nazon (2-1-1). That means the ~30 players ahead of them had at least 7 points and if your record was 3-1 or better, you were guaranteed a spot in Top 32. Now, these numbers change all the time with attendance, I agree (which is why I offer my solution), but telling people that 4-1 isn’t good enough… well that’s simply incorrect.

While I think we COULD let people play all 7-8 round of Swiss, I also don’t think it’s as big a deal as people are making it out to be. MOST of the field has dropped after round 5. I see some players mentioning that Constructed is the main selling point of this game and not allowing players to play it is going to hurt the game. That’s a perfectly valid opinion and I love Constructed. I go to my LGS every week brewing new strats, looking for different ways to have fun with the game. I think players should be able to play in more than 4 rounds of an event before a Top Cut. Fair. However at a Regional, I don’t think people are there for that reason. Customers vote with their wallets. Anyone who’s gone to Regionals over the past couple years will notice… Constructed is the LAST side event that fires. People fill up the Sealed, Triple Threat and other specialty Side Events. I remember Dragon’s Hoard fired multiple times at RLE Kansas City! (Shout out LWG) But, Constructed is always the last thing people sign up for, usually not signing up for it at all. What does that tell a company? Combine it with the massive number of people who drop from the event (like players do in every TCG) by round 6, and u get an opportunity for experimentation in the later rounds. This not the experiment you want to see? That’s totally valid. Let them know it, as you already have. Continue! They make changes constantly. Believe they can change this as well.

I’ve been SUCH a fan of this game since the Deku/Bakugo rival decks that I forgot I ordered in 2020, showed up on my doorstep in October 2021. I’ve been EAGER to add whatever I could to this game. I usually don’t jump into opinionated brawls about updates to the game because it’s completely normal for fan bases of any game (videogames included) to shout the sky is falling when there’s change. But I hear silence when the good changes come. When we said we need the rarest cards in the set to hold value, because if the SRs are worth $1, then the set is gonna be worth nothing, they listened and made good SRs and added Chrome Rares to give sets value. When we cremated then-Jasco for announcing events 2 months ahead of time and not giving us time to plan travel, they came out n announced the entire 2024 itinerary 5 months before the first event! When players complained the game is hard to teach, they added to the Demo Program, sent out free stuff to teach the game and continue to revamp the new player experience. (Shout out to Andy and the entire LGS team going as far as cold-calling stores and trying to get them to pick up the game) When people said they’d never ban Marquis, he got banned! (Up for return this year btw, lol) When people said the game needs another top tier IP to grow, they went out n got Attack On Titan (and I’ve had friends even more interested in Critical Role). When older players complained about (something I have NO knowledge of) not getting the Dark Tournament set because they pivoted to MHA, they came back and released The Dark Tournament! When the top players said they didn’t like the prizing for Regionals and that made them attend less regionals, they added a Worlds invite! (and probably more) When … look u get the idea…

It’s always easier to say people don’t know what they’re doing or the others are the bad guys. It’s more difficult to try to reach out and see what change you can affect. I don’t hear many of the people that have the power to affect change saying “I reached out to ___ and he/she said ____.” Instead, I see snap reaction after snap reaction, and honestly it’s exhausting. UVS Games listens to you. They’ve made a hundred changes over the last year from your feedback, so continue to give it now, but give it constructively. It’ll matter like it always does. Just do every one a favor and call it out when the good changes come…