Cardfight Vanguard — Game & Component Overview

This is a quick overview of the components and gameplay for “Cardfight Vanguard” a 2 player Japanese CCG (collectible card game) by Bushiroad. I am a newcomer to this game, which is a shame because it appears to have been out for a couple of years and gained quite a following in Japan and North America. It is based on a well-established Anime series (in a similar fashion to the popular Yu-Gi-Oh franchise).

Components

This is a collectible card game so you can expect lots of cards! You can buy “trial decks” that are pre-built and contain the 50 cards necessary to play the game. You can of course buy boosters to add to an existing deck or to construct your own deck — the rules for deck construction are very specific and can be found here: http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Standard_Fight_Rules

The cards themselves are absolutely fabulous. The card stock is very heavy and they feel high quality and lovely to handle. The most amazing thing though is the full-bleed artwork that covers the entire one side of the card, apart from the obligatory card information at the bottom of course. From what I have read Bushiroad employ well respected manga artists to create the art and it really shows. If you have any interest in manga or anime, you’ll love it.

The cards have various levels of rarity, from common “C” to super rare “RRR”. You will be able to tell the rare cards as they have some amazing holo-effects that really make the cards stand out.

Example Grade zero Kagero unit — this is a rare card so has the holo-effect

If you are starting out by buying a trial deck, you’re going to be getting 50 cards, some starter rules and a playmat. The playmats are optional, but highly recommended as they immediately make it clear which of your cards are in which positions — either the “Vanguard” (there is only one Vanguard circle) or a “Rear guard” position (there are 5 Rear guard circles), or in the “Damage zone” or the “Drop zone” (discard pile to you and me).

I bought a large number of cards (600+) from ebay.co.uk in order to get started and built 2 decks. I downloaded the starter guide from the main English website, printed it out and read through it.

Types of card

There are 2 main types of card, regular units and “trigger units”. Trigger units have 4 possible types:

1. Heal triggers — these allow you to heal one point of damage as long as you have as many or more points of damage as your opponent
2. Stand triggers — these allow you to refresh a unit that has previously been rested as a result of being used. These are excellent as they may allow you to attack twice with the same unit!
3. Draw trigger — these simply allow you to draw another card from your deck into your hand
4. Critical trigger — these allow you to apply an additional point of damage to an attacking unit, meaning you would do 2 rather than 1 point of damage

All trigger cards ALSO add 5000 points of “power” to another unit on the battlefield.

The regular unit card

Here’s a quick look around a “regular unit card”:

A standard unit (i.e. not a trigger unit

Skills

The unit cards can show 3 different types of skill in the top left corner below the grade. These are:

1. Boost — units with this icon can support attacks from the back row by adding their power to the attacking card
2. Intercept — rear guard units in the front row with this skill can guard against an opponents attack
3. Twin Drive — a Vanguard with this skill will perform a drive check twice when it attacks

Watch out for these skills and place your units accordingly.

The trigger cards

Below you can see an example of the 4 types of “trigger cards”. Note the different icons in the top-right corner of each card. Immediately below this icon is the type of trigger. As with regular units the top left of the card shows the grade and the skill (if any).

As well as the specific effect (heal, stand, draw, critical) the trigger card also adds 5000 power to any card, making attacks even more powerful. They also can act as boosters or guardians with the shield value written in the usual place on the left of the card.

The 4 trigger cards

The playmat

As mentioned I didn’t get an official paper playmat as I crafted my decks myself, but on the mat you will see the Vanguard circle and 5 Rear guard circles: 2 in the “front row” each side of your Vanguard and 3 in the “back row”, aligned in columns behind the front row.

Only cards in the front row can attack and those attacking can only target opponents cards in the front row, BUT your front row cards can all be potentially “boosted” by the cards directly behind them in the same column. This is a crucially important point and you must bear this in mind at all times as it makes for some super-powerful attacks as the card doing the boosting adds its power to the card it is boosting.

Example playmat

Game Objective

The main objective of the game is to cause 6 points of damage to your opponent. Other ways of winning involve your opponent running out of cards in their draw deck.

Getting Started — Setting up

To begin with you need to select a Grade zero unit as your vanguard, place this face down on the Vanguard circle on your playmat. Then shuffle your deck and draw 5 cards as your starting hand.

At this point you can review these 5 cards and return any number to your deck, re-drawing the same number — you may do this only once however. For example, one thing you might need to watch out for in your starting hand are “Trigger cards” — these won’t help you in your starting hand and are best returned to the deck for now, hopefully to come out and help when you’re performing a “Drive check” or “Damage check”.

