VS System

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VS System
Image:Vs system back.jpeg The distinctive card back of a VS System Card allows for interchangeability of the cards regardless of set origin.
Players	2 or more1
Age range	9 and up
Setup time	< 5 minutes
Playing time	< 30 minutes
Random chance	Some
Skills required	Card playing Simple math Deck optimization Planning Deception
1 Some casual rules allow more players.

VS System (pronounced "Versus System") is a gaming system designed for collectible card games, in which players take their constructed decks and attempt to wear down their opponents to 0 or less endurance. It was first published in 2004 by Upper Deck Entertainment and is currently used for the superhero games, though as a system rather than an individual game it could theoretically be applied to other genres in the future.

Card art, characters, and game play concepts are inspired by their comic book appearances with the game designers using what they describe as "Top Down" development, meaning that every attempt is made to develop a character card's mechanic in keeping with how the character was represented in its respective comic book.^[1] Well known artists that have contributed card art include Alex Ross, John Van Fleet, Alex Garner, Jim Lee, Rachael Dodson, and Bill Sienkiewicz.

Currently the collectible card game is based mainly on Marvel and DC Comics, with smaller sets called Essential Collections to feature characters from other comics publishers planned in the near future. The first such release based on Hellboy was released to the general public March 2007. The game is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the "Marvel CCG" for all sets. Expansion sets have since release alternated between Marvel based and DC Comics based with a new set approximately every 3 months. All sets are interchangeable and compatible with each other and share the same card back. This allows players to mix characters fighting against or with each other.

While the VS System shares many familiar features with CCG's like Magic: The Gathering, a notable innovation of VS System is that players share a turn, but alternate holding initiative for the turn. Initiative allowing him or her to act first in the phases of play.

Contents 1 History 2 Game History 3 Game play 3.1 Types of cards 3.2 Basic game concepts 3.3 Phases of gameplay 3.4 Variant rules 3.5 Keyword mechanics 4 Card sets 4.1 Expansion sets 4.2 Starter deck sets 4.3 Essential Collection Sets 5 Teams 6 Awards 7 Organized Play 7.1 Notable players in UDE Organized Play 7.2 Banned List 8 Video Game 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links

[edit] History

The game was originally demonstrated at the Gen Con Indy convention in 2003 under the name "Marvel TCG." After the demo, and with the acquisition of the DC license, the game underwent changes to its basic rules, changed its name so it wasn't tied to a specific publisher, and was reborn as the VS System.

The first expansion for the game was the "Marvel Origins" (aka MOR) release which debuted in April 2004. This set featured the X-Men, Brotherhood, Fantastic Four, Doom and Sentinel teams. There was also a starter deck that featured the X-Men and Brotherhood teams.

As the "Marvel Origins" set was being released, Upper Deck Entertainment also announced a Pro Circuit for the VS System. This Pro Circuit would be invitation only and would have a total annual purse of $1,000,000. The winner of each Pro Circuit stop wins $40,000 and, among other things, gets a special Extended Art version of Savage Beatdown. Players are able to gain invitations by competing in Qualifying events at the local level as well as by playing in regional $10,000 events to accumulate Pro Circuit Points.

Another starter featuring selected cards from the "Web of Spider-Man" expansion was released in late June of 2004 to coincide with the July 4th 2004 release of the Spider-Man 2 movie. "DC Origins" (aka DOR) was the next expansion and the first to feature cards from the DC Universe. The featured teams were Gotham Knights (centering around Batman and his allies), Teen Titans, The League of Assassins and the Arkham Inmates. The Origins release saw the introduction of "Identities" into the game to help ease the confusion between different people who held the mantle of a particular comic book character. This was represented by a diamond (<>) between the character name and the character's alter-ego or secret identity name. For example, at different times in the Batman saga the mantle of Robin was held by different people, notably Dick Grayson, Jason Todd and Tim Drake, who had different back stories and different personalities. This was reflected in VS System by having a Dick Grayson<>Robin character card, a Jason Todd<>Robin character card and a Tim Drake<>Robin character card.^[2] The first two expansion sets contain many highly sought after cards such as Savage Beatdown, Boris, Alfred Pennyworth, Fizzle and Garth<>Tempest. These cards tend to have the highest value on the secondary card market of all VS System cards.

Shortly after the "DC Origins" release, the first Pro Circuit event took place at GenCon Indianapolis. Brian Kibler was the winner playing a deck featuring characters from the Doom and Fantastic Four teams named "Common Enemy" (after the team up card it used). Shortly after winning the Pro Circuit, Brian was hired on to work for the R&D group at Upper Deck Entertainment.

The next set released was the "Web of Spider-Man" (MSM) expansion. There were only two major teams featured in the set: Spider-Friends and Sinister Syndicate. While there are some moderately strong cards in the set (Silver Surfer, Bamf!, Cosmic Spider-Man), the set as a whole is regarded as sub-par. Also, given the smaller number of teams, the set was a poor set for Sealed or Draft play. "Superman, Man of Steel" (DSM) set followed featuring Team Superman, Revenge Squad, New Gods and Darkseid's Elite. Again, there were potentially powerful cards, The Source being the most noteworthy, but none of the teams in the set were able to compete with the original teams from the Origins releases.

The Second Pro Circuit stop coincided with the release of the Superman set and took place in December 2004 at the GenCon SoCal convention. This convention also saw the beginnings of what would come to be known as "Modern Age" tournaments. Modern Age tournaments restrict the card pool to the last two released sets of a given comic brand (e.g. Marvel Modern Age or DC Modern Age). The $10k tournament held at GenCon SoCal had two concurrent tournaments, one for Marvel decks and another for DC decks. The winning decks from Marvel and DC were Curve Sentinels - a deck based on the mutant hunting robots from the X-Men - and The Brave and the Bold - A Teen Titans and Gotham Knights deck who's name comes from its team-up - respectively. The winners of the individual tournaments met for a final match to determine which universe was stronger. The DC deck eventually won the tournament after a multi-hour final match, and all the prize money to be paid out to those who performed well on the DC side of the tournament were doubled.

The next set released was the "Marvel Knights" (MMK) expansion. This set was based on the "street level" heroes of the Marvel Universe. These included: The Marvel Knights, Crime Lords, Underworld and X-Statix. This set is notable for being the start of an upward trend of the strength of card sets, while sets like Web of Spiderman and Man of Steel were intentionally designed to be weaker then their preceding origins sets. This was also the first set designed for limited play, as the amount of commons were doubled. Notable cards from this set involved Wild Ride, Midnight Sons, and Weapon of Choice.

The Third Pro Circuit was the first one to occur outside of the United States, in Amsterdam at the Schiphol Airport. The format of this tournament was Marvel Modern - which at the time consisted of the Web of Spiderman Set and Marvel Knights set - and also included two rounds of drafting from the Marvel Knights set and one more from the Superman set. Marvel Modern was dominated by rush ducks such as the winning Honor Among Thieves deck, and mid range control decks which pretty much encompassed any team that used the Marvel Knights. In the finals, Adam Horvath's Honor Among Thieves deck defeated Michael Dalton's Marvel Knights/Sinister Syndicate deck in a grueling 5 games to take the win.

