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I finally have some time to talk about the state of the Standard Vanguard format during Daivangasai (DVGS). You might have already seen some of the results (a lot of Yakuza and Aichicon) and I'm here to explain why. This post will talk about the JP meta at DVGS which is right around the corner for us, and I’ll have another post talking about the event rules, and DVGS as an event for foreign players.
Firstly, let me break down what is considered a top deck in Standard. Standard right now heavily favours going first. Using this as a baseline, your deck has to be able to win consistently going first. This encompasses A LOT of decks, and any deck that cannot do this (sorry Eugene fans) can be considered non competitive. Now you might be thinking, since there's a lot of decks in this tier it's all good right? Wrong. Because this is the absolute minimum requirement for competitiveness in Standard.
The next level up will be a deck that can win consistently going first, and still perform well going second. There are not many decks that can fit this category and this category can be weighted on how consistently these decks can perform going second. At the top end of this spectrum is where decks like Aichicon exist, since even though they suffer going second, their powerlines, comeback potential and finishers keep them as a great choice. You could likely separate this tier into 2, separating the decks that are ok at going second and ones that have better lines going second.
The last and toppest tier would be decks that can go first and second, with an X factor that propels it to be better than the rest. Right now, this is Yakuza. Let me list what it can do:
- Can play going first and second.
- Attacks 5 times. Vanguard is a 2+1 drive restander. This is surprisingly a baseline requirement to be a good deck nowadays.
The following are its X-Factors:
- Can build a board from nothing by simply riding a G3. You can also confirm at least 1 persona ride.
- You don't need to discard for the rideline. Most ridelines give a +1/2, this is essentially a +3.
- Has an inbuilt effect to dig for pieces that it needs.
- Insane defensive power. Has many free 10k shields. Also has cards that can guard from soul (15k shields btw), and then can put those cards back into soul.
- It has Dragveda (the ultimate X factor).
The consistency and durability that this deck has is insane. They literally heavily restricted a deck recently (Vyrgilla) because it was consistent, had great defensive options and could build a board from nothing. Your only semi-bad matchup in the metagame is Zerith, but hey just go first!
Now that we've kind of established why Yakuza is the most picked deck in the format right now, let's talk about why Aichicon was the 2nd most picked deck, especially when many people were talking about how Kaicon was better when both trial decks were revealed.
The reality is Kaicon is better, if you play both decks out of the box. However, once you include the rest of the card pool, Aichicon is superior. Aichi gets Gancelot and Cerrgaon, two insane cards that make your deck more consistent and aggressive. Your going second plays are also better, with the Alfred calls getting a powerbuff. Kaicon gets...Scarlet Flame? A very mid G3 turn when it goes second? It's still a great deck, but have you read Gancelot?
Your Soul Saver finisher pumps out great numbers as well, but then you pair it with Zero and you have a very scary kill turn. Unless your opponent gets multiple heals or triggers to shut down your aggressive turns, the moment you're at 4 damage you're in range of an Aichicon kill turn. The only deck that can consistently live through that is...Yakuza.
With no diversity cut and with half decent prizing on the line, there is no way you're not bringing the 2 best decks in the meta. But why is this format so bad? There’s been a lot of other formats where there are 2 great decks, and 1 third deck that you have to figure out. Why is this time different?
Simply because, the format has way a lot more luck associated with it than before. With the power level of the cards now, there is less player agency because there is just less you can do. There are two major problems.
Rideline discard fodders have reached an all time high. Usually when you ride, you have to discard a card from your hand. However, now there are a lot more cards that can replace themselves when discarded, your early hands and plays can vary between absolute dogwater to insane quality. If you’ve ever played a deck that ran multiple energy cyclers, you’ll understand what I mean. If you were able to discard your energy cycler for your ride discard, you would generally have an amazing early hand. Consequently, when you didn’t draw them, your hand just felt awful. More cards in hand mean more options, which means you have more freedom to commit cards onto the board.
With the introduction of Belligeacro, this has changed drastically. Belligeacro is a Dragon Empire generic that has 3 positive effects and 0 downside. When drawn early, you can begin playing a very aggressive game - especially when going first. Then they introduced Lien and Gojo. When discarded for ride, these also generate bodies on the board. Their draw and discard abilities allow you to filter through the deck, and the discard function allows you to discard Belligeacro, Gojo, and Lien to generate even more bodies on the board. You don’t even need to think if you want to commit bodies onto the board anymore, you just do it because it’s part of the effect (they all have no cost as well).
Are you starting to see why this card design is problematic? Let’s say you’re Good™ at the game. You discard a Lien for ride, then discard another Lien and discard a Gancelot to search a Blaster Blade. Your first turn has placed 2 8k power bodies on the board, searched your deck for a 10k G2. Since you’re playing Aichicon, there’s a Barcgal as well behind your Vanguard. Next turn, by committing the Blaster Blade, you’re at a minimum trilaning going first for 8k, 16k VG and 18k. You can commit another G2 or a Cerrgaon if you wish and you have 3 lanes attacking while hitting over defensive triggers. It’s also why going 2nd is less good. The numbers you create here are stopped by 1 defensive trigger. Because your G2 Vanguard is Blaster Blade, you disincentivise your opponent from committing cards onto the field as well.
Even if you were playing any other Dragon Empire or Keter deck, just drawing any of these cards is already a net positive in your aggressive game plan. The fact that these trilanes are getting easier to build and the counterplay to them is difficult, creates a scenario where players pray they go first, then pray their opponent doesn’t draw good if they don’t go first, and then after these conditions are fulfilled can you finally play the game (but the going first player still has a slight advantage).
There used to be decision making when deciding what to discard for ride. Even the first bottom deck cyclers had a downside where they couldn’t be used in soulblast heavy decks, and were vanilla bodies until persona ride when you didn’t draw them in time. Now, those decisions have been removed because there are objectively best cards to discard (and the current best deck doesn’t even need to discard). And when you draw these cards, it creates a gameplay scenario that also relies on luck to get out of (sacking multiple defensives, triggering heals).
The other main culprit is triggers. Did you know, Vanguard is a game about Vanguards? That’s why I put all my triggers on Vanguard. This used to be a conscious decision one needed to make. If your opponent went for a 2 to pass, and your first twin drive check was a trigger, you had to decide if the risk was worth it to go all in, or put it on the side. The delicate balance in probability and risk management is the crux of Vanguard gameplay. However, current Vanguard design has removed a lot of decision making for you. Lets talk about restanding Vanguards:
- Restanding Vanguards by design, mitigate the risk by allowing a second swing with the additional trigger power. AKA, if your second drive check is a blank, you still get value because you can swing again.
- Decks are compressing quicker so that triggering is more probable.
- Front triggers are played in most decks due to its needed defensive value. Fronts also remove decision making. If you’re not playing fronts, you're behind.
- D R A G V E D A (and other overtriggers).
- They literally print decks that don’t lose any trigger value whatsoever wtf (Deeplands lol)??
The concept of restanding Vanguards was usually balanced by the fact that its rearguards didn’t hit for much. For some reason, they decided to print a deck that has a powerful Vanguard column, powerful side columns, and also does the most attacks. The last time this phenomenon happened, the deck got hit 3 times (Shiranui), and that deck had a terrible G3 play. Deeplands goes first, rides up and does 6 attacks, and your best course of action is praying for a defensive trigger.
Without this making it so focused on Deeplands, we can look at the Kaicon deck instead. Kaicon goes first and opens Gojo or Belligreacro. It suddenly has an early game that you need to respond to, and then on their G3 turn they swing with an 18k restanding Overlord. Their field can easily be a 15k Nehalem, boosted by a Belligreacro which makes a 25k column to your 10k. Even boosted by a Gojo that was discarded earlier on makes it hit over defensive triggers, and that’s before they hit their own triggers. You’re also less inclined to 2 pass Vanguard attacks because of the various fail states that I’ve mentioned (applies to Deeplands as well).
The high level picture here is that you’ve been pressured early game, so you’ve either had to spend cards guarding or be at higher damage count than normal, then respond to a board that isn’t defensively possible without a defensive trigger. What this means is that the best lines of play have already been established for you, and you’re instead watching a trigger simulation instead.
When player agency gets removed, there are less opportunities to show difference in skilled plays and there is more reliance on the luck element. At this stage in Standard, I feel like we’ve lost a lot of player agency. Not just in plays, but also in deck design. There are objectively best cards to play in slot for a large majority of decks. Many decks are created at conception to be automatically built a certain way. Icon decks are majority Icon cards because of requirements, unless the non-icon card is exceptionally good (Gancelot). Collab decks are straight up built in an extremely standardised fashion.
The format honestly needs to tone back the power of going first by a lot. V-premium literally had the same issue and they had to print heal guardians to curb it. But they also need to change the gameplay loop as well. You can print 200 ride lines but if they all play in a similar fashion just with different keywords, the only thing you're accomplishing is keyword bloat. There needs to be smarter, more creative game design that rewards good decision making, rather than creating extreme high roll scenarios that players cannot even play out of.
This post is already extremely long and I’m pretty sure I went on a huge tangent. I’ll post more about the DVGS experience and how to better the event itself in another post.
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