The big bad wolf of Vanguard for now and probably for a long time to come. Don't expect to avoid this deck in a major tournament and I'll bet atleast someone in your locals is running him or some version of this deck.
This list is from vanguard.us.blogspot and I imagine it is representative of most builds.
Starter:
Red Pulse Dracokid
Grade 0:
4 Heal
5 Draw
7 Crit
Grade 1:
4x Seal Dragon Rhinocross
4x Nouvelleroman Dragon
3x Calamity Tower Wyvern
2x Seal Dragon Kersey
Grade 2:
3x Dominate Drive Dragon
4x Nouvellecritic Dragon
4x Berserk Dragon
Grade 3:
1x Cruel Dragon
4x Dauntless Drive Dragon
Grade 4:
4x Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague
Lets first look at Advantage Sources:
Calamity Tower Wyvern
For Soul Blast 2 we get to draw a card. This helps the deck go through the deck faster to find the grade 4 as well as not being grade stuck less often.
Nouvelle Vague
The 13k defense is relevant especially in clans like kagero which can destroy boosters.
I would have placed Seal dragon kersey and nouvelleroman into this category previously but I have since decided that while card changing generally increases your card quality and advantage in a slight sense its not enough to count it anymore.
next is Distruption
Nouvellecritic Dragon
Counter Blast 1 and reveal Vague to retire anything, thats amazing the low counter blast cost lets you save for Vague's limit break or use it for even more Critics.
Berserk Dragon
Standard CB2 for a minus to your opponent.
Nouvelle Vague
The Limit Break. Some decks just can't come back from this. completely destroys the opponents field usually going to be a minus 5. ouch.
Cruel Dragon
The ability to retire a booster every time it hits is awesome especially for a low CB cost
and finally Pressure:
Dauntless Drive Dragon
Maybe one of the best pressure break rides allowing you to attack twice and stack triggers on rearguards or your vangaurd. Is only made better by Vague's non limit break abilities.
Nouvelle Vague
Both his non limit break abilities provide huge pressure. You opponent can't guard with 0s means that he's forced to block with 5k shields or perfect guards. and having to account for triggers means that th 5ks will go reallly fast. The second ability is also pressuring in that you can't get damaged checked triggers so you can't bank on that heal or draw trigger to give you enough shield to last you through the turn you're just dead.
So let's tally up the points (Including Triggers)
Advantage - 12
Distruption - 13
Pressure - 15
This is why we see this as such a dominant deck because its very well balanced and its main focus is the vanguard which can't really be messed with unless your using the megacolony breakride which I don't believe is out for english yet. Normally I would give a strategy to try and help you beat Nouvelle but there are not really any weakpoints within the Triangle of Power (which I will update because I realized I had it flowing in the wrong order)
Weakness
Rather than a weakness in one of the three elements Nouvelle's weakness is a slower earlygame. The main opposition you will face to slow you down are the novellecritics and the berserk dragons. Notably the weakest point in the Trifecta is advantage which you should be able to beat with distruption. If you play the early game and distrupt the Vague player's flow then you should have a much easier time. The game I played I managed to retire his vanguard booster over and over so eventually he was attacking unboosted which was much less scary and manageable though I still wound up losing.
Showing posts with label T-Theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label T-Theory. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
T-Theory Analysis: Chaos Breaker Dragon
Chaos Breaker Dragon is the new hype deck that came out with BT13. Well to be exact it is the latest evolution of Link Joker caused by the recent release of Star-Vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon. (CBD)
Since this is my first analysis I wanted to explain how I'm going to do it first. Rather than doing a build up for the deck as I did with Goku. I will be taking an existing decklist and analyzing it with T-Theory. I plan on taking my decklists from V-Mundi as I respect all the analysis and data gathering that she has done for the game. After I have analyzed the deck we can look at where its weaknesses are and how we can combat it.
V-Mundi's List
Since this is my first analysis I wanted to explain how I'm going to do it first. Rather than doing a build up for the deck as I did with Goku. I will be taking an existing decklist and analyzing it with T-Theory. I plan on taking my decklists from V-Mundi as I respect all the analysis and data gathering that she has done for the game. After I have analyzed the deck we can look at where its weaknesses are and how we can combat it.