The following expansion was the "Green Lantern" (DGL) expansion. Prior to the Green Lantern set, expansions had an even mix of two "good guy" teams and two "bad guy" teams. Green Lantern had only one "good guy" team - the namesake Green Lantern - and three "bad guy" teams - the Emerald Enemies, Anti-Matter team, and the Manhunters. Notable cards in this set included Dr. Light, Master of Holograms, Kyle Rayner, The Last Green Lantern, and Birthing Chamber.

The next Pro Tour returned back to the Golden Age format at New York. The first day of this format was Golden Age, while the second half consisted of two drafts using the Marvel Knights set and one more from the Green Lantern set. At the end of the day, Adam Bernstein playing the Curve Sentinel deck was victorious.

The next expansion released into the VS System was the "Avengers" (MAV) expansion. This set once flipped the three "bad guy" teams and one "good guy" team of the previous set, and instead had three "good teams" and one "bad one". This set showcased the Avengers, Thunderbolts, Masters of Evil, and the Squadron Supreme. There was also another team called Kang Council, this team consisted mostly of various different versions of the time traveling villain Kang. Notable cards from this set include Beetle<>Armorsmith, Faces of Evil, and Albert Gaines <> Nuke.

The Justice League of America set, JLA, the DC Comics equivalent of the Avengers, was logically the next set to be released. This set once again returned to the traditional two "good teams" and two "bad teams", with the Justice League of America (JLA) and the Justice League International being part of the former (JLI) while the Secret Society and Injustice Gang comprised the latter. Without a doubt the most popular and thought provoking team from this set was the Injustice Gang who relied on letting the opponent draw additional cards while at the same time penalizing them for doing it. This set also introduced the ally mechanic. Notable cards in this set include Lex Luthor, Nefarious Philanthropist, Straight to the Grave, and Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose.

The next set, X-Men, revisited the popular origins teams. The set revisited the popular Brotherhood and X-Men teams and expanded on them by exploring new themes with them. In addition, the set also introduced the Morlocks and the Hellfire Club. The set is perhaps most infamous for the card Enemy of my Enemy. An incredibly hyped card even before the set was released, Enemy of my Enemy has replaced the ubiquitous Savage Beatdown for the most expensive card in VS commanding prices of upwards to $40. Other notable cards from this set include: X-Corp: Amsterdam and Mob Mentality.

Following the X-Men, UDE released the Infinite Crisis set. As the final set that would commemorate the birth of the Silver Age format, expectations were high. In an interview with gaming magazine Inquest, the lead designer of the set Justin Gary said: ""If we're not scared of a bunch of cards before they walk out the door, we haven't done our job right."" Tying into the comic book event, the set featured these following teams: Checkmate, Villains United, Secret Six, Shadowpact, and the JSA.

With continued support from Upper Deck Entertainment, the game continues to grow, drawing new players, veteran collectible card game players, and comic book fans into its player base.

[edit] Game History

With the release of the first set there were many different viable decks. As in most games, a combo deck, a control deck, and an aggressive deck where all visible from almost the start. The traditional role of aggressive decks fell to Brotherhood decks. Using their namesake card "The New Brotherhood" - which rewarded Brotherhood players for having 4 or less resources with a constant + 2 pump - decks running The New Brotherhood (TNB) decks was capable of turn 4 kills. The role of control decks was fulfilled by Dr. Doom, who could control the board with plot twists such as Mystical Paralysis and Reign of Terror. The good doctor himself, was a huge method of disruption by preventing your opponent from playing plot twists. As Doom was arguably the strongest team in origins, a variety of Doom decks, such as Common Enemy - A control deck that used the more powerful characters of the Fantastic Four, and the control and disruption offered by Doom - and Gamma Doom - Which used the powerful plot twist called Gamma Bomb to destroy all characters on the board.

Other popular decks during the birth of VS included: Wild Vomit - An aggressive deck that used the card drawing Longshot to grab large quantities of army Sentinels to "vomit" them onto the board. Another was Big Brotherhood, a mid range beatdown deck that used the recursion engine of Avalon Space Station in tandem with Lost City - which increased the bonus a player got form a power up - in order to attack with huge characters turn after turn.

Ironically, the most popular team in the Origins set, the X-Men, did not play a major part in the early metagame. Though the X-Men did see occasional play as part of other decks, the X-Men were never featured in any of their own decks prominently. There were many reasons for this, ranging from the X-Men having a relatively weak midgame and endgame, and the general weakness of their card quality when compared to other origins teams. The only deck that heavily feature X-Men at the time was the Mutant Nation deck - essentially a Big Brotherhood deck that used the stronger X-Men characters.

The first major tournament to use this format was the Origins 10k tournament. The Top 8 consisted of 2 Common Enemy, Mutant Nation, 2 Big Broterhood, an aggressive Fantastic Four deck, Wild Vomit, and a New Brotherhood deck. The tournament was won by Bill Hodak playing a Big Brotherhood deck.

This format did not last long on the tournament circuit. Indeed, while many players endeavored in the 10k at Origins, at the same time others were playing in the pre-release for the new set: DC Origins.

The next 10k took place at the San Diego Comic Con and also consisted only of the Marvel Origins sets. The top 8 consisted of 2 Common Enemy decks, a Mutant Nation 2 Big Brotherhood decks, 3 New Brotherhood decks. Of note in this top 8 are the first appearances of competitors Adam Prosak and Josh Witanen who would go on to perform extremely well at other events in the future. The event was ultimately won by Quang Nyguyen's Mutant Nation deck.

The DC Origins set saw its tournament debut on the professional circuit at Chicago. As expected, the DC set did bring about new decks and strengthen old ones. However, many mainstays were still there. The top 8 consisted of one Common Enemy, three Fantastic Four beatdown decks, a Doom deck, TNB deck, a Big Brotherhood deck, and a Mutant Nation. The talk of the tournament was Israel Quiroz's doom deck which ran the DC team Fearsome Five. Ironically, the Teen Titans - arguably the best team in the entire game - did not make a top 8 showing in this tournament. This event was again won by another Big Brotherhood deck, piloted by Jeremy Tucker.

More recently, the Green Lantern based GLOCK (Green Lantern Lock) deck has done well, using a combination of endurance gain and exhausting, and the 'Good Guys' deck, which is centered around JLI using power ups to get combos which snowball to a victory. The X-Men based 'X-Stall' deck is also popular, using indiscriminate exhaust effects and more general control cards to stall the game. The currently used rush decks are a Squadron build, which attempts to empty the player's hand, trading off the availability of cards for powerful in game effects, and 'HiV' (short for 'High Voltage'), sometimes known as 'Blame Australia'(A misnomer, as the deck was made in New Zealand), which uses direct damage plot twists such as Feel the Burn in combination with characters and equipment which can exhaust to deal damage, ending the game on turn 4 if successful. The Titans build, while falling into disuse because of the introduction of Silver Age, which disallows it, is still fairly competitive in Golden Age formats.

A Wildstorm Vs set was announced, but it was scrapped.

