I'm not sure how much of this is going to actually be read, since it's buried so far deep, but I figure it can't hurt to voice my opinions. I'm also not certain how much of this has already been said, since every time I sit down to read through this thread I get interrupted. Nonetheless, these are my opinions and possible insights into the current and future state of VS.

Vs. System is a great game, not simply for the licenses attached to it but for the mechanics of the game itself. The game does what all good trading card games should do; blend the concepts of chess and poker in a way that derives a new experience for the player. Vs. System has uniquely succeeded in that endeavor, creating something that appears simple on the surface, but has much more depth than many of its competitors. However, despite this success, Vs. System is faced with the same issue that plagues any trading card game; attrition. From the “Vs. System Update” posted on Metagame.com, It’s plainly obvious that Vs. System is hemorrhaging, and that UDE is attempting to staunch the flow of cash out of the venture to ensure its success. This leads to the natural conclusion that attrition this past year has struck the game harder than originally predicted and that forecasts show a dire picture. As a result, UDE has decided to cut the top end of their organized play program to bolster the bottom end; a move that signifies that there is still faith in the profitability of the venture as long as the player base is rejuvenated. Several good ideas have been put forward on how to revitalize the player base, but not all of them seem to be inline with the goal of recruiting new players and keeping current players excited about the game.

There has to be something to spark an interest in the game, which is handled very well by the licenses attached to Vs. System. However, Vs. System has a problem in retaining that interest over time; once players that joined because they had the chance to play a game involving their favorite comic characters realize that in a strictly competitive environment, those same characters are no where near as good as the little known or “b-team” characters the interest begins to wane. First and foremost, something has to be done to combat that feeling. The new philosophy of a character being “good in the comics means that it’s good in the game” is a good step in the right direction; however, it’s not quite enough. “Good” has relative meaning when it comes to comics and trading card games. To be good in a trading card game, the card has to be efficient, useful, and cost-effective; not just have a powerful, but ultimately non-playable, effect. For example, the deck known as “good guys” contained none of the “Magnificent Seven” of DC comics fame. Infinite Crisis was hailed as the best TCG expansion of 2006. I think that it’s no small correlation that Infinite Crisis was also one of the best selling comic series of 2006. As an option, UDE may want to look into doing more “themed” sets. 52, Civil War, Onslaught Reborn, Age of Apocalypse, and an Avengers/JLA crossover all come to mind as possible future expansions that would generate as much interest as Infinite Crisis. The purely competitive player may not care about what gets featured in a set, but for the casual player, it goes a long way toward building interest to be able to play with their favorite characters from their favorite storylines.

Cutting the organized play programs will help to offset the costs of shifting the focus of the game to the more casual level. However, in places where a hobby league cannot be formed, or for those purely competitive players, those same cuts drive the current players away from the game. While the potential gains could possibly offset the potential losses, those losses should be considered when making the cuts. More specifically, cutting the pro-circuit qualifiers seems to be a move in the wrong direction. Qualifiers can supplement the City Championship program, much in the same way that regional tournaments add to the local hobby store level scene. Defining such regions may take some measure of work, but if Qualifiers are treated as regional level and City Championships treated as local level, the Championships would naturally play into the qualifiers. Then, not only would the retention of a ranking system for pro-circuit invites be possible, there would be an alternate method of qualification for those players interested in entering the pro-circuit, yet unable to find a hobby league in their particular location. If the qualifier program was limited in payout, say Vs. System product and an invite to the pro-circuit for the top four players, semi-pro players would experience less of a feeling that the pro players were using the qualifiers as a small cash tournament while giving those players without access to a city championship an alternate means of qualification. In a sense, these qualifiers would become the amateur championships that are being implemented for the Vs. System Mega Weekends. With the addition of Vs. System Mega Weekends, there is the opportunity to not cut the 50k tournaments completely. If they are scaled back to the original 10k tournaments and then one is included in each mega weekend, even as a team tournament, they’ll still exist in a way. These could be one-off tournaments that are decided upon on a case by case basis. Should Vs. System build enough support, these tournaments could be scaled up to 50k and become the showcase of each one of these weekends. If this is impossible, then the program could be cut entirely, hopefully to reinstate the qualifier and add to the local level of play.
As for pro-circuit payout, until Vs. System builds up enough support again, there’s no reason to keep the payouts as high as they are. If the bottom end needs help, the top end is the place to immediately look for cuts. While I don’t feel that the pro-circuit should be cut entirely, it should be reduced until interest and sales can rebuild it. Once the profit has been generated to offer a high paying event, then payouts should be increased. Effectively, the pro-circuit payouts should be a barometer of the success of Vs. System.

