I'm a vs and magic player, though its 75/25 split. Why? Because for me its easier to play vs. professionally, since PCQs and sneakpeeks are only a 15 min. drive for me once a month. I play magic fro fun. What got me out of it mostly? Costs to play. Magic is expensive to play even semi-competitively and there's always that random deck crap-out to ruin your day. Mana screw or Mana flood is very annoying. Thats why I mosly played combo back when I was more serious.

Vs I think rewards you more for innovation and originality. Yes, you can netdeck, buit you can't just copy the deck and take it to the PC without playing it. You'll barely ever see day 2. Plus, it shows who the better player is. Even though luck and construction is involved, the player that can maximize his attacks almost always wins. Both games are good in their own ways. I'm just more partial to Vs. becuase its not as cutthroat as magic and when I started the game was new so no one really knew what was going to dominate everything.

The question isnt whether vs or magic is better. The question is why do they pale in comparison to swccg.

well, the reason magic is still around is because it's been around so long. While Vs., IMO, is much more streamlined, and fun. I can teach someone to play Vs. in about an hour. it tiik me 3 YEARS to fully understand Magic. IMHO.

Magic doesn't have Longshot.

Vs. System has two different versions.

End of discussion.

Do other VS players not find that we deal with 'character screw' often times in this game (especially when trying a curve strategy), or even 'plot twist screw'? How many times have you said, 'Man, I didn't see Plot Twist X all game - and I run four of them!!'?

Magic players experience that feeling too, and many times more often because they also go, man, I had that one spell/character and couldn't play it because I was short the right lands...so in addition to going, had i drawn one of the four i had in my deck, they are also cursing land screw...

vs. isn't perfect, but it did eliminate one of the big problems that magic hand: land (or resource in terms for vs) screw...

Fair enough. I'm not saying there is more frustration in VS than magic, I am merely saying that we suffer something similar (even if to a lesser extent).

Which is why I believe off-curve strategies can be so powerful. Having approx 12 one-drops and 10 two-drops can make an early game very consistent, while curve decks have a harder time hitting their drops consistently. Now many teams do have character search, and they have given us deck cycling for willpower teams, but weenies have the valuable birthing chamber, which allows them to keep moving through their deck.

Also, if you run any weenie hate available, you will not get it as consistently as the opponent will get the weenies (4-8 hate cards as opposed to approx 20 weenies). Something like Flame Trap is valuable because even though you don't have as much of a chance of drawing it, it can devistate a board.

I'm not really interested in saying which is better (magic or vs), but rather taking a look at VS and seeing how we can improve it (just like it improved from magic's mana screw). I'd like to see a very balanced meta with weenie, curve, and stall having equal chances against each other. Perhaps that is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but I think it is healthy to have the discussion. I'd also like to see more teams be playable in the competitive environment.

WotC KNOWS that resources-as-separate-cards is a BAD IDEA (a fundamental flaw Magic must deal with forever, much to WotC's chagrine). How do I know this? Well, look at the better Magic-like games WotC has released since Magic came out (since the Harry Potter CCG was, you know, garbage):

Duel Masters
Hecatomb

What is the one thing these games (which are are VERY close to Magic in terms of overall gameplay, themes and strategies) have in common? They have the "resources" as part of each card. That is to say, like Vs System, each of these games can use any card as either a resource or as its standard form.

I would wager good money that if WotC were given a viable way to redo Magic so that separate resource cards were eliminated, they'd jump on it. But with Magic, it is far, far too late for that. At this point, there is absolutely no viable way to do it, and there never will be.

That's not to say that Magic isn't a great game. It is. It just has luck-factors that are very apparent, and very unfixable. Noone will ever be able to eliminate mana-screw from Magic.

And as Inkedlawyer points out, Magic has character screw as well. Remember folks, it's all about how many layers of luck the game has. Magic has a luck-factor Vs doesn't (mana screw), and Magic has a higher luck-factor in terms of card draw as well (since you only draw one card per turn). Other than that, they share the same remaining layers of luck. Both have the luck of matchups, drawing your curve, etc. Everything Vs has in terms of luck, Magic has as well, plus some. So Vs is less luck-reliant than Magic.

And mana screw has caused more people to quick Magic than any other factor, in my experience. It creates an unfortunately powerful negative gameplay experience.

With that said, I obviously think that Vs System is a better game. But that is the natural way of things. The designers of Vs System have all of the design errors, all of the design secrets and all of the hurdles, bumps and boo-boos that WotC stumbled over and hammered out over the years with which to make a better game. UDE got to elminate all of the things that Magic did wrong from the get-go of Vs System's inception., and that's an advantage that Magic will NEVER have.

