This is something that has indirectly come up at my locals and I thought I would write a little bit about my thoughts on it, because it can either be as simple as it sounds or a total nightmare! This post is going to be a little different because it is all completely my own opinion as oppose to something that can be backed up by facts. So bare that it mind if you decide to read on!
Vanguard is different to all of the other card games I have played, and I, like most Vanguard players, have tried a lot (I'm convinced that well over 80% of people who play Vanguard played another card game before and of those at least 70% played Yu-Gi-Oh!). Vanguard was a game that, for me personally, appeared when Yu-Gi-Oh was starting to get stale. The game was getting too expensive for my, at the time, very limited budget and my local competitive scene was less than friendly. In the true style of the first series of the anime for Vanguard I found out about this new game through the owner of my local card shop. At first I was sceptical. New card games came and went (ehem. The Spoils) but the three main pillars of successful card games had always stood as the three you would choose from; Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic and Pokemon. When Vanguard was coming out I had tried all three and was ready to give something new a go. At this point of course I didn't know that it would be the game to keep me hooked!
I think it's important for me to clarify that I am not knocking Yu-Gi-Oh!, This is somewhat off topic and perhaps should have appeared as a disclaimer at the start of the post! I have been playing card games since Yu-Gi-Oh became a craze at my primary school when I was about 7 years old. I made two of my closest friends through the game and without it I wouldn't be the cardy that I am today! I enjoyed Yu-Gi-Oh as a child, from a child's perspective. It wasn't about having a top tier deck that could win big events, it was about having fun with friends. I don't know if it is the case everywhere, but at my local scene it is a lot different to that. Don't get me wrong, I understand that that is how the game works now. At my local shop everyone is playing high tier decks and aren't all that understanding of newer or less skilled players. What this does create is a high skill level arena perfectly orchestrated towards honing your play for the many regional and national events that Konami hold across the country, the continent and the world. If you want to be a highly competitive player it is ideal. If you don't, as I didn't at the time the game doesn't have a lot to offer you in the range of regular meet-ups. But back to the story!
So I watched the anime and what I got was something totally new and fresh; this was an anime about playing card games. Not an anime about saving the world through the card games (Not in season 1 anyway!). I knew this was something I wanted to play. A way to play card games without the hardcore atmosphere of the more competitive ones. The fact that there were no events at my local shop was at first a curse but shortly after became a blessing. So I became the Tournament Organiser. Our community was small at first, just like the game itself, but slowly, gradually we built up a community. I was able to create a space that was totally different to other tournaments, and as more and more people fell away from the other, bigger card games, Vanguard became just what they were looking for. Nearly four years later and Sunday is still my favourite day of the week because of it!
Vanguard is easy to pick up. Literally anyone over the age of about 8 could pick up a trial deck and play it. It's for that reason that I wanted my tournament to be a friendly and welcoming place, even for players who are brand new to the game. As sad as it sounds I wanted my little tournament to be a similar place to Card Capital in the anime. Now time for another little disclaimer. I am not an otaku. I don't watch nearly enough anime for that, and my goal wasn't a perfect little slice of anime world. The anime just helped me to see that card games can be a catapult into friendships and personal development. Aichi's story in the anime is an extreme version of that, but throw the tournament I have grown as a person and made a lot of friends. Something I may not have been able to do in other card games without being very good at the game. Vanguard isn't made to just be played competitively, the evidence of which being that we only get two major sets of events a year; Trios and World Championships, to the point where, if you played very well, won every game you played and made it to the Worlds Finals you would still probably play only about 6 events in the year. But for the majority of people 2-3 events a year is average. This means that a lot of cards come out either after or before big events, meaning that they may never see big tournament play before the next support comes out. But still people buy those cards, and that is another big difference in Vanguard; Cards don't have to be the very best for people to want to play them.
Of course some players will only play the best decks to have the best possible chance at winning events, but a great many more are happy to play a deck just because it is their favourite clan. Vanguard lets you do that. There is an undeniable element of luck to the game, to the point where it is perfectly feasible for a £15 trial deck to beat a £300 tier 1 deck. I'm not denying or discounting the amount of skill that is involved in vanguard, but because of the nature of triggers any deck can win. What this creates is variety. Of course in the very top circle you will have the two or three decks just a little above the rest, but when you look at results from across the world there is a lot of variety. Even if you look closer to home at local events, you see variety. As an example, off the top of my head, at my locals this weekend I saw-
- Fenrir
- Messiah
- Magia
- Seven Seas/ Nightrose
- Gear Chronicle
- Dark Irregular Legion/Nightmareland
- Bloom
- Silver Thorn
The point is that Vanguard allows people to play what they want to play. So how do you know what is the right deck for you? This is a question that came up when I was talking with friends at locals about different playstyles and how that can affect deck choice. When I first started playing this game at locals it was shortly before the English release of BT04, so there was a lot to choose from. I had no idea what clans did what at the time so my choice came down to what I thought looked coolest. After narrowing it down to Angel Feather and Pale Moon I ended up with a Sword Magician Sarah Pale Moon deck (As Luquier was and still is a pain to get a hold of!). I was lucky enough that the deck I liked the look of was also a lot of fun, but I may have hated it. As such as part of this new series of posts I will be looking at all the clans and giving you a brief idea about what they do!
Ok so I know that was a lot of reading so if you are still here thank you! This was just a little introduction to how I started to play Vanguard as a way to introduce my new series of posts which is going to explore getting started in the game and eventually into more advanced techniques!
Thanks for reading!
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