Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
You've Just Triggered My Trap Card! (Vanguard cards/combos you probably should avoid)
Demon Bike of the Witching Hour - This card is so unintentionally poorly designed that it is borderline unplayable, yet still played quite a bit. Especially in the deck it was meant for. You might be thinking, "22k 3 crit?! What's wrong with that?!" Nothing is wrong with that, what's wrong is when you take a look at the numbers behind your units. Are you running 4 perfect guards? Are you running 4 Demon Bikes? Okay, that's 8 grade 1's. How many of those are on the field? 1. The "optimal" situation for this deck, according to its players, would be riding an Alluring Succubus/Yellow Bolt on the first turn, and securing that extra soul charge. So, let's take a look at our booster count for our whole deck. We have 4 nulls we don't really want to call to boost with. We have 1 Bike since the rest go to soul from deck. We just lost an Alluring/Yellow Bolt. So then, if we're running 14 grade 1's, we have 6 boosters left (-4 nulls, -3 Bikes, -1 grade 1 ride). In exchange, we have a 12k booster and 5 other potential boosters. Now, that's all fine and dandy. You can draw into 2 of 5 cards in your deck and fill your backrow and pray you aren't up against Kagero/Narukami/Correctly built Dark Irregulars that can snipe your Bike, because that will be the first target, and then you'll have no backrow short of the 5 cards you get to draw into. But, wait, there's more! In a Reijy deck, you've also soul charged close to 15 cards, which means that you're extremely likely to have soul charged a few more of your grade 1's. So, you're talking about hitting 2-3 of the maybe 4 grade 1's available to you. That's not counting cards that get damage checked. Speaking of that, a damage checked Bike makes running him useless, gives you a -1 to soul (same as soul charging him before using Reijy to put copies of himself in soul), and there's many ways for you to mess up that perfect set-up. Drawing into Demon Bikes is another way to mess up your set-up. Sure, you can ride one, soul charge another, and have two 10k boosters (not bad at all), but that typically won't let you hit any magic numbers over regular Amon and won't help you hit magic numbers over Devil Child.
Dragonic Overlord THE END/Dauntless Drive Dragon - DOtE is an early game pressure card/late game tank. All he needs to cause some form of pressure is to have two face up damage. One of the things that has made the deck dominate for so long was a combination of the deck's cycling abilities to get him out, a potential 13k defense, and Kagero's backrow sniping, making it harder for the opponent to hit over that 13k wall. If you don't crossride DOtE, it is still just as much of an offensive threat, but loses quite a bit of defensive prowess. Dauntless Drive Dragon is an incredible break ride unit. Probably the best in the game. He destroys hands late game and does what he does really well. This combo actually works out pretty well, not because of synergy (they have -5 synergy, tell you the truth), but because break riding Crested Dragon (Kagero vanilla 10k grade 3) over Dauntless Drive Dragon is still insane pressure. On-hit limit break effects suck. There's no mincing words, if your Vanguard hits late game, the game is typically over. Even still, if your opponent is going to let one of DOtE's attacks hit, it's going to be the first one. This leaves you with a choice, activate the persona blast and make DDD's effect non-existant (unsynergy) or activate DDD's effect and have them guard the second swing. They will either guard the second, or guard both. In any event that they can't guard either attack, they would lose to any break ride combination with DDD anyway. This combination quite literally accomplishes nothing short of dragging both cards away from their truest potential since both function better without each other.
Ethics Buster/Stern Blaukluger - While I personally use Ethics as a back-up Vanguard in my Stern deck post set-10, that is his function, a back-up ride that's 11k defense and swings for 13k. Apply everything about on-hit limit breaks being bad from the DOtE/DDD section and apply it to this combo.
Genovious/Benedict and/or Storm Riders - I really love Genovious and Benedict. I have never really been a big Storm Rider fan, though. These cards don't work together nicely. Having a bunch of weak swings, likely 9-10k, doesn't do anything for this deck, especially since half of the Storm Riders (Eugene/Basil/Diamantes) only get the +power and swap on the first attack. If you swap using those three units, you can't use their effects to swap back after the persona blast. This deck is really meant to do 5 boosted attacks at the Vanguard. That being said, you guys are probably wondering why Benedict doesn't fit. Here's the sad answer. When Benedict attacks a Vanguard, he is forced to lose the 5k and restand. Then you are forced to attack the Vanguard again with that -5k. When you restand Benedict, you get neither the 5k back nor the ability to use that effect to restand him. The entire purpose of using Benedict in a critical deck is to swing Vanguard first and if the Vanguard is guarded, pass that power to Benedict since he doubles up on the amount of shield forced from every trigger. Now, there is a way to play around that by attacking a RG with Benedict, but when the purpose of the 5 swing limit break persona blast is to try and finish the opponent, that feels very counterproductive.
