Metagame.com - Take Your Game to the Next Level

So you’ve picked up some cards, read a few articles, built a deck or two, and played a few games with friends. What now? Well, the next step is along the road of tournament play. I have received a few emails from new players who are looking to get a foot on the tournament ladder but haven’t got a clue about how to get started. Hopefully, this week’s edition of Basics will help you with the first few steps on what I hope will be a long and fruitful journey.

It’s one thing to play Vs. System with your friends at your kitchen table, but entering the tournament scene is completely different. There are so many levels of tournament play available that we are quite literally spoiled for choice. The Organized Play (OP) structure of Vs. System has an excellent learning curve. The tournaments themselves start off with small, local affairs and build up through various levels until you reach the pinnacle of competitive Vs. play—the Pro Circuit. Jeff Donais recently made an announcement regarding forthcoming changes to the Organized Play structure, but since they don’t take effect until next year we’ll just deal with the situation as it stands.

Sneak Preview Tournaments

Sneak Previews are a brilliant way to get started with competitive Vs. System, especially if you are a new player with a limited collection. Sealed play is a great leveler of the playing field because all players work from a limited card pool. No longer can the established player with a binder full of money cards dominate purely because he or she has a bigger budget or a better binder. The Sneak Preview events are win-win for everyone. Great prizes go to the top finishing players, but everyone gets to walk away with the cards they played with regardless of their personal performance. These tournaments are very often a total buzz, as everyone is excited to see the new cards. If you are looking for some tips on Sealed strategy, then try checking out some articles by Alex Brown or Doug Tice right here on Metagame.com.

The Hobby League is a great place to start getting regular experience. Hobby League is intended to be a month-long cumulative event with four weekly sessions, although your local tournament organizer may elect to run it as a weekly event. Prizes are given to the top-placed players at the end of the event in the form of Extended Art cards. If you want to succeed in tournament play, then you must play regularly; Hobby League is the best place to start. Going to the gym once every three months is not going to give you the super-toned body you’ve always dreamed of, and it certainly won’t help you shed the extra layers you’ve accumulated through daily consumption of cheesy-puffs. If you want to see an improvement in your game, then you need to play regularly. It is through this sort of exercise that you can learn from the mistakes you make during play and fine tune your deck to improve its efficiency and success rate. Some people take the Hobby League super-seriously and play only top-tier decks, while others like to use the time to play their latest random jank. Personally, I don’t think it matters too much what you play with as long as you play. In the early stages of learning, you will lose (and probably quite often), but it is very important to analyze your experiences. Don’t just say, “I lost because I didn’t hit a single 4- or 5-drop all night.” Instead, say, “I didn’t hit a 4- or 5-drop all night; this is obviously a weakness in the deck. What can I do to improve it?” Make a few changes, and then next week, see if there is any improvement. You want to make sure you have your deck finely tuned before going to any higher-level tournaments. If you want to find a local store that runs a UDE sanctioned Hobby League, then pop along to the handy locator on Upper Deck’s website.

Pro Circuit Qualifiers

If you want to get into a Pro Circuit tournament, you first have to qualify. You need 10 Pro Circuit Credits to enter a PC, and it just so happens that winning a Pro Circuit Qualifier (PCQ) will net you those points. On top of that, winning the event will score you a $250 payday. Huzzah! It is at PCQs that things really start to get serious. With money on the line, people will always want to bring their “A” games and you should be no different. This is where you get to put into practice all those lessons you’ve learned through playing at Hobby League. Expect to see a lot of top-level decks; people don’t often risk playing their pet decks when cash is on the line. Unless, of course, you’re a rather dashing yet slightly rugged Brit who decided it would be a good idea to play his Cosmic Radiation / Hannibal King deck in his first ever PCQ (like me).

Ben Drago (the Premier Events manager for UDE) recently made an announcement regarding additional prize support for PCQs that makes it easier for the new player to win a bag of swag when faced with a field full of hardened pros. The PCQ is an absolute must for anyone wanting to attend the Pro Circuit—not only because of the Pro Circuit Credits, but also because of the lessons that can be learned while playing in a higher-pressure environment. If you want to find a PCQ near you, be sure to check out the schedule.

$10K Championships and $50K Open Tournaments

Here we are—the first of the really big money events. If you pop along to the previously mentioned Jeff Donais announcement, you will see that $50K Open tournaments and a Store Championship program will replace the old $10K circuit. As $10K events stand through the end of 2006, they are the second tier tournament in Vs. System OP. Competition is intense, and just about every event has well over a hundred players vying for the top prize of $2,500, a magnificent trophy, and entry into the Vs. System hall of fame. These events are pretty serious, and you’ll probably want a bit of tournament experience before entering (if you’re aiming for the top, that is). A $10K takes a lot of preparation and can be a really rewarding day. My first-ever Constructed tournament was $10K London (nothing like jumping in at the deep end!). I had played in a few Sealed tournaments but no Constructed events, and being totally new to TCGs I was not really aware of the sort of preparation required for a player to enjoy a successful event. The night before the tournament, I decided to use X-Statix Loner, a deck that I had only played a couple of times. Toward the end of the day, I stood with a 3-5 record and the last train was due to depart, so I dropped. On the train ride home, I went over my games and realized that at least three of my losses were a direct result of my poor preparation. Not being intimately aware of my deck and potential match-ups cost me dearly. I also realized that my build was not the most efficient. All these things could have been eliminated or at least reduced through thorough testing. If you want to go to a $10K and actually place in the money, you need to work at it.

Pro Circuit Championships

The Pro Circuit is the Holy Grail for the serious Vs. player. With over $250,000 given away at each event and a top prize of $40,000, it’s clear to see why so many players want to be the next PC Champion. The PC is a massive, three day event that utilizes a Constructed format for Day 1, at the end of which only the most successful players will go on to Day 2 for the Draft format. When Day 2 is complete, the Top 8 players move on to battle it out in Constructed for the top prize on Day 3. Many players feel the need to form testing teams to help prepare for such events. If you have a group of players all testing the same format, it’s far easier to get the information you need to be successful. As I mentioned before, the PC requires an entry “fee” of 10 Pro Circuit Credits, but if you don’t have the required PCCs, don’t panic—there are often Last Chance Qualifiers the day before the event. Is this where you want to be? Getting here is relatively easy, but staying past Day 1 is the trick.

The European Organized Play structure is a little different from that of the rest of the world’s (we’re special), so if you’re based over on my half of the planet, this is what you need to know.

Day of the Hero is somewhere between Hobby League and a PCQ. It’s an excellent entry-level event for new players and a great way to build up a nice Extended Art collection. Generally speaking, a store can hold this tournament twice a month in the format of the organizer’s choice.

This is essentially the European PCQ. Although there is no prize money on the line, you can still win some cool Vs. System product and earn Pro Circuit Credits. Winning a ToF will earn you 5 PCCs. This is noticeably less than a PCQ, but fear not, because ToFs occur far more frequently than Pro Circuit Qualifiers. I personally think this is a far better setup from a learning perspective. Although you do not win as much per event, the frequency of ToFs means that you can gain a lot of experience relatively quickly. It also makes it easier for people who work weekends or have families to attend the events. I know that since the new OP structure was introduced in May, I’ve attended more events than I ever had before.

This is the top event within Europe. The Master Challenge costs 5 PCCs to attend and is set to be a large scale event. I say it’s “set to be” because we haven’t actually had one yet. All the details are being ironed out, but the first event is scheduled to be in Germany and the next event will be held in the UK. There should be a total of four Master Challenge events per year, so chances are there will be one close to you sometime in the near future. The top two players in the Master Challenge will get the fabulous prize of flights and accommodation for the next Pro Circuit, along with the required 10 PCCs to attend. Further prizes are yet to be announced, but I’m sure they’ll be nice and shiny as well.

Europeans also get the Sneak Preview events, and from 2007 on, the Pro Circuit will be hitting the road with one event each year held outside the US. The first stop is Australia, but Europe is certainly on the list of possibilities for future events.

Preparation is key for tournament play, and I don’t just mean playtesting. Here are a few basic tips to help you get started.

1) Have a way to keep score. Many people rely on dice or counters, but personally, I think this is a very bad decision. Take a pen and a piece of paper, and keep note of your endurance and your opponent’s. At the end of each turn, confer with your opponent over the current endurance totals. Keeping notes of each change in endurance will help resolve any possible disputes.

2) Sticky pads are your friend. At the London $10K, I was playing a match next to two guys who got into a heated argument about what teams had been teamed-up with which plot twist. If you or your opponent is running a multi-team deck, use those tiny little sticky notes to keep track of what teams have been teamed-up with which card. That way, when people start replacing Team-Ups, there is no room for argument. There is no reason why your opponent should object to this practice.

3) Have counters. If you’re running a deck that uses any form of counters, be they cosmic or otherwise, be sure to bring along a sufficient quantity of something to represent your counters. You can use coins, stones, toenail clippings . . . it really doesn’t matter as long as you use something.

4) The tournament organizer is your friend. I always feel it’s necessary to find the TO for any event and introduce myself. This person is taking time out to organize an event for me to play in. It’s only polite to say thank you.

5) Don’t be a ****. When you sit down to play with someone, be friendly and polite, and shake his or her hand. Don’t lose your temper when things don’t go your way. If you have a query or feel that you have cause for complaint, then call for the judge and explain yourself in a calm and polite way. I can’t stand players who are rude, or rant and rave.

If there is a group of you who are keen to play but have no local venue, then why not visit the UDE certifications section and get yourself qualified as a judge and TO? That way, you and your friends can organize your own events. Organized Play is a great way to experience Vs. System. I particularly enjoy traveling to new towns or cities to play with new people. It’s part of what make this game so great.

I hope this information has been of some use to you. If you’re about to attend your first event, please drop me a line and let me know how it went. I’d love to read about your first tournament experiences.

So, here were are again—it’s top five time. I have received a record number of entries for DBCC #6: Mechanics. Here are my five favorites in no particular order:

This is my Kree press deck. With decent draws, it can generate an optimal recruit sequence of press characters on every turn and eventually build a board that is too big and too strong for most opponents to handle. It prefers the even initiatives and tries to win on turn 6 with a large field of pumped-up characters.

You want to play Sintariis (the only character without press) on turn 1 if you have him, since he can go find Dr. Minerva or whatever other character you need. On turn 2, the ideal play is Dr. Minerva, since she lets you go get another character with her effect (usually). On turn 3, you will hopefully have Stargate in your resource row. If you do, you can bounce Minerva back to your hand, go find another character with Stargate’s search effect, and then replay Minerva to get another one. Bouncing and replaying Minerva each turn with Stargate is the engine that drives the Kree press deck, since it lets you build up your hand size and search for needed characters. After replaying Minerva, you can play another 2-drop. Kona Lor is optimal if you are on odds, and Captain Att-Lass is usually better if you are on evens. On turn 4, you want to bounce and replay Minerva, then play another 2-drop and a 3-drop. Captain Yon-Rogg is best if you are on odd initiatives because of his DEF, while Dylon Cir is best on evens. On turn 5, you want a 2-2-3-4 recruit sequence, and Galen Kor is your best 4-drop regardless of initiative. On turn 6, you want to build a 2-2-3-4-5 sequence. Shatterax is usually the preferred 5-drop, although Korath is good if you need to get into the hidden area. Bron Char is normally used only if the game goes to turn 7.

All the other cards in the deck are pumps or bounce effects. Penal Colony can sometimes take the place of Stargate on early turns until you can draw into it. You don’t get to search, but you do get to bounce and replay Minerva. Once Stargate is online, Penal Colony and Remnant Fleet are used to bounce characters that would otherwise hit the KO’d pile back to your hand so you can replay them. Live Kree . . . or Die!, Hala, The Lunatic Legion, and the equipment cards are your pumps. I generally try to save them for the big kill turn. This deck can easily do 40-plus endurance loss on turn 6 with the initiative, so the earlier turns should be focused on building a strong hand and board. It can win on a turn 5 initiative with a strong board and a good set of pumps, but it’s much easier on the next turn. This is a very fun deck to play, and it would definitely be competitive in either Modern or Silver Age.

cchug2001’s Description:

The deck relies on the leader mechanic and uses the uber-Team-Up (in this case, anyway) Justice for All to make up for the mechanic’s shortcoming (formation issues). Paying 1 endurance to move your characters for additional leader bonuses provides some very interesting combat interactions. Against curve decks, it will certainly make your opponent rethink what would normally be safe attacks.

