TCG: The Vs. System

When Upperdeck's Vs System TCG was first released, I swore that I will never touch it. I am somewhat prejudiced against American-made TCGs and the American-style comic book art did not attract me.

Despite that, I recently started playing the Marvel/DC Vs TCG after watching JokerZ & Orchi playing it and then drafting the game once with Jeffrey and Darius. I found it to be very interesting. I told myself that I will save money by only drafting for cards, but ended up buying a box myself.

The gameplay is very refreshing (but, yeah, all card games are 'refreshing' until you play it a million times and it gets old...). I would say it is a mixture of Magic: The Gathering, Duel Masters and Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters, and more. There is tapping of creatures, mana costs, power & toughness (M:TG); any card can be played face-down as 'land' for mana (D.M); your 'land' can be flipped over as 'Trap cards' and you choose the targets for your attacks during combat (DM).

The combat engine is one of the most interesting aspects of the game. The way you arrange your characters on the board matters. And at the end of combat, when all your characters are stunned (i.e. marked to be destroyed), you can choose to recover one of them. This means that your favorite character will usually be around and survive for many many turns. It really makes you feel attached to that character as his very presense truly immerses you into the game. Compare this to other games where your favorite monster gets zapped the moment he comes out, or even if he does, he will usually not live for more than 2 turns. That's kinda anti-climatic.

Oh, and did I mention that both players carry out their turns pretty much simultaneously? This means that both players actually go about with their actions in one turn (of course, depends on which player has Iniatiave aka priority). No one sits around and twiddle their thumbs while waiting for their opponent to say, "I end my turn".

I've made a simple Doom deck so far because I like Doctor Doom. Didn't read the comics, but I thought he was cool in those Capcom fighting games.

I am not sure if the VS system will be another passing fad for me. I am upkeeping too many card games now, and M:TG Betrayers of Kamigawa is coming out soon. If anyone is interested, I am aways game for a draft session.