I love the VS game and playing engine. But one thing I think is missing is a characters weakness or vulnerability. I bring this up cause I played against a Batman deck couple of times and was leading most the game till the 8 drop Superman came out. Changing the whole momentum of the game to opponents favor. And with more Superman type cards coming out, does a game play mechanic need to be invented. I.e. vulnerability: magic : ( 1-5?). Where the number is minus on attack and/or defense when attacking or defending against a character with said vulnerability. In turn could be many things=magic, water, sonic, psy, energy blast and so on.

I am just trying to point out that the attacks, defense and powers seem to be good and balance for the character display(not necessarily the game play), and wonder if this said mechanic would point out that characters can be weaker in certain situation or against other characters. Any thoughts or am I just crazy.

Is Superman weak against Kryptonate, the Exploding Home Planet Pokèmon?

I get what you're going for, but it'd be clunky to add in now, difficult to balance, and would detract from the otherwise elegant mechanical system. This reminds me of issues people have with rules-light RPGs where they want to add new specific rules that better reflect some minutae. It usually doesn't add much to the game, and ends up just cluttering things more.

The bad part of this is that a card like "Kryptonite" may well effect any character with a certain cost or attack threshold, but I figure that's a small price for the overall smoothness of the system.

Certain character effects can replicate some of what you're going for, such as Lady Shiva (5)'s special power, and her 7-drop's as well. In the former, she's very strong at holding back a single ruffian, but can be flanked easily. Her latter version isn't physically strong, but her assassin badassdom lets her kill ANYONE. I suspect later sets will have more characters that have different effects based on whether they're attacking alone or with a team, and whether it's one or several characters which go for them. Beyond that, I'd say that specifics are left to the player's imagination.

Yes, most character traits are to be assumed in Vs. Namor isn't happy out of water, but we'll have to assume that the Doom version is carrying some on him. A card like "dehydration" which weakened a character named "Namor" would be too limited to play. Kryptonite may only affect characters named Superman, and it may be worthy of a first pick in the 2nd Pro Circuit draft because of that. However, in constructed, depending on the power of the Superman team, Kryptonite may never see play.

Basically what I'm saying is, the mechanic of weaknesses is too hard to put into a game (particularly now, after it's been out so long). It might be interesting for certain characters, likely to make drafting that set extremely interesting (see Superman comment above), but as for constructed decks, I think it's less about exploiting weakness and more about the power you can assemble.

Yes, most character traits are to be assumed in Vs. Namor isn't happy out of water, but we'll have to assume that the Doom version is carrying some on him. A card like "dehydration" which weakened a character named "Namor" would be too limited to play. Kryptonite may only affect characters named Superman, and it may be worthy of a first pick in the 2nd Pro Circuit draft because of that. However, in constructed, depending on the power of the Superman team, Kryptonite may never see play.

Basically what I'm saying is, the mechanic of weaknesses is too hard to put into a game (particularly now, after it's been out so long). It might be interesting for certain characters, likely to make drafting that set extremely interesting (see Superman comment above), but as for constructed decks, I think it's less about exploiting weakness and more about the power you can assemble.

it makes more sense to make more general cards.
something like

"Weak Spot"
Plot Twist 4
Target character is -2/-4 this attack.


"I Know Your Secret"
Plot Twist 4
Ongoing. When you flip this card name a character.
Activate -> Target character has +4/+2 while battleing the named character.

Because every char has a weakness.

Perhaps too powerful, but I like the concept... perhaps that'd be something like what a Kryptonite card is. "With the right color stone, ANYONE can be weakened with Kryptonite."

lets not ask to make the game more complicated. I like the fairly simple game engine that we have. To muck it up with more concepts and mechanics is to besmudge its clarity or design.

We will continue to see new mechanics.

I expect to see a Storm sometime with incredible stats, but one who cannot be surrounded by characters in some way. Because of her claustrophobia.

I always thought weaknesses in VS were represented by restrictions. Rhino is the perfect example of this, he's dumb as a sack of hammers, so he trashes your endurance every turn until you fire him.

reminds me of wildstorms. they had things like (sonic) next to a characters energy blast rating and other characters would specifically state weaknesses to it. i don't think it's necessary to be so exact though. i think what they did with sonic gun and the alien symbiotes (cept carnage) is pretty clever.

and i'm still laughing at the bungling idiot. lol

But thats a nice theme with the symbiotes.
Maybe we'll get another Carnage someday (maybe 7 drop) that gets +1/+1 counters. And suddenly you sonic gun is very usefull for him =)

I really like the idea that a sonic gun can stop the sandman =) makes sense...

Mechanics should have be something intresting that brings new ideas to tables. I haven't seen any such ability yet, and I want to see something that you can just make a deck out of.

I always figured rhino's ability comes from the fact that he is a merc. You know he's always working for someone else so he can't operate on his own with the backing of a larger power.

I have a feeling that Kryptonite will probably be kind of like Micro Size in a respect.

can be used to weaken anyone (Lex's radiation poisoning remember?), but if used against Superman, its effect is increased ALOT.