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Hey there, Back again with an update. In the last installment we looked over what strategy is, what skills are needed to play the game, how the deck can be laid out in a strategic manner. In today's lesson we're going to expand on that guide we did last time, as well as cover a few minor misconceptions about the game that can cost you big.
First, there is a huge myth out there that can ruin your gameplay, and that myth is "Yugioh is played in real time." It's not. What's actually going on is the game itself is taking place in the minds of the players and the board shows the physical result of the game. To help wrap your head around this, before playing any card, what do you do? You think about it and measure your actions against possible risk. This is you playing the game in your head before putting it into play on the board. Why is this important? because if you're playing the game in real time, someone else may have already beaten you... you just don't know it yet because they are a few steps ahead of you. It goes like this.
Novice players generally only play 0-1 turns head, just tapping their potential.
Average duelists are often thinking 2-4 steps ahead, 4 being a stretch.
Advance players generally think anywhere from 3-6 turns ahead.
and when you get to grand masters, that's when you see players attempt to plan out the whole duel before laying down a single card!
As you can see, if you even hope to be above average as a duelist, you need to start planning ahead big time. It'll take some practice, but there's no way you can counter your opponent's strategies without even planning ahead, except for maybe the occasional lucky hit. This is where the chart from last lesson comes in handy as well. When you study multiple archetypes and what they are trying to achieve as a win condition, you then have an upper hand against any opponents USING that archetype, since you already know what they are going for.
Alright, with planning ahead out of the way, another myth I see in noobs, I call this one "Might makes Right." This one basically is the idea that strong monsters automatically mean a strong deck. I can't tell you how many times I've mopped the floor with people who had their hands cluttered with god cards, ritual monsters, blue eyes white dragons, and other cards they couldn't summon. The power was right there, but they couldn't use it to defend themselves. This is why I want you to get rid of the impulse to automatically add cards because they have lots of stars or lots of stats, or awesome effects. If you want to use it, you have to summon it first.
Those are the main myths out of the way, now it's time to expand on the deck charts from last lesson. You should remember that the win condition is achieved by routes, and routes are made up of steps. The chart I made is very helpful for plotting out your deck's strategy, but it does leave out a few things. for one, it only limits you to the cards involved in your one win condition when I said before many decks employ multiple win conditions, and we touched on this a little with the alternate win condition.
Win Condition
Route 1
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
Route 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
Route 3
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Alternate win Condition
Route 1
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
This chart is for a beginner deck, and is very basic, so let's move it around to look more like an advanced deck type. For starters, let's make this deck with two main win conditions instead of one main and one alternate. This allows you to have multiple plans going at the same time instead of just one plan going and one fall back. When I'm building a deck in this manner, I usually make my two win conditions something like LP -> 0 and Deck out. These are two very different ways to win and thus are hard to fend off at the same time. Usually, if I'm not making progress on one, I'm making head way in another.
It would look something like this:
Win Condition 1 Win Condition 2
Route 1 Route 1
Step 1 Step 1
Step 2 Step 2
Step 3... Step 3...
Route 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
Route 3
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
It's not so very different, the alternate is simply moved to run alongside the main. As to the size of the secondary, it's for the same reason fending off two win conditions at once is hard, maintaining two is even harder. Therefore, in dueling it's best if we play a little bit of juggling and let our opponents see our main plan, don't try to hide what you're doing to much, but keep the second one in the shadows. This doesn't mean you tell them straight up "I'm going to get your lp to 0" but if you're running your main you don't need to do much surprise and bluffing. And think of your second win condition as less of an alternate but more like an ace in the hole. But now there's something else to consider when running two or more win conditions. Instead of thinking of your deck in one straight line, it's become two dimensional and your in conditions can sometime cross each other in how they are achieved as can your routes. Slowly and slowly this becomes less of a series of strings and more of a mesh. Let me show you what I mean. Let's take the example from the last lesson, Spamity Calamity, and adapt it to our new chart.
Win Condition: Keep populating the field with monsters faster than my Win Condition 2: Mill opponent to deck out.
opponent can deal with them, eventually wasting their
resources and leaving them open to attack.
The first difference is our alternate win condition is now an active goal, meaning we need to rebuild it to not be so passive. Like this.
Route 1: Use special summon abilities to spawn more monsters Route 2: Use milling abilities to mill opponents
Now, these may seem too different to achieve in the same duel at the same time, but I can achieve both in one turn. This is where it gets fun ;3 Efficiency in a duel is the best feeling one can achieve in a match. The final chart looks something like this.
Win Condition 1: LP ->0 Win Condition 2: Deckout
Route 1
Step 1: summon insect knight and then special summon kagetokage with it's eff
Step 2: XYZ Summon Gagaga Cowboy in defense, then use his eff to deal 800
damage, detach insect knight
Step 3: Banish insect knight to summon aztekipede and deal damage either directly
or by destroying a monster, making opponent mill one.
In our first route we've managed to make head way toward both of our win conditions in one turn. In this way, our two in conditions have become connected and playing toward both of them at the same time has become a bit more simplified. But, as I'm sure a few of you have noticed, this is all contingent upon having the right cards at the right time, and that's where things get a little more interesting and challenging, but I assure you it can be done. Till the next lesson then. once more any questions can be asked as a reply to this post.
Hey there, Back again with an update. In the last installment we looked over what strategy is, what skills are needed to play the game, how the deck can be laid out in a strategic manner. In today's lesson we're going to expand on that guide we did last time, as well as cover a few minor misconceptions about the game that can cost you big.
First, there is a huge myth out there that can ruin your gameplay, and that myth is "Yugioh is played in real time." It's not. What's actually going on is the game itself is taking place in the minds of the players and the board shows the physical result of the game. To help wrap your head around this, before playing any card, what do you do? You think about it and measure your actions against possible risk. This is you playing the game in your head before putting it into play on the board. Why is this important? because if you're playing the game in real time, someone else may have already beaten you... you just don't know it yet because they are a few steps ahead of you. It goes like this.
Novice players generally only play 0-1 turns head, just tapping their potential.
Average duelists are often thinking 2-4 steps ahead, 4 being a stretch.
Advance players generally think anywhere from 3-6 turns ahead.
and when you get to grand masters, that's when you see players attempt to plan out the whole duel before laying down a single card!
As you can see, if you even hope to be above average as a duelist, you need to start planning ahead big time. It'll take some practice, but there's no way you can counter your opponent's strategies without even planning ahead, except for maybe the occasional lucky hit. This is where the chart from last lesson comes in handy as well. When you study multiple archetypes and what they are trying to achieve as a win condition, you then have an upper hand against any opponents USING that archetype, since you already know what they are going for.
Alright, with planning ahead out of the way, another myth I see in noobs, I call this one "Might makes Right." This one basically is the idea that strong monsters automatically mean a strong deck. I can't tell you how many times I've mopped the floor with people who had their hands cluttered with god cards, ritual monsters, blue eyes white dragons, and other cards they couldn't summon. The power was right there, but they couldn't use it to defend themselves. This is why I want you to get rid of the impulse to automatically add cards because they have lots of stars or lots of stats, or awesome effects. If you want to use it, you have to summon it first.
Those are the main myths out of the way, now it's time to expand on the deck charts from last lesson. You should remember that the win condition is achieved by routes, and routes are made up of steps. The chart I made is very helpful for plotting out your deck's strategy, but it does leave out a few things. for one, it only limits you to the cards involved in your one win condition when I said before many decks employ multiple win conditions, and we touched on this a little with the alternate win condition.
Win Condition
Route 1
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
Route 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
Route 3
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Alternate win Condition
Route 1
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
This chart is for a beginner deck, and is very basic, so let's move it around to look more like an advanced deck type. For starters, let's make this deck with two main win conditions instead of one main and one alternate. This allows you to have multiple plans going at the same time instead of just one plan going and one fall back. When I'm building a deck in this manner, I usually make my two win conditions something like LP -> 0 and Deck out. These are two very different ways to win and thus are hard to fend off at the same time. Usually, if I'm not making progress on one, I'm making head way in another.
It would look something like this:
Win Condition 1 Win Condition 2
Route 1 Route 1
Step 1 Step 1
Step 2 Step 2
Step 3... Step 3...
Route 2
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3...
Route 3
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
It's not so very different, the alternate is simply moved to run alongside the main. As to the size of the secondary, it's for the same reason fending off two win conditions at once is hard, maintaining two is even harder. Therefore, in dueling it's best if we play a little bit of juggling and let our opponents see our main plan, don't try to hide what you're doing to much, but keep the second one in the shadows. This doesn't mean you tell them straight up "I'm going to get your lp to 0" but if you're running your main you don't need to do much surprise and bluffing. And think of your second win condition as less of an alternate but more like an ace in the hole. But now there's something else to consider when running two or more win conditions. Instead of thinking of your deck in one straight line, it's become two dimensional and your in conditions can sometime cross each other in how they are achieved as can your routes. Slowly and slowly this becomes less of a series of strings and more of a mesh. Let me show you what I mean. Let's take the example from the last lesson, Spamity Calamity, and adapt it to our new chart.
Win Condition: Keep populating the field with monsters faster than my Win Condition 2: Mill opponent to deck out.
opponent can deal with them, eventually wasting their
resources and leaving them open to attack.
The first difference is our alternate win condition is now an active goal, meaning we need to rebuild it to not be so passive. Like this.
Route 1: Use special summon abilities to spawn more monsters Route 2: Use milling abilities to mill opponents
Now, these may seem too different to achieve in the same duel at the same time, but I can achieve both in one turn. This is where it gets fun ;3 Efficiency in a duel is the best feeling one can achieve in a match. The final chart looks something like this.
Win Condition 1: LP ->0 Win Condition 2: Deckout
Route 1
Step 1: summon insect knight and then special summon kagetokage with it's eff
Step 2: XYZ Summon Gagaga Cowboy in defense, then use his eff to deal 800
damage, detach insect knight
Step 3: Banish insect knight to summon aztekipede and deal damage either directly
or by destroying a monster, making opponent mill one.
In our first route we've managed to make head way toward both of our win conditions in one turn. In this way, our two in conditions have become connected and playing toward both of them at the same time has become a bit more simplified. But, as I'm sure a few of you have noticed, this is all contingent upon having the right cards at the right time, and that's where things get a little more interesting and challenging, but I assure you it can be done. Till the next lesson then. once more any questions can be asked as a reply to this post.