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Bushiroad’s Ongoing Stand Trigger Campaign

If you want me to use Stands, they’d have to give me more advantage than Crits. And a hand-job.

Stand Triggers have long since been suspected by the Vanguard community to be basically a worse Critical Trigger, and as such have fallen out of favour compared to Crits, Heals, and (god-forbid) Draw Triggers.

I can see their point. The whole point of Vanguard is basically to set up a field, swing, hit 6 times if you can manage it, then win. Then cake. Critical Triggers assure an extra damage with no strings attached, and by accelerating damage you can make the opponent guard more, putting you ahead in card advantage as well. All a Stand could accomplish in comparison is either get ahead in damage also (if the attack hits, anyway) or force usually the same amount of shield by guarding (You’d only get the opponent to drop more if the attack, after applying the effects of the Stand, can swing for 10k guard unboosted). The number of scenarios where Stands do worse compared to Criticals is higher than the situations where they’d be better, and so people neglect them.

Recently however Bushiroad have been incorporating skills into a lot of the Stand Triggers (that aren’t from a Trial Deck or something) that they release in their packs, hoping that people will sort of forget that they’re just “Critical-lite” and run them instead. Or at the very least, alongside Crits for more diversity.

Unfortunately, the reality is there’s a difference between having a skill and having a WORTHWHILE skill. When people run any sort of trigger it’s usually because of what type of trigger it is. If it has another skill you could maybe use if you’re desperate then it’s a cool bonus. Most of the time though, I’m just going to run Criticals and Heals simply because they are Criticals and Heals.

Not everyone comes round to my way of thinking, however. And that’s unfortunate, because I’ve seen people using Stand Triggers with skills, using gimmicks over boring if practical cards.

The way people use them usually falls into one of two categories. Either to put them down on the board, then use their skills to put them back in the deck, or use their skills as a means to extend the deck’s gambit still further. Ketchgal Liberator for Gold Paladin is a popular choice.

I think the reason for this recent Stand mania on both Bushiroad’s part and the fighters who don’t know better is lack of context. Neither way to use them is a particularly good way. Recycling Triggers, first of all, comes at a direct -1 to yourself and more often than not putting yourself 10k shield down, all so the fighter can try and overcomes stupidly high odds of never seeing it again. It may increase the count in triggers but not in a way that’s statistically significant. Using Heal Triggers in this way is especially retarded because you could have just kept it and prevented one damage simply by just GUARDING with it.

For a skill on a Stand Trigger to be worthwhile, it would have to 1. Change your overall shield available by basically nothing. 2. Have a skill that when checked would provide more advantage than a Critical in both damage and card advantage. I have seen a lot of Stands around that basically get rid of themselves in order to either recoup 5k shield back, either through calling, drawing or retiring. But as long as a deck follows the right vanilla framework a consistent field really shouldn’t be much of a problem anyway (more so if a consistent field is the deck’s main gambit to start with), and sacrificing 10k shield just to give or take away 5k shield is not efficient. Not unless you suspect it’s Final Turn and can win then and there. Or I needed to draw really badly because of Grade-lock.

I haven’t even gotten to the worst part. You may be thinking of running like a few so as not to encroach on the triggers that are better, but these are still subject to my rules in the tech-cards article. Okay I lie, not every rule in there applies to Stands. Certainly, the principle of “max everything important or go the hell home” still applies. The exception would be the bit about you not minding if you don’t get it, yet be pleasantly surprised when it does.

See, there will be situations when you actually WOULD mind getting a Stand trigger. Because you could be at a stage in the game where you would much rather have a Critical, particularly if you are at a point where you want more damage guaranteed. You’d only want the Stand if the opponent was on 5 damage. And because you run them, no matter how many are left, even if it’s just one, you still have to change your attack order simply because you can’t risk chance screwing you over.

Paradoxical, is it not? They’re being run at so few copies it sounds negligible yet the chance of it happening will always linger, forcing you to assume the worst. It would be better to just wash your hands of that shit altogether and don’t worry about it, seriously.

I don’t believe in sacrificing vanilla play for gimmicks unless you actually have room. By this principle, you wouldn’t even want to actually call any of the Stand Triggers from your hand because sacrificing that much guard for an inefficient play is stupid. And in the absence of using the skill you’re just going to have an inferior trigger lying around.

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that hold off on playing Stand Triggers unless you’re deck physically can’t run any more Criticals (once February hits only Nubatama and Gear Chronicle will have this excuse) or unless the entire point of the deck is to spam on-hit skills turn after turn early (as in Turn 2 early, not via a Legion, Limit Break or Stride strategy). Because I’ve sussed that the only way I can ever use them properly is in a stupid way. Well, I’m not the target demographic but do feel free to give other people more options to lose against me with, Bushi.

Mail me something not about Ketchgal Liberator cos I don’t care at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com