Resources

Resources

What constitutes a ritual as being odd?

I remember when I was researching Skull Warriors very early on in playing Buddyfight.  The Skull Warrior deck I borrowed to start playing this game only had Return to the Underworld as it's set spell. So when I came across Odd Ritual, Skull Festival, I was ecstatic to find another set spell that resurrected Skull Warriors. After reading the card though, I grew this odd hatred towards the card. Ever since I played Yu-gi-oh as a wee one, I always had this aversion to pay for effects or monsters in the form of the resource that keeps you in the game.  After all, what happens if they rush you out of nowhere and you need the life points to live.  What then?  I would be dead.

It took me way too long to realize how amazing Odd Ritual, Skull Festival actually is and an even sadder amount of time to realize that I could keep using it to resurrect Cat Shadow, Aoihime and keep getting more set spells.  I'm not kidding.  I was playing this game for probably a solid 6 months before I realized it.  

If anything, paying to use abilities and call monsters through life is actually more preferred in Buddyfight and most card games.  Why is that?  I'll get back to that in a while.  First though, let's establish what our resources are in this game.  

Also before I go into anything, I did summarize a lot of the articles about resources from Blaze's articles into this article.  Then I expounded on it a little.  Again, if you want to read more, go here.

The four general resources in the game are the cards in your hand, your gauge, your life, your drop zone and your deck.  These seem pretty obvious so let's go through them and I'll explain them in further detail.

Cards in Hand

This one is pretty obvious.  I mean it's the basis for not only Buddyfight but for practically every card game.  I like to say as a general rule of thumb that if you have no cards in your hand, then you are practically dead.  Think about it.  If you have nothing in your hand, you have no control over the situation and your opponent knows exactly what you have. This makes it very easy for your opponent to know what the best course of action is both psychologically and strategically. You have told your opponent everything.  It doesn't mean that you will lose the game though.

In this game, cards have a resource value of 1. So for example. Drawing a card is a +1.  Placing a card on the field is a -1 from hand but is a +1 to the field so it balances out where you're not losing anything. When a monster goes from the field to the drop zone through battle, that's a -1.

Gauge

Another obvious resource. It's usually used as a payment cost for items, spells and monsters. Gauge is generally considered a resource value of .5.  So when you charge and draw, you're giving yourself +.5 advantage.  By this logic, 2 gauge is equal to 1 card.  Also by this logic, since 1 card in payment cost is 4000, that means that cards with 1 gauge cost have about 2000 more stats or an ability that cost that much. Paying through gauge subtracts your gauge advantage but it tends to translate into something more useful whether it's extra stats or an ability.

Also, gauge has some pros and cons as a resource:

 Pros:

1. You are able to easily gain one once per turn through charge and draw.
2. Gauge doesn't tend to be destroyed by effects from your opponent.  It's generally speaking a reliable resource.
3. Having no gauge doesn't mean you lose the game.  You might ask what I'm talking about here but just roll with that thought for now.

 Cons:

1. Gauge is usually paid quite a bit between spells, items and monsters and you don't start with a lot.
2. No gauge means that cards in your hand with gauge costs are useless.

Katana World in general has evolved into a gauge heavy world.  It's partially why Clear Serenity breaks the 1 card = 2 gauge rule and Katana World gets some of the best gauge ramp cards in the whole game.  Between Clear Serenity, Raiton and Cloud Billow, you shouldn't have gauge issues.

Life

Your blood in Buddyfight.  The thing that everyone wants and no one wants to give up. Once you hit 0, you lose the game.  A simple enough concept.    Life is also considered .5 advantage.  This also obviously means that payment through life tends to give you about 2000 more stats or an ability that is valued at 2000 stats.

Just like gauge, life as a resource has its pros and cons too.

 Pros:

1. Life isn't used as cost as frequently in any world other than Ancient World and even then, it's after the monster dies as Lifelink and not an initial pay cost so a lot of times, you don't actually pay the Lifelink cost.
2. Most of the time, you can pay the life cost of a card.  Obviously the exception is if you're at 1 life (or two for Sakurafubuki) but more times than not, you have enough life to pay for a card.

 

Cons:

1. You are not able to easily gain one life per turn.  In fact, most decks are only able to easily gain 1 life and that's through buddy gift but this isn't a consistent way to gain life per game.
2. Life is very easily lost because your opponent.  It's the whole point of the game.  As such, life is valued more than gauge.
3. No life means you lose the game.

If you compare the pros and cons, the gauge cons are the life's pros and the life's cons are the gauge's pros.  This is why both resources can be valued at the same amount.  Bushi does tend to value life "slightly" more than gauge though because they have to make it enticing for players to use it as a resource.  

To finish off what I was saying earlier, this is why Odd Ritual, Skull Festival is a better card than Return to the Underworld.  It has the same mathematical payment but you can choose from size 2 or lower instead or size 1 or lower. Obviously the downside of the card is that if you have one life, the Odd Rituals are dead on the field but they help mitigate gauge cost.

I would honestly only grab 1 maybe 2 Odd Rituals at the most with Cat Shadow though especially since Skull Warriors have very little life gain. You want to mainly use Return to the Underworld with Cat Shadow.

Also, there is a weighted difference with effect damage.  Effect damage is weighted as .75 and not .5. It's usually not noticeable but Bushi wanted to weigh effect damage a little "heavier" than the critical of monsters.  They wanted there to be more resources needed to be used to deal effect damage. Bushi wants this game to be about battling your opponent.  Not who can whittle down their life down to zero first.  Especially since you can burn a lot turn 0.

If effect damage was weighted the same as life (.5), it would be too easy to burn someone down. Especially since people don't use the White Dragon Shield clone or Chillax clone cards that much. That's what the above cards are used for.  They're normally used to mitigate effect damage.  The White Dragon Shield clone isn't used much because attack nullifies are better. The chillax clone is pretty useful though. It works on both effect and monster damage.  Plus in a game where cards that say "this cards attack can't be nullified" is starting to become a little more prevalent, Chillax is becoming more useful.

Drop Zone

This isn't used by every world and this is starting to be expanded upon by several worlds. In Katana World, Skull Warriors tend to use this resource the most to call back monsters.  Some use it as a measure to give your monsters more abilities. Some noticeable archetypes that do this are Blade Beasts, the new Black Dragons and the not yet released Executioners. Most worlds and archetypes consider cards in here "dead".  Meaning there's no way to grab them back to use them again.

I currently don't know if mill effects (when cards are put directly from the deck to the drop zone) are weighted any certain way.  I have to do some testing to figure that out. Unfortunately, my life is all forms of chaos right now so I can't really do it right now.

Deck

Last but not least, the deck you draw cards from.  Once you don't have no more cards in your deck, you lose the game immediately.  I've always found that rule strange but it's usually not a big deal for virtually any game.

Opposite to the milling of cards to the drop zone, I'm not sure if excavating (putting cards from drop back to the deck) has any advantageous value.  Bushi is just starting to do these effects so we'll have to wait and see.