The game of Battle Spirits TCG

　There are not enough time to explain all of the game, so I'm going to tell you less of the game rules (I know you can find out somewhere from the web, most likely from the Bandai America's official site http://www.bandaicg.com/ in near future), just an outline of the game so that you can find out on your own, and try to inform more of the predictable future, the past, then and now of the Battle Sprits TCG game environment and products.

　Battle Spirits TCG started as a 20th anniversary project of Bandai's trading card brand "Carddass" series「カードダス」. "Carddass" is also known as a bending machine of the cards, and originally sold many character cards such as Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, or Robot Anime Mechas like SD Gundam merchandises 「ＳＤガンダム」.
　Though most of them was collectable character cards with game-like gimmicks, after the first TCG Magic the Gathering entered to Japan, Bandai have started to selling some of their TCG products through the Carddass bending machines located everywhere in Japan. Bandai wasn't doing well (or should I say "miserable", to be honest!) in 1990's to beginning of 2000's overall (Few were surprisingly good, "Neon Genesis Evangelion TCG" for example. A rare TCG with multiplayer oriented game system similar to VTES of White Wolf/WotC), due to the lack of urban card/board games design experiences back then. But they have continued making TCGs and its designing level had improved little by little.
　From the middle of 2000's, Bandai made several adequate hit TCGs like "Bleach TCG" 「Bleach ソウルカードバトル」, "Rangers Strike", "Digital Monster Card Game: All-New Alpha Edition" 「デジモンカードゲームα」, or Dragon Ball digital coded arcade card games. But that was not enough to acquire respects from markets as one of the leading TCG game companies in Japan. They needed a more bigger hit title, and they made it as Battle Spirits TCG ("Current #3 trading-card game in Japan, behind only Duel Masters and Yu-Gi-Oh!" according to ICv2 in http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/14472.html), with the accumulated experiences form a hundred of past product titles and help of a former MTG player and WotC R&D designer Michael Elliott.

　You can read biweekly columns from chief designer Michael Elliott in "Michael Elliott's designers room" 「マイケル・エリオットのデザイナーズルーム」 (http://www.battlespirits.com/feature/column/michael.html), which is the sole official english articles currently available. I think you can learn much more about the game from the columns, and obviously with his lead design and influence Battle Spirits TCG became considerably both strategic and active game compared to other Japanese TCGs in general.
　You may wonder about what I just said, regarding Pokemon Card or Yu-Gi-Oh! Compared to MTG, Star Trek CCG or VS system. Well, Pokemon Card and Yu-Gi-Oh! were exceptional cases that appeared as hit games from early years of Japanese TCG history and that made them to be easily accepted by many foreign players and markets. Most TCGs in Japan are relatively TCG maniac players oriented, complicated and exhausting games for beginner/casual players and that's why they couldn't sell for overseas or mass markets unlike their predecessors. Remember that Japanese MTG pro players first made their successes on blue decks, and made many jokes about "of course Japan is a island country from the beginning" among Japanese players.

　Unlike other Japanese TCGs, Battle Spirits TCG offers players fast-paced gaming from early turns of a match, also with versatile tactic options during each battle step. This aspect of the game came from its unique resource system, "the cores."
　Each player starts the game with five life counters and four reserve cores, both represented by same plastic core tokens. (Though some official core tokens are included in starter set, players were not forced to use it. I prefer using a handful of glass tiles in daily games, bought from "a hundred yen shop" in Japan, like 99 cent shops in U.S.) You can use your reserve cores to pay the cost of cards in your hand, by moving numbers of cores specified as the cost from your reserve to trash area. Cores in your trash area will come back at the beginning of your next turn, and you will also gain a new core from void (core pool on outside of the game) so that resources will grow as a game goes on. This would sound very simple, clear, or boringly stereotyped perhaps. But the magic of the core gimmick is not over yet.
　There are two main ways to use your cores efficiently. The one way is to use them as re-usable resources to pay costs of cards. The other way is to put them on cards you have in play (currently, Spirits or Nexuses) to make their levels up. Each card in play will have their "levels" as stated left side of card text area, according to how many cores they have. As its level changes some cards will be gifted with new abilities, or might be transformed totally in its mechanic. Also, the Battle Point (BP) of spirits will be listed on card for each levels and their basic strength will depends on how many cores they keep. You can move your cores freely between reserve and each independent card you have in play during your main step. It could be said that as Battle Spirits TCG is a card game to play cards in your hands wisely, it is also as a board game that you will plan and manage the placement of your cores each turn strategically.
　As for uses of your cores, there are more exciting parts, the cost reduction. Each card will have some cost reduction symbols, so that you can see what how much of its costs will be lowered by cards you have in play sharing colors with it. Since you can gain big advantage by playing and keeping many cards in play, you would like to have a hordes of cheap spirits, not just an army but to be a resource engine by utilizing cost reduction. But you have to place at least a core on a spirit to keep them level 1, or your spirits will die if there are no cores on it and without any BPs. So as your forces of spirits will be slightly limited and balanced by total amount of cores, you have to select them from both availabilities and qualities in your deck.
　This unique core management system in Battle Spirits TCG will enables you to perform more dynamic playing in middle of the game. The fast-paced weenie deck will lose its offensive power after first few turns in TCGs general. But players in Battle Spirits TCG will accumulate cores on a few selected spirits to make them reliable forces in later turns, and there will be good chances to outsmart control decks! You can also use cores to pay your Flash Timing Effect costs, regardless of in your reserve or on your cards in play. (In fact, cores on your cards in play are basically treated as they were in your reserve. If cards were to leave play, cores on it will be back to owners reserve area. Cores are designed as such a solid resources and you don't have to fear of losing them.) As your pumped spirits have done their works and exhausted for this turn (or died in battle), you are free to use remaining cores from them to gain additional advantage.
　If you use cores wisely in the game, it will work for you in many ways, not just once but twice or thrice in every your turns. And this will give you total new experiences if you are playing control decks, such as playing defensive magic in critical moment dramatically, spending cores and sacrificing cards in play to save your last breath. Obviously flexibilities in core mechanics shift the game sequence to active and dynamic parts. But not just empowering beat decks, there are also counter-beat, burn, or control decks in Battle Spirits ways, even combo decks that can draw up all your deck! As those varied decks works in separate ways, they are all moving toward to win, and sharing eagerness for the victory and waiting for you!!