Vs. System (short for Versus System), also written as VS System and abbreviated as VS, is a card game (originally a more traditional, partially-randomized card distribution collectible card game (CCG), now in the style of a non-random, fixed-distribution Living Card Game (LCG)) designed by Upper Deck Entertainment (UDE). In the game, players build and play a deck of Vs. System cards in an attempt to win a game against their opponent. It was first published in 2004 and is set in the superhero genre. The game was discontinued by Upper Deck Entertainment in January 2009. It was announced at the 2014 Gen Con Indianapolis that UDE would be testing the crowd with a reprinted subset of Marvel Origins, as "Vs. System Living Card Game". UDE relaunched VS System at the 2015 Gen Con Indianapolis in its updated 2PCG format.
The sets of the Vs. System are based on the superheroic settings of Marvel and DC Comics, with the exception of a smaller set called the Hellboy Essential Collection. For the most part expansion sets alternated release between Marvel-based sets and DC Comics based sets with new sets every three to six months. All sets are interchangeable and compatible with each other and share the same card back. This allows players to mix characters fighting against or with each other.
Card art, characters, and gameplay concepts are inspired by their comic book appearances with the designers using what they describe as "top-down design", meaning they make every attempt to develop a character's card mechanics in keeping with how the character is represented in comic books. Well known artists that have contributed card art include Alex Ross, John Van Fleet, Alex Garner, Jim Lee, Rachel Dodson, and Bill Sienkiewicz.
The Vs. System attempts to emulate epic superhero battles. Each player starts the game with 50 "endurance points". If a player has zero or negative endurance at the end of the Recovery Phase, he or she is knocked out of the game. The Vs. System Comprehensive Rules has an in-depth explanation of every aspect of the game and is official for use in tournament judging.
There are four types of cards in the Vs. System, with color-coded frames: Character (usually red, but black for "concealed" characters), Equipment (gray), Location (green), and Plot Twist (blue). All four types of cards share a common layout.
Draw Phase: Each player simultaneously draws two cards from their deck.
Build Phase: Starting with the player holding the initiative, and going clockwise, each player completes the following steps:
Resource Step: You may place one card face down into the resource row.
Recruit Step: Spend resource points to recruit characters and/or equipment. Resource points are determined at the beginning of the Recruit step by how many cards a player has in his or her resource row.
Formation Step: Rearrange your characters between your front and support rows. You may also transfer "Transferable" equipment during this step.
Combat Phase: Starting with the player holding the initiative, each player has an "Attack Step" where they may declare attacks with the characters they control against their opponent's characters, or directly against an opposing player if they don't control any non-stunned visible characters. The player with the initiative attacks with all legal attackers, or until they wish to pass. Repeat this Attack Step for each player, going clockwise, from the player with the initiative. Once each person has completed their Attack Step, the Combat Phase ends and the Recovery Phase begins
Recovery Phase: At the end of the recovery phase, during the "wrap-up" portion, each player compares endurance totals, and all players with 0 or less endurance lose the game. If this would leave no players still in the game, the player with the highest endurance total wins the game. Then all players may simultaneously recover one stunned character, KO all remaining stunned characters, and ready all objects (characters, locations, equipment) they control. Once these steps are performed, the initiative passes clockwise to the next player, the Recovery Phase ends, and the next turn commences with the Draw Phase.
Grand Melee: A regular game of Vs. System for any number of players. Last man standing wins.
Team Alliance: A 2-on-2 game of Vs. System. Teammates sit across from each other. Plays just like grand melee, but teammates share an endurance total of 100 and cannot attack each other. Play until only one team is left.
Two-Headed Mutant: A 2-on-2 game of Vs. System. Teammates sit next to each other across from their opponents. Each team begins the game with 100 endurance. This game variant can be played with any number of people on either team, as long as the teams are even numbered. 50 endurance is added onto the total endurance score for each person on a team. Therefore, a Three-Headed Mutant would see a game with 150 endurance.
All cards are marked in the lower left with an expansion code or set code, a three-letter code identifying the set in which the card was published. The first letter of the set code indicates the setting (D for DC Comics and M for Marvel Comics), except for the Essential Collection set, which starts with the letter E.
Most Vs. System cards are released in expansion sets, of which there were a total of 18. The first 14 expansion sets all had either 165 or 220 cards, but starting with Marvel Legends, which had 273 cards, the size of expansion sets grew larger, peaking at 330 cards of the Marvel Universe set. Marvel Legends also debuted a card face layout redesign.
