This Space
For Rent

Finding a Clan That’s ‘Right’ Is Emotional Claptrap

There is no such thing as a clan that’s tailor made to make you a special snowflake.

Well, I had a pretty good time at Spring Fest UK 2015, thanks, not that anyone asked. Didn’t win it, unfortunately, but at least I can’t share the blame for it since I actually didn’t lose any of my games. (I DID say to include Mighty Bolt Dragoon in Brawlers, but nope, he wouldn’t listen.)

Anyway. I’ve seen a few blog posts on the Vanguard wiki lately about how and why people chose the decks they play. Most of them have a recurring theme of finding the clan that was ‘right’ for them. How it suited their playstyle and other such stuff.

Unfortunately, my logic-driven, shrivelled black heart isn’t swayed by any emotional bollocks. It’s sort of hard not to be drawn to the best options when you spend 4 years in Yu-Gi-Oh as a student with basically only some monthly pocket money to your name and now have the means to financially grab the hottest shit on sale. Even so, I know that it is possible to create a decent budget deck (despite the fact that only like 4 exist, three of which are G1 rush), yet I do not believe that picking up a deck because it was some sort of destiny or some shit is legit.

I main The X Kagero entirely for selfish reasons and have mained Descendant Narukami and Seeker Royal Paladin also for selfish reasons; because those were the least exploitable options and I may as well use whatever can stop whatever bollocks the opponent can throw at me. Or kill them before they can. It was never because I felt it was tailor-made for my personality or anything like that.

Even in the surveys I saw about favourite cards/decks and other things, there were several people who described a certain unit they liked, but I found that almost none of them ever went on to mention how often they won with it. I’m beginning to suspect that’s because it wasn’t a lot, or they didn’t win any more often than roughly 50:50 relative to everyone else. (People who actually LIKED top-tier shit for not entirely horrible reasons exempt, not that I met any.) I assume this because I believe in optimal strategies. I’ll bash crap plays and crap decks all day if it helps to get my point across any.

That is what it simply boils down to at the end of the day. Picking a unit or deck only really extends as far as a liking for its aesthetics or whatever it does individually, or just because it kicks fucking ass and is irrelevant to how you would feel about another set of cards you could be using. I haven’t found anyone who didn’t fall into both camps unless they actually genuinely liked whatever was cookie-cutter relative to the meta. It’s not just that though; whatever experience one may have with Vanguard varies from person to person. Some hop from deck to deck and others just sort of stick with what they have. But really, folks who end up moving on that fast tend to be the ones who take the longest to take a shine to anything. Nothing will immediately ‘click’ if you don’t take time to actually learn anything about it. I mean, I didn’t really like my dog at first when we first got her but she eventually grew on me after several years of owning her. Take time to see whether you can actually learn how it works first, THEN you can decide that you backed the losing horse all along and want to move onto something less shit. It’s like romance. Or so I’ve been told anyway (Christ I am so lonely).

One other criticism I would make of people who pick up a clan or deck because they found little success with anything else is this; this is not a case of super special snowflake syndrome. Some of these decks are easy to play and some punish every mistake like your dad and his belt. But in the end, it is possible to simply teach a person how to pilot these decks to maximise effectiveness. If someone else can pick up what you’re struggling with and use it the way it was meant to be (and then picks up your supposed ‘right’ clan and plays that optimally as well) it simply means your skill level relative to that person is lower.

It’s because of this belief that no-one is special that I can’t stand people who run the weirdest bollocks in their deck because it ‘suits their playstyle’. People like them make me want to shove a rolled up ball of Yaksha cards down their throat. Your playstyle doesn’t matter beyond simply piloting the deck the way it was intended to be piloted. Every card in the deck ought to be working together to maximise the effectiveness of your main win condition; in other words, the strategy IS the playstyle. Any random crap that doesn’t help any should be gone from the deck altogether. If you’re not using the deck in the way it should then it’s being used wrong and you will most likely be met with a swift 6 damage in your general direction for all your trouble.

You may in your opinion seem to develop some sort of bond and believe it is the way forward towards a series of many victories. Right. And millions of Americans claim to have been abducted by UFOs. But that’s just their opinion too, right?

Submit your suspicions as to why I’m still single at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com

Let me laugh at your ignorance by submitting tournament results from Japan to me at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com.