The Dark Age: Close Minded Vanguard

As much as it pains me to say, Vanguard had fallen into a dark age that recently we have tried to step out of. However, it is hard to recover from the blow that haunts the Vanguard community. 

I'm of course talking about the Legion Era.

Now don't get me wrong! Legion is a great mechanic. The idea of Legion was great and how it can change the game was great. However, this more affected the community and how the game is perceived as well as what usually show up when playing the game. 

Really, if we want to go back where the seeds were sown, that's back in Set 12: the release of the Link Joker Clan. 

Link Joker was different from other control decks, as it prevented use of Rearguards and tried to make your opponent even more limited on their plays. Of course this being the main antagonist, the game needed some kind of way to deal with this, right? 

Well this is where the first bit of problems started. The game started to make Vanguards the soul focus. If Link Joker needed to take down rearguards, just make the Vanguard more powerful to overthrow it. 

And in some cases that didn't work. You still had clans who relied on Rearguards for their abilities, but even then they found ways around the Locking Mechanic. Even Gold Paladins introduced Unlocking to help it free it's rearguards. It was starting to be balanced, but a few cards could be shown to have a lot of power that Rearguards weren't a problem.

After Set 15, the end of the Break Ride era, that's when things had a turn for the worst. 

Set 16, Set 17, and Extra Boosters 11 and 12 marked the true dark age of Vanguard. 

The Legion mechanic, as stated before, was fine. It got cards back into the deck, it made powerful hits, and it brought back the use of midgame to where you didn't have to wait as long to play something. It was pretty good for the time. 

However, Legion wasn't the problem. The problem lies within the abilities Legion unlocked. Specifically 2: Restanding Vanguards, and Guard Restricting Vanguards. 

Seeker, Thing Saver Dragon. Revengers, Phantom Blaster Abyss, Perdition Emperor Dragon, Dragonic Overlord the Great. These were the cards that stood out, being able to Restand with little difficulty, aside from Abyss's restriction in sacrificing units. These cards made their decks powerful, and of course the use of them made an imprint that restands were peak of Vanguard. Even so that another card, Ultimate Raizer, Mega Flare, followed in their footsteps because of a ruling with Cat Butler, inabling it to Restand as well. 

Bluish Foame Liberator, Prominence Glare. Cosmic Regalia, CEO Yggdrasil. Metalborg, Sin Buster. These cards pioneered Guard Restriction, specifically what is called the "Glory Effect" after Glory Maelstrom's ability to restrict the use of Grade 1's or Higher, thus preventing the attack from being nullified. This meant opponents could not block a hard hitting attack without dropping a lot of hand to ensure survival. 

These mechanics, severely powerful in their own respect, soon made their way to the top. But of course, this is where we see the true problem. Now, in the new Stride format, criticisms of cards seem to become focused on those two mechanics. If it does not Restand, or if it does not guard restrict, then the card is cast off by others at first glance claiming it isn't good. Dimension Police was a big example of this behavior when they released it's extra booster, where no guard breaking mechanics were introduced, and the only saving grace for most fans of the clan was Commander Laurel, giving all the cards in the deck the ability to Restand upon hit. Kagerō gets hit on for the constant Restand the Overlord mechanic because it's most famous for it, despite others knowing that if they tried changing the formula of the deck, people would complain that it wasn't as good as that mechanic (See Root Flare Dragon). People continuously try to use Revengers with new Generic support to try and exploit the Restand system despite the sever restrictions of the archetype. And it's basically blasphemy to try and run a Royal Paladin deck without the almighty Thing Saver Dragon, no matter the build. 

Guard Restriction isn't as prominent, but still is a concern. We do get the "Silent Tom" abilities of no grade 0's, forcing other to perfect guard, and a few cards have started to give guard restrictions in interesting ways, such as Managarmr giving it to the Rearguards instead of himself, and Gilles De Rais getting the ability when he has 15 cards in his soul. 

Really, it's not the appearance in the current format that is the problem. You can have these abilities every so often and it can work. The main problem however is the community's reaction to new cards. Anything that doesn't meet the standards for those mechanics seems to be put down at first glance. There are a few exceptions because of certain clans still getting an upgrade, but when it comes to the majority of high rarity cards, this is a constant issue.

But they aren't the only ones. There is also the problem of demonizing these mechanics to where any clan that has them is targeted. I won't lie, in the past I have done this, but I've learned to try and be more positive when it comes to it rather than shooting it down on sight. Those that target these mechanics believe that the clan will soon become a tier 1 and will crush their own clan's chances of survival, to where they beg for their own clan to gain one of these mechanics. 

In summation, I want to point out that the mechanics themselves aren't the problem. The main problem was due to the over population of those mechanics during the Legion Era, the community became creatively stagnant and critical of anything different. 

In the Stride era, we are slowly being brought out with some new and interesting mechanics, such as Lambros's amazing pressure and Conquest Dragon's massive number and card control. Slowly, but surely. We still have these critical points of view, mostly when it comes to Stride's and their abilities. Hopefully with a little more effort the game will continue and the community will learn to open up more and more to new mechanics and ideas. 

This is my honest opinion.

Daltorus.