Hello Pojoers! Master of Shadows is
back [again]. Many people love dueling by numbers.
By that, I mean Card Advantage. Many have approached
the subject in the past. Some are all for it. Others
are against it. Time for my two cents on the issue.
Is Card Advantage important? In some cases, yes.
What I have to say, though, shows that it isn't.
Sure, you could always take the Card Advantage route
and try and net yourself an advantage, but who
cares? Here's some situations where it's not
important.
Situation one:
You have 5 or 6 cards in your hand and your opponent
only has 1 or 2. Technically, you have advantage,
but numbers aren't everything. Your "advantage"
means nothing if the cards you have are useless or
you can't do anything with them. Those cards in your
opponent's hand, no matter how small, can decide the
game. They could be holding a deadly 2-3 card combo
in their hand while you're holding 5-6 useless
cards. You won't know what the opponent has, but if
this scenario is true, then who really has
advantage? ("Hope for the best, but be prepared for
the worst.")
Situation two:
You just activated Scapegoat at the end of your
opponent's turn. You draw. You set Torrential
Tribute since that's all you can do. You end your
turn. Your opponent has a Horus LV6 from the
previous turn on the field. They use Level Up! to
summon Horus LV8. Do you activate Torrential
Tribute? If you say no, then you're an idiot. Yes,
you should. Who cares that you lost advantage? You
crippled your opponent. If the move cripples your
opponent, then why should you care that you lost
advantage, so long as you can come back from it?
Situation three:
Your opponent has a face up Don Zaloog, two cards
face down, and two cards in his/her hand. You have a
Mobius that you just drew, an attack mode Spirit
Reaper, and one card face down (don't worry, it's
useless). You could summon Mobius, take out the two
face downs, and attack Don Zaloog, but what could
those face downs be? One could be Bottomless Trap
Hole. One could be Trap Hole. Torrential Tribute.
Blast with Chain. You never know. Suppose you do
summon Mobius to take out their face downs. They
activate Torrential Tribute. Everyone goes. You
gained a +1 advantage, but let's think. Had they not
activated it, Mobius would have stayed on the field,
still leaving them with a loss in advantage (-1). By
using Torrential Tribute when they did, they stopped
you in your tracks and crippled you. Had it been
Blast with Chain, they'd have evened the advantage
and kept their monster. In logical terms, they'd
have advantage since they're not up the creek
without a boat (not paddle).
Situation four:
Let's look at some cards that are usually deemed a
-1. Ceasefire and Magic Cylinder for starters. Yes,
they're both -1's, but they can both end the game.
Magic Cylinder turns an attack against them.
Ceasefire stops Flip Effects. It can also be used
right after your opponent draws to deal that little
bit of extra damage needed to win the game.
Have I made my point? Card Advantage is NOT very
important. Yes, you should think about it sometimes,
but don't duel by it. Whatever happened to those
days where no one cared about Card Advantage when
people just dueled? They played to win, not thinking
about their resources. If the move crippled, then it
crippled. It's like the famed CED-Envoy / Yata lock.
Most of the time it netted advantage, but it was
only used to end the game by locking the opponent
down. It's like the Horus / Royal Decree lock. Your
opponent would have no choice but to go on the
defensive. Yes, you'd lose a lot of advantage in the
process of achieving the lock, but once you do,
that's pretty much game.
That's all I have for now. Contact me at
darkdestructionv30@yahoo.com
Until next time....
