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!
Showing posts with label State of Vanguard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State of Vanguard. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2018
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.
Monday, January 16, 2017
A History of Bushiroad's Vanguard World Championships
Every single year, world finals happens. Every single year, people whine about the fact that the meta deck always wins. That bad players top. That Vanguard isn't competitive. That they're quitting the game. But, every single year, everyone seems to forget that the exact same thing happened the year before. But, what people don't seem to realize is, if a non-meta deck tops, the game isn't competitive because someone sacked with a non-meta deck and happened to win.
This year, we had an exceptional amount of players attending worlds that either maliciously or unknowingly cheated. Like, just about all of them. This, honestly, isn't wildly different from any other Vanguard Championship Circuit, outside of the staff being more incompetent than normal and the stream doing the rulings for them. It sucks when the judges aren't paying attention and things like this slip under the radar. With the loss of exceptional staff members like JD Mercado, it seems that Bushiroad can't ensure the integrity of the game. But enough about that, let's talk about the history of Vanguard World Championships.
2012 World Championships.
Brandon Smith (Spectral Duke Dragon) vs. Henry Suharto (Pellinore/Garmore)
Brandon expended a counterblast on Sleygal Dagger to make a 9k booster behind his Gigantech Destroyer to make a 21k row. Against a 9k Vanguard.
Henry called a Flame of Victory behind his 10k base Pellinore to attack a 10k base Spectral Duke Dragon, then subsequently lost because he didn't have shield. No, he didn't send it to the bottom of the deck with Pellinore to actually make a stage, either.
This was the first example of a World Championship that we had. Both players misplayed, albeit one more than the other, and it was recorded. Both players played pretty poorly, and people didn't really feel satisfied with the conclusion. To my knowledge, neither player stayed relevant after this. As a matter of fact, I don't believe we have a single person who got top 3 more than once at any World Championship.
2013 World Championships
While the decks were all pretty much what you would expect for a set 11~ time frame (DDD/DOtE won, Descendant was 3rd and 4th, Beast Deities had a surprise 2nd place finish, but Novas were the most supported clan and they had quite a bit going for them), that isn't what I wanted to touch on.
These finals weren't filmed. We can't touch on misplays or cheating. People were upset with Bushiroad for this, but they did nothing about it. It's hard to assess what happened under these conditions. But we can talk about the individual who became World Champion. Almeida Stewart. There have been allegations of Almeida cheating to win the Parisian qualifiers. It was said that he was able to stack opponents' decks without them or the judge noticing. As the article mentions, "According to our source, the statement 'If you cheat, cheat good' attributed to him by those that attended the tournament, has been a common saying from him throughout his career." has been a defining highlight of his reputation. If memory serves, I believe he was also caught stealing cards from a child and ended up getting in some legal trouble. I heard another report of him being in the news for stealing 4000 Euros of card gaming supplies in a gang-related incident. The truth of these claims is up in the air, but something definitely doesn't sit right here.
2014 World Championships
This is the second consecutive year that Bushiroad did not film the World Championship. The top three decks were all the same (Seekers). It's really hard to make any positive or negative commentary. However, 2nd place was KEVIN CHO! (Not really salty he beat me and knocked me out of the championships at Chicago this year, but I wanted to fill up space.) For all I know, this could have been the golden year of everyone being good at the game. The world may never know...
2014 was also the year they decided to fire JD Mercado for being too vocal about cheating that occurred in the Asia-Oceania Finals. Or, at least, that is my assumption of what happened. In this video you can see a Genesis player cheating really hard by having his preferred grade 2 ride face down, standing it as his Vanguard, saying, "Oops!", then adding it to his hand for his draw for turn.
2015 World Championships
R I P P U L was the deck that won the tournament this time. We got to see the grand finals get played. The Ripple player failed just about every turtle check and hit a critical just about every drive check, in spite of running draws and heal triggers. It was a very disappointing final match to watch, because he was rewarded for his opponent having a completely locked-out deck while playing a deck that was honestly trash, playing it like trash (never did top 7 search for Pavroth when riding Turtle, although that mattered less since he always had Odysseus, because he was a sack), then getting rewarded with triggers and with the ability to counteract the opponent playing the game in a pre-Sebreeze era. If he didn't sack triggers in such an insane way and if his opponent was actually hitting offensive triggers, the game would have spiraled out of the Ripple player's favor, easily. He had multiple grade 3's in hand game 2 and only had enough shield in hand because he hit a critical trigger every single drive check game 2. I decided to count triggers and turtles, so you can see how much of a sacklord this guy was with triggers, and why playing Turtle in a deck with 8 grade 3's is a waste.
Ripple player:
1st Drive Check - No trigger (False sense of security)
2nd Drive Check - Heal Trigger (Heal goes off)
3rd Drive Check - Critical Trigger
4th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
5th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
6th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
7th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
1st Turtle - Whiff (Heal)
2nd Turtle - Whiff (Genovious)
3rd Turtle - Perfect Guard (Pretty much the worst case scenario for calling a top card)
4th Turtle - Whiff (A lot of glare, but looks like a crit to me)
5th Turtle - Penguin Soldier
2016 World Championships
Our top 3 were:
1st - Daniel Middlesworth - 7C's Rush
2nd - Andy Lo - 7C's Rush
3rd - Liu Bo Chen - Thing Saver/Sanc Guard
As most of you are probably aware, there was a lot of misplaying going around. I believe it was 1st place who would use Nightrunners that were milled off of Nightrunners (the timing would be missed). The Gears player Time Leaped Gigi into Melem (Time Leap doesn't go to the same grade, and these are both grade 1's). The 3rd place player didn't discard for Sebreeze's skill (why he was running Sebreeze in a Sanc Guard deck is beyond me). Issues like this popped up all over the place. You've watched it or heard about it, and now you are angry. And here we are. We have yet to, other than the mysterious WC2014 which I wasn't able to find any real information on, have anything remotely close to a solid final match or a champion that we can say earned the title by being good at the game. And people are upset by it.
