There are many costs in Vs. System. The most central cost to the game is in the resource points that you generate each turn. These points have a very high value in the game. Players want as few of these points to go unspent each turn as possible. Whether it is recruiting characters or equipment, or paying for payment powers with resource points, finely tuned decks generally maximize spending these points.

Unlike many games, Vs. System has another huge pool of cards that effectively have no cost. Plot twists and locations have threshold costs, although this is a bit of a misnomer: the only cost is an opportunity cost of sorts. While some of these cards have a high enough threshold that there is the opportunity cost of whether or not you can play the card, the vast majority of these cards do not have any genuine cost that you are paying. This class of cards does a lot for our game, since they are generally much less time-sensitive than other cards. With some exceptions, they are ready to use as soon as you draw them. Unlike other card types, you don’t get stuck with dead cards if you get a brief glut of these because you don’t have to worry about paying for them. From a developer’s standpoint, the tradeoff is that it is tricky to balance cards that are effectively free. But free cards can definitely be fun to play with if properly balanced.

There are various intermediate levels of cost between these two extremes. For example, many cards have, “To play <cardname>, exhaust a character you control”; “To play <cardname>, discard a card”; or “To play <cardname>, pay X endurance.” Costs like these will have very different meanings in different decks based on how easy it is to get characters into play or how easy it is to draw cards. Cards can also have a much different effective cost in curve decks and off-curve decks. While there are many exceptions to the rule, a curve deck will more generally be able to discard while an off-curve deck will be more likely to be able to afford exhausting a character. If nothing else, these “additional costs” to our free cards can often help us avoid loops within our game, although it isn’t a foolproof way.

As many of you are aware, we’ve taken some liberties in making characters that have modal costs. You can pay for them with resource points or some other means instead, such as by discarding a card. By extension, there have been many other cards that circumvent the need to pay resource points for characters. This is certainly dangerous ground for us to tread, so why do we make these cards? One answer is that they can be fun and powerful, but beyond this there are many reasons. As I alluded to when discussing free non-character cards, these cards alleviate the time-sensitive nature of cards that would otherwise require resource points. What happens when you draw your 1-drop any time after your first six cards? Well, at least in curve decks, there’s a good chance it just sits in your hand the rest of the game until you can discard it to some other card. These cards also alleviate the pressure on other cards or themes we want to make. They make it much easier to sustain a team attack theme, pay exhaust costs, or reinforce other characters. Other times it is primarily for character thematics. Take for example Dr. Light and his holograms.

In preparing this article, I was quite surprised by just how many cards already exist in out game that get around paying recruit costs. There are many general classes these card fall into. Long before the days of Dr. Light, Master of Holograms, there were other reusable activated powers on characters dating back to Master Mold, Sentinel Supreme and Jackal, Dr. Miles Warren. Then we have triggered effects on cards like Talia, Daughter of Madness; Dr. Light, Furious Flashpoint; and Plant Man ◊ Blackheath, Samuel Smithers. We also have characters who are free under certain conditions, like Tommy, Runaway; Amelia Voght, Acolyte; and Mr. Mxyzptlk, Fifth Dimension Imp. Then there are characters who require endurance payments, like Nightmaster, Jim Rook; Nightmaster, Demon Slayer; and Doppelganger, Killer Clone (don’t tell Yip I spoiled this). Moving along, we have cards that trade off resources, like Underground Sentinel Base; Sleeper Agent, Manhunter Sleeper; and Manhunter Engineer. Then there are cards that ask others for a little help, like Deadshot, Dead Aim; Moloids; and the adorable Space Bears. I haven’t even gotten to our many one-shot effects like Lex Luthor ◊ Mockingbird, Evil Exile; Dual Nature; and Hard Sound Construct. Characters that boost other characters into play, like Dr. Light, Arthur Light, also warrant mention. And let’s not forget Haywire.

What is the point of this list? In part, it is just a reminder of the many risks and adventures we’ve taken with putting characters into play in non-traditional ways. Many of these have caused us some headaches, but I certainly think the payoffs and excitement have been worth it. It also brings me to the final class of “discounted” characters. Specifically, 1-drop characters you can recruit by discarding a card. These characters have a tricky issue: we want them to be playable for one resource point as well as when discarding a card. I believe the first incarnation of this was on Dr. Hauptmann, Diabolic Inventor. For the longest time, these cards lived in harmony with the rest of the universe, with cards like Rick Jones, A Hero's Best Friend playing out in the decks we expected and at a reasonable power level. Most of these characters were designed to fill a certain role within their teams. More recently, rather than appearing as supporting characters in team-based decks, they have appeared together in some degenerate decks. This came as a result of our reducing the amount of team stamping in general, and specifically on this class of cards. Fiddler, Isaac Bowin and Valeria Von Doom, Heir to Latveria were recently added to our banned list as characters that did too much for this cost. Regrettably, I must add two other, similar cards to the banned list that can be too easily played in any deck and to too great an effect.

Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth was the most clear-cut example of a card that was doing too much for its cost. The card was also contributing to extremely long build phases, which is something we obviously want to avoid.

Nenora, Skrull Usurper was not as clear an offender, but it was another card that did too much by adding to character recruitment count, putting another body in play, and teaming-up any number of assorted characters for a very small price.

There are, of course, many possible angles we could have taken in dealing with the various combo decks that had come to light. We feel that cutting out the generic tools for powerful, discounted one-cost characters should rectify the situation. I won’t be going into detail on any of the decklists leading to these bans before the upcoming Pro Circuit.

As fortune would have it, the current Hobby League is giving away Extended Art Frankie Rayes as participation cards. In light of this announcement, we are sending Extended Art Darkseid, Apokoliptian Oppressors to our Hobby League organizers to distribute in addition to the Frankie Rayes.

Further comments are welcome at DHumpherys@metagame.com.

Here is an updated list of our banned cards:

Banned Cards

Antarctic Research Base

Detective Chimp, Bobo T. Chimpanzee

Dr. Light, Master of Holograms

Fiddler, Isaac Bowin

Frankie Raye™ ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth (Effective Feb. 9, 2007)

Go Down Fighting

Gone But Not Forgotten

Justice League of Arkham

Nenora™, Skrull Usurper (Effective Feb. 9, 2007)

Overload

Talia, LexCorp CEO

Valeria Von Doom, Heir to Latveria