Every Little Detail

Decisions... Life is full of them. What do I want to eat today? Should I go to work today? What do I want to do today? What do I want to say to this person?

Most card games are founded by the decisions of players. In a lot of cases, the plays aren't black and white. What appear to be the smallest decisions can be the most game-changing, and you may not even realize it.

One of my Facebook friends posted an example on Zodiac Duelist. After seeing this, I immediately started thinking about writing this post. Here's the example:

"Suppose you just searched for a Fog Blade via Silent Boots yet you're already holding another Fog Blade in hand.

You don't know what you're going against and you went first. Do you set 1 or 2 Fog Blade?"

I am avoiding the Facebook comments until I finish writing this post. This will act as a good brain exercise; determining all the possible outcomes and suggesting the best play. Here is everything I've come up with:

How explosive are the current decks of the format? Currently, most decks can get through a single Fog Blade, and some can get through two Fog Blades. Keeping that in mind, let's go through the rest of the points:

What else is in your hand? Did you mill a Scarm and add Tour guide to your hand? Do you have a Kaiju in hand, which will replace the opponent's strongest threat next turn? Do you have Maxx "C", to draw cards if the opponent explodes? Consider this: If you have a Dante and a Fog Blade, and the opponent starts going off and you play Maxx "C", one of two things will happen. If the opponent has enough power to blow through a Fog Blade and Dante, to win that turn, Maxx "C" won't be as intimidating. Otherwise, the opponent will stop at the best position possible. If you set two Fog Blades, and activate Maxx "C", the opponent will be more likely to stop.

How did you summon the Dante? You probably used two Phantom Knights, one of them being Silent Boots, because you did search the trap. However, you could've made it with two Burning Abyss monsters, and just milled the Silent Boots. Do you have a Farfa as one of the materials? That could be used as an additional form of defense, and you might be more inclined to only set one Fog Blade.

If you set both Fog Blades, the opponent will automatically assume one of them is Fog Blade, but won't know what the other one is. The opponent will have to play around one Fog Blade, and is going to want to bait out the other set card. You could use this to your advantage.

On the other side, you can choose to only set one of them. Many players would assume it's a Fog Blade, and decide to play around it. However, some players can use this to trick an opponent. That "Fog Blade" could really be a Solemn Warning, getting ready to punish a big play (I think I did this twice at YCS Toronto and it was powerful swing in my favour). Again, this depends on what you have in your hand.

How is spell/trap destruction looking in the format? Right now, it seems to be split between Twin Twisters, and MST/Cosmic Cyclone. On the other hand, some players don't play any of these cards in the main-deck. Unfortunately, this doesn't make the decision any easier. Last format, almost everyone played Twin Twisters if they played a form of main-decked spell/trap generic destruction. This re-enforced the notion of "set 1 card, or 3 cards, so Twin Twisters doesn't completely blow you out". Mathematically, these cards take up very little deck space, so the odds of encountering them isn't the highest. Honestly, if you set both, and the opponent had the Twin Twisters, you'll probably lose. If you set one, and they have a Cosmic Cycle, you'll probably lose.

Don't forget that Fog Blade can summon a Phantom Knight from the graveyard, once per turn. If that Dante milled some Phantom Knights, you could merit from setting two, if both are eliminated: You could activate one in the end phase to summon one, then use the second Fog Blade during your turn to summon a second Phantom Knight. The odds of this situation happening is uncommon, but still a possibility. Alternatively, you could set both, and have them both eliminated, but with only one Phantom Knight in the graveyard. At the end phase, summon that Phantom Knight with Fog Blade. On your turn, you can easily get another Phantom Knight in the graveyard and use that Fog Blade to immediately summon it. This way, you still get full value from both of them being destroyed, or baited out, and you'll have multiple rank 3s on the field.

Now, let's consider some alternate situations:

If you had a Fog Blade in hand, and the only Phantom Knight in the graveyard was Silent Boots, would you want to banish it to search another copy? Doing this might be a horrible decision, as you're one Fog Blade will have nothing to summon, which might end the game.

If you were able to summon Beatrice, would you need to set two Fog Blades, since Beatrice acts as a trap?

With both of these situations, the thought process will be similar in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut correct answer that encompasses all possible scenarios. It's one of the reasons why this game can be a lot of fun.

Let's say I opened with a mediocre hand, and had the Dante on board and a Fog Blade in hand, with a Silent Boots in graveyard. What would I do...

If I had multiple traps in my opening hand, I'd personally grab the Fog Blade, set everything, and get my helmet on. Next turn, my Dante will probably survive, and I can continue on. If I only had the Fog Blade, and nothing else in my graveyard, except Silent Boots, it would depend if I had another monster in hand. If so, I wouldn't banish Silent Boots and I'd set the one Fog Blade, so I can make a rank 3 next turn.

There are a lot more possibilities, but i'll leave it at this. Hopefully everyone reading this can truly comprehend the complexity of this game, and how every little play could make or break the game. Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading.