Today, I continue with my miniseries of articles for those of you who are just beginning to learn this marvelous game. In parts one and two, I looked at the standards for creating a basic deck, be it curve or off-curve. This article will get straight to the point—how to play the game using the decks you have just built. If you’ve read the basic rulebook (which I’ll assume you have), you should have a general idea of what’s involved in a game of Vs. System. However, there are fundamental errors or oversights that nearly all new players make. Hopefully, we’ll be able to help minimize those little hiccups for you. If I were limited to giving you one piece of advice, it would simply be:

“Consider fully, act decisively.”

That maxim will serve you well in your Vs. play. I found that in my early days of playing the game, the vast majority of mistakes I made were because I had not gone over everything thoroughly before committing to a decision and passing to my opponent.

The Mulligan

So, the game begins and you draw your opening four cards. You now have your first decision to make, and this can sometimes be quite a difficult one. Do you keep these four cards and draw two more, or do you ditch them and hope for better fortune in the next six cards?

Deciding upon your mulligan condition is something you can work out during the construction of your deck and then, if necessary, fine-tune as a result of information you’ve compiled via gameplay. Your mulligan condition might be a specific card, or just a decent selection of early characters. It’s really dependent on the deck you’re running, and also your personal preferences. For example, let’s say you’ve built a Doom curve deck. You have probably correctly identified Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius as a vital component to the deck and therefore defined him as your mulligan condition. While this might seem to be a common sense decision, there are very few absolutes in Vs. System. You have to be open-minded and flexible in this game. Let’s imagine you are playing against an opponent who is using an aggressive swarm deck like Faces of Evil. You draw your first four cards, which are:

Boris, Personal Servant of Doom; Robot Sentry; Iron Man, Illuminati; Doomstadt

While we might not have seen the specific card we were hoping for, we do have an opening four that give us a great way to stave off the aggressive early attacks of our opponent. We also have Boris (enabled by Doomstadt) to seek out a Faces of Doom should we not naturally draw the Diabolic Genius. In this sort of scenario, it’s best to abandon your standard approach of mulliganing.

If you have not identified a specific mulligan condition for your deck, then the safe bet would be to aim for a few of your early drop characters. A short while ago, I was playing with a friend who had just started the game. We were both using fairly straightforward curve decks. We opened up by drawing our initial four. My friend let out a small “Yes!” (He has absolutely no poker face.) He kept his four, while I mulliganed. The game began, and to my surprise, he made no recruits in the first four turns while I curved out nicely. Turn 5, he was forced to underdrop by recruiting a 4-cost character while my luck continued. By the end of the turn, he conceded. I asked him what was so appealing about his opening four cards. He showed me his 6-, 7-, and 8-drop that he had picked up at the start of the game. “If we’d got to the late turns, I’d have murdered you,” he said. I think it’s safe to say that “if” is the most frequently used word among defeated players.

Planning Your Resources

Your resource row is, of course, an incredibly vital part of your gameplay and should be treated as such. I often see new or inexperienced players simply throwing any old plot twist or location into their resource row with little forethought or regard for the implications behind its placement.

Think long and hard about the card you place in your resource row. Specific decks require specific strategies, but as a general rule, the priority goes to any locations or ongoing plot twists you may have. Check and double-check your cards before you commit your resource. I can’t tell you how many times I used to lay Reign of Terror in my resource row. Also, always set a resource you can use that turn over one that you can’t. Here is another scenario for you:

Turn 3; your opponent has the initiative. Your hand consists of

Acrobatic Dodge; Savage Beatdown; Poison Ivy, Kiss of Death; and Captain Cold.

You lay Savage Beatdown in your resource row and recruit Captain Cold. You play Acrobatic Dodge from hand to stave off an attack from your opponent.

Turn 4, you draw your two cards, which are Scarecrow, Fearmonger and another copy of Captain Cold.

