Taken from Maynooths Games Society at: http://societies.nuim.ie/~games/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1411. Thanks Anthony!

So article the first is to be a treatise on why one should play Vs as well as or instead of other CCG’s. The title is slightly misguiding, but it got your attention. The article shall be a game of three halves. (That’s right, the first article comes with 50% extra free. Disclaimer – The three halves may not be of equal size. All complaints from the mathematically sensitive shall be ignored)

If you're new skip to the End first, which has a less wordy and probably more convincing paragraph about Why Vs is Awesome and you should give it a go.
 

Beginning: Why CCG’s are good games to play
I’m going to go out on a limb and make some assumptions about why we game – in the broadest sense, we enjoy facing cerebral challenges and winning. Every game the Games Soc supports fits this to some extent or another. Our games are games of the mind. (I realize that for RPG’s, it takes some interpretation, but I reckon there is “winning” in RPG’s, even if it’s not a contest between players)

As mind games, CCG’s offer a great challenge. There are multiple layers of strategy and tactics. There are practically infinite combinations of cards and no two games are ever exactly alike. With new cards being released at regular intervals, a well designed CCG is never stagnant. For me, the challenge of deckbuilding and improving my skills is a big attraction to CCG’s.

But not to get bogged down in the competitiveness of the whole thing, CCG’s are great for casual play. Games Soc gained campus-wide infamy the year in which the speakeasy opened for our near constant presence there, and most of the time, we were playing CCG’s. Once you have a deck, CCG’s can be played quickly and conveniently in any location with a clean table.

Fun for both casual and competitive play? What more do you want?

Comic book heroes you say? Well, that’s where Vs comes in…

Middle: Why Vs is Awesome:

In my humble opinion, Vs is the best CCG in the world today. Over the years, I’ve played Magic and Legend of the Five Rings, buying quite a few cards, and becoming pretty decent at both. (I was on the Irish Playtest Team for L5R for a short time.) I’ve dabbled in new, short lived CCG’s as they were released. (Battlestar Galactica and Game of Thrones being the better of the ones that never took off here) But I honestly think Vs is the best one.

Yes, I think it’s better than Magic.

After that bold statement, I better back it up. The next bits not intended as merely a Magic vs Vs slugfest, but I will use it as a comparison in place of saying “all other CCGs.”

First thing that comes to mind is competitive play. Both games have a great Pro Circuit, and I can’t really say too much about high level play in Magic recently, so I won’t go into which one has a healthier metagame. What I can compare the two games on in terms of competitive play is the atmosphere. It might just be that Vs is a little smaller, but I find that Vs tournaments are far more relaxed and friendly that any official Magic tournament I ever attended. Magic players seem to take tournament play so seriously they forget it’s a game, even at PCQ level. This might be an unfair statement, but I’ve found a number of people share my experiences, especially in your early tournaments. L5R has a great camaraderie at tournaments (Roaring “Utz! Banzai!” in unison three times at the start of every tournament while right next to the Magic players was always entertaining). Pity the game became overpowered, overcomplicated, messy and no fun on a tournament level.

That aside, Vs has a great flavour. The cards are based on characters and events from comic books, and as such are people we know and love like Batman. I’ve tried out most non-magic CCG’s based on their flavour, and Vs was no different. I was sold on “Marvel CCG” though it didn’t hurt how well the game played, perfectly representing comic book combat in CCG form with Plot Twists, Locations and Equipment replacing Artifacts, Lands, Instants and Sorcerys.

Every CCG seems to mention the phrase “Easy to learn, difficult to master” in its advertising. Vs genuinely is the easiest to learn and the most difficult to master. The basic are indeed basic. You build, you make characters fight each other, you recover and ready characters, and move on to the next turn. Granted, magic is likewise fairly simple if you hand someone a green creature deck, and the difference in basic complexity is small, but I think one thing gives Vs the edge in simplicity – the jump from basic to intermediate level is far smaller, because at every level Vs is a game built around characters and combat, something which is easy to get your head around. That’s a little harder in Magic, when you can have decks with very few creatures or creatures who don’t get involved in combat. That sounds like a little thing, but I think it makes for a smoother jump from basic combat based decks at beginner level to something a little more complex.

On the “Difficult to Master” side of things, subtle complexities abound in Vs. Formations, Attack Order, to Reinforce or Attack Back, Team Attacking – These are all learned and understood (on a mechanical level) in your first games, using only vanilla characters. But I don’t think anyone gets it exactly right even half the time. (I know I don’t) You can often get it “right enough” to win, and you’d never know it was a mistake.

The format of featuring new teams every set puts the entry level for versus quite low, with a smaller gulf between entry into tournament level. New sets continue to be good in the face of the older cards, meaning having a deck built of older cards isn’t just plan better – a syndrome often faced as games grow – the more cards you own, the better your decks. The gulf between intermediate level decks built from only one set isn’t that far from tournament level.

I seem to come back to that again and again. It didn’t occur to me in those words until I wrote this, but that’s the essence of why Vs is awesome. The jumps from beginner to intermediate to expert are smaller. The last constructed Trial of the Finest in Irish Vs was won by a kid we’d never heard of playing a deck no-one considered competitive. You could say it’s because we suck at Vs in Ireland, but I choose to believe it’s because the game is balanced well like that.

And in every other way, in fact. There’s been a few bannings, some errata’s and wording clarifications, but truly abusive and broken decks are rare – there’s only been two or three to turn up in the history of the game.Vs has a great, healthy metagame, with diverse sets of deck in all four formats, and every set (not counting the first two expansions, but you can forgive them for a little too much caution against power creep in early sets) makes an impact in itself across every format.

And it’s just fun. Harking back to the fact that it simulates comic book combat really well, and is designed around that combat, it makes for a deeply enjoyable game, with big swings and dramatic combats in every game. The fact that the game is designed with characters who “curve” upwards in power (instead of linearly getting bigger), the fights get bigger and better as time progresses. Even stall decks don’t stall the game state that much, there’s still dynamic combat and character interactions.

End:

I’m sure people are going to answer my comparisons with reasons why Magic is better, and I’ll think of more reasons why Vs is better, so I’m leaving it open to debate from here. I hope I haven’t scared of potential recruits by going too deep into it, because it really is a fun and rewarding game I’d honestly recommend getting into. The community is really welcoming and friendly, we’re really generous with handing out commons and uncommons to help you build your first deck, and we’re running a draft league over the year – cheap cards, a more level playing field than constructed, and a great way to learn the game without worrying about complex or tournament level decks (Though the jump’s still smaller!). You can join late. In fact, we’ll give you some bonus points on entry so you’re not trailing far behind the long running players.

Also, to anyone who picked it up then fell out, come back, it’s better than ever. Seriously. The last four sets that have come out have each surpassed one another in balance and fun.

I'll be around most CCG nights, and I'm always happy to teach new people, and I'm sure the others will be too. Brass is particular is lovely and should be approached as a teacher. Really good with kids you know. If you're looking for any cards, we're happy to help out to get your decks off the ground. To all you cynics who never tried it, give it a go. To anyone looking to get into CCG's for the first time, it really is better than Magic.

Security Check. Please enter this code.