So I’m a bit of a deck whore. At the moment I own 7 different clans, with multiple decks for many of those 7. At the same time I’ve also gotten rid of many decks, almost all of them because of deck fatigue. Like with many card games Vanguard has a pretty large variety of different decks you can build. There are (as of this post) 25 different clans (not counting Cray Elementals), as well as many subclans/archetypes within. You may find yourself putting together several decks to try out. However, not all of em are gonna be a hit. Sometimes you pick up a deck and it’s a complete dud. The magic just isn’t there. Or perhaps a long standing deck you’ve had just isn’t up to par anymore. In either case you are likely experiencing what I call deck fatigue.

Deck fatigue is just that ever present feeling of being completely done with a deck. You just don’t find yourself wanting to play it anymore. Perhaps you’ve been on a terrible losing streak with the deck. Maybe the support just isn’t up to snuff and you’re tired of sitting on a brick you don’t enjoy. In any case you just can’t be bothered to pull that particular deck out of its box.

So how do you know if you’re experiencing deck fatigue? This game overall is pretty heavily luck based, the feeling of fatigue could just be temporary because of bad luck. How can you tell if you’re truly sick of a deck vs just being a little burnt out at the moment?

From my own personal experience here are the feelings that have prompted me to drop a deck.

Playing the deck feels like a chore. The biggest and most obvious offence is playing your deck just feels crappy. Your combos feel weak or tedious. Failures feel bigger and more frustrating. Bad luck and failure are just expectations rather than an anomaly. You can just feel your soul dying the longer the game goes on. When you like a deck every game feels engaging or at least tolerable. Sure bad match ups exist, but that’s more a factor of their deck than yours. If you’re in a really heated game you can feel your pulse pounding, maybe your hands are feeling shaky from the tension. When you’re tired of your deck every game feels like a million years. You can just feel your soul die every second the game drags on. You can’t wait for this shit to end. You start to pine for other decks. Vanguard as a whole tends to share characteristics between decks. Many decks are capable of creating massive columns, or rushing a whole lot. There a subtle nuances to every clan of course, but overall many decks have similar goals just different ways of going about them. And of course the going about them part is what draws people to specific clans. But when you’re experiencing deck fatigue those nuances start to slip away. You find yourself comparing the deck to other clans. Sometimes you just like the way one deck does things compared to another. For example you pick up Nova Grapplers, but find yourself preferring the way Aqua Force runs instead. Other times you may be pining for what the other deck has that your current deck doesn’t. For example playing Shadow Paladins, but finding that going all in on your VG just isn’t fun compared to a RG centric deck like Granblue. You just find yourself wanting those other qualities over what you have now. You’re never in the mood to play the deck. Every now and then you may find yourself a little tired of a deck. Maybe you’re experiencing a string of really bad luck. Perhaps you’ve just been playing it a whole bunch and need a break. Whatever the reason, sometimes you just have to put your deck down for a little while. When you are truly sick and tired of a deck though, you don’t ever feel like picking it back up. Every time someone challenges you your eyes skim past that box. If you’re debating a tournament entry, it’s never on your list of choices. Maybe you just stopped carrying the deck altogether. You’ve put your deck on ice, and it’s just gonna sit there and freeze. Failure is an expectation. Hypothetical scenario here. Let’s say your opening hand post mull is 4 G2 and a G0. That’s a load of bullshit right? Well when you’re experiencing deck fatigue you just come to expect this kinda bullshit. Didn’t ride the proper G3? Haven’t done that in 12 games. Needed to G-assist? Only the third time…today. Drew into all your triggers and couldn’t mount an offence? Just another round of Vanguard, nothing to see here. Bad luck and failure is just par for the course with this deck. Of course nothing went right that game, you were playing this shitty deck.

So how do these feelings come about?

There are a lot of factors that can go into it. Like I said in my symptoms list sustain failure can be one of them. It’s perfectly fine to lose a game. Shit happens you aren’t always gonna get it. But when you’re experiencing sustained and repeated failure it can wear you down. Another factor is expectations vs reality. You see a new deck and you’re expecting a whole lot out of it. You think “oh man I’m gonna be able to do all these sweet combos it’s gonna be great”. And then you play the deck and it just doesn’t line up. Maybe it feels too slow compared to other decks. Maybe those combos require a lot of precise timing and management to go off. Maybe your expectations never matched the reality to begin with. Whatever the reason what you wanted and what you got don’t match.

Is there anything that can be done about this?

Perhaps, it largely depends on your circumstances. Sometimes a few tweaks to your list is enough to get the deck running smoothly. Maybe it was, as I said above, just a temporary problem and a little distance was all you needed to regain the magic. However, in the end we’re all playing this game to have fun. If you’re constantly needing to tweak your list, or put the deck on ice, you probably just don’t enjoy it. There’s no point forcing yourself to like a deck. If you’re constantly feeling what I described above there’s a good chance the deck just isn’t for you and that’s fine. Not every deck will be for you, it’s more important to find what you do like and focus on that instead.

As always thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed.