Worlds Tournament Report - Zeke Yeager Beast Titan
Written By Kameron Caldwell
Where to start with my scattered thoughts of my Worlds 2025 experience?
Day 0: Flying in Thursday and getting to spend time seeing so many familiar faces was an incredibly relaxing way to start an incredible weekend. Sitting, chatting, and playing against River Cook and Mark Tyner was the way to get into the headspace for day 1.
Day 1: I was proud to become a member of a group of the nicest people I have met playing this game, Undefeated at Locals and give my best push for myself and the team. I went 4-3 with some insane games. Round 1 was a loss against Godzilla. I made a poor decision to attempt a block I knew I would fail, to get another card out of hand. I checked orange and proceeded to draw a fresh 6 only for 4 backups and 2 foundations. Rough start but went undefeated for a few rounds after. Going into round 5 of 7 I was 3-1 fresh off lunch and a round 4 win feeling some pressure to get my wins and keep some breathing room to make it to day 2. Lost to the coolest Godzilla I've seen, Colin Kaichou playing ally on earth. I still had a chance, round 6 was against a fellow UaL player playing Jinwoo. This was my first game into the new Jinwoo and I was slapped. Couldn't keep up on the build or get my backups out fast enough. Round 7 was a win, but it was too little too late. Ending my day 1 run at 4-3 ending in 33rd. It was a decent run with some great games.
Day 2 went 3-0 in double ticket standard, 2-1 in a prerelease, spent the day socializing and just throwing some casual cardboard. Went around and got a worlds playmat signed by all of the incredible people working the event. All judges, commentators, organizers, and UVS Games staff alike. Huge shout and thank you to every single one of you that put so much time and energy into making it the best damn event of the year.
Day 3: Teams, last chance to really show up to Dallas. Teamed up with Marvin Emory and Colin, we went undefeated through the first 4 rounds, took the ID for round 5 giving us some breathing room and time off before moving into top cuts. Top 8 found me sitting across from The Boimler ruining the competition with Reiner 1 in one of the most insane games I played not only that weekend, but quite possibly my entire year of UVS. Game 1 started very smooth with a turn 2 transformation and some heavy hits on turn 3. Forgetting to read what my opponent did on transformed face saw my final lethal attack getting set to 0 damage. Managed to defend the turn and squeeze the win out. Game 2, Reiner going first is big scary. Being able to throw multiple 7+ difficulty attacks while also chipping away at my stage made defending hard. Turn 2 saw me getting hit for over 20 of my 34 health. No turn 2 transformation, saw some defenses on board, but the damage had already been done. I couldn’t find my feet for the entire game and instead found the floor. Game 3 is where we really got crazy. Incredible back and forth, lots of stat hate on both sides, a final turn 2 transformation and a great deal of damage dealt things were looking good. The next 2 turns were nail biters for us both. Explosive attacks being thrown just enough reductions to block and stay alive. Final turn, opened up with a rock barrage (classic) got some more damage in and felt pretty good. Played Double Spirit Blast with the momentum to echo, stopped dead in my tracks by Genkai’s Guidance, things suddenly felt very bleak. I had 2 attacks and a backup left to get me to where I needed to be. Checked Genghis Frog he's always fashionably late to the party and saw a slight glimmer of hope. If I can check well, we can get there. Reiner has 7 health left with a -2 damage on face, Hunters Ally builds the Frog in putting it to 10 damage, no longer able to reduce it out of lethal, Genghis Frog got me the win and a deep breath of relief.
The 14 health I had left would have been nothing for my opponent to chew through. Moving to top 4 against the team that took it all, I got paired with Mikasa 4, a match I was happy to see, as I hadn't lost a round to a Mikasa yet. I couldn’t see more of my defensive pieces than a single Keiko that got sealed and got blown out 0-2. Getting to top 4 in teams was an awesome feeling and it felt very hard fought. The biggest thank you to my teammates, I wish we could have gotten there, but we had a hell of a run, and I appreciate you both so much.
Spent the day between games getting as many players as I could to sign a separate worlds playmat. 1 for the staff, 1 for the players. I missed several people that I wanted to get signatures from, but hopefully there will be chances in the future for that.
Congratulations to Jorge on your win, crushing the competition with Godzilla and being the 2025 Universus champion of the world!! Congratulations to all of the day 3 players, every single one of you fought like hell to get where you landed.
I couldn't love this community more than I already do. I had the best time seeing so many faces and flipping cardboard with every one of you. I met some great people and saw some faces I deeply missed I can't wait to see so many of you again and continue to meet new (to me or to the game) players in the upcoming years. Thank you to everybody that showed up, everybody that watched the streams, and every single person that takes the time to check out this lovely little card game we have. I am excited to step into another year of Universus OP, and I'm going to give it my all to take Chicago down in my return to the Midwest.
Check out the decklist here: https://uvsultra.online/deck.php?deck=cTfAOcfepLjDnPWuxemfsyyOCSPVqS
