Just because any card can be "mana" doesn't mean you can't get "mana" screwed..if you have a turn where you underdrop or don't play anything that can be/is a big loss to recover from that can cost you the game even if you had been playing perfectly up until that point.

Like you, Merdle, I quit playing Magic because of a small number of very key reasons. First of all, mana screw. You can lose to not drawing a resource card. You must fill one-third to half of your deck with resource cards, which are dead cards once you hit the magical number that is the curve of your particular deck.

Second, the R&D team is absolutely, wholeheartedly blind to the fact that mana (resource) acceleration is the king kamehameha mechanic in Magic. Decks like Affinity come along all the damned time. And what do they usually exploit? Resource acceleration. Affinity without the actual affinity mechanic is a dead duck. A few other cards like Skullclamp (which is buku card-drawing, the second-best mechanic in Magic, since you only draw one card a turn and must compensate for the aforementioned mana-screw) come along every now and then. But by and large, the mechanic that is exploited the most is undercosted cards and resource acceleration, two sides of the same coin.

Finally, the designers at R&D flat-out, point-blank acknowledge that they fill over two-thirds of every set with crappy cards on purpose. "As a learning tool, to allow novice players to learn how to spot a good card and a bad card." How ****ing idiotic is that? At least in Vs, while there end up being better and worse cards, the designers appear to make as many cards as they possibly can playable. Just because the synergy isn't obvious or fully explored for each mechanic yet doesn't make certain cards inherently "crappy" on purpose. Seriously, have you every seen a 5-cost 1/1 with Flight and a single worthless ability in Vs? Because in Magic they make cards like that all the bloody time! Do you see in Vs a 3-cost 3/3 with a cool ability that is an uncommon or rare card, then, in the same set a 3-cost 1/1 with a far less useful ability that is common? Because Magic does that all the time as well.

Vs System is without a doubt a better game. Sorry to any die-hard Magic fans out there, but from a pure mechanical perspective, Vs blows Magic clear out of the water. And with UDE backing a $$$ Pro-Circuit and having a 10-year starting plan roughly mapped out, Vs looks to be in it for the long haul. If they can keep the momentum up, keep the game fresh and exciting for casual and competative circles alike, and reprint staple cards as often as is neccessary, Vs will do just fine, possibly even after Magic's inevitable fall (who knows how long that may be, granted, but eventually it will happen).

anyone know if other comic books are going to make vs. cards?

VS is a superior game. In VS, when you put a character face-down in the row, it sucks. Mildly. In Magic, when you miss a land drop, your girlfriend leaves you, your dog dies, someone keys your car, and you get syphallis. 'Nuff said.

VS has a superior payout, but this is temporary. If as many people played VS as they did Magic, the difference would be minimal. The main difference would be the eBay-a-licious EAs, which Magic needs to start mimicking if the competition ever gets truly serious.

Because right now, it's not. Magic is winning. It's winning because it's been there for years. But that not it. Let's face it: Magic's marketing is pure genius. They made a TCG -- the first TCG -- and made the target market -- get this -- Dungeons and Dragons players. The original gamers. If Budweiser is the King of Beers, D&D is the King of Dorkiness.

That's a lot of idiots... and a lot of wallets.

Are there lots of comic book fans too? Of course. But it's not exactly natural for them to pick up a card game and try it out. This is something a D&Der would do without hesitation. (How many roleplayers do you know who don't play Lunch Money?)

Face it: Magic is unf**kwitable. Not going to be brought down. Period. Which means that UDE's strategy of direct competition isn't the brightest I've ever heard. Don't get me wrong, I love the million-dollar Pro Circuit and all... it's just that they need to be focusing on VS's flavor, luring in the masses of comic book geeks out there, giving them some cardboard, and getting them into it. They've done a noble job so far -- the commitment to the books in all the sets is fairly amazing for a mass-entertainment product -- but when it comes to marketing they need to focus less on the crowd that's already playing Magic (and knows about VS) and more on people who own every issue of Ultimate Spiderman.

I also used to play magic alot. I in fact was one of the original players when the game first came out. I learned it in college. I had cards like Lich and dual lands and I loved the idea of pitting wits vs wits. As I got older and had other obligations, my desire to play waxed and waned. Eventually I got back into because of a younger friend of mine was playing and wanted to know how to play and of course join him.

When I got introduced to VS though, I already knew what to expect from card games. Addiction in cardboard form. I love the idea of creating my own deck and pitting them against others. My main problem with magic though was the lack of playing your good cards very often. 60 cards, drawing one at a time didn't seem fun to me after awhile.

The VS game offered more to my strategic mind once I started to master the rules. There are still so many mechanics that VS has yet to explore and that is where I think VS has to make sure it does not go wrong.

Certain mechanics in Magic turned me off to the game completely as well. The ability to take turn after turn or cast spell after spell while the other player watches was never fun for me anymore. VS has to make sure they do not make R&D design errors like this and make VS a one player game. I will not stay in the game if that ever happens.

VS will stick around, but it will never be king of the cardboard. Just like McDonalds is the king of fast food, so is Magic and always will be. VS will always be second tier, but that means they must work that much harder to keep their fans and players. Lets hope that they keep up the good work.