Goku/Waterfall/Lawkeeper - I keep hearing this rationale that "Once you have checked a few grade 3's, ride a different unit over Goku." I mean, sure, you can. But math has already proven that your flat odds of hitting a grade 3 on a drive check never change, and your proportion of checking grade 3's to non-grade 3's is most likely going to stick around the flat ratio of grade 3's to non-grade 3's in your deck, so there's little point to it unless you're riding specifically to finish off the opponent. Waterfall is a big Vanguard swing, but they aren't going to be null guarding Goku unless they ran out of 10k shields earlier. There's a good chance you're just riding into a null guard while retaining the same flat odds to check grade 3's. Lawkeeper is a little more justifiable as it is a limit break unit and can eliminate the intercepting factor to push for game, but it's still not a big improvement on the base (only hits for one more stage against non-crossrides) and the null guard issue could still happen. I think that Goku should stay your Vanguard with Dauntless as a back-up ride because, like I mentioned earlier, anything with Dauntless is good and 4 chances to retire grade 1's, even that late in the game, is still relevant. It still keeps goku as that early game pressure card while having a viable back-up option that drains the opponent's hand, and if you want to run extra grade 3's, the Amber Dragon ride chain is great for this deck.
Platina/Gancelot - This combination gives your field +50k for a turn. It comes with a few downsides though. The deck doesn't do anything at any other stage of the game. People who see the breakride combination coming will keep your damage low. All of your 12k beaters work only half the time. Missing the break ride equates to you doing nothing the whole game. You need to run non-counterblasting, weak rear guards, including self-damagers. You are very likely going to create normal rows that only force 5k shield from your opponent because of the RG's you are forced to run. The deck just exudes gimmickiness, and due to all of these weaknesses, isn't likely to be that threatening with a 50k power boost.
Pellinore/Duke or any other main phase/ride phase superior call deck - No. Pellinore is bad. Riding him mid-battlephase is his best case scenario. Dropping 2 cards to ride a vanilla 10k unit that can limit break to sack nearly half of his field for a marginal increase in power is not a good option. Duke is better off with Gancelot (when available) and until then Destroyer. Chrome and Duke both want to be at 4, and I think that having a decent RG is a little too important for this deck, especially since Destroyer is their only out for 21k on the RG without Garmore (who is your real backup ride if you need one).
Dragonic Overlord THE END/Dauntless Drive Dragon - DOtE is an early game pressure card/late game tank. All he needs to cause some form of pressure is to have two face up damage. One of the things that has made the deck dominate for so long was a combination of the deck's cycling abilities to get him out, a potential 13k defense, and Kagero's backrow sniping, making it harder for the opponent to hit over that 13k wall. If you don't crossride DOtE, it is still just as much of an offensive threat, but loses quite a bit of defensive prowess. Dauntless Drive Dragon is an incredible break ride unit. Probably the best in the game. He destroys hands late game and does what he does really well. This combo actually works out pretty well, not because of synergy (they have -5 synergy, tell you the truth), but because break riding Crested Dragon (Kagero vanilla 10k grade 3) over Dauntless Drive Dragon is still insane pressure. On-hit limit break effects suck. There's no mincing words, if your Vanguard hits late game, the game is typically over. Even still, if your opponent is going to let one of DOtE's attacks hit, it's going to be the first one. This leaves you with a choice, activate the persona blast and make DDD's effect non-existant (unsynergy) or activate DDD's effect and have them guard the second swing. They will either guard the second, or guard both. In any event that they can't guard either attack, they would lose to any break ride combination with DDD anyway. This combination quite literally accomplishes nothing short of dragging both cards away from their truest potential since both function better without each other.
Ethics Buster/Stern Blaukluger - While I personally use Ethics as a back-up Vanguard in my Stern deck post set-10, that is his function, a back-up ride that's 11k defense and swings for 13k. Apply everything about on-hit limit breaks being bad from the DOtE/DDD section and apply it to this combo.
Genovious/Benedict and/or Storm Riders - I really love Genovious and Benedict. I have never really been a big Storm Rider fan, though. These cards don't work together nicely. Having a bunch of weak swings, likely 9-10k, doesn't do anything for this deck, especially since half of the Storm Riders (Eugene/Basil/Diamantes) only get the +power and swap on the first attack. If you swap using those three units, you can't use their effects to swap back after the persona blast. This deck is really meant to do 5 boosted attacks at the Vanguard. That being said, you guys are probably wondering why Benedict doesn't fit. Here's the sad answer. When Benedict attacks a Vanguard, he is forced to lose the 5k and restand. Then you are forced to attack the Vanguard again with that -5k. When you restand Benedict, you get neither the 5k back nor the ability to use that effect to restand him. The entire purpose of using Benedict in a critical deck is to swing Vanguard first and if the Vanguard is guarded, pass that power to Benedict since he doubles up on the amount of shield forced from every trigger. Now, there is a way to play around that by attacking a RG with Benedict, but when the purpose of the 5 swing limit break persona blast is to try and finish the opponent, that feels very counterproductive.
Goku/Waterfall/Lawkeeper - I keep hearing this rationale that "Once you have checked a few grade 3's, ride a different unit over Goku." I mean, sure, you can. But math has already proven that your flat odds of hitting a grade 3 on a drive check never change, and your proportion of checking grade 3's to non-grade 3's is most likely going to stick around the flat ratio of grade 3's to non-grade 3's in your deck, so there's little point to it unless you're riding specifically to finish off the opponent. Waterfall is a big Vanguard swing, but they aren't going to be null guarding Goku unless they ran out of 10k shields earlier. There's a good chance you're just riding into a null guard while retaining the same flat odds to check grade 3's. Lawkeeper is a little more justifiable as it is a limit break unit and can eliminate the intercepting factor to push for game, but it's still not a big improvement on the base (only hits for one more stage against non-crossrides) and the null guard issue could still happen. I think that Goku should stay your Vanguard with Dauntless as a back-up ride because, like I mentioned earlier, anything with Dauntless is good and 4 chances to retire grade 1's, even that late in the game, is still relevant. It still keeps goku as that early game pressure card while having a viable back-up option that drains the opponent's hand, and if you want to run extra grade 3's, the Amber Dragon ride chain is great for this deck.
Platina/Gancelot - This combination gives your field +50k for a turn. It comes with a few downsides though. The deck doesn't do anything at any other stage of the game. People who see the breakride combination coming will keep your damage low. All of your 12k beaters work only half the time. Missing the break ride equates to you doing nothing the whole game. You need to run non-counterblasting, weak rear guards, including self-damagers. You are very likely going to create normal rows that only force 5k shield from your opponent because of the RG's you are forced to run. The deck just exudes gimmickiness, and due to all of these weaknesses, isn't likely to be that threatening with a 50k power boost.
Pellinore/Duke or any other main phase/ride phase superior call deck - No. Pellinore is bad. Riding him mid-battlephase is his best case scenario. Dropping 2 cards to ride a vanilla 10k unit that can limit break to sack nearly half of his field for a marginal increase in power is not a good option. Duke is better off with Gancelot (when available) and until then Destroyer. Chrome and Duke both want to be at 4, and I think that having a decent RG is a little too important for this deck, especially since Destroyer is their only out for 21k on the RG without Garmore (who is your real backup ride if you need one).
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Blaukluger, Shutsugeki!
I put my own spin on the Blaukluger series a while ago. I wanted to share some of my secrets with you guys.
Starter - Blaujunger
16 Nova Grappler Critical Triggers Because We Are Men (16NGCTBWAM)
Grade 1's
4x Tough Boy [Key Card]
4x Twin-Blader
4x Blaupanzer
2x Rocket Hammerman [Key Card]
Grade 2's
4x Blaukluger [Key Card]
3x Eisenkugel [Key Card]
2x Kirara
2x Hungry Dumpty
Grade 3's
4x Stern Blaukluger
4x Death Metal Droid [Key Card]
Now, you see the "[Key Card]" symbol over a few units that aren't always typical in a Stern deck, or aren't typical at the amount I'm running them at. There is a method to this madness.
The first key card is Tough Boy. He is very important in this deck. Granted, vanilla boosters are always good. This one is a super special case though, as I will explain with the next key card.
The second key card is Rocket Hammerman. "Wait, what? Tim, why? That card is so incredible awful". Mmm, not as much as you might think. The ability to transfer one stage of power from a row that's already strong enough to hit anything unboosted to an on-hit restanding Vanguard is actually pretty amazing. Yes folks, this makes an 11k base Stern 21k with a Tough Boy booster, and that's incredibly sexy. It is typically placed behind the fourth key card, and we'll soon see why.
The third key card is Blaukluger. It is normal to run Blaukluger in a Blaukluger deck, but typically not 4. The reason why I'm running 4 Blauklugers is because I absolutely love consistency. Not only that, this opens up the option of riding a different grade 1 other than Blaupanzer, calling Blaupanzer to drop a Death Metal Droid for a Stern, and still securing that 11k base which is extremely important to this deck.
The fourth key card is Eisenkugel. It swings for 12k with a Blaukluger Vanguard while retaining a 10k body. If we don't have a Blaukluger Vanguard, though, it becomes a 5k body and swings for 7k. This is another reason why we are desperately trying to secure that Blaukluger/Stern and want each step of this process to be as consistent as possible. This card is placed in front of Rocket Hammerman to ensure that the row can always hit at least something unboosted. If your opponent crossrides and Rocket Hammerman is no longer being used to make Stern 21k (or they're at 5 damage and/or you anticipate a perfect guard) since it's no longer a magic number, this row is already 18k. Can also be used to kill Tom because Tom.
The fifth key card is Death Metal Droid. Against 10/11k Vanguards, he is extremely punishing. Your opponent can't guard a 21k Vanguard and a 21k + triggers RG every turn, and this is typically where people are going to eat the damage. If you want to troll crossrides that are at 4 damage, you can tap Rocket Hammerman to give this unit power, and have Eisenkugal swing at a RG unboosted (this always forces at least 5k shield from an opponent so that they have to "guard" the attack that they would most want not to guard). Now you swing with your 19k Stern, and when they guard that, pass triggers to your 23k+ triggers Death Metal Droid. Keep in mind that you lose a stage of power against the crossride by doing this, but you get to apply more power to the rows which are going to have the critical pressure. Again, this is a 4 damage opponent tactic. Don't do this at 5 because you will be 5k less shield to guard for turn.
Now, there are plenty of other units and tactics in this deck. I just wanted to explain a bit about how I trade power stages from rows to generate more pressure by having the higher-threat rows get more power to go with your increased likelihood of checking criticals from being a man.
Starter - Blaujunger
16 Nova Grappler Critical Triggers Because We Are Men (16NGCTBWAM)
Grade 1's
4x Tough Boy [Key Card]
4x Twin-Blader
4x Blaupanzer
2x Rocket Hammerman [Key Card]
Grade 2's
4x Blaukluger [Key Card]
3x Eisenkugel [Key Card]
2x Kirara
2x Hungry Dumpty
Grade 3's
4x Stern Blaukluger
4x Death Metal Droid [Key Card]
Now, you see the "[Key Card]" symbol over a few units that aren't always typical in a Stern deck, or aren't typical at the amount I'm running them at. There is a method to this madness.
The first key card is Tough Boy. He is very important in this deck. Granted, vanilla boosters are always good. This one is a super special case though, as I will explain with the next key card.
The second key card is Rocket Hammerman. "Wait, what? Tim, why? That card is so incredible awful". Mmm, not as much as you might think. The ability to transfer one stage of power from a row that's already strong enough to hit anything unboosted to an on-hit restanding Vanguard is actually pretty amazing. Yes folks, this makes an 11k base Stern 21k with a Tough Boy booster, and that's incredibly sexy. It is typically placed behind the fourth key card, and we'll soon see why.
The third key card is Blaukluger. It is normal to run Blaukluger in a Blaukluger deck, but typically not 4. The reason why I'm running 4 Blauklugers is because I absolutely love consistency. Not only that, this opens up the option of riding a different grade 1 other than Blaupanzer, calling Blaupanzer to drop a Death Metal Droid for a Stern, and still securing that 11k base which is extremely important to this deck.
