In 2023, the trading card game genre is growing and only getting bigger. Magic: The Gathering, Flesh and Blood, and the Pokemon TCG continue to thrive, with Disney’s Lorcana and Star Wars: Unlimited emerging on the horizon as the next potential big games. Even beyond these games, there are plenty of other amazing ones out there, and the one I want to talk about today is Universus. With a rich history of IPs including Soulcalibur, Street Fighter, and Megaman, Universus now is featuring the anime My Hero Academia as its flagship adaptation, with Yu Yu Hakusho making a return early next year alongside it. Over the last year, I have gotten a chance to dive in with central Ohio’s local scene, learning the game and making some great friends along the way. With this year’s national championship kicking off this weekend, I wanted to take the opportunity to share a bit more about the game, its mechanics, and the journeys of two of my fellow players, James Lueders and Josh Desola, as they make their way to nationals and try to win it all.
Gameplay Mechanics
In Universus, each player builds their deck around a character card, with that character’s unique traits having a massive impact on gameplay. Your starting health, hand size, and even the cards you can play in your deck are governed by your choice of character, and whether your playstyle is fast and aggressive or slow and controlling, there is a character that will fit your style. True to Universus’s fighting game roots, the characters slug it out with attacks that their opponents will do their best to block, and build foundations along the way that project, Universus eschews a traditional resource system for a check-based one, making the amount of cards one can play in a turn indeterminate. This is infuriatingly delightful, and the system can lead to great mind games and memorable all-in moments when a player risks it all to force one last attack through and go for the win. If you are more curious about how the game plays and how deckbuilding works, Tam Cardwell’s Youtube channel is a great place to get started and get a more thorough look at the game.
Having never played Universus before, it was a lot to wrap my head around, even as a veteran TCG player. Hero-based games are not generally common, and with no Flesh and Blood or One Piece experience under my belt, I felt like I was learning fundamentals all over again. Thankfully, my local community had my back, and while I have had good experiences in other games, I cannot overstate how above and beyond others have gone to help me learn the ropes and enjoy my experience with the game. From card acquisition, to deck advice, to just being all around great people, the Central Ohio Universus Player League (COUPLE) allowed me to hit the ground running. On top of being so helpful, they are also very talented players, and many are making the trip to Pro Hero Nationals this weekend in Dallas. Josh and James were kind of enough to answer some questions for me about their own journeys, and while you can read their full interviews here, I wanted to call out a few segments here that speak well to both the game, the community, and both of them as individuals.
James
One of the strongest players in our region, James Lueders also is the lifeblood of northern Ohio’s scene, which gives him a unique perspective as both a competitor and a tournament organizer. Getting his start in August 2022, James has constantly joked that “I can't wait until I understand how to play this game.” Yet, I know very few who understand it better, and in his understanding James grew his scene from the ground up, as he discusses here:
I judge my local store’s weekly tournaments (shoutout to Paul’s GamerZone in Massillon Ohio). We had our first Provisional Store Championship this year, and have about 8-10 consistent players which was only about 2-3 at the beginning of the year. I also joined the On a 6 team this year to get involved with players ready to practice and discuss strategy.
After playing in the store championship at Paul’s, I would never have guessed that things sprouted up so quickly there. Like James, the other players there also back up their enthusiasm with strong play, and of those 8-10 players, about a third of them are representing central Ohio at Nationals. As for how he hopes to do in the tournament, beyond taking 1st, of course, James said:
I’m trying my best to keep the goals I have for nats to not involve win/loss ratios. There are going to be so many talented people there, and while I really hope I don’t get absolutely blown out, my goal is that the deck list I’m bringing does what I built it to do. It’s a tested character with a few personal touches I have not seen many other people doing and I’ve had some people I really respect add their advice and input to. I hope that win or lose I put it all on the mat with nothing to regret. Also I have a goal to meet some in-person for the first time and have a great time with my friends who are also making the trip.
From this, a clear takeaway is that while winning is certainly fun, at a large event, merely getting the chance to share the experience with others who love the game as much as you do is a worthy goal in and of itself. It is also worth noting that the “tested character” James refers to is Fourth Kind, a side character in My Hero Academia who is more than a main hero in the card game. James has put in a good deal of that testing himself, and taking 3rd place in July’s Webcam Regional License Exam is the second best finish for a Fourth Kind this year. Even as a character expert, though, James still is innovating on his prior decklists and making changes, and we will see this weekend if the continued dedication to the character pays off.
Josh
Like me, Josh got his start as a player this March. While he did enjoy other games, some parts of Universus stood out to him. In particular, he states:
I love that the game doesn’t guarantee you anything to an extent, where other games do. In Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh, when you play a land, a spell, [or] a monster, they get played; yes someone can do something to stop you, but that aside, you get to play the card. In UVS [Universus], due to the difficulty/check system, you can play a card that is too difficult to play based on your board state, and have an unlucky discard, causing you to essentially have a skipped turn.
Sticking with it, Josh has put in the work, and with a strong showing at RLE
GenCon in August, he punched his ticket to nationals, playing his signature Izuku Midorya deck. One of his favorite characters, Josh says of him:
Deku IV is a blast because he has a high health count (30), has access to three symbols that allow him to play very differently, gives at least +4 damage to every one of his moves, and is able to draw three at the beginning of your rival’s turn… you will always have at least a few cards to block with.
In my eyes, this highlights one of the best features of this game. Deckbuilding, in spite of a small card pool, has a great deal of variety, and Deku’s unique strengths can shine with packages of cards on any of his symbols, which are analogous to colors in Magic. Even within each, he still is not pigeonholed into a single strategy, and this allows for a great deal of individual expression both in play as well as in deckbuilding. Unfortunately for Josh, this meant that his preparations for Nationals were not simple, and after several deckbuilding sessions and practice games, he settled on his list for the tournament. On his goals for the event, Josh said:
I definitely tend to be hyper competitive so my goals are to not let that get to me, have fun with the crew I’m going with, but also try to get at least a couple wins in. I understand that I’m less than a year into the game and am just ecstatic that I’ve come as far as I have. If I don’t make tops this year, I can always attempt Last Chance Qualifiers at Worlds and there’s always next year.
Although these goals appear modest, even winning just a few rounds at a national tournament is a challenge, and Josh is more than up to it. On the bright side, “having fun with the crew” will not be quite so difficult, and, like James, with a positive mindset focused on learning, growth, and having a good time, Josh is bound for success in Dallas one way or another. Finally, on
I would say don’t hesitate to just jump in and find someone to teach you the game. Watching the videos can make it seem very convoluted, but if you start with the basics and get a demo game in, you can build your knowledge from there. There are some intricacies that get confusing without your basics, so get those and then get into the little things.
I wish I had just gone to a Local Game Store or joined the official UVS Discord sooner and gotten my first game in... But this group is awesome and has become an amazing new group of friends, so I’m really looking forward to seeing where this all goes.
I can say that my feelings are very similar to Josh’s, and the game has a bright future. If you are interested at all, I hope you check out the tournament stream, and thank you for reading!
