I started this with the intention of helping out a member who was interested in learning the game. But the PMs are so limited in how much info you can send at a time that I decided to make this thread, adding onto it as I go. I'm making this up as I go along, but I thought it might be beneficial for everyone interested in the game, and a little more straight forward and "everyman" then the rule book. Give me time though, I'm not going to post everything at once, and I'll get into keywords a little bit later. But I think a more conversational approach to the game might make it less aloof then the rule book or the Comprehensive Rules.
Also I'm teaching from the perspective that the person I'm talking too has knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! and not of a different game like Magic: The Gathering, for example.
Essentials
2The game is a basic attack and defend strategy type game. All players will start with 50 endurance points each and whoever gets put below that looses the game. Your deck must be 60 cards minimum. Each card is limited to 4 a piece, with the notable exception of character cards with the version "Army". I'll get into that later, but for right now, know that army character cards are unlimited. You can have a 60 card deck of nothing but army character cards, if you so choose.
There are four types of cards. Character Cards do your attacking and defending and they all have special powers. There are blue Plot Twist cards that have various types of modifiers. The green Location Cards are akin to Continuous Spell Cards in that they have a face-up effect that can have a bearing on the game as well. And you have Equipment Cards which attach to your characters and also modify the game state.
Your discard pile is called your KO'd pile. Effects and powers can "KO" an object and they would end up going there. Other effects may simply "place" an object into your KO'd pile. This is different from KOing an object (remember the old "sent" vs "destroyed" distinction? This is similar.) Now that you've seen the similarities to Yu-Gi-Oh! here are the significant differences.
The Turn
2The turn progresses differently then in most games. All players draw two cards at the beginning of each turn. And all players will be given an opportunity to attack someone each turn. So there is no "your turn, my turn" in this game. What we do have is a thing called the "initiative". The initiative passes back and forth between players each turn. Whoever gets the initiative gets to set up his side of the field before his opponent gets to set up his side each turn. After both players have set up their field this turn, the initiative player gets to attack his opponent first. Then if his opponent is able, he can attack back. Then the initiative is passed to the next player for the next turn.
The Zones
2I think we should get to the zones next. This will make explaining some other things easier. Technically, any place where an object or effect can exist is considered a zone. The deck is in your Deck Zone, your hand is the Hand Zone and the chain is called the Chain Zone, etc. Rarely will anyone refer to them that way, and the game effects will just call them the hand, deck and so on, but its good to know.
Now, some other game zones you'll need to know are the three rows in front of you, from back to front.
The row closest to you is called your Resource Row. Your Deck should be lined up with this row (just like your deck lines up with your Spell/Trap Zones in Yu-Gi-Oh!). Each turn you'll take one card from your hand and place it face-down into your resource row. It can be any type of card, but note that only Plot Twists and Locations can be played (flipped) from this row.
The remaining two rows are called called your Support Row and your Front Row respectively. You can only recruit character cards and equipment cards into your front and support rows. Equipments can only only be recruited if they are being recruited onto a character.
Characters and Character Cards
2 Character cards do not become characters until they resolve onto the field. This matters if a power refers to a "character" and not a "character card".
Spidey, here, is a 3 cost character card (the number in the upper left hand corner). Though not a game term, players have come to refer to a characters cost as his "drop". So this is the 3 Drop Spider-Man.
His ATK and DEF is on the bottom left corner. (4 ATK/5 DEF) You can barely see them on an actual card much less on this picture, but ATK and DEF stats have a little lightning bolt and shield symbol beside them respectively.
The text directly to the illustration's left is the character card's Team Affiliation. In this case, Spider-Friends.
Now some characters will have these little :W: and
: symbols just above their ATK/DEF stats. These are important abilities of the character. A character can have either one or both of these symbols.
:flight: means the character card has Flight. What this means is that, sometimes your opponent may have a character in his support row with a character directlyin front of it in his front row. That support row character is considered "protected". Your characters cannot attack protected characters unless your character has flight.
:range: means that the character has Range. This is completely different from flight and people often get them confused in the beginning. You see, characters in your support row cannot attack from that row unless they have range. It doesn't matter if your character is protected or not, if it doesn't have range, it can't attack from the support row.
So a character with BOTH flight and range is a great combination, as it can attack from the support row and it can attack a protected character. There are also some effects that will give a character flight and/or range temporarily. If that happens, they are regarded just like they have these symbols. However, some effects may grant a character an ability to attack "as though" it had flight and/or range. This means that the character can attack as though it had these abilities, but is not considered to actually possess these abilities. (It can make a difference if a stat modifier is raising the ATK of all characters with flight, for example.)
Now, remember when I said we'd get into army character cards? Well, here goes. Just below a character card's name in small print is that character's "version". So Spider-Man up above had the version "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" and Hal Jordan had the version "Green Lantern of Sector 2814". But Wild Sentinel right here has the version "Army". Army character cards have no limitation on how many you can have in your deck. Whereas all other cards can only have four copies, these babies can stack up to as many as you want.
This also gets into another aspect of character cards I haven't mentioned yet. Uniqueness.
Characters are "Unique". What this keyword means is that you cannot have more then one copy of a character with the same name on the field at the same time. So just like in real life, there can't be more then one of you at any given place or time. If you were to recruit the "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" version of Spider-Man and the "New Fantastic Four" version of Spider-Man was already on the field you would have to place the "New Fantastic Four" version into your KO'd pile. (Note: This is different from "KOing" the object. It's "sent" vs "destroy" all over again.)
Notice, too, that it doesn't matter that one Spider-Man had the Spider-Friends team affiliation and the other had the Fantastic Four team affiliation. They still shared the same name, so the one previously on the field would have to be placed in the KO'd pile.
Army character cards, however, do not possess the Unique characteristic. In addition to the fact that you can have as many army cards as you want in your deck, you can have multiple copies of army characters with the same name on the field at the same time.
One more little detail I should mention about characters. Some characters have a <> symbol in their name.
The name after the <> symbol is the character's "Identity". Identities are not used when determining uniqueness. So you would still have to place the 6 Drop Azrael (Jean Paul Valley) into your KO'd pile if you recruited the 7 Drop Azrael (Knightfall).
EDIT: Something important that I left out, I only inferred it regarding Spider-Man. "Uniqueness" does not apply to Deck construction. You can have four copies of Azraels and four copies of Azrael <> Batman in your deck.
Recruiting Characters
2With regards to characters, lets get into Game Play a little bit. Remember when I said that each turn a player may place a card face-down into his resource row? If both players do this each turn, then that means on turn 1 you'll both have 1 resource point. Turn two, you'll both have 2. On turn 3, 3. And so, and so forth. Each one of these cards, whether they are face-up or face-down, represents 1 resource point.
So that's where the cost (drop) of each character comes into play.
Talia, Beloved Daughter, here, is a 2 Drop character card. That means that your going to need to have a least 2 resources (2 resource points) in your resource row to bring her out onto the field. Bringing her out in this way spends those resource point for that turn. This is called "recruiting" a character.
You'll notice that the higher the cost of character, the higher his or her (or its) stats are. And since recruiting them is based on the number of resources in your resource row, then that means the farther along the game gets, the more powerful the characters coming into play are going to become. This has a huge impact on deck construction.
Obviously, the 2 ATK/2 DEF of Talia is not going to do much good against the 16 ATK/14 DEF of the 7 Drop Azrael from ealier. So on turn 7, where you should now have 7 resources in your resource row, your really going to want to have a 7 cost character to bring out. Similarly on turn 2, if all you have is characters with a cost of 3 or higher in your hand your not going to be able to recruit anything. Having the correct cost character for each turn is called getting your "curve". And while that is also not a game term, that it is how players have come to refer to it.
Also note that I said you "may" place a card face-down into your resource row. While in most cases it probably isn't wise not to, it should be noted that it is entirely optional.
Hidden Characters
2You know, I thought about skipping these and saving them for when we got into keywords, but I think they bear mentioning now since we are talking about characters.
There is a separate area that was added to the game with the release of the Marvel Knights expansion set. This area is called your "hidden area". Your front row and your support row extend into your hidden area (but not your resource row). This effectively splits your field up into two areas. Your hidden area and your visible area.
These character cards are darker in color then the regular character card and have either the words "Concealed" or "Concealed-Optional" in their card text. When you see the keywords "Concealed" then these characters can ONLY be recruited into your hidden area. When you see the keywords "Concealed-Optional" then these characters can be recruited into either your hidden or visible area.
You'll hear these characters referred to as "Hidden Characters", "Shadow Characters", "Concealed Characters". They all refer to the same thing. A character in the hidden area can attack your opponent's visible area. But a character that is hidden cannot be attacked by a character in either area.
In the event you only control hidden characters then you can only be attacked directly.
Equipments
2 Equipment cards are recruited just like a character card. You must have the appropriate number of resource points in order to be able to recruit one. However, equipment cards are not unique like character cards are
So if your on turn 3 and you have 3 resources in your resource row. You could not recruit a 3 cost character card and Batmobile because that would spend 4 resource points. You could recruit either a 2 cost character card and Batarang or a 1 cost character card and Batarang (since you don't HAVE to spend all your resource points each turn. Please note that your unspent resource points do not carry over to the next turn and are lost once the recruit step is over)
An equipment card MUST be recruited from your hand and onto a character already in play. You can't just recruit one onto the field unequipped.
Hidden characters cannot be equipped with regular equip cards, so if an equipped character were to be moved by an effect to the hidden area, that equipment would be placed into your KO'd pile. Some equipments have the keyword "Concealed-Optional". These are special equipment cards that can be equipped to both hidden and visible chaarcters and will not go to the KO'd pile if the character moves in and out of the hidden area. (We'll get into how equipments interact with characters and battle later on.)
Also note that the recruitment effect of an equipment card is considered a targeting effect. This and effects that specifically use the word "target" in their text are the only targeting effects in the game.
Plot Twists
2These blue little beauties are the true "Easter Eggs" of the game. They provide modifiers to the game state much the way a Spell or Trap Card would. Plot twists are also not unique.
Plot Twists can be played from your resource row or from your hand. If played from your resource row they are merely flipped face-up but continue to maintain the resource characteristic. In other words you don't loose any resource points from flipping one face-up. If played from your hand they go directly to your KO'd pile. (They do not resolve in any zone like in Yu-Gi-Oh)
Plot twists also have costs in the top left corner of the card. These cost are completely different from the recruitment cost of a character or equipment card.
The cost of a plot twist is called a "Threshold Cost". Threshold costs do not spend resource points like recruit costs do. You merely have to have that many resources in your resource row.
For example, as long as I have at least 2 resources in my resource row I could play as many copies of Swing Line that turn as I wished. But if I didn't have at least 4 resources in my resource row, I couldn't play Prisoner of a Mad God.
When I finally do have 4 resources in my resource row, I could play as many 4 cost or lower Plot Twists as I have in my hand.
Some plot twists are Ongoing plot twists identified by that little clock symbol below the word "Plot Twist". These cards have an effect that remains active as long as they remain face-up in your resource row. But, the only portion of the effect that is continuous is the portion of the effect after the word "Ongoing:". The block of text before or seperate from the word "ongoing" might be a cost or it might be an effect that only works once, when the card is initially played.
Lets take a look at Darkseid Undenied up above:
Plot twists can have versions too:
These versions are "Team-Up" and "Construct" respectively. The purpose of versions on plot twists is to make them searchable by other effects and to interact with other modifiers. Other then that, they have no effect on how they are played. They can be played just like any other plot twist.
EDIT: Just a side note. These plot twists should all be the same shade of blue and that equipment should be a light gray (lighter then the Shadow Characters above it). The images are from different sources so the color outputs are slightly different.
Locations
2Locations are similar to Ongoing Plot Twists in that they have an effect that is only active while they are face up on the field. The difference though is that they can ONLY be played from your resource row. You cannot play a location fom your hand.
Locations also do not spend resource points. Like Plot Twists you only have to have that many resources in your resource row to flip one.
But locations ARE unique. If you already have a location face-up in your resource row and you flip another location with the same name, then the previous location will be place into your KO'd pile.
Locations can also have versions, but again, this is for the purpose of searchng and other modifiers and doesn't affect thier overall playability.
Powers, Effects and Modifiers
2LOL, There's a really long section on this in the Comprehensive Game Rules, but lets break it down to basics shall we?
The three types of powers a card can have are Payment, Triggered and Continuous. Having played Yu-Gi-Oh! long enough it should be fairly easy, if not easier, to identify continuous and triggered powers.
For example triggered powers will use the words "at the start of", "when" or "whenever". These effects wait for a certain condition to be met, trigger when that condition is met and then the effect is placed on the chain.
Continuous poweres do not use the chain. Just like a continuous effect in Yu-Gi-Oh!, it is active as long as its source is face-up on the field.
Also note that an Ongoing effect is not a Continuous effect. It can be, but isn't one by default. What I mean is, the Ongoing abiltiy might be a Trigger or a Payment effect. Its just one that you can activate or trigger as long as the card is face-up in your resource row. Location often have these types of effects as well. Think of it like a face-up Ultimate Offering. As long as its face-up its effect can be activated multiple times. The only difference here is that the card text on an VS card will be blatently obvious as to what kind of power it is.
Payment powers are the most obvious powers in the game. A payment power will have the cost for the effect first, followed by an arrow, followed by the effect your paying for.
Also I'm teaching from the perspective that the person I'm talking too has knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! and not of a different game like Magic: The Gathering, for example.
Essentials
2The game is a basic attack and defend strategy type game. All players will start with 50 endurance points each and whoever gets put below that looses the game. Your deck must be 60 cards minimum. Each card is limited to 4 a piece, with the notable exception of character cards with the version "Army". I'll get into that later, but for right now, know that army character cards are unlimited. You can have a 60 card deck of nothing but army character cards, if you so choose.
There are four types of cards. Character Cards do your attacking and defending and they all have special powers. There are blue Plot Twist cards that have various types of modifiers. The green Location Cards are akin to Continuous Spell Cards in that they have a face-up effect that can have a bearing on the game as well. And you have Equipment Cards which attach to your characters and also modify the game state.
Your discard pile is called your KO'd pile. Effects and powers can "KO" an object and they would end up going there. Other effects may simply "place" an object into your KO'd pile. This is different from KOing an object (remember the old "sent" vs "destroyed" distinction? This is similar.) Now that you've seen the similarities to Yu-Gi-Oh! here are the significant differences.
The Turn
2The turn progresses differently then in most games. All players draw two cards at the beginning of each turn. And all players will be given an opportunity to attack someone each turn. So there is no "your turn, my turn" in this game. What we do have is a thing called the "initiative". The initiative passes back and forth between players each turn. Whoever gets the initiative gets to set up his side of the field before his opponent gets to set up his side each turn. After both players have set up their field this turn, the initiative player gets to attack his opponent first. Then if his opponent is able, he can attack back. Then the initiative is passed to the next player for the next turn.
The Zones
2I think we should get to the zones next. This will make explaining some other things easier. Technically, any place where an object or effect can exist is considered a zone. The deck is in your Deck Zone, your hand is the Hand Zone and the chain is called the Chain Zone, etc. Rarely will anyone refer to them that way, and the game effects will just call them the hand, deck and so on, but its good to know.
Now, some other game zones you'll need to know are the three rows in front of you, from back to front.
The row closest to you is called your Resource Row. Your Deck should be lined up with this row (just like your deck lines up with your Spell/Trap Zones in Yu-Gi-Oh!). Each turn you'll take one card from your hand and place it face-down into your resource row. It can be any type of card, but note that only Plot Twists and Locations can be played (flipped) from this row.
The remaining two rows are called called your Support Row and your Front Row respectively. You can only recruit character cards and equipment cards into your front and support rows. Equipments can only only be recruited if they are being recruited onto a character.
Characters and Character Cards
2 Character cards do not become characters until they resolve onto the field. This matters if a power refers to a "character" and not a "character card".
Spidey, here, is a 3 cost character card (the number in the upper left hand corner). Though not a game term, players have come to refer to a characters cost as his "drop". So this is the 3 Drop Spider-Man.
His ATK and DEF is on the bottom left corner. (4 ATK/5 DEF) You can barely see them on an actual card much less on this picture, but ATK and DEF stats have a little lightning bolt and shield symbol beside them respectively.
The text directly to the illustration's left is the character card's Team Affiliation. In this case, Spider-Friends.
Now some characters will have these little :W: and
: symbols just above their ATK/DEF stats. These are important abilities of the character. A character can have either one or both of these symbols.:flight: means the character card has Flight. What this means is that, sometimes your opponent may have a character in his support row with a character directlyin front of it in his front row. That support row character is considered "protected". Your characters cannot attack protected characters unless your character has flight.
:range: means that the character has Range. This is completely different from flight and people often get them confused in the beginning. You see, characters in your support row cannot attack from that row unless they have range. It doesn't matter if your character is protected or not, if it doesn't have range, it can't attack from the support row.
So a character with BOTH flight and range is a great combination, as it can attack from the support row and it can attack a protected character. There are also some effects that will give a character flight and/or range temporarily. If that happens, they are regarded just like they have these symbols. However, some effects may grant a character an ability to attack "as though" it had flight and/or range. This means that the character can attack as though it had these abilities, but is not considered to actually possess these abilities. (It can make a difference if a stat modifier is raising the ATK of all characters with flight, for example.)
Now, remember when I said we'd get into army character cards? Well, here goes.
Just below a character card's name in small print is that character's "version". So Spider-Man up above had the version "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" and Hal Jordan had the version "Green Lantern of Sector 2814". But Wild Sentinel right here has the version "Army". Army character cards have no limitation on how many you can have in your deck. Whereas all other cards can only have four copies, these babies can stack up to as many as you want.This also gets into another aspect of character cards I haven't mentioned yet. Uniqueness.
Characters are "Unique". What this keyword means is that you cannot have more then one copy of a character with the same name on the field at the same time. So just like in real life, there can't be more then one of you at any given place or time. If you were to recruit the "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man" version of Spider-Man and the "New Fantastic Four" version of Spider-Man was already on the field you would have to place the "New Fantastic Four" version into your KO'd pile. (Note: This is different from "KOing" the object. It's "sent" vs "destroy" all over again.
)Notice, too, that it doesn't matter that one Spider-Man had the Spider-Friends team affiliation and the other had the Fantastic Four team affiliation. They still shared the same name, so the one previously on the field would have to be placed in the KO'd pile.
Army character cards, however, do not possess the Unique characteristic. In addition to the fact that you can have as many army cards as you want in your deck, you can have multiple copies of army characters with the same name on the field at the same time.
One more little detail I should mention about characters. Some characters have a <> symbol in their name.
The name after the <> symbol is the character's "Identity". Identities are not used when determining uniqueness. So you would still have to place the 6 Drop Azrael (Jean Paul Valley) into your KO'd pile if you recruited the 7 Drop Azrael (Knightfall).
EDIT: Something important that I left out, I only inferred it regarding Spider-Man. "Uniqueness" does not apply to Deck construction. You can have four copies of Azraels and four copies of Azrael <> Batman in your deck.
Recruiting Characters
2With regards to characters, lets get into Game Play a little bit. Remember when I said that each turn a player may place a card face-down into his resource row? If both players do this each turn, then that means on turn 1 you'll both have 1 resource point. Turn two, you'll both have 2. On turn 3, 3. And so, and so forth. Each one of these cards, whether they are face-up or face-down, represents 1 resource point.
So that's where the cost (drop) of each character comes into play.
Talia, Beloved Daughter, here, is a 2 Drop character card. That means that your going to need to have a least 2 resources (2 resource points) in your resource row to bring her out onto the field. Bringing her out in this way spends those resource point for that turn. This is called "recruiting" a character.
You'll notice that the higher the cost of character, the higher his or her (or its) stats are. And since recruiting them is based on the number of resources in your resource row, then that means the farther along the game gets, the more powerful the characters coming into play are going to become. This has a huge impact on deck construction.
Obviously, the 2 ATK/2 DEF of Talia is not going to do much good against the 16 ATK/14 DEF of the 7 Drop Azrael from ealier. So on turn 7, where you should now have 7 resources in your resource row, your really going to want to have a 7 cost character to bring out. Similarly on turn 2, if all you have is characters with a cost of 3 or higher in your hand your not going to be able to recruit anything. Having the correct cost character for each turn is called getting your "curve". And while that is also not a game term, that it is how players have come to refer to it.
Also note that I said you "may" place a card face-down into your resource row. While in most cases it probably isn't wise not to, it should be noted that it is entirely optional.
Hidden Characters
2You know, I thought about skipping these and saving them for when we got into keywords, but I think they bear mentioning now since we are talking about characters.
There is a separate area that was added to the game with the release of the Marvel Knights expansion set. This area is called your "hidden area". Your front row and your support row extend into your hidden area (but not your resource row). This effectively splits your field up into two areas. Your hidden area and your visible area.
These character cards are darker in color then the regular character card and have either the words "Concealed" or "Concealed-Optional" in their card text. When you see the keywords "Concealed" then these characters can ONLY be recruited into your hidden area. When you see the keywords "Concealed-Optional" then these characters can be recruited into either your hidden or visible area.
You'll hear these characters referred to as "Hidden Characters", "Shadow Characters", "Concealed Characters". They all refer to the same thing. A character in the hidden area can attack your opponent's visible area. But a character that is hidden cannot be attacked by a character in either area.
In the event you only control hidden characters then you can only be attacked directly.
Equipments
2 Equipment cards are recruited just like a character card. You must have the appropriate number of resource points in order to be able to recruit one. However, equipment cards are not unique like character cards are
So if your on turn 3 and you have 3 resources in your resource row. You could not recruit a 3 cost character card and Batmobile because that would spend 4 resource points. You could recruit either a 2 cost character card and Batarang or a 1 cost character card and Batarang (since you don't HAVE to spend all your resource points each turn. Please note that your unspent resource points do not carry over to the next turn and are lost once the recruit step is over)
An equipment card MUST be recruited from your hand and onto a character already in play. You can't just recruit one onto the field unequipped.
Hidden characters cannot be equipped with regular equip cards, so if an equipped character were to be moved by an effect to the hidden area, that equipment would be placed into your KO'd pile. Some equipments have the keyword "Concealed-Optional". These are special equipment cards that can be equipped to both hidden and visible chaarcters and will not go to the KO'd pile if the character moves in and out of the hidden area. (We'll get into how equipments interact with characters and battle later on.)
Also note that the recruitment effect of an equipment card is considered a targeting effect. This and effects that specifically use the word "target" in their text are the only targeting effects in the game.
Plot Twists
2These blue little beauties are the true "Easter Eggs" of the game. They provide modifiers to the game state much the way a Spell or Trap Card would. Plot twists are also not unique.
Plot Twists can be played from your resource row or from your hand. If played from your resource row they are merely flipped face-up but continue to maintain the resource characteristic. In other words you don't loose any resource points from flipping one face-up. If played from your hand they go directly to your KO'd pile. (They do not resolve in any zone like in Yu-Gi-Oh)
Plot twists also have costs in the top left corner of the card. These cost are completely different from the recruitment cost of a character or equipment card.
The cost of a plot twist is called a "Threshold Cost". Threshold costs do not spend resource points like recruit costs do. You merely have to have that many resources in your resource row.
For example, as long as I have at least 2 resources in my resource row I could play as many copies of Swing Line that turn as I wished. But if I didn't have at least 4 resources in my resource row, I couldn't play Prisoner of a Mad God.
When I finally do have 4 resources in my resource row, I could play as many 4 cost or lower Plot Twists as I have in my hand.
Some plot twists are Ongoing plot twists identified by that little clock symbol below the word "Plot Twist". These cards have an effect that remains active as long as they remain face-up in your resource row. But, the only portion of the effect that is continuous is the portion of the effect after the word "Ongoing:". The block of text before or seperate from the word "ongoing" might be a cost or it might be an effect that only works once, when the card is initially played.
Lets take a look at Darkseid Undenied up above:
The first block of text is not the continuous portion of the effect. So you would get that effect once, when it was first played, just like a regular plot twist. However, if you didn't need to use the ongoing effect, you could play the plot twist from your hand to gain the non-ongoing effect. In this case, if Darkseid Undenied is played from the hand, you replace a non-ongoing plot twist an opponent controls and everyone would loose endurance points. The plot twist would be placed in the KO'd pile when played and you would not gain the ongoing effect.
Plot twists can have versions too:
These versions are "Team-Up" and "Construct" respectively. The purpose of versions on plot twists is to make them searchable by other effects and to interact with other modifiers. Other then that, they have no effect on how they are played. They can be played just like any other plot twist.
EDIT: Just a side note. These plot twists should all be the same shade of blue and that equipment should be a light gray (lighter then the Shadow Characters above it). The images are from different sources so the color outputs are slightly different.
Locations
2Locations are similar to Ongoing Plot Twists in that they have an effect that is only active while they are face up on the field. The difference though is that they can ONLY be played from your resource row. You cannot play a location fom your hand.
Locations also do not spend resource points. Like Plot Twists you only have to have that many resources in your resource row to flip one.
But locations ARE unique. If you already have a location face-up in your resource row and you flip another location with the same name, then the previous location will be place into your KO'd pile.
Locations can also have versions, but again, this is for the purpose of searchng and other modifiers and doesn't affect thier overall playability.
Powers, Effects and Modifiers
2LOL, There's a really long section on this in the Comprehensive Game Rules, but lets break it down to basics shall we?
The three types of powers a card can have are Payment, Triggered and Continuous. Having played Yu-Gi-Oh! long enough it should be fairly easy, if not easier, to identify continuous and triggered powers.
For example triggered powers will use the words "at the start of", "when" or "whenever". These effects wait for a certain condition to be met, trigger when that condition is met and then the effect is placed on the chain.
Continuous poweres do not use the chain. Just like a continuous effect in Yu-Gi-Oh!, it is active as long as its source is face-up on the field.
Also note that an Ongoing effect is not a Continuous effect. It can be, but isn't one by default. What I mean is, the Ongoing abiltiy might be a Trigger or a Payment effect. Its just one that you can activate or trigger as long as the card is face-up in your resource row. Location often have these types of effects as well. Think of it like a face-up Ultimate Offering. As long as its face-up its effect can be activated multiple times. The only difference here is that the card text on an VS card will be blatently obvious as to what kind of power it is.
Payment powers are the most obvious powers in the game. A payment power will have the cost for the effect first, followed by an arrow, followed by the effect your paying for.
The secondary effect of The Demon, Jason Blood is even clearer since it uses the word "pay". This is the cost for the effect. After the arrow is the effect your payed for. Just like in Yu-Gi, payments are made before effects are added to the chain and are non-refundable
A subset of payment powers are powers called "activated powers" How do you identify them? Because they use the word "Activate". Woo Hoo!
Activate is a very simple term. If a card is vertical (what the game refers to as "ready") then you take that card and turn it horizontal (the game refers to that as "exhausted"). Paying for an Activated effect simple means changning the orientation of the card in this manner or "exhausting" it. An exhausted card is a card turned sideways. So what this is going to mean is that you'll have to wait until the card is "ready" again in order to use the effect again. And we'll get into the ready and exhausted characteristics later on too.
Lastly I should say aside from the equipment recruit effect, the only other effects that are targeting in this game are cards that use the word "target" in their card text. "Select", "choose", pointing at your opponent and going pbthhhhh, none of these are targeting effects.
The Chain
2<shudder> Not to worry, The chain is relatively simply.
2<shudder> Not to worry, The chain is relatively simply.
I'm told that Yu-Gi-Oh! is unique with its chain, in that ours builds and resolves differently than most games. I've never played any other games besides these two, so I can only speak from a Yu-Gi perspective. But I know like VS' chain better.
Put simply, as the intiative player you have priority to build the chain first. EVERYTHING, except attacks and continuous effects use the chain. Drawing cards at the start of the turn uses the chain. Recruiting a character or equipment uses the chain. And of course Triggered and Payment powers use the chain. And that I find refreshingly simple.
The only time things may get complicated is when we build the chain. As I stated, as the intiative player you get first dibs at bulding the chain. Yes, I said "build", not just start the chain. When you have priority in this game you get to add effects to the chain BEFORE you pass to your opponent.
Once your done building the chain, priority goes to them and they can choose to either pass or build onto the existing chain and then pass back to you. And so on and so forth
If two players pass one after the other in succession, the last effect added to the chain resolves. (Sound familiar?)
Now, to you Yu-Gi-Oh! players, this is where things dramatically differ. Once that effect resolves off the chain, then the person that priority was passed to can start adding on to the existing chain. (!!)
Yes, and the whole proces starts over again. Simply put an effect does not resolve off the chain until both players pass in succesion.
Example? I'm glad you asked:
Player A has the intiative and plays an effect that gets added to the chain.
Player A decides to chain another efect to Chain Link 1.
Player A then decides to chain another effect to Chain Link 2.
Player A passes. (There are now 3 Links on the chain)
Player A decides to chain another efect to Chain Link 1.
Player A then decides to chain another effect to Chain Link 2.
Player A passes. (There are now 3 Links on the chain)
Player B recives priority and chains an effect to Chain Link 3.
Player B then decides to chain another effect to chain Link 4.
Player B passes. (There are now 5 lnks on this chain)
Player B then decides to chain another effect to chain Link 4.
Player B passes. (There are now 5 lnks on this chain)
Payer A recieves back his priority and passes.
Since both players passed in succession Chain Link 5 can now resolve.
Player A regains priority since Player B passed and now chains another effect to Chain Link 4. (There are now 5 links on the chain, again.)
I could go on but do you see what happened after chain link 5 resolved? The last player that priority got passed to was allowed to add another link onto the already existing chain.
As I said before an effect wont resolve off the chain until both players pass in succesion for each link. And each time they are allowed to add onto the chain as effect resolve off of it. Cool, huh?
Phases
2 I wont get into any complexities about the game phases. Not that it really IS complex. But the rule book has a rather lengthy section on this as well the Comprehensive Rules.
2 I wont get into any complexities about the game phases. Not that it really IS complex. But the rule book has a rather lengthy section on this as well the Comprehensive Rules.
The phases are actually quite simple. There are four phases which both players share each turn. Within these phases are "steps" that are carried out induvidually be each player
The Draw Phase
In the Draw Phase both players draw two cards. This is actually a Game Based effect that triggers at the start of each turn and can be chained to. The effect reads: "each player draws two cards" So you both draw at the same time
The Build Phase
The Build Phase has three steps. Each player does not conduct these step at the same time. All three steps are performed by the initiative player first and then by the next opponent:
The Resource Step: This is where you may place one card from your hand face-down into your resource row.
The Recruit Step: This is technically the only time you have any resource points. At this time you would recruit a character card or an equipmant card from your hand.
The Formation Step: Here's where you get to arrange the order of your character cards on the field. You can arrange them any way you want to in your Front or Support Rows. This does not mean you can move a character in your hidden area to your visible area nor vice-versa.
The Formation Step: Here's where you get to arrange the order of your character cards on the field. You can arrange them any way you want to in your Front or Support Rows. This does not mean you can move a character in your hidden area to your visible area nor vice-versa.
The Combat Phase
Each player conducts his own Attack Step in this phase starting with the initiative player. For every attack declared there is an attack substep.
The Recovery Phase
At this phase, if all players have passed on a empty chain, (meaning nobody plans on playing anymore effects) we proceed to a set of actions called the "wrap-up". At this point, no one has priority any longer. This is also the section of the game where game losses are determined. At this phase, endurance is checked and any player with endurance under 0 looses the game. (You don't loose the game if your endurance drops to 0 or lower until this phase of the game) If all players have endurance less than 0 at this time, the player with the lowest negative number losses.
Your allowed to activate any effects that can be properly activated at anytime, during any of these phases as long as you follow the rules of priority.
Combat
2The combat phase is the most difficult for me, not because it's actually hard. But because I stink at math. Even single digit numbers. lol For anybody else and comparing to Yu-Gi's Damage Step, its a breeze of cake...er...you know what I mean.
2The combat phase is the most difficult for me, not because it's actually hard. But because I stink at math. Even single digit numbers. lol For anybody else and comparing to Yu-Gi's Damage Step, its a breeze of cake...er...you know what I mean.
I wont get into legality of attacks here. I want to simplify it first.
In order to attack with a character, your character must be ready (in a vertical position) and face-up. You can only attack face-up characters on your opponent's side of the game field. And that character your attacking must be in the visible area.
Let me explain orientation characteristics. A charcter that is face-up in the verticle position is considered "ready".Only a ready character can declare an attack.
A character in the horizontal position is considered "exhausted". You cannot attack with an exhausted character.
A character that is horizontal and face-down is considered "stunned". A stunned character's effect text is considered inactive, although you are still considered to control that character. Stunned characters cannot be attacked nor can they attack.
In your attack step you declare an attack with a proposed character on another ready or exhausted visible character. If nothing makes this attack illegal you will then proceed to the attack substep where your character will gain the "attacker" characterist" and he will exhaust (turn horizontal).
We wont get too into the complexities of effect that trigger or are played during the attack. But we will include a couple of simple and commenly played effects to better illustrate some things.
Your declaring an attack on your opponent's Granny Goodness here with your character, Iceman. In order to accomplish anything your Iceman is going to need higher ATK then Granny's DEF. So lets presume that after you declared your attack, you played the plot twist Savage Beatdown: "Target attacker gets +5 ATK this attack." Targeting Iceman, since he is an attacker at this point, will give him +5 ATK for this attack.
So Iceman's ATK is now at 8 instead of 3, larger then Granny's 5 DEF. After both players pass on an empty chain the attack will resolve. Granny is going to "stun". What this means is she'll gain the "exhausted" and "stunned" characteristic all at the same time. Since Iceman's ATK is 3 points higher then Granny's DEF your opponent is going to take 3 points of "breakthrough" damage to his endurance points.
In addition to that, when Granny stuns, your opponent will take endurance loss equal to granny's cost (3 in this case). So not only will he take the breakthrough damage from the attack, but he will also take "stun endurance loss". A grand total of 6 points of endurance. When Granny stuns and gains the two charateristics I mentioned (exhausted and stunned) your opponent would place Granny face down and horizontal. Just like in Yu-Gi-Oh! any powers she had would be inactive.
Now, lets play this attack again only this time, we'll throw in another effect. After Iceman becomes an attacker and you play Savage Beatdown you pass on the chain allowing your opponent to chain to Beatdown's effect. Instead of passing like he did in the last scenario, he chains a plot twist of his own targeting his Granny Goodness. Nasty Surprise: "Target defender gets +5 ATK this attack."
After Iceman becomes an attacker and you play Savage Beatdown you pass on the chain allowing your opponent to chain to Beatdown's effect. Instead of passing like he did in the last scenario, he chains a plot twist of his own targeting his Granny Goodness. Nasty Surprise: "Target defender gets +5 ATK this attack.""Now wait a minute!" you may be asking "What good is it going to do to increase Granny's ATK points? Wouldn't he want to increase her DEF points to keep her from stunning?"
Well, yes that would be nice to increase Granny's DEF. But truth be told, there are more ATK modifiers in this game then there are DEF modifiers. Or should I say, the modifiers in this game tend to favor ATK points more so then they do DEF points. Your opponent simply does not have the cards in hand to keep Granny from stunning this time around. But guess what? She doesn't need it.
Your opponent has now succesfully increased the ATK of his defending character by 5 points. Granny's ATK is now at 8. Granny's ATK wiil now be applied to Iceman's DEF. Which is only 4. That's right. The ATK of both characters involved in combat are applied to the DEF of both characters. If anyone's characters ATK is higher then (or equal to) the other's DEF, then the low DEF character will stun. So Iceman is going to stun.
The only difference here is, since Iceman is that attacker his controller will take no breakthrough damage. Only defenders take that loss. But his controller will take the stun endurance loss, the characters cost. So, you've succesfully inflicted 6 points of damage to your opponent, but you took 3 for your troubles. This is one of the fundamental strategies of the game. And what keeps most deck types on an even keel. Trying to do as much damage to your opponent as possible, while trying to take as little damage in the process as you can. It's what makes the game fun, in my opinion.
Now since assuming you've attacked with everyone you've cared to attack with, then the Combat Phase will carry over to your opponent. (It's the same turn still, so you still control the initiative) Now your opponent can choose to attack if he is willing and able. He'll have to control a ready character in order to atack you. If all his characters are stunned however, he'll be incapable of declaring an attack. Provided you've both passed on an empty chain again, play will progress to the Recovery Phase.
One more note on attacks. I mentioned that hidden characters can attack from the hidden area. And that regardless of whether a character was hidden or visible, it can only attack the visible area. It should be noted though, that you would still apply the ATK of the defender to the DEF of the attacker, even if the atacker is hidden. So a hidden attacker can still be stunned by an attack.
Reinforcement and Team Attacking
2 Though these are not the same thing they share a similarity that allows me to discuss them under one heading.
2 Though these are not the same thing they share a similarity that allows me to discuss them under one heading.
"Reinforcment" is a very simple game characterisitc. Characters in the support row are the only characters capable of reinforcing another character. Reinforcment prevents the "breakthrough" damage a player would normaly take, like in the exmaple with Granny Goodness and Iceman above.