[edit] Game play

The VS System attempts to emulate epic Super Hero battles. Each player starts the game with 50 "endurance points". If a player has zero or less endurance at the start of the Recovery Phase, he or she is knocked out of the game. The VS System Comprehensive rules is an in depth explanation of every aspect of the game and is official canon for use in Organized Play judging. Upper Deck Entertainment also maintains a corp of "Demo Team" members who will meet with prospective players for a free interactive demonstration of gameplay. Anyone may request a demo at the following link: http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/op/demoteam/default.aspx

[edit] Types of cards

There are four types of cards in the VS System, Character (red border, black for "Hidden" characters), Equipment (grey), Location (green), and Plot Twist (blue). All four types of cards share some common elements:

• Name: All cards have a name. Characters and locations are by default unique, equipment and plot twists are not, exceptions can be applied by card text. Unique means only one of that card of that particular name can be in play at the one time
• Recruit Cost: Appears only on Character and Equipment cards. The amount of resource points required to recruit a card (see Phases of gameplay for further explanation).
• Threshold Cost: Appears only on Plot Twists and Locations. You can flip a location or play a plot twist if you have at least as many resources in play as it's threshold cost.
• Version: Originally, this line provided a way to distinguish one version of the character from another, however all card types may now have version text. Some versions apply special rules to the card, such as "Construct" or "Team-up." Rules for deck construction restrict the number of any card version to four, with the exception of any version Army cards which are unlimited.
• Artwork: A frame containing the artwork for the card, attempts to be representative of the card. For example, the plot twist "Fizzle" negates an opponent's non-ongoing plot twist shows Batman pinching out the fuse of a bomb that the Joker is holding. On promotional extended art cards this section has larger than normal proportions.
• Team Affiliation: Most characters belong to a team but some belong to none or two teams.
• Flight and Range: Icons appear only on Character cards, represented by a pair of wings and crosshairs. Show if characters have these characteristics.
• ATK/DEF: The two numbers at the lower left of a Character card. The gold number near the thunderbolt determines attack (how well it deals damage) and the silver number near the shield determines defense (how well it resists damage).
• Card Type: Printed on Plot Twists, Locations, and Equipments and appears where the Team Affiliation appears on Character cards. Simply tells what type of card it is.
• Rules Text: Explains the actions taken when the card is played. This text alters the rules and outcome of the game.
• Ongoing: Appears on Plot Twist cards. Represented by an icon that looks like a clock showing 3 o'clock. Text in the Rules Text area after the word "Ongoing" is a continuous modifier on the game rules.
• Flavor Text: A quote or character information that has no game effect.
• Collector Number: The first three letters describe the set and the last three numbers describe which card in the set it is. A white collector number indicates a common card, silver an uncommon card. When the number is gold, it indicates a rare card. On Extended Art promotional cards, the number is red.

[edit] Basic game concepts

• Endurance: Each player starts with 50 endurance. At the beginning of the resource step (see Phases of gameplay) the player with zero endurance loses the game. If both players have less than zero endurance, the player with the higher endurance is the winner.
• Deck: A player’s chosen set of cards used for playing the game. Constructed decks may have no less than 60 cards.
• Hand: You start the game with four cards and draw two cards each turn. There is no limit to the number of cards a player may have in your hand at one time.

• Front Row: When you recruit a character, you can put it in your front row or support row. Characters in your front row comprise a player's main line of attack and defense. Front row characters protect characters behind them in the support row.
• Support Row: This is the row directly behind the front row where you can place characters. If a support row character is protected (there is a front row character directly in front of it) it can only be attacked by opposing characters with flight.

• Resource Row: This is the row closest to you. Each turn, a player may put one card from your hand face down into this row as a resource during his or her build phase. Any card can be placed face down into the resource row and will count as a resource. However, plot twists and locations have additional game effects when placed in the resource row. For example, effects of locations and ongoing plot twists are only active when these cards are face up in the resource row. Character and equipment cards put into the resource row may not be turned face up. A player may look at face-down resources he or she has n play at any time, but a player may not change their order within the row.
• Protected: A front row character that is not stunned protects the support row character directly behind him or her. Front row characters are never considered protected.
• KO: Short for knocked out. When a card is KO’d, it is placed into its owner’s KO’d pile.
• KO’d pile: When a card is KO’d, it goes into its owner’s KO’d pile. Cards in this pile are face up, in any order. This is akin to the discard pile on other trading card games.

• Ready/Exhausted: A card in play is either ready (upright) or exhausted (turned on its side, face up). To ready an exhausted card, turn the card upright. To exhaust a ready card, turn it on its side. Cards enter play in the ready state, unless otherwise noted.
• Stunned: When a character is defeated in combat it becomes stunned and is turned face down in the exhausted state. Stunned characters may not be attacked and cannot use their powers listed in rules text.
• Recover: When a stunned character is recovered, it is turned face up in the exhausted state.
• Activate: This is an original game keyword and appears in a card’s rules text. Only ready (upright) cards can activate. To activate a ready card, exhaust it (turn it on its side). This is a payment cost for the character’s power, and is often referred to in game text as “activated ability.”
• Payment Power: A payment power is a card effect that requires the payment of a cost by the player. Cards with payment powers usually have an arrow (→) in the rules text. The text before the arrow is the cost and the text after the arrow is the game effect, or power. All activated abilities are payment powers.
• Crossover: Used in Team-Up effects. All characters you own in play, in your hand, deck, KO'd pile, or resource row that have any of the named team affiliations have all the named team affiliations.
• Reinforcement: Characters can gain this trait. While a character has reinforcement breakthrough damage that would normally be caused by attacks is negated. (Stun damage is applied as normal.)
• Replace: When a card tells you to 'Replace' a resource, you must KO that resource and put the top card of your deck face-down into your resource row.
• Unique: An aspect of all non-army characters, all locations that do not state in their printed text that they are "non-unique", and some equipment. An object with the Unique keyword or trait is one of a kind, and a player can only have one copy of it in play at a time.

[edit] Phases of gameplay

• Draw Phase: Each player simultaneously draws 2 cards from their deck.
• Build Phase: Starting with the player holding initiative, and going clockwise, each player goes through the following steps.
  • Resource Step: You may place one card face down into the resource row.
  • Recruit Step: Spend resource points to recruit characters and/or equipment. Resource points are determined at the beginning of the Recruit step by how many cards a player has in his or her resource row.
  • Formation Step: Rearrange your characters between your front and support rows.

After the player with initiative completes the Build Phase, his or her opponent(s) complete theirs in turn. Once each player finishes, the Combat Phase begins.

• Combat Phase: Starting with the player holding initiative, each player begins declaring attacks on their opponent's characters, or directly at each other if possible. The player with initiative attacks with all legal attackers, or until they wish to pass. Repeat this attack step for each player, going clockwise, from the player with initiative.
• Recovery Phase: At the start of the recovery phase, each player compares endurence totals, and determines whether or not the game is over. Then recover one stunned character, KO all remaining stunned characters, ready all unstunned characters (and locations), and pass initiative to the player on your left. All players perform these actions at the same time during the Recovery Phase. Once the Recovery Phase is complete, the next turn commences with the Draw Phase.

[edit] Variant rules

• Grand Melee: A regular game of VS System for any number of players. Last man standing wins.
• Team Alliance: A 2-on-2 game of VS System. Teammates sit across from each other. Plays just like grand melee, but teammates share an endurance total of 100 and cannot attack each other. Play until only one team is left.
• Two-Headed Mutant: A 2-on-2 game of VS System. Teammates sit next to each other across from their opponents. Each team begins the game with 100 endurance. This game variant can be played with any number of people on either team, as long as the teams are even numbered. 50 endurance is added onto the total endurance score for each person on a team. Therefore, a Three-Headed Mutant would see a game with 150 endurance.

[edit] Keyword mechanics

• Ally: A character's ally power is activated when a character is powered-up.
• Backup: Backup cards have activated powers that can only be used during the build phase.
• Boost: You may spend the extra amount of resource points listed beside the word 'Boost' when recruiting this character. If you do, the effect printed is triggered. The Marvel Team-Up set introduced other kinds of boost costs (for example, KO'ing a resource you control).
• Concealed: This character or equipment comes into play in the hidden area (the hidden area is a field beside your normal 'visible' area. It has a front and support row, and row rules still apply, but characters in the hidden area cannot be attacked by other characters. Equipment cards can not be equipped to characters in the concealed area unless the equipment specifies otherwise or has the keyword "concealed-optional".)
  • Concealed-Optional: You may play this character or equipment in either the hidden or visible area.
• Cosmic: When this character comes into play, put on a cosmic counter on it. As long as it has the cosmic counter, the printed effect is active or can be activated. When the character is stunned, remove all cosmic counters from the character.
  • Cosmic-Surge: This character does not come into play with a cosmic counter, but receives a cosmic counter at the start of the recovery phase. All other Cosmic rules still apply.
• Evasion: You may stun this character. At the start of the recovery phase, recover this character. (This does not count as your one recovered character this turn)
• Free: There is no cost for this ability, but there may be future cards that affect Free powers.
• Invulnerability: When this character is stunned, you do not lose endurance equal to their recruit cost. (Breakthrough damage is applied as normal.)
• Leader: Characters adjacent to this character get the bonuses listed.
• Loyalty: You cannot recruit this character unless you control another character that shares at least one team affiliation with this character.
  • Loyalty-Reveal: If you don’t control a character that shares an affiliation with this card, then as an additional cost to recruit this character, reveal another character card with the same team affiliation from your hand or resource row.
  • Dual-Loyalty: Introduced in the Marvel Team-Up set. You must control characters with both this character's printed affiliations in order to recruit this character.
• Mutant Traits: There are three types of mutant traits: Physical, Energy, and Mental. Like willpower, they are used for cards that require you to have cards of a certain mutant trait.
• Press: When you recruit this card, your next character costs 1 less to recruit this turn for each press card you recruited this turn, but no less than 1.
• Reservist: You may recruit this character from your resource row. You may put a card from your hand face-down in your resource row if you do so.
• Substitute: Reveal this card. You may remove from the game a ready character you control with cost greater than or equal to the cost of this card. If you do, put this card into play. Use this power only if this card is in your hand and only during your recruit step.
• Terraform: Reveal this card. You may return a face-down resource you control to its owner's hand. If you do, put this card face down into your resource row. Use this power only during your recruit step and only if this card is in your hand.
• Transferable: A keyword only found on some equipment. This keyword allows a player to move the equipment to another character they control during the formation step.
• Vengeance: A character's vengeance power is triggered when it becomes stunned.
• Willpower: A character with willpower has the templating "willpower #". This number does nothing by itself but is referenced by other cards to generate a variety of effects. All characters without a printed Willpower are considered to have a Willpower of zero.

[edit] Card sets

Being a collectible card game, VS. System cards are released in expansion sets. The game is also periodically enhanced by the release of starter deck sets. Set releases alternate between Marvel and DC Comics branded sets. In Organized Play, Modern Age format draws a card pool from only the last two released sets of a particular brand (e.g. only the last two Marvel sets or only the last two DC Comics sets). Silver Age format draws a card pool from only the last eight released sets from both brands (e.g. the last four released sets from Marvel Comics and the last four released sets from DC Comics). Golden Age format draws from a card pool of all legally playable cards.

[edit] Expansion sets

Set Name	Date	Featured Teams	Teams Introduced	New Mechanics
Marvel Origins	April 2004	X-Men Brotherhood Doom Fantastic Four Sentinels	X-Men Brotherhood Doom Fantastic Four Sentinels Skrull Negative Zone
DC Origins	July 2004	Gotham Knights Arkham Inmates League of Assassins Teen Titans	Gotham Knights Arkham Inmates League of Assassins Teen Titans Fearsome Five Deathstroke	Boost Loyalty
Web of Spider-Man	September 2004	Spider-Friends Sinister Syndicate	Spider-Friends Sinister Syndicate	Evasion
Superman, Man of Steel	November 2004	Team Superman New Gods Revenge Squad Darkseid's Elite	Team Superman New Gods Revenge Squad Darkseid's Elite	Cosmic Invulnerability
Marvel Knights	February 2005	Marvel Knights Crime Lords Underworld X-Statix	Marvel Knights Crime Lords Underworld X-Statix	Concealed Double-Loyalty hidden area
Green Lantern Corps	May 2005	Green Lantern Emerald Enemies Anti-Matter Manhunters	Green Lantern Emerald Enemies Anti-Matter Manhunters	Concealed-Optional Willpower non-character cards ("Construct")
The Avengers	August 2005	Avengers Masters of Evil Kang Council Thunderbolts Squadron Supreme	Avengers Masters of Evil Kang Council Thunderbolts Squadron Supreme	Leader Reservist non-character cards ("Team-Up")
Justice League of America	November 2005	Justice League of America Justice League International Injustice Gang Secret Society	Justice League of America Justice League International Injustice Gang Secret Society	Ally dual team affiliations[3]
X-Men	February 2006	X-Men Brotherhood Morlocks Hellfire Club	Morlocks Hellfire Club	Mutant Traits (Physical, Mental, and Energy)
Infinite Crisis	April 2006	JSA Shadowpact Villains United Checkmate	JSA Shadowpact Villains United Checkmate Secret Six Crisis	Vengeance Backup Loyalty-Reveal Identity concept expanded non-character cards ("Magic") "Champion" characters
Heralds of Galactus	September 2006	Heralds of Galactus Inhumans Kree Doom Skrull	Heralds of Galactus Inhumans Kree Infinity Watch	Press Terraform Cosmic-Surge
Legion of Super-Heroes	December 2006	Legionnaires Future Foes Teen Titans Darkseid's Elite	Legionnaires Future Foes	Substitute alternate use of Cosmic
Marvel Team Up	February 2007	Spider-Friends Sinister Syndicate Underworld Marvel Defenders Wild Pack.	Marvel Defenders Wildpack	Dual Loyalty alternate use of Boost paying attack or defense

Planned future expansion releases include:

• World's Finest (June 2007) Includes new cards for the Gotham Knights, Team Superman, Revenge Squad, and Arkham Inmates, and introduces the Outsiders and Birds of Prey.^[4]
• Marvel Legends (August 2007) A set featuring 'Marvel's most popular teams and characters', designed as a base set for both new and old players. Features the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Brotherhood, and more. [1]
• DC Comics Legends (November 2007) The DC equivalent of the Marvel Legends set. It includes the JLA and characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash.[2]

[edit] Starter deck sets

Starter Decks for VS. contain two playable 26 card mini-decks. They pit two teams against each other, typically a "Hero" team versus a "Villain" team.

• Marvel X-Men vs. Brotherhood Starter Set TCG (April 2004) The first starter drew cards from the Marvel Origins expansion set. It included the teams X-Men and Brotherhood.
• Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock Starter Set TCG (June 2004) Drew cards from the Web of Spider-Man set and was released several months prior. Teams for this set were Spider Friends and Sinister Syndicate. This starter set was released to coincide with the release of the 2004 film Spider-Man 2.
• Batman vs. Joker TCG (July 2004) Drew cards from the DC Origins set. Teams included were Gotham Knights and Arkham Inmates.
• DC Comics- Batman Starter Deck TCG (June 2005) Teams for this set were Gotham Knights and League of Assassins and was released to coincide with the 2005 Batman film. This starter set has had the greatest effect on the tournament scene due to generic plot twist Trial by Sword included in it.
• Marvel Fantastic Four Starter Deck TCG (June 2005) Teams for this set were Fantastic Four and Doom and was released to precede the release of the 2005 Fantastic Four film.
• Marvel X-Men Starter Set TCG (February 2006) Teams for this set were the X-Men and the Brotherhood, similar to the first starter set. The release of this set coincided with the release of the new X-Men set.

The last three sets included cards not previously released in an expansion set (with a few exceptions). The sets also included a quick-start insert explaining the rules in comic book format. The game mechanics on the cards from these sets were much simplified from what was seen on a typical expansion set card. While the rules are the same, these sets made it easier to introduce new players to the game.

In addition, UDE had originally planned to release a new Superman starter set to coincide with the new movie, but has since stated that it would not be released this year.

[edit] Essential Collection Sets

Recently announced by UDE, Essential Collections are special sets containing two pre-constructed 60 card decks, a comprehensive rule book, and a number of other extras. These sets are geared towards introducing characters from non-Marvel and DC universes and titles(such as the first release, Mike Mignola's Hellboy), as well as Marvel and DC material from outside their normal superhero universes, into the game. Like the starter decks, the Essential Collections are tournament-legal.^[5]

• Hellboy (February 2007) Features the heroic B.P.R.D. and the villainous Thule Society

[edit] Teams

There are many different teams in the VS card game and each of them have some number of somewhat unique themes to them.

• Anti-Matter The Anti-Matter team is a master of the hidden area, with cards that move characters back and forth between the hidden and visible areas and characters with Concealed-Optional who can use certain effects only while hidden. A few Anti-Matter characters decrease other character's DEF, and then stun them if their DEF is 0, while others (such as the Anti-Green Lanterns and Xallarap) have incredibly high ATK and DEF, but are KO'd at the start of your recovery step. The team also includes some character/resource KOing, direct damage, and Willpower effects.

• Arkham Inmates The Arkham Inmates have a theme of discard - as seen in cards such as Crack the Vault and the Riddler - and cards that remove characters such as Kidnapping and Charaxes. The Inmates have a tendency to exhaust their opponent's characters, allowing them to attack the characters in a brutal fashion.

• Avengers The Avengers thrive on the reservist and leader mechanics. Nearly all of their characters are either a reservist, a leader, or both. There is also a team-attack sub-theme present. Cards such as Quicksilver, Monica Rambeau <> Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers <>Warbird reward a player for team attacking. Reservist builds of the Avengers have seen the most tournament play, while leader builds and team attack builds have fallen by the wayside.

• B.P.R.D. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is a small bit about equipments, but they have a more dominant theme on having Hellboy himself as the only visible character you control. Hellboy, Anung Un Rama gets a +1/+1 counter when stunning a character under these conditions, and cards like Break Off the Horns allow him to attack again to get even stronger.

• Brotherhood From the inception of the Brotherhood team there were essentially two main themes. The first main theme was weenie rush which used characters with cost less than 4 in junction with The New Brotherhood, and was commonly referred to as TNB. The other was a more mid game ranged beatdown deck called Big Brotherhood which relied on the power-up mechanic and the synergy between Avalon Space Station and Lost City. A new facet of the Brotherhood was introduced in the X-Men set, through their Acolytes division, that of being reservists. Unlike the Avengers, the Brotherhood usage of reservists is more focused on replacing them for bonuses. Another division that debuted in MXM was the Freedom Force, which relied on causing 3 or more breakthrough while attacking a character to trigger effects. Recently, a new TNB Deck, dubbed TNNB, has become popular due to the little number of rares required.

• Checkmate Most Checkmate cards revolve around locations, as well the Back-Up mechanic. Another theme involves the 'ranks' of the characters, such as King and Knight. A player loses the game instantly if a King character they control is put into the KO'd pile from play, but most of the Kings have powerful effects and above-average stats. A sub-theme of the team involves characters with the identity 'OMAC robot'. They also have a small army theme.

• Crime Lords The Crime Lords - in essence all the street level organized crime in the Marvel Universe - focus on reinforcement and granting various bonuses when a character is reinforced. Because of this, Crime Lords is one of the few decks that actually does not want the initiative, and ideally does better off-initiative.

• Crisis Another small team, it first appeared on the plot twist 'Crisis on Infinite Earths', where it was given to all characters you control. The characters who have the affiliation normally do not have any connecting themes.

• Darkseid's Elite Darkseid's Elite focuses on punishing the opponent for having face-down resources. Cards like Darkseid Unleashed and Devilance, Persuader both inflict extra damage onto an opponent for each face down resource they control. Post DLS, Darkseid was able to remove his unique-ness, allowing players to put multiple copies of him into play. The Elite have also gained the ability to put cards they control into their opponent's resource's row, Punishing their opponents for both having face down resources and flipping up cards in the resource row.

• Deathstroke Really only three versions of the eponymous Deathstroke the Terminator. The affiliation is also granted by the card Reign of Terra, which is in reference to both the treacherous titan and the popular plot twist Reign of Terror.

• Doom Doom is one of the few teams that has the ability to control the opponent's board when it is their initiative using cards like Mystical Paralysis, Reign of Terror, and Robot Destroyer. In addition, many effects on the team involved strengthening or protecting Doom's presence once he is on the board. Finally, Dr. Doom also has a theme of plot twist control whether it is in reusing yours or preventing your opponent from using theirs. Recently, with the Heralds of Galactus expansion, this team gained a theme of KO'ing its own characters to use powerful effects. Doom also has also had it's army theme fleshed out in the Heralds of Galactus expansion.

• Emerald Enemies The principal focus of this team is KOing their own resources for benefits such as character pumps, character KOing, and negation effects. They also have several characters with very large ATK and DEF values, who suffer penalties for each resource the player controls. Like the Green Lantern team, the Emerald Enemies use several effects that reference the Willpower of characters.

• Fantastic Four As a method of representing the intellectual genius of Reed Richards, the Fantastic Four specialize in using equipment. They are also known for the large size of their characters, with an over-sized 5-drop Thing with no drawbacks as the best representation. Another specialty of the Fantastic Four team is endurance burn with Human Torch, Hotshot and the equipment Advanced Hardware. Cosmic Radiation helps them burn more than once per turn.

• Fearsome Five As a small team, the Fearsome Five do not have a very strong theme to them. If anything, that Fearsome Five is a team that solely exists to strengthen existing strategies - especially control. Cards like Shimmer, Dr. Light, and Psimon have seen some amounts of play and are staple cards in a wide variety of control decks.

• Future Foes The amalgamation of several of the Legionnaries' villains, the Foes have a theme of 'discard or die', where as the opposing player discards a card or suffers expanding effects (such as Chain Lightning). They also conatin the Fatal Five, characters who have oversized stats for the cost but recover characters when they become stunned, and the Fatal Five have a theme of breakthrough or removing reinforcement.

• Gotham Knights The Gotham Knights specialize in card-drawing/search, equipment and plot twist negation. Their card drawing/search and plot twist negation however, are their more popular and iconic abilities. Fizzle, which can negate any non-ongoing plot twist at the simple price of discarding is a huge staple of any Gotham Knights oriented deck. However, the true star of the Gotham Knights is not the imposing Batman, but rather the lowly butler Alfred, who can be activated and returned to its owner's hand to search for any plot twist or equipment card in your deck.

• Green Lantern The Green Lanterns are all about Willpower. No team has as many cards that have Willpower or cards that reference Willpower. As a "good" team, they have access to a variety of "good guy" effects such as life gain, card draw, and recovery. The Green Lanterns also have effects referencing Construct cards.

• Heralds of Galactus The Heralds of Galactus focus on a stall in order to pave the way for the arrival of Galactus. To that extent they have a variety of cards that can exhaust an opponent's characters such as I Must Obey! or Airwalker. However, the Heralds of Galactus have a much stronger life gain theme.

• Heroes of Earth A team affiliation only given to characters the player controls with the Battleworld location card.

• Hellfire Club In a twist on one of the X-Statix strategies, the HC receives bonuses for having only one visible character in play. This character acts as the "king", drawing fire while receiving help from the hidden characters.

• Infinity Watch The Infinity Watch does not have a theme, having only six characters. Each character in the Infinity Watch has very different effects, and are designed to be powerful enough to warrant teaming up with other affiliations.

• Inhumans This team offers many benefits from having as many face-up resources as possible. Cards like It's Slobbering Time and The Great Refuge all become much better if you have "a perfect row". The Inhumans also have a strong cosmic-surge theme - which reflects the normal inhumans transformation via the Terrigen Mists. Finally, to represent their seclusion, a great deal of the Inhumans are also concealed.

• Injustice Gang This team features two specialties. One is focused on forcing the opponent to draw a lot of cards and then penalizing him or her for having a lot of cards. This particular strategy seems to be a riff on the cliché of a supervillain telling the hero every aspect of their plan before it comes to fruition. The idea is they have all the pieces of the puzzle, but cannot necessarily fit them together. The team also features a number of army characters and several cards to facilitate an army-based team attacking strategy.

• JLA The JLA take advantage of the Ally mechanics. They have some of the strongest ally triggers in the game, and are also the most adept team in the game at powering up their characters. There is also a slight dual affiliation theme, as many of the best complimentary cards for them reside in the JLI or the JSA. In addition, the JLA has the highest concentration of dual affiliated characters. Finally, the JLA also have a considerable amount of willpower characters and effects.

• JLI The JLI have some Ally effects to compliment the JLA and JSA. However, the main focus for the JLI team is having 4 or less resources in play. Unlike The New Brotherhood which is focused on pure aggression, the "JLI 4" style of a play possess much more defensive and utility cards such as Kooey Kooey Kooey. The JLI are often played hand in hand with the JLA due to both teams having similar themes.

• JSA The JSA has a number of themes spread across its cards, the most prevalent being focused on having your characters attack characters with a greater cost. Other themes include character's identities (gaining bonuses for having characters with the same identity, giving characters new identities, etc.), exhausted characters, characters with the version 'Earth-2', and Ally. They also have a small power-up theme which aligns them up with the JLA.

• Kang Council A unique team in that almost all of its characters are merely different versions of the titular one. They all have text indicating that, unlike most characters, Kang is not unique, allowing multiple versions of him to be in play at the same time. This non-unique clause has made them very strong in tandem with any sort of power effect engine, though they are generally considered to be a control deck due to their strong search and exhaustion effects.

• League of Assassins As a representation of Ra's al Ghul's global influence throughout the world, the League as an unprecedented access to locations. From the beginning, they also had a sub-theme of having many characters with loyalty, although this was slowly rescinded as this became a huge burden in the gameplay - having large numbers of loyalty characters made losing early drops crucial and made team-up decks much harder. The League of Assassins also have a very strong KOing theme, though this comes in two distinct flavors: Combat Oriented - cards like Ra's al Ghul, Eternal Nemesis, and Bane, Ubu - or direct KO'ing - Merlyn, Deadly Archer and Lady Shiva.

• Legionnaires The Legionnaires are - for the most part - all cosmic characters. Unlike most cosmic characters, Legionnaires are able to use each other's cosmic counters to generate effects. The Legionnaires also have a minor team attack theme.

• Kree This team seems to focus on playing as many characters in one turn as possible to power up characters or play expensive plot twists for lower cost. This is done by the Press mechanic which allows cards to be played for cheaper. In addition, the Kree also have a sub theme of returning their own characters to their hand where, presumably, they will be replayed the following turn cheaper due to press.

• Manhunters The Manhunters are a team of Army characters (DC's Army team, as opposed to Marvel's Army team, the Sentinels). They focus on 3 drop Swarming [via Manhunter Guardsman/Soldier] and play with clever tactics and advanced plans. The Manhunters also possess another sub-theme of placing cards from an opponent's deck into their KO'd pile.

• Marvel Defenders The Defenders are about using the Back Up mechanic, to affect the main character the player uses. Samantha Parrington, Chooser of the Slain, readies a chosen character after it attaks.

• Marvel Knights The Marvel Knights have many different themes, although none are particularly pronounced. First, they have a multi-team theme. Cards like Midnight Sons, Luke Cage, Power Man, and Iron Fist, Danny Rand all help facilitate or support players using multiple teams. Secondly, the Marvel Knights have a huge number of concealed characters. The Marvel Knights have also a large number of effects traditionally reserved for "bad guy" teams, such as KO effects and direct endurance loss.

• Masters of Evil The Masters of Evil seem to focus on using resource points for effects rather than recruiting characters or equipment. This theme is further developed by the presence of cards that generate resource points that cannot be used to recruit characters or equipment. In addition to the resource point theme, the Master of Evil have a strong "off-curve" theme; they like to play as many small characters as possible. This theme is supported by cards such as Beetle, Yellowjacket, Hard Sound Construct, and The Wrecking Crew.

• Morlocks The Morlocks have two distinct themes. First, they have numerous characters with extremely high attack values and relatively low defense values for their costs but who also cannot be reinforced. Second, they have many characters with evasion and many team-stamped plot twists and locations to support the mechanic.

• Negative Zone The Negative Zone initially consisted of two members: Annihilus and Blastaar. Both have powerful abilities, but confer a serious penalty if the Negative Zone location is not in play. Following the Heralds of Galactus expansion, the affiliation has gained a few more cards - including a new Negative Zone - but still lacks enough characters and support cards to make them a playable stand-alone team.

• New Gods The New Gods team focuses on plot twist control as evident in the ubiquitous "The Source", which can strip all copies of a plot twist from an opponent's deck. It also focuses on cosmic counters and is one of the few teams that can replenish lost cosmic counters.

• Rann A team affiliation only featured on one character (Adam Strange) and given to characters with the Rann location card.

• Revenge Squad Much like how the League of Assassins focuses on locations, the Revenge Squad focuses on ongoing plot twists. Unfortunately, while the Revenge Squad does have a few powerful cards - Hostage Situation, Atomic Skull, Lex Luthor, President Luthor, Brainiac 2.5, Future Intelligence, Lex Luthor, Power Armor, and Eradicator - the quality of the rest of their cards are beyond dismal. They are generally considered to be the worst team in VS, though UDE has been making noticeable attempts to improve their quality through legacy content.

• Secret Six A mini-team similar to the Fearsome Five. They use recovery effects, alternate recruitment costs and endurance gain to stall until they have six characters with the printed Secret Six affiliation in play as early as possible to be able to win the game by the effect of the card "Secret Six Victorious".

• Secret Society SS is the King of the KO'd pile. Some cards have a cost of putting back cards from your KO'd pile into your deck, while other grant bonuses for having 10 or more cards in the KO pile. They also have character stealing abilities, +1 ATK/+1 DEF counter manipulation, and several characters with the leader ability.

• Sentinels Historically, the Sentinels have been played in two different fashions: Curve Sentinel and Vomit. The first one relies on using the curve fixing ability of the Sentinel Mark V and Bastion in order to push through the game. The latter relies on using Longshot to fill up one's hand which huge number of army characters and playing them out turn after turn.

• Shadowpact The Shadowpact's main theme involves sacrificing your endurance for a number of effects including card drawing and recruiting characters without paying resource points. To balance this rapid loss of life, they also feature a few cards that allow you to gain endurance, or have effects that can only be used if you are under a certain number of endurance. This team features the only card with which you can pay 25 endurance to win the game, Captain Marvel, Champion of Magic. Willpower is also prominent in this team. They are also heavily involved with 'Magic' plot twists - plot twists that cost endurance to play.

• Sinister Syndicate As an "evil" team, the Sinister Syndicate are also trademarked with randomness, but to a lesser degree than the Arkham Inmates. They have access to a wide variety of KO effects - Inside Job, and Green Goblin, Norman Osborn are a few examples- as well as access to a large amount of Beatdown tactics, and many of which do not require targets, thus negating some annoyingness caused by the Spider-Friends. Also present is a swarm strategy, with many low drop characters who can be brought into play via Jackal or Fisk Towers, and then be exploited by cards like Kingpin, Crime Boss. After Marvel Team Up, the Syndicate now relies on KOing their own resources for effects, similar to the Emerald Enemies. By using a card like Nitro, Robert Hunter, you can KO all of your resources to prevent your opponent(s)' characters from recovering. Other cards pentalize you for having a too many resources, like Alien Symbiote.

• Skrull At the onset of the game, the Skrulls had only two characters and a seeming theme of army swarm - one of the two characters was an army character, Skrull Soldier, and the Super Skrull, who allows them to attack again. However, with the Heralds of Galactus Expansion, they have a theme of gaining as many team affiliations as possible. Tying in with that some cards - Interstellar Offense - rewards Skrulls for having more team affiliations then an opponent or the same team affiliations.

• Speed Force Currently only three characters, Bart Allen, Wally West and XS are members of this team. A Speed Force set is predicted for the near future.

• Spider-Friends The Spider-Friends specialize in the Evasion mechanic. A number in their team are subtly designed to become more useful when one has evaded, while more give benefits to characters with Evasion - Ricochet, along with Dusk, Cassie St. Commons. The Spider-Friends also have a theme of negation/untargetability. This can be seen in cards like Fun and Games, Spider-Tracer, Nice Try, Ricochet, and Spider-Man, Peter Parker. After Marvel Team Up, the Spider-Friends use the mechanic of paying their own ATK value for effects. Daredevil, New Kingpin can easily exhaust up to six visible characters at once by paying all of his ATK power.

• Squadron Supreme One of the Squadron Supreme's strategies is the "empty hand" tactic, where characters receive bonuses if the player has no cards in hand. The is another theme for the team: alternative breakthrough. The team has effects that trigger if a character you control would cause breakthrough.

• Team Superman Team Superman emphasizes protection - when one characters is in front of another character, thus "protecting it", and granting bonuses to characters who are protecting and being protected. Team Superman also has another theme of invulnerability - which represents the resilience of the Superman family - as no other team has as many characters or as many ways to gain it as Team Superman. Other themes include Cosmic -with many characters possessing the ability and other cards supplying Cosmic counters- and making Superman himself non-unique with the likes of Superman, Red, Cadmus Labs, and Look-Alike Squad.

• Teen Titans The Teen Titans had two main themes: Power-ups and team attacking. The arguably most powerful team in the game has access to just more than that though. They also have access to: Direct damage, unstunability, recursion, off-initiative stun, and card search. The Titans have a couple of the most powerful characters in the game including Garth <> Tempest and Roy Harper <> Arsenal. Post DLS, the Titans have gained a theme of cosmic and substituting characters, but have gained comparatively less support for their inititial identity when compared to other teams.

• Thanagar A team affiliation only given to characters with the Thanagar location card.

• Thule Society

• Thunderbolts Representing the duplicity of the team - bad guys pretending to be good guys - the Thunderbolts are the masters of advantages. They give opponents advantages in exchange for greater ones on their part. They also have several readying effects and characters that benefit from being readied.

• Underworld The Underworld - the supernatural evils of the Marvel Universe - is focused on the KO pile. The team has a variety of cards that fill the KO'd pile which, in turn, allows for the facilitation of cards that key off of cards being in the KO'd pile. The Underworld also has many concealed characters. MTU continued the theme of KO'd pile manipulation and concealed characters but added a 3rd theme as well: having stunned character in play. Similar to the KO pile theme, the team has a variety of cards that prevent characters from being KO'd or recovered which, in turn, allows for the facilitation of cards that key off of stunned characters being in play.

• Villains United The main themes of Villains United are the Vengeance mechanic (which triggers when the characters are stunned) and returning characters to your hand for effects. The team also has a few effects that use discarding character cards for stat boosts, KO'ing and burn effects, and cards that bring characters into play outside normal recruiting.

• Villains of Earth A team affiliation only given to characters the opponent controls with the Battleworld location card.

• X-Men The X-Men are one of the few teams that are able to recover characters without using the recovery phase. The extremely well-known Children of the Atom, which recovers any character you control at the price of a discard is the poster child of this idea. The X-Men are also extremely notable for various effects that protect them from being stunned during combat such as Bamf! and Archangel.

• X-Statix As one of the lesser known teams in the game, the X-Statix specialize in 'lone wolf' play. They are capable of winning games with only one character in play, often KO'ing their own characters for bonuses. Ironically, the X-Statix also have another theme of having as many characters as possible.

• Wild Pack A team for hire, the Wild Pack affiliation likes to be teamed up. They have a theme of board control through "KO effects".

[edit] Awards

• 2004: Nominated for Origins Awards Best Collectible Card Game or Expansion.
• 2004: Origins Awards Gamers’ Choice Award
• 2005: InQuest Gamer Game of the Year

[edit] Organized Play

Upper Deck Enterntainment planned the year-round professional $1,000,000 organized play circuit prior to the release of the game.

[edit] Notable players in UDE Organized Play

Several notable players have already emerged. The following is a listing of players who have won more than one 10K event or have won a Pro Circuit event.^[6]

• William Hodack, 2004 Origins $10K Champion, June 26, 2004
• Brian Kibler First-ever Pro Circuit Champion, Gen Con Indy, August 22, 2004
• Robert Leander, $10K Wizard World Texas Champion, November 06, 2004, $10K New Jersey Champion, January 15, 2005. First Vs. System player to win multiple $10K events.
• Ryan Jones, Pro Circuit Los Angeles Champion, December 03, 2004
• Dean Sohlne, $10K London Champion, March 21, 2005, $10K Amsterdam Champion, April 09, 2005.
• Michael Jacob, $10K Chicago Champion, April 02, 2005, $10K Toronto Champion, August 27, 2005, $10K Orlando Champion, October 15, 2005
• Ian Vincent, Pro Circuit San Francisco Champion
• Adam Horvath, Pro Circuit Amsterdam Champion, April 07, 2005
• Adam Bernstein, Pro Circuit New York Champion, May 26, 2005
• Adam Prosak, $10K San Diego Champion, July 15, 2005, $10K Atlanta Champion, September 4, 2005 Pro Circuit Los Angelos November 17, 2006
• Vidianto Wijaya, Pro Circuit Atlanta Champion, March 24, 2006. As of August 13, 2006, has a record five Pro Circuit top 8 finishes, has won over $100,000.
• Kyle Dembinski , Pro Circuit Sydney 2007 winner, noted in news article for playing trading card game(s).

[edit] Banned List

As with most CCGs, the ever increasing card pool leads to more and more combinations and possibilities. While this is generally considered to be a good thing, sometimes these combinations bring a degeneracy that is unhealthy for tournament play and the long term health of the game. When this occurs, organized play intervenes and the offending cards are usually banned.

The following is a list of cards currently banned.

• "Overload" was banned because of its synergy with various ATK pumps. Used in tandem, players were able to stun their opponent's board at minimal cost. UDE later released a fixed - playable but unremarkable - version of the card called System Failure, released in MAV.^[7]
• "Justice League of Arkham" was banned following Pro Circuit: San Fransisco. By using various ways to search out the card and recursion mechanism, a player could routinely make their opponent discard their entire hand before they even engaged in their fourth turn.^[8]
• "Antarctic Research Base" is the first card that was pre-emptively banned. This is due to its incidental synergy with the Fate Artifacts. The synergy between the artifacts the Antarctic Research Base allowed a player to draw his or her entire deck as early as the fourth turn and kill the opponent. UDE later released a fixed card called New Baxter Building, which was released in MTU.^[8]
• "Gone But Not Forgotten" when used in tandem with various payment powers that required life payments as opposed to discards or resource points, allowed one to engineer a variety of infinite or near-infinite combos wherein a player could create any number of arbitrarily large characters, or gain large quantities of life. An example of this would be 2 Moloids, Decoy Program, Devil's Due, and Mr. Fantastic~stretch.
• "Valeria Von Doom, Heir to Latveria" (Effective November 16, 2006)^{[citation needed]} when used in tandem with A Day Unlike Any Other, Valeria von Doom allowed a given player to cycle through huge amounts of their deck while filling up their KO'd pile. The offending deck in this situation Cycled cards untill it had everything it needed to win using Rigged Elections, usually as early as turn 3.
• "Talia, LexCorp CEO" (Effective November 16, 2006)^{[citation needed]} was used in ways similar to Valeria von Doom. In tandem with Punisher's Armory, Talia would allow a player to cycle through huge amounts of their deck. While slightly weaker then Valeria von Doom, if left unchecked Talia would have a detrimental effect on game play and was thus banned.
• "Go Down Fighting" (Effective November 16, 2006)^{[citation needed]} when used with Tommy - a Morlocks character that could stun himself and was free if you had another stunned character - and a method to grant characters in your resources row the reservist ability, it was possible to recruit Tommy an infinite number of times, which was lethal when combined with cards like Surrounded or Rigged Elections.
• "Fiddler, Isaac Bowin" (Effective November 16, 2006) when used in tandem with another copy of himself, allowed you to continually re-recruit each other a high number of times per turn. Previously, this interaction was abused with Gone But Not Forgotten, and later with cards including Nega Bomb, Surrounded, and Rigged Elections.
• "Detective Chimp, Bobo T. Chimpanzee" (Effective November 16, 2006)is an incredible cog in any multi-team deck. He was most commonly used in combination decks in order to abuse global team-stamped effects - most notably Attend or Die! or Rigged Elections.
• "Dr. Light, Master of Holograms" (Effective January 19, 2007) allowed a player to recur a character with cost two or less from the KO pile. In tandem with increasingly more powerful low drops - such as Poison Ivy and Frankie Raye, Dr. Light was able to do too much for a relatively small investment.
• "Frankie Raye <> Nova, Optimistic Youth" (Effective February 9, 2007) allowed players to draw an unfair amount of cards by playing her multiple times. Particularly deadly when used with a character like Admiral Galen-Kor.
• "Nenora, Skrull Usurper" (Effective February 9, 2007) allowed a player to gain the Kree affiliation with little cost to them. This card caused some of the same problems as Detective Chimp.

Unlike most CCGs which have banned lists unique to various formats, UDE has chosen to have one universal all-encompassing banned list.

[edit] Video Game

A video game based on the VS System will be released on February 27, 2007 for the PC, PSP and Nintendo DS. It is being developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by Konami. The game has been named as the Marvel Trading Card game and only includes cards from Marvel Origins and Marvel-based expansions.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Marvel TCG Rulebook
• VS System Comprehensive rules

[edit] External links

• Upper Deck Entertainment VS System Marvel Site
• Upper Deck Entertainment VS System DC Site
• Official Marvel TCG Online Site
• Metagame.com "Fansite"
• VSRealms.com VS System Community
• StarCityVs.com Strategy Fansite
• VS TCGplayer Magazine
• VSParadise.com Australia and New Zealand VS Community Site
• Vs. System deck designs (Pojo.com)
• Vs. System articles and deck designs (Cobra Cards)