In a game of Vs. System TCG, each player starts with 50 “endurance”. Endurance represents the stamina, or staying power of your team of super-heroes or super-villains. At the end of a turn, if a player’s endurance is 0 or below they have lost. If both players are below 0, the person with the lowest endurance total loses.
During a single turn, both players get a chance to recruit characters and make attacks. To keep things organised, one player has the “initiative”. That player completes part of the turn before the other player. At the end of each turn, initiative is passed to the other player.
The game starts with each player drawing four cards.
Each turn is made up of four phases:
- Draw Phase
- Build Phase
o Resource Step
o Recruit Step
o Formation Step
- Combat Phase
- Recovery Phase
The player with the initiative completes a phase first and then the player without the initiative.
During the draw phase, a player draws two new cards.
The build phase is broken down into 3 steps. All three steps must be complete by the player with the initiative before the player without the initiative gets to complete their Build Phase.
During the Resource Step, each player gets to lay one card, face-down in their resource row. Every card in your resource row counts as a resource.
At the start of the Recruit Step you gain Resource Points equivalent to the number of cards in your resource row. You spend resource points to recruit characters and equipment.
During the Formation step you may move and re-organise any characters you control. You have a Front Row and a Support Row that you can place your characters in.
o Characters in the front row can attack. Characters in the support row can only attack if they have the Range attribute.
o A character in the front row is protecting any support row character immediately behind it. A protected character can only be attacked by an opposing character that has the Flight attribute.
During the combat phase, a player may declare attacks with a ready character they control. The attacking player declares which character they will be attacking with and which opposing character will be defending. The defender must be legal – in other words the attacking player could not declare a protected character as a defender unless the attacking character has flight.
During combat a player can lose endurance based on the result of combat. At the end of a turn, if a player is at 0 or less endurance, they lose.
For details on how combat works and how to really play the game, we highly recommend that you check out this demonstration program from Upperdeck Entertainment:
http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/marvel/en/images/flash/marvel_demo.swf
Here are some links to articles written with the new player in mind. They may help improve your understanding of the way the game works.
Basics : First Steps
Basics : Off Curve
Basics : Playing the Game
Basics: The Art of Tech
Basics: Gadgets
Recent Comments