Core Principles - Offence Strategies Part I - "Power"

Something all Cardfight!! Vanguard players should be aware of is power, the basic premise of all attacks. The harder you can hit, the more cards your opponent must use to guard you, until eventually you break through their defence.

To adopt it as your winning strategy however requires quite a bit more finesse than most new players might think. All too often a player new to the game will flood the field with every unit they are able to call, only to find that they run out of guard and die to the return attacks or have their field destroyed - so what happened?

You can attack as hard as you like, but all of your attacks still only do one damage at base. With this being the case, why would you attack for more than you need to? With no outside factors, your opponent will always let the big attacks go through while stopping the smaller ones; it's a no brainer for them. Power decks as a result, are all about providing your opponent a strong reason to guard the large attacks you create, rather than letting your opponent save their cards to stop the small attacks. This principle is something commonly referred to as "guard pressure".

So how do you create guard pressure?

The primary concern of a player when guarding is "Can this attack kill me?", as such the first way of creating guard pressure is to have your attacks hit for more than one damage. The simplest way to achieve that is to run as many critical triggers as you can; though there are plenty of Grade 3 units which are able to gain a bonus critical as well.

Being able to hit for 3 damage out of nowhere is a part of your vanguards capabilities that all players must respect and this leads your vanguards attack to be the one with the most pressure on your opponent. Because of this, most power based decks revolve first and foremost around a high powered middle column - the best of which are vanguards which are able to re-stand for a second attack and multiple chances to hit critical triggers. Minerva typifies this strategy

When backed up with a fistful of critical triggers and Ordain Owl's skill; Minerva is able to attack repeatedly for ludicrous amounts, all of which has a high pressure to guard thanks to the triggers mechanic. She is however most effective in the late-game when attacking into a target already at 4 to 5 damage when no attack can be let through for fear of losing the game. Opponents can significantly reduce your guard pressure and let attacks through though, if they are able to mount a strong early defence and avoid damage until your big late-game attacks.

For that reason, a true power strategy also needs to find ways to apply the pressure early on as well so that you can overwhelm their defence later. Consider this; early on your vanguard's attack always wants to be for at least 5K power more than your opponents defence value - this is because if they do choose to guard with a 10K shield and you pull a trigger, they have essentially just wasted a card in guarding an attack that got through anyway. As a result most people won't guard the vanguard early on.

What you are trying to achieve in a power deck is to create reasons for the opponent to either risk that 10K guard, or, even better, put 15K shield on the table for a no-pass. At this stage of the game, critical triggers are not enough of a reason alone so further effects are needed:

So what do the above three cards create? Here you have a starter that is able to guarantee you your grade 3 ride in hand should your attack at grade 2 hits. Between Royal and Shadow paladins there are enough "blaster" cards in print that every one of your grade 2 units can be a blaster. This backbone created one of the strongest hybrid decks in existence - Thing Saver Dragon

By being able to guarantee your grade 3 ride in this manner, many players were able to build exceptionally aggressive decks with low amounts of grade 3 units and those decks dominated the format for a good while. The ability of the starter here is the prime example of what a power deck wants to be doing in the early game.

When guarding against the grade 2 vanguard attack here your opponent has going through their mind "If i guard this, do I stop them getting to grade 3?" or "If I let this through, am I letting them set up to win?" so the temptation to guard against the attack is massive when combined with the pressure from critical triggers. At 14K however, it's going to take them 15K of shield to do so safely, resulting in you successfully forcing a bad guard situation upon your opponent. If guarded, this heavily limits what else they can guard in the early game so that your rear-guard attacks remain largely unguarded, making it easier to put your opponent on 4 or more damage and let your game winning plan come into play.

When applied to a broad range of decks this all boils down to powerful on-hit effects. Drawing cards, destroying rear guards or setting up your soul are all effective at creating this pressure; the most reliable way to achieve those effects though is with a good starting vanguard as this then becomes 100% guaranteed pressure. For these reasons, your grade 0 and grade 3 units are probably the most important choices to make when constructing a power themed deck and should always be the first units you decide upon.