After watching a full game of Vanguard Zero, I've come to a few conclusions about what's going to be busted and what will be balanced.
First, I'll explain some core mechanics so you can follow what the game plays like.
You have a 40 card deck. A vanilla starter, 13 grade 1s, 13 grade 2s, and 13 grade 3s that are also trigger units (you get to choose what type of triggers they are). This next part is conjecture, but I can only assume that you are limited to 4 heals. If we get to use 9 critical triggers, that will be fancy. I may even evaluate if running fewer heals and more crits would be worthwhile. Spoilers, it probably will be if my theories are remotely accurate.
The board is setup the same as vanilla Vanguard. You have a Vanguard circle and 5 RG slots in the normal locations. Riding and calling function identically to vanilla Vanguard. That's about where the similarities end. When it comes time to attack, you'll notice that you are unable to call Guardians. That's because Guarding isn't "a thing" in this game. Instead, your opponent must attack "interceptors" before they can swing at your face. This means that front row units are going to be consistently played and removed throughout the course of the game. Being able to maintain a board is key, as it is the difference between getting donked in the face once per turn or several times in a turn. Naturally, retiring a grade 2 on your opponent's field during your main phase leads to you getting an extra swing at their face, so retirement is pretty good.
For actual combat, drive checks function normally (other than grade 3s having 5k shield value and being triggers now). Damage checks are wildly different, however. When you take a damage, your Vanguard gains power equal to the shield value of the damage checked unit (which is always 5000 currently). If your opponent cannot hit 16k, then 21k (assuming you have no front row grade 2 RGs and they don't hit triggers), then simply damage checking can shut down their offense. Additionally, perfect guards do exist in the game. They don't require a discard to use, and automatically nullify the first attack done at your Vanguard that turn while they are in your hand.
Speculation: It was not mentioned whether or not that attack needs to have enough power to "force" the activation of the null guard. Something to look out for in the future.
With those core mechanics out of the way, the rest of the game functions like Vanguard, and games are won by going to 6 damage. All of the units I've seen have had their original skills (barring Dragonic Overlord, which gets Drive -2 on VC), but that is likely to be subject to change after more testing is done and they've already made the claim that cards could change for balancing purposes.
With all of that out of the way, let's talk some OP (in theory) units from the older sets.
Dragonic Overlord (on RG) - Dragonic Overlord was always a strong RG in early Vanguard in my opinion. I doubt they'll allow deck mixing, but if they do, he had some nutso synergy with Mr. Invincible, Hungry Dumpty, and Claydoll. In Vanguard Zero, assuming you have an 11k RG row and a Waterfall on Vanguard, you could easily CB3, wipe out the interceptors, swing 11k to VG, swing Overlord to Vanguard, Swing Waterfall to Vanguard and get in three damage that your opponent can't really do anything about (unless they have a null guard or damage check a draw and draw a perfect guard). That's devastating.
Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion - Similar in concept, attacking the Vanguard and the Interceptors at the same time is pretty good. In OG Vanguard, you would lose 10k~ shield. In Vanguard Zero, you will lose your face to the two subsequent attacks that you can't guard as long as the RG rows can get the needed power to hit over the damage
checks, which is the core concern Narukami seems to have at the moment. Additionally, Shiden and Raiden "stopped interceptors" in OG Narukami. Interested in seeing how those transition.
Bonus Critical Vanguards/Rear Guards - It should be pretty obvious that bonus crit units are cancer when not only can the opponent not guard, but they also must use their perfect guards as soon as they are able to. If you aren't attacking Vanguard last, you are heavily incentivized to pass crits to your RGs (as the only thing that could make the next attack be nullified would be them hitting a draw trigger (10% if they run 4) into a null guard (10%) which comes out to a 1% chance for them to do so, so giving them less damage checks on the between is going to be extremely beneficial. If the unit in question can hit 3 critical, it's just game over at that point.
Look to Gancelot either being overpowered (trading a trigger back to deck for an interceptor is already strong, especially since you pick which units are which trigger and this will be your heal. If he can CB4 for +10k +2 crit like in OG, it's game over) or nerfbatted/changed completely.
On-hit units - This also shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone. If you control when your opponent is able to guard, you control when your on-hit effects proc. The majority of on-hit effects in the early game were either CB2 draw a card effects or Megablasts (draw 5 cards/retire all opposing RGs), so this won't be an overwhelming advantage necessarily. But the alternative Enigman builds from set 8 would certainly be stepped up quite a bit (made worse with Laurel being a card) and Aqua Force would also get some solid usage out of Hydro Hurricane Dragon. Things to keep in mind.
At the end of the day, these theories are based largely off of what we've seen so far and what is likely to be coming for the game in the near-ish future, assuming major changes to cards aren't in the works (they probably are).
Some cards aren't even playable without grade 0s (RIP in Aleph). So there are definitely going to be changes. Hopefully Bushiroad doesn't screw up the game balance super early, but they're Bushiroad, so... they probably will.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Monday, July 23, 2018
V Era Trigger Tier List (Standard)
After three sets of game play, we've gotten to see how the new values for triggers, including their shield values, weighs in on their overall usefulness.
Let's go ahead and list them:
SS Tier
Front Triggers
S Tier
Critical Triggers, Heal Triggers, Null Guard Draws
C Tier
Non-null Draws
As it turns out, the added shield value for Crits and heals has made them even better than before, albeit less impactful with 10k triggers and a ton of bonus power in the new format. That being said, I'd argue that Crits, Heals, and Draw-Nulls are about even in strength.
With non-Sentinel Draw Triggers being a pathetic 5k shield, they simply should never be run. The shield value is negligible in this format, the extra draws you get are marginal over many play tests, and in a format of sentinel negation, you really need shield value. As with my previous tier list, drawing into a draw trigger instead of checking into it now reduces your shield by a full 10k, and there's more variance making the Draw Trigger actually net you less average shield than if you had checked a front or a critical. I didn't think this would need to be said, but I'm seeing a lot of 6/6/4 lists floating around.
If it were in my power to not play Draw Nulls in non-Accel clans, I would. Sadly, the option to adjust your trigger line-up in Force and Protect decks just isn't there. They force you to run 4 or more draws, and I'm looking forward to this changing. I would gladly play grade 1 nulls for a 12 Crit lineup if it's beneficial for the deck in question. This is actually a philosophy I've applied in Nova Grapplers, where I play 7 front/5 crit/4 heal and play the grade 1 null, as grade 1 Novas are extremely lackluster at the moment and high-rolling is super important since it's the deck's win condition.
Finally, we have the newest trigger, the Accel Trigger. Wew lad is it ever amazing. Accel clans get bonus front row slots and this bad boy can net you 40k power with only one extra slot. It's simply a fantastic trigger, offensively and defensively, as it can make your entire board unable to be hit mid-game. It puts in so much work that it's actually crazy, which is why I've bumped it up to SS tier. It's currently the strongest offensive *and* defensive trigger, and if you get 2-to-passed and check this first, you don't have to worry about making the gamble to break through. It has so many facets that make it function quite nicely. Definitely run no less than 6 in any accel deck in my opinion.
That's it for this article. Have a good one!
Let's go ahead and list them:
SS Tier
Front Triggers
S Tier
Critical Triggers, Heal Triggers, Null Guard Draws
C Tier
Non-null Draws
As it turns out, the added shield value for Crits and heals has made them even better than before, albeit less impactful with 10k triggers and a ton of bonus power in the new format. That being said, I'd argue that Crits, Heals, and Draw-Nulls are about even in strength.
With non-Sentinel Draw Triggers being a pathetic 5k shield, they simply should never be run. The shield value is negligible in this format, the extra draws you get are marginal over many play tests, and in a format of sentinel negation, you really need shield value. As with my previous tier list, drawing into a draw trigger instead of checking into it now reduces your shield by a full 10k, and there's more variance making the Draw Trigger actually net you less average shield than if you had checked a front or a critical. I didn't think this would need to be said, but I'm seeing a lot of 6/6/4 lists floating around.
If it were in my power to not play Draw Nulls in non-Accel clans, I would. Sadly, the option to adjust your trigger line-up in Force and Protect decks just isn't there. They force you to run 4 or more draws, and I'm looking forward to this changing. I would gladly play grade 1 nulls for a 12 Crit lineup if it's beneficial for the deck in question. This is actually a philosophy I've applied in Nova Grapplers, where I play 7 front/5 crit/4 heal and play the grade 1 null, as grade 1 Novas are extremely lackluster at the moment and high-rolling is super important since it's the deck's win condition.
Finally, we have the newest trigger, the Accel Trigger. Wew lad is it ever amazing. Accel clans get bonus front row slots and this bad boy can net you 40k power with only one extra slot. It's simply a fantastic trigger, offensively and defensively, as it can make your entire board unable to be hit mid-game. It puts in so much work that it's actually crazy, which is why I've bumped it up to SS tier. It's currently the strongest offensive *and* defensive trigger, and if you get 2-to-passed and check this first, you don't have to worry about making the gamble to break through. It has so many facets that make it function quite nicely. Definitely run no less than 6 in any accel deck in my opinion.
That's it for this article. Have a good one!
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Vanguard Reboot - First Thoughts
Hey all,
I decided to give some initial thoughts on the new format and what I think of each individual mechanic, as well as the removal of other things. Let's start with my initial tier list for set 1.
SS+++ tier
Going First
S tier
Oracle Think Tank, Kagero, Nova Grapplers with a good hand
B tier
Royal Paladin
C tier
Nova Grapplers having a mediocre hand or worse.
You may notice that I skipped a full tier between Royal Paladin and every other deck. That's because Royals have no incentive to multi-ride grade 3s, don't have a "high-roll" that proves to be devastating like Novas (restanding a 32k attacker with the potential for triggers is crazy strong), and have little end-game utility outside of Soul Saver, which can only be used once and fights for resources with Blaster Blade. Outside of Royals, I think the format is pretty well balanced. Novas have an advantage over OTT generally speaking. OTT can outlast Kagero, although Kagero can get in a win with Waterfall in ideal situations. Kagero pretty much auto-wins the Nova match-up. It's not so bad that all of the match-ups are the equivalent of playing rock, papers, scissors, but no singular deck has an insurmountable advantage that we can't see a diversity of tops, either.
My initial opinion is that the format is well-balanced in card design. But that doesn't make the format itself well-designed. Let's look into the Imaginary Gifts.
FORCE
Force gives a circle of your choice 10000 power during your turn. It's pretty close to adding a legion mate to that circle. Consequently, this is a power-level we've seen and are used to. Currently, the advantages of Force are that it makes power-requirement clans like Dimension Police achieve those requirements far more easily. It also makes multi-attacker decks that call mid-battlephase have extra advantages when this is done, which will likely be a facet we see for Royal Paladin and Gold Paladin at a later date (assuming Gold Paladin is in this reboot). I think Force has solid utility and potential. The only major abuse I can see for force clans would be sentinel restriction. Wouldn't you know it, that happened set 1 with a bonus crit and it's the best singular card in the set. I think that force is the most tame of the the imaginary gifts in power level and the one that's the hardest to abuse.
ACCEL
Accel gives you an extra front row RG circle with a bonus 10000 power on it during your turn. It's pretty nuts. Nova Grappler started with very few cards in the first set and nothing to reliably get a solid field set-up. Currently, when they get their optimal set-up, they are the strongest overall deck. But, high rolling is still high rolling. You will keep seeing Novas top here and there so long as the deck can destroy anything when it gets that setup. I think this is the strongest of the gifts because it has the most potential for abuse when joined with a clan that has access to mid-battlephase calls or a large amount of restanding. Not only do you get all of the swings associated with having the extra RG slots, but you also get that extra static power boost at all times. Getting in 7-8 attacks at ascended power levels can be quite potent, to say the least. So far, no accel clans have had a mid-battlephase call announced, so I think Bushiroad is being mindful of this. That being said, I could see Accel clans being stupid in premium, which is why I'm glad I won't be playing it.
PROTECT
Protect gives you a null guard every time you ride to grade 3. It's pretty nuts. It's currently the strongest mechanic in the current format because Bushiroad has been mindful in restricting the other two from becoming too cancerous, at least in the first set. This mechanic is strong independent of the deck being used, but OTT gets extra bonuses for riding more grade 3s with Imperial Daughter and Deer, so it's shown itself to be the strongest deck in the current format for exactly this reason. I can see protect in a control clan (like Megacolony) being strong, but I think protect in a clan like Granblue is going to really show us the limits on how much it can do as a mechanic. I think protect clans are always going to be in the upper tiers simply for the mechanic at this point, as the mechanic is independently strong and requires no additional mechanism to function properly.
I think that the Imaginary Gifts have the potential to be really unbalanced depending on what support is created, and it will make entire clans limited in design in that facet. I wanted to discuss what I'm really upset about with the new format: Going first. I wrote an article about how going first was objectively overpowered until Legion became a mechanic. Well, here we are, back with the same old problems, only we also have to deal with Imaginary Gifts benefiting the first player as well and all previous mechanics that benefited the second-turn player are now gone. I have done some playtesting with friends, and short of playing a deck that wins a match-up convincingly, the person who goes first wins at a very disproportionate amount. I did mirrors with my buddy (Novas vs. Novas) where there is even more variance in potential power-output from the decks, and the first-turn player won the first 12 games. ~_~ Unless there is a large disparity in deck strength, the deck going second has an unfavorable match-up, or the player going first plays suboptimally, going first is a daunting facet to the game that currently is the hardest thing in a fight to overcome. I hope Bushiroad addresses this in some way to make it more "fair" for people going second. Especially now that the loser decides who goes first in games 2 and 3. Every single 3 game match my buddies and I played was won by the person who won the dice roll when doing mirrors. Let that sink in.
In conclusion, I think that there's some room to work with. I see caution from Bushiroad on Accel that I think is merited. I also see caution on Royal Paladin, as that was the busted clan last time around, and this over-caution left them pretty lackluster, but these cautions can both be fixed later. I think that the individual mechanics are slightly imbalanced, Accel for potential and Protect for practical usage, leaving Force somewhat underpowered, but I think that they aren't so varied in power-level that it's damning to the game's potential for fun or future content. I do think this about going first, though. I hope Bushiroad will implement something to make going second less detrimental that doesn't lead to the stupidity of something similar to R I P P U L.
I decided to give some initial thoughts on the new format and what I think of each individual mechanic, as well as the removal of other things. Let's start with my initial tier list for set 1.
SS+++ tier
Going First
S tier
Oracle Think Tank, Kagero, Nova Grapplers with a good hand
B tier
Royal Paladin
C tier
Nova Grapplers having a mediocre hand or worse.
You may notice that I skipped a full tier between Royal Paladin and every other deck. That's because Royals have no incentive to multi-ride grade 3s, don't have a "high-roll" that proves to be devastating like Novas (restanding a 32k attacker with the potential for triggers is crazy strong), and have little end-game utility outside of Soul Saver, which can only be used once and fights for resources with Blaster Blade. Outside of Royals, I think the format is pretty well balanced. Novas have an advantage over OTT generally speaking. OTT can outlast Kagero, although Kagero can get in a win with Waterfall in ideal situations. Kagero pretty much auto-wins the Nova match-up. It's not so bad that all of the match-ups are the equivalent of playing rock, papers, scissors, but no singular deck has an insurmountable advantage that we can't see a diversity of tops, either.
My initial opinion is that the format is well-balanced in card design. But that doesn't make the format itself well-designed. Let's look into the Imaginary Gifts.
FORCE
Force gives a circle of your choice 10000 power during your turn. It's pretty close to adding a legion mate to that circle. Consequently, this is a power-level we've seen and are used to. Currently, the advantages of Force are that it makes power-requirement clans like Dimension Police achieve those requirements far more easily. It also makes multi-attacker decks that call mid-battlephase have extra advantages when this is done, which will likely be a facet we see for Royal Paladin and Gold Paladin at a later date (assuming Gold Paladin is in this reboot). I think Force has solid utility and potential. The only major abuse I can see for force clans would be sentinel restriction. Wouldn't you know it, that happened set 1 with a bonus crit and it's the best singular card in the set. I think that force is the most tame of the the imaginary gifts in power level and the one that's the hardest to abuse.
ACCEL
Accel gives you an extra front row RG circle with a bonus 10000 power on it during your turn. It's pretty nuts. Nova Grappler started with very few cards in the first set and nothing to reliably get a solid field set-up. Currently, when they get their optimal set-up, they are the strongest overall deck. But, high rolling is still high rolling. You will keep seeing Novas top here and there so long as the deck can destroy anything when it gets that setup. I think this is the strongest of the gifts because it has the most potential for abuse when joined with a clan that has access to mid-battlephase calls or a large amount of restanding. Not only do you get all of the swings associated with having the extra RG slots, but you also get that extra static power boost at all times. Getting in 7-8 attacks at ascended power levels can be quite potent, to say the least. So far, no accel clans have had a mid-battlephase call announced, so I think Bushiroad is being mindful of this. That being said, I could see Accel clans being stupid in premium, which is why I'm glad I won't be playing it.
PROTECT
Protect gives you a null guard every time you ride to grade 3. It's pretty nuts. It's currently the strongest mechanic in the current format because Bushiroad has been mindful in restricting the other two from becoming too cancerous, at least in the first set. This mechanic is strong independent of the deck being used, but OTT gets extra bonuses for riding more grade 3s with Imperial Daughter and Deer, so it's shown itself to be the strongest deck in the current format for exactly this reason. I can see protect in a control clan (like Megacolony) being strong, but I think protect in a clan like Granblue is going to really show us the limits on how much it can do as a mechanic. I think protect clans are always going to be in the upper tiers simply for the mechanic at this point, as the mechanic is independently strong and requires no additional mechanism to function properly.
I think that the Imaginary Gifts have the potential to be really unbalanced depending on what support is created, and it will make entire clans limited in design in that facet. I wanted to discuss what I'm really upset about with the new format: Going first. I wrote an article about how going first was objectively overpowered until Legion became a mechanic. Well, here we are, back with the same old problems, only we also have to deal with Imaginary Gifts benefiting the first player as well and all previous mechanics that benefited the second-turn player are now gone. I have done some playtesting with friends, and short of playing a deck that wins a match-up convincingly, the person who goes first wins at a very disproportionate amount. I did mirrors with my buddy (Novas vs. Novas) where there is even more variance in potential power-output from the decks, and the first-turn player won the first 12 games. ~_~ Unless there is a large disparity in deck strength, the deck going second has an unfavorable match-up, or the player going first plays suboptimally, going first is a daunting facet to the game that currently is the hardest thing in a fight to overcome. I hope Bushiroad addresses this in some way to make it more "fair" for people going second. Especially now that the loser decides who goes first in games 2 and 3. Every single 3 game match my buddies and I played was won by the person who won the dice roll when doing mirrors. Let that sink in.
In conclusion, I think that there's some room to work with. I see caution from Bushiroad on Accel that I think is merited. I also see caution on Royal Paladin, as that was the busted clan last time around, and this over-caution left them pretty lackluster, but these cautions can both be fixed later. I think that the individual mechanics are slightly imbalanced, Accel for potential and Protect for practical usage, leaving Force somewhat underpowered, but I think that they aren't so varied in power-level that it's damning to the game's potential for fun or future content. I do think this about going first, though. I hope Bushiroad will implement something to make going second less detrimental that doesn't lead to the stupidity of something similar to R I P P U L.
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