Does it matter? If so many of the people playing this game are in it for the money and if these people (the pros) are driving the singles prices does it matter if awesome card X is Spider-Man or The Creeper?

I don't think we'll see a Hollywood movie starring Serra Angel anytime soon either.

True, but I think the biggest thing with MTU is that it is a good set. Well designed across the board. New mechanics/old mechanics, I'm not sure that makes as big of a difference as the quality of the cards they are printed on.

But I think larger sets would significantly help when design flaws create weaker sets. For example, lets say you keep the setup exactly the way it is now, but you add 40 more cards to the set for a two team mini refeature. Don't you think this would go a long way into fixing bad teams and sets? So not only are you increasing the card pool within a set which helps push prices up, but you're also not sweeping old sets under the carpet as soon a the new set comes out. And for anyone wondering, no, one-two legacy cards per team per set doesn't do the same thing.

I've long believed that because of the neverending assortment of teams this game allows, set rotation shouldn't be along the conventional linear manner that most games take. Instead of the current Silver Age, every time a new set becomes legal it should rotate in/out the sets that work best/worst with the newest set. MSM and MMK should be rotating in, not out.

This would pretty much always keep your secondary market alive as well as keep older sets from completely disappearing. You could still keep Golden Age and Modern Age the way they are, but create a whole different way of assigning legal sets for Silver Age.

But the point is to make the game more attractive to non-pros. There aren't "so many people playing for the money" or else the OP would have stayed as it was. The game needs more casual players to buy it and to do that... you need to make the secondary market worth more. There are no real "pros" in YGO because there is no Pro Circuit... yet YGO singles sell well because of a variety of reasons unrelated to cash tournaments.
True... but I do remember a few comic books and novels a while back. Heh.

Ok, I see. That makes more sense than how I interpretted it.

They should definitely go for some kind of block format, just as Magic has. It's harder, however, to thematically tie teams together with two different licenses. I don't see why they can't make mechanics that tie the two together, though (barring a ridiculous legal problem established in the beginning, which should've been a sign this "VS" might not work at all).

Something like the Urza's block, or Tempest block in Magic, where each set had a clear theme for each color. Magic has the advantage of tying the stories together, which VS obviously can't. Why keep "Evasion" as a "Marvel Only" mechanic? You want to foster playability, make it a Spider-Friends and Gotham Knights ability! Then you have a connection between two teams that people WANT to team up, and thus increase the sales of each teams rare cards.

But Magic has given no illusions about being a comic book card game. VS did.

If they printed "Team White" in VS, and the seven drop Serra Angel could easily destroy Spider-Man, you might attact people based on the mechanics of the game, but certainly not comic book fans.

So? That means you have to start playing VS before you'll appreciate the flavor.

You can appreciate the flavor of Magic without playing. Then you get in deep and learn about Urza trying to stop a Phyrexian invasion. Awesome.

You can appreciate the flavor of VS without playing. Then you get in deep and realize the game no longer has anything to do with popular heroes. Lame.

Sorry, gredel, but you're wrong here. The familiarity of property is HUGE for this game, and the comparisons to Magic are WAY off base. Magic never claimed to have comic book flavor. VS did, and lost it (or really never had it).

I am not saying we don't need good marquee characters. WE DO.

What I am saying is I don't necessarily think that a great card needs to have Superman on it to sell.

I do acknowledge that it can't hurt. ;)

I play the game solely because of the IP (comic collector) but not because of marquee characters so I am a bad example.

So maybe an additional question is how do we get more comic fans interested in the game? I know from working in a comic store that fans have expendable income to buy statues, action figures etc. Why not VS cards?

Everyone seems to be dancing around a simple issue. That is the rarity of cards is holding back the development of this game. I am not saying to eliminate rarity levels, however, a new player to Magic (for example) can make a pretty decent deck for 50 dollars. A lot of commons and a few rares is an okay, not great, but an okay deck.

There are very few decks in Versus that can say the same. To make a competitive deck in versus you are going to be spending a whole lot more than that. If I buy two boxes of a set and do not even have a playset of common cards, that is a problem. It makes me want to buy the game less.

An example of this is way back when, around the time the Superman set was coming out. A guy I knew wanted to get into Versus. The problem was that he wanted to play a Titans deck, which, to make a decent one at the time was going to probably cost a couple hundred dollars. To make a long story a little less long, he never picked up the game.

If you want to look at the main problem with the game, start right there. It has nothing to do with obscure characters or any of that nonsense. It has to do with the daunting task any new player will have to make a competitive deck. Any Trading Card Game has the problem of getting new players into an extablished environment, but when that is happening at the very start of the game, as in my example, that is a problem.

YOU seem to be misunderstanding the issue. Erick says there should be a better secondary market. In the way he's explained it, that means there should be MORE cards selling for MORE money.

You are saying:

"...a new player to Magic (for example) can make a pretty decent deck for 50 dollars. A lot of commons and a few rares is an okay, not great, but an okay deck...There are very few decks in Versus that can say the same. To make a competitive deck in versus you are going to be spending a whole lot more than that."

You seem to want cards to be cheaper, but that doesn't help a singles market.


So are you saying there're coalition issues or too many cards in a set?

It does, but that's not the issue (again, it seems you didn't read the first post). The issue is that the expensive cards aren't for popular characters, so there're fewer Superman fans who are playing only because they get to be Superman (not nonsense, as you foolishly dismiss it as), they aren't paying a lot to build a Superman deck.

I think you are saying the exact opposite as erick without even realizing it.

