Trading card games are like chess with new pieces introduced every three months or so. The combined powers of pawn and queen form an exciting chess strategy that can win in an unusual way. In Vs. System, the potential for combined powers are endless.

Just as in chess, however, a powerful combination of two or three cards is not enough to win a Vs. System match. Creative strategy, deckbuilding, and intelligent play are all equally important to success.

The history of Vs. System proves this point. The first-ever Pro Circuit Qualifier occurred in May 2004. The game was brand new and no one really knew what to expect. Sentinels were considered very weak and none of the buzz on the forums thought them capable of winning. I had a different idea.

The main combo that I wanted to exploit was Primary Directive and  added to a swarm of Wild Sentinels. When I toyed with Bastion as a way to utilize all the extra cards that Primary Directive provided, I realized how powerful Overload could be when Savage Beatdown was used on an opposing attacker. This is the decklist I created for the first organized Vs. System tournament. It is still a thrilling and risky way to play, but it clearly shows my deficiencies in the area of deckbuilding:

Candy Corn
Rian Fike
12th place
Knoxville PCQ
May 2004

Characters
20 Wild Sentinel
5 Sentinel Mark IV
4 Boliver Trask
3 Bastion
2 Nimrod

Plot Twists
4 Primary Directive
4 Reconstruction Program
4 Combat Protocols
4 Charge!
4 Savage Beatdown
3 Search and Destroy
3 Overload

The Bastion/Savage Beatdown/Overload combo turned out to be so powerful that it completely changed the Vs. System metagame. It led to the first-ever card banning, as Overload was determined to be a hindrance to future creativity. It also led to a Sentinel Pro Circuit Champion. Adam Bernstein’s $40,000 victory settled it—Vs. System’s shiny purple robots were pretty strong, after all.

It is amazing how much difference skillful deckbuilding and intelligent play can make. The PC champion deck had the benefit of two characters that were not available for the Knoxville PCQ, but the three-card combo was still the same. Even after many months of serious professional playtesting and a huge amount of data from various tournaments, a slight taste of Candy Corn could still be found in this pot of solid gold:

Curve Sentinels
Adam Bernstein
1st place, $40,000
Pro Circuit New York 2005

Characters
4 Boliver Trask
3 Hounds of Ahab
7 Sentinel Mark II
8 Sentinel Mark V
4 Nimrod
4 Bastion
4 Magneto, Master of Magnetism
2 Apocalypse

Plot Twists
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Reconstruction Program
4 Micro-Sentinels
3 Overload
4 Nasty Surprise

Locations
3 Genosha
2 Mojoverse

This deck shows that deckbuilding is an inexact science that is extremely dependant on the current Vs. System environment. Adam Bernstein’s build of Curve Sentinels may not be the best for every season, but it was the best for that particular tournament. Studying a decklist that won a Pro Circuit event is valuable for providing a basic skeleton. New cards can be added and old cards can be removed. It is even possible to insert a crazy combo or two. Some of the most successful Curve Sentinel decks today have added the combination of Flame Trap and Total Anarchy to improve the matchup with Teen Titans and eliminate the threat of opposing weenie swarms.

Speaking of Total Anarchy, let’s turn our attention to the greatest combination deck ever played (in my humble opinion). We need to return to New York to find it, and we need to believe in dreams. Like my Candy Corn deck, strategies utilizing Xavier’s Dream had been attempted since the early days of Vs. System. The inaugural Risk Vs. Reward article talked about the combination of Jean Grey, Phoenix Force and Xavier’s Dream, with Rogue, Power Absorption thrown in for finesse.

Nine months later, Michael Barnes won $16,000 playing Xavier’s Dream at Pro Circuit New York 2005. His deck did not use the Phoenix Force combo; it refined the risky strategy and brought Total Anarchy to the table:



Number One Dream
Michael Barnes
3rd place, $16,000
Pro Circuit New York 2005

Characters
4 Alfred Pennyworth
12 GCPD Officer
4 Dazzler
4 Longshot
4 Beast, Dr. Henry McCoy
1 Lacuna

Plot Twists
4 Xavier’s Dream
4 Bat-Signal
4 Fizzle
4 Total Anarchy
4 Pleasant Distraction
3 Marvel Team-Up
3 A Death in the Family
1 Flame Trap

Locations
4 Avalon Space Station

This may be the purest combo deck that Vs. System has ever seen. Total Anarchy, A Death in the Family, and Flame Trap keep the table clear for Xavier’s Dream to generate its alternate win condition. It’s an outrageously different strategy that runs counter to all traditional methods of victory. In a combat-oriented game system, it is a breath of strange air.

Michael Barnes and his Dream Team worked diligently for months to make sure that their great combination would actually give them a chance in the tournament. They played hundreds of games against the decks they were likely to face. Since Curve Sentinels was the heavy favorite, Number One Dream gave them a fighting chance with a non-fighting combo. Their efforts paid off big-time—their deck finished Day 1 on top of the standings with an 11-1 record.

Crazy card combinations can cause considerable clumps of cash to be collected in Vs. System, but there is a great deal of hard work that needs to be done first. Erick Reyes of Edgeworld explains this truth brilliantly.

Anyone can see two or three card combos; it’s the application of that combo in a playable deck that gets the applause. In other games, it’s different. Many trading card games are geared for combo-based decks and you can make almost any type of deck playable. In Vs. System, there is so much emphasis on combat that most combos aren’t even viable. If you can’t even make the combo work once or twice in ten games, is it really a combo? Can you really have fun with it if you can’t even get it to work? I’m not even talking about winning—just playing your favorite combo is hard enough. I don’t mind losing if my combo goes off, but it’s no fun when you’ve played six games and your opponent is asking, “So, what is that deck supposed to do again?” Winning isn’t everything, but being somewhat playable is pretty important.

The real weaknesses of purely theoretical risky strategies in Vs. System cannot be denied. Does that mean we should stop searching for sick combos? Absolutely not. Whether casual or competitive, the wacky and wonderful will always have a place in our game. I will leave you this week with another view from Gabe “profparm” Schmidt.

I don’t agree that there aren’t a lot of viable combos. I built a My Beloved deck that is based around the simple combo of Alfred and Dual Nature, and even though it is below the curve, it has more than enough card advantage. If I stun two characters, I get an extra plot twist out of the deal. As for testing combos that are worthless, yeah, that does get frustrating while you’re playing one and it never wins. But then again, if you know in your heart that statistically your combo will only go off one in every hundred games, and it goes off twice, then you either have the greatest reward any risky player can hope for or more patience then anyone I’ve ever seen.

Rian Fike is also known as “stubarnes” in the VsRealms.com community. If you have questions, comments, or a risky strategy that you would like him to cover, drop him a line at rianfike@hattch.com.