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GoggleBoy's Food4Thought
Upgrades and Outdates
April 12, 2006

There is always one thing I do first off whit my deck when I get a box of the newest card set and I think a lot of people do this. We look through our deck and our new cards and see what might be an obvious replacement or an “upgrade” as I prefer to term it. What is an “upgrade”? Let’s take an example:

The outdate: ‘What? Broken?’ Cost: 1 “Discard a Unique item”
The upgrade: ‘How Did This Happen?’ Cost: 1 “Discard an item in play”

See what I mean? If you ran “WB” way back when, opened a pack of Jaki and found “HDTH”, you’d replace them, right? Same cost, same type of card, but the effect is better and more versatile. This is what I mean by an upgrade. A number of games do this. There is another form of upgrade that, while it may be slightly more restrictive, I feel it can still be considered an upgrade. Another example:

The outdate: ‘Brighter Days’ Cost: 1 “For the rest of the turn, all Good characters get +3 when attacking”
The update: ‘Workin’ the Looks’ Cost: 0 “Play at the start of Battle. All your Good, Cute characters get +3 when attacking”

So, why is this an update? “It’s a smaller cost, but we need Cute characters” is your instinctive thoughts. However, look again. There is an aspect of the card that can make up for this. “Play at the start of Battle”. “Days” gives a boost when attacking, but takes up a turn. “Looks” gives the same boost, but does not take up a turn. This is a huge difference in playability and makes up for the additional restriction. Besides, aren’t most Good characters Cute or have a Cute version?

So, what would be the latest Upgrades? Well, let’s look at one in Saisei:

The outdate: ‘Charge’ Cost: 1 “Play when attacking to gain +2 to the attacking color. Limit 1 per deck”
The update: ‘Enraged’ Cost: 0 “Play when attacking to gain +3 to the attacking color. Limit 1 per deck”

Costs less. Gain more. Neither takes up a turn. Looks like an obvious update. Now this one is an interesting update. First off you’ll want to replace Charge if you have one. However, if you deck is a massive amount of pump and could use some more good pump card, keep charge. It isn’t bad, just outdated.

By now you’ve probably thought of another outdate/upgrade group, whether it be in the Inuyasha TCG or a different game entirely. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing to upgrade, but I wish that it was done just a little less. Keeps people guessing and the game play original. Well, that’s all I have. I am curious what you guys think are upgrades and outdates, so if you come up with a list (can be Inuyasha or any card game), send them to me and I’ll post them as a separate article.


~GoggleBoy
UMaine Animation Club President
UpperDeck Demo Team Leader
Yu-Gi-Oh Level 1 Judge & Tournament Organizer

"I reject your reality and substitute my own" - Adam Savage