Images courtesy of UVS Games
The final chapter of the 2024 organized play season for UniVersus has come to a conclusion. Players from all over the world made their way to Orlando, Florida to compete in the three day festival to crown the best of the best.
Day One saw eight final spots up for grabs in the Last Chance Qualifier. Day Two saw 64 participants battling it out in seven rounds of competition, cutting the field in half. On Sunday we were treated to five rounds of single elimination until only one player remained.
Last Chance Qualifiers
Players who weren’t able to acquire enough Championship Points or place highly at a premier level event signed up in hopes of filling out the final entries in the main event. Many familiar faces ended up claiming the final invites, with former champions like Keenan Meadows (Ymir) and Jacob Johnson (Elder Toguro) going undefeated to little surprise.
What may have come as a shock however was the dominance of aggressive seven-hand size characters who have been kept out of the winner’s circle for most of the year. Franklin Farago’s Devil Jin represented as the only five-hander to make the cut.
Day Two: Swiss Standings
Once we had our 64 participants for the main event, it was time to determine seeding for the final bracket. A seven round Swiss-system tournament would not only provide placements for the final day, but also culled the competition in half. The featured matches observed a lot of very methodical play, with many matches ending in draws as players were afraid of their championship dreams slipping away.
Ymir and Pony Tsunotori’s blazing aggro and flexible mid range strategies were favorites going into this weekend, but King Ghidorah, Emperor of the Cosmos and Hange Zoe, Four Eyes would be right behind them with game plans ready to smother the flames. Overall there were 31 unique starting characters in the main event, making for an incredible amount of diversity players would have to be prepared for if they wanted to survive.
Day Three: Crowning a UniVersus Champion
The final stretch of the tournament saw five elimination rounds, as the best of the best looked to claim the greatest prize in gaming. Not only the opportunity to help design a starting character card, but also to become a playable character in UniVersus has been a dream for many. The chance to become a part of the very game we hold so dearly. As the rounds progressed and the excitement grew, so too did the pain of defeat.
As the Pony Tsunotoris ate each other up in mirror matches all throughout the top 32, it would be Alex Gurney’s version making it as far as the final four before Travis Tangeman’s Krista Lenz deck (now on the Order symbol!) was able to punish its high risk, high reward style. Trenton Caudill’s King Ghidorah, Emperor of the Cosmos list grinded his opponents out to a top four finish using more throws than we normally see. It would eventually fall to Kevin Broberg’s Hange Zoe, Four Eyes with a suite of suffocating damage reduction and the huge impact of expensive Titan attacks.
The Final Chapter: 2024 UniVersus World Championship Grand Finals
Anyone following the results of the 2024 organized play season should not be surprised to see these two players in the finals. Team Rochester CCG’s Kevin Broberg and Team Meta Game Liberation Army’s Travis Tangeman have been going back and forth winning premier events all year. Travis won the St. Louis Regional, then Kevin won the Atlanta Regional, then Travis won the US National Championship in Dallas and became the only player who triple-qualified for Worlds: Regional Invite, Nationals Invite, and Points Invite. In the end, Kevin cemented his legacy as the second winningest player in UVS history with his seventh victory at a Major.
Travis had an incredible year bringing innovative decks and performing extraordinarily with each of them. Aided by the brewers within Team MGLA he brought an adapted version of his National Championship deck to drown his opponents in the overwhelming card advantage that Wall Maria’s Might provides, combined with the resource denial of the Stun keyword. Krista’s main drawback in the current Standard environment is that the character applies no damage bonuses, unlike the vast majority of the meta’s top contenders. This allowed Kevin’s deck to soak wave after wave of attacks, turning his stunned foundations into damage reduction with Weapon Clash and The Greater Goal making him look untouchable after the first couple turns of the game.
The Next Chapter of UniVersus
A huge congratulations goes out to Kevin for a stellar year and another champ card to add to his repertoire. But there is little time to commiserate; in less than a month the first Regional tournament of the 2025 season kicks off in Denver, Colorado. It’ll feature the most anticipated release in UVS history, Critical Role: Heroes of Exandria. Pre-Release weekend begins February 28th, so click here to find a store near you to join in the fun!
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