Cardfight Vanguard anime question

[Lheticus]

Looking at the actual cards, I noticed something. The skilled main characters seem to, at almost any given point in the series, have in their possession an incredible multitude of idiotically rare cards. (RRR, SP, etc)

Just how much money do these kids spend on that game?! I have this fanfic in the works about an OC trio team in a story that takes place after Season 4 (I'll adjust as I go along if anything happens to change anything I'm doing in the remaining episodes) and also revolving around a new Cray "nation" with 3 Clans so far, and a new mechanic called "Valor Drive" that replaces Twin Drive in some cases.

The problem is that one of the characters has a background where he can't afford to buy a whole lot of packs--he resorts to draft events in most cases to try to win packs and get cards from the drafts themselves. I'm really not sure how to reconcile this if the average good deck in the Vanguard anime has RRRs out the proverbial wazoo. Can anyone help?

[Lheticus]

...Okay, now THIS is a lot of nothing. If I may ask, does anyone on this forum even watch the mentioned show? Like, at all? I mean, you don't even need the channel to see most/maybe even all the English released episodes, the show has a fully official Youtube channel that's released like 150+ of them by now.

[Grinner]

Just how much money do these kids spend on that game?!

There's a reason one of the MtG threads was subtitled "Sacrifice a paycheck: Gain ownership of target _____", but the characters in those sorts of shows never have to deal with the expensive reality of their hobby.

Personally, what you've got right now sounds fine. I think the key here is simply not drawing attention to your oversights.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I haven't seen any of the show, but is there any wiggle room for declaring that the company just inflates the names of the rarities to make them sound impressive? It'd be akin to how Yu-Gi-Oh card stats are in the 1000's. "Check this out! I have a SUPER ULTRA RARE!" (When in reality a Super Ultra Rare is about as common as a Rare.)

[Friv]

The problem is that one of the characters has a background where he can't afford to buy a whole lot of packs--he resorts to draft events in most cases to try to win packs and get cards from the drafts themselves. I'm really not sure how to reconcile this if the average good deck in the Vanguard anime has RRRs out the proverbial wazoo. Can anyone help?

Having absolutely no knowledge of this anime whatsoever (and not having heard of it before - I assume it's some kind of Yu-Gi-Oh style game?) I would assume that the main characters are just mystically lucky at getting good cards in random packs, because Destiny, for much the same reason that no game ever ends when someone accidentally topdecks his best cards and the other guy accidentally draws a full set of useless combos, leading to several turns of the main character getting trounced.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I guess it depends on the card distribution scheme. I don't know if all CCGs work like this, but LOTR had a fixed ratio of rarities in a pack: you'd be guaranteed 7 Commons, 3 Uncommons, 1 Rare. So to make a deck stuffed with Rares, you'd need a lot of packs.

[GloatingSwine]

Looking at the actual cards, I noticed something. The skilled main characters seem to, at almost any given point in the series, have in their possession an incredible multitude of idiotically rare cards. (RRR, SP, etc)

Of course they do.

If you show the main lead with all the zomgsogood rare cards then your 8-13 year old target audience will pester their parents for moar packs to try and get those rare cards.

Despite the fact that their decks are probably massively uncompetitive in the real game precisely because they're stuffed with the zomgrare cards. (See: TotalBiscuit's "Deck of Legends" in Hearthstone. A deck constructed only of legendary cards (and two Alarm-o-bots), which is terrible because it's only got legendary cards in.)

[Lheticus]

Of course they do.

If you show the main lead with all the zomgsogood rare cards then your 8-13 year old target audience will pester their parents for moar packs to try and get those rare cards.

Despite the fact that their decks are probably massively uncompetitive in the real game precisely because they're stuffed with the zomgrare cards. (See: TotalBiscuit's "Deck of Legends" in Hearthstone. A deck constructed only of legendary cards (and two Alarm-o-bots), which is terrible because it's only got legendary cards in.)

I wouldn't call the anime decks "stuffed" with the uberrares, but it does seem that they acquire what they do have in that category way too easy. Mostly it's the powerful, "Grade 3" headliner cards (and Aichi's Blaster Blade and Blaster Blade variants) that are that rare--which would necessitate a total impracticality of using a truly prodigious number of them--I'd say counting non Grade 3 RRRs, there would still be only around 10 or so RRRs in a 50 card deck. Still, with only 1 RRR in every 10 packs, it's still outlandish they could get those kinds of decks--think not just trying to get a Mythic Rare MtG card, but a SPECIFIC Mythic Rare from PACKS.

I mean, it's possible they're buying singles offscreen or something, but the anime doesn't mention the practice of buying singles even once, so I was leaning away from that idea.

[GloatingSwine]

I wouldn't call the anime decks "stuffed" with the uberrares, but it does seem that they acquire what they do have in that category way too easy.

I haven't watched the anime and I'm not going to, but does it even show how he does get the super special awesome super cards?

I mean he could just have the luck of jesus when opening boosters, but does it show that, or does he just start the series with the cards, do they put them up as stakes on the matches?

[Lheticus]

I haven't watched the anime and I'm not going to, but does it even show how he does get the super special awesome super cards?

I mean he could just have the luck of jesus when opening boosters, but does it show that, or does he just start the series with the cards, do they put them up as stakes on the matches?

If the anime showed that, I wouldn't need to answer the question in the OP. Other than the original Blaster Blade and a few others...basically by season 2 everyone's essentially pulling ALL their cards out of their respective bumholes. Attention is not paid to it.

[Grinner]

...basically by season 2 everyone's essentially pulling ALL their cards out of their respective bumholes. Attention is not paid to it.

So why should you?

[Lheticus]

So why should you?

Because for one of my characters, being too poor to afford a frajillion cards is a plot point whereas in the source material, there is no character with that as a plot point.

[Grinner]

Because for one of my characters, being too poor to afford a frajillion cards is a plot point whereas in the source material, there is no character with that as a plot point.

Have you considered the possibility that he's racked up a huge debt to someone? Or he's friends with a shopkeeper? Or he owes a huge debt to his friend, the shopkeeper?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Have you considered the possibility that he's racked up a huge debt to someone? Or he's friends with a shopkeeper? Or he owes a huge debt to his friend, the shopkeeper?

You could also go the Charlie And the Chocolate Factory route: the kid's super-poor, but his entire community is (for some reason) riding their hopes and dreams on him and contributing their pittances towards his uber-deck.

[Lheticus]

Have you considered the possibility that he's racked up a huge debt to someone? Or he's friends with a shopkeeper? Or he owes a huge debt to his friend, the shopkeeper?

Well...thinking about it, the character in question is on the same 3-man team as two characters who are basically brothers and the kids of the owner of a successful card shop, so at the point I'm at in the story, there are ways. Come to think of it, it was shown quite a bit in season 1 that the main characters do have the support of a shop owner as well, and one of the members of the main character team (for a while) is his niece--and on 2 separate occasions the show has him make cards rain. All right, I don't think there's anything more to see here. :)

[Sith_Happens]

I mean, it's possible they're buying singles offscreen or something, but the anime doesn't mention the practice of buying singles even once, so I was leaning away from that idea.

I'd say this is almost certainly the case. There's one (though only one) episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! where Yugi is actually shown buying and/or trading for new cards, one of which ends up being crucial in his next duel. Which is a bit weird now that I think about it, since that particular show usually treats "rare cards" as somehow not things that you can just walk into a store and buy.

As for the original question of "How much does the main cast spend on their decks," CCG prices are almost always far more demand-driven than supply-driven, which means that being even the highest rarity doesn't guarantee that a given card will cost more than a few bucks (and in fact, at least in M:TG the relationship between how rare a card is and how good it is is fairly loose in the first place). Combined with the fact the associated media franchises always leave the competitiveness of a given deck entirely up to the plot, and I'd actually be surprised if any of the protagonists thereof had an appreciable budget (barring characters such as Seto Kaiba where the fact that they can afford any card they want is the whole point).

[DeadMech]

Given how often the characters on Yu-Gi-Oh risk their lives over the outcome of a children's card game, I think it would only be pragmatic to spend all their money on cards.

I've only remember seeing Yami solve a problem without resorting to a card game once... Given that he then proceeded to try to kill said problem with immolation, while said problem was holding onto and pointing a gun at one of his friends... well perhaps solving everything with card games just makes more sense.

Now if you want a character to have an effective deck despite not having much money, then there are still options. Others have suggested that the character be given the cards. Perhaps by a friend, perhaps by higher powers. Maybe the character is lucky. Maybe the character is a savvy card trader. Maybe the character earned the cards by beating people.

An option that I like is that said character perhaps is just ahead of the meta of the game. Clever and well versed enough that they examine the strategies currently being used and find counters to those strategies that others haven't thought of yet. They would then target buy or trade for undervalued cards other players are overlooking.

[Sith_Happens]

An option that I like is that said character perhaps is just ahead of the meta of the game. Clever and well versed enough that they examine the strategies currently being used and find counters to those strategies that others haven't thought of yet. They would then target buy or trade for undervalued cards other players are overlooking.

Since I've yet to hear of a piece of CCG fiction acknowledging the existence of a metagame, I propose a slight alteration on the above: The "poor" character is a Johnny who wins games by exploiting combos and synergies between cards that in isolation are considered so-so at best.

As a bonus, this actually gives a valid reason for the character to constantly pull come-from-behind wins seemingly out of his arse; it takes time for him to draw into his best combos.

[Mystic Muse]

...Okay, now THIS is a lot of nothing. If I may ask, does anyone on this forum even watch the mentioned show? Like, at all? I mean, you don't even need the channel to see most/maybe even all the English released episodes, the show has a fully official Youtube channel that's released like 150+ of them by now.

I do not, and I have better things to do in my free time than watch it (Read: Things I've been saying I'd do for 2+ years and need to actually friggin' DO THEM already. I'm sure the show is actually pretty great.)

Otherwise, I might, depending on what the show is like.

[GloatingSwine]

Since I've yet to hear of a piece of CCG fiction acknowledging the existence of a metagame.

Can you imagine how that kind of thinking would be presented in your standard CCG animu?

They'd be some unbeatable strategy wizard who uses the absolutely most unlikely cards or combinations of cards and manages to somehow disable the super special awesome super card in ways no-one else could foresee.

Srsly, if the game is a real game look up the current top meta decks and figure out the one with the least number of rare and expensive cards and have your poor character apparently "struggle" to win but actually just win because of good metagame play.

[Grinner]

Otherwise, I might, depending on what the show is like.

It's...well, an extended advertisement, really. Like any other cartoon of its kind, it's fun and entertaining but fundamentally bland. I'd recommend you watch at least the first two episodes, though.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Can you imagine how that kind of thinking would be presented in your standard CCG animu?

Kaiji did this pretty well. It went a bit too heavy on the strategy monologues sometimes, but it quickly and efficiently explained the basic rules of whatever yakuza-sponsored game Kaiji was involved in, and then outlined the basic strategic flow of the game.

[Lheticus]

It's...well, an extended advertisement, really. Like any other cartoon of its kind, it's fun and entertaining but fundamentally bland. I'd recommend you watch at least the first two episodes, though.

Out of curiosity, could you clarify "fundamentally bland"? I'm not sure what you're trying to say about it.

[Grinner]

Out of curiosity, could you clarify "fundamentally bland"? I'm not sure what you're trying to say about it.

Unoriginal, trite, generic. I might even go so far as to label it "vacuous".

It's a story that Saturday morning cartoons have been telling for decades now, right down to the "the power of friendship" theme. That doesn't make it bad, but if you've seen Yu-gi-oh! or the like, you already know the gist of the series.

Edit: You know what's interesting? I've been looking up a number of series like Cardfight, and it seems that many of them start off as manga or anime. Only after those are released are the games released. It makes sense from a business perspective, but it's something I hadn't noticed before.

[Lheticus]

Unoriginal, trite, generic. I might even go so far as to label it "vacuous".

It's a story that Saturday morning cartoons have been telling for decades now, right down to the "the power of friendship" theme. That doesn't make it bad, but if you've seen Yu-gi-oh! or the like, you already know the gist of the series.

Edit: You know what's interesting? I've been looking up a number of series like Cardfight, and it seems that many of them start off as manga or anime. Only after those are released are the games released. It makes sense from a business perspective, but it's something I hadn't noticed before.

You're right, it is very similar to what has been done before--but especially in the early seasons I feel that it does a good job introducing variance into that formula. For one thing, the main characters...lose. A LOT. Heck, in the 1st season, they don't even introduce any ooga-booga elements like in Yugioh till practically the finale where the mystery of Psyqualia is resolved. They may nor may not portray gameplay realistically, but with the exception of Psyqualia users, they portray characters going from novice to contender skill level pretty darn realistically--it doesn't start OUT with somebody just being an uberleet like Jaden or Yusei with the exception of Toshiki Kai, and he's given an appropriate backstory to justify his instant uberleet-ness.

Oh, and the role of MAIN CHARACTER shifts completely at Season 4. So...yes, it adheres to the formula quite a bit, but it also changes things around within those confines. I view it kind of like one of those flavored fruit-drinks like "VitaminWater" or something. Drink one flavor over and over again and you get sick of it even if you like that flavor a lot, but switch to a different flavor of the same drink and you're fine with it. That's rather how I view Cardfight Vanguard the anime--it's a different flavor of an old favorite formula.

[Forrestfire]

I've only remember seeing Yami solve a problem without resorting to a card game once... Given that he then proceeded to try to kill said problem with immolation, while said problem was holding onto and pointing a gun at one of his friends... well perhaps solving everything with card games just makes more sense.

He liked to non-card game solutions a lot back when he spammed lots of Shadow Game. Setting (more) people on fire, playing air hockey with a vial of nitroclygerin for the puck, getting people to stab themselves in the hand...