The other day I was at a local gaming store, and this cute girl who comes there wanted to learn VS.. So, a local player grabbed a Kree deck and a Wild Vomit deck, and tried to show her the ropes. After a few turns, it became obvious that the strategy involved in playing the decks was too much for a first time player to understand. So, the idea was abandoned and instead we cracked an X-Men starter and tried to use that. This fared a little better, but the teacher had to explain everything at once- pumping, team-attacking, reinforcing, and so on, all at the same time. On turn three, the lesson got bogged down for nearly ten minutes in the intricacies of formation. Eventually, she asked him straight up what was the best way to form her characters. He looked at the board and said "Well, you're basically screwed." Even standing behind her, I could see what little enthusiasm she still had drain out of her face. They decided soon after that this was "enough for tonight". Later I had a talk with the newcomer and said that basically my friend was a good player, but a poor teacher, and volunteered to teach her myself. But she was very discouraged. She called the game "needlessly complicated" and doubted she'd ever get into it. She had been thrown into a lake to learn to swim without even being taught to dog paddle, and now she was a hydrophobe. The game wasn't at fault, but the poor teaching had broken her.

It was a sad state of affairs, but it inspired me to do something about it. I spent a week's worth of free time drawing up a lesson plan for mentoring first-time VS. players. I'd like to get your opinions on it. The plan takes the form of a stacked-deck demo using the X-Men starter, with the teacher playing the Brotherhood side and the student playing the X-Men side. It is designed to introduce the basic ideas of the game one by one, each turn building on concepts from the previous turns. It assumes that the student knows nothing about TCGs going in- if this is not the case, than the lesson plan can be altered. The decks are stacked as such, with the first cards to be drawn on the top:

Playing with Fire
Toad
Brotherhood Hideout
Flattened
Hammer Bay
Destiny
Avalanche
Flattened!
Quicksilver
Tooth and Claw
Scarlet Witch
Mastermind
Sabertooth
Magneto
Sabertooth
Destiny
Pyro
Quicksilver
Scarlet Witch
Toad
Avalanche
Toad
Close the Gap

Beast
Unexpected Assault
Jean Grey
Storm
Cyclops
Professor X
Nightcrawler
Iceman
Xavier Institute
Duck and Cover
Rogue
Iceman
Storm
Duck and Cover
Rogue
Eye of the Storm
Cyclops
Trickshot
Trickshot

The writing here is in the form of a lecture delived to the student. Asides to the teacher are in square brackets. Of course, the teacher doesn't have to deliver this exactly, but the major points should be hit.

Turn 0- Basics

Normally, the first thing you do in a game of VS. is to shuffle your deck, then give it to your opponent to shuffle and cut, if he wishes. However, I've stacked these decks to facilitate the lesson, so we'll just skip that.

The next thing we do is to decide who goes first. Normally you roll a die or flip a coin, and then the winner decides whether he wants "odds" or "evens". In other words, whether he wants the initiative on the first turn and subsequent odd turns, or the second turn and subsequent even turns. Which is better for you depends on your deck. For now, let's just assume that we've done the die roll, you've won, and you've selected odds.

Each player starts the game with 50 endurance. This represents the overall health of your team of characters. When you run out of endurance, you lose. Keep track of endurance any way you wish- I favor the tried and true pen & paper method as it enables you to backtrack if you lose track of how much endurance you have, but some use calculators or ten-sided dice.

Before the first turn, each player draws an opening hand of four cards and looks at them. Since this is a lesson, we'll play with our hands open. So, let's draw.

[Teacher draws Quicksilver, Toad, Brotherhood Hideout, and Flattened. Student draws Beast, Unexpected Assault, Jean Grey, and Storm.]

Now, if you don't like your opening hand, you can "mulligan". That's when you put the four cards you drew on the bottom of your deck, in any order, and draw four new ones. You can only do this once.

Before we make that decision, let me teach you a little about the cards. There are four types of cards in VS., and you can identify them by the color of the borders. Red cards are characters- those are your most important cards, they represent the personalities you and your opponent will send out to do battle. If you're building a 60-card deck, you want roughly half of them to be characters. For a smaller, 30-card deck, like for sealed, you want about two-thirds of your deck to be characters. At the top of a character card is the character's name, with it's version below it. The version has no innate game effect unless it's Army. A character card with the version Army represents a nameless grunt. Name and version are important because all characters in VS. are unique. This means you can only have one of them on your side of the table at a time. If you recruit a character, and control another with the same name, you have to KO the existing one. Army cards are an exception- you can have any number of Army cards in play at any time. You can also put any number of any given Army character in your deck- normally you can only have four copies of any card, card being defined by the combination of name and version, in your deck. To the left of the card's name is it's cost. That's the number of resource points you have to spend to recruit that character. Below the cost is the card's team affiliation. That's the name of the group the character belongs to. Team affiliation is important for three things- team-attacks, reinforcement, and team-stamped effects. A team-stamped effect is one that will only work for members of a specific team. For example, Flattened says it will only work for a Brotherhood character. Team attacks and reinforcement we'll get to later. Below the affiliation are symbols for flight and range, if the character has them. (Look at Storm). The set of wings denotes flight. That means the character can attack characters that are protected. The cross hairs denotes range. That means that the character can attack from the support row. Below flight and range are the character's ATK and DEF values- ATK on top next to the lightning bolt, DEF on bottom next to the shield. Those are used to resolve combat, which we'll get to later.

Finally, the box beneath the illustration is the text box, which enumerates your character's powers. Since VS. is a game of superhero combat, most characters have special powers. There are three types of character powers: payment powers, triggered powers, and ongoing powers. You can tell which is which by the way in which the power is written. If a power has an arrow in it, it's a payment power. Toad has one of these. To use a power, you pay the cost to the left of the arrow, then the effect to the right of the arrow happens. You can do this at any time. Some payment powers have a cost of "Activate". To use these powers, you have to exhaust the character, which means turn it sideways. (I'll explain exhausted and ready in a minute.) Now, triggered powers usually begin "When" or "Whenever", or less often, "At the start of". Triggered powers are pretty self-explanatory- when the trigger condition happens, then the effect happens. Jean Grey has a triggered power. Quicksilver also has one. Ongoing powers are basically everything else. They are in effect as long as the character in question is in play and not stunned. Storm has an ongoing effect.

Moving on, Cards with grey borders are Equipment. These represent items that you can give your characters to give them an edge. There are no equipment cards in these decks, but I have one here. [Show her an equipment card] They have name and cost, just like a character. To put an equipment into play, you recruit it from your hand just like a character, by paying the cost in resource points. (I'll get to how to do that in just a minute.) Equipment is put into play attached to a character, and adds new text to it's text box. A character can only have one equipment at a time, and once an equipment is attached to a character, it stays there until an effect KOs it or the character leaves the field, at which point the equipment is KOd.

Cards with blue borders are plot twists. These represent events and tactics that you can use to try and swing the game in your favor. Plot twists do not have a cost- instead they have a threshold value. This is the number of resources you have to have in play to play that twist. There are two ways to play a plot twist- from your hand and from your resource row. If you play it from your hand, it goes to your KOd pile and the effect happens. To play it from your resource row, you flip it face-up. The effect happens, and then the card remains face-up in your resource row, generating resource points each turn. Some plot twists (none in these decks) have a little clock to the left of the text box and the keyword "Ongoing". These are ongoing plot twists. When you play one from your resource row, the ongoing text will be in effect as long as the card remains face-up in your resource row, which is usually the rest of the game.

Cards with green borders are locations. These function roughly the same as ongoing plot twists. You put them in your resource row, and can flip them face-up any time you meet the threshold value. While face-up, their text is in effect. Some locations have payment powers, and these function the same as character payment powers- you pay the cost at any time, and then the effect happens. If a location says "Activate", like Brotherhood Hideout does, then the cost is exhausting that location. Locations, like characters, are unique, and if you flip a second copy of one from your resource row, you have to KO the first, which means you lose a resource. This is usually a very bad thing, so don't do it.

Sometimes you'll see a character card with a black border, like this. [Show her a concealed character.] These are characters with Concealed or Concealed-Optional. They're just the same as normal characters, except they come into play in the hidden area. That's advanced strategy, though, so don't worry about that right now.

Now, there are six zones where cards can exist. The deck, which is on the lower-right corner of your side of the playing field, is one. The second is your hand. The third is your KOd pile, which sits above your deck. This is where characters that have been KOd and plot twists that you've played from your hand go. The forth is the removed-from-game zone, which sits somewhere off the board. (Most players put it either to the right of or above the KOd pile.) The fifth is the in-play zone, or "board". The in-play zone is divided into several areas. There's the resource row, to the left of your deck. This is where cards you set as resources will go. Above the resource row is the support row, and above that the front row. These two rows are where you'll play characters. Together these rows are called the "visible area". To the left of the visible area is the "hidden area". This is where characters with concealed go, but like I said, don't worry about that. The sixth zone is the "chain zone", where effects go between being played and resolving. We'll discuss the chain further later.

Now, back to the game. Whenever you draw your opening four cards, you have to decide whether or not you want to mulligan. Some decks will have a specific card they want to mulligan for, but generally you want to mulligan for the characters you'll be playing early on. You have a character with a cost of one and a character with a cost of two, so you'll want to keep that. I, however, have a character with a cost of 4 and a character with a cost of 6, So I'm going to want to mulligan. [Do so. Teacher draws Hammer Bay, Destiny, Avalanche, and Flattened] This hand looks a lot better.

Now, with the preliminaries out of the way, we can start the game.

Turn 1- Turn Order

A turn of VS. has four phases- Draw, Build, Combat, and Recovery.

In the draw phase, both players draw two cards at the same time. Let's do that. [Teacher draws Quicksilver and Tooth and Claw, Student draws Cyclops and Professor X.]

Then we go to the build phase. The build phase has three steps. First the player with initiative- in this case, you- takes these three in order, then the off-initiative player gets his turn.

The first step is the Resource step. Here you put one card from your hand face-down into your resource row. You can use any card, but a plot twist or location is preferrable, as those can still be played from your resource row. You can opt not to set a resource if you want by saying so specifically, but as this means falling behind your opponent, it's usually a bad idea. So, put Unexpected Assault down.

The second step is your recruit step. During this step, each of your resources generates one resource point. You can then spend these points to recruit characters and equipment. Any points that you don't spend are lost at the end of the recruit step. You have one resource, so you generate one resource point, and you may recruit a one-drop, like Beast. To recruit him, put him face-up into your front row or support row.

Now, characters have three states while on the field. Ready, which is straight up and down. This represents that the character is ready for action. Exhausted is sideways, this represents that the character has done something this turn. Stunned is sideways and face-down. This represents that the character has been wounded and is in danger of being KOd. A stunned character can't do anything. Your opponent's characters can attack over him, and he's considered to have a blank text box. Whenever a character gets stunned for any reason, it's controller takes endurance damage equal to the character's cost. When a character comes into play, it's automatically ready.

Moving on, we come to the formation step. This is where you set characters up in the front or support row. Characters in the front row can attack without range and protect the characters directly behind them. Protected characters can't be attacked except by characters with flight. Characters in the support row are protected by characters directly in front of them, and can reinforce characters directly in front of them and directly beside them, but they can't attack unless they have range. Beast doesn't have range, so put him in the front row so he can attack this turn.

Now, your steps are done, so it's time for mine. I'll put Hammer Bay face-down as a resource, but I have no characters to play. So I'll just do nothing, and then we go to the combat phase.

The combat phase is where attacks are declared and resolved. The player with initiative takes an attack step first, and makes as many attacks as he wishes. When he's done, the other player gets an attack step, and can make any attacks he is able to. Only a ready character can propose an attack, and he becomes exhausted when he attacks, so barring an effect that readies him, each character can only attack once per turn.

Most combat is conducted between one character and another, but if your opponent has no characters, or all his characters are stunned, you can attack your opponent's endurance directly. So, let's do that. Propose an attack directly into me. Beast exhausts, and his effect makes him a 2/2. His ATK value, in this case 2, comes off my endurance, leaving me at 48. You have no more attacks or effects, so we go to the Recovery Phase.

At the start of the recovery phase we can play effects. Once we're done with effects, the "wrap-up" starts. During the wrap-up three things happen, and no players can play effects while they're happening. First, endurance totals are checked. Any player with zero endurance or less loses the game. If all players have zero endurance or less, the one with the most endurance wins. Second, we each choose one stunned character we control to recover, and the rest of our stunned characters are KOd. To recover a stunned character, turn it into a face-up exhausted position. Third, we each ready all characters and locations we control. So, ready Beast. Then the initiative passes to the next player, which is me, and we go to the next turn.

Turn 2- Basic Combat

At the start of the draw phase, we draw.

[Teacher draws Scarlet Witch and Mastermind. Student draws Nightcrawler and Rogue.]

I have the initiative this turn, so I build first. I'll put Quicksilver face-down as a resource, generate 2 resource points, and use them to put Destiny into play. I'll form with her in the front row, ready to attack, and then pass to your steps. You, unfortunately, don't have a Plot Twist or Location to put down, so you'll have to play a character as a resource. This is unfortunate, because a character in your resource row is usually going to stick there for the rest of the game, doing nothing. However, the alternative is to not play a resource, which puts you in a much, much worse position. So, since you already have Iceman for turn 4, put Nightcrawler into your resource row face-down. Now you have two resource points, so recruit Jean Grey. When you do, her triggered effect goes off, so take a look at the top card of your deck. [It's Trickshot.] That's not an X-Men character, so it goes to the bottom of your deck. That's all your resource points, so you go to formation. I'll cover the finer points of formation soon, but for now just put Jean in the front row and Beast directly behind her in the support row.

Now it's my attack step. You have characters, so I can't attack you directly. I can, however, attack your characters. Destiny doesn't have flight, and Beast is protected, so I have to attack Jean. To do so, I first propose an attacker- a ready character I control, and a defender- a non-stunned character you control. Before the attack actually happens, we can both play effects- the point of this is that, if you don't want the attack to happen, and have an effect that can somehow make the attack illegal, such as by exhausting my character before he can attack or moving yours to the hidden area, you can play it and the attack won't happen. You don't have any, so you can only pass. I do the same. Once we're both done playing effects, if the attack is still legal, the fight is on. My character becomes exhausted and is now an "attacker". Your character is now a "defender".

Again we can play effects. There are four main reasons to play effects during an attack. One is to pump your character's ATK or DEF values, thus affecting the outcome of the attack. I'll do that by flipping Hammer Bay, which gives all Brotherhood characters I control- such as Destiny- +1 ATK. The second is to try and remove an attacker or defender from an attack. A character is removed from an attack if it is stunned before attack resolution, if it is removed from the field, (KOd, returned to your hand), or if an effect removes it from the attack. The third is, if the defender's going to get stunned, you can get some use out of him by playing an ability that requires you exhaust him, such as an activated ability. And the forth is reinforcement. To give a defending character reinforcement, you exhaust a character which is adjacent to the defender, shares a team affiliation with it, and is in the support row. So, if your defender is in the front row, you can reinforce him by exhausting the character behind him. If the defender is in the support row, you can reinforce him by exhausting a character next to him. But if you have two characters in the front row, they can't reinforce each other. I'll explain why reinforcement is important in a minute. For now, just reinforce Jean by exhausting Beast.

Once you and your opponent are both done playing effects, the attack concludes. At attack conclusion, first you check to see if there are any characters left in the attack. (i.e. not removed from the attack. If there is no defender, then the attack concludes with no damage and the attacker readies. If there is no attacker, the attack concludes with no damage. If there is still at least one attacker and a defender, three things happen simultaneously. One, if the attacker has at least as much ATK as the defender's DEF, the defender is stunned and the defending player takes stun damage. Two, if the defender has at least as much ATK as the attacker's DEF, the attacker is also stunned and the attacking player takes stun damage. Three, the defender's DEF is subtracted from the attacker's ATK. The difference is inflicted to the defending player as breakthrough endurance loss UNLESS the defending character has reinforcement. If the defender has reinforcement, you take no breakthrough. (BTW, damage from direct attacks is also considered breakthrough.)

So, the attack concludes. Destiny's 3 ATK is greater than Jean's 2 DEF, So Jean stuns. You take 2 damage. Destiny's triggered effect goes off, and I draw a card. [It's Sabertooth.] Jean's 3 ATK is greater than Destiny's 2 DEF, so Destiny also stuns, I take 2 damage. Jean is reinforced, so you take no breakthrough. If I had more characters, I could make more attacks. I don't, so I end my attack step. Now it's your attack step, and you could make attacks if you have any characters that could attack, but since you don't, all we can do is go to recovery. We both recover our respective characters, ready everyone, and on to the next turn.

(more)

Turn 3- Formation and Combat Strategy

[Teacher draws Magneto and Sabertooth. Student draws Duck and Cover and Rogue.]

It's your initiative, so set Duck and Cover in your resource row, and put Cyclops into play. Now, you have three characters in play, so this is a good time to talk about formation. The goal of combat in VS. is not necessarily to do the most damage to your opponent. Ultimately, of course, the goal is to reduce him to zero, but you have to plan ahead to accomplish this. See, if your opponent has more stunned characters then you at the end of the combat phase, then he'll have fewer characters than you going into the next turn, since all but one of those stunned characters will be KOd. This will put you in a stronger position and allow you to better push through more damage. In other words, your goal in combat should be to stun as many of your opponent's characters as you can, while stunning as few of yours as possible. What this means regarding formation is this: on your initiative, you want to put all your characters where they can attack
productively. This can mean everyone in the front row. But you never know what your opponent has in hand, so you might want to put characters with range, or those that you don't think will be strong enough to make a difference, in the support row anyway, so you have reinforcement options if something goes wrong. In this situation, I'd recommend Beast and Jean in front, and Cyclops in back. So, set them up like that, then it's my build phase.

I'll put Flattened face-down as a resource, and Avalanche into play. Now, on defense, formation is much more important, because you may have to reinforce to avoid taking damage. Depending on the situation, there are two basic approaches you can take. First, you can put your smaller characters in the front and bigger ones in the back, so that when the opponent attacks, you can reinforce and minimize damage (Assuming, of course, that your characters have the same affiliation). Or, you can try a
"pikewall" strategy. You can put your big guy up front and basically challenge your opponent to go through him- probably stunning his attacker- to get to the little guy. Now, if I had a third character on the field, I could try what's called an "L-formation"- one of the most common formations in VS. It consists of one character in the front row, another behind him, and the third off to the side in the support row. The advantage of this is that you are guarenteed to be able to reinforce at least the first attack, if necessary. [Demonstrate this.] But I can't do that with only two characters, so I'll just put Avalanche up front.

This is only a very basic overview of formation- for one, it doesn't take into account flight, which can allow you to take apart an opponent's formation piece by piece. But formation is easily the hardest part of VS. to learn, and it really only comes through experience. Don't be discouraged if it takes you a while to get the hang of it. I myself frequently spend long minutes staring at my board trying to figure out the best formation, and even top-tier players make mistakes frequently.

So we're both formed up, so it's on to the attack step. Now, you
need to take down Avalanche first, and Cyclops is the man to do it. No other character can match Avalanche's DEF. So, declare the attack. [Play it out- Cyclops' triggered effect causes the teacher 2 damage, then Destiny reinforces and The attack concludes in a double-stun with both players taking 3 damage.]

Now you have to deal with Destiny. Based on what you've already learned about the game, what's the best way to do that, and why?

[Let the student figure it out if she can. Encourage her to think ahead in doing so. If she becomes frustrated, the answer is: Have Beast attack into Destiny. As a 2/2 while attacking, he's not strong enough to deal any breakthrough, but he's sufficient to cause a double-stun, with the
student taking 1 damage for the stun on Beast and the teacher 2 for the stun on Destiny. The teacher's board is now clear, allowing Jean to attack directly for 3. In total, the teacher takes 5 damage and student 1. Furthermore, in recovery, the student will find herself with two stunned characters- Beast and Cyclops. Cyclops is obviously the choice to recover, as he has better stats than Beast even with Beast's effect taken into
consideration. Jean, who wasn't stunned, also remains on the board.]

[Had the student attacked Jean into Destiny, she would have done 2 damage and 1 breakthrough to the teacher, but Jean would have been stunned, making the student take 2 damage. Beast would then be able to attack for 2 directly, making a total of 5 damage to the teacher and 2 to the student. Then, during recovery, the student would be forced to recover Cyclops and lose Jean. In short, attacking Destiny with Beast instead of Jean not only leaves the student taking 1 less damage, but also leaves her going into turn 4 with a better board.]

[Recover- Teacher recovers Avalanche and KOs Destiny, Student recovers Cyclops and KOs Beast. Go to the next turn]

Turn 4- The Curve, Power-ups, and Pumps.

Now that we've got the basics down, it's time to have some real fun.

[Teacher draws Destiny and Pyro, Student draws Iceman and Storm]

It's my initiative, and I seem to be in a bit of a situation. As
you can see, I have no card in my hand costing 4. This is called "missing your drop", and it tends to be bad news because you'll lag beind your opponent in the amount of power you have on the board, as well as the amount of damage you can absorb through your characters' DEF. Fortunately, it's my initiative, so I have a little leeway in what I can safely recruit. I'll put Tooth and Claw face-down as a resource, and play Scarlet Witch, who has a recruit cost of 3. (You lose 3 endurance due to her triggered effect.) This leaves me one resource point remaining, which I will spend to recruit Mastermind. If it were your initiative, this might be ill-advised, as his 1 defense at this point of the game makes Mastermind a huge target. But I'll be attacking first this turn, so I can take a few chances. I don't know for sure who you're going to play or how you're going to form this turn, but I know the game well enough to know that the average for a 4-drop is 7 ATK and 7 DEF. Now, Scarlet Witch has 5 ATK naturally, plus 1 for Hammer Bay, making 6. And I have Flattened in my resource row, which I can use to give her plus 3 ATK for a single attack, for a total of 9. That's probably plenty enough to stun your 4-drop. I should then be able to attack Jean with Avalanche, without him stunning, and Cyclops with Mastermind and this pump, Tooth and Claw, stunning Cyclops. If this plan works, I'll go into the next turn with two characters to your one. I'll have evened up the scores and the board considerably. That kind of manuevering- stunning big characters with smaller ones- is called "swinging up-curve". It can be chancey, but you want to do it whenever you think you can pull it off, as it allows you to keep your bigger characters unstunned while at the same time scoring stuns on your opponent.

Before we go any further, you might be wondering why we have, until now, been recruiting only a single large character each turn, instead of more than one smaller one like I just did. In fact there's a very good reason for that. See, the average 1-drop character in VS. is a 1/1- he has 1 ATK and 1 DEF. Generally characters will have an extra point here and there, but 1/1 is the standard. The average 2-drop is 2/2, which means you pretty much get the same ATK for two one-drops as for one 2-drop. However, the average three-drop has stats of 4/4, which is a point more than
you'd get if you recruited a 1 and a 2 for that some cost. And this gap grows wider as you climb to higher and higher costs. For example Storm, as you can see, is a 6-drop with 12 ATK and 12 DEF, which is four points more than you'd get for 2 3-drops and twice as much as you'd get for six 1-drops. This steady progression of increasing returns is called "the curve", and it is one of the central concepts of VS. Every combat-oriented deck is built to either exploit the curve or defeat it. You can defeat it by playing characters that are large for their size, or augmenting them with certain powerful plot twists. For example, I've been lucky enough to get a 5 ATK 3-drop and a 2 ATK 1-drop this turn, which is as much ATK as an average 4-drop. Augment that with Hammer Bay, not to mention my plot twists, and I can further even the score. However, keep in mind that an off-curve strategy like this can quickly deplete your hand and your twists, leaving you with little for the later turns, while your opponent will likely have big characters. This is why most off-curve decks are rush decks that try to finish the game as quickly as possible.

Getting back to the matter at hand, I'm confident that I'll be able to do some damage this turn, so I'm going to set up with Scarlet Witch, who has range, in the back, and the other two up front, so everyone's ready to attack. And now it's your build. Set Storm as a resource and bring your 4-drop into play. [It's Iceman.] And now I'm not feeling quite so confident. Due to his effect, Iceman has 9 DEF while defending, which is a little problematic, but my plan should still work. Now, form up. Since you're on the defensive and I have no flight, it's probably best to put Jean, your weakest character, behind Iceman, your strongest, and put Cyclops next to Jean in the L-formation we discussed earlier. He'll still be able to attack if necessary, since he has range.

Now it's my attack step, and I'll put the plan into action. I declare Scarlet Witch into Iceman, legal? Play Flattened for +3 ATK. However, you've got plot twists you can play too. Flip up the Duck and Cover in your resource row, and Iceman goes up to an 11 DEF. Now I'm in real trouble. If I do nothing at this point, the attack will resolve and your defender won't stun, but my attacker will. That's called a "brickwall", and it's a significant advantage for you, because then I'll have to come up with another plan to deal with Iceman, or else he'll attack back on your attack step for potentially massive damage. In short, at this point I can't afford not to stun Iceman, so I have no choice but to play the Tooth and Claw I had been saving for Mastermind, and form a new plan once this attack is over. So, I play Tooth and Claw, bringing my attack up to 11.

Now, you may think that you're out of options at this point, but you're not. Note that you have another copy of Iceman in hand. Since characters are unique, you can't really recruit this, because it will KO the other one, leaving you with an identical board and 4 less resource points. So, that would be useless. But the card is not dead. There's a rule in VS. that says that, when a character is in combat, you can discard a character card with the same name to give that character +1 ATK and +1DEF for the attack. This is called a "power-up". It's a small advantage, but sometimes it's just enough. Try it. [The student does so.] Good. That gives Iceman 12 DEF, and I'm out of tricks, so that's that. The attack concludes, and Iceman's still standing, while Scarlet Witch gets stunned. A successful brickwall. Now my grand plan is in ruins. Iceman's still there, and I don't have enough pumps to get through him. (In fact, as we'll cover next turn, I do have a way to stun Iceman, but let's assume I'm shaken from the failed attack and don't notice it.) However, I can make sure you don't get to make any attacks this turn. Can you see how?

[Encourage the student to look the options available to the teacher and determine his best move. If she cannot, the answer is to attack Cyclops with Avalanche. Jean Grey, being in the support row without range, won't be able to attack anyway, so she will exhaust to reinforce Cyclops. Then the attack will resolve with Cyclops and Avalanche stunning, and the teacher will be able to exhaust Iceman with Avalanche's triggered power, preventing him from attacking this turn. This is a lesson to always consider all the options available to you.]

So, this turn didn't go too well for me. I wound up wasting plot twists trying to secure a stun that just didn't happen, and failed to dent either your board or your endurance significantly. Exhausting Iceman allowed me to minimize my losses, but I'm still behind overall. Still, nothing to be done, so shake it off and move on. It's your attack step now, but since you have no characters that can attack, we can go straight to recovery. You recover Cyclops, and I have to choose either Avalanche or Scarlet Witch. Since Avalanche has slightly better DEF and an effect that could help me in future turns, I'll recover him.

Turn 5- Team-attacks

[Teacher draws Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. Student draws Duck and Cover and Rogue.]

It's your turn, and what goes around comes around. Now you've missed your drop, having no 5. You can compensate somewhat with Rogue, but it's not looking too good. Still, it's your initiative and you're ahead, so you might as well take an agressive stance. Put Duck and Cover face-down, play Rogue, and put everyone up front except Cyclops. I'll set Destiny as a resource, since she's not going to be much use. I have Sabertooth as my character for the turn, and I'll set up in an L-formation with my strongest character- Sabertooth- in front, my weakest- Mastermind- in back, and Avalanche to the side, ready to reinforce.

Now, there are several ways you can handle this situation. One would be to have Rogue fly over Pyro and hit Mastermind. Barring any plot twists from me, she should be able to do so without stunning, and that will break up the formation, allowing you to attack without the fear of reinforcement. However, Sabertooth's effect is a big problem if he makes it to my attack step unstunned, so just like me attempting to take down Iceman last turn, you've got to deal with Sabertooth somehow. You can try to take him down by using the Unexpeceted Assault in your resource row, but that's risky- if I have so much as a power-up, you'll be brickwalled. Plus, you'll then have to take down my remaining characters with no pumps, which, looking at their stats, you can see will result in stuns all around- not the best situation. However, you have a third option. It's called a team attack.

A team attack is basically when two or more of your characters gang up on an enemy that's too big for either of them to beat individually. Essentially, you'll be trying to beat a character's DEF with the combined ATK of two or more characters. You can't cause any breakthrough with a team attack, so a lot of players look at it as a last resort only, but if you've got a bigger board than your opponent, in terms of number of chracters, it's a good way to deal with big guys using little ones, thus freeing up your big guys to swing on their small ones unopposed. You declare a team-attack just like a normal attack, choose two or more attackers and a defender. The attackers must all share at least one team affiliation, and must all be able to attack the defender normally. So, for example, if the defender is protected, all team-attackers must have flight. So, go ahead and try it. Team attack Sabertooth with Rogue and Cyclops. [The student does so.] Now, just like a normal attack, we can both play effects. I have none, you have none, so the attackers are exhausted and the fight is on. (Cyclops burns me for 2.) Again we can play effects. If you have plot twists that target an attacker, you can use them on either of your attacking characters, but since there's no breakthrough on a team attack, there's no reason to pump higher than absolutely necessary. It becomes necessary when I discard a copy of Sabertooth to power-up. Which means you have to power-up Rogue to secure the stun. Do so. Now, nothing else so the attack resolves. At the resolution of a team attack, two things happen at the same time. First, the ATK of all attackers is added together and, if the total is greater than of equal to the defenders DEF, the defender is stunned and the defending player takes stun damage. Second, the defending player chooses one attacker with a DEF less then the defender's ATK, and that character is stunned. So, in this case, Sabertooth will be stunned and I'll take 5 damage, and I'll stun back Cyclops for 3. In addition, as Rogue was part of the attack, she is considered to have stunned the character, meaning her triggered effect gains you 2.

Now you need to take down Avalanche and Mastermind. What do you think is the best way to do so? [The answer is Jean on Avalanche with Unexpected Onslaught, with Mastermind reinforcing for 3 damage for the teacher and 2 for the Student. This is followed by Iceman on Mastermind for 7 damage. The other way, Iceman gets stunned by Avalanche and Hammer Bay. In recovery, the Teacher loses Mastermind and Avalanche, and the Student loses Jean.]

Turn 6- The Chain and attacking down the curve.

[Teacher draws Toad and Avalanche, Student draws Eye of the Storm and Cyclops.]

Turn six, my initiative. Notice that you've drawn a plot twist, Eye of the Storm. You can play that anytime, but hold on to it for now, I want to use it to explain something important in just a minute. It's my build first, so I set Avalanche as a resource and put Quicksilver into play. It's my initiative, so I'll put both my characters up front, ready to attack. You have Storm, so set Eye of the Storm as a resource and put her into play. What do you think would be your best formation? And why?

[A two-by-two formation with Storm and Iceman up front is the most obvious "right" answer. The two most significant reasons are thus: One, since the student's board is strong and the teacher's weak, the student being able to swing back on her attack step is a distinct possibility. And Two, because of Quicksilver's effect, a strong character in the student's back row is liable to become exhausted. Be flexible in what answers you accept, as there are several right answers and it is more important for the student to understand that she is "getting" the concepts behind the game. However, for purposes of the lesson, make sure she puts Storm in front. Pointing out Quicksilver's effect will probably inspire her to do this. Also make sure she puts someone behind Storm- pointing out that she will take massive breakthrough if she puts all her characters in front will probably accomplish this.]

We go to combat, and at the start of my attack step, Quicksilver's triggered effect goes off. Remember that plot twist from earlier? I had you save it because I wanted to explain the chain. Pratcially every non-ongoing effect in VS. uses the chain. After you play an effect, but before it resolves, it goes on the chain. If you have another effect that you want to resolve first, you can add it to the chain. When noone has any effects to add to the chain, it resolves with the last effect played resolving first, then the next-to-last, and so on down to the first effect played. This allows you to counter your opponent's effects. So, Quicksilver's effect goes off, targeting [whoever's behind Storm]. Put Eye of the Storm on the chain now. [The student does so.] I have no more effects, you have no more effects, so the chain starts resolving. Eye of the Storm resolves first, and you control no exhausted characters at this point, so you gain 4 endurance. Then Quicksilver's effect resolves, and your character is exhausted. You were able to get your extra 4 endurance from Eye of the Storm before Quicksilver exhausted your character.

One thing to keep in mind is that in some other games, once no player has any effects left to play, the chain resolves fully. In VS., the chain resolves step-by-step, meaning that you can also time effects to resolve AFTER the chain has resolved to a certain point.

Now we're in my attack step, and I'm faced with a problem. I've taken some big hits the last two turns, and I need to make a comeback. Although Storm is your greatest threat, I'm not going to deal with her. Instead, I'm going to make easy attacks with strong characters on weaker ones, so that I can dent your board and endurance without taking stuns myself. This is called "going down the curve", the opposite of "going up-curve".

[Assuming the student has set up a 2-by-2 formation, with Storm and Iceman up front and Cyclops and Rogue in the back, the best sequence of attacks is Quicksilver into Iceman (with Rogue reinforcing), followed by Sabertooth on Rogue. If her formation is different, alter the attacks to the best you can make. The operative thing is to stun two of her characters without stunning any of yours, and leave Storm ready and able to swing back. To that end, do not swing Sabertooth into Iceman, as the Student still has a Duck and cover face down and could conceivably avoid a stun. If Iceman is up front, swing on him with Quicksilver.]

Now it's your attack step, and notice that I've put you in a situation. Storm can attack either of my characters, and potentially do some damage, but Quicksilver has an attack of 13 with Hammer Bay, and Sabertooth has a total of 14 with his effect and Hammer Bay. Meaning, attacking either of them with Storm will mean Storm gets stunned, and as you already have two stunned characters, you'll lose an additional character in recovery. Meanwhile, I'll take 6-8 damage, but have only one stunned character in recovery, meaning I'll be able to recover him and lose no board presence. By attacking down the curve, I've put my endurance at risk, but gained a potential field advantage. So the question is, do you think that 8 damage is worth taking six yourself and losing both your currently stunned characters?

