Summary

Meta X (pronounced "Meta Cross") is a card game system by Panini, which primarily features DC superheroes but also has an Attack on Titan set. In the game, control various characters as they engage in combat and break through enemy lines to score points.

The game was distributed in one-player starter decks, two-player starter decks, and 12-card booster packs.

It is similar to the VS system, and the Attack on Titan set should not be confused for the Union Arena set or the UniVersus set.

Card Types

• Characters - Cards representing various people (and some animals), which fight each other. Each has an MP value, between one and three stats (strength, intelligence, and special), and an effect.
• Battle - Cards used as part of a fight between two (or more) characters. Each has an MP value, one or more stats (and values), and may have an effect. Battle cards without effects are "basic" battle cards.
• Event - Cards representing random occurrences. Each has an MP value and an effect.

Sets and Decks

The game saw a total of four sets released: Justice League, Batman, Attack on Titan, and Green Lantern. A fifth set based around Teen Titans Go! was announced (and some teaser images of cards can be found online), but the set was never released.

Justice League had one-player starter decks, and Attack on Titan had two-player starter decks. All sets had booster packs.

All sets include ultra-rare cards and foil cards. There were also a few promos.

Deck Composition and Contents

One-Player Starter Deck

There are four different starter decks available from Justice League: Bat Family, Superfriends, Evil United, and Justice Swarm. Each deck features a full 40 card deck and 10 "random" foil cards, which are not intended to be used in the deck. (A legal deck is 40 cards.)

Starter deck contents were fixed, but boxes do not indicate which deck is inside. A deck contains only starter-only rarity cards, although many cards are reprints of cards available in booster packs, just with alternate art. Starter decks seem like they may also be the only way to get "basic" battle cards, which makes them pretty important.

The foil cards are not entirely random; each 40-card deck always comes in a specific order, and the 10 foil cards are always a run of 10 cards from the matching (and included) starter deck.

Two-Player Starter Deck

Only one two-player starter deck is available, in the Attack on Titan set. Each deck features two 40-card decks and 20 "random" foil cards, which are not intended to be used in the deck. (A legal deck is 40 cards.)

Starter deck contents were fixed, and there's only one deck, so all Attack on Titan two-player starters have the same 80 cards. Each 40-card deck deck has two copies of one rare card, one deck has two copies of one promo card, and the remaining cards across the decks are common, uncommon, and starter-only rarity. As before, starter decks seem like they may also be the only way to get "basic" battle cards, which makes them pretty important.

The foil cards are not entirely random. Rather, the two 40-card decks divide into two half-decks each, and the 20 foils will be one of the four half decks.

Deck Rarity Analysis

The one-player starters are great. As with PanZ, the decks contain only starter-only rarity cards, and they're blind-packed. But it seemed Panini learned from PanZ, because there are a more reasonable 4 decks (compared to the 6 per set with DBZ), meaning you'd only need an average of 9 decks to get all 4. As before, a box of 10 starter decks contains all four decks. The fact that cards are mostly just reprints of booster pack cards (with alternate art) is great for players. It's also not terrible for collectors, especially if you're buying a box of 10 starters.

The two-player decks are... confusingly horrible, given how much Panini did right with its other starters (for both this and PanZ). Each of the two 40-card decks includes two copies of one rare card. One of the decks includes two copies of a promo card. Across the two decks, there are also two copies of each of 5 uncommon cards, and two copies of each of 4 common cards. This is already not great, since it largely spoils two rare cards from boosters (Crawling Titan and Mikasa Ackermann).

What makes this horrible though is the foil cards. Foil cards can be randomly found in booster packs. You can therefore spoil foil versions of the two rare cards (as well as many of the common and uncommon cards) from a starter. This is particularly bad because of how the cards in the decks are ordered. The Justice League one-player starter decks have cards in a non-duplicated sequence; that is, you will not find two of the same card in a row (or even within 10 cards of its other copies), so the 10-card foil pack will contain 10 unique cards (all starter-only rarity). With the Attack on Titan two-player starters, the majority of the deck is doubled up (including both rares). This means your foil pack will definitely contain two copies of at four different cards (and may simply contain two copies of 10 different cards), and if it contains a rare card (a 50% chance), it will contain two copies of that foiled rare card.

This is baffling given how great Panini had been doing. These starter decks would be pretty average from a rarity standpoint if not for the foils.

Alan's Thoughts On The Game

I think this is a good game. There's some things that might seem strange or questionable at first (such as the battle cards not having names, and higher battle cards just seeming generally better), but once you actually play, it actually comes across as fairly balanced.

Like many good TCGs, the rules are fairly straightforward. The cards add a ton of complexity on top of it, but the starter decks are actually pretty good at presenting a good number of battle cards without effects, which helps simplify the learning curve. The damage (and KO) mechanic is actually really interesting, and provides a lot of strategy around how you defend an attack. The decision of whether to link attack or just play more battle cards is a surprisingly interesting one, because you only get one card draw (ignoring card effects) a turn, and 5 MP is actually quite a lot.

MP is also an interesting mechanic. It's not often you see a game that gives you a resource when you play a card. The way the cards are balanced can provide for interesting decisions around what battle cards you use (do I gain more MP with a weaker attack and spend it to link or try to get a technical KO, or play a stronger card but spend the MP to do so and just go for HP KOs?), especially since character cards generally tend to give MP (which is somewhat counterintuitive at first). I do like the way it plays out in practice.

Thematically, the inclusion of Attack on Titan with superheroes is also slightly strange to me, but I can only assume they were intending on including other properties when the game died, so I can probably give this a pass. And they really screwed up the AoT starter decks for collectors, but that isn't a complaint about the game itself, so I also can't criticize it too much for this.

Side note: I love the card layouts, and how they really give a lot of room to the art. This is a much prettier superhero game than VS System, even though I really appreciated VS' original art.

Resources

• Starter Deck Card Lists (AlanvDotOrg Randomjunk)