Interview with Cardfight Vanguard World Champion Simon Zheng (Premium)

CanYouSayG: Yahallo lads and ladettes, its me its your best friend its CanYouSayG, and you are reading the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better Cardfighter.

Today, we have a very special guest on with us, Its the World Champion of Cardfight Vanguard (Premium), Mister GB8 himself, Simon Zheng of Wirab Cardfight Consulting!

Simon Zheng: Hi everyone, thank you Dr Seiji for having me for your interview and wow, I didn’t expect to get the title Mister GB8 hahaha, but I guess after that match, I can’t not accept that title.





G: Thank you for being on the show with us today, Simon Zheng, We have a many questions we ourselves want to ask you, as well as some questions our readers from America, Europe, and Japan have sent in today, but let’s start with some quick introduction. How long have you been playing Cardfight Vanguard, and what is your Favorite Clan?

SZ: I started playing Vanguard in the year 2012 when BT06 Breaker of Limits got released. I had been interested in collecting until after watching BCS Melbourne 2016 finals where an intense game of gears mirror took place, it had inspired me to playing competitively. If I had to pick only one clan to be my favourite? Uhhh, I guess my favourite clan would have to be Burmuda Triangle, but OTT definitely comes a close second.

G: What is your personal avatar unit?

SZ: A personal avatar unit? I’ve never really thought of one, and as much as I’m sure my friends would love to say Big Belly (for reasons I’d rather not say), I think I’d have to pick Chaos Breaker Dragon, as I find it fun to overlook things and moving pieces in a way that would most benefit myself.



G: and very quickly, what do you personally think is the single best thing about Cardfight Vanguard?

SZ: I think the best thing about Vanguard would be the simple to learn but difficult to master aspect of the game. It helps bring new players in, while also making it so there is always something to learn.

G: Do you mind sharing some of your past achievements? This is not your first time to the World Championship either.

SZ: Yes, it is not my first time on the world stage, as I went to worlds in 2016. I have a few more past achievements, but to make sure people don’t get bored I’ll save time and say that you can check it out here on https://www.team-wcc.com/hall-of-fame.

G: Today we will be going over a few topics: The World Championship and your Preparation towards it, the growing Pro Vanguard Team scene, as well as Premium Format.

Let's start with the World Championship. The World Championship is a high-level invitational only tournament with the best of the best, a concentration of only Bushiroad Championship Series winners from across the globe.

Do share a bit about your journey to the World Championship!

SZ: It all began during my japan trip 2019 when I visited 2018 world finals venue and thought about how amazing it would be to come back here, experience the whole thing again, meeting new people, seeing new ideas and hopefully winning the championship. Throughout the year, I entered various tournaments, not just the ones in New Zealand but also the ones in Australia in an effort to improve myself and make sure I would be able to make it back to the world stage.

Obviously, getting on the plane and flying to Japan was very nerve wracking, it was a whole year’s worth of work, and I would’ve been disappointed in myself if I didn’t perform to the level I was expecting. I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy tournament, cause like you said, this place would only have the best of the best, but I knew that since I had the support of my favorite cheerleader Seiji I’d do well. Haha, just kidding, but there was definitely a lot of pressure that day.

G: Do you mind sharing a bit about how you prepare for a high level tournament such as a BCS or the World Championship?

SZ: Honestly, I don’t really do anything special like having a self-motivating speech before the day, but I think that looking after yourself before the big day is really important. So things like sleeping well, eating proper food and having a shower to help clear your mind, really help in preparing for the tournament. Other than that, keeping your head on straight and always looking forward is something you should always be doing. Oh yea, and staying hydrated, that’s important too.

G: Simon Zheng, you are part of the top ranked Vanguard Pro Team: Wirab Cardfight Consulting. Do you mind sharing for the viewers at home how long you have been with Wirab Cardfight Consulting?

SZ: I joined the organisation around early 2018 and have been with them ever since.

G: What are Wirab Cardfight Consulting’s sponsors?

SZ: Our sponsors are for cards are, WCC TCG, Claret Cards, TCG Player, Hobby base. Our sponsor for playmats is 0 DMG and finally our website is supported by Linden Tech

G: Thats quite a few. Do you mind sharing a secret? Which one of these sponsors is your favorite?

SZ: Well, I don’t have a strict favourite, but I’m sure if Solemn Vanguard were to give me some of his 0 DMG playmats for free, I’d have a definite clear favourite *hint hint Solemn I hope you are reading this*

G: What regions are Wirab Cardfight Consulting players active in, and where can we find out more about said players?

SZ: Since we are a global organization, we do have players from all around the world, and therefore in every region. You can find out more about each player on the WCC website at https://www.team-wcc.com/roster.

G: In the World Championship, you won with Gold Paladin Ezel, a powerful contender in the format. What other decks were you and your team considering going into the tournament?

SZ: We looked at a large variety of decks playable in the format such as NN, DI, OTT, GB, Shadow and many other decks but ultimately if golds is able to go first and grade jump then all of the mentioned decks can’t compete and will lose, but NN, DI and OTT are able to have a little better chance than the rest due to being able to draw via triggers or card effects. I was going to use OTT but after testing 6 rounds straight I couldn’t maintain a good focus and trying to remember the stack was really mentally taxing therefore I gave that idea up.

G: That is quite some things to consider while picking a deck indeed. Thank you for sharing! This next one is probably the question people want to hear about the most: about your Celtis Winner and Besok combo that won you the tournament and was played by most of the team! How was that combo even discovered?

SZ: I was first informed of the combo at the end of BCS Melbourne 2019 by Kelvin Yap, where he told me about this Indonesian player named Nico who knows everything about golds. Bit of a long story so I’ll leave the full explanation here for those who wants to hear it.

G: And what brought you and your teammates to decide that the combo was worth playing in the current meta?

SZ: During our groups testing there were situations where you can damage deny Ultima, couldn’t compete in accel circles or have a hand full of triggers, that is where we saw this combo work its magic, and felt it deserved a spot in the deck for those situations.

G: During the tournament you went for the combo to secure your win through even six damage heals. At what point did you know you had to go for the GB8 combo for the confirmed win?

SZ: When I saw my opponent heal to 4, I knew I needed to use that combo to hit over triggers since none of my other strides will help me hit over 22k or 32k, which he was likely to reach with his compressed deck.

G: The world tournament has been growing in coverage and viewership over the recent years. What are factors you think play into this?

SZ: I think the V-series reboot definitely played a part in increasing viewership. Vanguard used to be kinda like an elitist game where it wasn’t exactly easy for new players to get into the game, but with the V series, there have been a lot more new players and with the increased exposure of the game, it makes sense that there will be more coverage and viewership.

G: The World Finals are now so watched there is even fan art of the events that take place! As someone featured in this year’s fan art, what was your reaction when you first saw it?

SZ: My first thought was, wow someone made fan art of this moment? My second thought was wow that was fast. My third thought was wow this is really good for the time they had to work with. Finally my last thought was, when will the phone spamming of this image end????

Original: https://twitter.com/DerZweite92/status/1218825055779446786?s=20

G: What are your thoughts on Japan not being able to participate in the World Championship, instead having their own Worlds with a few East Asian Countries?

SZ: As much as I want Japan and other East Asia countries to compete in the World Championship to make it a proper World Championship as that would be a good learning experience for both regions. Until Bushiroad are able to align set releases to be matching with each other and having access to all promos that each region is able to get, I think that it would be too complicated to have both regions competing in the same tournament.

G: As a very experienced and proven player, what is one mistake you see players make very often?

SZ: I think a problem that I see, mainly in new players is that they see the game solely as luck. Sure, there are definitely luck based aspects of the game, but working out the odds of something actually happening is also part of the game and I see a lot of newer players just blame their losses on luck.

With more experienced players, I think the problem is in their lack of understanding. What I mean by this is that they’ll see a deck list that topped online, copy it card for card while not understanding why that card is in the deck in the first place. I think if people took the time to sit down and understand why the card is played, for example by reading CanYouSayG blogs, they’d understand the deck better and know how to play in situations that they might not expect to run into Eg: damage denial.





G: Next let us move onto our next topic: the growing Pro Vanguard Scene.

Over this past year we have seen a meteoric rise in sponsored players and more companies getting in on the sponsoring action, leading to the rise of teams such as TriplesleeveTCG, Strictly Broken, and Cardfight Vision in the Americas, Ventura Games from Europe, CDGRonin from Malaysia and of course the solidification of Wirab Cardfight Consulting across the globe.

How do you feel about the rising up of more and more sponsored players and the direction the competitive world is headed with more and more pro teams?

SZ: I believe it encourages players to give it their best and get sponsored by these teams. Having teams will always make things more competitive as it feels much more personal when you lose to another team. It feels like you let your team down, that you’ve failed more than just yourself. I think having the support of team members makes winning more enjoyable while making the losses less painful.

I think having teams is helpful for motivation and I hope to see more groups in the future.

G: I see. This rising of more teams can also function to give players more inspiration to become higher level players. What words of encouragement would you give to the players starting out in Vanguard whom now want to join these pro teams?

SZ: The best advice I can give, would be to get out there and let yourself be known. Go to tournaments, do well at them, make a name for yourself. Teams are bound to notice if you do well at events and will take interest in you. This is your opportunity to branch out, introduce yourself to them, play games with them, learn from them. After that, if they want you, they’ll probably ask for you to join them. If they don’t, don’t get discouraged there’s more than just 1 team out there, keep trying and keep doing your best.

G: Thank you for sharing your insight and views on this topic! Let’s move onto a few questions regarding your views on the Premium Standard format. It’s no secret that many top players in most countries regard Premium Standard as the higher skill based game. Do you only play Premium? Or do you also play standard?

SZ: I play premium in order to find interesting interactions or something new otherwise I spend more time playing standard in my locals. Standard is definitely the more popular format with the public, and something that newer players are more likely to play, so I always keep a couple standard decks with me when I go to my store. But I definitely enjoy premium more as it has a lot of good memories attached to it.

G: With Premium Standard the level of play is so high many players can be scared to enter into it. Would you agree with this sentiment? What would you tell somebody whom wants to play Premium Standard, but doesn’t know how to or feels they aren’t experienced enough to play?

SZ: While I do agree premium standard level of play is more difficult than standard, I feel that if the decks that are being played are not the top of the line meta decks, that premium can actually be quite enjoyable for newer players. A word of advice I’d give newer players, would be to tell their opponent that they are new to premium and that they might not know all the card effects, premium players have been playing this game for a long time and typically know what every card does just by looking at them, so things are rarely explained, so by letting them know that you might not know every effect, the experience will be less daunting as they’ll be more likely to explain things through for you. Likewise, this will only work if the experienced players are willing to explain things, so for those people, I’d like to say “Be understanding of these beginners, everyone was a beginner at one point and by teaching them the game, you’ll have more people to play with in the future”.

G: One of the issues with getting into Premium Standard is not having good access to cards needed due to them being out of print, hard to find, or just out of stock. What, in your opinion, can players do to about this issue? What can Bushiroad do as a company about this issue?

SZ: I think what newer players should do, is reach out to the veterans of the game. Veterans will typically have large older collections that they’ll be more willing to part with and they’ll be likely to have the cards that you’ll need to get into premium. Having stores hold some of the older bulk rares, and allowing players to go through them, will also let newer players find new ideas for their decks. I think what Bushiroad should do, is to have a premium starter set that contains cards for 3 clans. This set, would contain preset reprints and other useful cards that people will need to get into the premium format such as g-guards, strides, different types of perfect guards and other useful cards. By having it split into 3 clans it can be split with friends to help them try get into the premium format as well.

G: Thats actually a brilliant idea. Even in premium there are popular and simpler clans to play and such a set could target those clans, thank you very much once again for sharing so much about your deck and your experience.

We have one final question for you today.

Our final question for Simon Zheng today is our classic interview question:

Imagine it! you are in the Finals of the World Championship, of all the fighters, which three fighters would YOU like to fight on the greatest stage for Vanguard?

SZ:

I would like to have a rematch vs Liubo Chen, the guy I lost to in the 2016 World Championship, I think that’d be a pretty cool rematch to have. Hopefully the results will be different and I’ll come out the victor this time.

I’d also like to vs Jeremy Alex Ong again, the finalist in the 2019 premium World Championship, I’d like to have a game where both players are not grade stuck and we get to have a proper match, hopefully we’d get to do it all again next year.

Finally, I’d like to vs Daniel Tan, my main play-test partner in New Zealand, I feel like he’d make the world finals experience…. Interesting to say the least, both in competitiveness and his attitude towards the game which can be more laid back. He can be quite devoted to his favorite deck, even if it’s not the strongest in the meta so it’d be interesting to see how he’d tune it for the world finals.



G: Thats all for today folks thank you once again for tuning in to the show! We are very thankful to have the World Champion for Premium Standard, Simon Zheng of Wirab Cardfight Consulting with us today to answer the questions that you the viewers have sent in. Lets give him a big round of applause!

Check out here if youre looking for more interviews with the worlds top players

Thank you everyone for watching the show tonight. Be sure continue to check out the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better cardfighter! We have a very fun deck to introduce to you this coming Monday, both surprisingly powerful as well as easy to build and handle, so be sure to tune in next monday to check it out!

We will see you back soon on the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better cardfighter!