The game was also periodically supplemented by the release of starter deck sets, of which there were a total of 6. The starter deck sets each contained two playable 40 card mini-decks. They pitted two teams against each other, typically a "hero" team versus a "villain" team. The first 3 (X-Men vs. the Brotherhood, Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock, and Batman vs. the Joker) drew all their cards from other expansion sets. However, the last 3 (Batman, Fantastic Four, and X-Men) contained new cards not in expansions sets. Each of the last 3 starter sets also were published to coincide with an associated film also released that year (Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, and X-Men: The Last Stand, respectively). UDE had originally planned to release a 7th starter set, for Superman (to coincide with the 2006 Superman Returns movie), but that set ended up being cancelled and never released.
Additionally, UDE planned an Essential Collections line geared towards introducing characters from outside the Marvel and DC Universes. However, only one such set ever ended up being released, the Hellboy Essential Collection. It contained two pre-constructed 60-card decks, a comprehensive rule book, and a number of other extras. Like the starter decks, the Hellboy Essential Collection is tournament-legal.
UDE also planned a Giant-Size line. However, the only set ever published in the line was The Coming of Galactus, a set geared toward multiplayer play in which multiple players would be pitted against a single powerful player taking on the role of Galactus. All cards in the set were legal for tournament play, with the exception of an oversized Galactus card and "Planet" cards.
Finally, there were exclusive sets, consisting of promotional cards associated with a particular expansion set released through venues such as conventions and tournaments. The exclusives sets are listed here rather than in the table below. The 5 exclusive sets (with set codes in parentheses) were:
associated with Marvel Legends: Age of Apocalypse (MAA) and Marvel Exclusives (MEX)
associated with DC Legends: DC Exclusives (DCX)
associated with Marvel Universe: Marvel Equipment (MEQ) and Marvel Ultimates (MUL)
The following table lists all non-exclusive sets in chronological order of release:
In tournament play, there are three common formats:
Modern Age format draws a card pool from the last two released sets from both brands (e.g. the last two Marvel sets and the last two DC Comics sets).
Silver Age format draws a card pool from the last four released sets from both brands (e.g. the last four released sets from Marvel Comics and the last four released sets from DC Comics).
Golden Age format draws from a card pool of all legally playable cards.
Upper Deck Entertainment planned the year-round professional $1 million Organized Play Pro Circuit prior to the release of the game.
The following is a listing of players who have won more than one 10K event or have won a Pro Circuit event.
William Hodack, 2004 Origins $10K Champion, June 26, 2004
Marshall James, 2004 Philadelphia $10k Champion, July 10, 2004
Jeremy Tucker, 2004 $10K Champion, Wizard World Chicago
Brian Kibler, first-ever Pro Circuit Champion, Gen Con Indy, August 22, 2004
Robert Leander, $10K Wizard World Texas Champion, November 6, 2004, $10K New Jersey Champion, January 15, 2005; first Vs. System player to win multiple $10K events
Ryan Jones, Pro Circuit Los Angeles Champion, December 3, 2004
Hans Joachim Höh (Hans served a 3-year ban for cheating in the top 8 of a Pro Circuit), $10K Hannover Champion, February 5, 2005, $10K Bologna Champion, February 20, 2005, $10K Bremen Champion, December 3, 2005
Dean Sohlne, $10K London Champion, March 21, 2005, $10K Amsterdam Champion, April 9, 2005.
Michael Jacob, $10K Chicago Champion, April 2, 2005, $10K Toronto Champion, August 27, 2005, $10K Orlando Champion, October 15, 2005
Ian Vincent, Pro Circuit San Francisco Champion
Anthony Calabrese, Pro Circuit Indianapolis 2006 Champion
Adam Horvath, Pro Circuit Amsterdam Champion, April 7, 2005
Adam Bernstein, Pro Circuit New York Champion, May 26, 2005
Adam Prosak, $10K San Diego Champion, July 15, 2005, $10K Atlanta Champion, September 4, 2005 Pro Circuit Los Angeles November 17, 2006
Kakarot Turker, $10K Sydney Champion, December 1, 2006, 6 consecutive 10K top 8s
Darryn Ying, $10K Melbourne Champion, October 20, 2006,
Vidianto Wijaya, Pro Circuit Atlanta Champion, March 24, 2006; as of August 13, 2006, has a record five Pro Circuit top eight finishes and has won over $100,000
Kyle Dembinski, Pro Circuit Sydney 2007 winner
John Hammond, $10K Indy 2007 Champion - Bring Your Own Set format
Brian Eugenio, 1st Vs. Worlds Champion 2008
Robert Rietze, Gen Con Indy 2008 1st Place
Alexander Antonias, Brisbane and Adelaide 10k champion
As with most TCGs, the ever increasing card pool leads to more and more combinations and possibilities. While this is generally considered to be a good thing, sometimes these combinations bring a degeneracy that is unhealthy for tournament play and the long term health of the game. When this occurs, organized play intervenes and the offending cards are usually banned.
The following is a list of cards currently banned.
"Overload" was banned because of its synergy with various ATK pumps. Used in tandem, players were able to stun their opponent's board at minimal cost. UDE later released a fixed—playable but unremarkable—version of the card called System Failure, released in MAV.
"Justice League of Arkham" was banned following Pro Circuit: San Francisco. By using various ways to search out the card and recursion mechanism, a player could routinely make their opponent discard their entire hand before they even engaged in their fourth turn.
"Antarctic Research Base" is the first card that was pre-emptively banned. This is due to its incidental synergy with the Fate Artifacts. The synergy between the artifacts the Antarctic Research Base allowed a player to draw his or her entire deck as early as the fourth turn and kill the opponent. UDE later released a fixed card called New Baxter Building, which was released in MTU.
"Gone But Not Forgotten" when used in tandem with various payment powers that required life payments as opposed to discards or resource points, allowed one to engineer a variety of infinite or near-infinite combos wherein a player could create any number of arbitrarily large characters, or gain large quantities of life. An example of this would be 2 Moloids, Decoy Program, Devil's Due, and Mr. Fantastic, Stretch.
"Valeria Von Doom, Heir to Latveria" (effective November 16, 2006) when used in tandem with A Day Unlike Any Other, Valeria von Doom allowed a given player to cycle through huge amounts of their deck while filling up their KO'd pile. The offending deck in this situation Cycled cards until it had everything it needed to win using Rigged Elections, usually as early as turn 3.
"Talia, LexCorp CEO" (effective November 16, 2006) was used in ways similar to Valeria von Doom. In tandem with Punisher's Armory, Talia would allow a player to cycle through huge amounts of their deck. While slightly weaker than Valeria von Doom, if left unchecked Talia would have a detrimental effect on game play and was thus banned.
"Go Down Fighting" (effective November 16, 2006) when used with Tommy (a Morlocks character that could stun herself and was free if you had another stunned character) and a method to grant characters in your resources row the reservist ability, it was possible to recruit Tommy an infinite number of times, which was lethal when combined with cards like Surrounded or Rigged Elections.
"Fiddler, Isaac Bowin" (effective November 16, 2006) when used in tandem with another copy of himself, allowed you to continually re-recruit each other a high number of times per turn. Previously, this interaction was abused with Gone But Not Forgotten, and later with cards including Nega Bomb, Surrounded, and Rigged Elections.
"Detective Chimp, Bobo T. Chimpanzee" (effective November 16, 2006) is an incredible cog in any multi-team deck. He was most commonly used in combination decks in order to abuse global team-stamped effects - most notably Attend or Die! or Rigged Elections.
"Dr. Light, Master of Holograms" (effective January 19, 2007) allowed a player to recur a character with cost two or less from the KO pile. In tandem with increasingly more powerful low drops - such as Poison Ivy and Frankie Raye, Dr. Light was able to do too much for a relatively small investment.
"Frankie Raye <> Nova, Optimistic Youth" (effective February 9, 2007) allowed players to draw an unfair amount of cards by playing her multiple times, particularly deadly when used with a character like Admiral Galen-Kor.
"Nenora, Skrull Usurper" (effective February 9, 2007) allowed a player to gain the Kree affiliation with little cost to them. This card caused some of the same problems as Detective Chimp.
Unlike most CCGs which have banned lists unique to various formats, UDE has chosen to have one universal all-encompassing banned list.
"Black Box"(effective December 8, 2008) - Shuffle up to three target cards not named Black Box from a single player's KO'd pile into his deck. If you control an X-Force character, draw a card.
Post-UDE Banned Card List
Blink, Earth-295 <> Clarice Ferguson
Post-UDE Errated Card List
Armed Escort – Can now only be used once per attack.
Nick Fury – Can now only target opposing characters.
A video game based on the Vs. System was released on February 27, 2007 for the PC, PSP and Nintendo DS. It was developed by Vicious Cycle Software and published by Konami. The game has been named as the Marvel Trading Card game and only includes cards from Marvel Origins and Marvel-based expansions up to the Avengers set.
In 2004, Vs. System won the Gamers’ Choice Award and was also nominated for Best Collectible Card Game or Expansion both from Origins Awards. In 2005 it received the Game of the Year award from InQuest Gamer.
