Sorry for not getting to this yesterday, it was quite the long day. So today I will be covering what is commonly known as Plussing(+), Minusing(-), and one-for-oneing(141).
So lets start with defining these common terms. So most card games have what is referred to as plussing. A + is when you gain advantage. A + is usually also a - for your opponent. However there are cards that + just for you but do not - your opponent. A - is when you lose advantage. Like plussing it usually means the opposite for your opponent. So when you - your opponent usually +s from it. And finally the 141. A 141 is when neither player loses or gains advantage. These will be covered with card examples in the next paragraphs.
So lets start with minusing. Players normally avoid any situation or cards that will end up minusing them. The cards that - are usually considered to be cards that are considered to wither be bd or situational. An example of a card that is a -1 is: Raigeki Break. Raigeki Break is a - because you lose 1 more card then your opponent. Raigeki Break counts as a lost card, along with the card you discard. The gain is that you destroy one card of your opponents. This results in a net card gain of -1. Not all cards that - are bad though. Cards like Raigeki Break have seen recent play because even though they are a - to the player, their versatility makes them worth the card loss. A long time ago in the early days of Yu-gi-oh there were a lot of minus cards around that people ran. This was because of two things, one, the lack of good 141 cards, and two the power of the + cards at the time was so overwhelming that you needed to have a defense against them. When a card game's card pool is mainly comprised of cards that - it has a very interesting effect on the game. It creates a very slow game where all plays have to be carefully considered beforehand. This is because you need advantage in a card game to win. So the more negatives you take the harder it becomes to win. However this doesn't make cards that minus skillful, just risky.
Next we will go over plussing. Players will usually try to max out on as many + cards as possible. Lets start with a modern day plus card: Rescue Rabbit. Rescue Rabbit banishes himself to get you 2 monsters from the deck. This is technically a +3, but in actual card advantage is a +1. The +1 comes from receiving 2 monsters for the price of 1. The other +2 is because you thinned your deck by two cards. Especially because Rescue Rabbit grabs cards you don't want to draw. Plussing is both good and bad for a card game. The more plussing that any deck can do the more powerful it becomes. This is because it allows the deck to gain advantage. Plussing is bad because it can create cards that are lucksacky(gives huge advantage for having been lucky enough to draw them), overpowered(offer way to much power for the effort to summon them), or are unfair(little or no drawbacks). An example of a lucksacky + card is Super Rejuvenation. An example of an overpowered + card is Judgment Dragon. An example of an unfair + card is Inzektor Hornet. Plus cards are also good for a card game. Good plus cards allow a player to get back into the game if they start to take too many minuses. Without + cards you would have a constant uphill battle to just stay in the game whenever you took a minus. Imagine a game of Yu-gi-oh where you can't gain any advantage. If you lost a monster in battle, you are now down by one card, permanently. BLS attacks over two cards? Down two cards for the rest of the game. Somewhere around -3 you would probably start to auto lose the game. Plus cards also add a lot of speed to the game. So in conclusion, plus cards speed up the card game's overall speed and usually lead to unfair lucky advantages, but a good plus card helps the card game by making it more fair.
Finally we come to 141s. 141s are when neither player gains or loses advantage. MST is a perfect example of a 141. 141s are what occupy most of the middle of games. Cards that neither gain or lose advantage allow games to become longer and more fair. Since you neither gain nor lose advantage you can use them indiscriminately, like with a blind MST, or play them smartly and tactfully, like a baited MST. 141s are inherently good for card games. 141s enable players to compete more upon skill and tactics then upon decks. However this does not mean that 141s make the game completely fair. A completely fair game would bore a lot of players. This is why the other two types of cards exist. So 141s in a nutshell allow players to have a decently fair game while making it last longer to enable more skillful plays.
So overall a good card game should balance out its +,-, and 141 cards. Too many plus cards and the game becomes lightning fast. Too many - cards and the game becomes a crawl where every card matters. Too many 141 cards and the games become long and every small advantage in cards matters exponentially. For my personal tastes Yu-gi-oh has too many + cards today. The speed of the game has become faster then what I personally prefer. Unlike what many believe Konami does not have to speed up the game to get more players. Make deck 1,2,3,4,5, and 6. Why more then 1 or 2? This allows players to have choice. Each pack should allow players the choice of different deck types. This enables players who prefer control to update to a new deck. Every pack doesn't even have to be that many new decks. Then they can use the banlist to slightly hit the previous decks, this then creates a speed gap between the previous decks and the new decks. The overall game speed never changes. This to me is the way the game should be ran, but I don't make the cards so I'm just here voiving some opinions. Well thanks for reading this post and I hope you guys come back for my next ones. Now to go draw some more cards that start with W nd end with FML....(Wulf btw).
-Kurotaro
No comments:
Post a Comment