Vs Breakthrough Variant

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Hello Vs 2PCG Universe and welcome to the Playset!

Vs. 2PCG as we all know is a revived version of the Vs. System CCG originally printed by Upper Deck Entertainment in 2004. Revived as an LCG, the game definitely goes in a different direction. That different direction included a very big change in terms of how to win a game, trading a life total in exchange for wounds on a main character of your choice. Well here at the Playset we literally tossed the rulebook out the window! Don’t be alarmed if you find them littered around Brooklyn! After that we jumped in our DeLorean, gunned it to 88, and jotted down some of the things we love about the original Vs. System in 2004. Finally returning Back to the Present? Future? Ugh this Back to the Future reference was a bad idea, okay moving on… we met in our super-secret evil lab (Rich’s apartment) and churned out some ideas for a variant to Vs 2PCG that brought back some of the things we loved about Vs. System CCG.

This variant focuses mainly on the idea of a life total and Breakthrough damage! That’s right, Breakthrough is back if you use this variant! Using the rules listed below you can play a game offering a built in secondary win condition for Vs. 2PCG games. Another win condition? Yes that’s right another win condition! But why? Well funny you ask. We first considered this when the Alien Battles came out. We tested a lot with the MC Dragon. The more we played with Dragon and Xenomorphs the more we found that using Xenomorphs as a team often would result in a full board of aliens, that sat there doing “nothing” after the opposing field was all stunned. Darren (the Dragon tester) would often joke, and now I attack for full breakthrough with the rest of my Xenomorphs which Jason would often point out was an issue with Swarm as a whole. This exchange is where we all decided “hey why don’t we just do that?” So we started for fun playing games where players had 40 or 50 Endurance. To be honest, we found this was way more fun than we expected. From there the breakthrough variant idea was born, but we never truly tested it to a point to make it comfortable for play outside our circle.

We are going to call it like it is Vs. 2PCG is limited by your MC choice. Your favorite superhero is not necessarily the “best at what he does”, and for as many tournament viable MCs there are, there are at least 2 unplayable MCs. Currently the meta abuses alternate win conditions and wound prevention, and most aggressive MCs or affiliations struggle. Well, we noticed in our testing that Breakthrough adding another layer to the game actually helps aggressive decks! Why? Well because aggro do not necessarily want to hold onto SCs, some may want to rapid recruit, some may want a character to get absurdly almost laughably huge. In the case of the current rules, my army of small dudes, or having giant characters can be limited because I can still put only 1 wound a turn. Meanwhile in Breakthrough variant if you are hiding your MC you are going to take a knuckle sandwich from my swarm of supporting characters or giant MC. We also found Thor/Venom are not the only viable aggro MCs (whoa, Bonus)! This doesn’t mean mid-range or control decks are to be taken lightly; as the game progresses Endurance damage will more than likely increase as you’re using bigger heavy hitting supporting characters. A lot of those characters serve as really good closers. In short – no matter what the pace is increased, and the strategy is way more in depth.

We didn’t stop at Endurance though! Most games are moving away from the idea of being “resource screwed” because that’s just not a fun experience for a player. In this game locations serve as your primary resources and the only things that appear face up in your resource row. Well, we wanted to change that. In original Vs. System CCG you could place and play plot twists from your resource row – and you bet your sweet butts we wanted that back. Heck our biggest argument for this was “do they appear face up or face down”. We knew we wanted this. We know it’s probably exciting for some players and adds a whole new experience for deck building! So in Breakthrough we brought it back. We decided plot twists can be played into your resource row, and they get to be used from the resource row. We added some restrictions too.

All in all, we are very happy with the Breakthrough variant and find it adds a bit more pace to a game. We hope this gives some players a fun alternate way to play the game. Also feel free to contact us with feedback and ideas! We look forward to hearing from you. Stay tuned for our deck building machine (Oshuan) to provide some Infinity War themed decks showcasing Breakthrough rules. Thanks all for reading, and without further ado, below are the rules for the Breakthrough variant.

VS 2PCG – Breakthrough Variant

In this mode, two or more players battle with regular decks using normal Vs 2PCG rules and supplemental rules to the Vs Breakthrough variant.

The goal is to provide an additional method to defeat an opposing player other than by KO’ing their main character. There are a few additional rules, which you can review below:

Winning the Game

Objective: To defeat your opponent in one of the following ways:

1. KO their Main Character
2. An alternate win condition (such as Deadpool, Dutch, Gamora, etc.)
3. Bring their Endurance to 0 or below

Endurance

Every player starts the game with 40 Endurance.

Endurance is lost by one of the following methods:

1. A support character is stunned by a card owned by an opponent
2. Attacking a player’s Endurance total directly

 

• Stunning a supporting character

When a character on a player’s side becomes stunned by a card owned or controlled by an opponent, that player loses Endurance equal to their cost.

Example 1: Robert’s Yondu activates yaka arrow to stun an opponent’s Black Widow. Robert’s opponent will lose 1 Endurance, since Black Widow became stunned.

Example 2: Darren recruits Ash, and give it to his opponent. On his opponent’s Main phase, Ash stuns that player’s Charlie-27. Darren’s opponent loses 1 Endurance because Ash is owned by Darren.

• Attacking a player’s Endurance total directly

Another way to deal damage to a player’s Endurance, is by declaring attacks with characters on your side.

A player’s Endurance is protected from attacks as long as they have at least one face up character on their side. Once that player has no face up characters on their side, attacks can be declared against their Endurance to cause “Breakthrough”.

Once the attacker(s) are declared as causing “Breakthrough”, there is no chance to play Plot Twists or use Combat powers. Simply put, just compare the attacker(s) current total ATK and remove that much Endurance from your opponent’s Endurance pool.

Vs 2PCG Breakthrough Resource Row

In Vs 2PCG anything can be played into a resource row face down, but locations are turned face up. Save for a few exception cards like Death Trap.

In Vs 2PCG Breakthrough, if plot twists are placed into the resource row, they are placed face up like locations. Once activated by the owner the Plot Twist is turned face down and the effect is applied to the combat.

*Please Note* Dark Phoenix specifically only turns up locations!

Plot twists cannot be turned face up again once they are turned face down.

While Plot Twists are face up in the resource row, they can be used once but must follow their usual restrictions for usage (team stamps, main or combat, etc.).

Example 1: Richard places a Think Again face up in his resource row. During his turn an opponent moves to attack his Thor. Richard decides to activate Think Again, cancelling that combat. Think Again is turned face down.

Example 2: Darren recruits Ash, and gives it to his opponent. On his opponent’s upkeep, Ash stuns that player’s Rogue. Darren’s opponent loses 6 Endurance because Ash is owned by Darren.

 

Thank you to Kirk for your assistance as well.