The Tempo Argument.
Posted on Sunday, February 21, 2010
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Chess. the gaining or losing of time and effectiveness relative to one's continued mobility or developing position, esp. with respectto the number of moves required to gain an objective: Black gained a tempo. ~ From Dictionary.com
Now, Yu-gi-oh is not chess, but the game does require set-up to the point where tempo plays a roll in the game. Tempo in Yu-gi-oh is a lot like how it was described in Chess. Tempo deals with the flow of the game, and how card advantage is interacting within a game of Yu-gi-oh. So here is my definition of tempo:
Tempo is the rate of play in a duel. Rate of play directly meaning the card advantage interactions that go on within that duel. Duels usually have different states of tempo. Tempo also deals with the number of options a person has in the game, much like card advantage. It is not just limited to the speed of the game.
If we look in Jason Grabher-Meyer’s article on Tempo, he lists the different rates of tempo and how they work. Being directly stated as the Slow Duel, Neutral Duel, and Fast Duel. To sum it up:
Slow Duel: Card exchanges rarely happens every turn. Both players can be viewed as building up resources.
Neutral Duel: Card exchanges are relatively even, both players maintain near equal card advantage.
Fast Duel: Card exchanges are relatively uneven, with one or both players using up card advantage faster than usual.
http://yugioh.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=1269~ Jason’s Tempo Article
The article discussed what the tempo states are, but did not mention the changing of the tempo states within a game, or how to directly analyze when the game state is about to change in a game. To understand this you must start at the beginning.
The first part of the in-game analysis is to ask yourself what role your deck is. Is your deck in the beatdown role or the control role? Miss-assigning deck roles can what cause a person to win or lose. Example being is that if your deck is in the beatdown role and is put into a control role than it will have less of a chance of winning, and vice versa.
More on this can be viewed in the MtG article of ‘Who’s the Beatdown?’ by Mike Flores. I know its Magic, but the central idea of the article is relevant to the game of Yu-gi-oh.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/3692.html ~Who’s the Beatdown Article
These roles will ultimately establish what you will want your tempo role to be. Most Beatdown decks want a fast game speed to establish a fast tempo. Most control decks want to establish a slow game speed with a slow tempo starting out and then developing into a fast tempo position where they are in control and gaining multiple pluses (cards like Oppression make this possible).
Changes in a deck’s role effects tempo a lot. Example being that a deck that attempts to establish a neutral tempo faces a deck that attempts to establish a slow tempo are playing each other. The slower deck is able to create a better control on the games tempo early on forcing the game to change completely making the neutral deck miss-assign it’s role. The deck that miss-assigns its tempo role is at a severe disadvantage because it is not playing it’s optimal game.
This is essentially an expanded idea of the ‘Who is the Beatdown’ idea from Magic, but deals less directly a deck’s role and more directly with what your deck needs to do to accomplish it’s role.
Much like the role of ‘Who is the Beatdown?’ you can also design your deck with different tempo rates in mind. For example, Lightsworn is a beatdown deck designed to have a fast duel tempo, making multiple +1 or +2 card exchanges possible where something like Pacman is a control deck that has a slow tempo in mind and making 1 for 1 tades while gaining advantage.
A fast duel tempo does not mean how fast your deck plays cards though. What determines the overall speed of your deck is the card commitment to the field, what determines the tempo is the card advantage exchanges in the game.
To know how tempo effects the game we must also know how it changes. For starters, changes in card advantage are important to determine the rate of play, as it is the number of options a person has in a given game state. As we saw in Jason’s article, the tempo rates are defined by card interactions. A change in card advantage can cause a change in tempo.
For example if both players have been committing to the field and making 1 for 1 trades for a Neutral duel tempo and then one person drops Judgment Dragon for a plus 1 or 2 over the next few turns, then game changed from a neutral tempo to a fast tempo. The other person must now catch up to the advantage lost by making a trade of his own like that. If the other person can not reduce the tempo to a slower one or keep up then he will probably lose. Losing cards in hand helps this even further, because it makes it that much harder to keep up with the same amount of commitment or duel tempo.
Knowing the speed of a game is important as well. The speed is also directly related to card advantage but deals with focusing on what is on the field more so. While card advantage determines what your options are, the game speed is something that effects the decisions you put towards the field and towards what you want to change the tempo into.
For example, early commitments to the field are a good example of this, changing the games speed and thus possibly changing the game’s tempo. An early commitment towards the field with a deck like Blackwings can force your opponent to have to commit more cards to keep up with you, which can in turn give you +1’s or +2’s and changing the game into a fast tempo. Something to pay attention to is that agressive committments like this can backfire.
A Game’s tempo does not always affect the game speed however. As we saw in the JD example the tempo could be changed to a fast duel when JD was played, but the total commitment to the field was relatively the same for both players. A game’s speed is related to how many cards are played at a time during a turn, tempo is related to the card advantage trades going on in the game. So a deck that gains a fast duel tempo does not mean that it is a fast deck.
Also another thing to pay attention to is the cards on the field as they are increasing. By doing this you can further guess what options your opponent has and then try to best counteract his attempt to change the game tempo or improve your own attempts.
Analyzing an opponent’s options and commitments can give you a good idea of how the tempo is going, and how to best change it as well as give you insight on how to best play against the opponents strategy. If they like conserving cards then trying to get them to commit them to the field early may end up being a good idea, or even playing slower than them and conserving more cards than them. It is important to analyze what your opponent is doing and how to best out play that or change their deck tempo role.
Changes in roles and tempo are important because they directly reflect the game state. Know the difference of the game tempos and how they can be changed is important because it can help you pinpoint critical spots in the game. It also helps with card evaluations that are not directly related to the general +1’s or –1’s of the game.
Using the newest card Battle Fader as an example. In a Monarch deck a well timed battle Fader can change the tempo of the game, forcing an early over commitment to the field by a person who is trying to force you into a faster duel tempo. In turn allowing you take advantage of their early commitment by establishing the fast duel tempo first rather than allowing them to do it.
Establishing the tempo of the game is important because it will define how your opponent will have to play his game. For example, being the one to establish the initial +1 or 2 in the Fast Duel tempo game will give you an advantage by forcing your opponent to catch up. Vice versa in a slow duel tempo conserving more cards than your opponent will make them have to hold back their own options, allowing you to make better trades and control over the game.
If a player can analyze and pinpoint the tempo changes in the game then it can become easy to exploit and recognize the opponent’s decisions and play style. Knowing how tempo works can help you improve your game and become a better duelist overall.
~E.P.B.
Sphinx Control for MtG
Posted on Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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2 Sphinx of the Steal Wind
4 Sharuum the Hegemon
2 Identity Crisis
4 Glassdust Hulk
1 Sphinx Summoner
2 Day of Judgement
3 Master Transmuter
3 Esper Charm
3 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Esper Stormblade
4 Vedalken Outlander
2 Couriers Capsule
3 Celestial Purge
5 Plains
4 Swamps
7 Islands
4 Marsh Flats
4 Arcane Sanctum
Does ok at FNM's, but it still needs some work. The late game for the deck is really good. I haven't run into too much Boros, but I'm worried at how fast my face gets kicked in in that match-up.
E.P.B.
These Past Few Weeks
Have been difficult to me. I cant really put forth much effort towards posting blogs or anything like that, I'd just look at the current progress of my journal entries too. I'd like to think I'll make a comeback with this. Two new posts are up for whoever still reads this. The posts are more for casual players at the moment, but I should have some stuff on whats new in the gaming world.
I've heard that Upperdeck has lost the rights to WoW tcg, which also means the mini game one would think. It worries me that blizzard may not pick the mini game up because of the lack of players, but whatever. I just want to play WoW minis sometimes.
If anyone who reads this knows of another good mini game to get into, let me know.
Thanks,
E.P.B.
Ole Times PT. 1
I was feeling really nostalgic about the game so I decided to post some really old stories I have about the game.
I really love Batteryman, it was my first real love in the game ever since the Lost Millennium came out. So why did I latch on to this theme? Well thunder has always been my favorite type, so the thunder archtype I had to play. Another reason was that I went to the Lost Millenium sneak preview and played Batteries, and it was also the last time I actually played with my brother. Makes me miss those days. Other than that there have been some good times with the deck, but more on that later.
Another fond memory was this sort of cube draft me and my friends did. Although it wasn't really a cube draft. We all just picked cards out of my friends bad card basket to make a deck. What I ended up with was a pretty coherent deck (for being made of all bad cards) versus a beatdown deck made up of big monsters. The deck I had was a stall/normal deck, with so many random and bad cards you would cry. The most I remember is using Delta Attacker with triple Fiend Scorpion to beat my friends deck.
Aside from that there are many good memories of my friends that used to play. A lot of them involve me using an OTK of some sort (Chimeratech, Batteryman) to beat them, and although we weren't the best of players it was really fun. My favorite story would have to be a long one about a player who used to come into the shop.
This kid was a relatively rich kid who would always brag about how expensive his cards were. This was at the point that the first Champion pack came out. He always had the most expensive stuff at the time. One of which being Satellite Cannon. Me and the kid both really annoyed each other (I think we were about 13-14 at the time). I ended up winning out against the kid.
The next week the kid came back and was using the same cards that I did. Which would annoy me at the time. Since I played with stuff that was less than good I thought that I had a right to be the only one who played it (which was a dumb idea at the time, but I digress). The kid ended up doing horribly with it, and losing to one of my friends.
Looking back on it, it was just fun to have an enemy sometimes. Although I’d like to think I’m past childish things like that, it does make for a good story.
Newwwww post
Posted on Saturday, February 6, 2010
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Well, I have to write journals for my english class, and they can be on anything, so anything to me translates into gaming so I'm all good.
First things first. I can't play yugi until the summer. I have a class on the day of my locals so I really can not go to tournaments, except eith an hour or so drive on the weekend. I am however playing MtG, so expect that to show up in my topics now.
I hjave two things I already hjave written as journal entries, I'll probably post them sooner or later. For starters though, I ended up getting third at the pre-release sealed tournament for Worldwake, I got some packs and some nice stuff. Today I played in the launch party, which was a draft (1 Zendikar, 2 Worldwak) and took second. I did end up doing poorly at the first pre-release tournament the day before the one I mentioned, but I made up for it, so 2/3 tournaments aint too bad.
Second I am low on money, not low enough to keep me from playing in tournaments, but low enough to keep me from buying substantial amounts of cards at a time. I did pull a Jace the Mind Sculpter that I'm looking to sell if anyone reads this and might actually be interested.
So thats it for todayss update. Catch yall later.
~E.P.B.
