About seventeen years ago, I wrote a "mailbag" style article where I answered emails in a public forum. At the end of the article, I promised to continue the following week with more email hijinks, including some stuff about the upcoming (at the time of the article) Web of Spider-Man expansion. Unfortunately, stuff like Web of Spider-Man previews and our very first Pro Circuit interrupted my scheduling, so you’re getting Mailbag: The Sequel today instead of like a month ago. But there’s some good news. Since the Web of Spider-Man set has already been released, I guess I'll need to dangle something different out there to trick you guys into reading all the way to the bottom. How does a Superman, Man of Steel preview sound? (It sounds like "Hey, Danny, you’re fired!" which is why I’m only going to talk about Supes in generalities.)

There’s also something special about today’s article. Usually I write my articles in the living room of my apartment while my roommate reads over my shoulder and gives me disapproving looks. However, sometimes I write ’em at my desk at work (usually the morning they’re due) while Mike sends me emails like—

"Stop writing your article and do some real work! Also, go get me a sandwich."

—which is why sometimes my articles don’t get up on Metagame.com until the weekend.

But today, I’m writing from a dangerous and exotic locale. You guessed it—my parents’ house in south Florida! You see, I’m on vacation this week, which means sipping chilled margaritas in the sun while letting the warm waves of the Atlantic nip at my feet. What it really means is playing cards with my dad (using a traditional deck—ugh!) while my mom asks me when she’s going to get some grandchildren.

But what’s important for you to know is that UDE is located in Carlsbad, just north of San Diego, which—Boomerang’s flavor text notwithstanding (yes, it’s a real quote)—is pretty much paradise on Earth. Florida, by contrast, is basically San Diego with sweat. Also, a hurricane could come and blow me away at any moment. So yeah, what I’m saying is, anything to increase my word count . . .

On to the first email. It’s a good example of the questions I was going to answer when the contents of the Web of Spider-Man set were still a mystery. I guess I'll answer it now.

I am a member of VSRealms and a fan of the Sinister Syndicate. Recently, there’s been a discussion of what the 8-drop for the SS would be. The rumors are that it could either be Green Goblin, Norman Osborn because he has a lot of resources to do what he wants (after all, he did do that whole clone thing), and the second was Hobgoblin, because he became possessed. Can you give me a hint and let me know if either one of these is right?

Also, I read an article in a magazine about design and development. I was wondering, what’s the longest amount of time you guys have ever debated about a card?
 
Finally, are you going to put Cosmic Spider-Man, Carnage, or Jackal in this set? I really would like to know, mainly because I’m impatient.

JV

Hi JV,

As you now know, the Sinister Syndicate didn’t get an 8-drop character. The fact is, we’re pretty picky on the thematics of the power level of 8-drops. While any character can become a 7-drop character (provided it’s cool enough), we tend to reserve 8-drops for the ridiculously powerful characters. (And by "ridiculously," I mean "really, really," not "worthy of ridicule.")

The longest we ever debated on a card, hmm . . . well, on some topics the debate still rages on. For example, I really like making cards that mess with the resource system while other people (let’s call them "developers") are weak and cowardly. Actually, there’s one funny story that I remember. And by "funny," I mean "sad."

A few weeks before we put the final touches on the Marvel Origins set, we were doing the naming pass (which is where we decide on final names for the cards that up until then only had placeholder names like "Henry Darrow" or "Duncan Regehr"). One card was an equipment card called "Melee Weapon" that gave the equipped character +1 ATK and +1 DEF. Pretty basic stuff. Now, I was under the impression that "Melee Weapon" was simply a placeholder name because, I mean, it’s pretty bland. But one of the other designers—for the purposes of this story, let’s call him "Mike Hummel"—sure seemed to like "Melee Weapon" as is. His reasoning was that though the card pictured Elektra holding a katana-like sword, since anyone could use the equipment, it should have a more generic name. That way, the player could imagine the appropriate item for whichever character it was equipped to. It could represent Daredevil’s billy club, Gambit’s bo staff, and for Professor X it could be a giant sword.

There are three problems with this reasoning.

1.What do we do for the next incarnation of Melee Weapon? Call it Melee Weapon 2? Super Melee Weapon? Ms. Melee Weapon? Alien Symbiote Melee Weapon? By giving it a specific name, we leave ourselves room to make more specifically named cards.

2. It’s just not jazzy enough. I mean, Borrowed Blade (the card as you know and love it) tells a little story. Elektra usually uses sai to defeat her foes, but apparently she "borrowed" a katana from one of the ninjas she’d been fighting. Though she’s probably not going to give it back.

3. This isn’t so much a problem as a caveat under which I believe we have to operate when making a TCG: Certain combinations of cards will yield thematically improbable results. For example, you don’t see Blob Flying Kick too many opponents, yet in Vs. System it happens during almost every game (at least when I play). Since we have to accept that certain card-based situations are thematically unlikely, there’s no reason to restrain ourselves when it comes to using specific names for generic effects or equipment.

The good news is that after hours and hours of my screaming and crying, Mike finally gave in. (And by "gave in" I mean "came to his senses."*)


This next email digs up a bit of ancient history.

I noticed that on the card Arcade, there is a picture of him holding some cards. The Jetpack and the Mansion were pictured, but the other two are not cards yet.

One is said to be Cyclops’s father, and of course, it is the right color for a character. I was wondering if the purple Wolverine card on the left will be made. The fact that he is purple separates him from the others.

If purple is going to be the color of a mechanics card in the future, then of course I don't want to know what it is yet. It would be nice to know if there will be a future category of purple cards, or if Arcade just had those cards there before the set was finalized and if the mechanic was cut.

Basically my question is, was the purple card mechanic cut from the design or will we one day end up seeing all of the cards pictured on the Arcade card?

Thanks,
Snaredrummer

Hi Snaredrummer,

Good question. To answer it, we have to think back to a long, long time ago. A time when I wasn’t yet part of the UDE family, and therefore only have the rumors I’ve heard whispered down through ancient halls from father to son, father to son. Um, yeah.

Before UDE took over the project in-house, the Vs. System was initially a very different project. It was intended to be a game to which Yu-Gi-Oh! players could transition to playing with relative ease. However, some of the higher-ups (we call them "gods") decided we should take a different track with Vs. System. The art from Arcade is actually a holdover from the early designs of the game. So the short answer to your question is yes, the purple card was cut from design. But you never know—we still have the art and the purple border—so you may see those cards someday after all.


I get a decent number of emails like the following, and though I appreciate them, I find reading them a little weird. You’ll see why in a minute. (Keep in mind that the email’s been heavily edited.)

Howdy, I bet you get these kind of emails all the time, but I had a card idea that I thought would be neat.

It would probably fit best in the Superman expansion.

[Big Chunk Deleted where DC presents his idea]

Sorry if this is one of many stupid ideas you get . . . or if you are the wrong person to send this to. Thanks for humoring me!

Sincerely,

DC

The problem that I have with emails like this is that there are three possible results.

1.The suggested idea is unworkable, either mechanically (as in it just doesn’t work) or in design (in that it does something in the game we don’t want it to do), but I don’t want to go into details on why the card isn’t good because I don’t want to stifle anyone’s creativity. It’s also just not feasible to go into those kinds of details over every suggested card I see.

2. The suggested idea is good. In fact, it’s similar to a card we’re already doing. This case gets sticky, because I don't want to say "Hey, cool idea. But we already came up with it ourselves," because it could lead to players thinking we’re just copying their ideas. Which leads me to . . .

3. The suggested idea is good. In fact, it’s so good that we want to use it. Which seems like opening a really nasty can of worms . . .

The end result is that while I appreciate card suggestions, I actually try to avoid reading them. However, I do suggest that anyone who wants to make up their own cards should post them on the various forum sites like VSUniverse or VSRealms.


This next email is also a very common one. In fact, it’s the third one of its kind I’ve received today.

Please stop ragging on Unus. It’s not his fault you guys made him a crappy card. Come on, man, he’s Unus the Untouchable! How can you beat a power where you can’t be touched? I really hope all of this hate is your attempt to sucker us, so we’ll be shocked and amazed when the new 7-drop Unus is released for Brotherhood in Web of Spider-Man.

Concerned Unus Fan

P.S. Are you related to Howie Mandel?

Hi Concerned Unus Fan,

You’re right! Of course, by now the secret’s out. Unus is the new 7-drop for the Brotherhood. Oh wait, that’s not in the Web of Spider-Man set; it’s in the fifth Vs. System expansion (codenamed "Set 5"). Yeah, forget everything I just said.

But seriously, I do have a tendency to rip on the little guy (especially when Dave Humpherys isn’t around for me to rip on). Listen, if you want, I’ll talk to the Organized Play guys. Maybe we can create a new format where everyone has to play four copies of Unus in his or her deck. (In addition to four Robot Sentries and four Robot Enforcers.)

And yes, I do have an uncle named Howie. No, really, I do. He’s just not the guy you’re thinking of.


This next email asks a question that I’m sure you’ve all been wondering. How do we decide who gets range and who doesn’t? I’m going to insert answers in the middle of the email.

Hey Danny, love the articles. It’s always good to see how stuff works and why certain decisions are made. Anyway, here are the questions I have for you.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Flattery will get you everywhere. Also chocolate. Flattery and chocolate will get you everywhere. And don’t forget those little candies with encouraging phrases like "Be Mine," or "You’re The Best," or "Let’s Give Your Mom Some Grandchildren." Those are good too.

First of all, in your "Design Vs. Development: Who’s Running the Asylum?" article, you mentioned how Lockup was part of the of the Arkham Inmates at first, but DC said you had to change him. I was just wondering how much input and control Marvel and DC have over the cards? Is it only things like, "This character was never part of this team, so don’t put him there or we’ll take away all your comics," or do they also tell you that a certain character’s ATK or DEF is too high or low, or that they want certain characters to cost more or less?

Actually, I find this part of the process really cool. We send DC and Marvel our current file with characters’ powers, stats, and all that information. Then, they get back to us with approvals (or often a few firm suggestions). For example, when we were working on Superman, Man of Steel, DC suggested that Character X was too powerful given his cost on Team Y. Because we weren’t entirely sold on that character’s power anyway (it was more of a bottom-up design aimed at Sealed Pack and Draft, which I’m sure we’ll use on another character down the road), we came up with another one that DC liked better.

But that was an extreme case. Usually, DC and Marvel just lets us know which characters should have flight or range (or shouldn’t—I mean, who knew Character Z shouldn’t have flight or range?), or if there’s someplace that we’re way off.

Second, I just had to know this, Gambit is one of my favorite characters, and basically his main ability is to charge up various objects with kinetic energy and then throw them so that they explode. Now I was wondering, why he doesn’t have range? I figured maybe his throwing arm was just not strong enough for him to justify having range. I was looking around and Mr. Fantastic has range, and I have nothing against that, but I just figured if he could have range, why can’t Gambit? I’m not sure how many Gambit fans there are that are working on the cards, but to be honest I don't think Gambit would be half as powerful as he is if all he did was fight with his staff.

Gambit and Iceman, Bobby Drake from Marvel Origins were the toughest characters to decide on whether or not they had range. While it sometimes comes down to the power level of the card, we generally try to make sure if a character thematically deserves range, he or she will get it. The problem with Gambit and Iceman is that they were right on the bubble, considering the distance from where they’re usually effective. In the end, we decided Gambit really only chucks stuff from short range (so no icon for him), and we wanted the 3-drop Iceman to represent when he was younger and less skilled (similar to why the 1-drop Invisible Woman doesn’t have range). As you can see, the 6-drop Iceman from the Web of Spider-Man set has range. As for Mr. Fantastic, well, we figured he can stretch like a hundred feet, and that should count for something, right?
 
Last but not least—and this is more of a comment than a question—is Matt Hyra a real person? The more you talk about him, the more it seems like he might just be a figment of your imagination. So just between you and me, do you write articles and put Matt Hyra’s name on them to try and justify your imaginary friend, or am I really just pushing the conspiracy theories too far and you just really like to bug Matt Hyra?

Thanks for the time

RS
 
P.S. If Matt Hyra is a real person and he reads this email, I apologize in advance for mistaking you for a figment of Danny Mandel's imagination.

Heh heh . . . .As much as I’d like to propagate to rumor that Matt isn’t real, there are two problems.

1. It would mean someone would have to take credit for writing his articles, and I mean, who wants to look that bad?

2. He would destroy me. Hyra’s sadistic. I’m talking all-night-Winx-Club-pajama-party sadistic. Shudder.

The bottom line: I just wanted an excuse to use the word "propagate" in a sentence.

This next email is from Bizarro98, a frequent poster on VSRealms. Here at UDE, we’re big fans of Bizarro’s merciless and scathing reviews of our character selections for each set. We figure he helps keep us on our toes. I actually responded to this email a while back and have inserted my comments from back then below in italics. (As you may have guess, the real reason I do mailbag articles is because I can just reprint stuff, saving effort. I’m wicked clever!)

Mr. Mandel, sir, your highness, I’ve read your articles since just after the release of Marvel Origins, but never before now have I felt the urge to verbalize my paranoia to you directly, as I believe my greatest fears may soon come to pass.

You recently revealed that you’re working on the Superman, Man of Steel set in your article "Introducing R&D." This comes as a great relief, as certain slanderous arthropods were trying to convince me otherwise (and I’m sure the set would have sucked out loud without you). It was also revealed, as of late, that the Web of Spider-Man set would expand the teams of Marvel Origins as well as adding new teams to the mix. If this is true, then, logically, the Superman, Man of Steel set would also expand the teams of DC Origins.

While I’m glad you think the set would suck out loud without me, I assure you it would also suck just as loudly without Mike or Matt (and to a lesser extent, Humpherys) who have all worked on the previous three sets.

Yes, the Superman, Man of Steel set will expand some of the older teams from DC Origins; however, it is the Superman set and consequently it will be Superman (and his friends and foes) who get the spotlight.

The major problem I have always had with DC-based collectible games of the past was the ridiculous amount of favoritism given to Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery compared to all the other villains of the DC Universe. Superman-related villains in particular tend to get the shaft for the (usually unfair) benefit of the Arkham Inmates crew. Now I know characters like Bizarro, Mongul, and Prankster aren't as "edgy" or "gritty" as most of Batman's foes, but Superman's enemies have a timeless, traditional charm to them, and I’d hate to see them get glossed over so that you can stick obscure Arkham Inmates characters or more Jokers and Ra’s al Ghuls in a set where they really don’t belong.

I don’t think we give extra weight to edgy or gritty . . . I mean, we called them the "Spider-Friends." And what about the flavor text on Riddle Me This?

Putting a few cards for the older teams into a new set is a good idea on several levels. It lets us explore or round out a team’s minor focus. It lets us even out the power levels of the teams when the metagame shifts one way or another. It lets us squeeze in a few fan favorites that there weren’t room for in the previous set. It lets us do versions of characters that make sense in a crossover sense (for example, a Batman villain who sometimes appears in a Superman context). And it’s just plain exciting—lots of players champion one team or another and they’ll love to get (even a few) new cards for that team.

Now, I'm not asking you to tell me anything about the upcoming Superman: Man of Steel set (although that would be nice), I’m merely informing you that many Superman fans would appreciate it if you covered all your bases in the Man of Steel’s Rogues Gallery, rather than just the personal empires of Lex Luthor and Darkseid. You claimed in your article "Smells Like Team Spirit" that somewhere down the road you would like to write an article on how you guys decide which teams go in which sets. Since both the announced upcoming sets are expansions to existing branches of Vs. System, I know I'm not the only one worried about this. I hope this email acts as the big, ugly, wooden detour sign that takes you down that road.

We couldn’t agree with you more about covering more of the Rogue’s Gallery than just Lex Luthor and Darkseid. In fact, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how we handle their respective empires. You’re right, I should write that article soon, although it might make more sense to wait until Superman: Man of Steel hits the shelves.

Okay, Bizarro98, you’ve now seen the Web of Spider-Man set. Are you more afraid or less afraid of the treatment Big Blue and his friends and foes will get in the next set?

This is actually a pretty sensitive topic, and I’m interested in hearing more of your opinions. And yes, after Superman, Man of Steel hits, I’ll write an article about how we choose which teams will be in each set and which characters will make the cut.

This next email brings up a point I hear a lot.

I enjoyed your article on why Batman, The Dark Knight was only a 7 ATK/7 DEF character. In the comics, Batman was just a man, and he’s not on the same level as Raven or Magneto. Granted, that kind of goes against the way the 7-drop Joker is set as well as most other 7-drops are. I was curious to if that frame of logic will be used on the reverse end. When we see Superman, will we see him as a 3- or 4-drop? I would assume Superman to only be on the upper scale of characters. It wouldn’t seem fitting to have any version of Superman on par with low-level characters in the same respect that it would be to see Batman on the same scale as Magneto. I don’t want to see Sabretooth be able to take out any version of Superman.

After all, I’m quite sure we will never see any cosmic characters coming out in lower costs.

The Beyonder

Thanks for your email, The Beyonder. Uh, I loved you in the Secret Wars . . . please don’t disintegrate me.

I attempted your answer this question in a preview I wrote before the game even came out. Here’s an excerpt.

A Very Resourceful Game
 
The Marvel game’s resource system is pretty simple. Once a turn, each player gets to take a card from his or her hand and add it face down to his or her resource row. Then each player gets to spend resource points equal to the number of resources he or she has on characters and equipment. So pretty much (with a few exceptions), you’ll have 1 point to spend on turn one, 2 points on turn two, and so on until the game ends with massively powerful characters bashing each other into oblivion.
 
The problem is where to put a really mighty character like, let’s say, the mighty Thor. Goldilocks is clearly off the charts on the power scale—he’s a Norse god after all. But if we put him way up there, like around cost 8 or 9, by the time he made it into play, the meat of the game would already be over, and poor old Thor would be relegated to the role of finisher. Not that being a finisher is bad, it’s just that many players will want a chance to use their favorite thunder god earlier in the game.

One alternative to costing Thor high is, predictably, costing him low. The upside is that players get to use him early and often. The downside is that cheapening his cost means his game text and ATK and DEF won’t adequately reflect his awesome powers.
 
What to do, what to do . . . Well, if you can’t decide whether to have a super-powerful Thor that doesn’t show up till the endgame or to have a weaker Thor that shows up in the early or mid game, why not have both?
 
 
From the Have Your Cake and Eat it Too Department . . .
 
In the Marvel TCG, some characters (usually the more popular ones) will have two or more versions (the version line is right below the character’s name). Flavor-wise, a version might represent different time periods in a character’s career or different interpretations or manifestations of his or her powers. Mechanically, having different versions lets the designers make both an expensive-but-mighty Thor as well as a cheaper-and- not-quite-as-mighty-but-still-pretty-mighty Thor. (By the way, I realize I may have gotten Thor fans a little too excited, so I better tell you the sad news: Thor didn’t make it into the Origins set. Look for him when we do the Avengers.)

Basically, while it might take a thematic leap to allow Sabretooth to take out Superman, the alternative is to only print high cost versions of Superman that will never make it into the game before turn 7 or 8. So, just as we are cool with having a 7-cost Spider-Man, we’re okay with having some lower cost versions of Superman. But don’t get me wrong—every version of Superman is pretty darn powerful.


In case you haven’t already guessed, my favorite kinds of emails (next to ones filled with boundless praise) are the ones that ask challenging design questions, like this next one.

My name is Matt, I’ve met you in person a few times, the last time being at Gen Con Indy. I’m a tall red-headed guy, I played in the PC and I made Top 8 at San Diego. Anyway, I always enjoy your articles and I was wondering if you could tell me how the design crew approaches making certain teams stronger on the even initiatives and others on the odds, and why some teams are very clear cut in this area and others seem to conflict. Examples of what I’m talking about are Doom being generally much stronger on the even turns and Gotham seemingly being stronger on the odd turns, because the namesake character for each team falls on those turns. I guess what my question boils down to is, why not make Batman a 4-, 6-, and 8-drop?

The X-Men comment in your last article was interesting to me because I recently took a pure X-Men deck to the Dragon*Con $10K event and narrowly missed making Top 8. Although I had all the components for the X-Men deck, I couldn’t afford to try the X-Men at the PC because I assumed Big Brotherhood would be a force, even if not a dominant one. Playing that X-Men deck in Atlanta this past weekend really made me realize how a deck or card that is awful in some aspects can be really good in the right environment. I have been playing since before Marvel Origins came out and I still find myself amazed at how well the theme is captured, yet it’s still the most mechanically sound CCG I've ever seen.

Enough wasting your time, I just wondered mainly about the initiative question.

MM (WarMachine on VSRealms)

This is the reply I sent to Matt.

Hi Matt,
I was following the thread on VSRealms about your X-Men deck at Dragon*Con—congratulations! We were all talking about it at work. Dave Humpherys mentioned that he had a deck built way back when around abusing the 5-drop Wolverine, but we just ignored him because he’s very tall and smells like snails. I think you’re right—it wasn’t until the DC Origins set that your archetype got good.

To answer your questions about initiative turns . . .

Actually, we don’t think too hard about which initiative a team should or will be good at. This is for a couple of reasons.

1. A team will naturally be more effective on one initiative or the other (or it might be about equal) after we’ve made all of its cards. As long as there’s a nice mix of teams that want each initiative (or don’t care) we pretty much leave it alone. If it turns out that most teams need one initiative or the other, we’ll try to even things out over time when making cards for new teams (or making new cards for old teams). More on the "fixing it over time" idea in a moment.

2. A larger issue is that we try not to equate one team with one deck. Ideally, each team will present players with more than one archetype or concept around which to build a deck. (Of course not every archetype can be tier one, which is why sometimes it feels like team equals deck. An example of this would be how everyone equates the Sentinels with Wild Vomit, even though there are at least a few other decent Sentinel builds.) Also, players will mix and match teams to build new decks, again breaking the team equals deck paradigm.

I think it’s more often the case that a deck is strong on even or odd initiatives (and sometimes it will be dependent on the matchup) than is its associated team(s). Because of this, we tend to take a reactive approach—we’d rather adjust to the initiative metagame after the fact than try to force-feed things.

This idea (reactive as opposed to proactive) comes up a fair bit in design and development. For example, while we thought the X-Men would be stronger than they ended up (in Marvel Origins), we weren’t too concerned with their lack of a presence in the metagame because we knew we could strengthen them over time. One of the keys to a healthy TCG is an evolving metagame, and part of that is having teams’ and decks’ relative power levels shift over time.

As far as your question about why certain characters end up at 3/5/7 or 4/6/8 . . .

There are a few reasons for this.

Most often that’s just where they fall on these little power level sheets we make (with the help of DC and Marvel). Usually we start at the top of the curve and work our way down. For example, we might ask, "Where should Green Goblin be at his most powerful?" Probably not an 8-drop, but a 7-drop would be okay. (We’re more lenient on 7s. Often a character’s sheer coolness can catapult it to a 7-drop, but it has to have serious power to make it to an 8-drop.) Okay, the Green Meanie starts at a 7-drop, so let’s make his other version a 5-drop. Of course, there are often other factors to where a character goes on the curve. For example, we wanted a Sinister Syndicate player to have an easy time playing both Doc Ock and Green Goblin—so Ock’s non-7-drop was made a 4-drop instead of a 5-drop.

As an aside, because of the uniqueness rule, we generally try to leave at least one space at a drop for a character that has multiple versions—which is why you usually get 3/5/7 or 4/6/8.

Sometimes we try to set up matchups. For example, Professor X and Magneto both had to have 7-drops (though Magneto also got an 8-drop—we don’t always stick to the 3/5/7 rhythm).

Sometimes we try to stagger things. In the Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock starters, we thought it was kind of cool that the 4-drop Doc Ock could beat up the 3-drop Spider-Man, but when the 7-drops showed up it was even (or Spider-Man had the edge).

And sometimes it’s kind of silly. For example, we had to put Batman and The Joker at 3/5/7 because the 7-drops needed to be the rares in the starters.

Thanks,

Danny Mandel


That’s all I have for tonight. Time to go back to my room for sleepy time. The guest room, that is—my parents converted my old room into a study. Grrr . . .

Just a note to anyone who’s written to me and hasn’t gotten a reply—while I don’t have time to respond to every email I receive, I promise that I do read them all.

Next week, I’ll go over how we handle rarities, with an eye toward the Web of Spider-Man set. Also, there will be punch and pie.

Send questions or angry complaints to dmandel@metagame.com.


*See, Mike, if you’d write articles, you could make fun of me in a public setting, too.