So the question lies: Have we ever had a respectable champion for an official Bushiroad tournament? Was there ever a player who legitimately outplayed the metagame and took advantage of how the game was played without locking people out of their own mechanics or luck sacking critical triggers left and right? The answer is yes.
Challenge Cup 2013. Before Team Leagues were a thing, this was how Bushiroad decided to do what eventually became "Spring Fest". They had shop qualifiers at many, many card shops all over the country. Winners of these qualifiers made it to a state qualifier. Winners of that state's qualifier made it to nationals. Sadly, nationals was where the event stopped. The individual who won nationals for this event was a very skillful player named Kaden Kawakami. Here is how he did it.
He ran the typical DOtE list. A lot of back row retirement. A lot of draw triggers. Typical walling for a deck in a metagame that struggled greatly to hit 18k. So, how was his list different? He didn't run any critical triggers. You might be thinking, "So, he's bad then?" Nope. He outplayed everybody. You see, in a best of 1 format, you have no idea what your opponent's trigger line-up is going to be. When you stare down a restanding Vanguard like DOtE, you can only assume that he is going to have the threat of increased critical pressure and a potential restand. Thus, the standard play against DOtE was to always guard him if you are capable of doing so. Kaden knew this and decided to run stand triggers to reinforce his rear guard pressure and end games. Keep in mind that during this timeframe, the standard meta way to play was to no guard any attack that didn't kill you to access limit break as early as possible, increasing the value of stand triggers even more. He legitimately outplayed the format, the players, and the metagame. And he didn't even have to lock people out of stride to do it.
It is my hope that we have another champion like Kaden to restore our faith in the game. In order for this to happen, Bushiroad needs to keep a better eye on R&D, keeping the game safe from an over saturation in the metagame along with the cheese mechanics of rushing. The only reason Gears or Wiseman Loop haven't won the last two championships was because rushing was the counter deck of the format, but the counters to rushing can't be used against the standard meta decks. Is it healthy? If rushing kills the cancer, does that make it chemotherapy? I doubt it. Bushiroad has designed themselves into a corner, and they have not handled it well.
This year, we had an exceptional amount of players attending worlds that either maliciously or unknowingly cheated. Like, just about all of them. This, honestly, isn't wildly different from any other Vanguard Championship Circuit, outside of the staff being more incompetent than normal and the stream doing the rulings for them. It sucks when the judges aren't paying attention and things like this slip under the radar. With the loss of exceptional staff members like JD Mercado, it seems that Bushiroad can't ensure the integrity of the game. But enough about that, let's talk about the history of Vanguard World Championships.
2012 World Championships.
Brandon Smith (Spectral Duke Dragon) vs. Henry Suharto (Pellinore/Garmore)
Brandon expended a counterblast on Sleygal Dagger to make a 9k booster behind his Gigantech Destroyer to make a 21k row. Against a 9k Vanguard.
Henry called a Flame of Victory behind his 10k base Pellinore to attack a 10k base Spectral Duke Dragon, then subsequently lost because he didn't have shield. No, he didn't send it to the bottom of the deck with Pellinore to actually make a stage, either.
This was the first example of a World Championship that we had. Both players misplayed, albeit one more than the other, and it was recorded. Both players played pretty poorly, and people didn't really feel satisfied with the conclusion. To my knowledge, neither player stayed relevant after this. As a matter of fact, I don't believe we have a single person who got top 3 more than once at any World Championship.
2013 World Championships
While the decks were all pretty much what you would expect for a set 11~ time frame (DDD/DOtE won, Descendant was 3rd and 4th, Beast Deities had a surprise 2nd place finish, but Novas were the most supported clan and they had quite a bit going for them), that isn't what I wanted to touch on.
These finals weren't filmed. We can't touch on misplays or cheating. People were upset with Bushiroad for this, but they did nothing about it. It's hard to assess what happened under these conditions. But we can talk about the individual who became World Champion. Almeida Stewart. There have been allegations of Almeida cheating to win the Parisian qualifiers. It was said that he was able to stack opponents' decks without them or the judge noticing. As the article mentions, "According to our source, the statement 'If you cheat, cheat good' attributed to him by those that attended the tournament, has been a common saying from him throughout his career." has been a defining highlight of his reputation. If memory serves, I believe he was also caught stealing cards from a child and ended up getting in some legal trouble. I heard another report of him being in the news for stealing 4000 Euros of card gaming supplies in a gang-related incident. The truth of these claims is up in the air, but something definitely doesn't sit right here.
2014 World Championships
This is the second consecutive year that Bushiroad did not film the World Championship. The top three decks were all the same (Seekers). It's really hard to make any positive or negative commentary. However, 2nd place was KEVIN CHO! (Not really salty he beat me and knocked me out of the championships at Chicago this year, but I wanted to fill up space.) For all I know, this could have been the golden year of everyone being good at the game. The world may never know...
2014 was also the year they decided to fire JD Mercado for being too vocal about cheating that occurred in the Asia-Oceania Finals. Or, at least, that is my assumption of what happened. In this video you can see a Genesis player cheating really hard by having his preferred grade 2 ride face down, standing it as his Vanguard, saying, "Oops!", then adding it to his hand for his draw for turn.
2015 World Championships
R I P P U L was the deck that won the tournament this time. We got to see the grand finals get played. The Ripple player failed just about every turtle check and hit a critical just about every drive check, in spite of running draws and heal triggers. It was a very disappointing final match to watch, because he was rewarded for his opponent having a completely locked-out deck while playing a deck that was honestly trash, playing it like trash (never did top 7 search for Pavroth when riding Turtle, although that mattered less since he always had Odysseus, because he was a sack), then getting rewarded with triggers and with the ability to counteract the opponent playing the game in a pre-Sebreeze era. If he didn't sack triggers in such an insane way and if his opponent was actually hitting offensive triggers, the game would have spiraled out of the Ripple player's favor, easily. He had multiple grade 3's in hand game 2 and only had enough shield in hand because he hit a critical trigger every single drive check game 2. I decided to count triggers and turtles, so you can see how much of a sacklord this guy was with triggers, and why playing Turtle in a deck with 8 grade 3's is a waste.
Ripple player:
1st Drive Check - No trigger (False sense of security)
2nd Drive Check - Heal Trigger (Heal goes off)
3rd Drive Check - Critical Trigger
4th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
5th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
6th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
7th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
1st Turtle - Whiff (Heal)
2nd Turtle - Whiff (Genovious)
3rd Turtle - Perfect Guard (Pretty much the worst case scenario for calling a top card)
4th Turtle - Whiff (A lot of glare, but looks like a crit to me)
5th Turtle - Penguin Soldier
2016 World Championships
Our top 3 were:
1st - Daniel Middlesworth - 7C's Rush
2nd - Andy Lo - 7C's Rush
3rd - Liu Bo Chen - Thing Saver/Sanc Guard
As most of you are probably aware, there was a lot of misplaying going around. I believe it was 1st place who would use Nightrunners that were milled off of Nightrunners (the timing would be missed). The Gears player Time Leaped Gigi into Melem (Time Leap doesn't go to the same grade, and these are both grade 1's). The 3rd place player didn't discard for Sebreeze's skill (why he was running Sebreeze in a Sanc Guard deck is beyond me). Issues like this popped up all over the place. You've watched it or heard about it, and now you are angry. And here we are. We have yet to, other than the mysterious WC2014 which I wasn't able to find any real information on, have anything remotely close to a solid final match or a champion that we can say earned the title by being good at the game. And people are upset by it.
So the question lies: Have we ever had a respectable champion for an official Bushiroad tournament? Was there ever a player who legitimately outplayed the metagame and took advantage of how the game was played without locking people out of their own mechanics or luck sacking critical triggers left and right? The answer is yes.
Challenge Cup 2013. Before Team Leagues were a thing, this was how Bushiroad decided to do what eventually became "Spring Fest". They had shop qualifiers at many, many card shops all over the country. Winners of these qualifiers made it to a state qualifier. Winners of that state's qualifier made it to nationals. Sadly, nationals was where the event stopped. The individual who won nationals for this event was a very skillful player named Kaden Kawakami. Here is how he did it.
He ran the typical DOtE list. A lot of back row retirement. A lot of draw triggers. Typical walling for a deck in a metagame that struggled greatly to hit 18k. So, how was his list different? He didn't run any critical triggers. You might be thinking, "So, he's bad then?" Nope. He outplayed everybody. You see, in a best of 1 format, you have no idea what your opponent's trigger line-up is going to be. When you stare down a restanding Vanguard like DOtE, you can only assume that he is going to have the threat of increased critical pressure and a potential restand. Thus, the standard play against DOtE was to always guard him if you are capable of doing so. Kaden knew this and decided to run stand triggers to reinforce his rear guard pressure and end games. Keep in mind that during this timeframe, the standard meta way to play was to no guard any attack that didn't kill you to access limit break as early as possible, increasing the value of stand triggers even more. He legitimately outplayed the format, the players, and the metagame. And he didn't even have to lock people out of stride to do it.
It is my hope that we have another champion like Kaden to restore our faith in the game. In order for this to happen, Bushiroad needs to keep a better eye on R&D, keeping the game safe from an over saturation in the metagame along with the cheese mechanics of rushing. The only reason Gears or Wiseman Loop haven't won the last two championships was because rushing was the counter deck of the format, but the counters to rushing can't be used against the standard meta decks. Is it healthy? If rushing kills the cancer, does that make it chemotherapy? I doubt it. Bushiroad has designed themselves into a corner, and they have not handled it well.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Seven Seas Rush
So, only weeks after releasing my grade 1 rush video stating that Seeker Rush was the best rush deck and that grade 1 rushing has become largely obsolete (but still mediocre, Sanc Blaster just does everything every other grade 1 rush deck wanted to do while still riding up) in the current metagame due to effects not being as heavily restricted by generation break in this current format, we have a new grade 1 rush monstrosity. Seven Seas Rush.
This decklist originated in Japan and quickly made its way over here after it topped. I hadn't seen the spoilers for the set 8 cards involved by time this happened, so I am not the originator for this deck. All credit to the guy who came up with the base idea. I did make improvements on the base list to make it stronger, but then I was told after the fact that it may not have been the base list. Regardless, I especially love that the Vanguard community is proving to me that it can continue to be thorough, innovative, and talented in deckbuilding unique decks without my help. The community has grown and improved in so many ways over 2 and 4 years ago that I can't help but feel like I'm a bit obsolete.
That being said, this is something right up my alley, and I can explain how this beast of a deck works in a way that anyone can understand. I want to preface this by saying that this list has 8 grade 2's and 2 grade 3's. It can ride up at pretty much any point it wants to. But, without GGuardians or Heals, you typically won't want to unless the stride will give you game. That being said, your opponents can't Sebreeze you on your grade 2 ride, so you always have that advantage of safely negating stride and generation break outside of Twitterun plays. Here's the list.
Starter - Rookie Pirate, Gina (Discard a grade 2 or 3 you can't normal call and scry and draw)
4x Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner (bae, FREE CARDS FOR FREE, turns into a different card)
4x Rough Seas Banshee (Crit) Consistency buff in an already consistent build
4x Cody the Ghostie (Crit) MORE FREE CARDS
4x Performing Zombie (Stand) - On call, look at top 10, mill 1. Turns into a 7k pretty easily.
4x Vanilla crits
4x Greedy Mimic (9k attacker)
4x Skeleton Assault Soldier (turns into a 5k shield in the bind zone instead of being a generic sacrifice, thus, you plus when sacking it)
4x Witch Doctor of the Seven Seas, Raistutor (Primary Vanguard. Can set up another row with its effect, then be sacked to call Nightcrow.)
4x Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow (Sack any unit, call this from drop. Free row fixer. Bae.)
3x Evil Shade (Making those numbers with your Vanguard)
4x Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel (Discards the grade 2's and 3's you won't be using otherwise, and also puts your grade 1's and 0's into the drop zone so you can both call itself from drop and have them where you need them to be so they can activate their effects. Gets HUUUGE with enough memes)
4x Seven Seas Master Swordsman, Slash Shade (11k call from drop when your Vanguard attacks? Works on grade 1? YES PLEASE!)
2x Seven Seas Sage, Plegeton (Can be ridden from drop zone without needing a discard. You can go straight into a stride if you have enough grade in hand to try and push for game when you're ready for that.)
GZONE - Whatever you want that works on GB1. Probably the Nightmist stride. Maybe Rum if you're out of counterblasts? Obadiah is another option. No GGuards because heals are for the weak.)
After reviewing the cards, it may not be apparent at first, so I'll make it abundantly clear. All of your grade 2's can be called from the drop zone while you are on grade 1. One does so by filtering out cards that you either want in your drop zone or can't use. The other works by sacking a grade 1 or greater unit and comes in at 11k mid battle phase. This means you can attack up to 5 times with this deck, all for 11k or more. That's the real crux of this deck, death by a million cuts, wearing them down with a standard rush going into a much stronger mid-game rush. It's essentially what Tachikaze Rush wants to be with infinitely more consistency.
Let's go into my current rating for the deck's statistics.
Consistency - 9.5/10
Power - 9/10
Reach - 8/10
Rescalability -10/10
Recoverability - 10/10
Survivability - 6.5/10
Denial - 7.5/10
Let's explain why I gave these ratings, and what some of these mean.
Consistency is self-explanitory. This deck works if you ride any Seven Seas grade 1. It has numerous targets that help fill up the drop zone with your key cards, and can chain insane effects to get your board and drop zone set-up exactly how you want it to be. Even if you miss your ride, you have enough advantage to just reride later. Nightspinel also works just fine even without a Seven Seas Vanguard, and the first turn is typically set-up from hand instead of drop anyway, so you aren't even severely punished for missing the correct ride early.
Power is pretty easy to understand, too. How strong is the deck. Opening with 10k+ to guard from every row turn 1, sometimes 15k to guard or more if you open the nuts, can be devastatingly difficult to deal with. Especially when this deck transitions so well into reach. It doesn't have the row consistency of say, Seeker Rush, but its obscene mid-game and potential game ending power more than compensates for it.
Reach is the ability to close out games. It's how well you can finish off an opponent when you're pushing for the win. This deck can attack up to 5 times all requiring 5-15k guard, making sentinels essentially ineffective for your opponent, and destroying their hand size. This is only an 8 because if you want to see a 10/10, imagine a Diablo stride when the opponent has no rear guards. You're dead, Jim.
Rescalability is the ability to fix your rows if you have to field weaker units. There's no doubts here that this deck is rescalability incarnate. You can call your size 0 from the drop zone for free, mill 4, then turn it into a 7k unit. Have a Seven Seas in hand? You can swap it out for Nightspinel. Have a grade 1 Skeleton in your hand that you don't want to stay on your board? Call it, boost it, and swing with it, then turn it into a Slash Shade (getting 5k free shield, too!). Turning one dude into the next dude isn't difficult, and even calling over existing units on the board doesn't impact your card advantage too negatively when you can get free calls every turn that also increase your toolbox.
Recoverability is the ability to recover from mass card disadvantage. I will just give you an example of what this deck can REALLY do. Let's say you got boardwiped COMPLETELY. You also had to discard EVERY CARD IN YOUR HAND. And then you draw a GRADE 3 you can't field or ride on grade 1. You can STILL GET A FULL BOARD FROM ONE UNUSABLE CARD IN HAND. How, you ask? Well, you have MULTIPLE WAYS. Any combination of four Nightrunners or Cody the Ghosties can fill four spaces from your drop. Then, discard your Plegeton to call Nightspinel. After that, sack your remaining board into four Nightcrow. Now you have 14/14/24k rows. Attack with the 14k RG row first. Attack with VG, sack Nightcrow for Slash Shade. Now you get a potential trigger, an 11k attack, and a 26k attack. FROM ONE CARD IN HAND AND NO UNITS ON THE BOARD. HNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHH. Sure, it cost between milling 16 cards and 1 counterblast to milling 4 cards and 4 counterblasts, but the option to recover on this level is INSANE.
Survivability is of course the ability for a deck to not die. This deck is actually way easier to kill if you swing face than most other rush decks. It literally can't run quintet walls because it will deck out. It also doesn't have hand advantage for normal sentinels. It doesn't have a happy medium defensive card outside of Skeleton Assault Soldier. That being said, you still have a good chunk of 10k shields to work with, and you have the advantage of shutting down many spooky, scary things that might kek you. That being said, if you face consistent 17k+ rows early or anything that can get bonus crit without needing Generation Break, you could be in for a world of hurt.
