Saturday, January 28, 2012

Attack! Rear Guard! #2

Hello everyone, and welcome back to SO IMBA!,

Where we learn how to be a better card fighter.

Today, we will be talking about attacking Rear guards...

With your Vanguard!

Now, in most games, without a specific reason to(cannot hit vanguard, activate Wingal Brave, etc), most people will not attack rear guards themselves.

Which has reasons for that too. Why wouldn't you?
Attacking with the Vanguard applies much more pressure: of potential Trigger power ups, and of potential critical hits, making the opponent guard much more than a rear guard attack.

But the main reason you choose to attack rear guards instead of the Vanguard is: To Prolong the game.

By attacking the rear guards, the opponent is forced to spend cards faster than you, at the cost of not taking damage.

This creates a situation in which they cannot deploy their forces well, and cannot call units to their best place(ie: 8k Boost in the back, no grade 1s in the front row, etc).

In this situation the opponent cannot attack at full force, and can only attack two times or less per turn.

Of course, you can never win by always attacking the rear guards, but you can do one thing: NOT LOSE.

Usually, if you have more damage than the opponent, you would attack rear guards more, instead of attacking the vanguard, for two reasons:

Slowing the opponent down,
and getting heal triggers.

If you are at more damage, the longer the game lasts, the more you can slowly move back into a better position.

On the other hand, if you manage to hit a critical trigger and get into the lead very quickly, you want to keep the pressure on the opponent by constantly attacking their vanguard, dealing more and more damage and forcing guards as much as possible.

In short, by attacking rear guards more, you gain more card advantage, but if you attack the vanguard more, you gain damage lead.

Attacking rear guards: Stalling
Attacking Vanguard: Being impatient

Guarding: Losing Card Advantage
No Guard: Taking it like a man... And gaining card advantage.

Stand Up! Vanguard!

1 comment:

  1. Great read as always.

    Two questions though...

    1. What happens if you get a Critical Trigger or two during the Drive Check? You'd usually attack with the Vanguard first if your deck has 8 Critical Triggers. Now, a Critical Split would be the best option, giving the Power to a Rear Guard who's going to hit one of those problematic Rear Guards like Palamedes. But how about the Rear Guard with the Critical? Should it go for the Vanguard, or strike a Rear Guard? Sometimes people actually let the Critical pass through so they can use some pretty painful Counterblasts.

    2. This is actually one strategy I've been trying against Royal/Shadow Paladins. The thing is, if you take out one of their Rear Guards, they have plenty of Superior Calling skills like Akane and Macha to mitigate the loss of a Rear Guard. So how would you handle this situation/matchup?

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