Learning and Improving 3: Triggers (Placement)

Hey Cardfighters,

Last week we talked about basic defensive strategies so it would make sense to talk about attacking next, but instead I'd like to delve into Triggers. Triggers set Vanguard apart from other Trading Card Games and have very important consequences for attacking so before I can talk about that I need to go over triggers.

Basics:
There are 4 types of trigger units. Critical (Crit), Draw, Stand and Heal. You must include 16 trigger cards in your deck but the type doesn't matter. The only restriction is that you cannot have more than 4 total Heal triggers in your deck. Trigger effects are activated when they are revealed during a check. This can be either a damage check or a drive check. So let's go over the effects

• Crit
• Give one of your units +1 Critical. Give one of your units +5000 power. 
• Draw
• Give one of your units +5000 power. Draw a card. Unlike other Triggers a draw trigger only has 5000 shield.
• Stand
• Put one of your units into the [Stand] Position. Give one of your units +5000 power
• Heal
• Give one of your units +5000 power. If your damage is equal to or greater than your opponent you may take a card from your damage zone and place it into the drop zone.

It is important to note that for triggers such as Criticals and Stands the two abilities can be separated so one unit can stand and another can gain power. Both of these triggers are referred to as Offensive Triggers since they are most useful when revealed during a Drive Check. Heals and Draws are Defensive Triggers since they are most useful when revealed during a Damage Check.

Base Strategy:
Since one can check triggers on the offensive and defensive we will separate base strategy into these two scenarios.

• Defensive Triggers
• Always give the power to vanguard. This will make the next attack easier to guard and sometimes prevents them from even hitting. 
• Offensive Triggers
• Always put all effects to vanguard with one exception. 
• Exception: If your opponent gets enough shield to No Pass, or uses a Perfect Guard, choose one of your front row rearguards and give all effects to that unit.

More Advanced Ideas:
Once you have use the basic strategy some, hopefully it should become fairly obvious when it is a good idea to split up the effects of your Offensive Triggers. With that said here are some things you can keep in mind to help you improve your Trigger placement.

• Defensive
• Do you have a rearguard that you want to protect from attacks?
• Do you need more damage? Maybe you can put power to a rearguard to incentivize them to attack your vanguard. 
• Offensive
• 2 pass scenario
• What are the chances you will get a second trigger?
• Should you put all effects to a rearguard?
• No Guard Scenario
• How do I split up my triggers to maximize them? 
• Ex: Critical Trigger reveal -> "Crit to vanguard Power to rearguard"

I hope you enjoyed learning about triggers and trigger placement. The more you play around with it the better idea you'll get of how to do things. While it may not seems super complicated it is necessary to build good basics in trigger placement so that one can develop their offensive strategies which we will talk about next week.

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Thanks for reading,

~Bambi