Characters are great. I love the fact that UFS lets you actually be someone, rather than just a nameless wizard casting spells, or a random person summoning monsters. And when I was first started playing UFS back in October, I thought that one of the coolest ideas they had was to stack characters! Begin with just an average person, and keep adding more until you've started doing tons of cool things with just your character! So whenever I can, I like to at least consider the option of stacking characters in my decks, because the idea is just so awesome.

It seems to me though, that few people really consider stacking characters right now. To be honest, it’s for a good reason: there normally isn’t much of a noticeable incentive to stack characters. I mean, I’ve seen it done before; my friend has a great Cody deck that stacks all of the different Codys, and I used to stack Seong Mi-na to what I considered great effect, but it’s still not something that I would expect to see happen very often at a top tournament. However, even with so few examples, I’ve given a lot of thought about it, I’ve realized that there are times and places for it, and I think there is some major strategy to discover with stacked characters.

My Seong Mi-na deck for example. I used Mi-na*** as my starter, and had a full playset of both the two dot and the one dot in my deck. To be completely honest, I didn’t really use the two dot Mi-na’s abilities very often, and I probably should have side boarded her instead, but the one dot Mi-na comboed with my starter great. With her very small handsize, it’s easy to play out your entire hand and have nothing left for the opponent’s turn. Neither of my starter's abilities require her to be committed  though, which means that she was almost always ready when the opponent’s turn came around, making it a perfect time to use the one dot Mi-na’s ability to draw up to your hand size. And, in the few games that I had enough card draw out to not need that, then I was able to spam the two dot Mi-na’s ability to get rid of all those attacks in my opponent’s discard pile that were starting to get on my nerves.

I think that one of the most important things I’ve realized is to not put in more than one character with a commit ability (that I intended to use at least), unless I can think of specific situations that I would use them on different turns. I mean, having more than one commit ability does give you options, and is a good strategy if you know the proper times to use the different abilities, but the more free/cheap abilities that you can use in a turn, the better your character becomes. Once you commit your character though, all of those free abilities just disappear until you ready again.



Alex is a great example of when to use a character with multiple commit abilities. I could easily see someone using the three dot as a starter, as the increase in (effective) handsize works great for setting up, and then you can get some crazy combos with the new four dot, making a switch to him after you've set up a great idea. With an deck like this, both commit abilities have their time, it's just important to realize when you will be able to use either of them.

Looking through a list of characters, I see that there are other great combos that still have multiple commit abilities. The important matter is just to recognize the different situations when you would use one from the stacked character rather then from your starter; AKA make sure that there is always a time when you might actually use the ability on your stacked character, otherwise it's not worth putting in.

Last week in the tourney at our local store, we ran a Highlander event (maximum of one copy per card (rather than four) in a deck) and even had someone stacking Yoshitora during it. Despite the fact that he only had one copy of each Yoshitora in his deck, somehow he still managed to stack at least one during each game. His starter was Yoshitora* (great choice because of his great stats, and the ability to commit almost any problem card), and the card that we all feared him getting out was the two dot Yoshitora. The two dot Yoshitora is great, except for those stats. A five handsize and only twenty-five vitality? This is another great reason to stack characters though, as it’s a relatively simple matter to stack the abilities you want on the stats of the better card.

Consider Balrog. Currently we have two Balrog’s available for block three, four dot and six dot. I would say that the six dot has better base stats, but the four dot has some really great free enhances. A great idea would be to start with the Balrog with a six handsize and a bonus to control checks. I like to run decks that use turn one and two as build up anyways, so not being able to use the free enhances on Balrog**** doesn’t make me that much of a sad penguin (that’s the hip phrase, right?). I’ve considered making a Balrog**** deck before, and if I had more punches and punch support to do it, this is the way I’d go about it. All of the cool enhances from the four dot, a fast (er than what I’m used to) build with a six handsize, a difficult to power through 30 health, and you already have some six checks and great blocks! After all, it’s a rare situation that I’m not happy to have an extra six check in the deck or a +0 mid block in the hand.

But even with all of the cool abilities, it seems that there still aren't very many times that characters get stacked. I feel that if people at least consider the concept in their decks though, that we could start seeing a lot more in play. Using the right abilities, better stats as a starter, or things like Mai**, Yi Shan (I hope that the new one for set twelve either has great stats and playablity, or has less than a six difficulty) or the Codys (characters that get better with the more you have), all great reasons to keep doing it. Now my only request is for more characters with a less than six difficulty. Please Fantasy Flight, please?