Hey all, welcome to check the drive trigger, a blog about the cardfight vanguard TCG. What you can expect from this forum is clan expertise, card reviews, deck lists, tournament overviews from the UK cardfight Vanguard meta scene, weekly updates on the local cardfight tournament i attend, set inspections and updates also hopefully a youtube channel to boot :D
This week we're continuing on with looking at the basics of Cardfight Vanguard,and looking at Card mechanics.
Cards in cardfight vanguard are all made up of 'Units', unlike other card games where you have mana, monsters, spells, traps and creatures, this game only has the one kind. However they are broken down into many categories
CLAN
RACE
UNIT TYPE
GRADE
As such. So lets look at a card layout.
So lets look at the different features in detail.
Boost
This symbol signifies that this card can be placed ona rear guard circle behind the Vanguard or a Rear guard to apply its power on top of that units current power for a more powerful attack.
Intercept
This symbol is usually associated with Grade 2 Units, this skill allows them, when they are placed on a front Rearguard circle, to move from their current position and be placed on the Guard Circle to help defend your opponents attacks.
Another type of Intercept is a S Special Intercept. This is a Unit skill which increases the Unit's Shield value if a Unit in the Vanguard Circle is from a certain Clan; for example Knight Of Truth, Gordon or Dragon Knight Berger. (links given to show examples)]
Twin Drive!!
Grade 3 Vanguards have this ability. When you attack with your Vanguard you can Drive Check two times. (TIP: because this gives you 2 cards, its advised to Ride to grade 3 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE).
Not only this but cards also have certain ability types.
Continuous - Always in effect.
Activation - Can be activated when certain conditions are met or costs have been paid.
Auto - Usually occur when a card is called, ridden or attacks. Then you can activate this skill. But only once.
(colours given represent the colours of effects oncard descriptions)
AND as mentioned above there are costs to be paid for certain Skills, these costs come in the forms of:
Soul Blast (X):
- Retire X cards from Soul (Send X cards from bottom of the stack of your current Vanguard to the Drop Zone (Bottom of the stack) ).
Soul Charge (X):
- Send the top X cards of your Deck to your Soul (Top of the stack)
- [Example : CEO Amaterasu's soul charge, you put it directly below CEO Amaterasu]
Counter Blast (X):
- Flip X cards from the Damage Zone face-down.
(PICTURES GIVEN ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SYMBOLS ON CARD DESCRIPTIONS)
There are also community terms that have come about referring to certain effects for example:
- Mega Blast : Retire 8 cards from Soul and Flip 5 cards from the Damage Zone face down. This is referred to as "Mega Blast" in the manga/anime.
- Persona Blast : A community-made term which refers to an effect where an identical copy of the card needs to be discarded from your hand as part of the cost.
(Links given to show examples.)
Finally onto the most important mechanic in the whole game. TRIGGERS.
Triggers or Trigger Units as they are known are a mechanic to allow combat to become more interesting and also can me bade to help your clans theme even more effective.
Trigger types include:
Draw Trigger (Draw triggers only have a 5k shield so be sure you're deck is well equipped to counter this)
When revealed during a Drive Check or Damage Check, select 1 of your own Units and it gains +5000 Power, and draw 1 card. Draw the card immediately after the Trigger is revealed (before your next trigger check, in case of Twin Drive or more than 1 Damage). (ORACLE THINK TANK'S MAIN TRIGGER)
Critical Trigger
When revealed during a Drive Check or Damage Check, select 1 of your own Units and it gains +5000 Power, and select 1 of your own again and it gains +1 Critical. Power and Critical gains may be applied to different units. (EFFECTIVE IN NEARLY EVERY DECK)
Heal Trigger
When revealed during a Drive Check or Damage Check, select 1 of your own Units and it gains +5000. When the damage you've received before the Heal Trigger is equal or more than your opponent's, you can put one card in your Damage Zone into your Drop Zone.(You cannot put more than 4 Heal Triggers in a deck.) (BRILLIANT IN ANY DECK)
Stand Trigger
When revealed during a Drive Check or Damage Check, select 1 of your own Units and it gains +5000.Then choose a Rear-Guard Unit (You cannot stand the vanguard unless an effect specifies) and restand it. (GREAT FOR NOVA GRAPPLERS)
THANKS FOR READING THIS WEEKS INSTALMENT BE SURE TO CHECK OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL FOR CARDFIGHT VANGUARD GAMES CARD REVIEWS AND OTHER SHINNANIGANS :D
Hey all, welcome to check the drive trigger, a blog about the cardfight vanguard TCG. What you can expect from this forum is clan expertise, card reviews, deck lists, tournament overviews from the UK cardfight Vanguard meta scene, weekly updates on the local cardfight tournament i attend, set inspections and updates also hopefully a youtube channel to boot :DSo, lets start with the first post and whats going on and the basics of Cardfight Vanguard for you guys as my readers or if you're looking to start playing.Since the start of the english release of cardfight vanguard my cardifght career has already gotten exciting, previously a top 4 placer in the yugioh nationals back in '07, im more than familiar with the competetive trading card scene. I decided that it was time to start a new game when i first got wind of this game back in november last year. I fell in love with the game almost immediately, the mechanics, the art, the difference in play and the simplicity.For those of you interested, I'm currently playing Granblue. Now those of you who are still new to this game you're probably wondering... "What is 'Granblue'?" Well granblue is a known 'CLAN' of cardfight vanguard along with 13 other Clans. (NOTE: the next section contains a lot of in game terminology which will be explained later in this post)
Royal Paladins - Known for summoning from the deckOracle think tank - Good at manipulating hand size and predicting your next cardShadow Paladin - Sacrifice Guardians to gain more power for attacking.