Dude, all of magic cards and characters are obscure since few actually read the books. Yes there were books. For those whose favorite teams have been laced through literally decades of multiple comic book titles, they are anything but obscure and c'mon, snidley! You are trying this arguement on a friggin' VS website. Whatcha thinkin', cake muncher?

Dude, you have to promise never to do that again. There are people like me that once they start reading a post can't stop till it's done and that is just a killer.

I had a recent discussion about this and I'm glad it's come up.

Design-wise, I think VS has a great deal more versatility, and the flow of play is much more balanced and fluid. Nothing ever frustrated me more than playing games or MTG that turned into watching my opponent crank out a combo and declare they'd won as I'd helplessly watch. Granted, missing a drop can be almost as bad as missing a land, which is why swarm decks exist and tutor effects are the cat's pajamas.

An interesting point has been mad about the cards though. Magic has 5 basic colors and artifacts as the mainstay, and they add to those w/ every set, and play a balancing act between it all. VS, on the other hand, puts out 2-5 new teams every set, 2 legacy cards for the teams from the last 2 sets, and 1 card for any teams that originated more than 2 sets ago. This drastically limits their play pool and will choke up the top tier of competeive decks in the long run.

The X-Men set and Crisis set are good moves away from the barrage of newness, but UDe will have to seriosuly consider a pure legacy set to seriously strengthen its teams before it runs a risk of alienating its audience that've been around MOR.

I don't think MTG will ever die but I do think VS can be a top contender, if it gets a little smarter. Like in a metagame, there should never be just one top dog, or else we could never have fun posts like this!

The problem with Magic for me is, even though it is a great game, I do not have any interest in it outside that fact.

Vs. Systems has the hook of dealing with characters I know and like -- ones that I grew up with.

If a person doesn't have this investment, then I think that it's 50-50 (unless they are now a rabid Magic fan).

I think the land cards in magic are trumped by Vs. mechanic of using locations, plot twists or even characters and equipment as resources.

The big problem I see is that Vs. Systems is already retiring initial sets. I don't think they should do this as each set has new teams and characters (unlike Magic that has the same five factions). By not doing so, they will build up a great following of not only Comic fans, but of hard core gamers. then, the game will last for many years to come.


Another for instance is Decipher's Star Wars CCG which I loved, but I can't get into Wars, a game using the same Star Wars mechanics. No investment in the characters.

You can't really compare VS and magic as card games. They ARE both card games, but so drasticaly different, you just cant compare them. Magci has mana, vs doesnt, thats huge. Vs' characters tend to get bigger compared to the low cost characters, while magic's creatures tend to get smaller compared to the smaller costed creatures. Thats pretty big too. Another huge thing is, PLOT TWISTS ARE FREE IN VS. in magic, they arent, which is why you see alot more powerful magic instant/spell cards. Finally, and probably the most important, VS introduced Formation. I've never played a card game where formation matters. This is the hardest aspect for people new to the game but know other games to learn.

Money wise, I think if VS. keeps going at the rate its going, and magic at it's rate, they should be even pretty soon. Vs is giving cooler loking cards, better promos, alot more tournaments, pretty much mroe incentive for comic book fans to play.

As for what people are saying about vs dying when it runs out of extreely well known teams, thats completely not true. Right now what vs is doing is attracting a large fan base. Pretty soon, it wont need to attract as much, so they dont need to give such well known teams. theres nowhere near the same amount of new players in magic as there were when it first came out.

I played MAgic for a While (I think 1996) I was Loving the Game but then something just didnt seem right, Then Urza Block came out, It became appearent to me at that Point that the R&D People didnt care/ Didnt know what cards were to good to not Print. I mean Tolarian Academy?? WindFall?? Crop Rotation??? I mean all those cards should have screamed BROKEN and they came out anyway, I mean I think Crop Rotation was a Common. Also The Power of Counter Spells just made me mad. I mean I could Have my big guy or game Winning Artifact, And some guy rewinds it and GAINS MANA FOR IT??? I have SEEN infinate Loops In sealed Events of Urza Block, Thats Just Horrible.

In VS you get good Cards, Cards that are Bad now, And Great Cards. You get very few Broken Cards and most things that would be Broken are attached to weaker teams to make up for it. I mean If 7 drop spiderman was a Sentinel you couldnt Beat that Team. There are Only a Handful of Broken cards in Vs (Overload,Dr Light (3), NTZ, And Cover Fire) Thats Not bad Considering only one is Banned and one is new. with Set numer 8 coming out soon I think the Game is going in the right directiom.

Magic 5: VS 2

If all things go as well as the last 3 sets, In 2 years VS will offically challenage MTG.

Just to bring back a point Mr. Holmes made earlier in this thead: technically Vs. has reprinted other cards - the starters this year had about a half-dozen reprinted cards, from Flying Kick and One-Two Punch to Dick Grayson and She-Hulk...

-grin- just cause I like nitpicking and stuff;p

Starters... not sets...

Something that i like from Magic are they "starters" that u get random cards... Im not sure coz i never played it

Magic still has the superior payout.

As for the rest I would definitely agree with you.

VS, however, loses its sales in a very important area, drafting.

In magic, we have block drafts, which means Champions will still be selling even though Saviours is out(obviously not as much), but GLC will have no buyers almost immediately after Avengers is released...They need to do something about it.

another think is... wizard Ranking system are better than UDE ranking system....