T-Theory Introduction

Disclaimer! This is my theory and you may disagree with it so just chill.

T-Theory or the Trifecta Theory is a theory I came up with regarding elements of a Vanguard deck. Trifecta basically means that something is perfect if it has 3 things. Those 3 things will depend on what you are judging, for example say you want to get a new shirt. Your Trifecta might be size, looks, comfyness. If you can find all three in one shirt you'll most certainly buy it, but it will be hard to find. This idea of a Trifecta can be applied to building a Vanguard deck as well.

THE TRIFECTA: (In no particular order)
- DISRUPTION
- ADVANTAGE
- PRESSURE


Before I continue I want to say that the Idea of the Trifecta is not perfect. Its main purpose is to say that if you have balanced these 3 elements in your deck then you should have made it so that your deck performs optimally in all scenarios/match ups. Of course another option that is equally as viable is choosing one of the Trifecta points that your deck most aligns with and pushing that to the limit.

So let's get back to the Trifecta and how we can modify the balance in our deck through units, boss cards and triggers.

DISRUPTION - The ability to mess up your opponents strategy and plans.

      The way this translates into vanguard is mainly through getting rid of the opponents cards from their hand or by retiring their units. The goal of this is to prevent your opponent from carrying out the strategy they have created. Disruption helps you win by breaking apart your opponents winning image. If they can't attack you properly, or have enough cards to use their skills they will be like a sitting duck. So how can we add more disruption to our decks? First we can add in units that retire such as "Berserk Dragon" or we can have a boss unit such as "Vowing Saber, Reverse" which can retire 2 units at a time. Second is with the trigger that I associate with disruption, which is the stand trigger. The stand trigger makes the opponent guard more than they expect to or want to so that they don't take extra damage, it also lets you attack their rearguards more which guarantees a loss of a card. Thus by running stands you are able to make your opponent use more cards to guard all your attacks and it can prevent them from having enough cards to attain their winning image.

ADVANTAGE - The ability to increase the amount of cards you are getting

     Advantage in vanguard is simply drawing more cards or being able to call extra units. Advantage is pretty simple. More cards means more options/consistency and more Shield. When you have more options than your opponent and your life becomes easier you will worry less about your opponents disruption because you have replacements in your hand. You'll be able to set up your field properly with relative ease and if you've already done that you are increasing your defense. Simply put more cards means your in a better position than your opponent and you are more likely to win. One thing to note though is that many times advantage can be random or not consistent. My stance on this is that if you are getting and extra card any card is a good card, because anything is better than nothing. So with that said, how do we add advantage to our decks. We can add cards like the "Luck Bird" clones which let you draw a card by soul blasting 2 on-call.  Now I think its pretty obvious that draw triggers are the trigger associated with advantage. The let you draw extra cards but at the cost of being worth less shield. I won't go into details but on average you'll end up with the same amount of shield in hand though it should be noted that the total amount of shield in your deck will be less than if you didn't use draws.

PRESSURE - The ability to create a threat that your opponent must deal with.

     Pressure is very important in vanguard and is at its root making the opponent scared of you. Cards that have abilities when they hit something, cards that are hard to block/ gain a lot of power. Pressure is important in Vanguard because if you don't have any pressure then the opponent can essentially ignore you and go about their business of setting up their perfect plan. Pressure is tricky to talk about because it goes hand in hand with disruption and advantage. Units that will generate a lot of advantage or disrupt your opponent a lot will create pressure. A simple example is the grade 3 "Palamedes" who can create 21,000 power rearguard columns fairly easily. This creates a ton of pressure for your opponent because they have to use up a lot of shield to guard that attack. Other ways of adding pressure to your deck are grade 2 damage unflippers which let you unflip a used counterblast when they hit a vanguard. Or the embodiment of pressure "Dragonic Overlord the End". The last trigger excluding heals cause they should be in pretty much every deck is criticals. Crits are the pressure trigger and almost everyone runs them. Crits are the reason people guard the the Vanguard at 4 damage. Its because they are scared of it and they don't want it to hit. and if you put criticals on a rearguard they won't want it to hit either. So criticals create pressure because people are scared of the extra damage that they give.


When creating a new deck or trying to modify an older deck you can use the Trifecta Theory to help you figure out what triggers you should run as well as how you can help balance out your deck to perform well overall or to skew your deck to one or two parts of the Trifecta in order to pursue your favorite strategy or go all in on your deck's strategy.