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Vs. System Update - February 2005
By Jeff Donais, Upper Deck, Game Development Group

Hi Folks,

Here's a quick update on Vs. System and a look at what's ahead for 2005.

New Players - New Blood and New Opponents

One of the main things we're trying to accomplish for 2005 is to attract more new TCG players to Vs. System.

To help with this, we've created new starter sets for the two upcoming blockbuster movies: Batman Begins and Fantastic Four. We'll try to get these decks into every store possible to help build the community. The goal is simple: Get players into the community through any store possible and guide them into hobby/gaming stores to become regular members of the community.

These two starter sets will obviously be themed around the movies and will contain cards that are very easy for new players to understand. We've even made the first "vanilla" cards for the FF starter set—characters without game text. That may not sound too exciting to experienced tournament players, but it's great for new players. These products are definitely targeted at new players although all players are welcome to use any of these cards in their official tournament decks.

I'd like to continue to see experienced players use these starter sets to teach people about the Vs. System. We've built the decks to be perfect for teaching. This is a great opportunity to bring a lot of newbies into the system for you experienced guys to play with (in very sporting fashion, of course).

Pro Circuit Qualifiers and $10K - Instant Cash

Starting this spring, PCQ winners will receive their prize money immediately following the PCQ championship match. UDE will start issuing cash cards to tournament organizers so that players don't have to go through the hassle of waiting for their paperwork to be processed and checks to be cut and sent through the mail. This will be very nice for players, organizers, and even the hard-working members of the UDE staff.

This instant payment program will definitely be in place for Oceania and North America and will eventually spread across the world.

For the Pro Circuit Players

As you know, our next Pro Circuit will be held in the excellent city of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Pro Circuit #4 will be held in New York City, with Pro Circuit #5 and #6 held at Gen Con Indy and Gen Con So Cal respectively. I'll announce the 2006 schedule in a few months, but Gen Con Indy and So Cal are definitely locked in for 2006, since Upper Deck will be the official TCG sponsor for Gen Con.

UDE is expanding the number of $10K Championship tournaments in 2005. We are tripling the number of events, with approximately 40 tournaments taking place around the world in 2005 and even more planned for 2006 and 2007.

One of the coolest things to happen recently was the $10K Championship at Gen Con So Cal that featured two divisions, one playing all DC Comics cards and another playing all Marvel. The winners of each division met in the finals, and the victor of that match doubled the prize money for everyone in his division. Everyone had a great time, and it created some new and interesting metagame decks. I got everyone at UDE thinking about how we could incorporate that theme into the Pro Circuit itself, and here's what we came up with.

We'll integrate the idea over the course of three Pro Circuits and two seasons of PCQ tournaments. This is how it works:

At Pro Circuit #3 in Amsterdam, all players will play Marvel only during the Constructed part of the tournament.

Immediately following Pro Circuit #3, we'll host a round of PCQs using the same format as the Pro Circuit.

Pro Circuit #4 in New York will be the regular Vs. System Constructed format, which we're calling "Golden Age". Nothing special happens here, except that it's in one of the coolest cities in the world and UDE will be giving away a quarter of a million dollars.

At Pro Circuit #5 at Gen Con Indy, all players will play DC Comics only during the Constructed part of the tournament.

Immediately following Pro Circuit #5, we'll host a PCQ round using the same format as Pro Circuit #5.

Pro Circuit #6 at Gen Con So Cal will feature the regular Vs. System Constructed format (Golden Age), but . . .

The Big Finale

The champion of Pro Circuit #3 (using his or her PC-winning Marvel deck) and the champion of Pro Circuit #5 (using his or her PC-winning a DC Comics deck) will both be flown, courtesy of UDE, to Gen Con So Cal to compete in a special match at Pro Circuit #6.

During that finale match, spectators will be encouraged to support their favorite team by wearing one of the many Vs. System t-shirts. PCQ winners from the Marvel-only and DC Comics–only PCQ rounds are particularly encouraged to wear those t-shirts because whoever wins that finale match will double the prize money of all PCQ winners for the appropriate PCQ round (Marvel or DC Comics).

I will personally hand each PCQ winner in attendance his or her extra prize money immediately following the final game. To be eligible, you must be supporting your "champion" by wearing the appropriate t-shirt, and you must be present at the match as the final game ends. If you are lucky or skilled enough to have won a PCQ of both formats, then you get to choose which player you support, but you can't support both.

Sound pretty nice? There's more. The winner of the final match will be handed a cool $5,000 cash immediately following the match and will receive a piece of original DC or Marvel art based on the team he or she represents—and I'll personally make sure it's a hyper-cool piece of art.

Not so Fast: To keep things fresh, the format for Pro Circuit #3 will only use the most recent two Marvel sets and the format for Pro Circuit #5 will only use the most recent last two DC sets.

These formats will be called "Marvel Modern Age" and "DC Modern Age" respectively and our regular Vs. System format will be known as "Golden Age". If the Modern Age formats work out well, we will use them in future years, and the R&D team will keep them in mind when designing new sets. The idea is that whenever there is a Marvel vs. DC showdown brewing, we'll use "Marvel Modern Age" and "DC Modern Age" in order to create fresh new metagames.

Another Note: If you are qualified for the Pro Circuit and have any trouble finding Marvel Knights in your local area over the next few weeks, please contact us at ude@upperdeck.com, and we'll find a nice distributor or retailer to FedEx some booster boxes to you at a fair price, anywhere in the world. But please, work with your local stores first and support them in any way you can. We really appreciate our international players and want to take care of them if they find themselves in a tough spot.


Pro Circuit Date PC Formats

#3 Amsterdam April 8-10 Marvel Modern Age (MSM, MMK) Constructed
1 Marvel Knights Draft, 2 Superman Drafts

#4 New York City May 26-29 Golden Age (All sets thru MMK) Constructed
1 Green Lantern Draft, 2 Marvel Knights Drafts

#5 Gen Con Indy Aug 18-21 DC Modern Age (DSM, DGL) Constructed
1 Avengers Draft, 2 Green Lantern Drafts

#6 Gen Con So Cal Nov 17-20 Golden Age (All sets thru MAV) Constructed 1 Justice League Draft, 2 Avengers Drafts


Unless otherwise announced, assume all other tournaments use Golden Age, which is our primary tournament format. We will continue to have a few $10K tournaments using Marvel Vs. DC split formats with the extra cash offered, since they seem to be very well received. If you have any suggestion for new and interesting formats for $10K tournaments, please email ude@upperdeck.com and make sure you mention my name.


A Million Bucks—For The Kids.

I am happy to announce the launch of our brand new $1,000,000 Scholarship Series.

Over the next few years, we'll give away $1,000,000 in scholarships for players of UDE games. Our primary focus will be Vs. System, but we'll also support other products, like our upcoming Winx collectible game, the Shaman King TCG, and new games for 2006 and 2007.

The first event will launch at Gen Con Indy 2005, and they'll be run on a regular basis following that. In coming weeks, expect announcements from Scott Elliott, our Organized Play Program Manager, with specific details about the $1,000,000 UDE Scholarship Series and schedule of tournaments.

For countries outside of North America, where school is much less expensive and scholarship money is less useful, we'll find something interesting to award to our younger players, such as computers (or socks).


World Championship—Thinking Ahead

With Vs. System steadily expanding to so many countries (even Canada!), it's time to start thinking about a World Championship. We have some incredible ideas for Worlds, and we’ll be announcing them as soon as they've been perfected. At this point, I think 2006 or late 2005 would be appropriate for a World Championship tournament.

We'll probably base invitations to Worlds on the number of tournament players in each country, so it's a good idea to continue building the community in your local country to ensure you receive a large number of invitations to Worlds. We'll also invite using other methods, which we can discuss in the next few months.

At our first World Championship I expect we'll see players from Brisbane to Brussels, Kansas City to Kuala Lumpur, Rio to Rome, Manila to Mexico City, and Toronto to Tokyo—and everything in between.


Upcoming Sets for 2005

Obviously, everyone knows that Marvel Knights officially releases in a week and has some new hotness in it.

The next set after Marvel Knights is Green Lantern, coming out during the summer. It includes my favorite Green Lantern, but I won't spoil who it is yet.

After Green Lantern come some very heavy hitters: Avengers during the fall and Justice League during early winter. Both of these sets feature an amazing piece of packaging art from Alex Ross that includes a large group of Avengers and JLA characters. You can tell which characters Mr. Ross likes best by their prominence on the art. Alex Ross also insisted on doing a very specific card from the JLA set, which I'll talk about in about seven months. All I’ll say now is that it's probably not who you think it is.


Stacker Cards

Those of you who attended the Marvel Knights Sneak Preview this weekend got to see the interesting new "stacker" cards. A big pat on the back goes to the Vs. System R&D team for putting out another neat idea.


The Final Word

Before signing off, I'd like to thank the amazing people connected to Vs. System, from the incredibly hard-working judges and tournament organizers, to the dedicated players, to the people who support the Vs. System community with dozens of articles and commentary every week on websites. Our goal is to make an amazing game with amazing support for you guys. Every day we get better at that job, and you continue to show us amazing support. We have a lifetime commitment to this game and to you.

I'll talk to you again soon.

Jeff Donais,
Director, Game Development Group
Upper Deck Entertainment