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Why you really want to play Marvel, even if you haven't realised it yet.

Hello, my name is Michael and I'm an alc ...

Wait a minute, wrong support group.

Ehem, well my name is Michael and I do have a confession to make - I'm a comics geek.

It's not my only vice, though, because I've also been playing this really cool trading card game called Magic - The Gathering (maybe you've heard of it) for a seven or so years.

I know I'm preaching to the converted here when I say that, in my opinion, no other TCG has even come close to matching Magic's playability, varied strategic elements and the freedom it gives players to express themselves through customising and building their decks. Magic was the genesis of the whole TCG genre and it's not about to be dethroned by any upstarts.

But now, finally, there is another game that has the potential to be a worthy runner-up.

I was a bit under-enthused when I first heard about the Vs System and its first set, Marvel Origins. Sure I love comics and there's nothing I want more than a decent TCG that can bring the spandex set to "life", but previous efforts have been abysmal to say the least.

Over Power, Jim Lee's C-23 and numerous manga-inspired efforts ... all crap.

The first TCG I ever played was Decipher's Star Trek - The Next Generation. Sure the flavour of the game was decent - I mean, you get to fly up and down the Space/Time Continuum in the Enterprise for crying out loud - but the game was boring.

That's the basic problem I've encountered with all non-Magic TCGs. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who will agree with me and could expand on my list of games that have promised a lot and delivered little.

What Marvel Origins and the Vs System its built on does, however, is successfully deliver a fun and challenging game as well as the flavour.

For the purposes of this article, though, I want to hang up my comic-lover hat and just talk about why Marvel Origins is, as the advertising claims, "the best [new] TCG in a decade". In doing so, I hope to convince you that this is a game that you want to check out, even if you never decide to commit to collecting or playing it.

For experienced Magic slingers playing Marvel Origins has a touch of deja vu about it. There are creatures (characters), with power (attack), toughness (defence), casting cost (recruitment cost) and special/activated abilities (flight, range and activated powers). You can play a land (resource) every turn and there are fast and continuous effects. You tap (exhaust) and untap (ready) cards to use them and there is a stack (chain) to dictate how effects resolve and in what order. There are even phases and steps.

Apart from a couple of superficial differences, such as no alternating turns (players have a shared turn in which the initiative - the ability to do everything first - alternates), drawing two cards at the start of each turn, 50 endurance instead of 20 life, the ability to use any card as a resource (no “mana-screw” in this game) no summoning sickness (or would that be "recruitment reluctance") and the untap step is at the end of the turn, there's not much you can say about Marvel Origins to counter accusations that it's really just a Magic-clone.

That is, with the exception of one thing - combat.

The intricacies of combat in the Vs System are fundamentally different from Magic and that's where this game shines.

Marvel Origins, unlike Magic, is a game almost exclusively about combat. Keeping in mind that this is just the first set in a planned series of releases, right now it is impossible to win without characters and virtually impossible to survive without them.

Sure there are combos. There is a combo that allows you to play a recurring wrath-effect, KO'ing all characters each turn. There's another that enables you to bounce all characters each turn. Likewise there are discard and card denial strategies. There are swarm decks, stompy decks and control decks.

But, so far, regardless of what strategy you might want to employ, the path to victory is almost always swinging with characters. There's no casting a stormed Mind's Desire into a lethal Tendrils of Agony or Endless Whispers/Leveller shenanigans.

Unlike Magic, where the attacker declares an attack with as many creatures as he/she wants, aimed directly at the opponent, and then the defender chooses how to block and defend him/herself, Marvel Origins involves characters attacking characters. In fact, the only way to cause direct endurance loss is when there are no valid defending characters.

Now, for my mind, this fits in perfectly with the flavour of the game... but I'm not talking about that, remember. What it also does is change Marvel Origins from a Magic-clone (albeit a good one) to a fundamentally different game with different strategies, goals and focuses.

While a single untapped Darksteel Colossus in Magic is a less than stellar defender when 21 myr tokens are swarming in for the kill, Onslaught in Marvel Origins (yeah, there was a comic book villain named Onslaught years before there was a Magic set of that title) will protect his controller until he is stunned. This is because the attacking characters have to attack into any non-stunned characters and defeat them before they can go straight for the jugular.

This brings me to the final difference between combat in these two games that I want to talk about today... formations.

The Marvel Origins battlefield is broken up into two rows on each side - a front row and a support row. The front row is where your brawlers are. If you smooshed Magic and Marvel Origins together, the front row is where your goblins or Myr Enforcer would be. The support row is where your utility and, usually, smaller characters are. So in Magic Origins that's where Disciple of the Vault or your mana producers would be.

The front row characters protect the characters directly behind them, particularly so your opponent's Myr Enforcer can't just smash your Disciple of the Vault, while those in the support row can (if they belong to the same team) reinforce those in front of them. Reinforcement is an important part of defending yourself, as it stops this game's equivalent of trample damage - breakthrough endurance loss.

Good formation, therefore, is a vital component of Marvel Origins strategy. As the initiative player - who will get to attack first - you have to consider which is the best character to recruit; anticipate your opponent's recruitment and formation; and choose how to best configure your board to maximise the effectiveness of your attack and minimise the potential for an effective counter-attack.

The fact that the initiative player must recruit and form up his/her team before the defending player, means the latter then has the opportunity to adapt and try to get the best possible result.

On top of all of that are combat tricks, which are also a very important part of this game.

It all makes for a very decision-rich game. It is often said that Magic is as good a game as it is because of the number of decisions it presents players. While Marvel Origins does not necessarily present players any more decisions than Magic, most of those decisions involve combat, which makes for challenging scenarios and heaps of fun.

Finally, I want to briefly mention the development processes of the Vs System and Marvel Origins and the investment that its creators, Upper Deck Entertainment, are putting into this game.

A quick glance at the Marvel Origins credits is a who's who of the Magic world and former Wizards of the Coast employees. Upper Deck has recruited the likes of Jeff Donais, Robert Dougherty, David Humphreys, Darwin Kastle, Alex Shvartsman and - arguably the most famous of these - Zvi Mowshowitz for the design and development processes of the game. Marvel Origins has been carefully produced and rigorously play tested prior to release.

Broken cards have been kept to few if any and the early metagame is pretty varied, even if one kind of deck seems to be the most popular. The curve has been by and large maintained and there are no ways to dump a huge monster into play really early, ala Tooth and Nail, so the game is more likely to progress to the mid to late game.

There's another familiar name listed under "International Organised Play" in Australia's own Chris Zantides, who fulfilled a similar role for Magic's DCI.

In an effort to grow the game and ensure its longevity, its developers have put thier money where their mouths are and offered a million dollars in prize-money for its very own pro tour.

Upper Deck has gone to great pains to ensure that this ggreat pains to ensure that this game is solid and will continue to grow and develop. They seem to have acknowledged the fact that game players have grown tired and cynical about TCGs that leap up overnight and disappear just as fast, leaving players with a game that is no longer supported and cards that no one wants.

Even if you’ve never felt the tug of heroism (or villainy for that matter), if you like good games, you should check out Marvel Origins.

It takes less investment for a group of two to four people to pick up the starter pack (X-Men vs The Brotherhood) than it does to go to the movies and those first few games will surely last longer than the two or so hours it takes to watch the latest blockbuster. The game can be drafted or played in a sealed format, as well as constructed, so if you decide you like it and want to play more but don’t want to pour a tonne of money into it, that’s cheap and easy too. Furthermore, many of the cards are already fetching Arcbound Ravager-type prices, so you shouldn’t have too much difficulty recouping a lot of your costs if you want to bail out of the game after trying it out.

With future sets to focus on the iconic heroes and villains of the DC Universe (including Batman and The Joker) and the likes of Spider-Man and Dr Octopus, there’s plenty to look forward to.

Michael Pittman – AKA Ike E Bear

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