Life is full of firsts that change existence as you know it. As a baby, the first steps you take open up a whole new environment of exploration and learning. When you speak your first words, you enter into a world of effective communication, allowing you to point out to mother that you just went “fall down.” The first day of school puts you on a road of education and social development that will serve you in good stead for the rest of your life. So what about the first time you pick up a handful of Vs. System cards and think, “I wonder how I play this game?” That, my friends, is the first step on a path to creative, enthralling, strategic gameplay. Over the next few weeks, I am going to look at Vs. System at its most basic and try to help new players get a foot in the Vs. System door. These articles will probably offer little to the experienced pro, but if I can help just one new player understand the game better, I’ll be a happy chappy.
We all have to start somewhere. I myself had absolutely no knowledge of TCGs or comics when I discovered Vs. System. As a result, I found starting out to be quite a slow process. That was until I found a gaming store in my town with a very helpful owner. When I telephoned the store, they had not been open very long, Vs. System had only just been released, and they did not have any product in stock. If you’re faced with a similar situation, don’t panic. I kept calling until Jason (the owner) finally got some Marvel Origins delivered. After that, a player base quickly built up, and there were plenty of people to get a game with.
A Venue
If you’re not a gamer already, you probably haven’t frequented a gaming store before. Upper Deck Entertainment’s website has a locator that can find a store near you that runs Vs. Hobby League (casual Vs. play).
This is a great tool to help you find a game of Vs. if you’re not already a regular at a gaming store. Visit the store and introduce yourself. A great storeowner will make you feel welcome, help set you up with a couple of games, and even provide a demonstration if you ask nicely.
If your storeowner is not familiar with Vs., fear not, for there is a solution at hand. Upper Deck provides a demonstration service to help new players get into the game. If you want to arrange for a member of the demo team to come to your local store, go here for more details.
The Formats
Once you’ve got your location, cards, and some basic rules knowledge, you’ll want to start playing some games. In the broadest terms, there are two ways of playing Vs. System:
Constructed Deck Format
The players bring their own 60-card-minimum decks constructed out of the available card pool. There is no maximum deck size.
Sealed Pack Format
Players build 30-card-minimum decks out of previously unopened packs. This can be done in one of two ways:
1. Sealed Pack Format: Players open several Vs. System booster packs and build decks from the opened cards.
2. Booster Draft Format: Players open several Vs. System booster packs and pass them around a table of players. Each player gets to pick a card to add to his or her deck before passing the cards to the next player. This is done until all cards have been picked.
Constructed
To begin with, I’ll run through some basics of building your deck for play within the Constructed format. Constructed has a few sub-formats that dictate which cards can be used to construct your deck.
· Golden Age: Players bring decks they constructed using any Vs. System set that has been released.
· Silver Age: Players bring decks they constructed out of the last eight Vs. sets.
· Marvel Modern Age: Players bring decks they constructed out of the last two Marvel sets.
· DC Modern Age: Players bring decks they constructed out of the last two DC Comics sets.
It’s a good idea to check with your local storeowner or tournament organizer to see if a particular format is supported. The last thing you want to do is turn up on your first visit only to be told that the deck you brought doesn’t match the format. It is also advisable to keep an eye out for cards that have been banned. Vs. System does particularly well in this department, and to date only three cards have been banned from tournament play. Keep an eye on the Vs. System Policy documents, where all banned cards are listed.
Once you’ve established the format and the cards available, you can begin to construct your deck.
Building the Deck
In Constructed, your deck must contain a minimum of 60 cards and no more than 4 copies of any card unless it has the version Army. While there is no maximum number of cards in your deck, it is strongly advised that you stick to the magic number of 60. The general consensus is that adding more cards reduces your chance of drawing the card you need at the time you need it. The only time I would suggest building a 60+ card deck is if your build contains a lot of search abilities or extra card drawing potential. For example, I use a Villains United / X-Statix team-up deck in Silver Age tournaments that is 61 cards. The reason I can confidently do this is because of one card at the heart of the strategy, The Science Spire. It allows me to draw far more cards than normal during the course of a game, so having that one card over 60 is not so much of a problem.
The first thing I do when I start building a deck is identify a clear purpose and strategy. Some decks are built around a single card like Xavier’s Dream, while other decks might operate on a more general strategy.
Beatdown decks are combat-based and aim to win by crushing the opposition with powerful attacks throughout the course of the game. There are many variations on this theme. Some decks aim to recruit multiple characters per turn and overwhelm the opposition through sheer numbers. These are often referred to as swarm decks. Other decks stay on-curve (recruiting a 3-drop on turn 3, a 4-drop on turn 4, etc.) and do the job through powerful ATK-boosting plot twists and characters with large stats.
Control decks like to stop your opponent from playing. This can be done by exhausting your opponent’s characters and reducing his or her attack options. Additionally, if you can stop or restrict your opponent’s use of plot twists and locations, you can hurt your opponent quite badly. The Doom team has always been rather good at this aspect of play, using cards like Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius, Mystical Paralysis, and Reign of Terror.
Stall decks prolong the game until you can bring a very powerful character out on the later turns with the hope that it has the ability to win you the game. An example of this would be the aforementioned Villains United / X-Statix deck. VU/XS aims to survive long enough for it to bring out its late-turn characters like Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch or the incredibly powerful Imperiex.
There are more themes and strategies than these, but if you’re just starting out they provide a good foundation. If you’ve never played a trading card game before, a beatdown-type deck is probably the easiest one to start with. If you’re a comic fan, you may want to build a deck based around your favorite characters or team. If, like me, you have no particular bias, you will want to look through the card list until you find something that catches your eye. When I start working on a deck it’s often because one particular card really interested me, so find something you like and start from there. This week, I’ll begin by looking at a curve deck.
The Curve Deck
Deciding how many copies of each card you’ll be including in your deck can be tricky at first. I’ve never been a mathematician, so I can’t explain things using probability equations and other such cleverness. All I’ll say to you is that you must listen to your deck. A good practice is to “goldfish” your deck, which means you play through the deck on your own, checking to see how consistently the cards you need appear at the correct time. If you find that you never seem to hit your 3-drop, perhaps you are not including enough copies. If you find that you always hit multiple, redundant copies of your 6-drop, maybe you should take one out so you have room for more necessary cards.
Here is a basic guide I work from when building a curve deck:
Character spread:
1-drop: 0-4 copies
2-drop: 4-7 copies
3-drop: 4-7 copies
4-drop: 4-6 copies
5-drop: 4-5 copies
6-drop: 3-4 copies
7-drop: 1-3 copies
8-drop: 0-2 copies
This is a very rough guide. There are all sorts of variables to consider when building your deck. First of all, how many character cards do you actually want? Some decks that have reliable character search mechanisms can afford to run a fairly low number. Those that either don’t have the luxury of search cards or, like the X-Men, require a lot of characters for discard purposes would want to run a higher total. If I had to give an average number, you should probably look to have about 30 characters and 30 other cards (plot twists, locations, etc.).
When choosing your non-character cards, be sure to stay focused on the strategy of your deck. It’s very common for the inexperienced deckbuilder to include all manner of “cool” cards that might seem good in their own right but don’t actually help the deck’s primary strategy. There are certain card types that you always want to consider including. Any card that improves the consistency of your deck is very powerful. If you’re running a deck that uses more than one team, Enemy of My Enemy is a superb search card that helps ensure you hit your curve. Of course, if you are running a mono-team deck like Fantastic Four, you would use Signal Flare instead. If you have decided to play a beatdown deck, then you’ll want to make sure that you have a good array of combat pumps. But think about the cards you use! For example, if the characters in your deck do not have flight, then you may want to consider including a card like Flying Kick. Being able to attack a protected character is a very strong ability.
Likewise, if your characters are severely lacking in range, you may want to think hard about using a card like Mega-Blast. The ATK bonus is substantial, but if it’s your initiative and you put a character without range in the support row, you are more or less telling your opponent what you’re planning. Take care if you send a signal like this, because it will help your opponent plan his or her defensive strategy. Putting Mega-Blast in a deck with characters that have an abundance of range is fine, however, as you will not be telegraphing your play quite as often.
Remember that the process of deckbuilding does not stop when you’ve put the sixtieth card in the deck. You must play with the deck, analyze its performance, and make any changes you feel are necessary. Try little tweaks here and there to see if there are any changes in performance.
Next week, I’ll take a look at building an off-curve deck. If you are a new player just starting out, I’d love to hear about your experiences so far. Please feel free to email me at kamiza989@gmail.com.
Deckbuilder Challenge Cup
It’s results time. You’ve been voting for the winner of the fourth challenge in our series, “Frustration.” Without further ado, here are the results of the voting:
1. Techno: “Creeping Frustration” 31%
2. Tombster212: “Gotham Doom” 26%
3. Nick Seaman: “Frustration” 17%
4. Mike Mullin: “Run, Riddler, Run” 16%
5. George Shafer: “A Knight of Shadows” 10%
This means that points are awarded as follows:
Techno: 5 points
Tombster212: 3 points
Nick Seaman: 1 point
Another close one, but it does give us our first player to appear in the top three on two occasions, Nick Seaman. With that in mind, here is the new leaderboard:
1. Nick Seaman 6 points
2. Brian Herman 5 points
3. Techno 5 points
4. Tom Reeve 5 points
5. Jin Yi Huang 3 points
6. George Shafer 3 points
7. Ian Vincent 3 points
8. Tombster212 3 points
9. Zach Luster 1 point
10. Mike Mullin 1 point
11. Sam Roads 1 point
Thanks for all your entries, and congratulations to everyone who made the top five!
See you next time,
Steve Garrett