Capcom's cards and gems

I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in on a new trend Capcom seems to be interested in with their new fighting games. Of course I'm talking about the recent announcements at New York Comic con regarding Street Fighter x Tekken's Gem system and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3's card system, which seem to be reminiscent of CCG's (collectible card games).

For the uninformed, check Shoryuken.com's front page for plenty of news and videos on these new mechanics.

All in all I think it sounds like an innovative way to make for an almost unlimited variety of matchups. Depending on just how altering these new mechanics are, some characters and team ups could play completely different from your traditional idea of the selected characters. I do have my concerns though...

One is with the competitive tournament scene. Yoshinori Ono has already stated that SF x TK's Gem Mechanic is an integrated gameplay feature and cannot be disabled. I'm interested to see how tournament organizers handle this, especially if all the Gems have to be unlocked. It's going to be a pain rounding up enough completed system files so it'll be fair for all participants. What if one of the more desired Gem's by the community is something that has to be unlocked by winning a 1000 matches online, or completing all combo challenges. Not everyone is going to have the ability or desire to go for something like that. Another thing is how much time you're going to allow people for assembling their Gems and then selecting their characters. If not regulated, tournaments for that game could take ages to complete.

Another concern I have is private selection of your Gems and Cards. This will probably just be an online gripe though. For example in the Marvel card trailer, we see a team that has selected a "projectile invulnerability" card. It doesn't auto block projectiles, or give you super armor against them, it just completely ignores them! Well, what if you're the unfortunate player who has trained a team around zoning with projectiles or runaway tactics? I just wonder at what point during character selection do you choose your cards. This could swing a matchup in one players hands or another's favor depending on when you get to see the team and when you get to see the cards.

Of course these are just my first observational concerns. No one can really pass any judgement until they get their hands on the game. Like I said earlier, I think these systems sound like a lot of fun and will provide for limitless diversity in teams and matchups. Capcom just needs to do a lot of testing to make sure things get done right. I'm sure people would rather win or lose based mostly on skill rather than CCG tactics.

Time will tell though!