You are now forced to lay a character card as a resource. Had you placed the Acrobatic Dodge in your resource row last turn, you would still have the Savage Beatdown available for that purpose this turn. It is small things like this that seem obvious, but in the heat of a game, mistakes are easily made. Take your time, and look at the cards in your hand and cards already in your resource row before you make your decision.

Formation

The formation may seem like a mere formality at first, but it is an incredibly vital part of your gameplay. At the most basic level, you need to make sure that if it is your initiative, all characters that you want to attack with this turn are able to do so. If you intend to leave a character in your support row, make sure it has range or you have a way to give it range (e.g. Mega-Blast). If you have character abilities that only function when in a specific area, then make sure your character is correctly placed. On a defensive turn, you want to be able to protect your important characters and minimize breakthrough by having characters in a position to reinforce. I’m not going to dwell too long on formation, since there have been some excellent articles covering this subject on VSRealms.com (by Adam Prosak) and Starcityvs.com (by Kim Caton) in the last couple of weeks. Both articles are well worth a read and will help you understand formation a whole lot better.

Premature Plays

This is probably the most common mistake made by new players—doing something before you need to. A classic example of this is the flipping of Team-Up cards. If you are running a multi-team deck, you really don’t want to team-up until you have to.

Yet another scenario:

It is my opponent’s initiative. My board consists of Captain America, Super Soldier and Black Bolt, King of the Inhumans. Captain America is protecting Black Bolt, and I am not teamed-up. My opponent is facing a 12 ATK / 14 DEF 6-drop and a 9 ATK / 8 DEF 5-drop. If I have the Team-Up in my resource row, I will not flip it until my opponent is attacking. To do so earlier would be akin to telling your opponent that you have a defensive plot twist in hand. Teaming-up too soon will let opponents know that Black Bolt is able to reinforce Captain America—a piece of information that will only help your adversaries.

Another example of premature play is in the use of a card like The Science Spire. I’ve seen many players flip this card when they don’t need to. Basically, you’re telegraphing your play to your opponent. Wait for your opponent to declare an attack. Accept the attack as legal, and then let your opponent play attack pumps. You can then flip The Science Spire and use it to remove your defender. The attacker readies, and your opponent has wasted an attack pump. If you flip it any earlier, your opponent is going to make more cautious attacks and conserve plot twists until he or she knows they are safe to use.

Don’t Get Excited

It is generally not a good idea to use your offensive plot twists simply to push through a little more breakthrough. Save them for “attacking up the curve.” By this, we mean sending a lower cost character into combat with a higher cost character. The benefits of such plays are considerable. Instead of using that Flying Kick to do 3 more endurance loss, use it to enable your 4-drop to stun an opponent’s 5-drop. Then your 5-drop is able to attack “down the curve” and smash a 4-drop’s face in. This may cause more or less the same amount of endurance loss, but it will generate a character advantage; you will no doubt have only one stunned character compared to your opponent’s two.

As I said at the beginning: Consider Fully, Act Decisively. Go over all your options before deciding on your play. Check your cards in hand, and check your resource row. The last thing you want to do is forget about a card you have face down that could help seal the win.

Always check your opponent’s cards. If he or she is playing a card that you don’t know by heart, then ask to read it. Make sure that none of its abilities or effects are going to disrupt your plans.

Consider your opponent’s potential responses to your play. If he or she is using Gotham Knights, then it is not inconceivable to expect Fizzle to negate a plot twist here and there.

The more you play the game, the more you will learn. It’s all well and good reading articles like this one and scouring the forums for the latest strategy, but you have to experience a game to really understand the intricacies and depth involved in a match of Vs. System. The key to success lies in wisdom, not knowledge.

Play on, my friends, and I’ll see you next week for another step down the road of Basics.

Steve Garrett

Steve “Kamiza” Garrett is an ardent supporter of casual VS play and has been an active member of the vast Vs. System online community since day one. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to email him on: kamiza989@gmail.com.