The fourth key card is Eisenkugel. It swings for 12k with a Blaukluger Vanguard while retaining a 10k body. If we don't have a Blaukluger Vanguard, though, it becomes a 5k body and swings for 7k. This is another reason why we are desperately trying to secure that Blaukluger/Stern and want each step of this process to be as consistent as possible. This card is placed in front of Rocket Hammerman to ensure that the row can always hit at least something unboosted. If your opponent crossrides and Rocket Hammerman is no longer being used to make Stern 21k (or they're at 5 damage and/or you anticipate a perfect guard) since it's no longer a magic number, this row is already 18k. Can also be used to kill Tom because Tom.
The fifth key card is Death Metal Droid. Against 10/11k Vanguards, he is extremely punishing. Your opponent can't guard a 21k Vanguard and a 21k + triggers RG every turn, and this is typically where people are going to eat the damage. If you want to troll crossrides that are at 4 damage, you can tap Rocket Hammerman to give this unit power, and have Eisenkugal swing at a RG unboosted (this always forces at least 5k shield from an opponent so that they have to "guard" the attack that they would most want not to guard). Now you swing with your 19k Stern, and when they guard that, pass triggers to your 23k+ triggers Death Metal Droid. Keep in mind that you lose a stage of power against the crossride by doing this, but you get to apply more power to the rows which are going to have the critical pressure. Again, this is a 4 damage opponent tactic. Don't do this at 5 because you will be 5k less shield to guard for turn.
Now, there are plenty of other units and tactics in this deck. I just wanted to explain a bit about how I trade power stages from rows to generate more pressure by having the higher-threat rows get more power to go with your increased likelihood of checking criticals from being a man.
Monday, July 8, 2013
Trigger Tier List
After playtesting every combination of triggers possible, I've decided to make a new trigger tier list (Heals were moved down to tier 2, Stands up to tier 2, Draws down to tier 3):
Previous Tier List:
Tier 1 - Critical Trigger, Heal Trigger
Tier 2 - Draw Trigger
Tier 3 - Stand Trigger
Current Tier List:
Tier 1 - Critical Trigger
Tier 2 - Stand Trigger, Heal Trigger
Tier 3 - Draw Trigger
Disclaimer: This assesses the general value of triggers as if they were always 5k vanilla triggers. Gatling Claw, Margal, and Shirley are still great cards.
Criticals don't need to be explained. In a game with such an incredibly small damage pool, dealing extra damage automatically is already going to be the best option. It forces opponents into late game sooner than they would otherwise be comfortable. Also, there aren't any real clans, decks, playstyles, or builds that wouldn't see some benefit from running critical triggers.
Now, for the remaining three:
Stands - Stands started off being underpowering, and in a large section of the English meta, they are still pretty weak. However, that does not dismiss their potential. They are the best offensive trigger at 5 damage (and a good section of the game takes place at this amount of damage), but unlike criticals, which fall off at 5 damage, stands are still useful for the rest of the game before hitting their peak at 5, so long as you have a rear-guard out. As heals are proving to be less and less consistent with stronger styles of gameplay, I feel like with the increase in high-powered rear guards being introduced to the game and the strengthening of on-hit skills like Constance and units to increase their power like Sephirot and Master of Fifth, along with RG empowering break rides like Mordred, Gancelot, and Dantalian, stands have been slowly but surely gaining that early game pressure and late game killing power to get them up a notch above heals in overall effectiveness. There are still some decks that don't synergize well with stands (Pale Moon is a prime example, as even though they have on-hit skills, most of their front row base power is too low to merit stands). Link Joker will make stands significantly weaker when they land their breakride. I won't count one deck that counters stands against them, though. They have been proving their worth.
Heals - You might be thinking, "ZOMG Tim, WTF, HEELZ ARE BEST!" And if heals didn't have that, "You must have equal or greater damage to your opponent to heal.", I would agree. My playtesting has shown me a lot of insightful things. One of these things is that there are a lot of games where I will drop a 10k to no pass an opponent's first swing to my Vanguard. Of these games, about 20% of them ended up with me cockblocking a critical trigger. If you think about it, most decks run 8 criticals. More decks run 12 crit than 6 crit, and very few decks run only 4 crit. There are some decks running more/less, but they are outside of the norm. If you assume an average of 9-10 criticals per deck, then by no passing that first swing, you end up with about a 20% chance to stop a critical trigger. Now, what does this have to do with heal triggers? I think it's a smart idea to stop that first swing if you have the 10k shield for it and your vanguard is strong enough to no-pass it with just a 10k shield. If you stop that first swing, it will be a few turns before the option of healing even presents itself. I've seen people take easily guarded 5k to-guard attacks to enable themselves to reach the same damage as their opponent to not hit into dead heals. There are a wide array of situations where easily guarded attacks can be guarded for 5k or 10k shields early and save you shield in the long run. Guarding early is going to save you shield in the long run. It's a wise thing to do when the situation presents itself and your hand has those excess grade 0's. The simple fact is, you either have to play unintelligibly, you have to be losing legitimately, or you are going to have to eat some dead heal triggers. While healing is one of the most powerful effects that can occur in the game, if you have to play around your trigger in such incredibly inefficient ways, I can't give them the A+ rating that I would otherwise give them. As the other 3 triggers don't need anything special save one RG at rest (stand) and one RG not at rest (crit), it makes heals feel incredibly situational and difficult to manage. This isn't to say that heals are bad, they just aren't as great as they're hyped up to be.
Draws - Now, since I made so much of a fuss about consistency with Heals, you're probably like, "Wtf are you smoking Tim? Draws are the only cards that ALWAYS trigger." Yes, but of the 4 types of triggers, they have the weakest effect. Where a stand gives you an extra attack, potentially with an on-hit RG, where a crit will potentially end the game or rush it closer to ending, where a heal can save you or put you in a position to not have to guard with any extra cards from hand, all draws do is let you draw one random card off the top of your deck. That's not bad at all, but they come with four drawbacks.
1. They have less shield than other triggers.
2. The card they draw into most likely has 5k shield as well, so you net no gain in shields when this card is drive checked. If you twin-drive this card and draw into a trigger to get more shield, you either cockblocked your second trigger, or cockblocked your 1st damage trigger on the next turn. On your turn, there aren't really any benefits for a draw trigger over any other trigger unless you draw into the EXACT card you need for the after-battle persona blast/following turn (and that's if you have enough guard to survive the next turn without dropping that card to save yourself), a null guard, or you are crossridden and need more 5k shields to stop weak rear guard swings (not really applicable against 18k+ rows).
3. Damage checking draws is the most effective way to check them. You get the +1 on your opponent's turn, don't suffer the weaknesses that you get when you drive check them, and you don't care about their shield value being less than other triggers in the damage zone. The problem, you only get 5 damage checks to hit a draw on. Draws are only run at 4-6 per deck, so hitting a draw on a damage check isn't super consistent. This means that you are required to run heals with draws to potentially get extra damage checks, and that greatly reduces your options for trigger lineups when running draws.
4. Drawing into a draw trigger sucks. You get only 5k shield for it, and drawing into any other trigger is better.
So, despite draws being the only trigger unit to always get its effect, I'm seeing more and more that they simply have too many weaknesses and are too restrictive with trigger line-ups.
Previous Tier List:
Tier 1 - Critical Trigger, Heal Trigger
Tier 2 - Draw Trigger
Tier 3 - Stand Trigger
Current Tier List:
Tier 1 - Critical Trigger
Tier 2 - Stand Trigger, Heal Trigger
Tier 3 - Draw Trigger
Disclaimer: This assesses the general value of triggers as if they were always 5k vanilla triggers. Gatling Claw, Margal, and Shirley are still great cards.
Criticals don't need to be explained. In a game with such an incredibly small damage pool, dealing extra damage automatically is already going to be the best option. It forces opponents into late game sooner than they would otherwise be comfortable. Also, there aren't any real clans, decks, playstyles, or builds that wouldn't see some benefit from running critical triggers.