[The answer is "probably not"- as the student has initiative next and the game is close to won, recovering a character with 7 ATK (9 with Professor X) on the next turn could be enough to swing it. However, the situation is far from clear-cut and as before, it is important that the student think about the situation to come up with her own solution. Let her make her decision, than play it out.]

Turn 7- Winning the Game

[Student draws Trickshot and Trickshot. Teacher draws Toad and Close the Gap.]

Now, it's your initiative, and it's a pretty close game. You have initiative, and it's looking like the final turn. So, go ahead and win the game.

[Sit back and let the Student play out the final turn. With two Trickshot, plus Professor X, plus Storm giving everyone flight, she should have enough to finish off the Teacher, even though the teacher has Magneto and can form up in an L. If the Student wins, congratulate her. If she can't win, encourage her anyway and point out how she could have won given the formations.]

[After the demo, offer to play "a real game" using the starter decks. Play a few of these, to make sure the Student understands the game. Then offer to introduce her to more complex decks with advanced concepts and keywords. With proper guidance, she should become an exemplary player.]

Nicely done, Crax.
Personally I think the Fan4 starter is easier to teach someone the ropes with, but one way or another, you've done a great job.

That is awesome; I have tried unsuccessfully to teach VS in the past maybe this will help. I talked to a guy from Konami the video game sounds like it has a very comprehensive tutorial going through each keyword individually. On a side note the tutorial is also filled with cool Easter eggs!:)

yeah, alot of people give up on the game fast because of everything you need to learn in a small amount of time, like I mean, if your barely gonna get into VS, you have to like be serious about it i think, especially with all the mechanics that we have now, and we all know how much formation is an annoyance sometimes, especially when ur opps characters all have flight and range, but yeah, i think developing a good system to teach people and make it fun might help out alot of new players, like spoils, alot of people are liking spoils because every1 playing it teaches them and it't basically magic tweaked to an extent and that's why people love it, plus Scott at Shuffle has been running alot of good tournies for the game, it might just take off.

Excellent post and rep'd accordingly. I've noticed that lots of people have trouble teaching this game to newcomers. Here are a couple thoughts and suggestions I've learned from demoing the game on several occasions:

If it is something you're not likely to show them in the course of your demo(s), it's generally a good idea to not mention it at all. Remember, you're flooding their brain with a lot of information, so explaining things like the removed-from-game zone, the concealed area or equipment are best left for the inevitable after-conversation.

Play a "mini" game where you start at 25 endurance and pretend there isn't any game text on the characters. It allows you to teach the basics of timing and formation and combat without that flood of information. It's also a good way to judge an individual person's ability to grasp what you are teaching them. I've had demos where even that was too much and we pretended the plot twists and locations had no text. I've also had demos where the person picked it up almost immediately and in the middle of the game we decided to start using the text on the characters. Starting at 25 endurance also helps keep the demo session to a fairly reasonable timeframe so the person doesn't feel like they are actually sitting through a college lecture. :D

Granted, these suggestions are more tuned to "event" level demoing, of which I've done plenty, but I use them successfully in hobby league environments as well.

WOW Lord Craxtons reputation soars!! Who knew all you have to do is post something truely usefull to almost everybody!:laugh: Well deserved!!

Excellent, this may help with getting some friends into the game.

They don't seem to have the same enthusiasm for learning the game from scratch with all their spare time like I did. :)

Very well done.

Not entirely sure whether or not the concept of stacking the decks is too misleading, after all luck is a basic part of the game, but regardless, thanks for your effort, as you can see it was greatly appreciated.

Great post! I as a newcomer would have found that much more helpful then the flash demo on the vs. website.

I salute you man. What you've provided more than anything is a clearer understanding of the mindset that one must have when teaching this game that we love. A true gamer like yourself knows when to take off the gloves and relax. Every game is not a PCQ... Much success to you Lord Craxton. As in the game, there are commons, uncommons and rares... I consider this post one of the rarest that I've ever read concerning VS. Excellent

Admittedly, it was too long for me to read it completely. But even just the effort of typing all that up deserves some kudos at least, so great work!

I have problems teaching VS to newcomers too. Usually, I teach VS just like how I learned it, unfortunately because of my background in other CCGs and even Heroclix, I was able to pick VS up quickly just by going through the Flash demo at UDE's website and by reading the rulebook, and not all newcomers have that experience or affinity for these types of games. Again, great great work!

I suggest that this be submitted to Metagame or put into the VSRealms original content, or something like that...

This is very impressive.

I'm currently trying to teach my wife how to play as she wants to join in the fun that is traveling to tournaments with me, but since she's never played a CCG, teaching her the basic concepts of a CCG along with all the complexities of VS (formation, keywords, power-ups, etc.) is alot to handle all at once.

I'm gonna copy and paste this into a Word Doc and print it out and see how it works for me.

Super Job Crax.