While I am a bit sad about the news that PCQ's are gonna be out for sometime - I also do understand that some players may really drop the game (w/c will make me sadder).

Still, my casual office VS group of 5 are still planning to buy VS stuff. We've somehow managed to be competitive amongst ourselves and somehow we are happy about it. (none of us own any EOME's/ Savage Beatdowns/ Mobilize) Every week we play against each other --- with boosters as prizes (pretty small time I know.. but it's still enjoyable somehow)

To each his/her own. Nobody's forcing us to quit - we decided to go on , on our own.

I am just sad that I was not able to contribute by trying to bring more players into the game. It's not like I'm trying --- I've already tried recruiting from the local MAGIC crowd (thank goodness I can play both MAGIC and VS) but my efforts haven't really paid off yet. (i've gone from giving away commons to rare's and losing straights on purpose just so the newbie would enjoy it)

I think I should try harder.. as hard as that guy who posted about being friends with his local shopowner and then building a VS group and getting stickied.. so on and so forth..

errr... what page are we now? I got tired of reading at around the .... 20's? or was it the 30's ?

Peace y'all!

The question guys is what do we do now .....right now we are all feeling helpless ...becuase UDE calls all the shots and were not having too much say because they didn't make enough money this year .Well what I say to that is it's not us ...sure we can all improve things when it comes to helping the casual player escpecially now that were being forced to like or not .Jeff said this is number three or fourth ranked game and will probably realisticaly stay that way.Do you think a president at say Ford motor company is going to keep his job that long with such a pessimistic attitude
not likely ...america was built on winners and dreamers ...if the japanese belived they could never compete in sorry economic state they were in the past do you think we would be watching sony tv"s ?

third or fourth ...are you nuts? This game could be number one ,one day why not are we not getting a flood of succesful comic book movies ?
Ghostrider is the number one movie right now ....I bet that film studio or marvel didn't have the intention of being just third or fourth .

my story of teaching kids VS,

i have taught several kids in my area how to play. What tends to happen with the kids i teach is exactly what En Kur and others have stated.

i had a kid lets call him Zane. Zane loved his first game of Vs and in the span of a month bought 500 dollars of product. by the end of the second month he stoped showing up to league nights, not because he didnt have the cards to play or wasnt a decent player, he just didnt have the drive. He never once reserached anything online or really wondered about deck building or anything he just expected me to do it and have him then play said deck in events. This failed because he never played outside of the 4 rounds of hobby league and didnt care to change anything about it.

he didnt have the pasion the rest of us have and just disapeared.... and i eventually bought him out for a measly 75 dollars, im talking i got 4 boxes worht of Hearlds cards and 2 enemys out of this deal.

I dont know what really drove the kid away, trying to talk about it didnt help much. I think the fact that he was knew and didnt know of anytihng before hearalds of galactus killed it for him. The fact that he had to actually know how to play the damn game.

in magic you can be half brain dead and play a full game and stumble duck your way through. What second main phase?

IN VS you actually have to pay attention and think about what the crap your doing while playing. Thats what i love about this game. A large percentage of kids who start it up dont understand that, and even thouse that do stick around for a while sometimes.


ON the other hand i had another kid lets call him Toad, start up this game for his love of spiderman, and the fact he was a huge nerd and had no friends, he went out of his way to get at least a few top teir decks, goodguys and sentinals. but he still loved to play with superman and spiderman. Now hes at a point to where he will still play and have fun but still puts little effort into the game to get better. I am still expected to build decks for him because if not he wouldnt stray away from what he already has built. Why he keeps playing is becasue he made some freinds for at least on league night he gets out of his moms basement and plays.

For my last example is a kid lets call Trevor, starts game coming from magic, instantly wants to know whats teir 1 and puts the money to buy those cards, does not buy packs only singles because packs are lame to him. he spends a tiddy amount on cards in the singles case. He effectivly fights against tryign to be taught this game slowly and with simple decks and wanted to build New School as his first deck. We tried so hard for him to have fun with it and other decks but to no avail. Soon he found his way to the damn online terror WoW and never looked back at civilization.

these are the tales of teaching new kids the game. woe be to those who try it is a tiresome yet rewarding event when they stay around.

also dont get rid of the less known teams, Squadron, thunderbolts, JLi, shadowpact, checkmate, hellfire, Heralds are some of my favorite teams.

