What is Cardfight Vanguard? Well, if you’re here, then you already know that Cardfight Vanguard is a TCG (Trading Card Game) that is growing fast in popularity. And who am I? Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Brandon He, I’m just your average 14 year old that plays children’s card games! I’ve played Yugioh for a few years and I picked up Vanguard about a year ago and haven’t stopped since! I have a youtube channel dedicated to Yugioh and Vanguard, I’m just over 400 subs and if you would check it out, that’ll be great. http://www.youtube.com/user/theblazesamurai?feature=mhee But enough about me. I’m here to tell you how to improve your game and get better by telling you the two most important skills you need to learn in order to succeed. Those two skills are memorizing drive checks and making calculations.
What Does It Mean To “Memorize” A Drive Check?
The first step for me was memorizing drive checks, so i feel it’s very important. Memorizing drive checks is a very important skill you need in Vanguard. Drive checking is a mechanic in Vanguard. This mechanic is probably the most important and the most influential mechanic to the game. To memorize the drive check means to look at those 2 cards and remember them. It doesn’t matter if they’re triggers or not, just remember them. It seems like common sense but the thought process of some players when your opponent drive checks are just whether or not it’s a trigger. Just remembering if they’re a trigger or not isn’t going to help as much as remembering what those cards specifically were. After a couple of turns have passed by, you’ll be able to remember more than just 2 cards in your opponent’s hand. Remembering what cards your opponent has in his hand because he drove checked it and using that knowledge to your advantage is what it means to memorize your opponent’s drive checks my friends.
Why Memorize Drive Checks?
Why is it so important to memorize drive checks you may ask? When you know cards in your opponent’s hand, you change your strategy and how you play accordingly. That goes for every game, not just vanguard. It just happens that in vanguard your opponent has to show you cards in his hand because they drove checked it, so why not take advantage of it? Whenever your opponent checks the top cards, you know 2 cards in their hand. After a few turns you’ll be able to see multiple cards in their hand. Using that knowledge, you will know when you activate certain effects, you will know how much shield is in their hand, and you can change the attack pattern of your next turn. These little changes you make when you know your opponent’s drive checks could be the difference between victory or defeat.
Knowing When To Activate Certain Effects
There are certain cards that have an effect that gives them more power or give you an advantage in the game. These cards are Dragonic Waterfall, Dudley Emperor, Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion etc. Theres quite a bit, but those were the ones that came to mind. Cards that have effects like this have costs that you can’t keep paying every turn of the game. If you know a few cards out of your opponent’s hand, you can determine whether or not it’s a good time to activate your vanguard’s effect. You need to know the most optimal time to use these effects to push for game. For example, if you just blindly use your vanguard’s effect and it gets perfect guarded, well you just lost some resource from paying the cost when you could have saved it and used it for another turn. I’ve lost many games to me just blindly wasting my vanguard’s effect and not knowing when it’s the correct time to use it. Knowing when to use certain effects to get the most out of it will make a huge impact on your game.
Changing Your Attack Patterns
Like I said in the beginning of the article. When you know cards in your opponent’s hand, you change your strategy accordingly. You can change how you attack depending on what’s in your opponent’s hand. (insert picture here) In this example if you know your opponent has more Grade 3s in there hand you should put pressure on the vanguard since they have limited amount of shield in their hand and if you attack their rearguards then they can simply replace them next turn with 1 card. But on the other hand, if the opponent has more triggers in their hand, you’re better off attacking their rearguards because they probably don’t have many attackers in hand. After a few turns you get a good understanding of what’s in their hand and how much shield they have, so change your attack pattern accordingly. Doing so can really change the way the game turns out!
Making Calculations
Ok now that you know the basics on memorizing your opponent’s drive checks. Another good skill to learn is making calculations in the game. Now when i say calculations, you’re probably thinking. “Math!?!? Well why do I need to use math to play a children’s card game? How is math going to help me?” If you’re a smart person, then you would know that math is in everything. Everything. And when I mean everything, i mean EVERYTHING! That even includes children’s card games! If you’re a decent player and you’ve been playing for a while, then you probably know that there are many different calculations a person can make in the game.
Why Should I Bother Making Calculations?
Why you should be making calculations in the game is somewhat similar as to why you should memorize your opponent’s drive checks. It could change the way you play and it could affect the way you make some of your choices throughout the game. Whether you should activate a card’s effect or not. Whether you should guard this attack or not. These are some of the choices that are very likely to appear, and if you take the time to make some simple calculations it could help you out in deciding what to do or what’s the right play in a certain scenario.
To Activate Or Not To Activate, That Is The Question!
Sometimes you’re stuck between activating a card’s effect or not. Cards such as Dragon Monk Gojo, Lake Maiden Lien, and Witch of Nostrum Arianrhod where you could rest this card, discard one card and draw one card are cards where you could choose to use it’s effect or choose not to. If you do use its effect, you could draw into another attacker or booster and call it. Great! But on the other hand, if you draw into a trigger. You could have drove checked it but instead you wasted it. If you would have used some statistics and calculations, you could have found the probability of drawing a trigger. Here, let me walk you through this. If you would count the number of cards in your deck. (you’re allowed to do that) Let’s say 30. Then count how many triggers are in your hand, drop zone, field, soul, and damage to see how many triggers you’ve used. Let’s say you’ve used 6. Since there’s 16 triggers in a deck 16-6=10. So it’s 10 out of 30, meaning that 1 out of every 3 times you’ll draw into a trigger. I wouldn’t activate the effect under those circumstances because the likelihood of drawing triggers is too high. Another example would be cards such as Dragon Monk Goku, Sword Magician Sarah, and Asura Kaiser where the effect is “When this unit’s drive check reveals a grade 3.......” Using calculations and statistics, you could find out what’s the likelihood of drive checking a grade 3. It’s fairly simple. Take how many cards are left in your deck, let’s say 30 again. Then subtract that number by the number of grade 3s left in your deck, let’s say 5. So it’s 5 out of 30, meaning 1 out of every 6 cards will be a grade 3. As you can see, using calculations and statistics, you can determine whether or not to activate certain effects.
Whether Or Not To Guard An Attack
Whenever your opponent is attacking your rearguard and you’re thinking if you should guard it so u can have more attacks next turn or let it go in case you may draw into another attacker next turn is a case where you could make some quick calculations. If you choose to guard it and you do happen to draw into an attacker next turn, then u just wasted some shield that could have been used later on. On the other hand, if you choose to let it go in an attempt to conserve some shield and don’t draw into an attacker next turn. You have one less attack this turn and maybe for the next few turns too. In Vanguard, the more attacks you can pull off, the better. I’ve lost games where I didn’t have enough rearguards attacking my opponent. So if you make some calculations, you can figure out how many more attackers are left in your deck, you can determine whether or not to take the hit. So once again, i’ll walk you through this, count how many cards are left in your deck. Let’s say 25 since you would only do this mid to late game. Now count how many attackers are on the field, in your hand, in the drop zone, in your soul, and in the damage zone. Then take that number (let’s say 12) and subtract however many grade 2s and grade 3s you play total (you should know this) which on average is about 20. So, 12 attackers left in your deck of 25. That’s about half. In this scenario i would let the attack go through. If you’re tired of hearing me going on and on about math and stuff. Thankfully I said all that needs to be said on this subject.
I would like to thank you guys for reading my rather long article on the two most important skills I think are important to growing as a player and succeed. I hope you guys learned a thing or two about memorizing drive checks and making calculations. After you get these skills down, you’ll be on your way to becoming a better player and having greater success.
Just don’t sit there for 5 minutes doing one calculation though 🙂
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- The Two Most Important Skills You Need To Learn In Order To Succeed - February 26, 2013
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