A new and unexpected age is upon global Umamusume: Pretty Derby players, as the sudden balance changes to the game’s support cards, unique skills, career mode events and more have rocketed Global six months ahead of schedule into uncharted territory. Up until this point, players and content creators have been relying on the Japanese history and meta to offer assistance to players and create guides, but with this surprising early updated, Global has now entered a totally new era that is wholly its own. If you'd like to read the full release from Cygames, you can do so here, but it comes without much context.
So, what does any of that mean to you, a player, regardless of investment into the game? Well, frankly, casual players will likely not notice the difference or even care, but even moderately invested players are going to not only notice sudden changes, but also surprising outcomes and even baffling performance issues without understanding what has happened to the game due to this change. Never fear; I’m here to explain the changes, what matters and how it matters, and what it will mean for your career runs and PVP trainings for the foreseeable future of Umamusume: Pretty Derby’s global edition.
My first tip: You better grab your free MLB Haru Urara Guts card.
Everyone’s A Star
One of the easier changes to note in wide swath is that many trainees unique skills have been buffed to be both more effective and also more reliable, ensuring that their skills will activate at opportune times and helping to make less well performing star trainees do just as well as vaunted “meta” trainees. Ironically, this means that the age of Summer Maruzensky’s domination of the meta is over before it really began, mostly allowing her to take home the Leo Cup and not much else. That doesn’t mean she is not still strong nor should you underestimate a well trained Summer Maruzensky, but what these Unique Skill changes mostly mean is that any trainee is viable in any race that they have the proficiency to run in.
When this change initially came, Umamusume: Pretty Derby was a year old and had received a year’s worth of new trainees and changes to the game. Updates like this are fairly common in gacha games as they help make older units more viable and make players feel less bad about “losing out” on not having the newest units, or at least rewarding them for having invested in their favorite trainees heavily. Even trainees who already had fairly good skills, like Agnes Tachyon’s U=ma2, will receive updates to give them new effects and make them more useful.
Primarily, this means that while there will always be “good” units for specific races, the amount of trainees you can use for anything is more or less totally wide open. Obviously some trainees are going to be better suited for some races than others due to their innate leanings, but meta lists are far tighter now then they would have been before, and certain trainees, like Oguri Cap, will become even more valuable as an all-rounder that can fit just about any situation.
In summary, every trainee’s unique skills have been tweaked, primarily those that performed less well than others, and especially those that involved positioning, such as Matikanefukukitaru, and others that required specific positioning conditions or odd activations like T.M. Opera O’s "This Dance is for Vittoria", Narita Brian's "Shadow Break" or Fuji Kiseki's "The Lights of Vaudeville", will now not only activate more reliably, but also with better impact and bigger ability to make a trainee competitive. From this point out, while you can expect guides like ours to recommend specific trainees if possible, you can, and should, simply use whoever you want, as almost every trainee’s unique skill is valuable now; this is the era of favorite over meta pick, so play your favorite (who should be Meisho Doto, of course).
Career Boy (or Girl)
Perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of Global was the Career grind. Sadly, this surprise patch did not include an increase in how many friends players can borrow from in a day, but we got many other balance changes that will make completing careers more valuable and rewarding for the time and effort put into them. Aside from gains to monies, the biggest is that completing careers will now reward greater parameter increases, meaning that hitting stat goals with career bonuses is far more likely and far more rewarding overall.
Numerous career events have also been tweaked, primarily those that provided little to no benefit or even negative outcomes, making Careers less punishing and also less determined by bad RNG; the biggest net benefit is that the punishing nature of bad status effects and their repetitive possibilities have been more or less removed. Although you may still get the occasional Night Owl or Migraine, they are far less run enders than they were before, and the meme’d about triple mood down events are, also, similarly a thing of the past now.
All of these changes are net positive. While the negative status effects were certainly a variable that added flavor and variety, base Umamusume existed without a consideration of how the game would be played even a few months into its lifespan, and removing these repeated negative outcomes means that career runs will be smoother.
Specifically, the Cygames update states that it adjusted Careers to mitigate the effects of bad conditions:
Increased the probability to recover more energy when Resting while afflicted with "Night Owl."
Decreased the probability of being afflicted with a bad condition from some trainee events.
Removed mood decreases when being afflicted with a bad condition from some events.
Mood decreases when unable to train as a result of the "Slacker" condition now occur randomly.
Rest and Recreation during Summer Camp now cures bad conditions.
Resting now has a chance to cure the "Night Owl" and "Skin Outbreak" conditions.
Training with Etsuko Otonashi now has a chance to cure the "Slacker" condition.
Certain Career events now cure bad conditions.
Perhaps the most obviously beneficial one is “Rest and Recreation during Summer Camp now cures bad conditions”, as there was perhaps nothing more frustrating or even run ending than going into Summer with Slacker or Night Owl and losing out on any or even all benefits from Summer trainings. Also, Etsuko (The Reporter, if you didn’t recognize her name) finally has an actual incentive to train with her aside from the very small bonus you receive from her at the end of a career.
Trainees have also, generally, received some boosts or tweaks to their careers, and numerous Support Card events have also received changes. There are quite a lot of them, so while trying to list all of them here would be exhaustive, the general gist of what has changed is that all events are either more beneficial or better in what benefits they offer, and skill hints will be more reliable and available in certain support card interactions.
A final note: the release from Cygames did not mention this update including Auto, but that was a feature the official account teased well before the Leo Cup; so although it was not included here, do be on the lookout for Auto in Career Mode coming sooner rather than later, very likely.
Dynamic Races
Another big change that this patch brings is a far better positioning system that not only finally makes skills that reference positioning, such as Position Pilfer, valuable, but it also is part of why almost any trainee becomes useful and viable; the old adage of “if you’re blocked, you’re blocked” is far less common with the changes to positioning, and also makes taking positioning skills for trainees who do not run out in front more valuable. The final spurt is also changing, making it much more of a wider field for trainees to make their final attempts at victory more likely by ensuring that racers fan out and open up the field far wider than before.
If you’ve previously found that races feel like you lack control but also that the lack of control is actually detrimental due to the system of how racers position themselves, then you’ll be happy to know that this change will help ensure that trainees will now race more naturally and also that “unexpected” outcomes can more likely occur. This doesn’t mean that a 100 in 1 shot will win, but it does mean that a Late Surger or End Closer can actually win due to no longer being immediately blocked by the very racers they’re trying to pass. It also means that Pace Chasers will have a better ability to go beyond Front Runners without slamming into the back of them and coming to a complete stop instead.
The update lists some of these changes as “Spot Struggle” and “Dueling”, which will pit your trainee against others at specific points in the race and will generally make differences in skills and stats far more important than before; this is certainly when Wit checks and other stat gates are going to become far more important, and your builds are going to want to consider positional skills now.
Perhaps the other change that may be less universal is the addition of “Runaway” aptitude. The only current trainee you’ll see this on at the moment is Silence Suzuka, and is otherwise known as “Great Escape” or “Oonige” in Japanese; essentially, rather than being a simple Front Runner who competes to stay in the front of the pack, Runaway aptitude runners look to blow out the rest of the competition with an unbeatable lead that rockets them to the front of the pack and makes them stay there.
This means that skills like Early Lead will finally have value, but also, recovery skills like Iron Will are going to also serve purposes as they have been tweaked to be useful in the middle of a race and increase recovery skills that can be utilized effectively. Runaway aptitude racers want to be in front and stay in front, and they require more Stamina than other positions, so better and more reliable recovery skills are really the only way to ensure that happens. So don’t worry, Iron Will not only isn’t bad, it is actually quite good now, and Early Lead can help you proc Groundwork as well!
Eveveryone's favorite pink horse, Haru's Guts card is a shockingly good stat stick.
Guts Era
The biggest overall change this update brings is the importance of Guts to successful trainees. Although previous PVP events have made mention of or implied the need for Guts at a certain level, Guts will now impact Speed AND Stamina, and particularly impacts Speed in the Final Spurt; not having enough Guts will ensure your trainee can’t overtake challengers or keep the lead at the end of the race, running out of steam and letting victory slip out of their grasp.
This also means that Support Deck construction is likely going to change for many players, and this is where the free Haru Urara Guts card becomes so valuable. Aside from the fact that the card is free and can be obtained easily with Club Points, it is an amazing Guts stat stick that provides good benefits and a “roaming” Support that provides good parameter benefits when Haru shows up to various trainings.
Even more valuable is the fact that the upcoming new scenario, Unity Cup, features Haru as a major Scenario player, meaning that including her in your deck will provide extra benefit due to the fact that the Scenario features her primarily in much of the team building aspects; essentially, Guts cards will be useful, but Haru Urara’s card will be exceptionally useful to Global Players both for the benefits and for the Scenario bonus (which will also be helpful for scenario scores in events).
This also means that deckbuilding will need to be slightly more thoughtful; simply slamming 4 Speed and 2 Stamina cards won’t be enough to likely produce highly effective trainees, although we are still quite a ways away from wanting varied, 1 of each stat decks. And, depending on what cards you have and their LB levels, stat stacking is still likely going to help produce the best overall trainees, but working in Wit and Guts cards will now be something you’ll want to consider to help raise effective trainees for PVP or competitive use. There are certainly going to be a lot more changes coming down the road for Global Umamusume, but this is certainly the biggest change to the game since release, and also the most unexpected; for a large portion of the playerbase, this means that following rote guides for PVP events is no longer going to be a guarantee for success, and it also means that the “meta” is no longer static. If you enjoy experimenting and want to focus on playing your favorite trainees over the ones you are told you have to play, then the update on Nov 11th is going to provide you a brand new world of Umamusume. Until then, if you have any questions, please leave us comments down below, drop by the Goonhammer Discord if you’re a Patron, or even email me at marcy@goonhammer.com! Until then, I’ll be training to hopefully see you all out there on this brand new era’s turf!
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Eveveryone's favorite pink horse, Haru's Guts card is a shockingly good stat stick.
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