Thank you for this. Although you spared the rod a bit, because Jeff did lie in his previous releases re: 50 K's etc. That more than anything else shreds any trust in the company.

Just because Jeff Donias has the "decency" to come on here and lie to everyone in person this time as opposed to the general "lie releases" on Metagame doesnt deserve commendation IMO.


A few months after a spate of unkept promises the fact that he expects us to believe him now is assinine.

Scott Geata. GG. That guy should walk around in a black robe with a sickle.

I will say that seeing Scott Gaea's name as the head is NEVER a good sign for a game; his resume does involve helping companies shut down games they feel are "lost causes".

But I don't think all is lost, and I've been told that Jeff is the only reason PC Indy still exists, so don't be too harsh on Mr. Donais. We DO have a chance... just this morning our Georgia VS Yahoo group is buzz with getting a full-scale Hobby League going at a central location, and the City Championship. And MTU IS an awesome set, has both recognizable names, great mechanics and excitement.

So let's pull together; maybe we can put this game in as the first game Scott saves.

Thats the truth too everyone from realms will always remember Stubarnes love him or hate him

I've seen more non-pros playing tier 1 decks at hobby league than pros. Most pros I know don't go to hobby league. I think I'm the only "pro" that shows up to hobby league in north jersey and I only show up a few times a year. Even then I rarely win, I think my only hobby league win in the past year was in draft. The last hobby league I was in, the decks were 2x Crisis Doom, 1 Titans, 1 X-Mental, 1 X-Men and 1 Kree. The only deck there I would consider casual was the X-Men one (the Kree deck made the finals). When I go to hobby league I expect to face top decks around here, that's just how it is.

I think no matter how many people you drive away, there's gonna be people who play competitively at hobby league. This isn't a bad thing. Who is being more competitive, the guy who wins or the guy who loses and cries about being beaten by a "net deck"?

Dalton your still welcome to come to join us at realitys edge

The thing I wonder I do hope Im wrong on this is lets say were totally succesful on getting the game going ,hobby leagues flourish like you wouldn't belive .what if and I hope im wrong on this maybe that just might send UDE the message that we can succeed without the big pro scene
we dont need to go back to the way it was .If were gonna do this for them and let's say were succesful shouldn't we expect a lot in return for saving their butts and making UDE a #### load of money ! I dont make a year what the guys at UDE do .Do you?

The reason I stopped playing was that to be competitive, I had to play a LOT against people who really knew what they were doing.

My local play area had 2 other people who knew how to play, neither of which I could get better by playing against.

The game is HARD to be really good at. This is a good thing as the better player wins most of the time. However, the really bad players who think they are good don't like this as they won't be winning as often as they think they should. Maybe I fell into this category. If I did, then think how horrid my playtest partners must have been :-)


UDE has been too disorganized from the launch of VS. System. The website is still a joke. Hobby League(while providing me an Alienware Computer) was a joke in its execution. Now the almost total destruction of the Pro Circuit.


Magic thrives in a world where 95% or more of the player base never SNIFFS the pro tour. Why is that the case? Magic lends itself to a swingier game. You can almost be dead and still make a comeback every now and then. Someone can Topdeck like a mutha and pull a game out. Bad players can and do win often enough that they stay encouraged to play the game.


So what does Vs. System need to do?


As mentioned earlier, they need to convert Hobby League into VS. System Saturdays. Have them be just like FNM. Draft would make the most sense as it moves product for the store. Just keep the entry fee as small as possible.

Monthly kits should be free for any T.O. They should have 4 EA's per week. Top 2 get EA's with the other 2 given out randomly. Unused EA's are to be returned or you don't get anymore kits.


One more thing they could do to possibly save the game is to return it to more mono-team decks. It would take some time, but eventually Silver/Modern could emphasize mono-team decks thru the careful development & design of the cards. You could still have team-up cards that can't be targeted as "normal" 2-team decks should still be playable. However, 17 team decks should be roadkill.


Lastly, they need to get it down to about 20 teams total with 10 of those being active in Modern and Silver maybe having 15-20 active.

I would really suggest the numbers to be 12 teams total with 6 active in Modern, but that might be too few even though Magic makes it work with 5 main teams and 10 team-ups(2-color decks).


Anyways just some random thoughts from a random random who used to post here randomly.........

I agree that was the case up until now. But, now that the money is severely depleted, the uber-competition will falter. One major factor that keeps uber-competitive play alive is consistent "envelope-pushing" by pro-players. "Net-decking" players (not saying they are bad) will not have the same resources they previously enjoyed. It may take time, but I think eventually the spirit of theme decks can make a stronger foot-hold in VS scenes as super-competitive decks are not continually updated and pushed by the now-depleted pro community.

Another intimidated player's input:

In time, this game will be EASIER to be good at because the ridiculous net-decks will not be as good as before, and those players who took those decks and spent hours learning to be great at playing them (though they are still good and competitive players) will not have such a huge advantage.

In my area which covers three counties, I living in the center most part where the PTO operates, cannot show you where the "flurishing" casual market is, but can show you where the divisions lay in this UDE/VS situation.

We have consistantly 30 to 20 players come to our Sneak Previews when it is Marvel sets. It drops to 12 to 20 when it is DC sets. When surveyed I always find that the crowd of players at these events are casual or hobby league players. Most come from the northern county, and a few from our county and the southern county. These players all get together on weekly basis to play games and buy snacks and packs as we call it. At my store we do not get pro players anymore. At the other stores, they never really had pro players.

When we hold a PCQ, we only get on average around 8 players. These will not include the casual players much, but will attract sometimes our own pro players, as well as serious players from Las Vegas and Idaho who are looking for a chance to collect points and have a shot at cash as well. The players are very different in attitude and aim from the sneak players.

At a PCQ I spend most of my time, not answering rules questions, but attempting to control aggressive players who push the limits in the tournament, whether in a behavioral or a rule lawyering way. The game is tense and usually percieved as not fun for most. On the other hand at a Sneak Preview it is just the opposite, I teach the new rules and mechanics and interact with players to insure that all have a good time...which they do. The atmosphere is nice and players feel they can have fun. I don't have to issue any more rulings than I do at a PCQ, sometimes less.

In our areas we serve in the casual crowd outbuys and is seen in far greater numbers than the pro crowd. Where the decline of players has been seen is where the pro players were the most prolific and in attendence. The biggest complaint is that when casual players attended competative events, they felt the spirit was mean and unfriendly, with victory and high focused decks as the only aim at such events. They felt that there was no fun. Many at the beginning of this game attended PCQ's but quit not because they could not win or compete (because they could and did regularly) but because they did not have fun...so they stopped coming to these level of events.

I had other players come into check out the game and would leave after such negative experiences never to be seen again. Now that we have at our stores and others a focus on casual/Hobby level play we are slowly repairing the damage and actually starting to pick up new players. Where they maintained a casual play focus at other stores and really never had a competative element, those stores continued to retain most of their player base.

A side note is that competative players here don't care about whether a deck is themed or Marvel or DC, they only build to win (and I understand that this is important, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be) but casual players are interested in the flavor of the game and the theme, the Marvel or the DC worlds captured in the cards. Proof is that in our area, we get better attendence for Marvel sets, because all the players (with a smaller group for DC) like Marvel better.

I don't really care if VS is really a niche market or not. But I have consistantly found in our areas that the casual players have always been the most important factor in the success formula for the Local Stores. When we had circumstances that created fun events and environments for them to play in they came regularly, when we didn't the dropped. Lack of ways to consistantly deliver Hobby League, lack of local advertising from UDE, and many other issues that effect this casual player base has led to flux in the number of players and the viablity of VS in our area.

Oh and none of our players would make me feel uncomfortable to be seen in public with. I have found them to be a good cross section of our communities. I don't know where you get this notion that VS players are some kind of under developed class of lower life forms, but we have good people at our events. (If I misunderstood your remarks in this respect, I stand corrected).

The bottom line is that from my experiences the Casual market is the key to "our" area's success in VS. Complexity seems to not have effected the equation that much. I have a couple of 8 year olds that come up once a month to play and can impress the older players with a win or two. Nice kids. If these ordinary kids and others I could sight can grasp and play VS, then at a casual level this game is just fine complexity wise. Perhaps at a highly competative level most people will have issues, but I see this as game (where fun is envolved) not a life or death sport.

Have a nice day.

I think you are looking for something to happen that's not there. The hobby leagues are the way they are because the people who play at them want to win and be competitive. I remember going to Greg's in Westfield and like all the decks were Voltage, Titans, Curve Sentinels, Glock, etc. I was prolly the only person there who had won money playing VS, but yet there were all these top tier decks going at it. It wasn't a bad thing either, everyone had fun w/ it (or so it seemed).

The game will die the same way as it did in Europe. We advertised you, but you don't care. Now the moment is near...

are you serous ?people like to win ,they dont care if there playing in a pro event or at a hobby league people like to win ...what are we going to start doing start making so games can only be played with one team and you can only use mostly that teams team stamped cards ?You guys ##### about the pros so much but yet if given the opportunity to play the big Pc's you would go and are you telling me you never thought wouldn't be cool to have your mug on metagame .We should reward the pros and reward them well they put in a lot of time and thought and most have families and jobs to boot.Dont let UDE and jeff scare you into thinking its all our fault ,last time I checked none of us make the decisions at UDE.

Yep. You misunderstoood my remarks. I said Vs weeds out these undesirables. Your average Vs player is smarter than your average Magic of WoW player.

There's no question I'll never forget stubarnes, but just as you can't have The Sentry without the Void or Hello Kitty without Badtz-Maru, chbd will not soon leave the warm spot he's burrowed into my heart--just the spelling of his name.

And, En-Kur, I really have to hand it to you: you've made me see where you're coming from with your last few posts. I still think that some of your early posts were a little confrontational, but I appreciate you telling it as you see it without pulling punches. I don't agree with all of it, but it's a perspective I hadn't considered before now.

I appreciate your example and agree that Hobby Leagues have many people who are competitive and want to win (I am one of them :) ). However, I think you are missing my point. I think that the advantage enjoyed by such competitive players will be stifled without the strong metagame, allowing more casual folks who just want to play Spider-Friends or Darkseid to compete and win. I really don't think High Voltage or TDC Stall would be as prevalent as they are today if there weren't pro players shooting for the money.

This parity should be boosted by the fact that R&D is coming out with such balanced sets now. I'm personally really excited by the new cards.

I'm not saying that the casuals will consistently beat the competitives or even be equal in terms of wins, and I don't think they need to in order to play and have fun, but I think the problem with this game was that there really was no chance for a casual player to win at all.