Jump to content

Victory Dragon: A Thought Experiment


Recommended Posts

The only Match Winner ever to be legal...

 

VictoryDragonRP02-EN-ScR-UE.jpg

 

A while ago on Neo Ark Cradle, I got into a discussion about errata'ing banned cards to make them legal again, and somebody suggested changing Victory Dragon here by upping the requirement from 3 Dragons to 5. I told him the summon requirement wasn't the problem, but the Match Winner effect; it's either completely pointless because the opponent can just scoop before it resolves (TCG), or they're forced to take a loss on a game that wasn't even played because they can't scoop during their opponent's turn (OCG), and thus it had nothing positive to contribute to the game.

 

Suffice to say, he did not share my view. Arguments tossed around included "if somebody did the work, they deserve the effect" and "if the opponent is too stupid to scoop they deserve the Match loss". I've heard those arguments before, but you can find just as many people who will point out there's a reason all the other Match Winners are tournament prizes and thus illegal, and that it's an effect that simply shouldn't exist in the game.

 

So I ask you to propose exactly what would have to be done to Victory Dragon to make it legal again, while still actually having some use to it if possible, and defend your statement with reasoning. I don't want to be responsible for starting a flame war, so please try to stay civil.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally; I'm happy for it to stay illegal. Out-of-duel effects like something match-wide don't sit remotely right to me, and anything else would be making it a different card, so just make a different card. 

 

If I had to make it legal, I'd make it win the duel if it inflicted battle damage or hit directly or such. It at least keeps some of the concept without breaking the idea of a duel being only one part of a match. It would still feel really gimmicky and I'd rather not see it, but it's something. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I honestly like the "if you put work into it, you deserve a reward for the effort" idea. But this isn't the way to go about it.

The whole concept of match winners is sort of dumb and there's no real justified way to make them worthy of legality in my eyes. Making them more expensive doesn't really fix the problem. Maybe if it was like... um... I don't really want to bring up Magic here but... If it was like: you have to deal a certain amount of damage with it like a Commander to auto-win the round. That'd be cool? I don't think it'd be fair even with that though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No amount of fixing would make this okay again.

 

As originally mentioned, the effect is either totally pointless, or entirely bullshit.

 

Even the suggested errata's here would still give dragons an alt.win condition that they should never have had or even need in the first place.

 

So no. Keep it banned, or reprint it with the "This card cannot be used in a duel" clause like the rest of the Duel Winners to free space in the list.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem is that the effect is cheesy and takes Side Decking out of the equation, and it's too expensive to be replaced with a practical effect. I would suggest just making its ATK always equal to the opponent's Life Points when it attacks directly. It would be more like Trident Dragion. That might be too little for 3 Dragon Tributes though.

 

Wait, no, there's Totem Dragon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Personally; I'm happy for it to stay illegal. Out-of-duel effects like something match-wide don't sit remotely right to me, and anything else would be making it a different card, so just make a different card. 

 

If I had to make it legal, I'd make it win the duel if it inflicted battle damage or hit directly or such. It at least keeps some of the concept without breaking the idea of a duel being only one part of a match. It would still feel really gimmicky and I'd rather not see it, but it's something. 

 

 

The problem is that the effect is cheesy and takes Side Decking out of the equation, and it's too expensive to have any practical effect. I would suggest just making its ATK always equal to the opponent's Life Points when it attacks directly. It would be more like Trident Dragion.

 

This is more in line with what I was thinking - changing the effect so that it has a GAME win condition, but not be a Match Winner, since at least that way it justifies the name "Victory Dragon". 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It could come back as-is, lets be realistic:

A) Hard to summon

B ) Low attack for this format

C) Only Dragon decks can run it and they arent very good right now

D) If you can finish them off with this its 

a: Unlikely and

b: if you manage it, it would probably wreck consistency half the time anyway

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think there really is a way to make this type of effect "okay".

