[ARTICLE] V-Talks: The Recent Restrictions
DISCLAIMER: This blog post is an opinion piece by BVD, meaning you can have a different opinion on this topic. Please take note that neither BVD nor Cardfight Coalition claims any of these opinions to be facts, nor wants them to be viewed as such. If you have a different opinion on this topic, or you feel this article may be overlooking something, feel free to comment on any social media this is posted to outside this website.
The following content originates from my own blog but has been edited to provide a better structured read for the Cardfight Coalition than my original article.With the recent Restrictions List update announced, Seven Seas Rush has been hit once again, this time the damage incurred will see it dropped from popular use, if you could ever call it popular. The card his this time are Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow and Mick the Ghostie and Family ONLY. You may notice this means there’s a noticeable exception from this compared to the corresponding Japanese Restrictions update. The coalition has already published this information and it was how I myself first heard about the update coming into affect. Upon inspecting Bushiroad’s social feeds they are making sure people are aware of these restrictions but there’s one thing they are very reluctant to share.I am going to go over these restrictions but mostly I am focusing on the usage and effect of Rush, this restrictions update simply provided a catalyst for bringing this topic up.
Now how about I get to the matter at hand.
With Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow down to 1 copy per deck as soon as we hit August, July 31st actually, you may believe this mean the end for the Seven Seas Rush deck but it can still function so don’t jettison that seemingly dead weight yet- unless you wish for a disrupted coronation.
I wish to stress that Rush strategies in of themselves are a perfectly reasonable existence within a game space, aside from sacking out of a Rush deck’s kill range these deck types are also vulnerable to Limit Breaks and Superior Stride where such functions are applicable, they are also in general susceptible to being beaten down by unrestricted cards;
No lock behind Limit Break restriction. No lock behind Generation Break restriction, just active at all times.
These mechanical elements are not frequently seen in the top decks of the game, your upper-card and main-event competitors, there are however more commonplace in the mid-card environment which in fact means the most dangerous phase of a tournament for Rush deck is in the early phases where they are no established seeds for pairing and the potential opponent pool is at it’s largest and most variable. This is something I find rather ironic, a deck type that abuses the developing stages of the game so effectively is also at it’s most vulnerable in that very same stage within tournament progression, before your upper, middle, and under-card ranks have been properly identified.
The only truly severe harm Rush causes is the damage to the current marketing as the strategy goes completely against the current design direction Bushiroad has in mind for the game of Cardfight!! Vanguard, as such it makes sense why they would not wish to actively promote the results from Cardiff, in which Seas Rush took 1st, 2nd AND 3rd, thus taking up all published list slots, it should be noted also that in the UK pretty much all the decks in the field were Gen Break restricted. This last wave the captainless pirate crew rode was certainly an absolute domination of UK Cardiff with 3 pilots attending and all 3 taking the top spots, yet I notice no public congratulations has been offered from Bushiroad in regards to this triumph.
Please excuse me while a have a brief rant:
Author’s Rant: Bushiroad silently published the results then announced the Summer restrictions update near immediately after. Now unlike most of the community who seem to despise the existence of Rush, and especially 7 Seas take on it, I instead am fully willing to advocate the use of such strategies so to those who have piloted the list and topped with it, congratulations to you all. I will recognise your achievements even if Bushiroad will not.
The flaw here isn’t with the Rrush decks existing and successfully dominating, rather the flaw here is with the current design philosophy. Instead of adding more restrictions to cards to apply stronger abilities the better solution would be to bring about dual phase units where they have skill X at all times but can unlock a skill Y once stride is in play. This is a fix that requires time and effort to implement, and would require several expansions before every clan was gotten around to. In contrast it is much quicker and easier to solve the problem, as Bushiroad sees it, by the way of the restriction hammer. I personally certainly won’t call Rush bad for the game or unhealthy, Rush decks have their place in a game space alongside traditional Aggro, Control, and Combo all deck types are able to safely exist in a healthy design space. The issue is in the balancing and how these decks types are able to interact with one another.
Rush decks are typically budget builds that focus on all out aggression from the go but as a result have a limited kill range window, usually around their 4th turn. After that the tide turns in favour of more traditional builds, This is fine. There do exists traditional decks that themselves can pressure strongly in the developing stages of games to, a key example relevant right now would be Blasters.
I realise I’ve spoken about Rush only generally up until this point and that Rush can be balanced, I have yet not specifically talked about Seas Rush as a deck to which I will now admit there is an imbalance! It doesn’t root from where almost everyone I speak to seems to think though.
Most people will point to Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinal (pictured) as the card that makes Seas Rush the strongest Rush and while it does help they are wrong to point at this card specifically the deck would still live on even if this asset was forcefully cut.
I shall explain-
Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow is a fair card even in the terms of the Rush deck. It can be bought back easily but offers no direct advantage and requires something already in play to be restored.
Point 1: With most Rush decks their focus is on hitting for 16k-18k as fast as possible but as they often forgo utility to achieve this they lack reliable recovery.
Nightcrow‘s easy resurrection does aid with keeping consistent numbers but he is a net 0 with no direct advantage.
I bring this up as one means of wearing down Rush is to force them to expend more cards. While Seas Rush has better recovery and consistency any other regular Rush this alone wouldn’t be an issue.
Now think of the cost to revive the Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel. It’s a discard cost. The player is still needing to drop hand to bring the card back from the dead, in a sense this is not much different to discarding to fill a gap- in fact that is exactly what is going on. Sure she can power up as other units also revive making the building your lane stages easier to accomplish but she is a single attack, if all you were facing down was 3 attacks like most of any other Rush you’d be under less pressure, but Seas Rush doesn’t stop at 3 attacks, it can consistently manage 4-5 due to Slash Shade and Prisoner Dragon and as such it is these cards that are you targets to restrict in order to balance Seas Rush to be level with other possible Rush decks.
Point 2: Most Rush decks can only manage 3 attacks in a turn and need to utilse all lanes for their offence. THIS is the more important one.
Seas Rush contradicts this point entirely as they can make at least 3 attacks into the minimum target numbers of 11k+ with minimum expense, this is achieved through Seven Seas Master Swordsman, Slash Shade and Seven Seas Dragon Undead, Prisoner Dragon.
Ladies, Gentlemen and others I present to you the real offenders in this case!
To fix them you don’t even need to limit their deck count, the solution here is Functional Errata. Buddyfight has shown it’s willingness to do this and while a different R&D team works on that game it is a Bushiroad title so the precedent is there for such a fix to be applied.
The current wording on both cards is
When your vanguard with “Seven Seas” in its card name attacks,
The fix to this?
When your grade 3 or greater vanguard with “Seven Seas” in its card name attacks,
As for Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner he might have to remain in his current situation all the same.
Now that is a lot of focus on Rush but I would be neglectful to not bring up Mick the Ghostie and Family.
A stand trigger that is staple in the Nightrose Granblue.
The thing with this card is the potential of resulting in a deck that will never run out. In essence an infinite loop, not on the level of Docteroid Refros or Cosmos Pixie, Lizbeth but even so infinite loops are bad. The very existence of them is an issue as opposed to Rush where it can exist in a balanced state. It’s a hurt for Nightrose but it is far from being what could be considered crippling and is easily replaced in the deck.
Primary considerations to insert in your now 3 open slots would be Screaming Banshee if going the way of keeping stands, a card that enables the Hollow of another card on board upon entering play and when she herself dies due to hollow you draw a card to recoup your costs, draw back is she does go to the bind zone during resolution preventing her from being used more than once. Alternatively there’s always more critical triggers to increase the decks killing power.
In regards to Interdimensional Dragon, Hetroround Dragon I would personally love to see this card limited but that’s just personal bias against Gears due to being so damn bored of seeing them all the time- next I’ll be saying that about Shadows. In any case this card staying around is fine in regards to the game in all honesty. It’s limitation would open the flood gates for Wiseman Loop and I really don’t want to be dealing with that, no one does. Yet from a marketing perspective it’s freedom does create problems. Bushiroad is bringing further support for Deus Ex Machina, Demiurge in the immediate future, and so long as Hetroround lives, then that deck in turn can not. But if you want to build a Gear Deck around a completed gambit on the cheap it means that Deus Ex will remain an option, just don’t expect to do well with it against another Gears deck.
