| What is This "Raw Deal", anyway? |
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(NOTE: This is not intended to make you a world-class Raw Deal player.
It will give you only a very basic knowledge of the game. For much more, including
a neat little animation explaining how to play, visit the Official Raw Deal Website,
located here.) So what exactly is Raw Deal? Well, it's a Collectible Card Game based on the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) brand. Despite this, you don't need to be a fan to enjoy the game (The current world champion is actually not a big fan of WWE programming). "That's great", you say, "But how is the game played?" First of all, each player plays as a WWE Superstar of their choosing. Each Superstar has a special Superstar Ability, an ability that no one else in the game has. Each superstar also has a Starting Hand Size, and a Superstar Value. Starting Hand Size is self-explanatory; that's the number of cards you start the game with. Superstar Value is a way to determine who goes first; the person with the highest value starts the game. Once that's out of the way, the game sequence begins. The person whose turn it is draws a card, and can play any number of cards that are either at least partially yellow or at least partially blue based on his or her fortitude rating. Let's look at an example card: (Note: The picture is about 100K and will open in a new window) Okay, the card we're looking at is titled Litacanrana. Only Lita can play this card (As noted by the Lita logo near the top of the card), but we'll look at it anyway for teaching purposes. The card is both yellow (Yes, I'm aware that the picture makes it look closer to a yellow-green) and red. This makes it part yellow, so you can play it on your turn. See the "Fortitude 12" at the top-right corner of the card? That's the card's fortitude rating; you can only play this card if you have 12 or more fortitude in your "ring area" (Where all cards that are successfully played go; more on this a little later). How do you get Fortitude? That's where the other number, on the bottom right of the card, comes in. This number is the damage rating of the card, in this case, 5. When you successfully play a card, your opponent must overturn cards--take cards from the top of his deck and place them into his "Ringside Pile" (Where all discarded cards or cards that were not successfully played go) until he has overturned a number of cards equal to your card's damage rating, or he overturns an applicable reversal card. The damage is now added to your fortitude rating. It sounds confusing, I know, but in our example, your Fortitude Rating after successfully playing the Litacanrana would be, at the very least, 17--the 12 you needed in your Ring Area to be able to play Litacanrana in the first place, plus the 5 for successfully playing the card. And what does "successfully played" mean? Well, whenever you play a card, your opponent can attempt to play a reversal card to it. Reversal cards are at least partially red (Litacanrana is partially red, meaning it can also be played as a reversal), and will list what they reverse on them. You'll notice that near the top of Litacanrana it says "Strike/Reversal: Grapple". What this is is that, played as a maneuver, the card counts as a Strike; your opponent may reverse it with a reversal card that says "reverse any Strike maneuver" or something similar. Played as a reversal, it can reverse any of your opponent's Grapple maneuvers. If no reversals are played from your opponent's hand, the card is considered successfully played, even if the opponent overturns a reversal while applying damage. Note that an applicable reversal, either played from your opponent's hand or overturned while applying damage, will end your turn. Finally, certain cards will have text noting additional effects on them. Litacanrana says that it cannot be reversed, meaning you're just about guaranteed to successfully play it as a maneuver (Once you meet the 12-fortitude requirement, of course). You'll also note that it says "As a maneuver, add +3D for every maneuver with the words "drop kick" in the title in your ring area". In other words, if you have 2 drop kicks in your ring area, the card is +6D for a total of 11 Damage. Your opponent would have to overturn 11 cards! Lastly, when successfully played as either a maneuver or reversal, you may draw 1 card. The object of the game is to reduce your opponent's "arsenal" (His 60-card deck; this deck, face down, is where all cards are drawn from or overturned into the discard pile) to zero cards. The game is much simpler in practice than it is in writing. And that's it. There are other rules, and an additional mechanic used in tournament play that I didn't cover here, but this should be more than enough information to digest for the moment. If you're intrigued enough to want to explore the game further, and happen to live in the Franklin Pierce College area, stop by Northwoods apartment F-6. All four of the residents-- myself included--play the game, and one of us should be happy to give you a demo. |