V-Mundi's List
Grade 0: 17
Grade 3: 8
First lets categorize each card then we can see how much of each component it has (Disruption, Pressure, Advantage). Cards that are I am ignoring for this process are either vanilla or used in so many decks that they might as well be vanilla.
Dust Tail Unicorn - Advantage:
Dust Tail Unicorn allows you to complete a triangle lock or block out an attack trading itself for a 10k shield
Lanthanum - Pressure:
Lanthanum is a pressure unit because it can go up to a 9k -11k booster fairly easily which can create 21k+ lines with basically any attacker. The reason I don't include Niobium along with Lanthanum is because Niobium only goes up to 13k when you get a double lock which hits 20k with a non-Lanthanum booster so to hit strong numbers you end up needing Lanthanum anyway. While Triangle Locking is a thing unless you break ride WITH Niobium on the field you're probably never going to reach 15k on Niobium.
Palladium - Advantage:
Palladium like Dust Tail trades itself for renewing a Lock and can act as a pseudo 10k shield.
Colony Maker - Advantage:
Colony Maker lets you fetch a Grade 1 or less from your deck for CB1 but your opponent needs to have a locked units for you to activate the skill. Since it gains you a card its Advantage.
Infinity Zero Dragon - Advantage/Pressure:
+10k provides pressure as all break rides do and the double locking can save you 15k shield at the least possibly more causing it to be a powerful advantage card.
Chaos Breaker Dragon - Advantage/Distruption:
The first ability lets you trade a card in your hand for a lock on any unit such as an attacker which means you can turn any card in your hand into a 10k shield (Advantage). Its limit break is a combo Disruption & Advantage ability since it lets you permanently kill choice units while drawing you even more cards.
*Note: A lot of the advantage in this deck is pseudo advantage meaning that its not really there your not actually gaining cards by locking out attackers you are just not losing cards.
So lets total up each category. (not including triggers)
Disruption - 4
Advantage - 15
Pressure - 8
As we can see this deck is overwhelmingly an Advantage deck. So Lets look at some commmon Trigger line ups added in as well as the one I would suggest
V-Mundi's (8 crit, 4 stand)
D/A/P - 8/15/16
This trigger line up balances out the deck's Pressure and Advantage but leaves a hole in the Disruption side.
Common (8 crit, 4 draw)
D/A/P - 4/19/16
The common trigger line up we see for most deck actually makes things worse and while its advantage and pressure are really strong again its disruption is extremely weak.
Bambi's Suggested Line up (4 crit, 8 stand)
D/A/P - 12/15/12
This trigger line up balances out all 3 components of T-Theory in the deck as much as possible.
How to combat this deck (Based on Common Trigger Line up)
When playing against CBD you should take into account their lack of disruption. If we look at the triangle of power CBD has a lack of disruption thus when we look at the triangle of power we see that Disruption > Pressure. Without Disruption the deck has a hard time permanently dealing with pressure lines/ units (Locking is only temporary). Based on this if you really want to beat CBD try to skew your deck towards Pressure by adding in more critical triggers or allowing the possibility of making 21k+ lines.
Other Tricks to fight CBD
1. If you can make powerlines either put them out really early and force them to limit break early without resources or save them for later in the game after they have used up most of CBD's limit break retiring ability. This will allow you to capitalize on their lack of disruption.
2. Countering the Triangle Lock. Basically what you want is a unit behind your vanguard which can be moved into the soul at will. This will allow you to move it into the soul when you think you are able to put the opposing CBD at limit break. When you do this right before they want to break ride there will be no vanguard booster to Lock and so you won't get triangle locked for that turn. (then you can replace the booster next turn and still have a strong attack.) I stumbled upon this when I playing myself vs. CBD and I got my opponent to 4 damage and my Heatnail Salamander went back into the deck. I'm sure there are ways for your opponent to play around this and you could get triangle locked the next turn but it allows you to negate part of their strongest play.
- 1 Dust Tail Unicorn
- 4 Star-Vader Stellar Garage. Heal Trigger
- 4 Any Stand Trigger.