In conclusion, the shift in focus to helping hobby stores attract more players will work in certain areas, and fail in others. In places where a competitor has a strong hold on the market, players will need an incentive to try a new game. While some of UDE’s strategies to rejuvenate the player base may employ these incentives, some may have the opposite effect of increasing attrition amongst the already loyal players. This puts UDE in the “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” position. And unfortunately, they won’t be able to make their entire player base happy at once. However, with time and effort on both the part of the players and the part of UDE, this game can be rejuvenated and continue to bloom afterwards.

Really? Well, guess it's time to go back to my wife now. I just hate it that I'm always the last to know these things. . . *sigh*

To be honest, this Golden season was the first time I actually enjoyed constructed, and it was because of the fact that all of the search made for difficult and interesting decks. Of course, I also enjoy math, which I know is not everyone's cup of tea.

Agreed. I enjoyed it in a problem solving, Rubik's cube kind of way. Every deck had an answer, although i guess that's still true.

Even I have no major problem with this.

It gives people (like me) a legit environment where they can play with it, and it gives others (like chdb) an environment where they don't have to worry about it's abuse.

If there's this much controversy over a card, with people who really want to see it gone and people who really don't, doesn't separating it along format lines make the most sense?

But this is hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq-_2lpynLA

Wow.
So much time spent on such a waste. (the video, not the game;))

Pfft, this is a real tribute:

What VS. System SHOULD be like!

ATTION UDE. Please, no, I implore you, LISTEN TO THE FALLOUT SHELTER #46. It is available currently on I-tunes. Theese 2 guys just poured every drop of their souls into this podcast. IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT EVERYTHING and I mean everything there is that is concerning the entire VS community on EVERY level you will listen to this. This is the perfect representation of all of us on some level. They use emotion to convey their strife with this issue. They complain like most of us have but most importantly they give even more useful suggestions. I also urge the rest of the community to listen and see what PHYSICAL effects this is having to not just paaul and rich but I can also say myself and my brother as well. This is the best game in the WORLD! Do the right thing. Soon.

well, i guess its better then nothing... tho i dont know what could be more competitive then a city championship, but not to the extent as a PCQ... i think it will be a PCQ without the cash payout and a different name. and because there will be no cash payout, people will still be drivin away from the game becasue guess what? WoW will be paying out money soon, and yugioh will have a constant base of players becasue of hte games simplicity, except for when it comes to the errata list and stuff.

honestly in order to save the game, UDE needs to 1. develop sets based upon commonly know characters (which is already being done), 2. stop releasing new key words in every set because it makes it that much harder for new players to understand the game, 3. care enough to actually set up worth while events (not just one here or there) to have players attend and have the prizes make it worth the trip... like maybe a card that is only available from there (for example like shrink is for yugioh etc.), 4. advertise the game... come on now, just in card shops isnt enough... maybe talk to Marvel and DC and when a movie gets released, get a 20 second segment during hte previews for it or something... ya'll are already partners.

if they do that then i think the game has a chance to survive. in all honestly commonly know characters, no new key words for a while, worth while prizes (printing a single card is WAY cheaper then a 10K payout at a tournament), and REAL advertisement is all the game needs. they can still manage money just fine, and then if the VS segment of UDE works along side with the WoW, and yugioh segments to showcase the games at big tournaments such as regionals or shonen jumps, then game will easily increase in popularity.

if you're talking about making an EA that's only available there, that's fine, but no card game should EVER have cards that are not found in packs. WOW already walks that line with the treasure packs. this is a great way to drive people away from your game because it's too exclusionist.

Yeah, thats the main reason im not in the ban EomE camp. The Avengers example is a great illustration. I liked playing Avengers but it became obviously underpowered. Enemy allowed me to add in Scarlet Witches, Kangs, Sabretooths etc. to answer almost any problem. Concurrently, it also addressed the tutor problem Avengers always had. It easily made that deck 100% better and allowed me to still occasionally play a mostly Avengers deck, which I wanted to do, and still be competitive.

Having said that, Im not going to cry if its banned.

abhore =/= implore

lol. I was going to point that out, but since I do abhor them...

I see UDE's new vision for VS and I understand it. Get as many players as possible to focus on local hobby league/CC play. That makes sense. I've been saying for over a year this game needs growth on the bottom, not on the top.

But I don't think these latest changes factor in the whole picture of where VS is at. UDE* has driven hobby league into the ground and now they are lopping off most of the big events and throwing the game at what they neglected. I love the idea of hobby league focus, but hobby league has never been in worse shape.

While the card in your image & City Championships are good, HL needs more. In fact, if you're making all these OP cuts, I hope you plan on allocating money to grow the game at the bottom too. And not just with bad starter decks (structure decks good, starters bad.)

I hope there are yet to be announced new player recruitment efforts. Also, advertising? Promotion? Distribution? Cross-promotion?

The lack of cross promotion with this game is a bit boggling. We are getting regular Superman, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider and X-Men movies & various Marvel/DC cartoons and never any sort of cross promotion? Take what UDE did with WoW for cross promoting. I dunno the contractual agreements between UDE & Marvel/DC, but something like special edition comics that can only be purchased with UDE pts? It's pretty amazing that Blizzard (they own PC WoW) is coding effects into their game exclusively for UDE. Pretty effective too. There is a lot of room for growth here.

And while you're at it, more regular promotion too. I've seen MTG and even *Dreamblade* commercials on TV (channel 354 on DirecTV). Dreamblade! I'm not specifically suggesting commercials (expen$ive), but I think there is a lot of room for improvement in promotion.

Further, expand the distribution of the game. Think about it, the perinneal #3/#4 TCG and it was never sold in Wal-Marts nor Targets! I can buy Naruto, WoW, MTG and Yugi there. Why not VS?? Hellboy should be in every Wal-Mart, Target and Toys-R-Us in the country AND each box should have a little place where a local person can put their contact info so the people who buy Hellboy have someone to play with or find out where to play at.

I hope UDE is also rethinking the intermediate level of OP, from PCQ's (it really isn't about the money) to HL to City Championships. This has been discussed in many other threads. We want some regional event that means something. And how about a judge exemption entry to the PC if they judge X number of HL/CC events? Judges want to play in the big event too. If HL is the only way in, how do judges qualify? A lot to address in existing points/ratings too.

Oh, and I personally hope they never have a 50K. I'd rather see five 10K's spread out around the country so more people can participate. Then five regions can have a carrot to work towards.

So UDE, while you're throwing the game onto the shoulders of HL, I hope you look at where HL is today & factor into the equation (i.e. budget) how to grow HL & casual play.

* - The lack of distribution of HL for several months was apparently due to a 3rd party vendor being contracted by UDE. However, UDE is ultimately responsible for the delivery and UDE took a long time to fix the problem despite repeated customer complaints on the lack of product -- product that was often paid for in advance. While this may have been done under different managers of VS, the state of HL is still a current problem the new managers need to deal with in their overall plan. Even now getting started in HL is very confusing (kudos to the thread in general discussion trying to address it.)

PS: I won’t go into details, but the announcement itself was extremely disappointing overall and I felt like I got kicked in the nads. I also feel kind of jipped that the last big money PC is on the other side of the planet while I was waiting for Indy. :disappoin If I’d known, I’d have made A LOT more effort to goto Sydney.

PSS: I got into this game due to the card game play, not for the comics. VS is the best freaking card game there is. I have no hobby league within 170 miles of me, but I love this game and will continue to play it to the end.