This is gonna be one of these articles that even before being written I know it’s gonna generate a lot of animosity.

However, I find it’s a much needed topic and a symptom of Weiß’s continued growth.

If you want to discuss English edition Weiß Schwarz, don’t forget to stop by the WS English community facebook group.

A bit of history

Weiß Schwarz was first released in japanese in 2007, the first time it appeared in english was 2009 with the Disgaea Starter Deck, but only in 2013 did sets finally start being published consistently with Madoka, SAO, Fate Zero and Project Diva releases.

In 2014 more sets got published, Angel Beats! got a Re:Edit and Persona 4 got a “Version E”, being published in a single set instead of the previous several japanese sets. Fairy Tail got a “Version E” that featured some english exclusive cards. Nisekoi got “re-balanced” cards, Kantai Collection got one card “re-balanced” but other cards that were in the japanese ban list were printed as is, English Haruhi never got to see it’s “World with faded colors” event printed.

The same different game

Weiß Schwarz in english, as a game, by some reason or other never seems like it’s synchronised with its original. Whether it’s because Bushiroad is actually three separate entities (Asia, America and Europe divisions), because of licensing issues specific to certain regions, the giant preexisting catalog of japanese sets, the rapid release of japanese sets… english versions always seem to be a step behind.

Except in one very important factor, english language like or not is one of the lingua franca by default, japanese language… not so much.

Many players, myself included heard of this game when it started coming out in english edition and thus started playing and collecting in this language, some have kept to playing in english only, others now play in japanese exclusively (after all there are a lot of translation resources) and others play a mix of both.

But unlike other games, like Magic, where 99% of the sets are published in several languages (and which the main language is english and thus easier to propagate), English edition Weiß only has a small subset of titles published. The rules governing bans and restrictions are different and some cards were re-balanced (a mistake Bushiroad has not made again as it generated a lot of outrage), so language in Weiß isn’t really a question of language, it’s a question of format.

This seems weird, as in many places there aren’t exclusive English/Japanese formats, mainly due to player numbers being low in certain areas. And so confusion begins.

This is what the sanctioned events page for local tournaments says about what is permited:

【Tournament Format】 ◆ 30 minutes per round ◆ Organisers may choose to run either Swiss Draw, Double Elimination or Single Elimination ◆ Neo Standard tournament format – This is a tournament format which your deck is restricted to consist of only cards from one title. E.g. You are not allowed to mix cards from Fate/Zero, Madoka Magica and/or Sword Art Online in your deck. ◆ All released English Weiss Schwarz cards may be used for this tournament. ◆ English edition cards can be played together with Japanese edition cards. However, language restriction may apply in major tournament formats.

No mention of banned or restricted cards (which only exist in japanese at the moment of writing, but are nowhere referenced in the english site), no mention of what to do with functionally identical cards that are banned or restricted in japanese (Well, kinda, it does say all english cards may be used).

As you get into locals all sorts of homemade rules exist due to this rules void:

You can play with all english decks and all japanese decks, japanese decks follow japanese ban list.

You can play with decks made up of japanese and english cards from the same title but you either follow the japanese banlist or not depending on title.

Japanese decks follow japanese banlist and english decks also follow it, etc…

It’s anyone’s guess what’s going at a given tournament.

Some japanese sets aren’t even allowed to be sold outside Japan, much less used, like Star Wars, SchoolGirl Strikers and Girlfriend Beta.

Formats

Officially for larger tournaments outside Japan (Spring/Autumn qualifiers, shop challenges…) there is another rule:

Only English edition cards may be used.

This has various motivations by Bushiroad, which I won’t delve into, and it hasn’t always been this way (back in 2014 official qualifiers and finals were “mixed”).

So we can say that in these large tournaments a specific format is played Neo Standard English, as opposed to the format played mostly in Japan, Neo Standard Japanese.

Again this is not a “language” issue, to understand this in japanese you have about 160 sets (in 74 titles), in english you have 39 sets (in 23 titles)!

That’s a huge difference of cards available in each format. (Those numbers may not be totally exact, but for illustration purposes they’re more than enough)

This would theoretically mean that to prepare yourself to play in a tournament allowing japanese edition you’d have to play at least against the stronger archetype of each title, 74 different matches instead of 23!

Now, as we know, this isn’t really true as in Weiß recent sets are usually a bit more powerful than older sets and thus some titles “naturally” rotate out of the playing field even if they aren’t explicitly disallowed. Still it’s a huge difference in terms of what you need to prepare for.

Spiral of power

This also has another effect, due to Weiß’s power creep, recently published japanese sets usually have a bit of an upper hand over recent english sets and so people who play exclusively in english are always (if only marginally) at a disadvantage.

This is actually a problem that is being a bit mitigated by the fact that some of the latest english sets have mostly been published 1~3 months from their japanese counterparts. Attack On Titan Vol. 2 is due to be released simultaneously in both english and japanese.

In defense of playing in english format / the hard truth

Whether some people like it or not, Weiß’s growth is very much dependent on english edition:

Growth : there’s a larger market out there for cards printed in english language

: there’s a larger market out there for cards printed in english language Lower entry barrier : Less published sets to think about, common language

: Less published sets to think about, common language Availability : not having to go to the depths of the internet to import some japanese sets is a plus

: not having to go to the depths of the internet to import some japanese sets is a plus Convenience : not having to print out translations or memorising all of your opponents’ cards

: not having to print out translations or memorising all of your opponents’ cards Compatibility : realising that after spending loads of cash in cards, large official tournaments don’t even accept your decks due to being in japanese language

Conclusion

As the game progresses and grows I imagine current mixed tournaments will increasingly divide into English only and Japanese only depending on each player’s preferences (and many players will play in both of these tournament formats).

Other formats are also bound to appear eventually, limited formats (from a limited pool of boosters) are already due to appear as they’re always cherished by players for its intrinsic levelling of the play field.

The birth of new formats in any game has always been met with some disdain by some players, but it’s a much needed change for ever evolving card games. So the most important thing to keep note is to play how you like, be it in english, japanese, mixed or even a new format.

Future

As the game grows and more players join the game, my opinion is that it would be inevitable to someday limit older sets to make it easier for new players to join the game without having to know dozens of titles to even expect to be minimally knowledgeable at the game, and thus introduce a new format.

However we’re still far away from it as I see it (if it ever comes to be officially), as the game is very young in English. Now that limited format, I’m surely gonna try some stuff out in the next few months!

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I hope you liked this article, I’ll be back with more stuff after this long hiatus we’ve been on.

Don’t forget to follow our FB page, and if you play mostly in english, join the WS English edition community on FB.