Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Is Buddyfight becoming money fight?

Hello Buddyfighters

Today we are bringing you a controversial article which some may agree and some may not. We felt this issue should be brought to attention so that the future of Buddyfight does not end up being non existent.

Buddyfight is nearly 6 years old today and has been the reason why so many people have become friends with people they would never even imagine meeting in real life. Bushiroad also has a game called Cardfight Vanguard which has been around much longer than Buddyfight and have evidently been shown to have gotten better treatment by Bushiroad compared to Buddyfight. So what made people who play Vanguard or other card games switch to Buddyfight many years ago? Other than obvious reason such as game mechanics and artwork, one of the key reason was the cost of the game. When BT01 was just released, a complete Buddyfight deck with all the essentials would cost no more than $150. This price scale remained untill BT05 and this affordability along with various reasons made people switch over from other games to playing Buddyfight.

Fast forward a few years later. Buddyfight has now become one of the most expensive games that was designed for children. A viable deck now costs over $300 to make. People who quit other games to play Buddyfight are doing the opposite now. So what really caused this to happen?

There are several factors which affected the market of Buddyfight.
1) Introduction of secret packs
2) International trading platforms
3) Number of high rarity cards in a deck

1) Introduction to secret packs:

This was by far one of the biggest mistakes Bushiroad has done and is still doing. The first secret pack introduced was Azi Dahaka which was going at around $90! Buddyfight has never seen anything costing that high before. And the fact that you must have it in order to play the deck made it so that very few people were able to afford the deck. However, this was not the biggest problem as Ein was not a very strong deck during that period. The main problem started when Drum's secret pack was introduced. Fifth Omni was a META deck for a prolonged period of time and the secret packs were roughly $70 USD each and you required 4 of them which already made the core of the deck $280. From an entire deck costing $150, now we have just 20 cards costing $280. The problem did not stop there. Next came Aster secret pack which was another $70-80 USD each and to top it off it was the best deck at that point and it completely ruined people's fun.This was the point where Buddyfight was getting too expensive.  Even to this day, secret packs are very expensive for most people and its increasing the cost of the decks significantly.

2) International trading platforms

This was a very very huge problem for this game. The fact that some countries have the privilege of
having abundance of cards and also having high exchange rates with the other countries made the entire market to blow up. Local players are not able to get cards due to these people who choose to sweep every single card from every shop and sell them overseas. We have seen so many friendships being destroyed because of people refusing to sell their cards to local friends as they care more about profiting from the game. Overseas buyers also pay much higher price and this has caused local markets to go haywire. Nobody would sell a card to local player for what its worth locally as they can sell it overseas and make more money out of it. Groups have even gone to the extent of restricting some countries from selling in the group. But all that did nothing as people always have other platforms to sell. This frustration has lead to many people starting to switch card games.

3) Number of high rarity cards in a deck

This is an easily fixable issue. Lets take time dragons for example. They require secret packs and so many RRR in the deck which increases the base cost of the deck significantly. Decks such as Bang Dream have so few RRR in the deck that an entire deck costs around 200 tops. If a deck is going to supported throughout the year, the number of high rarity cards should be reduced so that the over all price of the deck becomes lower.

So what is the biggest reason?

The biggest culprit is the secret packs. They have made the game extremely expensive for players. Some of the secret packs have a pull rate of 4 per case which is ridiculous. Just take a look at Time Dragons. Their secret packs are $50 USD each making just that $200. Look at lost world. Bushiroad had to make reprint set just so that people will be able to afford them. Each set introduced a new secret pack which was absolutely necessary in the deck. Each of the costed over $40 per pack. This caused people to spend over 500 just on secret packs. Since the packs are not easy to come by, people started to sweep shops and started selling them overseas. This is connected to the international trading platform problem. Before secret packs, we never had this issue.  This lead to secret packs being extinct even in the country that has the Bushiroad HQ itself for SEA.

Whats the solution? Bushiroad has to step up and stop making secret packs if they really care about the secondary market. Instead of making secret packs they should make the important card a RRR and the rest a R. That would effectively save around $30-40 per playset decreasing the cost by nearly $120. A game designed for children should not cost this much. You should not have to spend over $500 on a deck to play a game with no real prizes. If Bushiroad's aim is for people to enjoy the game then they should seriously do something about the pricing of the game. We have no idea if this post will even reach anybody but we sincerely hope that something is done. Buddyfight was a game that people loved due to the mechanics and affordability back then. Now its just a platform for people to make money. People are choosing profits over friends and its really sad to see that Buddyfight has come down to this.


signing off
Avengingknight~

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Time Dragons explained

Hey Buddyfighters!

Today we are here bringing you an article regarding the latest hyped up deck, Time Dragons. A brand new never before seen mechanic has been introduced to the game and it has changed the way we play Buddyfight. The most iconic thing about Time Dragons is their 4 flag mechanic where each of the flags offer a specific effect that adds consistency, defense and offense without having to play any cards. Clock I allows the player to look at top 3 cards and get 1 of them by putting one card from their hand to the bottom of their deck.This immediately offers consistency even before they draw their first card in the game.  It also being a flag makes it so that opponent cant do anything to negate it. Clock II lets the you negate an attack and draw 1 by putting one card from their hand to the bottom of the deck. This effectively shuts down majority of the FTK decks. With the Flag's effect being counters, you are able to use them during the opponent's turn and this makes going second not a big problem for Time Dragons.

Lets take a look at some control aspects that make Time Dragons extremely good.

S-SS03-0006  S-SS03-0002

Time observer, Octho and Time general Tubocus are both considered as hand traps by many who played other TCG games before. Hand trap refers to non spell disruption cards that can be used from hand during opponent's turn. Octho has the ability to negate the effect of any card on the opponent's field and draw 1 as a bonus if you have used two of your flag's effect(Reversal). Tubocus allows you to discard itself to gain 3 life and its also able to send itself back from the drop to the deck to destroy one monster on your field and one card on your opponent field. Using both these cards together ensures you are able to destroy any card as their soul guard ability will be nullified by Octho. As decks nowdays have effects that require other cards to be present on the board to be activated, these two deadly combination can shut down alot of synergy and advantage from those decks while Time Dragons farm advantage via cards that have no field requirements.

S-BT07-0016EN

Combining Octho and Tubocus with Luna on the field enable massive board wipes during both your turn and the opponent's turn. This is where most of the control aspects comes in and a well timed destruction can leave the opponent without a field.

Now lets take a look at the non flag cards that make Time Dragons consistent.

   


Time Scout Lange is your primary draw power of the deck with its ability to draw 2 once per turn whenever a soul enters a Time Dragon monster. Since souls that enters via call cost activates this effect, your opponent has no play timing to destroy him before the soul enters to stop his effect from going off unless they are able to nullify the ability. You can use Clock III to call during the opponent's turn and get its ability off as well for two free draws. You can be pretty confident that his ability will go off most of the time. The remaining consistency cards are your standard draw 2-3 and Derryl berek type of effects. Although Time Dragons have 3 different effects that lets you look at the top 3 cards as of now.

Next we have the defensive capabilities of the deck.

S-BT07-0066EN (Sample)    S-BT07-0018EN  

These are cards that provide direct defense to the deck. However,the true defensive capabilities comes from combining various effects such as Octho, Deity of Eon and Tubocus together to create the ultimate control and disruption. Sohne is one of the most effective ways to defend in this current meta game as its a monster effect and it redirects the attack which by passes spell nulls and penetrates. Chronos Belio is an extremely good card but however, it can be a dead card against a very good player as it requires a soul for its cast cost. A simple combination of Octho and Tubocus can render Belio useless. Although these cards are the defensive cards, it is really easy to play around them which makes the hand traps the true defensive cards in the deck. A well versed player will know that disruption is more effective then trying to defend.

So with so much defense, what offense does this deck have as of now?



Well the primary goal of the deck is to reach Perfected Deity of Eon and attack for game. At least thats what less experienced players think. However, its not that simple with so many fast decks in the game. You will find yourself not reaching the 4th reversal alot of times. Furthermore, Perfected Time Ruler can be rested by most decks and most of the time it cant restand. Time Dragon's offense is not extremely high like Horus or Dimension Dragons. They are an extremely control and timing based deck. Which means, they will wait for the right time to strike and until then they will control the plays made by the opponent. The only real offense they have are going into Lost world and Teyler luna with its 3 crits and triple attack. Ideally you would want one Deity of Eon and Teyler Lunaon board during your offensive turns. It s very important to keep track of what your opponent has played so far and the way they play so that you can be confident in going for the offensive turns.


So what are the weakness/counters of Time Dragons?

S-BT06-0020EN

Sweet happy time should be a staple in any deck that is able to play it. Card abilities are too crucial in this meta game. The main control comes from the ability to nullify effects and disrupt the opponent. Almost every deck has a form of built in Anti-destruction ability but most decks require a set spell to have their abilities from being nullified. Tuboscus can simply destroy the set spell and your abilities can be nullified after that. Sweet Happy time ensure your monster effects that search and draw will go off so that you can keep the pace up when playing against Time Dragons.

S-RC01-020EN (Sample)

Loyalty itself is not the weakness, its the inability to play Loyalty that gives problems to the deck. If opponent has Sweet Happy Time, There is nothing you can do to stop them from going bonkers with their calls and effects. In general, the ability to not play generics poses alot of problems for this deck against decks like Anzu and Dimesnion Dragons.

Conclusion:

Time Dragons are a very strong deck but they are not unbeatable. We believe Time Dragons can only shine in the hands of a highly skilled player who has great knowledge about the game's play timings. Time Dragon's ability to win is very difficult to explain and there is no clear cut win con for the deck other than perfected Time Ruler. Its a very back and forth deck with high control. Every card you play will matter and there is no room for misplay. Time Dragons go for quality over quantity where they spend less resource to reduce more resource from the opposing side. Time Dragon's advantage engine is much more consistent due to most cards being self reliant unlike other decks that require various conditions to activate. This put Time Dragons as the most consistent deck in the game with a very low chance to brick.

We hope you liked this article and managed to learn a few key things about Time Dragons. Feel free to suggest what we can do to improve.

Avengingknight~