Weiss Schwarz

It's not everyday that you see an Inori deck box lying around

Aside from miniatures, video games comics and other geeky stuff I'm a big fan of Collectible Card Games (CCG's). I've been through a 'Magic: The Gathering' phase when it was all the rage back in the '90's. Then there was Legend of the Five Rings (L5R), Animayhem and the VS system and a whole slew of other CCGs. I thought I knew and played them all to the point that I stepped out of it for quite some time (like when Time Spiral for Magic: The Gathering came out but that's a story for another day).

Sleeves are WIN!

How a typical player's area looks like.

So while I'm into kits and miniatures lately, a friend of mine introduced me to a Japanese CCG 'Weiss Schwarz' ('White Black' in German) made by a company called Bushiroad. Apparently, it has been around for a while and been gaining momentum recently.

A little background on the game: Weiss Schwarz is an anime CCG at its core. The object of the game is to  'level-up' your opponent to level 4 by attacking him/her with your characters. Yes, you read it right: YOU HAVE TO LEVEL UP YOUR OPPONENT TO BEAT HIM/HER. This sounds a bit crazy since most CCG's imply that you have to beat up your opponent to win but it makes sense once you play it.

Lemme talk about the cards now. Every card has full-blown art on the front with no borders whatsoever  unlike those from other CCG's. And most of the cards feature original art made especially for the game. Each card is a certified collectible, so plus points on that for those who intend to just collect the cards. So for aesthetics alone, Weiss Schwarz is all win for me. And with popular anime like Haruhi, Macross F, Angel Beats, Fate/Zero and Guilty Crown on the line-up, fans (such as yours truly) really get more for their buck.

Versus!

Gameplay for Weiss Schwarz feels fresh and innovative for me. Basically, you build a deck of 50 cards consisting of characters, events and Climax cards to fight with. Each turn sees a player putting characters on the active area called the 'stage' to fight other characters. The characters deal 'soul damage' on a player each time they attack and all that accumulates into the opposing player's 'clock' which indicates his/her 'level' and amount of damage taken. For each set of 7 'soul points' of damage, a player advances his/her 'level' which will allow him/her to call upon stronger characters and better climax and event cards. Now this will sound weird to most CCG veterans out there but this mechanic is a lot of fun to play with. The eventuality of both players reaching round the end of their clocks make the game tight and exciting. 

There's my two cents on the game. This game holds a lot of potential and I like it a lot. more tocome as we play along! For the meantime, check the game's wiki.

As you can see, Waver is a star!