Kagero - Good at destroying Guardians/Rear GuardNabutama - Discard cards from the handTachikaze - Sacrifice others when summoned to gain advantage
Neo Nectar - Call more powerful versions of them selves or multiples of a weaker card to attack more than 3 times a turn
Great Nature - Have great power but sacrifice themselves at the end of a turnMegacolony - Stop your opponents cards from "Standing"
Bermuda Triangle - Bounce cards back to the hand to gain an advantageGranblue - summon themselves from the drop zone and gain power through milling.
Pale Moon - Have the ability to 'Soul Charge' a lot to then summon themselves from the soul for further attacks.Spike brothers - Have a play by play strategy like an american football team.Dark irregular - Simmilar to pale moon through soul charging, but 'soul blast' to perform very powerful effects.
Nova Grappler - strong beat down deck with abilities to let themselves 'stand' again to attack more.Dimensional Police - They increase their own power with effects to then gain extra abilities.
After reading this and what intrigues you check out http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Cardfight!!_Vanguard_Wikifor more info on clans and their individual cards. Which I will be looking at every week on a wednessday. With local updates every saturday.But moving on. As you can see from the clan list, I stated a lot of terms associated with this game. Like "soul charging" and "Rear guard." In vanguard you have 5 'guardian zones' and a 'vanguard circle'
LIKE THIS.You then have your 'damage' on the left and your deck and drop zone on the right and the green area is the "Guard Circle".Your vanguard is your main "avatar" it represents you the player and is the main source of damage and also the target for your opponent to deal damage.Around it are the 'Guardian Circles' where you can place other 'units' to attack your opponents 'Vanguard' or defend your own.
to start a game of vanguard both players take a 'grade 0' from your deck and place it in the vanguard circle (shown here as a blue circle) then draw 5 cards from your deck (a deck must be 50 cards and contain 16 triggers) you get a free 'mulligan' where you can take any number of cards from your hand, shuffle them into the deck and draw the same number.
Now when it comes to a turn by turn basis the turn is separated into 4 phases.
Stand/draw Phase
Standing refers to untapping your cards similar to magic the gathering before drawing.
Ride Phase
This is when you can 'Ride' a new unit over your current 'Vanguard' that is one 'Grade' or the same 'Grade' as your current vanguard.
Main Phase
During this phase you can 'call' more units to the rear guard circles, activate effects of current rear guards/vanguards, or retire them to call new rear guards.
Battle Phase
During this phase you can use your rear guard to attack either your opponents vanguard/rear guards. Combat takes place as thus.
Attack - You tap a unit and declare your target.
- during this time you can boost with a rear guard in the same column as your tapped rear guard.
Call guardians - during this step your opponent can call 'units' to the Guard (green) circle to defend their vanguard/rear guard. (NOTE YOU CANT CALL UNITS TO GUARD WHO ARE A HIGHER GRADE THAN YOUR VANGUARD)
Drive Check - If your vanguard attacked you perform a drive check, This is where the attacking player reveals the top card of his/her deck to see if a 'Trigger' is pulled. You may only have 16 of these in a deck and there are 4 kinds.
Critical - +5000 + 1 Damage
Stand - +5000 Stand a rested unit (my favourite trigger type)
Draw - +5000 draw a card
Heal Trigger - +5000 Heal a point of damage, if your damage is more than or equal to your opponents damage. (ALSO YOU CAN ONLY HAVE 4 OF THESE PER DECK)
After resolving the drive trigger effects your opponent then performs a damage check if his/her vanguard is the target of this successful attack to see if a trigger is revealed for them. If a critical trigger hits, then you're opponent checks cards equal to the Damage before placing them in the drop zone.
(personally I'm a fan of this mechanic more than the rest as it balances out the issue of taking more damage with the increased chance of revealing a trigger to help your self defend better if you're opponent gets lucky :P)
End Phase
Once all your cards are rested and no more effects can occur your turn ends.
To win at vanguard all you have to do is deal 6 damage to your opponent. Simple :D
Next post I will cover the card mechanics in more depth in this game and cover what makes a good card and what makes a bad/average card to deck staples of certain clans.
Also this saturday I will bring you an update on how the big tournament in sheffield goes with pictures of the top teams their decks and of course how we get on. to support use please join our Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/groups/332661776769164/
for trades and updates on cardfight news, and to support our team. TEAM C-SQUARED.
Youtube vid's of the winning teams decks will also be made.
All I can say is now that I hope you enjoy reading this blog and dont forget to drive check!!!
