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| bobtheorc |
 Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:06 pm |
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Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 1218
Location: Wow, its hot in Iowa
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Hey fellas.
I was working on this, and Conor Pm’ed me and told me to go ahead and post it since I had been working on it for a whle, so here is is!
An overview of VS System from an LOTR TCG Players Perspective
I imagine that many of you reading this article have wondered, “What is VS System and how does it work?” and since the majority of the members on this site play LOTR TCG I also assume that like me, you are wondering how does VS System compare game play wise with LOTR TCG?
In this article I will examine how VS System is played and how it is similar and different from LOTR TCG.
I will also have a sample decklist at the end as an example of a decent VS System deck.
Now, on with the article.
First there are 4 types of cards in VS System.
Those are Characters, equipment, Plot twists, and Locations.
Character Cards
Characters are very similar to LOTR TCG’s companions and minion, they represent characters from the DC and Marvel comics universe the background of these cards is red.
Characters in VS System represent the super heroes and villains that inhabit the comic universe.
A character will have Attack and Defense similar to a companions Strength.
Character cards are played during the Recruit phase, similar to LOTR TCG fellowship and shadow phases. Character have a recruit cost, to play these cards remove resource points equal to their cost, similar to having to remove twilight to play a minion. All character cards are unique, you cannnot have two of a card with the same title in play, if you wanted to play another version of a character already in play you must put the card already in play in your KO’d pile.
Unlike LOTR TCG, VS System characters don’t have vitality or Hit Points.
A VS character is either ready, exhausted or stunned and you can tell what state a card is in by how it is placed.
If a VS System card is ready it is placed face-up.
To exhaust a card, you have to turn it sideways, this card is then exhausted, so it can’t use an ability that says “exhaust this card.”
To show that a character is stunned, it is placed sideways and face down.
You don’t use tokens as wounds in this game, you can tell simply by looking at your cards in play what state they are in.
Often to use a characters ability requires that you exhaust that character, when a character card is exhausted it is place sideways just like any other card.
All cards that are exhausted are made ready during the recovery phase, but I am getting ahead of myself.......
This is a good time to point out that the KO’d pile of VS System is similar to LOTR TCGs dead and discard piles, the KO’d pile is where you put stunned characters (in LOTR TCG this is what would be called a dead pile) and where you put cards that have been used, like Plot Twists.
There are two abilities that characters can have which showcase another difference: flight and range. I will explain these abilities later when I talk about game play set-up.
VS System game setup
Equipment Cards
Equipment is most similar to possessions, these cards are played on Characters and have a grey background. These cards represent the tools, weapons, armor, etc that the characters inhabiting the DC/Marvel universe use. Equipment cards are played during the Recruit phase just like Characters. Equipment is usually not unique. Equipment cannot be played from the resource row unlike Plot Twists and Locations.
Plot twist cards.
Plot Twist are essentially like LOTR events ,they have a threshold cost and only work once, their effect isn’t usually continues. The exception to this rule is cards like The New Brotherhood which have the Ongoing keyword which means simply that their effect in continuous so for The New Brotherhood, as long as you control four or less resource each Brotherhood character would gain +2 ATK.
To play a plot twist, the number of resources you have must be greater then the threshold cost of the Plot twist you want to play. SO if you have a plot twist that has a threshold cost of 3, like Boot to the Head, you must have at least three resources in you resource row.
The background of these cards is Blue. A Plot Twist can be played either from your resource row or from your hand. After a plot twist is played, it is then placed in the KO’d pile, similar to the way LOTR events are placed in the discard pile after being played.
Plot Twists are not unique.
Location Cards
And Finally there are location cards. These are similar to LOTR sites in name, but the way they work is much more like a LOTR TCG condition. Locations are played to the resource row face down. When you want to use the effect of a condition, you flip it face up in your resource row.
The neat thing about locations is that even when they are face up they still count as resources.
And just like a LOTR TCG condition, a VS System Location’s effect can be used again and again once it is face up. Like Plot twists, locations have a Threshold cost, so to use a location is similar to how Plot Twist are used.
Another big difference is that in VS System each player starts the game with 50 Endurance.
Through attacks, breakthrough loss, and other methods, a players Endurance goes down, the first player to have zero endurance at the start of the recovery phase loses the game.
Whereas in LOTR TCG the first player to either have his Ring-bearer survive the skirmish phase on site Nine wins, or the first player to kill or Corrupt the opponents ringbearer wins.
Some cards have you decrease you endurance as part of their activation cost similar to how you may add a burden to play a card even though the burden will hurt you.
Now on the phases of this game, many of which will seem very familiar to you LOTR TCG players..
Phases in VS System
There are 4 phases in VS System, The Draw Phase, Build Phase, Combat Phase, and Recovery Phase. Before a game, one player starts with the initiative. This means that he gets to do the first actions at the start of each phase. On the next turn, initiative passes on to the next player clockwise. Unlike LOTR TCG initiative isn’t based on how many cards you have in your hand.
At the very start of the game each player gets to draw four cards.
Draw Phase
During the draw phase both players draw two cards.
You only draw get to draw two cards each. This is different then LOTR TCG were you draw cards at the end of the turn up to a total of eight cards..
Build Phase
Then you move on to the Build phase which has three steps, Resource Step, recruit step, and Formation Step. This phase is similar to LOTR TCGs Fellowship and Shadows phases with some crucial differences. Instead of adding or subtracting twilight tokens, you may place down one card in your resource row. It takes a few turns to get your resources up to a decent level since you can only place one per turn.
Resource Step In this step you may place one cards face down as a resource
It is usually smart to place locations or plot twists as resources, as equipment and characters cannot be played from the resource row. Locations are the best cards to place as resource since they can ONLY be used while in the resource row.
Recruit Step
In the recruit step you then add 1 resource point for every card in your resource row.
Characters and equipment cards are recruited using these resource points.
You subtract the Recruit Cost of these cards from the number of resource points you have you cannot exceed the amount of resource point you have while recruiting.
For example, if you have 4 resource points, you could recruit one character with a cost of 4, or you could recruit one character with a cost of 3 and one equipment with a cost of 1 etc.
To recruit a character, put you place it face up in either your support row or your front row.
Equipment is placed on Characters that meet its playing requirements.
This phase is most similar to LOTR TCGs Shadow phase since you subtrace resource points (twilight) to play your cards, and the amount is limited.
In the early turns you want to have low recruit cost Characters
Then we go on to the
Formation step
The last part of your build phase is the formation step.
During the formation step, you may move each of your characters to any spot in your front row or support row. I will explain set-up later on, for know you need to know that you can place each of your characters to any spot in your front row or support row.
Lets move on to the fun part, the battle!
Combat Phase
The player with the initiative gets to take his attack step first.
This is sort of like LOTR TCG where the Free People players gets to assign the minions, but combat is decided is a bit different way in VS.
You characters attack one at a time, just like LOTR TCG.
You then chose what Character you want to attack with and what Characters you want to attack.
You can Plot Twist and powers before this first attack.
Once both of you have done all the actions you want to compare your Characters ATK and DEF.
The result is somewhat complicated, more so then in LOTR TCG, so I will quote from the rule book a lot to explain this phase.
Figuring Out the Result of an Attack
To find out how the attack ends, compare the attacker’s ATK to the defender’s DEF, and
compare the defender’s ATK to the attacker’s DEF. There are four ways that an attack
can end:
1. If the attacker’s ATK is greater than or equal to the defender’s DEF, and the
defender’s ATK is less than the attacker’s DEF, the defender will be stunned.
2. If the defender’s ATK is greater than or equal to the attacker’s DEF, and the
attacker’s ATK is less than the defender’s DEF, the attacker will be stunned.
3. If the defender’s ATK is greater than or equal to the attacker’s DEF, and the
attacker’s ATK is greater than or equal to the defender’s DEF, both
characters will be stunned.
4. If the defender’s ATK is less than the attacker’s DEF, and the attacker’s ATK is
less than the defender’s DEF, neither character will be stunned.
Remember, when a character becomes stunned, exhaust it and flip it face down. While
a character is stunned, treat it like it has no text.
If a character is stunned then the player who owns it loses Endurance equal to the recruit cost of that character. Its kinda like losing vitality for the twilight cost of a defeated LOTR character.
Another way that Endurance is lost in this phase is through
When a defender becomes stunned in combat, if the attacker’s ATK is greater than the
defender’s DEF, the defender’s controller takes breakthrough damage.
What this means is that,
in addition to taking stun endurance loss, the player who controls the defender will
lose endurance equal to the difference between the attacker’s ATK and the defender’s
DEF. For example, if an attacker with 8 ATK stuns a defender with 3 DEF, the defender’s
controller takes breakthrough endurance loss of 5 (8 ATK -3 DEF = 5 breakthrough).
So if you get a really beefed up character to win, your opponents endurance will really start to fade away!
After both players are done with their attacks lets recover some of our defeated characters.
This is done in the aptly named
]Recovery Phase
This phase is somewhat similar to the Regroup phase.
If either player has zero endurance or less , at the start of this phase, that player loses.
Then each player chooses one stunned character to recover.
That character is placed face up in the exhausted position.
Any characters still stunned are placed in the KO’d pile so choose wisely!
All remaining locations and characters are then placed in the ready position to prepare for the next turn.
Then initiative is passed on to the next player who then starts his own draw phase and thus begins another round.
I better cover something I skipped over earlier.
VS System game setup.
Game Setup and card placement
The way that VS system is setup is different in many ways from LOTR TCG. Part of this is because were a card is placed affect wether or not it can be attacked or attack.
In VS System there are three rows, resource row, support row, and the front row.
Only characters in your front row can attack. Characters in your support row are
there to support your attackers, but they don’t usually get to attack.
So it matter a lot where a card is unlike LOTR TCG where you only have one row of companions and one row of attacking minions.
• A support row character can be protected. If there is a non-stunned character in
your front row directly in front of a non-stunned support row character, that
support row character is protected by the front row character. A character that is
protected can’t be attacked but there are two exceptions to these rules.....
Remember those two abilities I mentioned earlier? In case you forgot they are flight and range ad they affect what a character can attack..
Here is what they do:
[quote=”VS System Rule Book”]
A character with flight that is in your front row can attack any character, even one that is
protected. A character with flight has the flight icon on its left-hand side.
• A character with range can attack from the front row or the support row. A character
with range has the range icon on its left-hand side.
• A character with flight and range can attack from either row, and it can attack any
character (even one that is protected). [/quote]
These abilities don’t really have any similar LOTR TCG term.
You may be wondering what a VS System deck looks like.
After all what is a strategy article without a decklist/
Well here you go...
Here is an example VS deck build by Takeo (the deck is used with his permission, the strategy is adapted from his notes.)
Note that the majority of this deck is Characters, no equipment is used which makes it easier to play.
The deck is pretty straightforward and a nice build for beginners.
The focus of the deck is to do damage to your opponents endurance right off the bat with a nice ongoing event and some locations.
You have to start with a The New Brotherhood, (the text for this important card is: Ongoing: While you control four or less resources, Brotherhood characters you control get +2 ATK.) or a Savage Land on your hand. They are vital as they pump up your Characters right away since .. Lay one of them down as a resource. If you don’t get either one, then you will want to Mulligan. When you mulligan you place the four cards you drew put them at the bottom of you deck and draw four more cards. You can only do this your first turn.
Turn two, you should have made your opponent lose 5 endurance with Pyro, St. John Allerdyce or Toad, Mortimer Toynbee, with either Savage Land or The New Brotherhood being played.
Since both Pyro and Toad have a recruit cost of two, either one can be played on your second turn since you will have two resources
Turn three:, keep chiseling away at you opponents Endurance, if you have 2 The New Brotherhood by now your Characters will really start to hurt make sure you don’t play more then four resource or this handy bonus goes away. Your opponent should be starting to take a lot of break through damage know with the New Brotherhood.
Round 4, the best round, Genosha and Sabretooth, Feral Rage!
Best of Rounds, you should get Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr or Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff to make sure your opponents Endurance keeps going down . Use Genosha to make sure your get the cards you need.
With The New Brotherhood your characters will keep chiseling away at your opponents endurace.
This deck is made for fast endurance loss. Nothing really complicated, just pure strength.
You could call this deck a beat down deck, not really that much into finesse.
Here is the list.
Deck list:
Blob, Fred Dukes x4
Pyro, St. John Allerdyce x4
Toad, Mortimer Toynbee x4
Mystique, Raven Darkholme x4
Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr x4
Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff
Destiny, Irene Adler x4
Phantazia, Eileen Harsaw x4
Sauron, Dr. Karl Lykos
Quicksilver, Speed Demon
Sabretooth, Feral Rage x4!!
Plot Twists:
Nasty Surprise x3
Flying Kick x 3
Acrobatic Dodge x3
Mega-Blast
No Fear x4
The New Brotherhood x4
Locations:
Savage Land x4
Genosha x3
Plot Twist - Cost 1
Ongoing
Attack/Defense: 0 / 0
Just like LOTR TCG, VS System decks need to have a minimum of 60 cards.
You can only have four copies of each card.
Unlike LOTR TCG a VS System deck may include up to four copies of each different version of a card. So you could have four Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff and four Quicksilver, Magneto’s Son but you couldn’t have both in play at the same time since characters are unique.
I hope you have enjoyed this article of mine and that it has helped you understand a little bit how LOTR TCG and VS system compare when it comes to gamplay..
I am still learning how to play VS system so I recommend that you check out the rules for yourself.
Here are some links that I found very helpful in writing this article and they should help you find more about this game.
First the link to the Game Demo
Very useful it takes only about 15 minutes.
Here is the VS System Wiki
The main Upper Deck Entertainment website Upper Deck Entertainmen
The DC Comics game main page Dc comics
The Marvel TCG main page Marvel
And most importaly the main page for ALL VS System rules and rule updates VS System TCG Rules
Thanks for reading, now go and play. |
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| CarpeGuitarrem |
| Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:12 pm |
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
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| Hey, not bad! I like it. A good guide to VS for LOTR players. |
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| lem0nhead |
| Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 4:57 am |
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| I understand that! Interesting game sounds like aliens vs predator that i used to play and i enjoyed that. Wd bto. |
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| Takeo |
| Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:35 am |
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Joined: 21 Jan 2007
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Very nice written Bob! I’ve been looking forward to reading it!
It would get a 5 from me for sure!
Should maybe have added a round 5, where you play a resource, (5 total) play Magento, later to destroy one with Genosha, to draw 4 cards, and still have 4 resources, so The New Brotherhood still works:)
Handy combo..
-- Takeo |
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