Doesn't seem like anyone has been here in a while, but anyway...
I'm looking to try out Cardfight! Vanguard and had a few questions:
1: How many formats are there?
2. What's a good place where I can find the banlist and recent rules?
3. Are all the factions balanced? Meaning, do they all get consistently updated, or is it like Yugioh where they nerf something to make room for something else?
4. Is there something for this game like M:TG has for Gatherer?
5. What's a good forum to look at and discuss top decks and strategies?
1. Most players follow Clan Fight which means that both your Main Deck and G-Zone can only contain cards from the same clan with the exception of Cray Elemental units since they count as all clans and nations. Royal Paladin decks can only have up to 4 copies of Blaster Dark, decks that include Grade 3's without "Jewel Knight" in it's card name cannot include any "Jewel Knight, Swordmy", and Link Joker decks can run any number of Reverse units. 2.http://cf-vanguard.com/en/howto/ 3. All the clans get consistently updated depending on the type of sub-clans. 4.http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Cardfight!!_Vanguard_Wiki 5. Pojo.com forums.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
G Units are banned in Standard (only cards from new series can be used)
except in Premium (all cards can be used) and G Format (cards from new series cannot be used).
Set Rotations are being implemented for Standard while sets in Premium and G Format never rotate out. Reboot starts in June 2018.
Grade 3's now have a standard 13k power. Blaster Blade is now a 10k Grade 2 with Wingal being a 8k Grade 1. So Grade 1's and Grade 2's got a +1k buff.
Each clan gains a new attribute. When you ride a Grade 3 with an Imaginary Gift, they either; Force: Choose a circle and it gets +10k on your turn and can only stack once. Accel: An additional front row circle with +10k power on your turn. Protect: Gain a Perfect Guard. Each clan has one of these individually. Think of it as a new form of Break Ride.
Stand Triggers are being replaced with Front Triggers which gives +10k to all your front row units.
All Triggers now give +10k Power to any unit instead of +5k Power while their Shield Value remains the same.
Trial Decks are now being distributed similar to Legend Decks. Standard deck ratio of 1 Starting Vanguard, 16 Grade 0's, 14 Grade 1's, 11 Grade 2's, and 8 Grade 3's that everyone plays. Includes 4 of your "Avatar" card and 4 Perfect Guards. G-Zone not included.
New Mobile Game confirmed for English with gameplay similar to Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links.
New Spin-off Anime series confirmed based on the Bermuda Triangle clan.
Also this was mentioned on the Japanese Vanguard site which only applies to Premium and G Format:
MAJOR CHANGES IN RULINGS (May 1 will be implemented in Japanese)
Mulligan procedure has changed to: Choose the cards to return back to deck from hand and place it at the bottom of the deck, then draw equal number of cards from the top of your deck, shuffle your deck.
G-Assist: You no longer need to exclude 2 cards from your G-Zone, only 2 cards from your hand are excluded.
G-Guardian: You can now Normal Call G-Guardian's regardless of your Vanguard Grade (you can now guard with Grade 2 and Grade 3 vs Dust).
Stride: You can now stride if your Vanguard is at Grade 3 AT THE BEGINNING OF THAT TURN regardless of your opponent's grade OR If both fighters' Vanguard is Grade 3 (No you still cannot stride if you just rode into a Grade 3 during the turn and your opponent's Vanguard isn't a Grade 3).
1/turn: It's been changed from being able to only standby once per turn, it is now CAN ONLY BE RESOLVED ONCE PER TURN.
Example Before ruling change:
Nightrose's GB2 has to be resolved on the first retire that happens, cause the first retire will standby Nightrose's ability, hence regardless if you resolve her GB2 effect or not, the GB2 will no longer be Active for that turn.
Example After ruling change:
Nightrose's GB2 doesn't need to be resolved on the first retire that happens, yes the ability will standby, however if you decide not to resolve it, the ability will stay active and you can still use her GB2 on the next retire.
Q&A:
Q: How do Front Triggers work with Ultima? A: Ultima can't change it to "choose all your unit, +10k" because Front Triggers themselves doesn't have "choose" in it's wording. Q: How do Front Triggers work with Brandt? A: Nothing happens, Front Triggers aren't specified in Brandt. Q: I Paid Dragonic Overlord The Ace ACT ability twice, and gain 2 Auto 1/turn ability that allows him to restand, can I restand DOTA 2x? A: Yes, after the first attack, you can resolve one of the 1/turn ability and not resolve the 2nd one. At the end of the resolution of the 1st restand ability, the 2nd ability to restand will stay active cause it was not resolved. Hence, at the end of the 2nd attack by DOTA, you can still resolve the 2nd ability to ONCE AGAIN RESTAND DOTA.
The first time I have ever gotten into Vanguard was around 2018. I had spent $150 on a full Pale Moon Hari deck. It was a lot of money for me at the time so I had to set aside some money for quite awhile. But I thought it was worth it to spend time playing card games with my friends. It was a lot to get into as the game mechanics were weird compared to my first card game being Yu-Gi-Oh! but it was fun nevertheless. Two weeks later Bushiroad announced that they were rebooting Vanguard and were rotating out all previous cards for the first time. This was due to all sorts of complaints which much I gather were about power creep or maybe it was rotated just to do something about the low player numbers but at that point in time Vanguard had lost all interest for me despite how much potential fun I could have playing the game.
The rotated cards would become part of a new Vanguard format called "Premium". A format that has never really climbed out of the toxic abyss that got it rotated in the first place and I wouldn't get back into Vanguard until the release of OverDress where a friend had to hand me a fully built deck to get me into the game. I enjoyed the format more than I thought as the format perfectly encapsulated the stupid fun and Casual aspect of card games that was missing for me from Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering. I thought it was so fun that I decided to once again try the Premium format and dip into the "V Premium" format which was created after the second reboot of the game. What I discovered playing the format is a cesspit of toxic mechanics, an uncaring parent company, really stupid inflated prices, and a toxic elitist player base.
These issues would slowly encapsulate more and more of each format. These are issues that plague every card game at times but in Vanguard's case these issues cut A LOT deeper than they should otherwise have. Player numbers are down for every event, sales are down dramatically for Vanguard falling even behind newer games like the new Digimon CCG and Flesh and Blood TCG. The largest online retailer TCGPlayer even removed Vanguard off it's front page, promo cards are almost unobtainable due to the lack of official events (no thanks to COVID-19), these are not just a brief one-off event, these are a trend. In simpler terms, Vanguard's player base is in a decline. This decline comes from a variety of issues. Vanguard has always been a smaller card game and as such it has a unique set of challenges, things that aren't issues for other card games become dramatic problems in a game like Vanguard. For example:
Vanguard Pricing -
Vanguard's pricing issues come from a very unique place. It's an insanely low Supply Market combined with Legacy formats which need rare cards. We can separate price problems into a few areas but first an explanation. When I say Vanguard is expensive, sure $200 to $400 is not A LOT when compared to Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering's $800 plus dollar decks. In Premium, where I can't go to a locals consistently, it's a struggle to find people to play with outside of events and with Bushiroad scheduling their events on the same day as other major events for Vanguard then that $400 is A LOT more than it should be and more so it's a stupid barrier to entry and is still more than what a card game should cost. I get it, we all hate being poor but come on.
For Standard, the introductory format for players (unlike in Magic: The Gathering where it's EDH / Commander) a $200 to $400 price tag is ridiculous gatekeeping especially with most of these prices coming from one or two different cards while higher Secondary Market prices for a card game might be good for investors and retailers it stops newer players from getting into the game. The price is bad for Standard due to the low numbers of Vanguard product being opened, very few stores are currently doing case openings to resell product and smaller consumer purchases aren't picking up the slack. The lower Supply means that fewer people will compete thus resulting in lower prices.
Price inflation is also due to the large number of higher Rarity cards in the set. A total of 15 Triple Rares creates variants with some cards being $30 to $40 and some being completely worthless. This is always a problem in card games but in Vanguard with an extremely large number of high rares and cheaper Price Boxes, the staple Triple Rares that every deck needs get REALLY out of hand with price. For Premium formats the issue lies with Bushiroad's Reprint Policy.