Now we are least talking about things .How to solve the problem.Kinda crappy that jeff anD UDE expect us to solve it for them but hey that's the breaks ...we should try to get more people involved but when we say that what we should be saying is not kids involved this isn't really a game for kids yeah they understand it somewhat but like andrewbircher said they just don't have the passion for it .We do have the passion and now is the time to make our voice heard lets all make a triple effort to attend our remaining PCQ's buy more product than usual and demand when that
UDE sees a profit we need better leadership who wants a man who says
this is the number three or fourth tcg game ....we need to be shooting for number one jeff not three or four ...how many NFL coaches have that attitude and keep their jobs long.....shooot for the superbowl baby
not just a decent showing in the playoffs ....the superbowl
besides ask the general public which is cooler superheroes or MAGIC and the swampwalkers ....right now ghostrider is the number one movie how many seasons of smallville have there been now .....marvel kicked butt
so can VS.

Solid. We will be enjoying reports like this in the months to come. It's gonna be mad fun to watch the "rebirth" in action!

Yes, but 10K Denver was a severe outlier. Most 10Ks have been getting more in the neighborhood of 80 at the very low end to 120-130 at the high end.

I know I said I was done, but god damn it, Rian you crack me up. Everytime I see one of these posts of yours it makes me chuckle a bit. And you know why. You have got to be the single most unique individual in this game. No one will remember Vidi or Tice and yes even En-kur...but everyone will remember Stubarnes.

Here's your answer En-Kur, I really believe there are many players out there (not on vsrealms) who feel intimidated like this:

Math IS taught on a sliding scale. EVERYTHING IN SCHOOL is taught on a sliding scale. Wanna teach a 6 year old calculus while he's learning addition? Yugioh can easily be made with a sliding scale. Start with non-effect monsters, then move up to simple effects like discard 1 card. Then add another effect. With VS, you need to know most of the rules up front. Name me two different decks that are good for teaching kids or newbies most of the rules because they slowly include more rules as the game progresses?

And Wolverine IS a fan favourite, so why no big-name cards for Wolverine? He's popular enough! You can deny all you want, but someone as popular as Wolverine should have more cards dedicated to him. Perhaps even a decktype.

Great news, CC.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that changing PCQs into City Championships and removing the motivation for pro players to play (big money) will help this game tremendously. If many of the pros leave the game, the concentration on a "make the best possible deck"/"win money" attitude will switch to a "make a deck of my favorite team(s)"/"have fun" attitude. Now that the sharks are out of the water, the smaller (casual) fish will come out of the shadows and have fun playing the game the way it was meant to be played.

There will not be an emphasis on pushing the envelope as much anymore, especially locally. People will mostly play the decks that they want to play because Hobby League can be molded by its players (local formats, banned cards, etc.), unlike PCQs, and because R&D will continue their recent trend of making teams that can put up a fight.

For those that have a local store, but don't have Hobby League, it is probably because the game is not selling to casuals due to the ridiculously competitive nature and other R&D-based problems that I listed in a previous post. These changes will force those who lost their PCQs, and still want to play (even if they don't realize it yet), to support their local store and push for HL.

I'm actually excited about the new changes, especially with the great new, balanced sets we are starting to see. I'll be going to my HL tomorrow. I'll let everyone know what the turnout is.

Now if you will just tattoo my name just above the crack of you ###, my life will be complete!

You have always made me smile, and that will never end.

Rian

I never said I was quitting. I just said that people are delusional if they think there is this huge casual player base that has some how been alienated and neglected. For every story of your awesome HL (kudos to you by the way) there are three like Andrewbircher's. At the end of the day we have a game that only appeals to a select few people that enjoy working for their entertainment just a bit. A select few that want to think while they play. And that my friends, does not make for mass market appeal.

You think that I have this inflated self worth and that I look down on casual players. Nothing could be further from the truth. I just don't think there is this player base that you guys keep talking about. If there were, then sales would be wonderful, HLs would be flurishing everywhere and there would be no reduction in OP.

It's my fault that we are even talking about "dumb" casual players and elitist pros. Take out that paragraph or two in my original post and you guys would all be saying, "you are right dude, there are huge entry barriers that need to be fixed if we are going to get more players on board."

Get past the fact that I was arrogant enough to say that most people that play ccgs are filthy, stupid, backwards people. It's true. We all know it. For every intelligent friend we have made playing this game, there are five others that we have met that we wouldn't be caught dead with outside a game store or tournament. But these people buy cards, which in turn makes money for UDE and motivates them to have killer OP programs and produce more product. Because of this we tolerate them. Unfortunately, a game that is as mentally challenging as Vs weeds out most of these people. No one wants to feel dumb playing cards while looking dumb, smelling bad and embarassing themselves in the process. Why suffer through all this when you can play Magic or WoW and at least not appear to be dumb?