- 4 Star-Vader Weiss Soldat. Critical Trigger
- 4 Star-Vader Meteor Liger. Critical Trigger
- 4 Barrier Star-Vader Promethium
- 4 Strafe Star-Vader Lanthanum
- 4 Magic Bullet Star-Vader, Neon
- 2 Prison Gate Star-vader Palladium
Grade 3: 8
First lets categorize each card then we can see how much of each component it has (Disruption, Pressure, Advantage). Cards that are I am ignoring for this process are either vanilla or used in so many decks that they might as well be vanilla.
Dust Tail Unicorn - Advantage:
Dust Tail Unicorn allows you to complete a triangle lock or block out an attack trading itself for a 10k shield
Lanthanum - Pressure:
Lanthanum is a pressure unit because it can go up to a 9k -11k booster fairly easily which can create 21k+ lines with basically any attacker. The reason I don't include Niobium along with Lanthanum is because Niobium only goes up to 13k when you get a double lock which hits 20k with a non-Lanthanum booster so to hit strong numbers you end up needing Lanthanum anyway. While Triangle Locking is a thing unless you break ride WITH Niobium on the field you're probably never going to reach 15k on Niobium.
Palladium - Advantage:
Palladium like Dust Tail trades itself for renewing a Lock and can act as a pseudo 10k shield.
Colony Maker - Advantage:
Colony Maker lets you fetch a Grade 1 or less from your deck for CB1 but your opponent needs to have a locked units for you to activate the skill. Since it gains you a card its Advantage.
Infinity Zero Dragon - Advantage/Pressure:
+10k provides pressure as all break rides do and the double locking can save you 15k shield at the least possibly more causing it to be a powerful advantage card.
Chaos Breaker Dragon - Advantage/Distruption:
The first ability lets you trade a card in your hand for a lock on any unit such as an attacker which means you can turn any card in your hand into a 10k shield (Advantage). Its limit break is a combo Disruption & Advantage ability since it lets you permanently kill choice units while drawing you even more cards.
*Note: A lot of the advantage in this deck is pseudo advantage meaning that its not really there your not actually gaining cards by locking out attackers you are just not losing cards.
So lets total up each category. (not including triggers)
Disruption - 4
Advantage - 15
Pressure - 8
As we can see this deck is overwhelmingly an Advantage deck. So Lets look at some commmon Trigger line ups added in as well as the one I would suggest
V-Mundi's (8 crit, 4 stand)
D/A/P - 8/15/16
This trigger line up balances out the deck's Pressure and Advantage but leaves a hole in the Disruption side.
Common (8 crit, 4 draw)
D/A/P - 4/19/16
The common trigger line up we see for most deck actually makes things worse and while its advantage and pressure are really strong again its disruption is extremely weak.
Bambi's Suggested Line up (4 crit, 8 stand)
D/A/P - 12/15/12
This trigger line up balances out all 3 components of T-Theory in the deck as much as possible.
How to combat this deck (Based on Common Trigger Line up)
When playing against CBD you should take into account their lack of disruption. If we look at the triangle of power CBD has a lack of disruption thus when we look at the triangle of power we see that Disruption > Pressure. Without Disruption the deck has a hard time permanently dealing with pressure lines/ units (Locking is only temporary). Based on this if you really want to beat CBD try to skew your deck towards Pressure by adding in more critical triggers or allowing the possibility of making 21k+ lines.
Other Tricks to fight CBD
1. If you can make powerlines either put them out really early and force them to limit break early without resources or save them for later in the game after they have used up most of CBD's limit break retiring ability. This will allow you to capitalize on their lack of disruption.
2. Countering the Triangle Lock. Basically what you want is a unit behind your vanguard which can be moved into the soul at will. This will allow you to move it into the soul when you think you are able to put the opposing CBD at limit break. When you do this right before they want to break ride there will be no vanguard booster to Lock and so you won't get triangle locked for that turn. (then you can replace the booster next turn and still have a strong attack.) I stumbled upon this when I playing myself vs. CBD and I got my opponent to 4 damage and my Heatnail Salamander went back into the deck. I'm sure there are ways for your opponent to play around this and you could get triangle locked the next turn but it allows you to negate part of their strongest play.
