Disclaimer: I will be referencing sets of all kinds from all different release dates for this article. Sets are not released in equal in Weiss Schwarz, and releases/changes to effects can be all over the place.
Weiss Schwarz is a constantly evolving game. As such, many mechanics/abilities are revamped or improved upon leaving older cards in a weaker position. It is the unfortunate truth, but because of the way that card games progress, eventual power-creep is inevitable as games grow older. But that’s not to say that certain changes are unwanted by any means. Changes go both ways, sometimes positive, other times negative. I’m not necessarily saying that it balances itself out either. That’s just how the nature of card games work.
As the game has progressed, changes have to occur in order to keep the game fresh, interesting and more importantly, to newer systems into the game. If the game was always the same, it would be stale and players would find themselves possibly bored and leave for another.
Weiss Schwarz still tries to maintain some form of relative balance in terms of how its cards are stacked against each other. The golden rule of higher level cards generally being stronger in power or having better or more efficient effects still stands. There are also common brackets of power by which cards in each level try to average themselves around with effects that add or subtract that number. The vanilla power levels are as follows: level 0 = 3000, level 1 = 5500, level 2 = 8500, level 3 = 10000.
The biggest change is likely in the actual effects of cards themselves. Rather older cards used to have heavier costs tied to them or more conditions that restricted deck making or activation requirements, newer cards have relaxed more on these effects overall. For instance, back in the earlier days of Weiss Schwarz, getting hand was considerably difficult to get for free without paying stock or relying on paid combo effects. Many encore abilities were considered rare and powerful assets, but the keyword is thrown around all the time nowadays. Samples of paid combo climax effects to gain advantage below.
BM-S15-080R 恋人同士 阿良々木暦＆戦場ヶ原ひたぎ (center)
LB/W02-055R 恋人同士 阿良々木暦＆戦場ヶ原ひたぎ (right)
I tend to think I started near the end of this sort of paid plus effect meta and right around the start of the reverse plus effect meta that followed.
GU/WE26-034RR “プレゼント交換” チノ (center)
TL/W37-040R “衣服の整理”美柑 (right)
For some time, many plus combos were the following above with gradual change to make their static powers around 5500 on its own aside from Shimakaze herself. Effects just got a lot better, both combos and supportive cards like filters.
BD/W73-067SPa – “キズナの音楽”花園たえ (center)
BFR/S78-007R ギルドマスター メイプル (right)
Plus effects have even widened to many of the to-date plus combos being placed upon gaining advantage without reverse.
Lately though, there seems to be growing numbers of designs similar to the card above. Reverse effects that also provide an additional bonus like being a hand filter possibly. Could this be the rise of a reverse based combo meta once more? Who knows? We’ll have to see.