There are cards seen in Competitive Play which haven't been reprinted in 5+ years. For a game like Vanguard where these print runs are already smaller that's INSANE! It's not uncommon to see certain cards just not have listing at Online Stores. The once a year Premium Reprint Set with Revival Collection is a good start but it's not close to solving the issue. Also the VR Reprint Policy for V Premium format is insane, jacking up prices pointlessly on cards and a lot of people I know can't get into V Premium because of the pricing. How's THAT going to help shop's which the policy was originally created to do? But If you REALLY want stupidity then let's look at Exclusive Promos:
Promo Problems -
Bushiroad prints exclusive cards and effects as promos to drive up the abysmally low player turnout at their events. Promos for Vanguard are either unplayable filler or designed to fix key problems and decks. Early on in OverDress this problem was pretty large but you could still get the promos even If it was $20 a pop. That's changed recently. But before I get into that, in Premium where the event turnout was negligible you'd be lucky to see even one copy of the promo If you never went to an event. Protector of Memories, Gear Puppy was used in what was one point a very strong turn skip loop that was arguably Tier 1 due to a Tier 0 deck at the time. One of the reasons that it wasn't super popular in that format is because Protector of Memories, Gear Puppy was released as a shop tournament promo right before events. Despite this card being fully legal and major events at the time, the card was nowhere to be seen online and most local shops didn't have their Premium shop tournaments before the big events.
This means that some players who just got lucky outside of the game with their event timings just got a substantial benefit over those who just happened to not be in a particular place at a particular time. It wasn't even a Money issue. It was a Supply issue. Eventually the card would slowly start to drift into Supply after a Ban List. This should have never been a problem in the first place. It happens A LOT with Vanguard. Look at Pursuit Assault and every new promo for the Glitter Decks and in OverDress with Result of the Experiment Henceforth is a necessary card for a Mid-Tier deck called "Eva". This card goes for about $90 each. A player has to decide between paying rent or playing a Mid-Tier deck that looks really fun. The reason for this pricing has to do A LOT with the only 13 different listings of the card. There's not enough Supply because players aren't going to events. What's worse is my connections to Local Game Stores (LGSs) state that it can take anywhere from 6 months to a year to get registered officially with Bushiroad to get promos and product cheaper disincentivizing new stores from carrying the card game. In this economy betting on 6 months ahead is extremely risky for the already shaky Local Game Store (LGS).
Fewer Events -
Bushiroad's Vanguard events are failing or have been in a state of failing since pre-2020 times, a majority of card stores don't host events for Vanguard so unless your store had a dedicated Vanguard Community for years then your store will almost certainly not develop one no matter how hard you push for it. Vanguard exists as a card game in Japan as a sideshow option in bigger card games. In America and Europe that option isn't really available due to the culture and competition. This leaves Vanguard in a completely unappealing state for new players. For the Premium format there's almost no locals and very few events. Bushiroad likes to schedule their Premium events on the same day as OverDress in certain areas so it's no wonder the turnout is super low. But for my Locals' Premium Day there's usually people in the store playing Vanguard but no one ever wants to play Premium for one reason or another and events won't fire. From what I hear it's a very similar story for the few other Vanguard stores. I don't think Vanguard events are going to disappear entirely right off the bat. Most of the players in the community have Stockholm Syndrome and in order to maintain itself, the community HAS to grow and that's something they can't do right now.
Dear Days -
So Bushiroad is desperate to keep Vanguard going. Prices are forcing out players while events are getting more and more scarce due to COVID-19 so Bushiroad decided to release a $70 Simulator for Vanguard: OverDress for the Nintendo Switch while also releasing a DLC for it costing a total of $140. For their Online Clients, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duels and Magic: The Gathering Arena have been some of the biggest growth moments for their respective card games. Vanguard: OverDress Dear Days would appeal to almost NO ONE. Weirdly enough the $70 price tag is only for certain regions such as North America. Other countries like Brazil and Japan have to pay $30 to $50 for the game. I'm not sure why this is. I think it's either a mistake that the company is too proud to fix or a direct move to get Vanguard pulled out of America. Wanting to charge money for your video game is fine but charging more than video games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, God of War: Ragnarok, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch is INSANE!
The prices are actively tanking the game especially when Vanguard's competitors with Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering in terms of their Official Online Clients are FREE. Dear Days should have been an injection of new players into Vanguard but it's having more of a negative reaction than a positive. So outside of Premium, Vanguard's most competitive format has been considered to be "V Premium". Admittedly it's my least played format despite how well liked it is. Unfortunately V Premium has had it's scant product lines scrapped from production for at least 7 months If not longer. I heard rumors that it's going to be for at least a year but I can't verify that. This news is devastating for ANY card game and is usually considered a death knell but for V Premium which has been left in a Tier 0 format after the last support this is a perfect storm that can even kill a fan favorite format.