If you guys had some hard numbers to back up your claims that the casual market is flurishing I'd be more than happy to jump on the "screw the whiny pros" bandwagon. But you don't. There are isolated success stories where HLs flourish. I assure you it is because you are lucky enough to be in an area where you have a higher percentage of smart casual players. But the majority of your fellow players are stuck with dead HLs, poorly attended Sneak preview tournaments, dismal PCQ attendance and no ability to maintain a stable player base big enough to field a four man draft.

Did you know that there recently was a PCQ in Little Rock where two people showed up? The TO was going to cancel the event but the two players actually convinced two other friends to register and play the first round. One of the players paid the entry fee for all four players, they played a legitimate tournament and someone got qued for the PC. You really expect me to believe that $250 dollars, two boxes of product, EAs and playmats and the chance to play for big money on the pro circuit didn't appeal to this huge casual player base you keep talking about? If there were this huge casual base that you speak of, at least a few of them would have showed up at the pcq just to play their fun decks and hang out with their other friends because Vs is so dman fun for them to play.

The reality of it is, people get tired of teaching people the game, pouring their heart into it and then showing up on HL night only to have it cancelled because for whatever reason no one bothered to show. You guys see UDE's OP cuts as a sign that they are finally trying to focus on the casual player. That some how the poor causal player was left behind and forgotten. In reality, what we have here is UDE basically saying, "Ok, we were a little too good in designing this one boys. We are never going to reach the critical mass with such a mentally taxing game. We learned a lot, we practically payed people to play with lots of swag, but in the end, the average player just couldn't cut it. Let's focus more on YuGioh and WoW because, those are games a five year old can grasp."

I know you guys think that I am pissed that we don't have a million dollars to play for anymore. But the reality is, I made $500 last year playing at the pro level. Sure, I made almost $20k the year before. With travel expenses, taxes and product purchases, I have about broken even. I don't play because I can make a living with this game. I'll leave that to the MJs and Vidis and Tices of the world. I play because the game requires effort on my part to be good at. I play because I enjoy playing casually with friends and with my wife. I play because even though I hate that the difficulty level of the game is what is going to kill it, that same level weeds out the undesirables that I don't want to waste my time with.

In relfection over the past couple of days, I am all for the cuts. If this means that UDE can keep making the game knowing that it will be nothing more than a niche game then so be it. Will I be excited to play for my share of $100k from time to time? Sure. But I am not going to kid myself in thinking that these cuts are going to grow the game. You say people didn't play for the promise of the money. Then how is taking all that money away going to change things?

The British Titans build at the first PC was described by one of the coverage guys (with a MtG background) as the most complicated deck he'd ever seen.

Titans acted as a training ground for a lot of Vs players, as a community we've taken things on several levels since then and that's made it impossible for less experianced players to keep up (especially if they don't own 4 EoME).

The best thing UDE can do for the game now is to put some serious effort into a restricted/bannings list. The excessive amounts of search and cards that make it easy to splash teams needs sorting.

Unfotunately Jeff stopped replying over 30 pages ago. So I've no way of knowing whether UDE are even reading my suggestions/questions.

On sperate points:

Kim: Our Trial of the Finest tournaments are a joke because players only get one chance this year to spend points in the UK. There's a real risk that PCQ's with no cash prizes would go the same way.

Tommy: If you do somehow make it to Sydney, I'm sure we could sort you out a competitive decklist.

Dalton: Things have changed a lot from when we started playing card games. New CCG's have to hit the ground running to get the critical mass of local players and stand a chance in what is a very competitive market.

DTee

"As always, we will be reading every response on this thread and discussing it."

You guys do understand that you can pretty much put any restriction you want on deck building for the hobby leagues right? You say you don't want these cutthroat competitive HLs. Then make is DC vs Marvel decks. Have a Spidey friends theme night. Have a "most obscure Xmen team roster" night. HL is what you make out of it. I laugh my ### off when I see someone say their HL was destroyed by a pro or wannabe pro player playing the latest net deck. I doubt this has happened half as much as it is proclaimed. Professional players have pet decks too. Hager comes up with some of the most bizarre #### I have ever seen all for fun.

All it takes is a few of you getting together and approaching your local store owner with some ideas. Plan the month out. Hell, jump on your computer and print out a flyer that I am sure he will gladly post for you. Pick some themes and run with it. Instead of quitting and being pissed because one or two people "ruin" it for the rest of you with the latest, greatest net deck, convince everyone that Spidey vs Sinister Sindicate night will be a blast.

En-Kur, I realize that you can have any format you want, but you still have pros pushing the envelope and using Titans as a training ground. When potential new players see these complicated decks floating around in Hobby League, even in just "pick-up" games, they get intimidated. These changes should stifle that a bit and bring alot of intimidated casual players back to Hobby League to play with their superheroes. From my above post: