One great way to shake things up in the Constructed scene is to introduce formats that use a subset of the total card pool. Hopefully, the recent announcement about the new Constructed formats has you all pumped. I know that whenever we, the developers, test new formats for the first time, everyone becomes giddy with excitement. It’s great to test out completely new deck designs and to predict which decks and archetypes will work the best within an all-new environment with its own accompanying metagame.

In addition to the use-any-card-in-your-collection format (henceforth called the “Golden Age Format”), we are introducing the Marvel Modern Age and DC Modern Age formats, which include the two most recent sets in each of the respective brands. The Constructed portion of the next four Pro Circuits will be as follows:

PC #3: Marvel Modern Age, which is made up of the Web of Spider-Man and Marvel Knights expansions

PC #4: Golden Age, including every set through Marvel Knights

PC #5: DC Modern Age, which is made up of the Superman, Man of Steel and Green Lantern expansions

PC #6: Golden Age, including every set through Avengers

The Modern Age formats will also be used in the PCQ seasons directly following those PCs. At PC #6, there will be a clash between the PC #3 and PC #5 champs using their winning decks with a nice reward to some of the supporters of the winning side.

In the same way you look forward to the next set for Sealed Pack play, you can now anticipate new sets heralding drastically new Constructed formats. No longer will they just be 220 card additions to an ever-increasing pool. Now, they’ll also comprise half of a brand new Constructed format. This has a comparable feel to Sealed Pack, which offers ever-changing and varied game play as players explore a newly released set. In Sealed Pack, you get the chance to play with many cards you might never have given a second glance in Constructed. The same will now hold true for these new formats. You may have become accustomed to using cards like Savage Beatdown and Acrobatic Dodge as combat modifiers in Constructed, but in the upcoming Marvel Modern Age format, you’ll have to consider cards like Alley-Oop! and No Fear.

Assuming these formats are well received, you can expect that each expansion will be featured in two different Modern Age formats. For example, the Man of Steel expansion makes up half of each of the DC Origins/Man of Steel format and the Man of Steel/Green Lantern format. While only some of these pairs of sets might be featured at a Pro Circuit, there is still a good chance they will all be explored at $10K Championships. Since each set adds cards to teams featured in the previous set of that brand, you’ll find that teams may gain a new feel or power level. The Revenge Squad might have a much different style in the Man of Steel/Green Lantern pairing than it does in the DC Origins/Man of Steel pairing, both in regard to the metagame and as a result of additions to the team in the Green Lantern set.

Fewer Cards Doesn’t Mean Fewer Options

One of the greatest appeals to trading card games is the limitless ways you can combine cards to create decks. By that logic, wouldn’t having more cards at your disposal directly equate to more possible cool, competitive decks? While there is a certain truth to this, in any given card pool, certain archetypes and cards can suppress the effective implementation of other decks and strategies. Larger card pools can contribute to the problem—as some teams’ strategies become more and more efficient, it becomes harder for other strategies to take hold.

Part of the problem also stems from specific cards that are devastating to certain strategies. What happens when you have generic plot twists like Flame Trap, Political Pressure, and Total Anarchy, and team-specific ones like Reign of Terror, that can single-handedly suppress a weenie strategy? You have an environment hostile to weenie decks. Plus, with search cards like Boris and Alfred Pennyworth, it’s easy for a player to fetch these “hate” cards, even if he or she only puts one copy into a deck. While there are weapons a weenie deck can use against slower decks, like Foiled and Kaboom!, building a viable weenie deck is currently an uphill battle.

“Hate” cards and “hateful” synergies are not necessarily bad for the game, but they do strongly influence the metagame for any card pool that they’re in. Fortunately, we as designers can try to provide different environments. We may decide to have consecutive Marvel sets without weenie hate, without location removal, without ongoing plot twist removal, without a bunch of ATK modifiers, or some combination of these things to see how that changes gameplay. Meanwhile, we might be taking a completely different approach on the DC Comics side of things. These smaller card pools will let you explore some of our new mechanics, such as cosmic, in more depth than would ordinarily be possible. Either way, we will challenge you to adapt new strategies for the Modern Age formats

Freeing Up Suppressed Teams

There are some teams that do certain things very well but don’t quite break through because of other cards or teams that keep them in check. Let’s take a look at how much a team’s success can depend on which cards existed when the team appeared and what cards were printed afterwards. Hopefully you’ll see how even the mere narrowing of a card pool can alter a metagame or options for a team.

Did New Brotherhood and Big Brotherhood decks fall out of favor after the release of DC Origins because the Titans were just that good? Or was it because everyone suddenly had access to the versatile Have a Blast!? Was it only after DC Origins that Common Enemy found its answer to Brotherhood’s power cards? If DC Origins had been printed before Marvel Origins, maybe the Marvel Origins team that most players felt was the best (Brotherhood) would never have had its moment in the sun.

Some teams can really excel in a smaller card pool. For example, League of Assassins and The Brave and the Bold recently outshone Teen Titans in the Anaheim $10K (which was essentially our first DC Modern Age format, as the two most recent DC expansions were DC Origins and Man of Steel), even though Titans finished first and second at the PC the very same weekend. Since it was natural to assume that many players would be running Teen Titans in the DC Comics side of the $10K, the League players came packing a full complement of Tower of Babels. Since the Titans are very dependent on team attacks and using team-stamped cards while attacking, the League decks were quite successful in fending off the Titans decks. The Brave and the Bold then entered the mix more prominently, since that team-up had access to the Tower-stopping Fizzle. On the other hand, it is possible that mono-League won’t be able to tackle the rest of the field in the Golden Age Format in the ensuing months, because there are too many decks that give it problems. It is also worth noting that Titans may have lost access to more important cards than the other DC Comics teams at that $10K, since they relied heavily on cards like Press the Attack.

Which team do you think is better, Spider-Friends or Sinister Syndicate? Not even close, you say? Well, I’d say the answer depends very much on what cards and teams they play against. Let’s assume you think Syndicate is the weaker deck, since it hasn’t proven itself on the competitive scene. Why has your Syndicate deck failed? There are just too many decks with Overload, Reign of Terror, and Flame Trap, you say? What happens when your opposition loses access to all of those cards? Oh, and maybe every team won’t have access to generic ATK-pumping cards like Savage Beatdown. At that point, Lion’s Den and Doc Ock’s Lab might start looking like reasons to play the Syndicate. Well, at the next PC and in the next PCQ season, you won’t have to worry about any of those generic cards I just mentioned, and we’ll get to see how the Syndicate operates in a new world.

Even though you are just now trying to get a handle on Marvel Knights, you can probably appreciate how its teams may shine in the absence of certain cards. In Modern Age, X-Statix loner decks need not worry about Puppet Master. The Underworld won’t live in fear of Phantom Zone. Crime Lords don’t have to face a pesky team composed almost entirely of fliers, like Sentinels and Team Superman, who can swoop in and mess with their ability to reinforce. The Marvel Knights don’t have to worry about a team like Brotherhood “burning” them out after they spend tons of endurance on cards like Wild Ride.

That is not to say that these teams won’t be able to compete in Golden Age. We think there are many viable Golden Age strategies that will arise from the Marvel Knights set thanks to the hidden area, the strong base mechanics of some of the new teams, and additional incentives to team-up with these teams. However, it seems logical that while the Marvel Knights will make a splash in Golden Age, they’ll make an even bigger splash in the relatively smaller Marvel Modern Age pool.

Growing the Game: Making Constructed More Accessible to New Players

The long term health of Vs. depends partly on its ability to gain new players. Unfortunately, large formats can often be intimidating to someone new to the game. Not only can it be monetarily challenging for new players to buy packs from all the sets that predate their entry, but simply digesting the game text on every card ever made is also quite challenging. Imagine trying to learn a thousand cards when you first begin to play a game competitively. Besides having a ton of content to process, a new player will find it difficult to anticipate what might be played against him or her both in general (as in what the metagame might be like), and in specific (as in what tricks might lie face down in an opponent’s resource row). New players also lack experience when it comes to figuring out the best play when staring at the board on turn 6 against an opponent playing something like Teen Titans, especially when that opponent has gone through the process a hundred times.

Because of their smaller size, the new Modern Age formats allow any player to enter the game without having to do so much catch-up work. A new player can simply start with the latest Vs. release, and, in about half a year once the next set for that brand releases, that player will know all the cards in a Modern Age format. This just might apply to you! Maybe you didn’t get onto the competitive scene early. Now, if you’re facing the prospect of going to the PC, you’ll just have to get in some practice with Web of Spider-Man to be on par with all the seasoned pros. They’ll have to learn the Marvel Knights set, just like you.

Beyond These Formats: Teams or Whatever Else You Come Up With

Things don’t stop here. As you saw with the $10K at PC: Anaheim, we are eager to try out most anything that we think players will enjoy. We had competitors at Anaheim battling it out in the two formats, which we have just now given official names, to earn the right to represent their brand head-to-head against the other. Yes, this was a test of our new formats, but considering the finale, it was also an attempt to show you that we’ll do whatever we think players will find to be a cool or crazy event. For those of you that love Sealed Pack, I can assure you there will be Sealed Pack $10Ks in the near future. Furthermore, we are looking into ways to run team events. I know there was a 3-on-3 Marvel Knights Sealed Pack matchup in the office recently, with each team dividing the contents of ten packs amongst its three players. We’ve even tested out drafting with two teams, and that also looks promising. In the near future, you may be able to show up to a PCQ, $10K, or PC with one or more of your best buddies and take on all comers in either Sealed Pack, Booster Draft, or Constructed. If this sounds like a blast to you, say so via email or by discussing it on message boards. If you have ideas for other clever formats, let us know. Don’t hesitate to try your own crazy formats with your friends, even if they may never see official organized play.

Just an Added Bonus

While it’s pretty clear that the primary goal of this article is to explain why we’re so excited about the new Modern Age formats (and in doing so, get you excited about them as well), I should take a minute to talk very seriously about our position on Golden Age.

Simply put, Golden Age is “The Format.”

When people say they want to play Vs. System, it should be assumed that they’re referring to Golden Age. While the Modern Age formats (and whatever kooky stuff we come up with next) might sometimes be the environment of choice, Golden Age is forever. We are committed to keeping Golden Age a fun and healthy format through the lifespan of Vs. System. Though some formats might highlight various slices of the overall card pool, we never lose sight of a set’s impact on Golden Age. And as you’ve seen with the recent emergence of the League of Assassins and X-Men with help from their new cards, we’d like as many teams and archetypes as possible to be viable in our largest and best format.

Comments are welcome at DHumpherys@metagame.com.