Friday, May 9, 2014
T-Theory: Triangle of Power
DISCLAIMER: This theory is not perfect. I believe that the triangle of power I am about to describe is correct, but it is not going to give you any guaranteed wins. I think that it will help you see which matches are good for you as well as seeing how you could tweak your deck to help fight the meta at your locals. (Actually that's another thing I want to talk about which is the misuse of the term Meta in the Vanguard Community but I will save that for another post)
Alright now to get into the Triangle of Power.
There are 3 types of strategies in Vanguard, Disruption, Advantage and Pressure (see Trifecta Theory)
These different strategies allow us to make a rock-paper-scissors type power diagram.
As Rock beats Paper beats Scissors beats Rock
I have determined that Disruption beats Pressure beats Advantage beats Disruption.
Now I'll go into more detail about each relationship and from that you will be able to see why I think that it is true.
Disruption beats Pressure:
First is Disruption and Pressure. I defined pressure earlier as making your opponent scared of your attacks so that you can force them to guard you. Generally Pressure is created by making power columns (ones that make your opponent guard for 15000 shield or 3 stages (see Stages)) or by having an imposing effect that activates when an attack hits. Thus Disruption is able to beat Pressure by killing the units that are causing pressure rendering its strategy ineffective.
Pressure beats Advantage:
Advantage is when you are able to draw more cards or increase your shield somehow so that you have more cards or effective cards than your opponent. Pressure counters this strategy by scaring your opponent into guarding your attacks through the mid game where they might have been able to "no guard" it whether to take the damage or because it wont hit. Thus they have to expend the cards gained much more than normal which negates their strategy.
Advantage beats Disruption:
Since you are able to gather a lot of cards in your hand you will likely have a replacement for a destroyed unit thus Disruption becomes less effective against you. Disruption is unable to stop an Advantage decks strategy well simply because they are able to replace vital units easier than normal.
I think an understanding of this Triangle of Power is important for learning match ups as well as tweaking your deck to make it good versus the people you play against a lot.
This idea of Triangle of Power leads also supports the main concept of Trifecta theory which is that a good balance of all three elements will be the best deck. Because you will have access to the tools you need to play versus each match up.
Alright now to get into the Triangle of Power.
There are 3 types of strategies in Vanguard, Disruption, Advantage and Pressure (see Trifecta Theory)
These different strategies allow us to make a rock-paper-scissors type power diagram.
As Rock beats Paper beats Scissors beats Rock
I have determined that Disruption beats Pressure beats Advantage beats Disruption.
Now I'll go into more detail about each relationship and from that you will be able to see why I think that it is true.
Disruption beats Pressure:
First is Disruption and Pressure. I defined pressure earlier as making your opponent scared of your attacks so that you can force them to guard you. Generally Pressure is created by making power columns (ones that make your opponent guard for 15000 shield or 3 stages (see Stages)) or by having an imposing effect that activates when an attack hits. Thus Disruption is able to beat Pressure by killing the units that are causing pressure rendering its strategy ineffective.
Pressure beats Advantage:
Advantage is when you are able to draw more cards or increase your shield somehow so that you have more cards or effective cards than your opponent. Pressure counters this strategy by scaring your opponent into guarding your attacks through the mid game where they might have been able to "no guard" it whether to take the damage or because it wont hit. Thus they have to expend the cards gained much more than normal which negates their strategy.
Advantage beats Disruption:
Since you are able to gather a lot of cards in your hand you will likely have a replacement for a destroyed unit thus Disruption becomes less effective against you. Disruption is unable to stop an Advantage decks strategy well simply because they are able to replace vital units easier than normal.
I think an understanding of this Triangle of Power is important for learning match ups as well as tweaking your deck to make it good versus the people you play against a lot.
This idea of Triangle of Power leads also supports the main concept of Trifecta theory which is that a good balance of all three elements will be the best deck. Because you will have access to the tools you need to play versus each match up.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
T-Theory Analysis: Dragon Monk, Goku
My first analysis using my Trifecta Theory will be with my favorite deck, Dragon Monk Goku.
(Using Current Cards upto set 13)
I have thought about doing an full on disruption deck as Goku is already very disruptive in his own right however I wanted to use this post to help me develop my theory as well as go through building a balanced deck.
First we should start by making lists of each card available to use and organize it by its place in the Trifecta and what grade is. Any cards that do not fall into a category such as vanillas will not be listed and are mainly to be used for filling in the deck where it needs to be filled in such as hitting magic numbers. (a.k.a. 5000 power increments on the opponents vanguard usually 16,000 and 21,000 for normal 11k Vanguards)
Note: I will be using shortened names and abbreviations to prevent the list from getting out of hand.
Disruption:
3s: Blazing Flare, /Exile Dragon, Bloackade, Blockade Inferno, Vortex Dragon, Dragonic Lawkeeper
2s: Berserk, Corduroy, Tejas, Striken (situational)
1s: Kimnara, Heatnail
Advantage:
3s: None
2s: None
1s: Gojo, Aermo, Guard Griffin, Kersey, ~Heatnail (If he hits he loses advantage)
Pressure:
3s: Amber-Eclipse, Dauntless, DOtE, Dragonic Waterfall, Dual Axe Archdragon, Aleph, Blockade Inferno
2s: Tejas, bellicosity
1s: Heatnail
From our list we can see that Most of our Advantages come from Grade 1s and it isn't hard advantage it is just card quality advantage (exception Guard Griffin), Most of the disruption and pressure come from grade 3 vanguard abilities with the exceptions of heatnail and tejas.
For the basics we know we will run 4x Goku 4x Barri (Perfect Guard) and our starter will be Conroe. Now to analyze what we already have.
Desired Grade Ration 1-2-3 -> 13-11-9
Disruption: Goku is crazy with disruption he gives it for free all game long with the disadvantage of it being random. I don't think we will need much more than him.
Advantage: None
Pressure: None
First Run through.
So we need to really up our pressure and advantage. First since we get so much disruption from Goku I think we can delegate our counterblasts to Guard griffin to gain more hard advantage. Now to add more pressure. Most of the abilities are vanguard only for grade 3 so we need to look to Tejas, Heat nail, and Bellicosity. Tejas is really weak sitting at 8k power but Since Goku doesn't use any counterblasts Bellicosity has no obvious pressure. Because of both of these I think we should add pressure by using heatnails. Lets take a look at our deck again.
4x Goku
4x Heatnail
4x Barri
4x Griffin
1x Conroe
We are still ahead on disruption compared to everything else. and we actually are the worst off in Advantage because Heatnail reduces it slightly. Because of this I think we need only use 3 heatnail and use our last 2 spots for gojo since he can help increase our card quality all game as opposed to aermo who only works early and kersey who is a one time thing.
So our grade 1s are complete, Of the trifecta the only useful Grade 2 seems to be Berserk dragon, Bellicosity and tejas were explain earlier and Corduroy requires a lot of Seal dragons. However we can't expect to use all out Counter Blasts for Griffins based on having to play them or Damaging them. So we can add a few berserk dragons to clean up unused Counterblasts. Lets go with 3.
Before we list the Changes we made we also should run 2x of a back up vanguard to Goku since we won't always get him. A good choice here is Waterfall since he follows the same Grade 3 theme. Our list now looks like.
4x Goku
2x Waterfall
3x Berserk
4x Barri
4x Griffin
3x Heatnail
2x Gojo
This gives us a Trifecta of D-A-P -> 10-6-5 And since there are no more viable options for each Trifecta we will fill in the rest of the deck with Grade 3 Dragonic Overlords 11k attacker rearguards will be able to hit without a rearguard, Wyvern strike Gyuntulu 11k attacker if we have more rearguards than the opponent, Nehalem 10k vanilla for hitting 16k with all of our 6k grade 1 boosters.
Lastly we need to look at Triggers. There is still a clear lack of Pressure and Advantage in out deck in about even amounts so given that we will have 4 Heals There are 12 triggers left to choose from. To equally promote Pressure and Advantage we can use 6 criticals and 6 draw.
If we count triggers as half because they are random we end up with a Trifecta of 10-9-8 which is pretty well balanced between the two.
(Using Current Cards upto set 13)
I have thought about doing an full on disruption deck as Goku is already very disruptive in his own right however I wanted to use this post to help me develop my theory as well as go through building a balanced deck.
First we should start by making lists of each card available to use and organize it by its place in the Trifecta and what grade is. Any cards that do not fall into a category such as vanillas will not be listed and are mainly to be used for filling in the deck where it needs to be filled in such as hitting magic numbers. (a.k.a. 5000 power increments on the opponents vanguard usually 16,000 and 21,000 for normal 11k Vanguards)
Note: I will be using shortened names and abbreviations to prevent the list from getting out of hand.
Disruption:
3s: Blazing Flare, /Exile Dragon, Bloackade, Blockade Inferno, Vortex Dragon, Dragonic Lawkeeper
2s: Berserk, Corduroy, Tejas, Striken (situational)
1s: Kimnara, Heatnail
Advantage:
3s: None
2s: None
1s: Gojo, Aermo, Guard Griffin, Kersey, ~Heatnail (If he hits he loses advantage)
Pressure:
3s: Amber-Eclipse, Dauntless, DOtE, Dragonic Waterfall, Dual Axe Archdragon, Aleph, Blockade Inferno
2s: Tejas, bellicosity
1s: Heatnail
From our list we can see that Most of our Advantages come from Grade 1s and it isn't hard advantage it is just card quality advantage (exception Guard Griffin), Most of the disruption and pressure come from grade 3 vanguard abilities with the exceptions of heatnail and tejas.
For the basics we know we will run 4x Goku 4x Barri (Perfect Guard) and our starter will be Conroe. Now to analyze what we already have.
Desired Grade Ration 1-2-3 -> 13-11-9
Disruption: Goku is crazy with disruption he gives it for free all game long with the disadvantage of it being random. I don't think we will need much more than him.
Advantage: None
Pressure: None
First Run through.
So we need to really up our pressure and advantage. First since we get so much disruption from Goku I think we can delegate our counterblasts to Guard griffin to gain more hard advantage. Now to add more pressure. Most of the abilities are vanguard only for grade 3 so we need to look to Tejas, Heat nail, and Bellicosity. Tejas is really weak sitting at 8k power but Since Goku doesn't use any counterblasts Bellicosity has no obvious pressure. Because of both of these I think we should add pressure by using heatnails. Lets take a look at our deck again.
4x Goku
4x Heatnail
4x Barri
4x Griffin
1x Conroe
We are still ahead on disruption compared to everything else. and we actually are the worst off in Advantage because Heatnail reduces it slightly. Because of this I think we need only use 3 heatnail and use our last 2 spots for gojo since he can help increase our card quality all game as opposed to aermo who only works early and kersey who is a one time thing.
So our grade 1s are complete, Of the trifecta the only useful Grade 2 seems to be Berserk dragon, Bellicosity and tejas were explain earlier and Corduroy requires a lot of Seal dragons. However we can't expect to use all out Counter Blasts for Griffins based on having to play them or Damaging them. So we can add a few berserk dragons to clean up unused Counterblasts. Lets go with 3.
Before we list the Changes we made we also should run 2x of a back up vanguard to Goku since we won't always get him. A good choice here is Waterfall since he follows the same Grade 3 theme. Our list now looks like.
4x Goku
2x Waterfall
3x Berserk
4x Barri
4x Griffin
3x Heatnail
2x Gojo
This gives us a Trifecta of D-A-P -> 10-6-5 And since there are no more viable options for each Trifecta we will fill in the rest of the deck with Grade 3 Dragonic Overlords 11k attacker rearguards will be able to hit without a rearguard, Wyvern strike Gyuntulu 11k attacker if we have more rearguards than the opponent, Nehalem 10k vanilla for hitting 16k with all of our 6k grade 1 boosters.
Lastly we need to look at Triggers. There is still a clear lack of Pressure and Advantage in out deck in about even amounts so given that we will have 4 Heals There are 12 triggers left to choose from. To equally promote Pressure and Advantage we can use 6 criticals and 6 draw.
If we count triggers as half because they are random we end up with a Trifecta of 10-9-8 which is pretty well balanced between the two.
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.
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.
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