Pure Lp Gain

[goodfusion]

We all know of the uselessness of the many pure LP gain Normal Spell cards such as Dian Keto the Cure Master, which are a -1s that give you a minuscule amount of protection against damage.

Poison of the Old Man, despite being almost as useless as Dian Keto as a stalling card, is usable in certain situations due to the option to deal damage instead as well as being a Quick-Play, so you can activate your Aromas in your opponent's turn or whatever. Soul Absorption has no uses other than to gain LP, but can gain a massive amount quickly in the right deck and is a Continuous Spell so you can make use of it constantly.

However, with Normal Spell Cards that do nothing but Gain LP, the cards usefullness is purely dependent on how much LP you gain. So, how about this?:

 

Super Medicine

Normal Spell

Gain 8000 LP.

 

Would this card be worth using? Would it be broken? It doubles your starting LP, but a well timed Battle Fader and the like can protect you from just as much damage, if not more.

Basically, I am wondering what sort of level of LP gain is needed for these cards to be worthwhile.

 

Any thoughts?

[Techi☺]

I think pure Lp gain as a concept is both useless as it is on cards now and difficult to balance. I don't think there is much balance to huge flat lp spell cards nor would they be fun or interesting for gameplay. +8000 lp is huge, but it is hard to argue that it really changes the game given the value of other cards to how certain summon/draw engines in other decks. So I cannot say if it is broken or more fair than 1000 for -1.

 

What the game needs would be strategic or even chain lp gain engines for stall decks if lp gain is to be a viable option. The strength of these setups could vary greatly and I couldn't make further comment withut first presenting a solid example. I leave this example creation to the more talented members of our creative community. But, essentially, something like burn engines, but to gain Lp. Conditions, continuous effects, and cunning play/counterplay. Single action flat lp gain is boring, flat, and rarely if it all seems fun or interesting.

[Draconus297]

Personally, I've never run a "pure gain" Deck, so I wouldn't know exactly if one could be viable, but I did temporarily run a heal/burn setup, which made use of Spell Absorption, Fire Princess, and lots of Spell Cards that increased my Life Points.

It got dull after a while, but it was considerably successful- especially with the "perfect field" the Deck had- triple Fire Princess, Jinzo as Trap protection, Rapid-Fire for more Spell damage, triple Spell Absorption, and Hidden Book of Spell set for the inevitable moment my opponent would kill Jinzo first. I always left a Zone open to activate a Normal or healing/damage Spell- Dian Keto goes from +1000 LP to +2500 LP and 3400 damage to my opponent (from each Princess being set off twice, plus Rapid-Fire).

 

I'm curious as to what the point would be in a "pure gain" Deck, which is kinda why I want to try Aromas.

[goodfusion]

I think pure Lp gain as a concept is both useless as it is on cards now and difficult to balance. I don't think there is much balance to huge flat lp spell cards nor would they be fun or interesting for gameplay. +8000 lp is huge, but it is hard to argue that it really changes the game given the value of other cards to how certain summon/draw engines in other decks. So I cannot say if it is broken or more fair than 1000 for -1.

 

What the game needs would be strategic or even chain lp gain engines for stall decks if lp gain is to be a viable option. The strength of these setups could vary greatly and I couldn't make further comment withut first presenting a solid example. I leave this example creation to the more talented members of our creative community. But, essentially, something like burn engines, but to gain Lp. Conditions, continuous effects, and cunning play/counterplay. Single action flat lp gain is boring, flat, and rarely if it all seems fun or interesting.

 

Interesting ideas. I understand that and probably agree with you, although the purpose of this isn't for something interesting, its for making a balanced flat LP gain card. However, this it is difficult to balance, so your route could well be more realistic in the real game.

 

 

Personally, I've never run a "pure gain" Deck, so I wouldn't know exactly if one could be viable, but I did temporarily run a heal/burn setup, which made use of Spell Absorption, Fire Princess, and lots of Spell Cards that increased my Life Points.

It got dull after a while, but it was considerably successful- especially with the "perfect field" the Deck had- triple Fire Princess, Jinzo as Trap protection, Rapid-Fire for more Spell damage, triple Spell Absorption, and Hidden Book of Spell set for the inevitable moment my opponent would kill Jinzo first. I always left a Zone open to activate a Normal or healing/damage Spell- Dian Keto goes from +1000 LP to +2500 LP and 3400 damage to my opponent (from each Princess being set off twice, plus Rapid-Fire).

 

I'm curious as to what the point would be in a "pure gain" Deck, which is kinda why I want to try Aromas.

 

I wasn't suggesting an entire deck based purely around LP gain, just about a single card. As in, what sort of LP would a Dian Keto like card need to be a good, yet not OP card?

Imagine a Spell Card whose effect was "Gain 1 million LP." I am pretty sure everyone would agree this is overpowered; it stops a massive amount of damage and would be very difficult to get through. So, basically, if we reduce that amount down and down, at what point would it be "good but not op"?

In my opinion, I think it is best to compare LP gain cards to other stall cards to find what would be the most balanced option. Take Threatening Roar, for example. Comparing it to my suggestion, "Super Medicine", we have its pros and cons:

 

Pros of Threatening Roar:

- Can protect against more than 8000 damage.

- Protects your monsters from battle.

- Can mess up your opponent's strategy if they really need to attack.

- Isn't stopped by Nurse Reficule/Simochi.

 

Cons of Threatening Roar:

- Only lasts for a single turn, not for as long as you have those LP.

- Doesn't stop effect damage.

- Can be "End Phase MST'd" or Night Beamed.

- Drawing multiple copies means some will be dead for a turn or 2, whereas You can simply activate the LP gain card whenever you draw it.

- Denko Sekka and Jinzo stop it.#

 

There may be more, but those are what I thought of. So looking at the chart, we can tell that Threatening Roar is more useful against explosive, OTK based decks (e.g Cyber Dragons) especially while you have monsters to protect, whereas Super Medicine is useful against slower decks or burn decks.

[Sleepy]

The idea of a potential pure +LP deck is an important hypothetical case to study in order to find out what it is that the theme itself lacks.

When you build a deck, you have to consider what your goal is and focus mainly in furthering that goal, plus a few cards that push back your opponent rather than furthering you up, which typically are the staples you add in.

 

When the concept of gaining LP comes in, you then realize you are mainly trying not to die, but without doing anything to push your opponent back in the process. If you don't push or pull, then the chances your opponent retains the momentum and swings even harder next turn are more than just a little bit. Just as it is said: "sometimes the best defense is a good offense".

 

Why is it hard to balance out? because it on itself is not a winning goal.

 

A - Beatdown? You hit your opponent as much as you can, and they hit you back or kill some of your punchers in the process. There can be a medium point with decent exchanges, win or lose.

 

B - Some variants of burn,deck-out and alternate win conditions on the other hand usually say you'll just stall as much as you can while your deck focuses the entirety of its other cards to make said condition happen. At the end you are focusing on something alternative to the more usual fighting tactics in the game so it boils down to you winning or not winning. It might or might not have a good exchange to get ahead of the opponent, but your opponent just needs to open that one window to damage you up and an OTK is almost certain because you trusted everything on sitting behind the different condition of victory you were trying to achieve.

 

C - Then we have LP gain: It won't get back at the opponent in any way like line A and it won't win you the game by itself if you succeed like B. You just have 2 outcomes when you go for it: You either make your LP high enough that your opponent can't reach them, or you don't. If that's the only outcome it can hope for by itself, that usually means you are aiming for your opponent's eventual self-destruction, either by a recurring drawback from their deck or by ultimately decking out. Decking out wouldn't really be interested in a pure +LP effect even as a tech when they could main something else that'd try to follow said deck-out goal, and self-drawbacks are virtually non-existent nowadays in decks, so both the close outcome and the positive outcome are pretty much null and void.

 

A pure +LP effect would only have a place in the environment of casual dueling, and even then, there's the "I'm not running a great theme but I'm truly trying to optimize it" casual and the "look at this cool move" kind....

+8000 LP normal spell will either be too much for your opponent to handle or nothing at all, pretty much never in-between by itself.

 

 

That's for pure +LP at least. If we talk about +LP as a non-pure action, there are some ways to put it into the game and justify it.

The oldest psychic monsters required LP costs to perform and so they needed some effects to gain them back LP in order to prevent a glass jar effect (when a play you base your deck around costs way too much so if it doesn't become your winning ticket you are basically screwed afterwards). Said support did have some effects exclusive to +LP, and the amount of LP they refilled was pretty sizable in exchange for not doing anything else. Yet they were a little bit on the situational side at times. The other and less common way to go about it is by gaining very small amounts of LP but in a consistent engine and/or a steady way that can accumulate over time... or that the card itself did something more useful in a bigger variety of situations and that the LP gain aspect was just a small bonus.

The Aroma monsters mostly gain LP in order to trigger their effects. They are small quantities but it is so steady that it just builds up pretty fast.

 

 

LP gain would also be pretty cool if it could enable something else when you did it. 

I've actually been working on a custom mechanic that tries to make use of gaining LP. It is tough designing custom cards for what is essentially a custom format though, so yeah...

[Trebuchet MS]

Now, what if we had something like Felidar Sovereign for Yugioh? A win condition for having massive amounts of LP.

[Astolfo]

Ancient Sacred Wyvern + Flint Lock Loop

 

Flint Lock Loop + recycle draws with Magical Blast

[Airride]

Ancient Sacred Wyvern + Flint Lock Loop

 

Flint Lock Loop + recycle draws with Magical Blast

Ban Morale Boost. It's only use is to be abused, since otherwise it's terrible. Or just change it to being equipped from the hand or soemthin'.

[Astolfo]

But pulling off Flint Lock Loop is gimmicky as hell in the first place, and it barely happens.