OVERVIEW
The first game I'd like to talk about is my current favorite Cardfight Vanguard. It's a mouthful to say I know, but this game is a great, and the only game you can't make a (Enter tcg name here) vs Magic rule for. I first got started in this game because I was posting on gaiaonline in a roleplay, I saw an ad for booster set 2 on my right hand side, and figured like many other card games it had an anime to go with it. I was right, there was a Cardfight Vanguard anime. I watched the first four episodes, you have to suffer through 1, and 2, but 3, and 4, are much better, and I was just hooked. While the first episodes does the classic change rules, and cards, and effects, to better suit the storyline the rest of the episodes do not. You also have to suffer through the fact that the main character is wishy washy, but even strictly as a card game this game is all right.
The gameplay is a little complicated, but once you get the hang of it you couldn't have more fun. The concept is you start at level 0, and each turn you go up a level stopping at level 3 (or level 4 but that only occurs in 2 decks). The goal of the game is to deal damage to your opponent. Each card only deals one damage, but there are ways to increase how much damage you can do. The great thing about this game is the only way to deal damage is to attack. There are cards that deal damage to yourself, but they undo the damage at the end phase, and there is one card that can damage your opponent without attacking, but it has a super high cost, you can't deal the winning damage that way, and you can't do it more than once per turn. So the real fun in the game is you can fairly predict how the turns will go. There is plenty of surprises that you have to watch out for, but that comes with any game.
Like magic Cardfight Vanguard's rules are overuled by the cards themselves. Basically it goes what the card says, then what the rules say, in terms of what you listen to. Aside from that this game is pretty independant of all other card games. For example in any other game you can draw a card that is useless, or you can't use without certain conditions. In Cardfight Vanguard every card can be used. There's no such thing as a useless draw, or a useless card. The reason for that is almost all cards (Grade 3s and 4s being the exception) can be used to guard against attacks (Covered later in how to play section.), and even grade 3s and 4s are useful because they are the final level cards. Meaning once you become grade 3 and/or grade 4 the game kicks into high gear. Even if you get multiple grade 3s, or 4s, they still have uses as attackers, or fodder for what are called Ulti-guards (Or perfect guards and also covered later in how to play.)
HOW TO PLAY
Cardfight Vanguard starts with the deck building. Each deck MUST contain 50 cards, and each deck MUST contain 16 "trigger" cards. "Triggers" (Hereon just referred to as triggers or trigger cards) are grade 0 units that have a special mark at the top right of the picture. The picture at the top right determines what kind of trigger it is. There are 4 different types of triggers, each one has their own effect. Each trigger gives 5000 power to a unit, and an effect depending on the trigger. You can chose which monster gets the effect, and which monster gets the power. You can also give all effects to one monster. The four types of triggers are draw, stand, critical, and heal. Draw triggers give you the option to draw an additional card. There is also a ruling that will be covered later. Stand triggers allow someone to stand (Or untap if you're stuck on magic terms) a unit and attack with it again. Critical triggers increase the critical mark by one point. (The critical mark is a small gold mark at the bottom of the card. The critical mark determines how much damage can be dealt by an attack. All cards have 1 critical point.) Heal triggers can heal one point of damage. Healing is taking one card from the damage zone (Covered later) and placing it in the drop zone (Or graveyard if you're stuck on yugioh terms). Aside from 50 cards, including exactly 16 triggers, there's no other restrictions on how your deck can be made. It is recommended all cards have the same clan.
Once you've built your deck it's time to play the game. To the right is the standard vanguard mat. The purple area on the right is where you place your deck. Above the deck is the trigger area. That is where you place your triggers during drive, and damage, trigger checks. The area below the deck area is the drop zone. Cards that are destroyed, healed, or used as shield, are placed there once they are finished performing their task. The gold circles are the rear guard circles. If a creature on the rear guard circle is attacked with a monster with equal, or greater, attack points the creature is destroyed. The blue circle is known as the Vanguard Circle. A creature attacked there by a creature with equal or greater attack points is dealt damage. The green circle is the guardian circle. If you are attacked you may place cards in the guardian circle. Creatures placed their adds their shield points to the targeted monster's attack points.
When looking at cards there are various points to look for. At the top left is a number in a hexagon. That is the cards "Grade" or "Level". Underneath that is an ability mark. There are 3 kinds of ability marks. An arrow pointing up is a boost mark. that means if the card is on a back row rear guard circle (The bottom 3 rear guard circles) it can add its power onto the unit in the same column as that unit. Underneat that, turned sideways, is the shield counter. That tells you how much power that unit can add to a targeted unit during an attack. The center of the card, just below the picture, is where the abilities of the cards go. There are 3 types of abilities. Auto: Abilities that activate once when certain conditions are met, provided the cost is paid.
ACT: Activated abilities that can be activated as many times as the cost can be paid during the main phase.
Cont: Continuous abilities that are always active.
Below the abilities of the card is the card names. Very little cards specify an actual card names, but many cards nowadays require the name to have a certain word in the card name. To the bottom left is the attack points of the card. That is how much your card can attack for. This can be increased either by abilities that increase attack points or with boosting. When a unit attacks, if a unit in the back row has the boost ability mark, that unit can be rested to add it's attack points to the attacking monsters attack points. If your attacking monster has equal to, or greater, attack points your monster destroys, or deals damage to, the opposing monster. The bottom right tells you the cards clan, and it's type. Very few cards specify a type, but many cards specify a clan, when using abilities. The critical mark is the little golden mark between the attack points, and the clan type.
The goal of Cardfight Vanguard is to get your opponent to 6 damage. The first player to have six cards in their damage zone is the loser. The interesting thing about Vanguard is there is virtually no way to end the game in a tie. (Depending on where you play there is a very small chance of going into a tie, but I've only seen it happen once in three years). The only other ways to win a Vanguard fight is A. With your opponent running out of cards in their deck (Magic rules the moment your deck hits 0 cards you lose. No matter what), and with a card called "Star vader Glendios Omega" which is the only card in existence that specifies winning without putting your opponent to 6 damage. In any case the end results will be someone wins, and someone loses. To deal damage to an opponent your attacking monster must have equal to, or greater, attack points than your opponent's monster. When you attack an opponent, or an opponent attacks you, they rest (tap) the unit in the front row, and then rest (tap) the unit in the same column that is in the back row. Provided said back row unit has the boost mark. The attack points of the monsters are added together, and any abilities that apply are activated. After this the defending player can place cards from their hands into the guardian circle. The number on the left hand side of the card are called "Shield points" and increase the attack of the defending monster by the amount of the shield points. Shield points are increments of 5000 and start at 0 going to 10000.
When a player attacks with a vanguard they do a drive trigger check. That is where they take the top card of their deck, and reveal it face up. The revealed card then goes into the attacking player's hand. If a trigger is revealed the attacking player can declare where to give power, and where to give an ability depending on the trigger. As covered earlier the four types of triggers are draws, heals, criticals, and stands. You can also divide up which creatures gain effects, and which ones gain power. For example lets say you attack with your vanguard, and your opponent declares "no guard" or "I don't guard" meaning they're just going to take the damage from the attack and conserve their hand size. Then lets say you drive check a critical trigger. You can give the critical to your vanguard, thereby increasing how much damage is dealt, and give the power to a rear guard unit to make that attack stronger. To review the proper order of an attack is attack is declared, defending player chooses to guard or not, if the defending player guards they put as many cards as they want into the guardian circle, and the shield points are added to the attack points. After that the drive trigger check is made. What this means is if you chose to guard yourself to the point one trigger will put your opponent's attack points higher than yours you can't put down more guard to cover for it. So when you guard be sure of how much you want to guard for. When any player takes damage they do another trigger check called the damage trigger check. Like the drive trigger check the player taking damage will reveal the top card of their deck only now the card is placed into the damage zone.
The damage zone is a special zone where damaged cards go. When a player receives six damage they lose the game; however, receiving damage is necessary for skills. Vanguard cards (Like Blaster Blade in the earlier text) has skills that require cost to be paid. When you see a white rectangle, an arrow signaling to turn over the white rectangle, and making it a purple rectangle that symbol is called the "Counterblast symbol". "Counterblast" means turning X amount of face up cards in the damage zone face down to activate skills. Cards turned face down cannot be turned face up without specified abilities. (Almost all clans have a card that can hit, and turn damage face up.)
As mentioned before cards in the damage zone are damage. And as mentioned before "Heal triggers" can place damage zone cards into the drop zone (or graveyard); HOWEVER, heal triggers come with some rulings. 1. Heal triggers don't activate their healing effect if your opponent has more damage than you do. You must have equal to, or more, cards in your damage zone when the trigger effect resolves. 2. If you damage check a heal trigger, and that heal trigger would put you to equal damage to your opponent you do not get the heal. That is because the effect resolves when the heal trigger is in the trigger zone not the damage zone. 3. If you drive check a heal trigger, and your opponent would take damage that would put them above the amount of damage you have you still get to heal one damage. Because your trigger effect resolves BEFORE your opponent takes damage.
The only other ruling involving triggers is draw triggers. If you twin drive, and your first check is a draw trigger you draw a card BEFORE doing your second drive check. If you drive check a draw trigger, and are unsure of where to put damage because you don't know if you want to risk the next card being a trigger you actually draw before doing your +5000 power effect. So you can see what the draw card is before placing power. Some rash players put the power somewhere before drawing. That is also acceptable.
Triggers are what make the game complex. Because they are random, but can be devastating. Like when you hit your opponent for their sixth damage, and they damage check a heal trigger to stay alive. Or when you take a vanguard attack at 4 damage and your opponent drive checks a critical trigger. Some people think this diminishes the game's value because it's "luck based". The fact of the matter is all games are luck based. Even in magic you can't control what your starting hand is, or what your mulligan hand is, or what you draw, or when you draw it. All games are "luck based", but Cardfight Vanguard plays on that luck giving it that slight gambling rush.
Now that you know the general rules you're ready to play Cardfight Vanguard... As soon as you get a deck put together, and find someone else with a deck put together who knows the rules. Now lets move on to strategy.
Now that you have your ideal field in mind you need to know how to adjust it to fit your opponent. For example if you think "Oh all I need is 16k lanes for my rear guards, and my super strong vg, and I'm golden" You're going to lose a lot of matches. It used to be there were few crossrides. 2 to be exact. And one card that was unique having a 12000 base. Sets 8, and 9 brought 5 additional crossrides, and set 12, 13, 14, and 15, bring plenty more. Not to mention the extra booster that contains Transcedence dragon Novelle vague (Not sure if it's spelled correctly but you can still google it.) which all have 13k bases. Now your ideal field of 16k lanes for rear guards COULD still be acceptable. Thanks to Break Rides some people don't need to run the card that makes cross rides cross rides, but some people still do. Especially if their cross ridden card IS a break ride. Such as Vowing Saber Dragon Reverse, Omniscience Regalia, Minerva, Dauntless dominance dragon Reversed, Etc. When you see these cards in drive checks, or damage checks, you know you'll need more than 16k lanes. 18k is going to be your goal on rg. Yes 19k is o.k. 17 is not. To tell if someone is still running the cross ride version, if their cross ride card is not a break ride, check their damage checks, drive checks, and soul charges. If any one of those cards is the base for a cross ride adjust your plans. Usually people only run the base cards in a cross ride deck nowadays if 1. Their deck does an incredible amount of soul charging. 2. Their deck's break ride sucks. To my knowledge no deck's cross ridden card exceeds the usefulness of their break ride card.
One more strategy I want to talk to anyone who reads this is about calling triggers. Triggers are grade 0 cards and therefor have an attack power range of 4000-6000. (the 6000 is usually just the condition that you're boosting a unit of the same clan). Newbish, and even some amatuar, players call down triggers to hit their numbers. Most commonly to call down 5k triggers behind an 11k attacker when their opponent has an 11k vanguard. There is only two instances in which you should call triggers to be boosters. 1. You know for a fact you're not going to be able to properly guard your opponent the next turn (meaning you won't be able to block all of your opponent's attacks) which means you HAVE to win this turn. in that instance it is fine to call down triggers to increase how much your opponent guards. 2. Your triggers can go back into the deck. Some clans have triggers that, when they're done boosting, can be shuffled back into the deck. Some triggers will specify "When an attack hits that this unit boosted" those triggers usually only have 4k attack, and I recommend against putting these ones down on the field. The best triggers to slap down to boost are triggers like Lozenge Magus, Sunny Smile Angel, and Battleraizer. Triggers like these are 6k boosters when they boost for the same clan, and then go back into the deck to be reused later. If you can spare the 10000 shield I say slap them down. That doesn't mean if you have 3 Lozenge Magus, and a full field, to retire the three boosters you have, slap down the lozenge magus', and send them back. That's stupid. Some players chose to retire ONE unit, in favor of sending them back. I am one of those players, and while the risk is low it is still a risk. Remember that.
When a player attacks with a vanguard they do a drive trigger check. That is where they take the top card of their deck, and reveal it face up. The revealed card then goes into the attacking player's hand. If a trigger is revealed the attacking player can declare where to give power, and where to give an ability depending on the trigger. As covered earlier the four types of triggers are draws, heals, criticals, and stands. You can also divide up which creatures gain effects, and which ones gain power. For example lets say you attack with your vanguard, and your opponent declares "no guard" or "I don't guard" meaning they're just going to take the damage from the attack and conserve their hand size. Then lets say you drive check a critical trigger. You can give the critical to your vanguard, thereby increasing how much damage is dealt, and give the power to a rear guard unit to make that attack stronger. To review the proper order of an attack is attack is declared, defending player chooses to guard or not, if the defending player guards they put as many cards as they want into the guardian circle, and the shield points are added to the attack points. After that the drive trigger check is made. What this means is if you chose to guard yourself to the point one trigger will put your opponent's attack points higher than yours you can't put down more guard to cover for it. So when you guard be sure of how much you want to guard for. When any player takes damage they do another trigger check called the damage trigger check. Like the drive trigger check the player taking damage will reveal the top card of their deck only now the card is placed into the damage zone.
The damage zone is a special zone where damaged cards go. When a player receives six damage they lose the game; however, receiving damage is necessary for skills. Vanguard cards (Like Blaster Blade in the earlier text) has skills that require cost to be paid. When you see a white rectangle, an arrow signaling to turn over the white rectangle, and making it a purple rectangle that symbol is called the "Counterblast symbol". "Counterblast" means turning X amount of face up cards in the damage zone face down to activate skills. Cards turned face down cannot be turned face up without specified abilities. (Almost all clans have a card that can hit, and turn damage face up.)
As mentioned before cards in the damage zone are damage. And as mentioned before "Heal triggers" can place damage zone cards into the drop zone (or graveyard); HOWEVER, heal triggers come with some rulings. 1. Heal triggers don't activate their healing effect if your opponent has more damage than you do. You must have equal to, or more, cards in your damage zone when the trigger effect resolves. 2. If you damage check a heal trigger, and that heal trigger would put you to equal damage to your opponent you do not get the heal. That is because the effect resolves when the heal trigger is in the trigger zone not the damage zone. 3. If you drive check a heal trigger, and your opponent would take damage that would put them above the amount of damage you have you still get to heal one damage. Because your trigger effect resolves BEFORE your opponent takes damage.
The only other ruling involving triggers is draw triggers. If you twin drive, and your first check is a draw trigger you draw a card BEFORE doing your second drive check. If you drive check a draw trigger, and are unsure of where to put damage because you don't know if you want to risk the next card being a trigger you actually draw before doing your +5000 power effect. So you can see what the draw card is before placing power. Some rash players put the power somewhere before drawing. That is also acceptable.
Triggers are what make the game complex. Because they are random, but can be devastating. Like when you hit your opponent for their sixth damage, and they damage check a heal trigger to stay alive. Or when you take a vanguard attack at 4 damage and your opponent drive checks a critical trigger. Some people think this diminishes the game's value because it's "luck based". The fact of the matter is all games are luck based. Even in magic you can't control what your starting hand is, or what your mulligan hand is, or what you draw, or when you draw it. All games are "luck based", but Cardfight Vanguard plays on that luck giving it that slight gambling rush.
Now that you know the general rules you're ready to play Cardfight Vanguard... As soon as you get a deck put together, and find someone else with a deck put together who knows the rules. Now lets move on to strategy.
STRATEGY
When you make a deck you should always have in mind "What is my ideal field?" If you could pull cards out of your deck, and place them on the field, what would they be, and how would they be positioned? To know that you first have to think "How much power is each column (or lane) going to need to be effective?" Two years ago I started playing this game. At that time when both players got to grade 3 they could have 10000 power vanguard, or 11000 power vanguards. There was a fair amount of both. So my thoughts was since shields come in increments of 5000 I only need my lanes to be 15000, 16000, 20000, or 21000. Since most of your attacking power was between 8000 and 12000 with grade 2s and 3s back then I only needed boosters to make it the numbers I want. Meaning to make 8000s into 15000s I needed 7k boosters. And 8k boosters in case I wanted those 8000 to be 16000. In the event my opponent had an 11000 grade 3; however, nowadays all grade 3s are 11k, or 13k if your opponent is running crossrides. meaning you want your attack rows to be 16000, 18000, 21000, 23000. 21000 is difficult to hit with natural rear guard power. Some vanguards increase the power of their rear guards but generally you're dealing with rear guards that give themselves power. Basically to hit 21000 you're trying to get a 12000 front row, and a 9000 booster. 9k boosters are conditional, but not too incredibly difficult to hit. 12k front rows exist as grade 2 9ks with an ability to gain 3000 power when conditions are met. Those conditions are easy since most of them specify your vg has to have an archtype in it's card name "Such as eradicators, or liberators, or Star Vader, etc.) So with today's decks you want 9k boosters, 12k attacks, then 7k boosters, and 9k grade 2s to hit those 16000 lanes. Plus you can put 9, and 9, together to make the 18k lanes if you know your opponent is running cross rides.
Cross rides are grade 3 units that, when another certain grade 3 unit is in your soul, you gain 2000 power continuously. Cross rides are always base 11000 so an additional 2000 makes 13000 base power. Attacking, and defending. This helps when guarding against your opponent's attacks. Especially if your opponent specializes in 16k lanes.
Now that you have your ideal field in mind you need to know how to adjust it to fit your opponent. For example if you think "Oh all I need is 16k lanes for my rear guards, and my super strong vg, and I'm golden" You're going to lose a lot of matches. It used to be there were few crossrides. 2 to be exact. And one card that was unique having a 12000 base. Sets 8, and 9 brought 5 additional crossrides, and set 12, 13, 14, and 15, bring plenty more. Not to mention the extra booster that contains Transcedence dragon Novelle vague (Not sure if it's spelled correctly but you can still google it.) which all have 13k bases. Now your ideal field of 16k lanes for rear guards COULD still be acceptable. Thanks to Break Rides some people don't need to run the card that makes cross rides cross rides, but some people still do. Especially if their cross ridden card IS a break ride. Such as Vowing Saber Dragon Reverse, Omniscience Regalia, Minerva, Dauntless dominance dragon Reversed, Etc. When you see these cards in drive checks, or damage checks, you know you'll need more than 16k lanes. 18k is going to be your goal on rg. Yes 19k is o.k. 17 is not. To tell if someone is still running the cross ride version, if their cross ride card is not a break ride, check their damage checks, drive checks, and soul charges. If any one of those cards is the base for a cross ride adjust your plans. Usually people only run the base cards in a cross ride deck nowadays if 1. Their deck does an incredible amount of soul charging. 2. Their deck's break ride sucks. To my knowledge no deck's cross ridden card exceeds the usefulness of their break ride card.
When you're in the middle of battle, and you're deciding how much to use as guard the answer is simple. With rear guards it is obviously enough to surpass their current attacking power. When it is the vanguard; however, the answer is 2 triggers to pass, or 2 to pass. That is easy to calculate. Simply take your opponent's attacking power, add 5000 to it in your mind, then place enough guard to get just above that. Why? Because the only situation in which your opponent can hit is if they get a trigger on their first drive check, give the power to vanguard, and then get another trigger on their second check. This does happen, but it does not happen often. Some people have asked "What if I have a perfect guard in hand, and an additional amount of shield to make it 2 to pass? Wouldn't I use the perfect guard, and guard a rear guard? See this logic only works in a certain situation. That situation is if your opponent's standing rear guard (which unless your opponent is a total newb that will be the case) has similar attacking power to where it's the same amount to block. This is followed with the condition that your opponent does not hit a trigger on their drive check. That way you used the perfect guard you would've used either way, but you only need 10000 to guard the rear guard. In many cases when your opponent is at grade 3 they usually drive check a trigger once every 2 turns on average. I have faced opponents that have hit no triggers in six twin drive checks, and opponents who have hit double trigger checks each turn for three turns. So this rule is not absolute.
The main point I'm trying to make is if your opponent hits a single trigger you're right back where you started. The reason i say put 2 to pass, and keep the perfect guard for the rear guard is for the following situations. Situation 1: Your opponent's rear guard has such a higher attacking power than your opponent's vanguard that what would be 2 to pass for your opponent's vg is just enough to block your opponent's rear guard as is. This situation most commonly occurs in Liberators with gancelot Zenith, Great nature decks, and decks where rgs gain power each time conditions are met. Such as Link Joker with the rgs that gain power when a unit gets locked, and Narukami, with when units get retired gain power abilities, plus several others. So you would push 2 to pass on vg, then perfect guard their supser strong attacks. Situation 2: Lets say your opponent's vg, and rg have similar attack power, and you perfect guard the vg and your opponent checks a trigger, gives power to rg, and checks another trigger. You are boned; however, if you push 2 to pass on vg, and your opponent does the same thing you can perfect guard the now super powered, double trigger, attack. Doing things my way you make the following gamble "I am betting that my opponent will not take the risk of giving any first trigger power to vg." The only way my way fails to the alternative is if your opponent is going to double trigger, and has a set of brass ones. Most people won't take the risk of giving first trigger power to vg. Some do, and sometimes it pays off. Just remember hitting two triggers on a twin drive check is difficult. It doesn't happen often enough to rely on.
When deciding what to call to rg, and when to call it is all about 2 factors. 1. How many times can I make my opponent guard? and 2. How much can I make my opponent guard for. what this means is how many attacks can I make where my monsters can hit my opponent, and if my opponent decides to guards said attacks how much does he need to guard? So lets say for example you have an opponent with an 11k vanguard, and on your field you have your vg, and a booster, that makes 18000, and one rg lane that makes 15000, an empty lane, and in your hand you have the cards to make a 16k lane. Newbish players will call over the 15000 lane with the 16000 lane. Some amatuar players will simply call over one of the cards on the field with a card in their hand to make it a 16k lane. What you must remember is more importantly than how powerful your lanes are, is how many times you can hit your opponent. The more attacks that can hit your opponent the better.
One more strategy I want to talk to anyone who reads this is about calling triggers. Triggers are grade 0 cards and therefor have an attack power range of 4000-6000. (the 6000 is usually just the condition that you're boosting a unit of the same clan). Newbish, and even some amatuar, players call down triggers to hit their numbers. Most commonly to call down 5k triggers behind an 11k attacker when their opponent has an 11k vanguard. There is only two instances in which you should call triggers to be boosters. 1. You know for a fact you're not going to be able to properly guard your opponent the next turn (meaning you won't be able to block all of your opponent's attacks) which means you HAVE to win this turn. in that instance it is fine to call down triggers to increase how much your opponent guards. 2. Your triggers can go back into the deck. Some clans have triggers that, when they're done boosting, can be shuffled back into the deck. Some triggers will specify "When an attack hits that this unit boosted" those triggers usually only have 4k attack, and I recommend against putting these ones down on the field. The best triggers to slap down to boost are triggers like Lozenge Magus, Sunny Smile Angel, and Battleraizer. Triggers like these are 6k boosters when they boost for the same clan, and then go back into the deck to be reused later. If you can spare the 10000 shield I say slap them down. That doesn't mean if you have 3 Lozenge Magus, and a full field, to retire the three boosters you have, slap down the lozenge magus', and send them back. That's stupid. Some players chose to retire ONE unit, in favor of sending them back. I am one of those players, and while the risk is low it is still a risk. Remember that.
I also recommend against using triggers like Lozenge Magus if, without them, you can't properly guard. It's tempting to send your heal triggers back because you can only have 4 heals in any deck, and the more in your deck the better; however, if without the triggers you can't guard the next round of attacks I say keep them. Just because if you can get one more turn where you're not desperate to win that's even better than having more heals in the deck. There's a risk to both sides, but the way I've found it is if I can get more turns out than my opponent can I win. That sentence makes sense to vanguard players.
Strategy is most used when buying packs. Like in any game certain sets have certain support. Vanguard is no different. Most commonly people buy a trial deck, then buy sets that support that trial deck. People who buy the link joker trial deck buy from sets 12, and 13, people who buy the dimension police trial deck buy from set 13, and maybe sets 8 and 4. I say just do the standard. Buy a trial deck, then buy from the set that has the most value. Then use that value to trade for your support. I did that when I first started playing. I bought a kagero trial deck, then bought from set 6 which had just came out. I had so much value, and Kagero had a couple cheap builds that were pretty good, I was able to trade for everything I needed within a month. I tried the same thing with royal paladin, but royal paladin was pretty expensive. I ended up having to take the long way of buying the trial deck, then buying from sets that support the trial deck.
Here's one bit of strategy most players overlook. Lets take a situation like this. you have 2 grade 0s, and 2 grade 1s, and no intercept units. you have no intercept units, and you're at four damage. It's 10k to block each lane of your opponent's field. Your opponent attacks with vanguard first. Most newbies, and amatuars, will either take the hit, or guard 1 to pass. The idea being "My enemy won't trigger" or "My enemy won't get a critical". That should not be your approach. What you should do is block your opponent up to 2 to pass in the event they get a critical trigger. The reason being is most decks consist of at least 8 critical triggers. Why? Because Stand triggers suck. They work only in certain conditions. First chance you get trade stands for crits.
Here's one bit of strategy most players overlook. Lets take a situation like this. you have 2 grade 0s, and 2 grade 1s, and no intercept units. you have no intercept units, and you're at four damage. It's 10k to block each lane of your opponent's field. Your opponent attacks with vanguard first. Most newbies, and amatuars, will either take the hit, or guard 1 to pass. The idea being "My enemy won't trigger" or "My enemy won't get a critical". That should not be your approach. What you should do is block your opponent up to 2 to pass in the event they get a critical trigger. The reason being is most decks consist of at least 8 critical triggers. Why? Because Stand triggers suck. They work only in certain conditions. First chance you get trade stands for crits.
Everything else on strategy is pretty much just experience, and preference. Meaning how often you play can adjust HOW you play, and what you like can also adjust your strategy. What I've listed are just the helpful hints that will help you win more games faster. Like my favorite character from Chaotic said "It's not the cards it's the player". It may feel like at times the person with the most rare cards wins, but if you stay vigilant, focus on just one deck, and master strategy, you'll beat any player.
TRADING AND VALUE
For most new players, especially ones who are new to card games in general, they will hear things such as "oh that's a 30 dollar card" or "Oh that's only a 2 dollar card" and be confused as to what constitutes value. The most common thing you'll hear is "Go on ebay, look up how much the card sells for and that's how much it's worth". The key words are "sells for" I could go on ebay right now, and post a flogal with an asking price of 1,000,000 dollars. That doesn't make flogal a million dollar card. I buy, and sell, vanguard cards online, so I get a little box of pictures at the bottom that say "Related items that recently sold" And I can see what cards have sold for. For those who don't do that just find the lowest buy it now price, add it onto the shipping charge, and that's the value of your card. Be sure to also search the code at the bottom left of the card for better results.
When you're trading a card you have to remember marketability. How many people do you see regularly that play cardfight vanguard? What decks do they have? What decks do they want to build? Of those decks how many of them need, or would benefit from, having your card. Depending on how easy it would be to trade the card you can evaluate weither you can get the maximum value for the card, or if you have to cut a deal to trade it off for something you need. For example I have four copies of Dragonic Overlord The End (which is a cross ride for Dragonic Overlord) that I'm saving to go with the Dragonic Overlord break ride. Now if I did not WANT to build that deck I know a few people who would from my local card shop tournaments. A couple of these people already have a playset of these cards, but if they didn't and they still wanted to trade for it I could make them trade for full, maybe even a little bit more than full, value in trade, but because they all have playsets of the card I can't trade it to them because the only reason they'd want them is so I couldn't have them.
When you're trading a card you have to remember marketability. How many people do you see regularly that play cardfight vanguard? What decks do they have? What decks do they want to build? Of those decks how many of them need, or would benefit from, having your card. Depending on how easy it would be to trade the card you can evaluate weither you can get the maximum value for the card, or if you have to cut a deal to trade it off for something you need. For example I have four copies of Dragonic Overlord The End (which is a cross ride for Dragonic Overlord) that I'm saving to go with the Dragonic Overlord break ride. Now if I did not WANT to build that deck I know a few people who would from my local card shop tournaments. A couple of these people already have a playset of these cards, but if they didn't and they still wanted to trade for it I could make them trade for full, maybe even a little bit more than full, value in trade, but because they all have playsets of the card I can't trade it to them because the only reason they'd want them is so I couldn't have them.
EPILOGUE
I think I've covered everything I can about Cardfight Vanguard. I may edit this post, add some more pictures, maybe add a little bit of flare, some extra pictures, but essentially what I covered here is all you really need to know. Anything else, or any advice that goes against what I said here, is completely situational. My advice is general, and for newbies, or amatuars who wish to improve their own skill. If you have any general questions, or questions for specific vanguard situations sendme an email. I assume my email is somewhere on here, but if it is not send it to acollinson92@gmail.com
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