Why I play Weiss Schwarz, and why you should too

Weiss Schwarz is a fairly niche game. It remains niche due to several barriers to entry. The most prominent are that the majority of the cards aren’t available in English, it requires an appreciation of anime art and otaku culture to play, and it is very different from card games of North American origin. Despite these barriers, Weiss is a card game that has much to offer potential players. It is fast paced, dynamic, and incredibly unpredictable. The people that play Weiss are welcoming and willing to get new players up to speed. I hope that my experiences with Weiss illustrate those qualities of the game and the community, and convince anyone who may want to try Weiss Schwarz to jump in.

How I started playing Weiss

I started playing Weiss during my undergraduate studies. A few of the members of the anime club I was part of were getting into Weiss. I didn’t have a lot of disposable cash or time, any of my time to play card games went to playing Pokémon. That Christmas, one of my friends bought me a Macross Frontier trial deck. Seeing as the Macross Frontier movies are my favourite movies of all time, I absolutely had to try a Macross deck out. Over the break, my friends Matt and Tom taught me how to play Weiss with the trial deck, despite the fact that I couldn’t read any Japanese. It was love at first turn. From there, I tried to play whenever I could.

Learning Weiss

The mechanics of Weiss Schwarz were different than anything I had ever played. Unlike Pokémon, where luck was mostly played out with how you shuffled and what cards you set aside at the beginning of the game, luck and probabilistic thinking are at the core of the game. Luck determines if you take damage. Your health and resources are random cards from the top of your deck, giving luck an even larger role in determining what cards are available to you at any point in the game.

While some players only want luck at the periphery of games, I feel that increased uncertainty enhances the game. First, it provides a novel way to approach deck strategy in-game. In other games, luck is out of your control once you sit down to play. Weiss on the other hand lets you manage luck. Smart resource management makes good luck more likely. Your strategy relies on being able to manage risks and take smart gambles. There are strategies that you come up with on the fly to manage current risks that may never present themselves again.

Why I stuck with Weiss

These factors make Weiss incredibly compelling. The fact that each game between two decks could be unrecognizable compared the last. The fact that you could manage things meticulously and still see it blow up spectacularly. The fact that if you put your game in the hands of fate, absurd things will happen.

Games can turn on a dime, and it is amazing. One game in particular that sticks out in my mind, and in the minds of many of the players in Calgary, is the Tsubame Gaeshi game. It was my first time playing in my new home, Calgary. I was playing a cheap Project Diva F deck against a janky Fate: Stay Night deck, based around Assassin of all things. I had a fairly commanding position. I was at level 2 with five damage. My opponent was at level 3 with six damage, one away from death. He has three attacks with random level zeros.  I have a fairly thin deck with 6 climaxes in it and a full, well supported field. He reveals the trigger, the climax Tsubame Gaeshi, which added two soul to his attack to deal three damage to me. The damage sticks, I am now at 3:1. He attacks again, and triggers another Tsubame Gaeshi. It sticks, I am at 3:4 and am now three damage away from losing. My opponent quickly looks through his discard pile, and notes that he only has one climax left in deck, and says (correctly, in terms of probability) “You’ve got this, unless of course I somehow trigger another Tsubame Gaeshi…” As he says this, he reveals the third and final Tsubame Gaeshi. Both of us, and the small crowd that had gathered, are astonished that he triggered the same card three times in a row! The damage sticks. I lose the game by taking the perfect amount of damage. I wasn’t mad, I was amazed at what had occurred. It was incredibly unlikely, but happened all the same. How can you even be mad at something like that? We all went out for dinner after, and had a good laugh. I started play casual Weiss in Calgary every week after that.

Wrapping up

Weiss is a niche game, and can be a little hard to get into. However, it is a unique game with a great community and a very rewarding set of mechanics. There is also a good chance that an anime or video game that you like already has a Weiss set, and your local Weiss community would be more than happy to show you how to play it. Even if it is only in Japanese! Now is as good of a time as any to jump on in.

If you’ve ever considered playing Weiss, but have no one to play with, check out your local anime club, card store or local convention. There is more than likely a group of players locally that will be more than willing to have you be part of the fun!