Yes Walter, it could be possible. But I don't think there is a big casual base. I think there is a very small base that simply love the game and then there are people that want to play professionally. Maybe not, quit your job professionaly but at least make some money playing.

Honestly, if the game was so healthy and had such a strong casual following spending the amount of money that UDE does on organized play would be nothing other than a slightly smaller profit margin. I personally think the game is making zero money and cutting organized play cost will do nothing to save it. So, things need to be changed about set design and game mechanics to make it appeal more to your average player.

Raw Deal has been a card game for nearly 6 years or so.

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be suprised if it was consistently out of the top 5.

It's possible for a game to survive a long time without being in the top 2 or 3 at all times ... They can't, however, afford to give away tons of money.

It may sound defeatist, but sometimes it's better to aim for a cozy niche in the middle of the road instead of fighting it out at the top.

UDE, The Game Stores, and the Common Man. Viva La Vs!

That's your personal thoughts.

And, in the cast of set design and game mechanics ... they may very well be doing so in the Legends sets.

Remember, the first time the word "Legend" was brought up was when they polled the players about what they wanted. I believe that Legends was referring to makeing single characters important [I'm not sure if it also refered to having 'Avatars' like in WoW or not].

It's going to be a "make suggestions" and "wait and see" issue.

My only point is that the goal for success isn't necessarily whether they can go back to giving away tons of money and compete on an even playing field with Magic.

Even better, let's all send him a dollar.

Better yet, lots of dollars. In fact, let's just keep buying Vs. System product and playing the game we all love. :)

First off, I don't know the woman, but I think your wife is awesome.

Now, I play this game because I DO like a challenge (#1 reason is I like comics). If you're playing a card game it should be about fun, the challenge, and this game isn't that hard ... (except for some craziness, usualy caused by the reverse chain).

I also think MTU addressed some of the complexity issue. Time will have to tell. I also think the stars of the game should be a focus on each set, but still have the lower teams. I love Legion, still consider them A-List, but I think the Focus should have been on Superboy, and Supergirl (then Saturn-Girl Lighting-Lad, and Cosmic-Boy). They are the most recognised. Just like MTU does seem rather devoted to Spidey and his popular friends/foes. Ultimately this game requires a lot of time, and money.

My simple solution is each set needs to focus on the big names, and they need to be pretty freakin' good. Web of Spider-man and Man of Steel shouldn't be sets that are infamous for sucking. Ialso like the idea of focusing on the "VS" element. Spider-Friends (Spidey) Vs. Sinister Syndicate (Green Goblin) for instance; that would make a nice collectors set.

I'm certainly hoping so.

Well I guess the one good thing about this announcement is we won't have to listen to Stu and Walter tell us how wonderful everything is and to "trust" UDE. Perhaps people who post in threads discussing the problems of Vs won't be called "complainers" anymore. Apparently the "complainers" had more insight than the "everything is great crowd."

Anyway. The game does not have a good casual following not because it is complex but, because UDE made it confusing and used their marketing license poorly.

Here are the problems as I see them.

Too many formats.

Vs. has been essentially 4 games for too long. Golden, Silver, Modern, Limited. Only the true fanatics can keep up. A good rule of thumb is: If you can't keep up with a game by buying one box a set and picking it up one day a week, then the game is structured wrong. Pick a default format.

WAY WAY too many teams. This alone is the cause of many of the problems of Vs.

As Evil Dave has pointed out this kills the single market but, it is also a poor use of a marketing license. Why pay Marvel and DC to use a bunch of superheroes no one but comic fanboys have heard about. A good general rule would be if they haven't been in a movie or a cartoon show, then they should not be featured prominently in a set.

Too many teams also killed legacy content. When I first started the game around DOR. I looked forward to every set to see the legacy content that my favorite team, LOA, got. You could have a favorite team and dream of recieving the card in needed to put in over the top. This worked when there was 10 or so teams but, after 30 or so the connection becomes strained when you realize that your team is never going to "feel the love".

That's my overall plan.

MOR - Featured Fantastic Four and X-Men. Movies and cartoons.
DOR - Featured Batman and Teen Titans. Movies and cartoons galore.
MSM - Featured, well, Spider-Man. Movies and cartoons.
DSM - Superman. Movies and cartoons.
MMK - Marvel Knights. Might be slightly obscure to anyone who hasn't picked up a comic in their lives. There was a Punisher, Daredevil, and Elektra movie though.
DGL - Green Lantern, same as MMK.
MAV - The Avengers, dude. And technically, they had a cartoon.
DJL - Justice League. Cartoons.
MXM - X-Men. Movies and Cartoons.
DCR - Justice Society.
MHG - GALACTUS.
DLS - Legion of Superheroes. Cartoons.
MTU - Spider-Man again. Once again, movies and cartoons.

How many of those didn't feature a team that's had a movie or cartoon? DGL, DCR, MHG. Green Lantern and Galactus can't really be considered obscure characters, and I'm hesitant to say the same about Justice Society, and they've all made appearances in cartoons anyway so...

If you're talking about the other affiliations in a box, and not just the featured team... then who would you suggest the Avengers square off against? Or the Justice League? Or should we only play heroes with no villains? Or should the MSM set have only had Doc Ock and Green Goblin in as villains, since they're the only ones with screen time?

