Well this article is not going to be long I just thought I would give my imput.

I would say that in the infancy of the VS system decks more rotated around the ideas of beat you down, and do it as quickly as possible. Such decks as The New Brotherhood quickly emerged as a dominate force to be reckoned with both locally and globally. The buzz was about how to counter the Brotherhood and stop that darn Lost City abuse.

I am not going to lie as an early player I tried so hard to get those darn X-men to work. Time after time I failed. Very frustrating. As the game locally grew I began to see the emergence of those darn Fantastic Four characters. Still back in that day we were talking about how teams up decks were not too easy to run successfully. Such claims as Team up decks are too risky because you are not guaranteed to be able to reinforce. Doom also became a big deal as that darn four drop and six drop were able to control the game.

From that point on I saw a major shift in how the game worked. I was only able to help the beat down decks. That small shift of control and consistency became the major focus. I am sure it was the Magic players creating this major feel, but I this it was use new comers that brought some new ideas to this game.

When DC origins came we saw some new basic ideas. It was all about how big of a deal the Titans were going to make. It took them a while to make it big but when the time came it happened. A lot of people were all about batman because they like that nice cape and cowl. Let’s not forget that his 8 drop is wearing blue and red!(fan favorites!)

This set made the activate powers very dangerous. You needed to hide from those powers but at that time there wore not many cards that could do it. The game breaking card Fizzle didn’t help much (well didn’t help the other teams).

The shift slowly came to more about controlling your opponents’ decision making processes. Around this time we start to see that Common Enemy. Surprisingly(is that a word?) enough at one point it seemed like everyone would be running this or else they would be out of a tournament. I actually thought that during this time people were not looking beyond the CE set up. They just accepted Common Enemy as the only way to play.

Next in the 2004 year we saw the Web of Spider-man come out in its full glory, or shame for some(I mean beyond the starter deck, you know movie promotions effected that one). In this set everyone stared at the 3 drop Spider-Man like he was something special. Not to mention the very usable 7 drop Spider-Man (I run Spider-Friends if you can not tell). With this new set came the idea of Evasion. In my opinion another control element. At this moment I noticed the first major apparent shift of the VS system. The card unmasked came out but there was no card in the set to help the Brotherhood with that.

Now at some point, in my opinion, the game of VS switched to a full control aspect. Even if your opposition gets to pick what they exhaust you are still making them do it (Puppet master). Whether or not we are making a shift to a style of play that is new, I am interested to see and be there to affect the change.

As we sit on the in the infancy of Superman’s set we should see a good deal of fun and control. With this being the first time we see our loving cards in our precious deck being removed from the game. That should make it interesting to say the least.

I am no major player. I have never play in a PCQ (not offered within a 4 hour drive, makes it even harder to play in a PC), I have never played in any major tournament that has cost me more that $20 but I can tell you I have felt the wins and loses that come with the game(I would say games before they switched it to a 1 game format).

So, what does 2005 bring? Some sort of black cards maybe.. I really don’t know. I have no insider information but I do offer you this idea. In 2005, we will all participate in the new ideas Upper Deck Entertainment want us too, but the ideas we come up with will be original to us.

All those players out there don’t get down if you can't come up with new ideas first because as long as it is new to you, it is original. Don’t get down. It’s a game. Have fun.

But--- Remember when you can not draw that character card you’re wanting/needing use a character tutor, and if you can not find/draw that character tutor you need, then just lean back and smile because worse things in this world could happen. IT’S JUST CARDS. :devious:

nice breakdown of the mategame cycle, how things shift and turn, what has happened is the progressive of a great metagmae, a meta controlled by the players and the options available to them.

So true; it's too bad that more people can't figure out this part of the game.

No!
Its not JUST CARDS! as you point out so casually!
It's WAY more than that. It's....

It's....

Ok, no wait.
It IS just cards.

Well, i feel alot better now. Thanks.

thanks for your response guys..

In know in this world of VSRealms us little people really dont get noticed to much. Sometimes articles can just get lost in the mix.

Fierdogg

Fierdogg,

don't fell bad about trying to run X-men. I am still trying to make Arkham work (Inmates GO!)

I'm hoping we see more WOS and MOS oriented decks winning PCQs


p.s. Yeah, it's a card game...i tell myself that everytime i lose to Arsenal Abuse

To clarify... while in your hand, deck or KO'd pile... they are JUST CARDS.

Oh darn... I thought this was the Rules of Combat forum.

Not ones as good as this. That was keen stuff. Thanks.

As for the metagame, let's just see what shakes out this weekend. Our PCQ this weekend, in which we expected to see 80% Titans... was 40% Spidey and 40% Curve Sentinels, with only one Titans out of 24 players.

Jersey should be very interesting.

I still have my Resource row! HAHAHA!! They aren't just cards they are real people who tell me to burn things...

Lets hope that this year I can get the cards with the new sets to accually compete in a larger scale tournament, as my funds currently will not accept that...and fierdogg... I really like the quote at the end of the article...

My friend actually ran the titan inmates deck at a pcq and went 5-3. Maybe with some more work, they can get there.

I wanted to thank you all for reading my post..I appreciate your time.. :)

There's another way to play? :surprised

Nice article for the history of the metagame, but we always seem to hear about that a ton already, so to make your writing different you should give us some insight on your personal experiences with the metagame (my favorite part of the article was when you mentioned how you used to try and make the X-Men work; I thrive on any kind of reports of play-testing and tournaments). Don't tell us about what you don't know, tell us what you do know. Tell us more things like your knowledge of previously unused teams (X-Men) and help us analyze the current metagame with your obvious skill to see the big picture (which is something most of us can't really do). And don't be afraid to show a little personality; that's what makes these things interesting and it'll be what makes you a "big name" (which is what you said you wanted to be in your other thread).

:)