Weiss Schwarz

Weiss what? What the heck does that mean? Well, to me the first thing that I would think about when hearing the word Weiss Schwarz is some sort of German foreign language. But, it is actually the name of a Japanese collectable card game.

I love watching my anime or Japanese cartoons…and Weiss Schwarz is basically a card game about Japanese anime. Awesome! Today, I am going to give a basic review of this game but also some experiences I’ve had as well.

Every few months or so, I’m really not sure on the timeline, a new set is released. Each set is based on a theme such as an anime show, video game or manga. Manga’s are basically Japanese comic books. You will buy cards to create a 50 card deck based on your theme. Some popular themes are Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, Kill la Kill, KanColle, Disgaea and so on. Since it is collectable, they have their own rarity system of cards. The most rare cards are signed by the artist or voice actor. The game takes about 30-45 minutes to play and play is one on one. Weiss is the Cute side and Schwarz is the fighting side. It really doesn’t matter what side you play.

As you play your deck you are basically putting on a show. When you start the game, everyone is at level zero and the object is to get your opponent to level four first. This was kind of an interesting concept to me as you basically play characters from your theme who are not as strong. You then use your characters to deal soul damage or bring out emotion in the form of cards. For each soul damage you will flip over a card and put this card into your clock area. Every seven clock damage you take, you will go up in level. As you go up in level, your characters get stronger but you are closer to loosing.

Each deck will have exactly eight climax cards in their deck. This is where a lot of the game’s strategy comes in. When a climax card is played, it is a point in the game that is interesting or something will happen. When played, climax cards can help draw cards, put cards into your stock area to bring out more powerful characters, search for characters in your waiting room where characters are defeated or even help deal damage. When dealing damage, if a climax card is revealed it can prevent damage being taken.

I’m not going to lie. I would say this game is pretty similar to Magic. I would say that Magic has more strategy but if you like the themes of sets coming out it is pretty awesome to be able to play some of your favorite characters. I would say that there are two main differences. One is how damage is dealt and the game winning condition. Two are the climax cards.

I first learned about this game While attending Sakura-Con two years ago. This is an anime convention held in Seattle Washington. While walking around the convention, I went into the gaming room and people were playing this game. I remember they were playing a Sword Art Online deck vs a Fairy Tail deck. I love both shows and watched a bit while they were explaining the rules to me. Last year while attending the same convention I went to a learn to play session. After that I went to the expo where they were selling some cards and got a few trial decks. These are pre-constructed decks that are a cheap entry point into the game. I also entered a few constructed tournaments there. They were giving out a lot of promotions and schwag. In one, I got second place with my trial deck. I was hooked.

A few months later I found a local game store that sold this game and found out they held weekly tournaments on Sundays. Sundays are really busy for me. I have multiple weekly events or things that I do and one is on Thursdays and one is on Sundays. Those are my two days that I have multiple things I want to do. Weiss Schwarz fell aside. I found I was always browsing the website or looking at cards to buy every once in a while but never really played again.

This past weekend was Sakura-Con. While looking through the list of things to do, of course I wanted to enter a tournament. On Friday, I found myself walking into the gaming room of Sakura-Con. Two of the guys from last year were there and they remembered my face. I told them I really had not played since last year and was going to run another trial deck. They were grateful enough to lend me one of their pre-constructed decks. Last year I cosplayed or dressed up as Archer from Fate/Stay Night and one of the constructed tournaments I went to I had a Fate/Stay Night trial deck. He let me borrow a Fate/Zero deck.

Fate/Zero Spoiler Alert – Sort of

There are four colors that you can choose from and this was a three color deck. Green, Yellow and Red. The main two characters were Archer as Gilgamesh and Rider as Alexander the Great. My first opponent was a guy playing a Japanese deck of…hmmm I don’t remember what theme he was using. This game is printed in America in English but more sets are printed in Japan in Japanese. In the first few rounds I kept drawing my level two and three cards an no level zero cards so I couldn’t play them. I got to level one pretty quick. I was able to come back with a few nicely timed climax cards. Then we were both at level three and he was able to heal some damage that I gave him and cancelled a five soul attack that I did with a climax card. He won. I thought it was a pretty close game. I think if I had drawn just a few level zero characters in the beginning it would have been better.

Game two. Well, I played a girl that I played last year in the learn to play series! She told me how much she loved the game and go into it after learning last year. Hey, just like me. She was running a Disgaea deck. I had a much better start then last game but somehow still got to level one first. In this game I was able to keep my characters on the board and use some of their special abilities.This gave me a bit of a card advantage. At the start of your turn you can clock yourself or deal a damage to yourself by discarding a card from your hand to draw two cards. I was doing this every turn and she did not for a turn or two. I won in the end and we decided to play again next year.

Game three. This was a horrible game full of mistakes. The guy I was playing had a Japanese KanColle deck. He was playing the evil side which is KanColle: Fleet in the Deep Blue Sea, I think. On my first turn, I forgot to clock. Card disadvantage right from the start. I think it was fairly even in the begining but then I got to level one. To play a card, you need to have that same card color in your clock or as your level card. When you get to the next level, you choose a card to become your level card and put the rest of your cards in your waiting room or out of play. I chose a red card and I had a hand full of green cards. This went on for two turns. When I got to level two I got a level zero card that I could play. Since he was at level one, all of his characters were stronger then my level zero character. When you play characters you can have up to five characters out in play at one time. There are three characters in the front who attack and two support characters. If your opponent does not have any characters in front of them, the character has more soul and adds more clock. I had one or no characters in play and he had five for most of the game. When I got to level three, I finally had the right colors out but I didn’t have the stock to play any of them since the main way you gain stock is from attacking. I lost horribly, but it was fun to play.

All in all, I had a fun time playing this game again and hopefully I can get in a few games before I go to next Sakura-Con 2018.