Now, for the remaining three:
Stands - Stands started off being underpowering, and in a large section of the English meta, they are still pretty weak. However, that does not dismiss their potential. They are the best offensive trigger at 5 damage (and a good section of the game takes place at this amount of damage), but unlike criticals, which fall off at 5 damage, stands are still useful for the rest of the game before hitting their peak at 5, so long as you have a rear-guard out. As heals are proving to be less and less consistent with stronger styles of gameplay, I feel like with the increase in high-powered rear guards being introduced to the game and the strengthening of on-hit skills like Constance and units to increase their power like Sephirot and Master of Fifth, along with RG empowering break rides like Mordred, Gancelot, and Dantalian, stands have been slowly but surely gaining that early game pressure and late game killing power to get them up a notch above heals in overall effectiveness. There are still some decks that don't synergize well with stands (Pale Moon is a prime example, as even though they have on-hit skills, most of their front row base power is too low to merit stands). Link Joker will make stands significantly weaker when they land their breakride. I won't count one deck that counters stands against them, though. They have been proving their worth.
Heals - You might be thinking, "ZOMG Tim, WTF, HEELZ ARE BEST!" And if heals didn't have that, "You must have equal or greater damage to your opponent to heal.", I would agree. My playtesting has shown me a lot of insightful things. One of these things is that there are a lot of games where I will drop a 10k to no pass an opponent's first swing to my Vanguard. Of these games, about 20% of them ended up with me cockblocking a critical trigger. If you think about it, most decks run 8 criticals. More decks run 12 crit than 6 crit, and very few decks run only 4 crit. There are some decks running more/less, but they are outside of the norm. If you assume an average of 9-10 criticals per deck, then by no passing that first swing, you end up with about a 20% chance to stop a critical trigger. Now, what does this have to do with heal triggers? I think it's a smart idea to stop that first swing if you have the 10k shield for it and your vanguard is strong enough to no-pass it with just a 10k shield. If you stop that first swing, it will be a few turns before the option of healing even presents itself. I've seen people take easily guarded 5k to-guard attacks to enable themselves to reach the same damage as their opponent to not hit into dead heals. There are a wide array of situations where easily guarded attacks can be guarded for 5k or 10k shields early and save you shield in the long run. Guarding early is going to save you shield in the long run. It's a wise thing to do when the situation presents itself and your hand has those excess grade 0's. The simple fact is, you either have to play unintelligibly, you have to be losing legitimately, or you are going to have to eat some dead heal triggers. While healing is one of the most powerful effects that can occur in the game, if you have to play around your trigger in such incredibly inefficient ways, I can't give them the A+ rating that I would otherwise give them. As the other 3 triggers don't need anything special save one RG at rest (stand) and one RG not at rest (crit), it makes heals feel incredibly situational and difficult to manage. This isn't to say that heals are bad, they just aren't as great as they're hyped up to be.
Draws - Now, since I made so much of a fuss about consistency with Heals, you're probably like, "Wtf are you smoking Tim? Draws are the only cards that ALWAYS trigger." Yes, but of the 4 types of triggers, they have the weakest effect. Where a stand gives you an extra attack, potentially with an on-hit RG, where a crit will potentially end the game or rush it closer to ending, where a heal can save you or put you in a position to not have to guard with any extra cards from hand, all draws do is let you draw one random card off the top of your deck. That's not bad at all, but they come with four drawbacks.
1. They have less shield than other triggers.
2. The card they draw into most likely has 5k shield as well, so you net no gain in shields when this card is drive checked. If you twin-drive this card and draw into a trigger to get more shield, you either cockblocked your second trigger, or cockblocked your 1st damage trigger on the next turn. On your turn, there aren't really any benefits for a draw trigger over any other trigger unless you draw into the EXACT card you need for the after-battle persona blast/following turn (and that's if you have enough guard to survive the next turn without dropping that card to save yourself), a null guard, or you are crossridden and need more 5k shields to stop weak rear guard swings (not really applicable against 18k+ rows).
3. Damage checking draws is the most effective way to check them. You get the +1 on your opponent's turn, don't suffer the weaknesses that you get when you drive check them, and you don't care about their shield value being less than other triggers in the damage zone. The problem, you only get 5 damage checks to hit a draw on. Draws are only run at 4-6 per deck, so hitting a draw on a damage check isn't super consistent. This means that you are required to run heals with draws to potentially get extra damage checks, and that greatly reduces your options for trigger lineups when running draws.
4. Drawing into a draw trigger sucks. You get only 5k shield for it, and drawing into any other trigger is better.
So, despite draws being the only trigger unit to always get its effect, I'm seeing more and more that they simply have too many weaknesses and are too restrictive with trigger line-ups.
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