The next segment is dedicated to the worst mechanic in all of Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games:
The OverTrigger and The Future of Cardfight!! Vanguard -
Vanguard gets a lot of its personality from its high variance and luck based gameplay but the OverTrigger is a flat out anti-competitive floodgate. At it's core it's a randomized free game win or loss in almost every situation they activate in. Any player who values a card game for it's competitive nature will avoid Vanguard for this reason despite every players mascot events hating them and Relentless polling showing how much OverTriggers are hated, the mechanic will stay legal in both the OverDress and Premium format. Premium being particularly bad as it has the most drive checks and deck thinning all because someone at Bushiroad is too prideful to admit that they messed up on a game mechanic.
All of this leaves Vanguard in a hopeless and miserable state. I want to be able to say that in a few years time that Vanguard will be in a happy state but I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. They have a series of old deck releases planned for OverDress that seem like fun but I'm worried about the power creep it will bring with them. They power creeped the game dramatically with Grade 4's and this has been 3 sets and a Ban List finally backtracking them and pushing them into the meta. Promos have been addressed a bit by being moved to Box Toppers instead of Event Items which is a good thing but it means that Bushiroad had to give up on the fallacy of giving out promos due to abysmal player turnout.
I worry that it will already be too late for Vanguard to recover. The game as it is can't survive another reboot which is something that Konami has learned from Yu-Gi-Oh!. I still play Vanguard from time to time but I've almost completely sold out of the game. I'm really only still playing because I love the community but that doesn't mean that the game is sustainable. The Vanguard community loses players constantly and this YouTube Channel got it's start from Vanguard and I wish I could continue making content for it but as it is it's only actively hurting the channel to cover Vanguard content.
It hurts me to see Vanguard content that gets my work and attention too early. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me for the past year and a half. I've got new stuff planned and I'll be looking for a chance to come back to Vanguard but it is on Bushiroad to fix things. Thank you all for watching and I'll see you next time.
Another thing I wanted to point out is something that MonkeyFight TCG forgot to mention in his YouTube video that was completely overlooked and that was the overall Tournament Structure for Vanguard. For those who don't know there was a company here in the United States that was involved running Organized Play events and Sanctioned Tournaments for Vanguard known as Alter Reality Games (ARG). They had tournaments set up for Vanguard being Best 2 out of 3 Swiss with a Top Cut which was the model that I was really hoping Bushiroad would adopt for Vanguard Tournaments here in the West. Unfortunately Bushiroad declined and decided to stick with the Best of One Single or Double Elimination model probably as a means of staying consistent with the Anime / Manga series unlike the contrast of changes we saw in other card game Anime / Manga like Yu-Gi-Oh! being the biggest example and Duel Masters which was mostly exclusive to Japan.
Unfortunately Alter Reality Games (ARG) dissolved from being Tournament Organizers to being an exclusive Online Retailer akin to Channel Fireball, Star City Games, and TCGPlayer. Apparently ARG was caught in a scandal that ruined their reputation as a Tournament Organizer just a few years before the pandemic started. I can't remember the full details of what happened but I do remember them trying to launch their own Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game with Argent Saga and it ended up failing miserably. The fact that ARG at one point knew how players wanted to play Vanguard competitively compared to Bushiroad shows the level of disconnect this company has among its players. Granted this is a company located in Singapore they needed a base of communications in the United States JUST to improve public relations between the company and the players. It was somewhat successful however the amount of resources needed to accomplish this unfortunately was never invested in.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
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Doesn't seem like anyone has been here in a while, but anyway...
I'm looking to try out Cardfight! Vanguard and had a few questions:
1: How many formats are there?
2. What's a good place where I can find the banlist and recent rules?
3. Are all the factions balanced? Meaning, do they all get consistently updated, or is it like Yugioh where they nerf something to make room for something else?
4. Is there something for this game like M:TG has for Gatherer?
5. What's a good forum to look at and discuss top decks and strategies?
Cheers!
1. Most players follow Clan Fight which means that both your Main Deck and G-Zone can only contain cards from the same clan with the exception of Cray Elemental units since they count as all clans and nations. Royal Paladin decks can only have up to 4 copies of Blaster Dark, decks that include Grade 3's without "Jewel Knight" in it's card name cannot include any "Jewel Knight, Swordmy", and Link Joker decks can run any number of Reverse units.
