Fundamentals: Pressure

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Yahallo Lads and Ladettes, its me its your best friend its CanYouSayG, and you’re reading the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better cardfighter.

Today we are continuing our series on fundamentals, where we go over some of the core concepts in Vanguard. For veterans of the game you may know many of the concepts we are discussing, but it is always beneficial to review your fundamentals.

The concept we will be discussing today is Pressure, and how to utilize pressure to get the opponent to guard.

While having an attack guarded may seem like a bad thing to those just starting out Vanguard, but always remember that in this game of trying to make the opponent say no guard, one of the fastest ways is to make it so there is no other option.

By having attacks guarded earlier, the opponent has less options to guard with against other attacks, making other attacks later in the game much easier to hit. For example having to spend a perfect guard on an attack will mean they won’t have that perfect guard for a multiple critical attack later on in the game.

Ice Ice Baby.

So what is pressure?



Pressure can be described as a negative outcome from no guarding an attack. It can take various forms, such as taking extra damage, the opponent drawing extra cards, the opponent moving cards into other areas safe from retire effects, gaining more attacks, or in the unique case: Outright winning the game!

Generally speaking it is the on hit effects that affect the flow of the game.

Do note that even an attack with no on hit abilities still does have pressure, in the form of being able to deal a single damage or retire a unit when the attack hits!



Of all forms, the most common form of pressure is an extra critical, which doubles or triples the amount of damage the opponent would take if they no guarded the attack. Why guard other 1 damage attacks when they can no guard up to two or three times and guard the multiple critical one instead!

Of course, ideally when playing with pressure in order to get the opponent to guard, you want to have multiple instances of pressure increasing effects on the unit attacking. No Guarding a 1 damage attack is a lot easier to do than no guarding a 3 to 4 damage attack. Just as similarly the opponent would rather no guard an attack with no additional effects than no guard and attack that would draw you extra cards.

Force Clans have the option of increasing pressure by way of using Force 2, which increases your base critical of any unit you give the gift to. It can be used aggressively to push your opponent in the early game to six damage, or in the long game when you focus on pressure and making the opponent guard to control their damage.

Different forms of pressure can be easier to deal with or easier to no guard, so be sure to have a good idea of what on hit pressure the opponents units have before choosing to guard or not. On hit soul charge one seems a whole lot easier to let through than On hit win the game.

Pressure is used primarily as a method of trying to get the opponent to drop cards from hand to guard, not only making other attacks, potentially devastating ones, down the road harder to guard, but also making the opponent drop key units that would be part of their strategy.

Damage Pressure

Damage Pressure is the concept that the more damage the opponent has, the more likely they have to guard an attack to prevent damage. This does play into the extra critical partially, but it's both a result of the natural game flow as well as both players having a limited amount of no guards over the course of a game.

Imagine at the start of a game where you would be much more willing to no guard because of both limited resources in hand, but also wanting that counter blast. Compare this to when you are in the mid game, at 4 damage, knowing you have to guard hard to conserve those last chances to no guard and open a trigger. Compare how likely you are to guard an attack and with how much. This is Damage Pressure in action, the more damage the opponent is at, the more pressure each attack has!

The sixth damage is of course, easiest to understand. Either guard and continue fighting or no guard and lose (or come back with a damage trigger)

Trigger Pressure

One form of pressure that does exist but is seemingly invisible is trigger pressure, the pressure that an attack may open a critical trigger, leading to increased damage on the attack (as well as potential power.) This also means that, in anticipation of the potential outcome, the opponent needs to guard with more power, and is more likely to guard the attack as if it were a 2 critical attack, especially if they have enough resources to be able to. The reason is simple: not doing so is taking a risk that has very mediocre payout but risks losing the game on the spot!

This gives your vanguard attacks a certain amount of pressure on every attack, as a single critical can truly swing the game in your favor. Plan around this and try to attack with your Vanguard when the opponent is at 4 damage, where they are not able to no guard without taking massive risks.

This can be used with cards such as Dragonic Blademaster, which creates Rear Guards that Drive check, or Solitary Knight Gancelot, which gives your front row Blaster Blades the ability to drive check (oh and another potential base critical!). While not directly an on hit ability, these cards do allow you to increase the “pressure” of the attacking unit and therefore the likelihood of the opponent guarding.

Now most units will only have a single type of on hit ability, or one type of pressure, but by using Force 2, or other effects that give additional abilities to these units, you can exponentially increase the pressure of individual attacks. An attack that has on hit draw a card versus on attack hit draw a card and deal TWO damage is very different to be staring down.

This has the increased effect of making the attack more and more likely to be guarded, allowing you to take control of the game.

Risk of No Guard vs Benefit of Hit

While using on hit pressure as part of your strategy, its important to consider which side of the pressure you want, the effect of the on hit, or the pressure of the on hit ability.

When controlling the opponents damage and trying to play hard control, one risky no guard from the opponent on a unit that you want guarded can prove disastrous to your strategy, just as much as having an on hit effect you want going off being guarded can be. While manipulating the pressures, powers, guard restricts on your board be sure to take into consideration which side of the pressure you want that turn, and aim to have that outcome be the one that comes to fruition.

Additionally, sometimes you may not get the correct read on the opponents hand, leading them to guard and take attacks not according to your plan.

While the ideal play may be for the attack to be guarded, some opponents will surprise you by taking the risky no guard, just to potentially throw your strategy off. Be ready to adapt to this as well!

You may get your on hit abilities off, but the opponent will gain opportunities for damage triggers, open damage to counterattack, as well as potentially throwing your strategy off!

Because of this, its always important to keep your attacks you want guarded well within the range that the opponent would benefit far greater from guarding than no guarded, while being happy to laud on the power and guard restricts onto an attack you want to hit.

Pressure Power Correlation

The pressure power correlation is a concept that ties pressure and power together. Although it does also include things such as guard restrict, opponents hand, and timing in the game, it is not a mathematical rule, but rather another concept that gives you an idea of how likely the opponent is to guard an attack.

As you can see, the more pressure an attack has, the more likely the attack will be guarded. Similarly, the more power an attack has, the less likely the opponent will guard your attack.

The more hand the opponent has, the whole graph is shifted up towards likely to guard, and the less hand the opponent has, the whole graph is again shifted down to less likely to guard.

Similarly, the more damage the opponent has, the more the graph is shifted towards guarding attacks, while the less damage the opponent has the more the graph is shifted towards no guarding.

While playing with Pressure, how your attack falls on this correlation is the key to optimal play. The ideal play would be to have just enough pressure to make the opponent guard the attack, while maximizing power so the opponent has to guard with the maximum amount of cards from their hand, giving you the most benefit from the attack.

However, even the slightest change in power can tip an attack from guard to no guard range, as you surely have experienced while being on the defending side where an attack you planned on guarding suddenly got a bit too much power from a trigger check, making you unable, or unwilling, to guard the attack.

Having a good understanding on how each attack falls on the scale for the opponent will lead you to be able to manipulate and optimize pressure to take more cards out of of the opponents hand.

Conclusion

Today we discussed the concept of Pressure, what pressure is, some forms of pressure, using pressure and multiple types of it to get the opponent to guard, how damage affects the likelihood of an attack being guarded, and the Pressure Power Correlation.

Try using these concepts in your next card fight to control the opponents hand, or to get the opponent to let their defenses down earlier in the game, leaving them open to devastating attacks! Imagine using pressure to open the road to victory!

Thats all for today folks. Thank you for tuning into the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better cardfighter. Be sure to stay tuned in in the coming days as we bring to you our exclusive interview with the Cardfight Vanguard WORLD CHAMPIONS, featuring questions from yourselves the readers!



If youre new to the blog and want to read more about some of the fundamental concepts of Vanguard, be sure to click here for our series on Fundamentals.