This Space
For Rent

Tech-cards in Vanguard

Tech cards if you must.
Just not at the expense of the IMPORTANT stuff.
February 2, 2015

I couldn’t help but notice that nowadays people are randomly throwing in one sort of card or the other in the various decks that they play. CCGs call these ‘tech’ cards, and their main purpose is to basically not intrude on the main strategy of the deck while still having an option to an alternative play.

The big problem with the community trying to tech one-of copies in their decks in Vanguard is that they completely fail to take into context what must be given up in order to actually run them. Basically, making the choice of not running something already fairly solid for another card that may or may not do the job you want it to.

I can understand WHY one would tech cards in other CCGs. It’s an alternative strategy to fall back on when things go tits-up. Unfortunately, the idea of tech cards in, say, Yu-Gi-Oh! is that you run a shit-ton of cards that would actually allow you to search the deck for it and add it to the hand, so at least the fall-back option is always available to you. Vanguard is of course not without such cards, obviously. We encounter problems when people try to tech cards that have nothing to easily search them out, and used up a card slot that could have been used for something better.

Quintet Walls are particularly notorious 1-2 ofs. People run these at low numbers because they want to fuel Legion while trying as hard as possible not to encroach on Perfect Guards. Let’s analyse exactly what hoops are being jumped through to run such cards.

1.    At only one to two copies and no way to search them save for specific decks, you have no say in when or where they appear. The Quintet Wall which only has value at the beginning at the game almost always won’t turn up in the starting hand, and once it does, you would most likely prefer the more sure-fire Perfect Guard.

2.    Since it has Sentinel just like the PGs, for every Quintet Wall you run, you are making a conscious choice of running a less reliable and more conditional (and sometimes more expensive) card instead. If they could be run in conjunction with PGs as opposed to INSTEAD of PGs then perhaps they would have merit.

I’m not THAT experienced at CCGs as a whole but I would have thought that if there was any universal law to them, it’s that running a lot of what’s important is good because it increases odds of drawing it. At least know that much if you must blindly draw every single turn trying to dig for whatever the hell you need at that point in the game.

So when would it be acceptable to run anything as a tech? Well, firstly, it has to not encroach on everything that’s vastly important to the deck. If we look at the standard Grade lineup of 17-14-11-8, and take the principle of maxing everything important in the deck, we get:

1 starter and 16 triggers

4 whatever

4 whatever

4 whatever

2 spare

4 whatever

4 whatever

3 spare

4 whatever

4 whatever

So as we can see, in the Grade 1 department we have 2 slots available to spend on whatever you please, and 3 cards in the Grade 2 department free. This is by no means absolute since if you can’t really afford techs and everything is sort of important you can run 4/4/3/3 in the G1 space for example. But it’s a good rule of thumb to stick to when building a deck from scratch.

(Note the 4 maxed everything in the G3 slots. Splitting your Grade 3s between 3 possible targets is a very old-fashioned way of thinking that I would have hoped at least the veterans would have grown out of at this point.)

Secondly, it has to not contradict the main strategy that your deck is aiming for, and if possible, help it further still. It helps if you have some reliable way to search for it. For example, Alfred Exiv in the Seeker deck can search for the Grynngal Seeker that you’re probably only running two of anyway, but if you already have it, you can now swap your hand and claim more resources by unflipping damage.

But most importantly, the tech card has to be a card that you don’t particularly mind not having and won’t cause the deck to break down in tears when it disappears into the damage zone or drop zone. Grynngal Seeker is nice, but not vital since if used correctly the deck is fairly light on Counterblast as it is, and with low power it’s not a great booster to have at a high card count.

So there you have it. The lesson to take away is to run 4 of everything important and what’s left over will be the tech slots for whatever you want to run. Within reason, anyway. Once you find that specialising in one thing well does the job more smoothly as opposed to trying to do several things poorly, you’ll win a bit more. Now if only my boss would accept this reasoning when I’m at work.

Bitch to me about how you always draw your one-of card at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com