Subject: The forgotten factors of Card Advantage/Board Control


Some quick explanations for any who don't know what card advantage and 
board control are.  Card advantage is how well you'll be able to control 
the flow of the game based on how many cards are in your hand based on how 
many cards are in your hand vs. how many cards are in your opponents 
hand.  For example: If you only have a Dark Hole in your hand and nothing 
else, then sure you can clear the field of monsters, but then you can't do 
anything after that.  If you have a couple cards in your hand, you can play 
Dark Hole then bring a monster on to the field to attack your 
opponent.  Board control is basically how well you currently control the 
field, based on how many cards you have on the field vs. how many cards 
your opponent has on the field.  So the two are basically how many cards 
you have, and where they are.



In all the tips I see about how monsters affect your card advantage and 
board control, it seems that two factors are always forgotten, how the 
monster got to the field, and what it does when it gets there.  These 
forgotten factors seem to hurt how rituals and fusions are viewed more than 
other cards, because the conditions of bringing these cards to the field 
are so different from normal summons.  I realized this today while reading 
through the most recent batch of pojo tips, when I saw an article on how 
the Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon defied the usual Card Advantage/Board 
Control assumption for fusions, because you only needed to have one Thunder 
Dragon in your hand to perform the fusion (due to the effect of discarding 
one Thunder Dragon to bring two more into your hand).

This does however, affect all cards.  You have to look at what a card does 
after it's summoned.  Will it be most likely be destroyed by one of your 
opponent's monster next turn, or destroy one of your opponent's monsters 
this turn.  Many people will say that summoning a four-star or lower 
monster gives you +1 Board Control and -1 Card Advantage, because you loose 
a card from your hand, and gain a card on the field, and that summoning a 
five or six-star monster gives you -1 Card Advantage but doesn't affect 
Board Control, because you loose a card from your hand while the number of 
cards you have on the field remains the same.  But what happens to that 
monster after it hits the field?  That also affects Board Control or Card 
Advantage, and should be considered before playing the monster.  Say you 
have a 7 Colored Fish on the field, and your opponent has a Gemini Elf on 
the field.  You could summon another 7 Colored Fish, but then one of your 
fishes would be destroyed by the elf next turn, and you'd loose that board 
control you just gained.  Or, you could sacrifice that 7 Colored Fish for a 
Summoned Skull, and use the Summoned Skull to destroy the Gemini Elf, which 
would give you +1 Board Control.

Another example.  Say you have a Relinquished and a Sonic Bird in your 
hand, and you opponent has a Blue Eyes and a Summoned Skull on the 
field.  You could first summon Sonic Bird to bring a Black Illusion Ritual 
from your deck to your hand.  This increases your Board Control without 
hurting your Card Advantage.  You then play the Black Illusion Ritual and 
sacrifice Sonic Bird for Relinquished, which, when thought of as one move 
with the summoning of Sonic Bird, has a total effect so far -2 Card 
Advantage and +1 Board Control, not -3 Card Advantage and +1 Board Control, 
as some people who would include the Black Illusion Ritual as a -1 Card 
Advantage might tell you.  But Relinquished isn't done affecting card 
advantage and Board Control yet.  You would then equip Relinquished with 
your opponents Blue Eyes, giving you +1 Board Control since you effectively 
removed one of your opponent's monster.  Then use Relinquished to attack 
the Summoned Skull, again raising your Board Control by +1 and dealing 500 
damage to your opponents LP.  Even if your opponent flips a Mirror Force 
(assuming Relinquished is your only monster on the field), stopping you 
from destroying the Summoned Skull thats still -2 Card Advantage and +2 
Board Control, coming out even (the Mirror Force doesn't affect Board 
Control because both players loose a card).

Now, lets look at Last Warrior from Another Planet.  Some say that playing 
this card will ruin anybody who uses it, because being a fusion means you 
loose 3 cards from your hand (polymerization and the two fusion monsters) 
for one monster on the field, and that then you loose any other monsters on 
the field, hurting both your card advantage and Board Control.  But look 
what it does after it hits the field.  Your opponent can't summon any more 
monsters, so one of the two ways he/she had of gaining Board Control is 
gone, so every turn he/she can't increase his/her Board Control can be 
looked at as a turn where your board control automatically 
increases.  People saw it in Yata, which doesn't immediately affect card 
advantage or board control, but does starting with your opponent's next 
draw phase, so I wonder why they didn't see it here?

So next time you look at how a monster affects Board Control or Card 
Advantage, think about it will continue to affect them after you play 
them.  That Masked Beast, Black Skull Dragon, or Blue Eyes might mean a hit 
to your Card Advantage now, but think of how much that high attack might 
help your Board Control before its destroyed.

-Ruzinus (ruzinus@msn.com)


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