MAGic is OVBIOUSLY SUperIOER!1!1!1!11!1

Really, on a VS forum full of people who play VS, what would you expect the answer to be?

Come on, now. I can teach someone to play Magic in 10 minutes; there's less detail than in Vs. to have to deal with in terms of the basic rules.

And Vs. has as much, if not more, inner complexity to it. Both are easy games to learn and hard games to master. IMO, Magic would only take longer to 'master' because there are so many more comboes, keywords and cards to have to deal with. And that isn't a complexity issue, but ten years more product to deal with...

I used to think that not being mana screwed in VS was a great thing, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how good the mana system is in Magic. Managing your mana gives your opponent another chance to make mistakes which is another way to seperate the good players from the bad. Tapping the wrong colors or playing the wrong cards can potentially spell the difference between victory and defeat. Finally, because of the mana system, Wizards can implement a much better cost/power ratio with regards to cards - since all your spells use the same resource - something that is harder to achieve with VS.

By the way, does everyone here get mana screwed everytime they play Magic? It seems like that's the general consensus everytime I read these "Magic vs VS" thread.

They are both good games.....
but very different in game play and player base...
Until recently Vs could basically only be won by character attack damage (looks like the burn deck from Auck 10k are proving to be good...check the top 8 of the Minn. 10k and FF fun of the past) but in general VS game style is pretty much character combat....

Magic has many ways/styles to kill your competition...burn..combat...mill...and various other condition winning type cards...
Both games have a different flavor and game style...
which attacts different personalities to the respective games ...
Who plays your game ...VS or magic often influnces the game play and ones continued following of game.....
Comparing magic and vs .....is like asking ...which is better football or basketball?...It depends on the TYPE of game you like...in addition ...often whoever you play against influnces if you want to keep playing......

I enjoy them both magic and Vs .....just as I like both football and basketball...
They are both good games in their own right ...
but I have found that magic seems to attract the type of players that I don't enjoy playing with.....But
one thing about magic is ..you can almost always find players to play in almost any place in the US/ in person or on-line..along with the fact that magic transitions into muli-player easily....
...where as in VS I have encoutered a much higher quality of player personality in most instances of game play.....Vs is very good with only one opponent..it does not transition well to group play (and was designed to be one-on-one) Vs except for certain location/cities in the US ...... is very difficult to find a pick up game....and on-line play is very akward at best...compared to magic.on-line....
in summary both games are good ...in their own right...but magic is a more the popular (sales and player base) game..

and what is a game?...
. if you don't have fun people to play it with .(magic)
..or have people to play against on a regular basis.. (vs)

I do. Of course, I'm already a bad person to use for probability checking, because I'm a natural skew point for odds. It's surprisingly rare that I draw the 'proper' amount of lands for the deck I'm playing, and it's one of the reasons why I only play a handful of generally inexpensive decks.

There's a big difference in feeling between the two games, I've found. Magic allows for a lot more fluidity in resource control, which means it's infinitely easier to make a really annoying deck that screws with one of the fundamental reliances you have. Discard in Magic has to be more easily prevented / mitigated than in VS, for example, since it's possible to just about entirely shut out an opponent that way, like counterspells can halt creature plays or land destruction can stop the ability to play new cards. That doesn't make VS better, but it does tend to make VS a good bit more fun on a strategic level, since it's of a less fundamental nature that most games get decided. *shrug*

Regardless, a LOT of people who've been playing for a long-enough time have such a collection that's it's easier for them to just keep playing than to invest new money into something that's not a sure thing, or they just end up not enjoying it for some reason. I call it a 'product inertia' whose power will grow somewhat as long as Wizards prevents another Affinity disaster.

I am a MTG veteran and I switched to VS. This explains the name. The answer is: MTG is an excellent game and has been around ever since. That is why more people play it. It also requires more skill and memorization than VS does. Although this is on a mindblowing level. MTG is just too hard and way too boring. The game gets old and that is why VS system is better to play. It is way more fun and will eventually grow to the level that D&D is at or even MTG. VS is just more fun and way more balanced. Plus it cost less money to get a tournament deck and it has only one card in its ban list.

MTG was the first and always will be the measuring stick for all games. Vs. is easily more accessable in terms of cost and learning curve. It is intricate enough for the expirienced players (New School, X-Faces) yet any monkey with a box of Avengers can be competitive (Squadron Supreme). I played a game of MTG the other day and after almost 2 years of pure Vs, it seemed really really slow to me. I truly believe Vs. is the better game in terms of game play and over all design. MTG just has a history and its hard to get some people to rewrite history.