Summary

The Buffy The Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game was a card game by Score, themed around the Buffy TV series. In the game, you play as either heroes or villains and vie for control of Sunnydale (by controlling the park or earning 10 destiny points).

The game was distributed in starter decks, preconstructed theme decks, and 12-card booster packs.

The game is divided into two allegiances: heroes and villains. Each challenge card only works with a certain allegiance, while minion and companion cards can only be used in correspondingly-aligned decks. Most other cards could be used in either.

Card Types

• Essence - A thicker card indicating the character you're playing as. Each has an ability and a type (hero or villain, and things like human or vampire or slayer).
• Character - Cards representing people and evil creatures. Each has a level, ability, talents (butt-kicking, smarts, weirdness, and charm), a type, and may have traits and destiny requirements to play.
• Challenge - Cards representing goals in the game, which form a separate deck. Divided into good and evil (with different color hearts), each has an effect, a destiny point value, and requirements.
• Location - Cards representing places, which are part of the game's setup. Each has a type (indoor, school, town, etc.) and effects.
• Minion or Companion - Cards representing more minor people and evil creatures. Each has a level, ability, talents, a type, and may have traits and destiny requirements to play. Minions can only be used with villain decks, and companions can only be used with hero decks.
• Skill - Cards representing abilities of characters. Each has an ability, and may have a trait or talent requirement.
• Item - Cards representing things that characters can use. Each has an ability, and may have a trait or talent requirement.
• Episode - Cards representing episodes of Buffy. Each is either Part I or Part II, and Part II forms a separate deck. Part I cards play and have ongoing effects, as well as a requirement to play the matching Part II card. Part II cards have ongoing effects and a trigger that "cancels" (or discards) the card from play.
• Action - Cards representing moves that characters perform. Each has an effect, a time when it can play, and may have a trait or talent requirement.
• Event - Cards representing special occurrences, which affect all players. Each has an effect, and only one can be played at a time.

Sets and Decks

The game saw a total of three sets released: Pergamum Prophecy, Angel's Curse, and Class of '99. Each set is based on one season of the TV show (seasons 1, 2, and 3, respectively). A fourth set, Slayer on Campus, was never released.

The first and last sets had one-player starter decks. Class of '99 also had one-player theme decks, based on the episode The Wish.

All sets include ultra-rare cards. There are also starter-only cards (including the thicker Essence cards) and promotional cards.

Deck Composition and Contents

Starter Decks

Pergamum Prophecy and Class of '99 each had two starter decks, one for heroes and one for villains. The main character inside each deck includes an Essence card and a character card, and was chosen randomly from four possibilities: Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Angel for Pergamum Hero decks; Spike, Collin, Drusilla, The Master for Pergamum Villain decks; Buffy, Angel, Willow, and Xander for '99 Hero decks; and Faith, Kakistos, Mr. Trick, and The Mayor for '99 Villain decks.

* Each deck includes 26 cards that are the same across all both Hero and Villain decks in the set (including two character and two essence cards), and are used as two 13-card decks for the "First Patrol" tutorial game (Buffy and Spike in Pergamum, Buffy and Faith in Class of '99). This allows two players to learn the game from a single box, although playing the full game still requires two starter decks.

The box also includes one (for '99, two for Pergamum) random rare cards, one random foil card, and a 32 card main deck for the heroes or villains. These 32 cards can be combined with cards from the tutorial deck to build a full deck. (A full deck is 40 or more cards, plus an additional 7 challenge cards, and between 0 and 8 locations.)

Starter deck contents were fixed, and the boxes indicated which deck you would get. The decks themselves are a mix of common, uncommon, and starter-only cards.

The decks include a two-sided playmat (one side for the First Patrol game, one side a full one-player playmat) and a rulebook.

Theme Decks

Four preconstructed decks were released with the Class of '99 set, all themed around an episode called The Wish. There are two hero decks (Buffy & Oz and Cordelia & Giles) and two villain decks (Vamp Willow & Xander and Anyanka & The Master). Each deck includes a 56 card deck which consisted of a double-sided Essence card, two matching character cards, and 53 other cards (including 7 challenge cards and 4 locations).

Preconstructed deck contents were fixed, and the boxes indicated which deck you would get. The decks themselves are a mix of common, uncommon, rare, and starter-only cards.

These did not come with rulebooks nor playmats.

Deck Rarity Analysis

The starters are great. Marked boxes and randomized rares? Heck yeah.

The theme decks are pretty average, including a couple rare cards per deck. Not great, but not the worst, especially since the decks are marked, so you won't unnecessarily duplicate rares.

Alan's Thoughts On The Game

Will be updated once I've played the game.

Resources

• Starter Deck Card Lists (AlanvDotOrg Randomjunk)