For the Challenge, I used the more “thematic” plot twists (Leadership Challenge, Repel Attack, Lead by Example), but for a more competitive version, just replace these with No Man Escapes the Manhunters, Acrobatic Dodge, and Flying Kick.

The restriction of the Challenge (only two characters without the mechanic) probably hurts the consistency of hitting your Justice for All since you’re losing access to a turn 1 Beetle, or a turn 1 Beast for the plot twist search. I chose to include Falcon because of his stat bonus for being adjacent to a leader, and Hulk (because Hulk smashes!) to maintain curve, rather than the 1-drops who are essentially dead cards or Enemy fodder later in the game.

TheLord’s Description:

Before I joined the ranks of Vs. System players, the comic I enjoyed the most was the JLA, especially once they got their show on TV. I was really excited about their set when it came out and I tried a lot of different approaches. This one is one of my favorites, and I tuned it for this contest. Every card in this list has willpower. The curve has offensive and defensive choices at just about every drop and you can change your play according to your matchup. Wonder Woman is really an underrated control element, and her cosmic counter can stay around for a while with Wall of Will, Battle of Wills, Satellite HQ, and Zatanna. Those cards also help to stall just long enough for you to reach turn 6 or 7 and the win. Between Book of Oa, The Ring Has Chosen, and Willworld, you should find what you need

The Fiddler on the Roof deck proved the power of the Zatanna / Fiddler / Gone But Not Forgotten combination, but with the restrictions on this week’s Deck Builder Challenge, the backbone of the deck (Clocktower, GCPD Officer, Scandal, and Alfred Pennyworth) is not available. Luckily, another engine is available to fuel this deck to success—cosmic characters and their support cards from the New Gods, Revenge Squad, and Galactus affiliations (with a Kree character thrown in as a metagame choice). These affiliations provide cosmic characters that can help stall a game by reducing endurance loss (Soldiers of New Genesis), limiting the number of opposing characters (Silver Banshee), and acting as a brick wall (Parasite). In addition, these teams provide the ability to search your deck for all the pieces needed to roll over an opponent with a 92 ATK / 93 DEF Zatanna on turn 5. Galactus plus Creation of a Herald provides the ability to search for any card in your deck. Silver Surfer allows for searching out Zatanna, Galactus, or either 4-drop. Hostage Situation provides the ability to pull a Gone But Not Forgotten or a Royal Decree from your deck and put it directly into your resource row. Last but not least, Enemy of My Enemy rounds out the search capabilities to retrieve Fiddler or any other needed character.

As the deck only needs to survive until turn 5, the cosmic abilities of these characters provide a quick bang for the buck before the cosmic counter is lost. As such, this deck focuses on the potential of even temporary abilities to turn the game in your favor.

Acronyms are fun, and so is having a game of Vs. System actually last past turn 5 or so. Conveniently, this deck combines both of these. For a long time, I’ve been trying to think of an effective way to move Serifan into the hidden area to keep a field of New Gods characters invulnerable. With the new Franklin Richards and Ahura, keeping Serifan safe and cosmic shouldn’t be too difficult. Turns 4 and beyond are full of characters whose function is to brickwall attacks by exhausting your opponent’s characters, preventing them from readying, and pumping your force’s DEF stats. This lets you stall until Dr. Doom moves into the Blue Area of the Moon and leads your cosmic forces in two devastating attacks against your opponent’s (most likely exhausted) defenses. This impressive ability certainly qualifies the Latverian dictator to be the only human member of this assemblage of Gods and Inhumans.

Well, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who submitted a deck—there were dozens to go through and they all looked pretty sharp. As usual, you can vote for your favorite by emailing me at kamiza989@gmail.com or by popping along to the dedicated thread on my website (www.the-kamiza.com). Good luck, and thanks for participating.

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 at kamiza989@gmail.com or pester him at his website, www.the-kamiza.com.