I remember when VS first dropped my friends and I all got starter decks and a couple/three boxes and made decks. We played for hours, read and studied the rules, developed strategies as best we could with the cards we had pulled and had loads of fun.

The one down-side to the long play sessions was that everyone would have a major headache at the end of the night. After a while though (month or so) the headaches subsided and we could play intense games for long periods of time with little or no mental strain because we had the basics of the game down and didn't have to "think" as much about each turn/phase/sub-step. I guess what I'm saying in response to En-Kur's post is that I wouldn't change anything about VS, there is nothing wrong with the game itself. People that really wanna learn and have fun playing VS just need to play more and don't give up after the first migrane.

With the way the City Championships are structured it looks like most everyone will have an opportunity to play more games and face different opponents so that can't be a bad thing. Just a word of advice for the rookies though: Stock up on Excedrin :)

TDB, are you seriously flaming me over what I said? Jeez, you tell one person to go die already and this is what happens.

The Jank-Sauce bit was supposed to be funny.... I mean, all you have to do is ask and you're in with Jank-Sauce (for the most part). I wasn't trying to speak for my teammates in any way, shape or form. I was simply trying to interject some humor into dawnyoshi's way too serious ranting. I wasn't "hatin" on him.... just arguing his opinion like so many others around here like to do. Last I checked, this was the internet... ####e like that happens.

BTW, you shouldn't just hit the back button when you see a Jank-Sauce post... there are a few of us who have something intelligent to say on occasion (when we're not rep-whoring). You should never, ever pass on Augustus' posts....

As far as giving myself oral pleasure, I'm lucky enough to be one of the few gamers out there with a baby and a baby's momma to do the work for me. Removing ribs.... that's so 15th century. Seriously, why bother with body modification when all you have to do is practice good hygene and spend a little time offline and away from MMRPGS.

So yeah, please go back to being a nice Bear and I'll try to be a bit clearer in posting my sarcasm tags in the future.

MMK- Marvel Knights, the characters in that team Daredevil, Punisher, Blade and Spider-Man are all big names (Movies and the like, even showing up in the Spider-Man Cartoons) And Moonknight has been a fan boy fav. DGL- Well, my dad who has never read a comic book and doesnt watch cartoons can tell me who GL is (Well he thinks it's only Hal Jorden) and that the ring doesnt work on Yellow (Bit outdated) just from me watching Super Friends when I was a kid. I know this because he like the Green Lantern for some reason. (Suprised me, more when he remembered that Martin Manhunter hated fire)
MHG- Well the new FF movie will cover that, and anyone that watched the cartoon alot would know who it is.

Why do we need teams some people never heard of? (I've kept up with comics enough to know everyone they printed) For the fanboys and Comic Book fans they pushed this game to when it started. I want to see Hammerhead, Tomestone and other B-Rated bad guys fighting Spider-Man. Without the "off" characters, I would like this game less. Really how many people know Deadpool? Gwen Stacey? Morbuis? Emma Frost? WonderGirl? Scarlet Spider? The people that read comic books. The same people that pick apart the Spider-Man movie, but still watch it over and over again because they like it.

As for games going strong for years, Magic is not the only one. VTes, Vampire the Eternal Struggle (was Jayd) was voted best card game ever by Inquest once. It's the second longest running card game in the US behind Magic. It has some tournements, but does a lot of people hear about it? I've been playing from the start, being a big gamer (I like VtM and VtR) and I can still get 6 people to play it on any give weekday. Vs doesnt need to hand out money to keep going, it just needs people playing. And there are a lot of people playing. Taking away the people only in it for the money just returns the comic feel of it, we get the "geek" fans back, and we keep going for years to come.

I asked for people to wait on the announcement instead of speculating.

Now it's out there.

And congratulations ... and glad to see you get your 'I told you so's out of the way at the start.

And for the "every is great crowd" ... anyone that has been on this website for more than a few months likely saw me blasting stu when get stiffles the 'complainers' too much.

I understand the need to have constructive criticism.

It can't be ALL sunshine and lollipops. But it can't be all doom and gloom either.

This I can agree with. Or, at the very last, getting EVERYONE to play in each of the formats isn't going to work.

With the move towards the local level, giving the local level their 'choice' of format will be a good thing. Without PCQs with a dictated format ... you no longer have to keep up with the formats outside your area as your area determines the formats in your area.

City Championships are 4 times a year ... it's still unknown how the format will work for them.

There are other monthly Hobby League 'special events' ... again, no idea on the format for them.

Here's the thing though ... if they had less teams, LOA would have been an early cut presumably.

They've been refeaturing big name teams, so it seems that if you are fans of the BIG names, you'll see a refeature every 3 or 4 sets [for your brand] plus legacy love, often in the form of dual affiliation characters intended to hold over.

The ammount of teams with NO legacy content in MTU might be an indication of focusing on less teams perhaps?

Just because I brought up VTes, a 3 or 4 person game can last hours. One on one can be 5 minutes, or one hour. Vs 1 on 1...going 6 rounds, maybe 7..under 30 minutes. Even playing Magic I found the time could drag on forever compaired to Vs.