Guarding 2 Attacks with 1 Card

Well, I cannot find my laptop with my document of calculations so I kinda have to put the grade ratio thing to the side. Instead, I was recently reminded of a trick I developed while discussing early game tactics months ago.

Alright, so, what's with the title? Well, it can happen.

Well actually, it can't, but through technicalities, we can do so.

So, let's say, this happens:

Vs

                                     

You ride Marron, then the opponent rides Red River Dragoon while calling Saishin off to the side. Red River Dragoon is now attacking. You also have a Draw Trigger in your hand. What do you do?

Let's review all the possible things we can do in this situation. Well, here's a somewhat simple list of everything we can do, and explaining why doing these things may or may not be incredibly stupid.

• Red River attacks. You don't guard it with your Draw Trigger. They get a trigger. You now guard Saishin because it is an easy 5K guard.
• Red River attacks. You don't guard it with your Draw Trigger. Both of you either get triggers, or don't get any triggers.
• Red River attacks. You guard it with your Draw Trigger. They get a trigger.
• Red River attacks. You guard it with your Draw Trigger. They don't get a trigger.

Alright. So what sort of madness am I spewing. Let's go one by one.

-Red River is attacking your Vanguard. You look to your hand and see your Draw Trigger, which for some reason is the only card you can/want to guard with. Seeing how it will put the opponent's Vanguard only at a 1 trigger pass, you decide not to guard it. Now, they pull a trigger, and Saishin can attack the Vanguard. Because it would only take 5K guard to block this attack, you decide to guard it because you understand early guarding is good. I really hope you understand early guarding is good.

First of all, not guarding guarantees at least one damage. You're already putting yourself down by doing that. Second, because you should know guarding a rearguard for 5K is amazing, you are practically guaranteed to lose 5K shield. So to sum up:

• Guaranteed damage
• Practically guaranteed loss of 5K shield.

As a little note, if we assume checking a trigger with only 1 check is 1/3, then the case of this worse and worse situation happening is about 22.2 repeating percent.

-Red River is attacking your Vanguard. You guard with your trigger, losing 5K shield. The opponent pulls a trigger, places it on Saishin, and gets through for damage. This will happen 25 percent of the time you guard.

• Damage
• Lose 5K

And to put it simply, this is exactly the same as example 1 albeit the beyond incredibly minor percentage rate. So, they basically cancel each other out. Leaving behind:

-Red River is attacking your Vanguard. With the same logic you used with scenario 1, you decide to take the hit. Whether the opponent doesn't hit a trigger or both of you hit triggers, Saishin can't attack.

You still guarantee yourself 1 damage, however, this doesn't actually make you lose your Draw Trigger.

• Guaranteed damage

With a 77.7 repeating percent success rate, this is maybe a decent excuse for not guarding the Vanguard if your priorities were in damage, rather than card advantage.

-Red River is attacking your Vanguard. You guard it for 5K, and don't get hit at all as the opponent doesn't get hit by triggers.

• Lose 5K shield

With a 75% success rate and thus not being far off from example 3 at all, you will notice that it's one trade off for another, 5K shield, or damage? It's up to you to decide which one you'd want.

But really though, a Djinn-Red River down the line will force out 15K from you, so to a person who thinks about the long run, guarding with that 5K earlier on so I don't need 15K later. Seriously, there's like little reason too do otherwise unless you desperately want a CounterBlast skill to go off and for some reason, you don't want to wait an extra turn on it.