Vs. System Is Back! Kinda Sorta.

When Upper Deck announced at GenCon last year that Vs System was coming back, I was happy but apprehensive. Their track record in general, and especially with this game, was at best mixed. When they fessed up back in May that the game they were "bringing back" would be radically changed, I was ticked off. Nevertheless, it was a similar game with some of the same mechanics and, at least for now, the same basic characters, so I decided that I would try to keep an open mind and give the game a try when it came out. And now I have.

Before I get into that, let me say that, while I really do understand many of the concerns they had about the old game, I remain convinced that they could have addressed almost all of them without such drastic changes (adding the main character concept, changing the scoring, changing the power curve, etc.). They could have made most of the rules changes that they made concerning flight, range, formation, etc. without fundamentally altering the game, for example. Lots of other inherent problems could have been solved simply by not making certain kinds of cards (tutors and team-ups, most notably) and by not creating so many game mechanics that had to be learned and accounted for while playing. But it sounds like their initial plan really was to tweak the game, so they must have decided early on that they simply couldn't accomplish all their goals without starting over. I've been on projects that took sharp 90 degree turns, so I can well understand how that could happen, even if I don't like the result. It's water under the bridge now, in any case.

Anyway, yesterday I got a text from the owner of our LCS saying that he had received a small initial shipment of VS 2PCG, and that he was holding a box for me. I swung by after work and picked it up, then went home and started checking it out. Fortuitously, my son DJ had the day off, so we were able to explore the game together. We quickly decided that we'd each build a mono-team deck on our own, and learn the game by building the decks and playing them against each other. I picked Guardians and Star-Lord, while he opted for X-Men and Storm.


Neither of us knew much about what a deck for this game should look like, really. I had read some of the coverage of the 10K at GenCon, and glanced at some of the decklists for the Top 8, so I did know a few things. All those decks played 14-20 locations, for instance, so I knew to aim for that. Plot twist counts were all over the map. Some decks played a mere half dozen, others 2-3 times as many. I hadn't paid much attention to the distribution of character drops, but I did know that you had to play more characters than you would have in most Vs 1.0 decks, because there are no tutors and few draw effects.

That was about all I knew, other than that the most successful decks at the event seemed to be playing one of a handful of main characters: Star-Lord and Thanos, especially, then Storm, Magneto, and Professor X. (Storm actually wasn't played much, 8 out of 199 decks, but one of them made the finals.) I also knew that some of the best supporting characters were in Guardians—Cosmo, Mantis, Yondu, and Drax—which was one reason why I chose them for my first deck. Plus, it was an aggro-control deck archetype, which is right up my alley. DJ wanted to go aggro. He liked Storm's flight, and thought he could hit early and hard with her.

We spent an hour or so reading the rules and putting together a first cut at our decks, then broke for dinner. While we ate, we did a little reading on our phones about the 10K results. Based on that reading, we each decided to make a few minor changes to our decks before we started playing. Finally, at about 8:00 or so, we were ready to flop some cardboard.

DJ won the dice roll and opted to go first. He recruited a 1 drop and swung into Star-Lord, after giving him -2/-2, to inflict an early wound. This was part of an early pattern in the game. I think I had 2-3 wounds on Star-Lord before Storm got her first. But I got Cosmo out on my turn to take away Storm's abilities, and after he was KO'd on DJ's turn 2, I played another one with a Yondu on my turn 2. Star-Lord was racking up wounds, but also lots of experience points. I was going to level up first, despite needing 5 XP rather than 3 to do so.

I won't go through the entire match turn by turn, but I do want to point out a few things that we learned along the way. First, my strategy of loading up on early drops paid off, as Star-Lord was able to level up a couple of turns before Storm, which greatly limited Storm's ability to do damage late. I got four wounds pretty fast, then stabilized on turn 5. It seemed clear to us that an aggro deck like DJ's really needs to hit early and often AND get its main character leveled up quickly in order to win. I don't know yet if leveling up first determines the winner more often than not, but it seems like it could, all else being equal (comparable quality of draws and decks, etc.).

Second, although I didn't draw any copies of Mantis to fuel the deck's resource acceleration theme, I did luck into a copy of the 6 drop Drax when I drew for turn 5 and play him a turn early with Star-Lord's ability. That was pretty much the game decider. Storm was running low on gas at that point, and had to sit in the front row in order to be able to attack. Star-Lord had range, and with a 7/7 Drax as a blocker in the front row, Star-Lord became essentially untouchable, since no one could fly over him. DJ no longer had the firepower to get through a big blocker and Star-Lord.

A key lesson we learned here is that although flight, range, and formation are all different than they were in Vs 1.0, they are still just as important and almost as complex. Sure, you don't have to worry about reinforcement, but there are still tough decisions to be made about where to place your characters to allow for optimal offense and optimal defense. For example, if you put your main character in the front row so it can team attack with another character, it is going to remain exposed there (if it doesn't get stunned while attacking) on your opponent's turn.

Third, hand management seems more important in this game than it did in 1.0. Late in the game, I still had several cards in hand, while DJ was down to topdecking. While I admittedly needed a lucky draw of a 5 and a 6 drop on turn 5 in order to win, it was very clear that I had a huge advantage by virtue of having more cards to work with. That was not the case quite so much in 1.0, where you could play plot twists from your row, and search for needed characters with tutors. If you have no cards in hand in this game, the chances of getting the character you need for your next turn are very slim, and you definitely won't be playing any plot twists. Which reminds me: since your opponent can see the locations you have available to you face up in your row, there are fewer surprises in this game than there could be in the old one, where every face down resource and every card in hand was an unknown threat.

Getting back to our game, that turn 5 Drax was decisive. DJ could no longer touch my back row Star-Lord, and his front row Storm was a sitting duck. I was gradually able to overcome my early deficit, and on the final turn of the game I slammed his solitary Storm with four team attackers sporting a combined 20 ATK for the win.

After we finished, we talked for a while about our impressions of the game. We both enjoyed it—far more than we expected—and will probably continue playing it to some degree. We liked it enough that I'm going to go snag a second box, since there are some plot twists and characters that you want more than four copies of, even if you are only building two decks. But we also agreed that, at least for now, we can't see ourselves getting into the game nearly as much as we did the original. Partly that's just stubbornness on our part, I suppose. We both loved the first game so much, and this new one seems like a not wholly satisfactory substitute. Beyond that, though, we have some big concerns about the game.

First, there's no OP right now. This is a biggie. If there are no regularly scheduled tournaments to bring us and others together to play the game, then it is going to be hard to generate and maintain enthusiasm for it. Supposedly something is coming from Upper Deck around the end of the year, but that seems awfully late to me. That something should have been in place as close to the release as possible.

Second, given the one-box-has-everything distribution model and the non-existent OP, local retailers have little incentive to carry the game, much less actively support and promote it. Games sold in booster packs can generate hundreds if not thousands of dollars in gross revenue from a single customer. This one will generate only a few dollars in net revenue per box for a card store. Have to sell a whole bunch of boxes to pay one light bill. I've seen lots of posts on Facebook by people who say that their local stores either don't know about the game or don't have any current plans to carry it. Therein lies the major flaw with this distribution model. It's good for the players—a single person can spend 50 bucks and have all the same cards as everyone else—but it's lousy for local retailers. It remains to be seen how long the game can survive when it is set up this way. I would think that Upper Deck would have to really work overtime to compensate for its inherent shortcomings, to give those retailers incentives to carry and support it. Obviously they are not doing that right now.

Finally, the planned development cycle just sucks. Period. Reportedly the plan is to develop the game in one year cycles. Each cycle would feature a "core set" to be released at or around GenCon, followed by two half-sized expansion sets, roughly four months apart. That part sounds OK. But supposedly each cycle is to be devoted to a single intellectual property, or group of properties, completely distinct from the previous one. So if the first cycle belongs to Marvel, we could expect to see two expansion sets for it over the next 8 months (roughly now to April 2015). Then the next cycle would be something else, like Aliens/Predators. For a whole year. We wouldn't see another Marvel set from roughly April 2015 until August 2016. I can't see many people retaining interest in the game in the interim, assuming it even lasts that long. Personally, I have zero interest in Aliens/Predators or Firefly or any of the other non-comic book properties that have been mentioned, and I know I'm not alone. I might be OK with a single expansion set of something like that, but nothing more.

If this is all true, and they stick with this plan, I think it is a monumental mistake, and one they can't easily recover from. If they were to release a new core set of Aliens/Predators and it bombs, its not like they could instantly shift gears and go back to Marvel, They would already be well into development of the first A/P expansion set at that point. This is just typical of Upper Deck, too. "If we build it, they will come" is a great line from a good movie. It is not a sound business philosophy, as they should have learned by now.

In short, I remain just as skeptical and conflicted now as I was back in May. I like the new game and think it is fun to play, but I am very, very reluctant to become emotionally invested in it. I made that mistake with Upper Deck once before, and if I were to make a similar mistake again, then shame on me, not them. Their track record is not good, and they are going to do things significantly better this time around. The fact that they ran out of product on the first day of GenCon, leaving lots of people twisting in the wind who had traveled hundreds of miles to play in the 10K, is just further evidence that this really is the same old Upper Deck. (Don't have all your product on the first day? Then don't let people buy up to 10 copies. Reserve 1 for each registered player in the 10K, since they had no way of getting it beforehand, and limit sales to one copy per person for a day. This isn't rocket science, just common sense.) Anyway, caveat emptor.

I know there are many people who are wildly enthusiastic and optimistic about the new game, and I am happy for you/them. Enjoy the ride while it lasts. I won't be taking it with you, for the most part. I will continue playing the game, but I refuse to go all in on it. If the game grows and prospers, and I continue to enjoy playing it, maybe I will get with the program. For now, though, I'll be proceeding with an abundance of caution and a boatload of skepticism.