No, a secondary market is improved my having more people playing the game. Price of cards is irrelevent without a large group of people willing to buy them. What I am saying is that is important to get people to want to buy the cards first.

I read his first post, and I gave suggestions as he asked for. You do not agree with them apparently, and that is fine. I am not seeing though how increasing card value is going to improve anything. Getting more people into the game is going to increase the secondary market.

As has been stated before, the biggest problem with the Vs. singles market is the huge number of totally non-viable teams out there (read: horrible power levels compared to the rest of the field, even within the confines of a single set).

Most set releases have featured an extremely rare-heavy team (meaning you have to have 4x Rare to effectively build the team...often a few sets of 4x Must Haves) as well as several "budget teams" (in regards to the playability of their rares and the need to have playsets for the team to be competitive).

Outside of casual play, the demand for a deck to be competitive is the main drive to purchase multiple rares for said deck. Since the release of Enemy of My Enemy, competitive Vs decks have taken on the appearance (on the surface, anyway) of competitive MTG decks: focused on collecting the best "pieces" to build an archetypial deck (stall, burn, rush, etc). By moving to this mode of deck design, most teamstamped effects are rendered "non-playable" as generic cards are more desired (since their play is not dictated by the characters you control). Those that are played are directly tied to one or two "central" characters (like Ahmed, Dr. Doom, etc.) and are there to directly support that particular character. That particular character is not featured because of "who" he (or she) is, but because of their function in the deck. This is the biggest reason cards like Savage Beatdown, Enemy and Mobilize have risen to the top of the heap in the secondary market as they can be utilized in ANY deck that needs a specific effect.

As with MTG, the dominant archetype will the create the highest secondary prices for cards that could/should/do fit into that particular decktype. No one wants to pay for second best. Within the confines of that game, you're also looking at 10+ years of establishing said archetypes.

I, for one, am glad to see UDE pushing development towards mono-teams and character-based effects once again. Many players disliked the days of Teen Titans and Curve Sentinal dominance... but I'm not one of them. The game had a more flavorful feel at that point in its existence... once that has been lacking through these past couple of "dark" years. I personally liked the challenge of building to defeat Team A while still being competitive against Teams B and C. Building to take on Archetype A makes me feel like I'm playing MTG all over again... and I don't think its good for Vs in the long run, much less the singles market.

true. a secondary market is player driven. after all, it the players who dictate the demand of a card.

as for getting playsets in VS compared to MtG, remember a MtG booster box has more packs in it than a VS booster box.

and not all top tier decks need a crapload of rares. Squadron was pretty much common/uncommon. TNNB didnt have too mant rares either. Quickfate only has a few rares right?

i sorta follow the MtG meta and the secondary market is booming cuz a large amount of players are looking for the same cards (most noteably dual lands, the team-up of MtG). The VS secondary market suffers because even though its the same rares everyone wants, our player base is less.

And whats worse is i think some singles prices are driven up because the sets the rares come in have little else to offer.

I sell more than $1000.00 worth of magic product a week, on average. less than 5% of those purchases are to pro players. None of the high end cards are ever bought by pro players.

Casual players drop money in Magic way more often than VS players do. We get what we want very easily, and to buy the two cards we do need after buying 2 boxes is just painful most of the time. Who wants to buy 4 boxes and then spend $200.00 for a play set of enemy of my enemy? Not me. ( I usually sell off my money cards to pay for entry fees, actually).

Vs has the unique problem of being desired, but being in a bad way. Players or many would be players shy away due to the past failings of older games with super heroes in them. I still sell random commons all the time, to people that don't care one speck about VS. They just want a Spider-man card to stick in their binder or what have you.

One guy came in and wanted a Firestar just to have her because she was always his favorite. He plays, but not with the rest of us. He played one day at the shop and some of our more tournament minded players played with him and his friends and they had a terrible time, and now, they only buy cards, but won't play. Sad but true.

Does that mean that singles are the saving grace to sales? Not at all.

Players just need more creative ways to be coaxed out of their precious dollars set aside for buying cards. IMO, any way.

Yugioh started on the ground floor unlike VS. They had almost 2 years before there was an actual championship for players. One of the reasons it does so well in my area is because of a weekly cash tournament. The winner can walk out with $100 most of the time. When you compete for something like that on the local level every week players tend to buy cards so they can compete. Reprinting needed cards isn't bad for that game either. Also you have the young kids who just have to get all of the popular monsters. Even though these cards pretty much suck in actual gameplay.

Now VS started at the top floor and didn't have a chance to develop a casual player base like Yugioh did. So a large % of the players are Pro players. This is somewhere a long the lines of 30-40% while in yugioh its about 5%-10% if that. Pros buy boxes of cards for draft and other stuff. They don't need to purchase singles when they already have 2 playsets of everything.

One question:

Are the characters from Yu Gi Oh in the game? Are the 'most popular' characters and 'most powerful' cards from the TV show considered to also be the best in the card game?

Just wondering if Yu Gi Oh follows the suggested model you have for Vs.

[Of course, one issue is that the cartoon is based ON the game instead of the other way around ... at least I think ... and thus the power of the card could pre-date the power of the character instead of the other way around].

To answer Walter in one word:

Yes.

In more words:

The show is all about the cards and the game. Kids will buy cards the next day just because they saw them on the show. YGO sales were declining about a year ago, then the cartoon "rebooted" passing the mantle from Yugi to Jaden... becoming Yugioh GX. Guess how well the next set of Yugioh did... based on Yugioh GX?