Round order

Once you and your opponent are happy with the starting hand, determine who goes first (rock-paper-scissors is a good choice for this) and then:

1. Both players simultaneously announce “Stand up Vanguard!” and turn over their Vanguard units.
2. Stand and Draw — this is where you would reset any resting cards to an upright position and draw 1 new card from your draw deck
3. Ride — this is where you can play a card from your hand on top of your Vanguard that is one grade higher — i.e. play a grade 1 on top of a zero or a 2 on top of a 1 etc
4. Call — this is where you can call any number of units (with the same or lower grade than your Vanguard) to rear guard circles around your Vanguard in order to offer protection or boost the effect of other units
5. Attack — here you get to declare which cards are going to be attacking your opponent and which of your opponents units they will target. Only front row units can attack, but they can be boosted by back row units. Remember you can only attack units in your opponents front row! You should “rest” the units that are taking part in the attack (turn them sideways) to show they are being used. To be successful with your attack, the total power of your attacking units must be greater than or equal to the total power of your opponents defending units. Example: you attack with your Vanguard (10000 power) and boost it with its rear guard (+5000 power) for a total of 15000 power. The card you are attacking has 10000 power — therefore you hit your target and they are damaged.
6. Guard — if you are being attacked you can choose to “guard”. If your Vanguard is being targeted, this means you use rear guards in the front row with the “intercept” ability OR cards from your hand in order to “shield” the unit being attacked. You can only use cards from your hand to guard against attacks to rear guard units in the front row. Move these guarding units to the guardian circle.
7. Drive Check — if you are attacking with your Vanguard (NOT your rear guards) you get to perform a “drive check”, what’s more if you are attacking with a grade 3 Vanguard with the “twin drive” ability you get to drive check twice! This means turning over the top card of your deck and checking to see if it is a “trigger unit” and if so applying the effects. You always add cards turned over for a drive check to your hand.
8. Damage Check — if you are being attacked and your Vanguard is being targeted and you are about to take damage, you “damage check” for each point of damage you would take (normally 1 point). This means turning over the top card of your deck and checking to see if it is a “trigger unit” and if so applying the effects. You always add cards turned over for a damage check to the “damage area” of the playmat. Get 6 points of damage and its game over — you lost!
9. Turn end — if you are attacking and can attack more, go back to step 5. If not, the turn ends and the other player gets to start at step 2.

A few things to point out:

1. It’s highly beneficial to ride your Vanguard up to a grade 3 as quickly as possible. Grade 3 Vanguards get “twin drive” and can therefore “drive check” twice.
2. For the above reason, a good starting hand will have a good mix of grade 1, 2 and 3 units.
3. As you get to add cards to your hand, it’s nearly always sensible to attack with your Vanguard and hence perform a “drive check”.
4. It’s not always bad to take damage, especially early in the game as cards in the “damage zone” can be turned face down in order to “counter blast” and use special effects. Check your cards for abilities that require you to counter blast and use your damage cards appropriately.
5. When calling units to rear guard circles you can also re-arrange the position of existing rear guards but only in the same column, i.e. you could move a unit from a front row rear guard circle to the rear guard circle immediately behind it in the back row — then call a new unit from your hand to fill the space. You cannot move rear guard units between columns however.
6. You can retire rear guard units and replace them with other units called from your hand.
7. Pay attention to the ability text on your cards as they have the ability to be used automatically on being played (if they have an “Auto” ability) or used as needed (if they have an Activated ability). In either case the criteria detailed in the ability must be met and any cost paid.

Play time

As with any game, the first play through will take longer as you learn the rules and feel your way through. Our first game lasted about an hour, but the second one was around 40 minutes. I’ve watched many videos on the internet that show entire games running around 20 minutes. I can easily see this being achievable with a bit more practice.

The key is to learn your deck — understand what cards you have in it and what abilities they offer.

Final thoughts

I’ll admit it, I heard of Cardfight Vanguard more than a year ago, looked into it briefly and decided it was not for me. However, something else more recently got me interested again and after finding better examples of the card art and watching some YouTube video play throughs, I was hooked! I had to get some cards and play this thing.

Every element of the game from the terminology (“drive check”, “twin drive”, “counter blast” etc), through the initial fog of the complex sounding rules (which, honestly are actually really easy to grasp) to the quality of the cards and the artwork is terrific. For an English speaking player there are some giggles to be had at the crazier sounding unit names, but this just adds to the fun.

If you love anime or manga and like 2 player card games, please give this a go — I think you’ll like it as much as I do!