Denial is the ability to shut down the opponent's strategy. Naturally, with many decks wanting to stride, by playing this deck, you can deny them in that aspect. The denial here isn't as hard as it may have been previously, due to many decks opting to have an early game instead of building for late game. It is still a powerful facet to this deck and gives it an edge over decks that can't transition into a strong early game, like Gear Chronicle.
As with every deck in the game, it has favorable match-ups and unfavorable match-ups. Let's list out my observations for this.
Wall decks - These decks simply can't get enough cards to weather that many attacks. Especially since most reliable wall decks have a legion or stride engine to fuel themselves.
Retirement focused decks - Perditions aren't going to have a good time when you can poop out a field from your drop zone with no hand investment, then can rescale the board.
Anyone that thinks swinging into RG's is a good idea that isn't playing Chaos Breaker.
Seeker Rush - 17k rows with insane consistency and counter-rushing are the banes of this deck. While this deck is better than Seeker Rush, it still loses the face-off due to these factors.
Season 3 Decks - While you can recover your board easily, facing down 22k multi-crit Vanguard swings is devastating for this deck. Minerva can out-pressure the deck if it hits a critical on the first drive check. DDD"R" can force high numbers against it. All of these archetype decks also get 12k attackers, which are strong against 7k base Vanguards.
Sacking Triggers - I mean, it's Vanguard. I haven't lost a match yet that wasn't to Chaos Breaker Dragon that they didn't heal more than twice on. But when I'm playing to 9 damage, it's a bit hard to win.
Due to how the deck intrinsically functions, it actually does well against or breaks even with decks like Sanc Blaster and Nociel, decks that were outperforming the other rush decks in face-offs.
This is all my initial analysis. I will probably be making a video for it with some gameplay features in the near future (still waiting on the singles to get here). My current analysis is this: This is the strongest grade 1 rush deck, one of the best decks in the current format (since many of the counter decks are very sparse in the current meta, unlike the other rush decks' counters of literally the metagame sans Gear Chronicle), and it will have a large impact on the metagame because many people are boarding the hype train for this deck. Expect to see it in regionals over the next few months, especially since it has already topped. I will update this as more information and testing is revealed.
This decklist originated in Japan and quickly made its way over here after it topped. I hadn't seen the spoilers for the set 8 cards involved by time this happened, so I am not the originator for this deck. All credit to the guy who came up with the base idea. I did make improvements on the base list to make it stronger, but then I was told after the fact that it may not have been the base list. Regardless, I especially love that the Vanguard community is proving to me that it can continue to be thorough, innovative, and talented in deckbuilding unique decks without my help. The community has grown and improved in so many ways over 2 and 4 years ago that I can't help but feel like I'm a bit obsolete.
That being said, this is something right up my alley, and I can explain how this beast of a deck works in a way that anyone can understand. I want to preface this by saying that this list has 8 grade 2's and 2 grade 3's. It can ride up at pretty much any point it wants to. But, without GGuardians or Heals, you typically won't want to unless the stride will give you game. That being said, your opponents can't Sebreeze you on your grade 2 ride, so you always have that advantage of safely negating stride and generation break outside of Twitterun plays. Here's the list.
Starter - Rookie Pirate, Gina (Discard a grade 2 or 3 you can't normal call and scry and draw)
4x Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner (bae, FREE CARDS FOR FREE, turns into a different card)
4x Rough Seas Banshee (Crit) Consistency buff in an already consistent build
4x Cody the Ghostie (Crit) MORE FREE CARDS
4x Performing Zombie (Stand) - On call, look at top 10, mill 1. Turns into a 7k pretty easily.
4x Vanilla crits
4x Greedy Mimic (9k attacker)
4x Skeleton Assault Soldier (turns into a 5k shield in the bind zone instead of being a generic sacrifice, thus, you plus when sacking it)
4x Witch Doctor of the Seven Seas, Raistutor (Primary Vanguard. Can set up another row with its effect, then be sacked to call Nightcrow.)
4x Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow (Sack any unit, call this from drop. Free row fixer. Bae.)
3x Evil Shade (Making those numbers with your Vanguard)
4x Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel (Discards the grade 2's and 3's you won't be using otherwise, and also puts your grade 1's and 0's into the drop zone so you can both call itself from drop and have them where you need them to be so they can activate their effects. Gets HUUUGE with enough memes)
4x Seven Seas Master Swordsman, Slash Shade (11k call from drop when your Vanguard attacks? Works on grade 1? YES PLEASE!)
2x Seven Seas Sage, Plegeton (Can be ridden from drop zone without needing a discard. You can go straight into a stride if you have enough grade in hand to try and push for game when you're ready for that.)
GZONE - Whatever you want that works on GB1. Probably the Nightmist stride. Maybe Rum if you're out of counterblasts? Obadiah is another option. No GGuards because heals are for the weak.)
After reviewing the cards, it may not be apparent at first, so I'll make it abundantly clear. All of your grade 2's can be called from the drop zone while you are on grade 1. One does so by filtering out cards that you either want in your drop zone or can't use. The other works by sacking a grade 1 or greater unit and comes in at 11k mid battle phase. This means you can attack up to 5 times with this deck, all for 11k or more. That's the real crux of this deck, death by a million cuts, wearing them down with a standard rush going into a much stronger mid-game rush. It's essentially what Tachikaze Rush wants to be with infinitely more consistency.
Let's go into my current rating for the deck's statistics.
Consistency - 9.5/10
Power - 9/10
Reach - 8/10
Rescalability -10/10
Recoverability - 10/10
Survivability - 6.5/10
Denial - 7.5/10
Let's explain why I gave these ratings, and what some of these mean.
Consistency is self-explanitory. This deck works if you ride any Seven Seas grade 1. It has numerous targets that help fill up the drop zone with your key cards, and can chain insane effects to get your board and drop zone set-up exactly how you want it to be. Even if you miss your ride, you have enough advantage to just reride later. Nightspinel also works just fine even without a Seven Seas Vanguard, and the first turn is typically set-up from hand instead of drop anyway, so you aren't even severely punished for missing the correct ride early.
Power is pretty easy to understand, too. How strong is the deck. Opening with 10k+ to guard from every row turn 1, sometimes 15k to guard or more if you open the nuts, can be devastatingly difficult to deal with. Especially when this deck transitions so well into reach. It doesn't have the row consistency of say, Seeker Rush, but its obscene mid-game and potential game ending power more than compensates for it.
Reach is the ability to close out games. It's how well you can finish off an opponent when you're pushing for the win. This deck can attack up to 5 times all requiring 5-15k guard, making sentinels essentially ineffective for your opponent, and destroying their hand size. This is only an 8 because if you want to see a 10/10, imagine a Diablo stride when the opponent has no rear guards. You're dead, Jim.
Rescalability is the ability to fix your rows if you have to field weaker units. There's no doubts here that this deck is rescalability incarnate. You can call your size 0 from the drop zone for free, mill 4, then turn it into a 7k unit. Have a Seven Seas in hand? You can swap it out for Nightspinel. Have a grade 1 Skeleton in your hand that you don't want to stay on your board? Call it, boost it, and swing with it, then turn it into a Slash Shade (getting 5k free shield, too!). Turning one dude into the next dude isn't difficult, and even calling over existing units on the board doesn't impact your card advantage too negatively when you can get free calls every turn that also increase your toolbox.
Recoverability is the ability to recover from mass card disadvantage. I will just give you an example of what this deck can REALLY do. Let's say you got boardwiped COMPLETELY. You also had to discard EVERY CARD IN YOUR HAND. And then you draw a GRADE 3 you can't field or ride on grade 1. You can STILL GET A FULL BOARD FROM ONE UNUSABLE CARD IN HAND. How, you ask? Well, you have MULTIPLE WAYS. Any combination of four Nightrunners or Cody the Ghosties can fill four spaces from your drop. Then, discard your Plegeton to call Nightspinel. After that, sack your remaining board into four Nightcrow. Now you have 14/14/24k rows. Attack with the 14k RG row first. Attack with VG, sack Nightcrow for Slash Shade. Now you get a potential trigger, an 11k attack, and a 26k attack. FROM ONE CARD IN HAND AND NO UNITS ON THE BOARD. HNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHH. Sure, it cost between milling 16 cards and 1 counterblast to milling 4 cards and 4 counterblasts, but the option to recover on this level is INSANE.
Survivability is of course the ability for a deck to not die. This deck is actually way easier to kill if you swing face than most other rush decks. It literally can't run quintet walls because it will deck out. It also doesn't have hand advantage for normal sentinels. It doesn't have a happy medium defensive card outside of Skeleton Assault Soldier. That being said, you still have a good chunk of 10k shields to work with, and you have the advantage of shutting down many spooky, scary things that might kek you. That being said, if you face consistent 17k+ rows early or anything that can get bonus crit without needing Generation Break, you could be in for a world of hurt.
Denial is the ability to shut down the opponent's strategy. Naturally, with many decks wanting to stride, by playing this deck, you can deny them in that aspect. The denial here isn't as hard as it may have been previously, due to many decks opting to have an early game instead of building for late game. It is still a powerful facet to this deck and gives it an edge over decks that can't transition into a strong early game, like Gear Chronicle.
As with every deck in the game, it has favorable match-ups and unfavorable match-ups. Let's list out my observations for this.
Favorable Match-ups
Generation Break locked decks - These decks can't use their primary facets, are much slower, and can't impede upon the deck's strategy.Wall decks - These decks simply can't get enough cards to weather that many attacks. Especially since most reliable wall decks have a legion or stride engine to fuel themselves.
Retirement focused decks - Perditions aren't going to have a good time when you can poop out a field from your drop zone with no hand investment, then can rescale the board.
Anyone that thinks swinging into RG's is a good idea that isn't playing Chaos Breaker.
Unfavorable Match-ups
Chaos Breaker Dragon - Poops on every rush deck. We also don't have the ability to choose to hollow any front row outside of with Raistutor or Skeleton. Even if we do, we can't Slash Shade in addition to that. This is one of the match-ups I may consider riding up. I'm not 100% sure if that's the best idea yet, but I'm going to play around with it some more in testing.Seeker Rush - 17k rows with insane consistency and counter-rushing are the banes of this deck. While this deck is better than Seeker Rush, it still loses the face-off due to these factors.
Season 3 Decks - While you can recover your board easily, facing down 22k multi-crit Vanguard swings is devastating for this deck. Minerva can out-pressure the deck if it hits a critical on the first drive check. DDD"R" can force high numbers against it. All of these archetype decks also get 12k attackers, which are strong against 7k base Vanguards.
Sacking Triggers - I mean, it's Vanguard. I haven't lost a match yet that wasn't to Chaos Breaker Dragon that they didn't heal more than twice on. But when I'm playing to 9 damage, it's a bit hard to win.
Due to how the deck intrinsically functions, it actually does well against or breaks even with decks like Sanc Blaster and Nociel, decks that were outperforming the other rush decks in face-offs.
This is all my initial analysis. I will probably be making a video for it with some gameplay features in the near future (still waiting on the singles to get here). My current analysis is this: This is the strongest grade 1 rush deck, one of the best decks in the current format (since many of the counter decks are very sparse in the current meta, unlike the other rush decks' counters of literally the metagame sans Gear Chronicle), and it will have a large impact on the metagame because many people are boarding the hype train for this deck. Expect to see it in regionals over the next few months, especially since it has already topped. I will update this as more information and testing is revealed.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Legion and the State of Vanguard - My Thoughts
We've entered a new season. We have a new mechanic. Obligatory cries of "overpowered" and "I'm going to quit!" everywhere. People judging the mechanic before thinking about it, trying it out, or extensively testing it, well, this is the norm for our community.
This reminds me of the release of the break ride mechanic in season 3 and the limit break mechanic in season 2 (of which the ending season 1 decks were still superior to literally all of the season 2 decks, so the community was wrong in this regard). Each iteration had an outcry with it that made the community rise up in anger over the power creep. Season 1 exclusive decks, barring crossride DOtE, haven't been viable in ages. Season 2 exclusive decks couldn't hold a candle to set 12+ power creep, and struggled against sets 10 and 11. Legion has given us a viable alternative to break riding and the Link Joker/Restander dominated meta while making a huge fix to the poor natural balance of the game.
Here's where I'm going to start off. I am extremely happy with Legion as a mechanic. Is it a toxic amount of power? Sure. They've essentially made every vanguard Amon with a second ability. That's pretty damn strong, I'm not going to lie to you. But it's a healthy amount of power, currently. If these units didn't have this much power, the only units we'd even remotely care about that have been released would be Brawler, Bigbang Knuckle Dragon (Attacks all front row units for 2 counterblasts, essentially balances out Vermillion's skill with the current 1 counterblast for a +1 solidified in set 14) and Brawler, Wild Rush Dragon, who gets 10k and a crit if he checks himself or his mate.
People will argue that the Dimension Police unit negging perfect guards would be up there, but without the large base power of the Legion, it won't be strong enough to make a major impact compared to the already superior Echo of Nemesis, which can have a Doreen boost essentially making the attack unblockable.
So, the power is a necessity to give these cards weaker effects in comparison to the extremely undercosted units of the past 3 sets to make them playable. Let's discuss the other two facets of Legion. Returning triggers to the deck, and the grade 3 requirements for Legioning in the first place.
How much does returning triggers to the deck actually help? Well, not that much. Unless you legion multiple times in a match, the actual impact will be small on your trigger checking likelihood. This is due partly from damage checked triggers being unrecoverable without healing/being Angel Feathers. The other part of it is that you just aren't likely to have 4 triggers in the drop zone to legion. Typically, you'll be tossing 2-3 triggers and 1-2 non-triggers back into the deck. You're only increasing your odds to hit a trigger by roughly 3-4% on average per drive check, and 5-7% on Twin-Drive!!. It'll make a difference over a large number of playtests, but it's not significant enough to make an impact on most games. It's handy, but by no means the end of the world in terms of brokenness or consistency. CEO Amaterasu's ability increases the odds of hitting a trigger on a twin-drive by 15%, for comparison. That's twice as much.
The final thing I want to discuss is the Legioning mechanic's requirement of a grade 3 Vanguard and why I feel that this is one of the best things that's happened for the game. I don't know if Bushiroad has noticed, but in this game going first is extremely advantageous. Most players will inherently pick up on it, others need to be told outright.
Here's a list of advantages to going first:
No passing a 7k Vanguard + 5k starter boost with a 10k shield if you land a ride chain/ride a vanilla.
12k beaters forcing 10k unboosted from your opponent. They also don't get negated by a single damage trigger while unboosted. And if they're boosted, even if your opponent is grade 2, it's still 15k shield. (I would like 12k beaters to be errata'd to require a grade 3, like they were originally, but it's too late for that).
You get the first damage, so you get to have only one check (first damage check) where a heal can't go live. The player going second can't heal on first drive check or first damage check. Add more to that list if they call a second rear guard or hit a critical trigger.
You get Twin-Drive!! first unless your opponent superior rides, which always cost more than simply riding to grade 3 to negate their own advantages. This plays into the next one.
First player has the first opportunity to break ride. The first opportunity to crossride. The first opportunity to ride to grade 4.
You always have one more card than your opponent, save the end of their turn. But, you immediately draw after their turn ends, and they can't utilize any of the cards in their hand as a resource, barring some extremely outlying examples. So there isn't an instance where them overtaking you in card advantage actually has an impact until you catch right back up and have the lead until it no longer matters again. Let's compare:
Starting out, 5-5
Go first, 6-5.
Opponent's turn, 6-6, attack, 6-7.
Your second turn, 7-7
Attack, 8-7
Their second turn, 8-8
Attack, 8-9
Your third turn, 9-9
Attack, 11-9
Their fourth turn, 11-10 (they now have the permanent card deficit)
Their attack, 11-12 (they gain it back in twin-drive, but don't get to use it at all before...)
Your fifth turn, 12-12 (you have as many cards as them before attacking that you have full, main phase access to)
Attack, 14-12 (Now you're way ahead)
Their turn, 14-13 (They're sitting a card behind that they can actually play)
They attack, 14-15 (They pass you just long enough for you to overtake them again where the situation of them having the card lead still doesn't matter because you draw before they can use any of their new cards)
As you can see, going first allows you to field more units. You simply have more cards to play during your main phase. It gives you ease of early guarding. Total advantage over early healing. You get your Twin-Drive!! a turn sooner, giving you an extra potential trigger over the opponent. Your rear guards are harder for them to guard. You can fend off their rear guards more easily with your higher base-power units in comparison to their lower base power units on defense. You gain the "one-card" advantage in late game, post turn 4. You have the raw unit power, healing, and drive checking advantages early.
The advantages to going first are simply overwhelming in comparison to the advantages of going second, which is a 2% less chance to be gradelocked, and access to cards that require an opponent to have grade 2+ units a turn earlier (Pellinore). Yay?
Legion forces the individual who goes first to wait a full turn before Legioning. This means player 2 has dibs on Legioning first. While I don't think this is the do-all, end-all for rebalancing this game's poorly balanced turn system, it is definitely a start. One that I look forward to.
This reminds me of the release of the break ride mechanic in season 3 and the limit break mechanic in season 2 (of which the ending season 1 decks were still superior to literally all of the season 2 decks, so the community was wrong in this regard). Each iteration had an outcry with it that made the community rise up in anger over the power creep. Season 1 exclusive decks, barring crossride DOtE, haven't been viable in ages. Season 2 exclusive decks couldn't hold a candle to set 12+ power creep, and struggled against sets 10 and 11. Legion has given us a viable alternative to break riding and the Link Joker/Restander dominated meta while making a huge fix to the poor natural balance of the game.
Here's where I'm going to start off. I am extremely happy with Legion as a mechanic. Is it a toxic amount of power? Sure. They've essentially made every vanguard Amon with a second ability. That's pretty damn strong, I'm not going to lie to you. But it's a healthy amount of power, currently. If these units didn't have this much power, the only units we'd even remotely care about that have been released would be Brawler, Bigbang Knuckle Dragon (Attacks all front row units for 2 counterblasts, essentially balances out Vermillion's skill with the current 1 counterblast for a +1 solidified in set 14) and Brawler, Wild Rush Dragon, who gets 10k and a crit if he checks himself or his mate.
People will argue that the Dimension Police unit negging perfect guards would be up there, but without the large base power of the Legion, it won't be strong enough to make a major impact compared to the already superior Echo of Nemesis, which can have a Doreen boost essentially making the attack unblockable.
So, the power is a necessity to give these cards weaker effects in comparison to the extremely undercosted units of the past 3 sets to make them playable. Let's discuss the other two facets of Legion. Returning triggers to the deck, and the grade 3 requirements for Legioning in the first place.
How much does returning triggers to the deck actually help? Well, not that much. Unless you legion multiple times in a match, the actual impact will be small on your trigger checking likelihood. This is due partly from damage checked triggers being unrecoverable without healing/being Angel Feathers. The other part of it is that you just aren't likely to have 4 triggers in the drop zone to legion. Typically, you'll be tossing 2-3 triggers and 1-2 non-triggers back into the deck. You're only increasing your odds to hit a trigger by roughly 3-4% on average per drive check, and 5-7% on Twin-Drive!!. It'll make a difference over a large number of playtests, but it's not significant enough to make an impact on most games. It's handy, but by no means the end of the world in terms of brokenness or consistency. CEO Amaterasu's ability increases the odds of hitting a trigger on a twin-drive by 15%, for comparison. That's twice as much.
The final thing I want to discuss is the Legioning mechanic's requirement of a grade 3 Vanguard and why I feel that this is one of the best things that's happened for the game. I don't know if Bushiroad has noticed, but in this game going first is extremely advantageous. Most players will inherently pick up on it, others need to be told outright.
Here's a list of advantages to going first:
No passing a 7k Vanguard + 5k starter boost with a 10k shield if you land a ride chain/ride a vanilla.
12k beaters forcing 10k unboosted from your opponent. They also don't get negated by a single damage trigger while unboosted. And if they're boosted, even if your opponent is grade 2, it's still 15k shield. (I would like 12k beaters to be errata'd to require a grade 3, like they were originally, but it's too late for that).
You get the first damage, so you get to have only one check (first damage check) where a heal can't go live. The player going second can't heal on first drive check or first damage check. Add more to that list if they call a second rear guard or hit a critical trigger.
You get Twin-Drive!! first unless your opponent superior rides, which always cost more than simply riding to grade 3 to negate their own advantages. This plays into the next one.
First player has the first opportunity to break ride. The first opportunity to crossride. The first opportunity to ride to grade 4.
You always have one more card than your opponent, save the end of their turn. But, you immediately draw after their turn ends, and they can't utilize any of the cards in their hand as a resource, barring some extremely outlying examples. So there isn't an instance where them overtaking you in card advantage actually has an impact until you catch right back up and have the lead until it no longer matters again. Let's compare:
Starting out, 5-5
Go first, 6-5.
Opponent's turn, 6-6, attack, 6-7.
Your second turn, 7-7
Attack, 8-7
Their second turn, 8-8
Attack, 8-9
Your third turn, 9-9
Attack, 11-9
Their fourth turn, 11-10 (they now have the permanent card deficit)
Their attack, 11-12 (they gain it back in twin-drive, but don't get to use it at all before...)
Your fifth turn, 12-12 (you have as many cards as them before attacking that you have full, main phase access to)
Attack, 14-12 (Now you're way ahead)
Their turn, 14-13 (They're sitting a card behind that they can actually play)
They attack, 14-15 (They pass you just long enough for you to overtake them again where the situation of them having the card lead still doesn't matter because you draw before they can use any of their new cards)
As you can see, going first allows you to field more units. You simply have more cards to play during your main phase. It gives you ease of early guarding. Total advantage over early healing. You get your Twin-Drive!! a turn sooner, giving you an extra potential trigger over the opponent. Your rear guards are harder for them to guard. You can fend off their rear guards more easily with your higher base-power units in comparison to their lower base power units on defense. You gain the "one-card" advantage in late game, post turn 4. You have the raw unit power, healing, and drive checking advantages early.
The advantages to going first are simply overwhelming in comparison to the advantages of going second, which is a 2% less chance to be gradelocked, and access to cards that require an opponent to have grade 2+ units a turn earlier (Pellinore). Yay?
Legion forces the individual who goes first to wait a full turn before Legioning. This means player 2 has dibs on Legioning first. While I don't think this is the do-all, end-all for rebalancing this game's poorly balanced turn system, it is definitely a start. One that I look forward to.
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