All a Support Row character has to do to reinforce another character is to be directly adjacant to the character being attacked. Since he has to be in the Support Row to do this, then that means the defender he's reinforcing will have to be either directly in front of him (in the Front Row), directly to his left, or directly to his right (no gaps in between).
A character accomplishes reinforcment by simply exhausting. So in the example with Granny, if she had been protecting anybody (meaning she was in the Front Row and had a character directly behind her in the Support Row) then that character could have been exhausted, preventing the 3 points of breakthrough damage she she would have ordinarily taken. She would still take the stun endurance loss, but not the breakthrough.
Now here is the kicker. The only way a character in the Support Row can reinforce a character another charcter adjacent to it is if it shares the same team affiliation. Granny Goodness' team affiliation is Darkseid's Elite. Only another character with the Darkseid's Elite team affiliation could reinforce her.
This goes for all team affiliations, so this limits the amount of broken combos one can come up with without really working for it. There are a number of continuous effects that "team-up" two or more affiliations, but if your just starting the game I highly recommend that you don't start with a team-up deck. Start with a single affiliation and then go from there. Team-ups require a better understanding of the game and a little more experience to work effectively. Too many times I've seen a player start out with a team-up deck and quit the game because they couldn't win a game with it or pull off any combos. Aside from that, teams-ups will not neccessarily give you an advantage that a single affiliation won't.
"Team attacking" is also an abilty that requires all characters involved to share at least one Team Affiliation. Your opponent may have a large chararcter on the field. And none of your charactes have high enough ATK points to take it down. If they all share at least one team affiliation, you can declare a team attack with them.
Team attacks work just like a regular attack. You declare that you are team attacking and select each character you want to team attack with. Each of these charcters will exhaust just like in a regular attack, and thier combined ATK points will be apllied to the defence of the defending character.
Now in a regular attack, the defender's ATK points are applied to the attackes DEF points. (That's what made the attacking Iceman stun in the last example) but we have multiple attackers here. What happens? Well, your opponent chooses which attacker his defending character's ATK will apply to. More often then not, your opponent will choose the attacker with a DEF low enough to stun him. In that case, only that team attacker will stun. The rest wil simply remain exhausted.
In addition, team attackers can't attack in a way that they couldn't attack normaly. What I mean is, if one team attacker has "range", that doesn't mean all your team attackers have range. If one team atacker has "flight", that doesn't mean they all have flight. You couldn't declare a team attack on a "protected" character unless all characters that were team attacking had flight. You couldn't team attack with a character from the Support Row if he didn have range. All characters involed in a team attack must have the abilty to attack from those position normally.
Hidden characters can team attack with visible characters. The defenders ATK points can still be applied to the hidden characters DEF as usual, if the defending player so chooses.
Recovery
2This little phase of the game will be the last thing I'll cover. Remember when I said you could activate any appropriate effect during any phase as long as it could be properly activated and as long as you follow the rules of priority? We'll you can do that here to, but once both players pass on an empty chain your going to poceed to something called the "wrap-up". Once we procceed to the wrap-up, no one has priority any longer. But any effects that trigger during this part of the game will be added to the chain at the start of the next turn's Draw Phase.
2This little phase of the game will be the last thing I'll cover. Remember when I said you could activate any appropriate effect during any phase as long as it could be properly activated and as long as you follow the rules of priority? We'll you can do that here to, but once both players pass on an empty chain your going to poceed to something called the "wrap-up". Once we procceed to the wrap-up, no one has priority any longer. But any effects that trigger during this part of the game will be added to the chain at the start of the next turn's Draw Phase.
During the Wrap-up starting with the primary player, each player gets to "recover" one stunned character he controls. Recover means to flip that character face-up. Recovering a character is different from "readying" a character in that all you do is flip it face-up but it remains exhausted (horizontal). After you choose the character you want to recover, you will KO (Yes, your actually KOing them this time ) whatever remaining stunned characters you have left.
) whatever remaining stunned characters you have left.After your done KOing these characters, you can now ready all objects you control. So all your exhausted characters, including the one you just recovered, may now ready (turn vertical).
Notice I said you may ready all "objects" you control?
Resources have the abiltiy to be exhausted as well. Locations in paticular often have "activated" effects like Flying Fortress up here. Had this effect been used this turn, then Flying Fortress would have been exhausted. At the Recovery Phase your allowed to ready all of them. Some effects also have the ability to exhaust your resources, but activated effects are, by far, the most common.
And I mentioned this before, but I should mention it again, the Recovery Phase is where game losses are determined. If your endurance is dropped to 0 or lower during a turn, you don't loose the game until you reach the Recovery Phase for that turn.
It's also possibly for both players to be dropped below 0 before you get to the recovery phase. In that case, the player with the lowest (or highest depending on how you phrase it ) negative number will loose the game when the Recovery Phase is finally reached. So if one player has -6 endurance at the recovery phase and another player has -7 endurance, then the player with -7 looses the game.
) negative number will loose the game when the Recovery Phase is finally reached. So if one player has -6 endurance at the recovery phase and another player has -7 endurance, then the player with -7 looses the game.There are also a handful of modifiers that force a game loss before the recovery phase, through thier effect. These are similar to the effect of Last Turn. As a result, it's possible for a player to loose the game before the Recovery Phase through use of these effects. There are also a handful of effects that prevent you from loosing the game. Some even prevent you from winning the game. As long as these effects are active you cannot loose (or win depending on what the effect states) the game until thier sources are removed.
Last edited by a moderator:
