‘Nother guest article by Atlas. I’m on a Vanguard break for more productivity in drawing.

Head Games: The Guide to Messing With Your Opponent

Props to you Foreigner fans who get the title. Anyway, I’m here at work trying to look productive, so I thought I’d write a post about the psychological aspect of Vanguard.

Vanguard is a card game that requires you to go out and interact with other people. Sucks, I know, but that’s just what happens. A lot of posts out there focus on the card game itself, deck builds, etc. But not many focus on what you, the player, can do to get an edge over the opponent. So let’s talk about some tricks of the psychobabble, Patrick Bateman-esque trade, shall we?

Silence

Silence is a powerful tool. When Teddy Roosevelt was the president of the US, his idea toward foreign policy was, “speak softly and carry a big stick.” While vaguely pornographic sounding, he had a point. If you sit down across from your opponent, don’t talk except for the occasional “guard.” “Skill. Power over here.” It can definitely mess some people up, as it makes it harder to get a read on you.

Trigger(ed)

People at tournaments tend to try and find out what your trigger line-up is. Not everyone does, but there are still the obsessive people like me (I’m writing an article about it for god’s sake.) If you play a clan with a lot of vanilla triggers, there is a definite benefit to playing different types of the same trigger (i.e. if you have 6 vanilla crits, and you play 3 different names, with 2 of each name.) The opponent will see 3 different names, and assume you have 12 crits. But then you pull a draw, or a stand, and the whole image is thrown off for them. Doubt is powerful.

Trick Up Your Sleeve

This one requires playing a little close to the vest (literally) before the game starts. A friend of mine plays Bermuda Triangle (Prisms, if you’re wondering) and yet he has the deck sleeved in Carniverous Megatrick, Prana sleeves. Why? Because if someone sits down and sees those sleeves, they’ll assume he’s playing a pale moon variant.

“yep definitely pale moon”

Because mulligans are done before doing the “stand up, vanguard!” thing, you could easily dupe your opponent into preparing for a deck that won’t be coming. The best results for this are something that is more aggressive than the opponent is prepared for, i.e. making the opponent think you have a normal stride deck, only to reveal something with a nasty early game. Seven Seas Grade 1 rush players do something similar to this by having a G Zone full of random cards that they will never use, so the opponent thinks they’re playing against something run of the mill, only to find themselves in a world of salty, watery, piratey pain.

Now, that’s not to say if you sit down and start spouting, “Oh man, this gear chronicle deck I’ve been building is super dope. I’m gonna time leap your face off!” That your opponent will believe you. But there is something to that.

Playing Dumb

This one’s fairly self-explanatory. Making yourself look dimwitted or dumb in order to lure the opponent into a false sense of security can be a potent strategy. An example of this would be a friend of mine a year ago at a regional. We taught him how to play the game at a diner about an hour before the tournament started, but we also told him how to play against certain match-ups. So he was prepared for what he was playing against, but he also had times where he had to stop and think during mundane actions. This allowed him to get the drop on an Abyss legion player, who was not happy to see some noob with a $50 ogle legion build wipe the floor with him.

Over all, there are many ways to get ahead in vanguard using psychology. Not all of them work all the time, but that doesn’t mean that doing them is a bad idea. I’m sure I’m missing some, but these are the ones I have used in my experience. If you have any other mental strategies that you use, comment them below.