MetaGame: Design Vs. Development (6/14/2004)

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MetaGame: Design Vs. Development (6/14/2004)

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06/15/2004, 10:36

Typhon

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MetaGame: Design Vs. Development (6/14/2004)

"Marvel Origins has been on the shelves for about two months now, and players have gotten used to the five major and two minor teams. Everyone knows that the X-Men are the best at recoveries, the Brotherhood is crazy aggressive, the Fantastic Four are full of weird combos, and Doom is all about control. (I suppose one could say the Sentinels are all about vomit, but I’m not going to). Since the recently released Spider-Man Vs. Doc Ock starters have given players a taste of two of the new teams on the block, and in a few weeks the DC Comics Origins set will introduce several more, it seemed like a good time to talk about what goes into the design of a Vs. System team.

Before I show you what it’s like from design’s perspective, first I want to go over what a character’s team affiliation means to a player. I’m speaking mechanically here (and I don’t mean I’m making my voice sound like a robot’s). The Vs. System’s engine encourages a player to concentrate on a specific team when building his or her deck because only teammates can reinforce or team attack. Similarly many cards are “team-stamped,” either through their costs (to recruit Thing, Heavy Hitter you must already control a Fantastic Four character) or through their effects (you can recruit Thing, The Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Thing in any deck, but you’ll only get his “I’m a scary rock-skinned monster and you’re a little 3 drop—get out of here before I give you such a smack!” power unless you’re playing other FF characters).

So there are obvious advantages to building a team-centric deck, but does that mean when a player sits down to build a deck he or she should pick one team and toss aside all the others? Yes. Yes it does. Just kidding! Of course not. Part of the fun in deck building is the whole mad scientist sense of experimentation and exploration. There’s a lot to be gained from mixing across teams. Let’s break it down. Depending on how you look at it, there are about four different ways a player can build a non-pure team deck.

Official Crossover: The Marvel Origins set introduced five “crossover” cards that allow two teams to function as one. Some official crossover decks would be the X-Men/Brotherhood Lost Cities deck that—through the power of Mutant Nation—lets Wolverine get Lost, or the Doom/Fantastic Four Common Enemy decks that go crazy with deck searching like Signal Flaring for Dr. Doom or sending Boris to fetch It’s Clobberin’ Time. "

...

Read the rest at MetaGame.com

06/15/2004, 11:37

imported_Bizarro #98

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Typo.

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Originally posted by Typhon
MettaaGame: Design Vs. Development (6/14/2004)

Yeah, gotta love those MettaaGame articles, eh Typhon?

Quote

Originally posted by Danny Mandel
We’ve got a long-term game plan for the Vs. System. Just the other day, we pretty much finalized the order of expansion sets for years four and five (and no, I can’t tell you).

We don't even know the order of expansions for all of year two! Nice to know that everything's going according to plan. That is, until I read this...

Quote

Originally posted by Danny Mandel
We also look at the team in the context of the set in which it will be premiering. While the Marvel and DC Comics Origins sets are intended to introduce players to the game and therefore are not focused on a specific theme, many future Vs. System sets will push the game in new directions. As such, the major teams in each of those sets will reflect the concept being pushed. Then again, often the concept itself will influence which new teams are chosen to be in the set in the first place.

Themed sets? Like, even more themed then they are now? What is he talking about?

06/15/2004, 11:53

Kergillian

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I think he's referring to mechanics themes, ability themes, etc - like when Magic introduces a set that mainly revolves around a power (morph, indestructible), creature type (sliver, elf) or card type (equipment).

So we may see a set that revolves around direct damage. A set thatb revlolves around Boost (or some new keyword). A set that revolves around Team abilities.

Spider-Man, for example, has a LOT of discard abilities (discard X to do Y) - which may be an additional theme to the set beyond Spider-Man...

06/15/2004, 21:52

Strife_Omitsu

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This was an excellent article and very informative.

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