 

Yes, the effect and Summoning Condition are often viewed as incredibly expensive and tricky to pull off, but that's not the issue, at least in my eyes. The issue is that you get to claim victory in a match, essentially counting as winning 2 Duels instead of 1. Very few games in existence allow a player to automatically win something that hasn't happened yet, because that detracts from the entire point of playing the game: The game itself.

 

The TCG had that thing with scooping at any point, which is fine in most situations, as there's really no need to draw something out longer if you know you have no chance to win or make a comeback, but that ability also spit in the face of this card's effect, which isn't really fair from a different angle: If you acheived the condition, you should get the reward for it.

 

But the reward is not fair, either, because it affects games other than the one currently being played.

 

Hmm...I'm reminded of a story I heard once where there was a MtG card that said "target player loses", and the person using it pointed to someone in a different match at the table, and declared him. The story goes that this was considered legal, but I don't really remember if that was true. But the idea of being able to affect games other than the current reminded me of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Instantly winning the match is a bit much but due to the rulings which have been discussed earlier, it is quite pointless. Making it so that you win the duel, instead of the match, effectively makes it a hard to summon Normal Monster. And that are about the bounds where we work with when 'slightly' altering its effect.

 

But what if the effect were to be edited in a less constrained way? You could think of having it give you an advantage during your next duel, instead of outright winning it. Things you could think of include: a Life Points gain (for you) or loss (for your opponent), starting the next duel with a bigger hand, or whatever you can think of. Would such an effect be acceptable?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Instantly winning the match is a bit much but due to the rulings which have been discussed earlier, it is quite pointless. Making it so that you win the duel, instead of the match, effectively makes it a hard to summon Normal Monster. And that are about the bounds where we work with when 'slightly' altering its effect.

 

But what if the effect were to be edited in a less constrained way? You could think of having it give you an advantage during your next duel, instead of outright winning it. Things you could think of include: a Life Points gain (for you) or loss (for your opponent), starting the next duel with a bigger hand, or whatever you can think of. Would such an effect be acceptable?

 

Life Point advantage? Sure

 

Card Advantage? No. Additional Card Advantage would sway it too much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Instantly winning the match is a bit much but due to the rulings which have been discussed earlier, it is quite pointless. Making it so that you win the duel, instead of the match, effectively makes it a hard to summon Normal Monster. And that are about the bounds where we work with when 'slightly' altering its effect.

But what if the effect were to be edited in a less constrained way? You could think of having it give you an advantage during your next duel, instead of outright winning it. Things you could think of include: a Life Points gain (for you) or loss (for your opponent), starting the next duel with a bigger hand, or whatever you can think of. Would such an effect be acceptable?


Given Crush Card's errata that changed how the card worked, I'd argue you're free to do what was suggested prior - "If this card inflicts battle damage to your opponent by attacking directly [possibly with some other condition], you win the duel."
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Card is awful, yes. 

 

However, match-winning cards should not be playable. At all. Whatsoever. 

 

Remove it from the banned list and errata it so that it is no longer playable in duels, so as to eliminate some of the clutter on the list. 

 

Speaking of clutter, why is Tribe-Infecting Virus still banned? What's even more ridiculous is the fact that Konami limited Raigeki last list... which is a much better card than Tribe. 

 

But that is another topic for another day. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are people obsessed with decluttering the list? It doesn't have a size limit, all changes are marked each new ban list, and it isn't very hard to read to begin with

 

Shorter lists = Happier people

happier people = more $$

more SS = more power creep

more power creep = longer lists

longer lists = sad people

sad people = konami hatemail

konami hatemail = shorter lists

 

may have skipped a few steps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why are people obsessed with decluttering the list? It doesn't have a size limit, all changes are marked each new ban list, and it isn't very hard to read to begin with

 

Please, do enlighten me;

 

Is there any need for Victory Dragon to be on the list? 

 

Hint: No, there isn't. 

 

Might as well just take it off. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...