2. http://cf-vanguard.com/en/howto/
3. All the clans get consistently updated depending on the type of sub-clans.
4. http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Cardfight!!_Vanguard_Wiki
5. Pojo.com forums.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Grade 0 (17)
4 Flogal (V Series / Critical Trigger)
4 Floral Paladin, Flogal (Critical Trigger)
4 Amulet Pure Eagle (Critical Trigger)
4 Yggdrasil Maiden, Elaine (V Series / Heal Trigger)
1 Guidepost Sage, Elron (Starting Vanguard)
Grade 1 (13)
4 Paccgal
3 Pluck Enchanter
2 Laurel Knight, Sicilus (Stride Enabler)
2 Flash Shield, Iseult (Sentinel)
2 Maiden of Divine Spring, Lien (Sentinel)
Grade 2 (12)
4 Blaster Blade (V Series)
4 Swordsman of Light, Blaster Javelin Larousse
4 Undulatory Sage, Tarna
Grade 3 (8)
4 Alfred Early (V Series)
4 Monarch Sanctuary Alfred
G-Zone (16)
3 Divine Knight of Twin Absolutes, Saint of Twin Sword
3 Holy Divine Knight, Gancelot Peace Saver
2 Divine Knight King, Alfred Holy Saver
2 Transmigratory Dragon, Holy Squire Dragon
1 Progenitor Dragon of Total Purity, Agnos
2 Little Great Sage, Marron (G-Guardian)
1 Holy Beast, Divine Maskkgal (G-Guardian)
1 Great Flash, Iseult (G-Guardian)
1 Dark Element, Dizmel (G-Guardian)
Deck Total (50)
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
https://en.cf-vanguard.com/information/cardfight-vanguard-new-series-information/
MAJOR CHANGES IN RULINGS (May 1 will be implemented in Japanese)
Nightrose's GB2 has to be resolved on the first retire that happens, cause the first retire will standby Nightrose's ability, hence regardless if you resolve her GB2 effect or not, the GB2 will no longer be Active for that turn.
Example After ruling change:
Nightrose's GB2 doesn't need to be resolved on the first retire that happens, yes the ability will standby, however if you decide not to resolve it, the ability will stay active and you can still use her GB2 on the next retire.
Q&A:
Q: How do Front Triggers work with Ultima? A: Ultima can't change it to "choose all your unit, +10k" because Front Triggers themselves doesn't have "choose" in it's wording.
Q: How do Front Triggers work with Brandt? A: Nothing happens, Front Triggers aren't specified in Brandt.
Q: I Paid Dragonic Overlord The Ace ACT ability twice, and gain 2 Auto 1/turn ability that allows him to restand, can I restand DOTA 2x? A: Yes, after the first attack, you can resolve one of the 1/turn ability and not resolve the 2nd one. At the end of the resolution of the 1st restand ability, the 2nd ability to restand will stay active cause it was not resolved. Hence, at the end of the 2nd attack by DOTA, you can still resolve the 2nd ability to ONCE AGAIN RESTAND DOTA.
Credit goes to VanKohl40 on YouTube for the info:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZILcN3oerqQ
--------------------------------------------------
Another thing I wanted to point out is something that MonkeyFight TCG forgot to mention in his YouTube video that was completely overlooked and that was the overall Tournament Structure for Vanguard. For those who don't know there was a company here in the United States that was involved running Organized Play events and Sanctioned Tournaments for Vanguard known as Alter Reality Games (ARG). They had tournaments set up for Vanguard being Best 2 out of 3 Swiss with a Top Cut which was the model that I was really hoping Bushiroad would adopt for Vanguard Tournaments here in the West. Unfortunately Bushiroad declined and decided to stick with the Best of One Single or Double Elimination model probably as a means of staying consistent with the Anime / Manga series unlike the contrast of changes we saw in other card game Anime / Manga like Yu-Gi-Oh! being the biggest example and Duel Masters which was mostly exclusive to Japan.
Unfortunately Alter Reality Games (ARG) dissolved from being Tournament Organizers to being an exclusive Online Retailer akin to Channel Fireball, Star City Games, and TCGPlayer. Apparently ARG was caught in a scandal that ruined their reputation as a Tournament Organizer just a few years before the pandemic started. I can't remember the full details of what happened but I do remember them trying to launch their own Paper Trading Card Game / Collectible Card Game with Argent Saga and it ended up failing miserably. The fact that ARG at one point knew how players wanted to play Vanguard competitively compared to Bushiroad shows the level of disconnect this company has among its players. Granted this is a company located in Singapore they needed a base of communications in the United States JUST to improve public relations between the company and the players. It was somewhat successful however the amount of resources needed to accomplish this unfortunately was never invested in.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta