Life Points VS Field Advantage

[Nintenderek]

Several times (at least 3 or 4) over the last couple of days, I have read and heard people tell me that life points do not matter in the current game of Yugioh, and that advantage is all that matters. This general complexity people seem to have it starting to get annoying, so I decided I’d write an article on this idea.

First off, yes, advantage is important. I will not deny that. If you don’t have field advantage over your opponent, a majority (I can’t say all the time because there are some major exceptions to this) of the time, you will not be able to win. I understand that. However, what this doesn’t do is make life points irrelevant. Life points are very relevant in two senses of the word. The first sense is that when you hit 0 life points, you lose the duel. The second is that when your opponent hits 0, you win the duel. Now, these may seem like simple concepts, but they seem to be two concepts that are hard to grasp for current players of this game.

In the current meta, a typical deck will run 1 to 2 Seven Tools of the Bandit, 1-3 Solemn Warnings, and a Solemn Judgment. Now, assuming the player is a smart player (I know that’s a big assumption in today’s game part of the time) we will assume that they activate the solemn late game. We will also assume that only 1 7 tools is ran, and 2 solemn warnings, although this mixture of cards usually varies from deck to deck. Now, assuming that they activate the 7 tools of the bandit (8000-1000=7000) the two solemn warnings (7000-2000-2000=3000) and the Solemn Judgment (3000/2-1500) they are left at 1500 life points. Now, assuming that the two players are of equal skill level, I can almost guarantee that 1500 life points will be dealt to both players at some point during the current duel. So, because of this, the player in question will have lost the duel because of their own cards. This actually happens quite often during the current meta, especially with cylinder at 2.

Now, Magic Cylinder is actually a very controversial card right now in terms of this argument. As I stated earlier, field advantage is important, so wouldn’t it be better off that you use something like D-prison that would remove the opponent’s monster from the field completely? In certain situations, yes, in others, no. But wait, Magic Cylinder does damage to the opponent’s life points? In the example from earlier, the other player could win the game from one simple Magic Cylinder. This is also true.

So, to end this article, I’ll leave you with this. Both positions of this argument are good, and all statements made are true, however the key to winning isn’t leaning towards one side or the other. The key to winning is finding a balance of field advantage, and while keeping your life points safe. So, while life points aren’t all the game is about, that doesn’t make them irrelevant completely. You are still trying to bring your opponent’s down to 0, and they are trying to bring you down to it as well. So, when building a deck or dueling, you need to remember all aspects of the game. While field advantage is important, it isn’t everything, just the same way that life points aren’t everything. If you go down to 0 life points, you still lose, no matter how much field advantage you have. This is why a mixture of both elements is important to any winning deck and why neither one is more important than the other.

I'd love to hear some feedback on this topic of course.

[tonman]

I believe life points are expendable till your down to your last one. If they had a card that traded life points for cards, I would definitely play it.

[Sobia6464]

I believe life points are expendable till your down to your last one. If they had a card that traded life points for cards, I would definitely play it.

This. You can "spend" all the LP you want until that "Oh crap!" alarm goes off in your head. Cards are different. You already have that "oh crap!" Alarm going off in your head.

[Javid d last warrior]

life points?

exodia crew checking in!

[TunaRolls]

Final Countdown here.

[Nintenderek]

I believe life points are expendable till your down to your last one. If they had a card that traded life points for cards, I would definitely play it.

By that logic then, the legal version of The Winged Dragon of Ra is a good card.

[TunaRolls]

By that logic then, the legal version of The Winged Dragon of Ra is a good card.

You're just nitpicking.

You know what keeps it from being good, and its not the 'pay 1k life to kill a monster.'

That effect is its only redeeming feature.

[MythIntoLegend]

The only time when life points > card advantage is when you have infinite life points.

[Nintenderek]

You're just nitpicking.

You know what keeps it from being good, and its not the 'pay 1k life to kill a monster.'

That effect is its only redeeming feature.

The part of it's effect that you say is bad, is the same thing that you say makes most cards good. You are paying life points for a good field advantage.

EDIT: Okay, just realized something, you thought I was referring to the pay 1k to kill a monster part of it's effect earlier, didn't you? No, by the standards of the current meta, the part of it's effect where you pay all your life points to give it attack would be considered a good effect.

[PyramidForce]

I'd rather have 2 cards in hand and activate Ookazi to win, than have a full field and 800 LP with no spell negation.

This isn't an article on Magic Cylinder vs dprison, it isn't an article on whether solemn warning/judgement/seven tools should/shouldn't be used. Quite simply, no life points means you lose. And you have to be careful about that.

[MythIntoLegend]

I'd rather have 2 cards in hand and activate Ookazi to win, than have a full field and 800 LP with no spell negation.

This isn't an article on Magic Cylinder vs dprison, it isn't an article on whether solemn warning/judgement/seven tools should/shouldn't be used. Quite simply, no life points means you lose. And you have to be careful about that.

The thing is, its usually better to pay up life points than resources to secure the win. The whole reason people are willing to sacrifice life points is because they are hoping that it will later lead up to major damage if not an OTK towards their opponent with major card advantage.

So basically the concept is Good Card Advantage leads to -> Big Damage
Poor Card Advantage leads to -> A poor playing field and usually the player will have to sack hard in order to win.

[Nintenderek]

I'd rather have 2 cards in hand and activate Ookazi to win, than have a full field and 800 LP with no spell negation.

This isn't an article on Magic Cylinder vs dprison, it isn't an article on whether solemn warning/judgement/seven tools should/shouldn't be used. Quite simply, no life points means you lose. And you have to be careful about that.



I'm glad someone got the point.

[Darkvulpine]

If life points were really that important than Snatch Steal would be legal and Book of Moon would be at 1 because of snatch's 1000 point per turn drawback.

[TunaRolls]

The part of it's effect that you say is bad, is the same thing that you say makes most cards good. You are paying life points for a good field advantage.

EDIT: Okay, just realized something, you thought I was referring to the pay 1k to kill a monster part of it's effect earlier, didn't you? No, by the standards of the current meta, the part of it's effect where you pay all your life points to give it attack would be considered a good effect.

Yeah, that one is lulsy.

But its more of what you get from paying life points rather than simply paying it for adv. Warning and Judgments are examples.

Also, Chain burn is epic.

[PyramidForce]

The thing is, its usually better to pay up life points than resources to secure the win. The whole reason people are willing to sacrifice life points is because they are hoping that it will later lead up to major damage if not an OTK towards their opponent with major card advantage.

So basically the concept is Good Card Advantage leads to -> Big Damage
Poor Card Advantage leads to -> A poor playing field and usually the player will have to sack hard in order to win.


There's no difference in winning with 100 LP to their 0, or 8000 LP to their 0. But to disregard LP altogether and activate chain after chain of LP-cost cards, with little or minimal consideration to what could happen afterwards (Yeah, I'm on 1300 LP, but he won't have a Magic Cylinder cos its YCS. Lets attack) is sheer stupidity.

tl;dr, Field advantage helps to win games, by REDUCING THEIR LIFE POINTS TO 0. There are other ways to reduce life points than building up card advantage.

Additional Comment:

I'd just like to point out why people choose to run Solemn Warning over Bottomless Trap Hole (or at least in addition)

Because it negates the summon.

This is useful in many ways, e.g. Stops Black Rose/Stardust/etc, negates spell/trap cards which summon (unlike bottomless, stops the monster from hitting the field), comes in ultra and ultimate rare.

Let's take the following scenario.

Player A synchro summons for Black Rose Dragon while you have 2 mosnters and 3 backrow. No negation, only bottomless, bom, seven tools, etc.

you lose card advantage bigtime, and because of your lost card advantage, your opponent can make pushes with their resources and reduce...YOUR LIFE POINTS.

In that case, paying 2k LP with warning wouldn't be a bad example.


Even more prevalent are examples involving Judgment Dragon.

But let's assume again, the opponent summons Blackwing - Shura the Blue Flame.

And you only have Solemn Warning set, a f/d monster that will die, and no means to remove the monster/stop the attack.

So you have to activate warning, or the Opponent building up card advantage to inflict damage to your LIFE POINTS. All and good, BUT, imagine if you had a BTH set instead of a solemn warning.

And I hope that is the point the thread is trying to make here.

tl;dr no.2. Cards with Lp costs SHOULD BE USED TO LOWER LP LOSS in comparison to the costs that you would otherwise suffer.

[tonman]

I'd rather have 2 cards in hand and activate Ookazi to win, than have a full field and 800 LP with no spell negation.

This isn't an article on Magic Cylinder vs dprison, it isn't an article on whether solemn warning/judgement/seven tools should/shouldn't be used. Quite simply, no life points means you lose. And you have to be careful about that.

But no one plates oozaki. The thing is for the most part, people win by battle and pushing against their opponent. Card advantage give you more outs and more abilities to counter your opponent and more defenses as well against these attacks.

I think of CA as like your income and leads in CA give you the potential to do more damage while the amount of LPs you have is just your current "money". Having card advantage means that you are more likely to hold that Book of Moon or that dprison than someone top decking.

Additional Comment:

The thing is, its usually better to pay up life points than resources to secure the win. The whole reason people are willing to sacrifice life points is because they are hoping that it will later lead up to major damage if not an OTK towards their opponent with major card advantage.

So basically the concept is Good Card Advantage leads to -> Big Damage
Poor Card Advantage leads to -> A poor playing field and usually the player will have to sack hard in order to win.

Tis is basically what I'm saying.

[perzeus]

The thing is, its usually better to pay up life points than resources to secure the win. The whole reason people are willing to sacrifice life points is because they are hoping that it will later lead up to major damage if not an OTK towards their opponent with major card advantage.

So basically the concept is Good Card Advantage leads to -> Big Damage
Poor Card Advantage leads to -> A poor playing field and usually the player will have to sack hard in order to win.Of course, but this depends.

For example, play 800 lp to summon a monster from your grave with Premature Burial? Yes please =D.

Play 1500 lp to summon an opponent's monster with Autonomous Action Unit? Not so good =/ (there's also the issue that your opponent might have or not have cards that work for you, although since synchros came is much more likely that they have something you can use).

As already stated, there must be a balance, saying "lp are nothing unless they are the last one derp derp" is stupid (no offense intended to the players) because you are expecting you will be able to finish the rest of the duel with your opponent being unable to deal you damage (or deal a certain amount of damage), which is something you can fight to accomplish but ultimately is not something you can completely control.

Boring long example coming along, feel free to skip it.

Let's say you start the game with a good monster, 2 Solemn Warning, 1 Solemn Judgment, 1 7 tools and 1 other s/t. First turn you set your cards and summon your monster, your opponent summons on his turn and you go Solemn Warning (6000 lp) and the opponent sets some cards and end. Your second turn, you summon another monster and the opponent uses Warning/BTH/D-Prison on your attack/whatever and you use 7 Tools (5000 lp). Next turn you use your other Warning going down to 3000 lp. You attack your opponent and he stops with Battle Fader or something else, then you set some cards like Book of Moon or whatever (or don't). At this point you are dominating the field, your opponent's only monster is a Battle Fader and you have 3 monsters (or more, or you could have Synchroe'd into something like Stardut and Goyo) along with 2-3 set cards, while your opponent only has 2 s/t cards set on his field and whatever on his hand. Opponent's turn, he activates Giant Trunade, you activate Judgment (1500 lp) to prevent the opponent's comeback since there's no Storm nor Cold Wave to risk your backrow now, but after the chain resolves your opponent activates Ceasefire, lowering your lp to 0. GG

Boring long example ended, tl;dr version coming

Notice that the player who lost didn't made any dumb move (at least let's assume he didn't since we don't know what cards he negated with Warning or the opponent's deck), nor it was a bad idea to have those Solemns and 7 tools, he just lost because his lp went down to 0, even if he always retained the advantage.

The thing is, even if you have a clear dominance on the field, even if your opponent might be unable to go through your monsters, you cannot count on your opponent being unable to do just the right amount of damage to win the game, specially in this meta, because a smart player will take into account the amount of lp that players are usually playing in regular duels and could choose to use one of those good burn cards (not Ookazi ;) ) to finish unsuspecting opponents.

Of course, card advantage leads to lp advantage, but you can continue the duel even with 0 cards and hope you topdeck, but once you reach 0 lp you lose and that's it.

So, yeah, keep an eye on your lp, even if it's usually better to lose some lp in order to gain a card be careful that you will have enough to keep going on and don't underestimate the value of a well-timed Ceasefire (not hard to inflict 3000) or Cylinder (will inflict average damage of 2500? probably something like that), you can even shut down those Warnings by inflicting enough damage to your opponent so his lp drops to 2000 or less, thus turning 2 very dangerous cards into dead cards.

[matthewmilad]

I believe life points are expendable till your down to your last one. If they had a card that traded life points for cards, I would definitely play it.

But we DO have that!

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Hope_for_an_Escape

[FuzzleWuzzle]

I agree that life points are VERY important. I just recently lost a duel where my Shooting Star Dragon got Magic Cylinder'd. SSD didn't leave the field, but I took a game-ending 3300 damage...

[RaWr8989]

Your completely wrong in the sense of negatin traps that cost lp, wtf are the odds of you drawing all 4 of them if you run those? And if you do you should win easily because theyre broken. Unless you suck LP is not an issue no offense, playing counter cards means meaning unless your opponent has perfect counters, and losing while have card advantage happens maybe 1/30 duels "If you don't suck" or "your opponent opens/draws the right cards".

Imagine you have 3 cards with 1 lp to your opponents 1 card and full life, at least 9/10 times the +2 SHOULD win by being cautious of his lp BUT maybe 1/10 times his opponents 1 card is something rly good and/or the guys 3 cards are all useless. But whats the probability of that? <_<

Sure LP can be important but no where near as much as card advantage.

[perzeus]

Your completely wrong in the sense of negatin traps that cost lp, wtf are the odds of you drawing all 4 of them if you run those? And if you do you should win easily because theyre broken. Unless you suck LP is not an issue no offense, playing counter cards means meaning unless your opponent has perfect counters, and losing while have card advantage happens maybe 1/30 duels "If you don't suck" or "your opponent opens/draws the right cards".

Imagine you have 3 cards with 1 lp to your opponents 1 card and full life, at least 9/10 times the +2 SHOULD win by being cautious of his lp BUT maybe 1/10 times his opponents 1 card is something rly good and/or the guys 3 cards are all useless. But whats the probability of that? <_<

Sure LP can be important but no where near as much as card advantage.
I see you completely missed the point of my post, even when i explicitly stated in the tl;dr part that there wasn't a problem with those cards or the plays made.

[Thebanlistsuxx]

cylinder also has the theoritcal ability to render copies of solemn warning useless by decreasing the lp to 2000 or below and indirectly becoming a 1 for 1 that way.

Im really not too sure. usually i was always glad when my opponent activated cylinder but when i run 2 SWs its a bit different.

i have no problems giving lp for CA or field control but i dont like to pay myself below 1900 if im not sure that my opponent cant find a way to deal the bit of damage thats needed to finish me.

[Xylyze]

1400 is the amount of damage that you need to deal per card for card advantage not to matter.
Because you open with 6 cards and 1400*6 = 8400. Just enough to get you game.

[tonman]

But we DO have that!

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Hope_for_an_Escape

That card is conditioned. I meant like a card that would trade, for example, 1000 LPs for a draw.

[RaWr8989]

I see you completely missed the point of my post, even when i explicitly stated in the tl;dr part that there wasn't a problem with those cards or the plays made.
No I did and im saying Card Advantage is 98% of the game while 2% is lifepoints. Almost making lifepoints irrelevant. And by card advantage I dont mean your 1 to his 0 or your 2 to his 1 i mean by a +2 or higher, in the sense that saying lifepoints are more important but in low amounts not really such as 79 vs 80, before someone says something dumb about 1 card difference.

[Reapex]

The only Life Point that matters is the last one.

[MythIntoLegend]

Again, the only time life points > Card Advantage is when your life points are at infinite. At that point, you simply just deck out your opponent.

[Javid d last warrior]

Again, the only time life points > Card Advantage is when your life points are at infinite. At that point, you simply just deck out your opponent.

wordddddddd

it's a balance between both, it's all situational therefore this topic is...Null and Void

pun not intended.

[gateguardian44]

I've always lived by a rule of the game: "Life Points don't matter until you die"

Granted there are always exceptions to the rule but when you have field presence and control, you shouldn't have to take any LP damage... Or at least VERY LITTLE...

A good player is able to take repeated hits and then be able to storm back and wear down the opponent and assume control... It's what I did my 2nd last regionals I played... I was at 100 and he was at 10200 LP and I still won the duel (he used Thought Ruler to gain the LPs)!!!

[Gordon Gekko]

Life points don't matter until you hit 0. This is why people mained 3 Solemn Judgment when it was at 3. And this is also why people mail Solemn Judgment and Warnings now.

[MythIntoLegend]

Life points don't matter until you hit 0. This is why people mained 3 Solemn Judgment when it was at 3. And this is also why people mail Solemn Judgment and Warnings now.

Actually, Solemn Judgement was to stop those annoying OTKs that were rampant at the time. Specifically DSF which was "if you don't Solemn my summon, you lose."

[Keaper]

i agree its a balance of both honestly, Not i am a bit of a budget player, but i wold rather run 3 polinosis over a Solemn Judgment any day. But that is just me, but LP are kinda everything in a duel. if you want to activate your warnings you NEED LP, so with everyone saying LP dont matter, your LP cost say sup

[MythIntoLegend]

i agree its a balance of both honestly, Not i am a bit of a budget player, but i wold rather run 3 polinosis over a Solemn Judgment any day. But that is just me, but LP are kinda everything in a duel. if you want to activate your warnings you NEED LP, so with everyone saying LP dont matter, your LP cost say sup

I guess the big thing with life points is that most players would rather give up life points in order to hinder their opponent's plays rather than allowing their opponent to either

A: Take out a huge chunk of their life points [specifically OTKs which card advantage wouldn't even matter considering its a race to see who dies first]

B: Take out a huge chunk of card advantage away [specifically Black Rose nukes on a big field]

[tonman]

This is also the same kind of debate as the people who thought Dark Bribe was better than Solemn J. At first it would seem like it, until you learn that Card Advantage is more important.

[Crash of Hearts]

There are only 3 card interactions that would make it so that LP is directly involved with winning the game. Ra is one of them. Ancient Sacred Wyvern or Agent Saturn would be another. I'm sure you can find more obscure LP win conditions, but Card Advantage really matters. 1 LP with a +4 over your opponent can easily amount to game, you have more direct options. Sure you can pay for stuff for LP, or collect resources (trying to get Card Advantage/Balance)-- but this is a game where OTKs and momentum shifts swing very heavily and are dependent on having cards, as opposed to significant amounts of LP.

I casually play MTG, and in that game LP can easily contribute directly in overall advantage. Why? Because you suddenly don't lose 1/4th of your life turn 2. With Yugioh you can do that with do that with just no-restriction beater like Vorse Raider. It's a mix of card/game design and also the fact that MTG has a land/mana resource system which prevents the crazy, out-of-left-field OTKs that Yugioh allows. More or less each card you pick up is immediately playable (or requires very simple set-ups). Konami trying to use LP as a "resource" is silly. It's expendable beyond belief. Ever wonder why people run 2 Warning, 1-2 Seven Tools, and a Solemn Warning?

I always wished that LP gain would be utilized better, and with non-splashable cards that make serious LP gain a viable strategy. But in truth, with Yugioh, cards are the resources, the options, the enablers the comebacks, the primary win conditions.

Everythang.

[strikemasterice]

This thread makes me think about an aspect in the Yugioh animes which I really don't enjoy, that when a duel is about to end (i.e. finishing move), the loser is almost always losing with their pitiful, zero field advantage. The anime just throws out the real-life cases when a player with massive advantage loses all their LPs. Makes the rare duels like Yugi vs. Slifer/Mime super enjoyable, at least for me.

[matthewmilad]

That card is conditioned. I meant like a card that would trade, for example, 1000 LPs for a draw.

So, you mean Upstart Goblin....? Come on now dude, what the **** is it that you want here, lol.

[tonman]

So, you mean Upstart Goblin....? Come on now dude, what the **** is it that you want here, lol.

Upstart Goblin isn't card advantage, its a One for One. I meant like something like "Pay 2000 Life points to Draw two cards" or something like that.

[strikemasterice]

Upstart Goblin isn't card advantage, its a One for One. I meant like something like "Pay 2000 Life points to Draw two cards" or something like that.
Ancient Leaf lol.

[tonman]

Ancient Leaf lol.

lol. If that card let you play it at any LPs, i would definetly play it.

[TimeMage88]

Ya but Solem is different then Warring. Solem is at any life points while Warring is a cost of 2000.

[Androfrost]

As important as most of us know card advantage is there are limits to how card advantage can win game. If your hand consist of unusable cards then having card advantage doesn't matter much. In addition, being low on life will change the way you play. If you have 2000 lps and a free shot with Spirit Reaper, is it worth it? It really depends on how you can protect it, but you get the point. No brainer plays with lots of lps can be tougher with little life. Have 1000 lps or less against someone who has Caius in hand and you know that you must prevent its summon regardless of card cost.

You should give up life to get card advantage, but don't take your lps completely for granted.

[Xylyze]

As important as most of us know card advantage is there are limits to how card advantage can win game. If your hand consist of unusable cards then having card advantage doesn't matter much. In addition, being low on life will change the way you play. If you have 2000 lps and a free shot with Spirit Reaper, is it worth it? It really depends on how you can protect it, but you get the point. No brainer plays with lots of lps can be tougher with little life. Have 1000 lps or less against someone who has Caius in hand and you know that you must prevent its summon regardless of card cost.

You should give up life to get card advantage, but don't take your lps completely for granted.

If your hand consists of unusable cards, that means you put unusable cards in your deck.

[perzeus]

As important as most of us know card advantage is there are limits to how card advantage can win game. If your hand consist of unusable cards then having card advantage doesn't matter much. In addition, being low on life will change the way you play. If you have 2000 lps and a free shot with Spirit Reaper, is it worth it? It really depends on how you can protect it, but you get the point. No brainer plays with lots of lps can be tougher with little life. Have 1000 lps or less against someone who has Caius in hand and you know that you must prevent its summon regardless of card cost.

You should give up life to get card advantage, but don't take your lps completely for granted.
For some reason, people tend to believe they are invulnerable and that they always will have an answer to foil each and every play of the opponent when discussing card advantage (as ITT "only lp that matters is the last"), but when discussing playability of cards always think of only the worst-case scenario ("this card is awful, it falls to MST, DAD and JD!!!!!!!!!", "it sucks!, Divine Wrath can negate it!", "enjoy getting trunade'd/wave'd!").

[strikemasterice]

For some reason, people tend to believe they are invulnerable and that they always will have an answer to foil each and every play of the opponent when discussing card advantage (as ITT "only lp that matters is the last"), but when discussing playability of cards always think of only the worst-case scenario ("this card is awful, it falls to MST, DAD and JD!!!!!!!!!", "it sucks!, Divine Wrath can negate it!", "enjoy getting trunade'd/wave'd!").
I give this post/user...
*puts on sunglasses*

a +1.

[Kestral287]

Your argument is flawed in execution. All of the examples presented to prove the LP > CA are stupidly extreme. To writ:

"Herp derp if I have 800 LP my opponent just drops Ookazi".

Okay. And if you had 900 instead your opponent is going to get curbstomped.

"Hehe he used all of his counters and then I flip Ceasefire"

Okay. You presume that you've survived his onslaught-- unlikely, honestly, since he's pretty much shut down every play you've made. If he's throwing out his counters like that, he's also negating big things. You don't burn your Solemn Warning on some random normal summon, you burn it to shut down their Black Rose or Stardust or JD or what have you. Which means that, since the argument contends that neither player made a dumb move, the one with more life points has wasted all of his resources and all of his best ways to even get over those three monsters. I highly doubt he even has Ceasefire at that point-- he wouldn't have the resources at that stage in the game to have it in his hand; not if he's pulling plays big enough to demand that level of response every turn. But if he did?

Congrats. He managed to pull out a win with a card that would suck in any other circumstance. He managed to get lucky because his opponent drew into what is actually quite a poor hand. He managed to get lucky because his opponent actually made a rather poor play-- if your opponent has no monsters and can survive your alpha-strike, you're not going to drop three. Not out of fear of Ceasefire, but because of Dark Hole, Mirror Force, and Torrential Tribute. Not unless you can clear their S/Ts first-- rendering their Ceasefire moot-- or have Stardust on the field-- meaning that the player swarming would, in this example, have only two monsters on the field, thus surviving Ceasefire and probably winning that turn.

Basically? This example relies on a faulty premise, that neither player made a dumb play, because one of them did. The other one is apparently pulling cards out of nowhere.

Lifepoints are important once you hit a certain point. Once you drop below 2000 or so (you could argue 3000 if JD can hit the field), you have to start watching them. Beyond that? You should be more concerned with building advantage, because let's be honest with ourselves here.

Burn decks-- individual burn cards, even-- see very little play in this game. The reason is that if they are unable to pull off a win, they're useless. If I have Sun Dragon Inti and 8000 LP, I don't care if you drop Magical Cylinder on me. Okay, cool, I'm down to 5000 LP. Excuse me while I proceed to beat your face in with my 3000 ATK super-monster. Conversely, if you drop Dimensional Prison, I very much care, because now my super-monster is gone. And while I can bring out another one easily enough, it still costs me a -1. And if you can shut down the second big monster with another Dimensional Prison? All of a sudden it starts mattering less and less if I have 8000 LP or not, because I can't touch you.

The D-Prison vs. Magic Cylinder debate boils down to one single, simple premise. Magic Cylinder is a useful card if and only if your opponent is below the critical threshold when their monster's ATK exceeds their life points, and thus you can deal lethal damage. That holds true for all burn cards-- they're valuable if they can net you the win.

However, let's go back to that Sun Dragon Inti example. Except this time, lower me to 3000 LP. I attack, get Magic Cylinder'd. I lose. Or I attack, get D-Prisoned. Assuming I don't have an immediate way to set up a large defense, I'm vulnerable because my big wall has been destroyed and if my opponent can assemble 3000 or more ATK power on his next turn I lose.

Virtually every meta deck in existance, possibly excepting Monarchs (and even then it depends heavily on the build) can bring out that much ATK power in one turn. Several of them can bring out far, far more.

The Ceasefire example provides a better illustration. Let's say I Mirror or Torrential that third monster. My turn, I summon almost any commonly played monster in the game and I win. But Mirror and Torrential are useful in far, far more (practical) scenarios than Ceasefire is.

So, the question becomes this:

Do I run LP-damaging cards, which lower my opponent's life but are irrelevent to the game as a whole unless they let me win? Or do I run cards with an impact on the field, which remove my opponent's defenses, are always useful, and allow me to bring out my own counterattack to deal far greater damage?

In a sense, the argument that only the last LP matters is true (as much as I hate the saying). Any card that inflicts LP damage is only important if its expenditure wins the game; otherwise it's a dead card. This is not to say that LPs are entirely irrelevent-- a good player has the job of keeping an eye on his LP so that he knows when he needs to start playing more conservatively and stop his opponent from pulling out a single card that can reverse the game.

But it is to say that cards are far more important to the game. As someone stated earlier, cards are everything. But more to the point? Cards allow you to do everything. Perhaps most importantly, though, they allow you to win the game... and you don't need burn cards to do it.

[Androfrost]

If your hand consists of unusable cards, that means you put unusable cards in your deck.

Having unusable cards doesn't mean bad cards. Early game Debris Dragons can be useless for that matter, or shortly after playing Pot of Avarice. All tributes are useless without tribute fodder. Boggart Knight is useless if you have no combos and the opponent has a bigger monster. Reinforements of the army is useless if you ran out of targets. Most searchers are useless if Dimensional Fissure is active. Dark Armed and Judgment Dragon are useless if Oppression is active etc, etc.

[perzeus]

Okay. You presume that you've survived his onslaught-- unlikely, honestly, since he's pretty much shut down every play you've made. If he's throwing out his counters like that, he's also negating big things. You don't burn your Solemn Warning on some random normal summon, you burn it to shut down their Black Rose or Stardust or JD or what have you. Which means that, since the argument contends that neither player made a dumb move, the one with more life points has wasted all of his resources and all of his best ways to even get over those three monsters. I highly doubt he even has Ceasefire at that point-- he wouldn't have the resources at that stage in the game to have it in his hand; not if he's pulling plays big enough to demand that level of response every turn. But if he did?
Because T1 decks cannot make stupid swarms as a result of 1 card :rolleyes:

X-Sabers can summon Boggart Knight, which brings another monster, which brings Faultroll, so you either stop them at Boggart or stop them at Faultroll. If you don't stop them at Boggart they can still Synchro Summon, or they might have summoned a Darksoul so they will regain hand advantage once it dies, and the 1900 ATK on Boggart is still respectable. Then there's Gottom's E-Call which again enables them to regain their field presence with a single card, so those are good enough reasons to use Solemn Warning in the scenario i provided that don't end with the opponent losing a large amount of card advantage.

Or there's also Six Samurai which are similar in that they can swarm while keeping advantage, with the help of Gateway/United/Double-Edged Sword Techique. If you let them summon 1 monster you enable them to go Grandmaster, Grandmaster merely laught as both Solemns so they got 2 monsters now, if they got any United/Gateway on the field they will start gaining advantage at this point.

Then there are decks like Flamvell (Rekindling and Firedog are each one card, but can summon more if you don't stop them) and Sacksworn (if they got lucky early on with their mill to start summoning Wuld/JD).

Point is, stopping a big play doesn't mean your opponent lost card advantage, specially against competitive decks.

Finally, my earlier post wasn't about your opponent will survive and kill you to punich your lp payment (which apparently is the only thing people understand), it was you cannot expect to have an out to everything ready to save you each time.

[tonman]

Your argument is flawed in execution. All of the examples presented to prove the LP > CA are stupidly extreme. To writ:

"Herp derp if I have 800 LP my opponent just drops Ookazi".

Okay. And if you had 900 instead your opponent is going to get curbstomped.

"Hehe he used all of his counters and then I flip Ceasefire"

Okay. You presume that you've survived his onslaught-- unlikely, honestly, since he's pretty much shut down every play you've made. If he's throwing out his counters like that, he's also negating big things. You don't burn your Solemn Warning on some random normal summon, you burn it to shut down their Black Rose or Stardust or JD or what have you. Which means that, since the argument contends that neither player made a dumb move, the one with more life points has wasted all of his resources and all of his best ways to even get over those three monsters. I highly doubt he even has Ceasefire at that point-- he wouldn't have the resources at that stage in the game to have it in his hand; not if he's pulling plays big enough to demand that level of response every turn. But if he did?

Congrats. He managed to pull out a win with a card that would suck in any other circumstance. He managed to get lucky because his opponent drew into what is actually quite a poor hand. He managed to get lucky because his opponent actually made a rather poor play-- if your opponent has no monsters and can survive your alpha-strike, you're not going to drop three. Not out of fear of Ceasefire, but because of Dark Hole, Mirror Force, and Torrential Tribute. Not unless you can clear their S/Ts first-- rendering their Ceasefire moot-- or have Stardust on the field-- meaning that the player swarming would, in this example, have only two monsters on the field, thus surviving Ceasefire and probably winning that turn.

Basically? This example relies on a faulty premise, that neither player made a dumb play, because one of them did. The other one is apparently pulling cards out of nowhere.

Lifepoints are important once you hit a certain point. Once you drop below 2000 or so (you could argue 3000 if JD can hit the field), you have to start watching them. Beyond that? You should be more concerned with building advantage, because let's be honest with ourselves here.

Burn decks-- individual burn cards, even-- see very little play in this game. The reason is that if they are unable to pull off a win, they're useless. If I have Sun Dragon Inti and 8000 LP, I don't care if you drop Magical Cylinder on me. Okay, cool, I'm down to 5000 LP. Excuse me while I proceed to beat your face in with my 3000 ATK super-monster. Conversely, if you drop Dimensional Prison, I very much care, because now my super-monster is gone. And while I can bring out another one easily enough, it still costs me a -1. And if you can shut down the second big monster with another Dimensional Prison? All of a sudden it starts mattering less and less if I have 8000 LP or not, because I can't touch you.

The D-Prison vs. Magic Cylinder debate boils down to one single, simple premise. Magic Cylinder is a useful card if and only if your opponent is below the critical threshold when their monster's ATK exceeds their life points, and thus you can deal lethal damage. That holds true for all burn cards-- they're valuable if they can net you the win.

However, let's go back to that Sun Dragon Inti example. Except this time, lower me to 3000 LP. I attack, get Magic Cylinder'd. I lose. Or I attack, get D-Prisoned. Assuming I don't have an immediate way to set up a large defense, I'm vulnerable because my big wall has been destroyed and if my opponent can assemble 3000 or more ATK power on his next turn I lose.

Virtually every meta deck in existance, possibly excepting Monarchs (and even then it depends heavily on the build) can bring out that much ATK power in one turn. Several of them can bring out far, far more.

The Ceasefire example provides a better illustration. Let's say I Mirror or Torrential that third monster. My turn, I summon almost any commonly played monster in the game and I win. But Mirror and Torrential are useful in far, far more (practical) scenarios than Ceasefire is.

So, the question becomes this:

Do I run LP-damaging cards, which lower my opponent's life but are irrelevent to the game as a whole unless they let me win? Or do I run cards with an impact on the field, which remove my opponent's defenses, are always useful, and allow me to bring out my own counterattack to deal far greater damage?

In a sense, the argument that only the last LP matters is true (as much as I hate the saying). Any card that inflicts LP damage is only important if its expenditure wins the game; otherwise it's a dead card. This is not to say that LPs are entirely irrelevent-- a good player has the job of keeping an eye on his LP so that he knows when he needs to start playing more conservatively and stop his opponent from pulling out a single card that can reverse the game.

But it is to say that cards are far more important to the game. As someone stated earlier, cards are everything. But more to the point? Cards allow you to do everything. Perhaps most importantly, though, they allow you to win the game... and you don't need burn cards to do it.

Whoo hoo, Kestrals back!

[Darkvulpine]

The only reason anyone ever ran Ceasefire was because nobleman was stapled at 3 in basically every deck at the time...the burn was ALWAYS a nice bonus and sometimes life saving but NOT the reason you would run that card.

[Kestral287]

stuff

The X-Saber one relies on at least two cards. Four negations, 1-2 cards a negation... they're pretty much out of cards there.

Six Sams have so many workarounds that it's not even funny, but more importantly they don't have all that many cards that you need to negate. Without support Grandmaster is a themed Cyber Dragon. And according to you the other guy is able to synch for Goyo or Stardust.

Flamvell can't exactly open the game with Rekindling, which is the presumption in your scenario. Lightsworns are unlikely to be able to open with a JD drop without investing other cards (possible, certainly, but you'd have to draw into a lot of your draw/search cards).

*Shrug* But even ignoring that, my argument stands that your scenario is unlikely and rests on a faulty premise; you ignored half of my attacks against it. As well as my entire point that, given the choice between a card that is always useful vs. a card that is occasionally useful, the card that is always useful should always be selected. There are virtually no direct damage S/Ts that aren't overshadowed by another card for general use.

And tonman, I dunno yet.

[perzeus]

*Shrug* But even ignoring that, my argument stands that your scenario is unlikely and rests on a faulty premise; you ignored half of my attacks against it. As well as my entire point that, given the choice between a card that is always useful vs. a card that is occasionally useful, the card that is always useful should always be selected. There are virtually no direct damage S/Ts that aren't overshadowed by another card for general use.Because i don't care about those, since those referred to points i wasn't supporting, those attacks where just against the means i used to show a single generic scenario to prove my point, that being (for the...4th? time in this thread) that even though card advantage is important ( i did mention in my original post it's usually good to lose lp if you gain a card with that) lp are not something that should be taken for granted because you don't have an out to everything, an idea that everyone seems to ignore.

[Topf]

The only Life Point that matters is the last one.

this ^^ .

[Saifullah]

LP matters in games where card advantage is similar on both sides.

Otherwise CA rules. Because you can't really hit your opponent unless you have CA.

Of course, if your opponent is reckless, and drops 3 warnings and a Solemn Judgment, and you happen to have a ceasefire or Magic Cylinder, it can be game. It depends.

[Topf]

LP matters in games where card advantage is similar on both sides.

Otherwise CA rules. Because you can't really hit your opponent unless you have CA.

Of course, if your opponent is reckless, and drops 3 warnings and a Solemn Judgment, and you happen to have a ceasefire or Magic Cylinder, it can be game. It depends.

true but 3 warning and judgement??

[Saifullah]

true but 3 warning and judgement??

yeah, I mean reckless netdeckers at locals who are solemn happy, so they drop their LP to 1000.

Cylinder those fools :D

[tonman]

The X-Saber one relies on at least two cards. Four negations, 1-2 cards a negation... they're pretty much out of cards there.

Six Sams have so many workarounds that it's not even funny, but more importantly they don't have all that many cards that you need to negate. Without support Grandmaster is a themed Cyber Dragon. And according to you the other guy is able to synch for Goyo or Stardust.

Flamvell can't exactly open the game with Rekindling, which is the presumption in your scenario. Lightsworns are unlikely to be able to open with a JD drop without investing other cards (possible, certainly, but you'd have to draw into a lot of your draw/search cards).

*Shrug* But even ignoring that, my argument stands that your scenario is unlikely and rests on a faulty premise; you ignored half of my attacks against it. As well as my entire point that, given the choice between a card that is always useful vs. a card that is occasionally useful, the card that is always useful should always be selected. There are virtually no direct damage S/Ts that aren't overshadowed by another card for general use.

And tonman, I dunno yet.

Dunno what?

[Kestral287]

If I'm sticking around. B/R looks... well, really, really bad.

[tonman]

If I'm sticking around. B/R looks... well, really, really bad.

Eh. We've discussed every card possible to come on and off so its getting kind of dull. It was a great learning experience at first though.

[HighonPie]

EDIT: Okay, just realized something, you thought I was referring to the pay 1k to kill a monster part of it's effect earlier, didn't you? No, by the standards of the current meta, the part of it's effect where you pay all your life points to give it attack would be considered a good effect.

You're missing something. Many players say that paying life points for card advantage is a good idea. Ra doesn't do this. Higher ATK =/= more cards. That's the difference between Solemn Warning (a 1 for 1 plus a moderate amount of life) and Ra (a 0 for 0 plus almost every life point.) I only read the first page, so sorry if this has been said.

[UberDueler]

Considering how easily everyone can be OTK'ed, I'd much rather have field advantage any day.

This thread would be more interesting if this game played with 10000 lp instead of the regular 8000.

[Valafar123]

Card Advantage > Life Points.

[StevGO]

The only time when life points > card advantage is when you have infinite life points.

This times 100.

If Magic Cylinder is about to defeat then you must have played something wrong. Smart players don't go for game when the opponents has backrow, that they either aren't sure of, or can't get rid of.

And Nintenderek's logic is flawed. Your not going to draw all your Solemns, and Seven Tools in one duel most of the time. you'll be lucky if you draw about 3 a duel.

[strikemasterice]

This times 100.

If Magic Cylinder is about to defeat then you must have played something wrong. Smart players don't go for game when the opponents has backrow, that they either aren't sure of, or can't get rid of.

And Nintenderek's logic is flawed. Your not going to draw all your Solemns, and Seven Tools in one duel most of the time. you'll be lucky if you draw about 3 a duel.
Say a player, A, techs 1 Magic Cylinder over 1 D-Prison in a standard trap line-up that uses 2 D-Prison.
It reaches late game where both players have low LPs.
Player B has 1 attacker on the field.
Player A draws and sets their Cylinder.
Player B goes through Player A's grave sees M-Force + TT, so he plays another monster (thinking worst case, opp blocks 1 attack with their f/d D-Prison/BoM/E-Con, I win game with the other attack).
Player B flips Cylinder at the first attack for game.

Did Player A do something wrong? Is one supposed to not attack with low LPs?


You don't have to be that lucky.
Ex. If you see 15/40 cards in a duel, you have 21% chance of drawing 3/5 X among those 15 cards (with X being 1 Solemn Judgment, 3 Solemn Warning, and 1 Seven Tools here).

[MythIntoLegend]

If you guys want to be ridiculous then here.

Player with 0 cards in his hand and 8000 life points
Player with 5 cards in hand and 5 monster cards [lets just say 2000 each] on field and 100 life points

Who is more likely to win? You see the thing is NOBODY is going to be playing random burn cards unless they are a scrub. [Of course, a tech'd ceasefire and Magic Cylinder may be good but over the wide range of players its the ones that follow card advantage theory that are generally victorious.] You "anti-card advantage" people somehow fail to realize that its CARDS that also PROTECT YOU FROM LOSING LIFE POINTS.

[StevGO]

Say a player, A, techs 1 Magic Cylinder over 1 D-Prison in a standard trap line-up that uses 2 D-Prison.
It reaches late game where both players have low LPs.
Player B has 1 attacker on the field.
Player A draws and sets their Cylinder.
Player B goes through the grave, sees no M-Force nor TT, so he plays another monster (thinking worst case, opp blocks 1 attack with a D-Prison/BoM/E-Con, I win game with the other).
Player B flips Cylinder at the first attack for game.

Did Player A do something wrong? Is one supposed to not attack with low LPs?



If they both have low LPs why would he overcommit and summon ANOTHER Monster in attack? Especially when he hasn't seen a Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute?

[QKForever]

Card advantage is always better than life points, the only one that matters is the last one. Anyone that says otherwise is ignorant and bad at this game.

[strikemasterice]

If they both have low LPs why would he overcommit and summon ANOTHER Monster in attack? Especially when he hasn't seen a Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute?
Sorry, I meant he sees M-Force + TT in the grave and deduces there are no M-Force/TT possibility left.
Ensure victory and end the game right there with 2 monsters as opposed to just 1 whose attack might be blocked.

Edited the bad post.

Ftr, I don't have a real stance on the subject. I find nearly all statements here to be too general.

[Saifullah]

Random teched Ceasefire would do wonders vs people who overextend and pay a ton of LP.

[MythIntoLegend]

Random teched Ceasefire would do wonders vs people who overextend and pay a ton of LP.

Unforuntely it will not always work out. Nothing is worse than top decking into a Magic Cylinder where your opponent's monster is impossible to get rid of.

Example. Beat down deck vs Colossal Fighter with no out, its quite horrible to play Magic Cylinder over Dimensional Prison.

With that said, there are times where Magic Cylinder can win you games, but its not ALWAYS the case and I'm sure there are plenty more situations where it would screw you over rather than save you. I've had quite a few experiences myself.

[Saifullah]

Yep, you are 100% right. Lifepoints are variable...card advantage really isn't. You can be owning your opponent while you have 200 LP, but you can't be owning your opponent when you have 0 cards in hand and 0 on field even with 8000 lifepoints.

[Nintenderek]

If you guys want to be ridiculous then here.

Player with 0 cards in his hand and 8000 life points
Player with 5 cards in hand and 5 monster cards [lets just say 2000 each] on field and 100 life points

Who is more likely to win? You see the thing is NOBODY is going to be playing random burn cards unless they are a scrub. [Of course, a tech'd ceasefire and Magic Cylinder may be good but over the wide range of players its the ones that follow card advantage theory that are generally victorious.] You "anti-card advantage" people somehow fail to realize that its CARDS that also PROTECT YOU FROM LOSING LIFE POINTS.

I see no anti card advantage people here. Nobody is saying that card advantage isn't important, we are saying that life points aren't not important. Both are about equally important and both should be considered while dueling and building a deck. You can have the 5 most powerful monsters on the field together, if you have 100 life points left and get cylindered, you still lose.

[tonman]

If people played cylinder, that would matter. But they don't. Someone with CA is more likely to have an out or counter.

[Saifullah]

If cylinder went to 3 I think LP would matter more. You can burn out most of someone's LP with 3 Cylinders.

[tonman]

If people played cylinder in 3s life points would almost be as important as CA.

[Saifullah]

Imagine 3x cylinder + ceasefire :D

[ndralcasid]

Card advantage in one of the most important aspects of the game, but I generally I agree with your points, especially with this format. People need to be a lot more conscious about the life point count, especially with Dark Hole legal and Warning very likely being a part of almost any of your decks. There are a decent amount of cards that can singlehandedly turn a game state upside down regardless of field presence

True story: Once, my opponent had reached a state with 200 life points, yet he had absolute control. It just happens the one card in my hand left was a Debris Dragon that allowed me to nuke next turn then poke with Formula Synchron for game.

[The_Dark_Monarch]

When I was doing research for my anti-meta deck, I noticed that quite a few players sided in Poison of the Old Man...
I wondered why...it took me all of about 2 seconds to figure it out. :)

[KodiakZero]

I'm pretty sure most players believe that paying LP is a "free" cost, because it currently does not affect the state of the game when played (for the most part). This was established with the limiting of Solemn Judgement, which would be ran in 2-3's because players felt that it was free. As for myself; i hate paying LP. To me, its one of the biggest costs you can pay. Because of this, many of my decks implement some sort of burn.

As for Magic Cylinder; its a fantastic card. 1 of these = 1/4th of your opponent's LP. With a little help from your opponent, you can burn an opponent to death with a pair of these. I'm known for using a pair (or even when it was at one) in almost every deck i build. The card, in short, says "Inflict 2000 points of damage to your opponent." That was from me setting a card. Didn't have to fight for it, didn't have to walk into a Mirror Force/D Prison/ BottomlessTrapHole; as my opponent had tried to get uppity and snag in a hit. The sad part of it is, your opponent doesn't know how threatening a card like this really is until you kill them with it a couple of times. They start to smarten up afterwards. It doesn't really help them if they continue to pay their life and/or keep attacking.

If you don't play Magic Cylinder just because your friend (internet) told you it was a bad card to use; they arn't smart. It is a "fair" Ring of Destruction; a card that was in every player's deck when it was available. Combine this with the cards people are using to pay LP and well, a couple of cards has already done half the work; some of which may not have even been your card(s).

This is just my opinion however. What i do to kill people is different than ya'll.

[doom56muffin]

I'd pick neither life points can be brought down quickly
If you have Field advantage one wrong move and it can turn into a 360 right in your face,Also your deck can be chewed up easily.

So theres no real way to go about this

[SongBird]

Control and LP have there values, Control is definitely more better, because control wins you the game, not LP..., Snatch Steal is a free Brain Control and that LP gain won't matter because the monster you steal could be 3k.

[QKForever]

I'm pretty sure most players believe that paying LP is a "free" cost, because it currently does not affect the state of the game when played (for the most part). This was established with the limiting of Solemn Judgement, which would be ran in 2-3's because players felt that it was free. As for myself; i hate paying LP. To me, its one of the biggest costs you can pay. Because of this, many of my decks implement some sort of burn.

As for Magic Cylinder; its a fantastic card. 1 of these = 1/4th of your opponent's LP. With a little help from your opponent, you can burn an opponent to death with a pair of these. I'm known for using a pair (or even when it was at one) in almost every deck i build. The card, in short, says "Inflict 2000 points of damage to your opponent." That was from me setting a card. Didn't have to fight for it, didn't have to walk into a Mirror Force/D Prison/ BottomlessTrapHole; as my opponent had tried to get uppity and snag in a hit. The sad part of it is, your opponent doesn't know how threatening a card like this really is until you kill them with it a couple of times. They start to smarten up afterwards. It doesn't really help them if they continue to pay their life and/or keep attacking.

If you don't play Magic Cylinder just because your friend (internet) told you it was a bad card to use; they arn't smart. It is a "fair" Ring of Destruction; a card that was in every player's deck when it was available. Combine this with the cards people are using to pay LP and well, a couple of cards has already done half the work; some of which may not have even been your card(s).

This is just my opinion however. What i do to kill people is different than ya'll.

Grossly ignorant.

[MythIntoLegend]

Imagine 3x cylinder + ceasefire :D

May as well just play a burn deck

Card advantage in one of the most important aspects of the game, but I generally I agree with your points, especially with this format. People need to be a lot more conscious about the life point count, especially with Dark Hole legal and Warning very likely being a part of almost any of your decks. There are a decent amount of cards that can singlehandedly turn a game state upside down regardless of field presence

True story: Once, my opponent had reached a state with 200 life points, yet he had absolute control. It just happens the one card in my hand left was a Debris Dragon that allowed me to nuke next turn then poke with Formula Synchron for game.

Just so the other members know, playing "Solemn Warning" is -not- a bad play and the life point cost is fine. The Magic Cylinder arguement is really iffy because its a situational card. The reason people play Solemn Warning is to stop the opponent from making these big plays [such as the BRD nuke mentioned here] if they failed to stop the execution of such a card it could lead them to a game loss [BRD nuke -> somesort of swarm -> game]

Life points are yes, the deciding factor in the game, but the thing is, one can think of cards like "barriers", every card has a certain aspect to protect you from your opponent. So if you think of it like that, the more cards [or "barriers"] you have, the more protected you are from your opponent.

Control and LP have there values, Control is definitely more better, because control wins you the game, not LP..., Snatch Steal is a free Brain Control and that LP gain won't matter because the monster you steal could be 3k.

Yup, Brain Control may as well be a "magic cylinder" unless you tribute it off or sync with it.

[StevGO]

I see no anti card advantage people here. Nobody is saying that card advantage isn't important, we are saying that life points aren't not important. Both are about equally important and both should be considered while dueling and building a deck. You can have the 5 most powerful monsters on the field together, if you have 100 life points left and get cylindered, you still lose.

I can gurantee this has not happened to any of us, or if it has only once. It is far more likely to be pushed back, when they have 3 monsters on the field and you have no responses to their swarms.

[Kestral287]

True story: Once, my opponent had reached a state with 200 life points, yet he had absolute control. It just happens the one card in my hand left was a Debris Dragon that allowed me to nuke next turn then poke with Formula Synchron for game.

Which was possible because you'd removed their card advantage.

[ndralcasid]

Which was possible because you'd removed their card advantage.

The point is he wouldn't have lost to a Formula Synchron had he not have low life

No one is denying that card advantage is the most important component, but some purple focus too much on it and ignoring their life point count, which is a mistake.

You have to be conscious of both aspects. You can lose the game with bad lifepoint management as much as bad card management

[Valafar123]

If LP > Advantage, then we can bring Delinquent Duo back, no?

[Kestral287]

The point is he wouldn't have lost to a Formula Synchron had he not have low life

No one is denying that card advantage is the most important component, but some purple focus too much on it and ignoring their life point count, which is a mistake.

You have to be conscious of both aspects. You can lose the game with bad lifepoint management as much as bad card management

I know. However, I'd be willing to bet that, had I not said that, someone would have pointed to that and been like "See? The guy with all the advantage lost! Yay LP reign supreme!".

[tonman]

Which was possible because you'd removed their card advantage.

But he still had the card advantage in his hand.

But yeah, that is an unlikely scenario anyways.

[Nintenderek]

If LP > Advantage, then we can bring Delinquent Duo back, no?

Nobody in this thread has said LP > Advantage. What we are saying is that LP = Advantage and that people need to be more careful when dueling, because one unexpected cylinder, ceasefire, or other random burn card, could mean game.

[Valafar123]

Who walks into unexpected cylinder?

[tonman]

Nobody in this thread has said LP > Advantage. What we are saying is that LP = Advantage and that people need to be more careful when dueling, because one unexpected cylinder, ceasefire, or other random burn card, could mean game.

BUt I say again, noone runs those burn cards. If every one played those, LPs would matter more.

[Nintenderek]

Who walks into unexpected cylinder?

The last big tournament I went to, I was main decking two cylinders. It by itself got me game several times.

I've also had the same thing happen against me, and have seen it in duels I wasn't even involved in several times as well. With Heavy Storm gone, it happens quite a bit when people use Cylinder.

BUt I say again, noone runs those burn cards. If every one played those, LPs would matter more.

Just because a card isn't ran by most, doesn't mean it isn't ran all together. Some people do use Cylinder and Ceasefire, and one of the main points of the article is to expect those unexpected events.

[KodiakZero]

Grossly ignorant.

Did you enjoy your +1? Good. As i said, it is my opinion, and it is not your place to contradict me. Believe and play the way you want to. I'm entitled to the same.

[tonman]

The last big tournament I went to, I was main decking two cylinders. It by itself got me game several times.

I've also had the same thing happen against me, and have seen it in duels I wasn't even involved in several times as well. With Heavy Storm gone, it happens quite a bit when people use Cylinder.



Just because a card isn't ran by most, doesn't mean it isn't ran all together. Some people do use Cylinder and Ceasefire, and one of the main points of the article is to expect those unexpected events.

Point taken. If people where I live started playing those cards, I would care more about points. But if you play against better players, usually noone plays that. Not saying only bad players run cylinder.

[Valafar123]

I'm just so used to cylinders doing nothing to me. 1800 damage tops hardly seems worth the -1.

[Nintenderek]

Point taken. If people where I live started playing those cards, I would care more about points. But if you play against better players, usually noone plays that. Not saying only bad players run cylinder.

Yes, while this is true, there is always that chance, and my main point of the article basically is that people need to learn to be more careful with life points because paying all your life points just for field advantage may not always be the best thing when you consider that your opponent is also trying to get as much field advantage as possible and probably runs those same cards to stop you from gaining field advantage.

[MythIntoLegend]

If LP > Advantage, then we can bring Delinquent Duo back, no?

Oh wait, I finally understand the thread, its just been a bit twisted because the OP stated Magic Cylinder which all of us see as an "anti-advantage" card. Basically he's saying that Card Advantage is great and all, but players really need to look at their life points more often, because with all of the mass life point payment, we are making ourselves more vunerable to our opponent. [although all of the cards he has listed help us from losing -more- life points from our opponent, but regardless, its just a thread about how one should be more careful about life points.]

[TasteThePoison]

Not saying only bad players run cylinder.

Uhhh..... :rolleyes:

[tonman]

Uhhh..... :rolleyes:

I didn't want to flame him and ruin my point.

[SongBird]

Ok, which one is better in a general case,
Ally of Justice Catastor
OR
Magical Android ?

[Saifullah]

ally of justice catastor vs non darks

Magical Android vs darks that are 2300 or 2400 attack points (lol)

99% of the time catastor wins

[SongBird]

Exactly my point, I can split this thread into 2 Teams, LP team and CONTROL team, us being catastor and you guys being Magical Android, catastor vs android = control is better than LP, get it right, theres no point in having 10000 LP if I've got 5 monsters on my side of the field,1 being brionac bouncing your gay back row, 1 being Junk Archer removing your facedown Spirit Reaper from play, and 3 beefy monsters, end of story, control wins, this format, is basically 4 Solemn Judgments.

[Saifullah]

well der...I don't think that's the point of the thread...they're saying we know control is more important, but should you worry about LP?

[tonman]

I wont care about LPs. Unless, people start maining cylinder. Then I'll just save my ST destruction/negation till the end before I make a final push and let them minus themselves early on.

[perzeus]

I wont care about LPs. Unless, people start maining cylinder. Then I'll just save my ST destruction/negation till the end before I make a final push and let them minus themselves early on.
Wouldn't that make you prey to their TT/Mirror/D-Prison?

[Nintenderek]

Oh wait, I finally understand the thread, its just been a bit twisted because the OP stated Magic Cylinder which all of us see as an "anti-advantage" card. Basically he's saying that Card Advantage is great and all, but players really need to look at their life points more often, because with all of the mass life point payment, we are making ourselves more vunerable to our opponent. [although all of the cards he has listed help us from losing -more- life points from our opponent, but regardless, its just a thread about how one should be more careful about life points.]

Pretty much this. Cylinder was just an example of reasons why, in all honesty, there's all kinds of reasons why besides just that, some of them being as simple as any random monster getting an attack through.

[Valafar123]

Android is good if you've been backed into a corner.

It stops STOTB and Warning from being dead.

[SongBird]

Warning won't be dead you know why, because the previous Warning/Judgment saved you from losing :3

LP shouldn't be a thing worried about TOO much, if you control the field, you control the LP :D

[Valafar123]

I <3 Solemn Judgment.

@ 3 plx.

[Saifullah]

Solemn Judgment is an awesome card.

[solitarywolf17]

In this format LP are expendable, because....

They'll swarm the field and then play Giant Trunade/Cold Wave to push for game.

(Theyd use Heavy Storm, but its not in play this list, thank god.)

So that Magic Cylinder you say they should worry about is pointless.

[bioober]

In a nut shell, I'm pretty sure everyone's policy is
"As long as I win, who cares what my lifepoints is. It could be 0.5 for all care, as long as I win"
Thus we used run triple Solemn Judgment, and main at least 2 copies of Solemn Warning now.

[Thebanlistsuxx]

cylinder might be considered a noob-card, but im not so sure about ceasefire.

ceasefire
-flips up face downs like ryko etc.
-flips up monsters that the opponent book of mooned to prevent you from synchroning
- can do about 3000 dmg, max 5000
- is chainable
- unexpected

[Xylyze]

In my opinion field advantage means nothing. If you play an aggro deck and commit to the field early it's mostly going to end up being bad for you. If you play a control deck it won't matter when you play your cards but the sooner the better. So this thread is like comparing apples and oranges.
You can even go as far as to say that Life points and field advantage go hand in hand.

[tonman]

I think he means card advantage. One for One vs. Minus 1.

[solitarywolf17]

cylinder might be considered a noob-card, but im not so sure about ceasefire.

ceasefire
-flips up face downs like ryko etc.
-flips up monsters that the opponent book of mooned to prevent you from synchroning
- can do about 3000 dmg, max 5000
- is chainable
- unexpected

if that damn thing wasnt limited id run this soooo much more.... lol

[xParalyzE]

Just keep above 1000 LP and use Thought Ruler Archfiend to negate those cylinders

[NeoZenithX]

But we DO have that!

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Hope_for_an_Escape

Is there a way to give your opponent infinite LPs? Cuz, like...damn.

[Neurotica]

In my opinion field advantage means nothing. If you play an aggro deck and commit to the field early it's mostly going to end up being bad for you. If you play a control deck it won't matter when you play your cards but the sooner the better. So this thread is like comparing apples and oranges.
You can even go as far as to say that Life points and field advantage go hand in hand.

Well they do tbh... If you control the field then you control who has what lifepoints, if you Warning something that deals damage that you couldn't get rid of otherwise, you essentially saved yourself the lifepoints you would have lost and give yourself the opportunity to strike back/gain field advantage or whatever.

Basically my policy with Warning is, if it has an effect that is worth negating, or is something I don't want to see on the field (e.g. Banisher against my Infernities), or would inherently cause more damage compared to if I hadn't used Warning... So really, by spending life points for effects like Judgement and Warning you save yourself the lifepoints you would have lost anyway. Idk, I'm probably a few pages behind at this point but oh well. >_>

[ZEXAL]

Life points do not matter until you have none left. In the current meta game it is better to view them as a resource as opposed to a win condition. True getting your opponents LP down to 0 will win u the game but if both players are equally skilled then the game is entirely based on skill and resources rather than LP.

For example Last format I took fish synchro to my locals and I dueled a player of equal skill who ran Disaster Dragon. His deck was able to beat mine down within a few turns 400LP to 6600LP if I remeber correctly. However that meant little too me I was lucky enough to pull out both a Thought Ruler and an Armory Arm and ended up killing both a REDMD ad a BEWD, 6200LP to 4800LP. It was at this point that I used warnings to negate REDMD plays and won 2 rounds of the match.

Long story short in the current meta with so many combos and such floating around LP is looked at as more of a resource. Warlords, Black Feathers, Infernity, etc. all of those decks and many more can simply just swarm. Today's meta is not slow and if you rely on your LP to win than you will most likely be swarmed and beaten. However, I suppose that both of them are important just one is more so.

[V3nom^^]

Cards are more inportant Than LP, unless your opponent has Morphtronic Boarden Or smth like that...

[blockman11]

Life points is irrelevant until the last one goes. I lost 2 games over the weekend due to solemn Judgement. First time he solemned my Blackrose play when I was about to Otk. Second he solemned my gadget late game leaving me with no search, no monster, then he followed with Cold Wave = game. It really didn't matter that both players gave up half their life points. They stopped a key/game changing play. If either of those plays had gone through I know 100% that I would have won.

[cursedzerow]

Ok, 0 life points and you lose the duel. At the same time, no field advantage and you'll be in trouble (there are a few exceptions), so, if you have enough life points to get field advantage AND not lose at the same time, why don't spend them? If you're dueling, you're dueling to not lose, so unless you do a move that you think the opponent can break and make you lose lifepoints, you don't do the move. You do what you think is going to make you win/protect you, if to do this will cost life points, you'll have to do, right?

[MythIntoLegend]

I was looking back to the past and noticed a particularly powerful card called "Dark Strike Fighter"

I think using this card as an example its easy to say that burn damage is insignificant as long as it isn't too powerful. [I.E. Dark Strike Fighter, Chaos Emperor Dragon, and Tempest Magician]

[Thoughtbane]

If life points were really that important than Snatch Steal would be legal and Book of Moon would be at 1 because of snatch's 1000 point per turn drawback.
God, that's a horrid example
what does taking control of an opponent's monster and flipping it face down to disrupt a play have to do with each other?...

[Hydros]

That's not what he meant.

He meant that Book of Moon would have to be limited to try and stem the flow of Snatch Steal + Book of Moon combo abuse.

[100% FTK]

Why is this thread so bad x_x

Life points only matter if you're losing, thus I do not care what my lifepoints are as long as I am dominating the gamestate in every other aspect.

[14robinli]

try to think of LP as money exept when you run out you lose. cards with LP cost is like bying a negation would you buy something you cant aford no so you shouldnt wast LP you cant afford to either a good safty for me is around 3k LP

[1243765809]

I don't care if I am at 1 lp. As long as I haven't lost I really don't care. As long as I have card advantage I really don't care.

[Saifullah]

Unless the opponent uses Ceasefire.

[scyper]

Or Sparks. Lol

[SInge]

There are many different advantages that determine the duel.

Main Deck - What cards are in your current deck?
Side Deck - What can you swap to handle the opponent?
Extra Deck - Synchros and Fusions that can solve something the Main Deck can't.
Field - Are you hindering the opponent, are you overwhelming them, and etc.
Speed - Draw power, tutoring, and etc.
Graveyard - Can you use the cards in the graveyard or the opponent's?
Remove from Game - Can you use the cards in the RFG zone or the opponent's?
Countermeasures - Can you can use cards to trip up the opponent's deck or play?
Hand - More cards in hand could mean more options?
Skill - You know what you are doing and what to expect of the opponent.
Rule Knowledge - You know the rules thoroughly. You watch the opponent like a hawk to wait for them to make a misplay.

What advantage is this?

1st turn:
I summon Gale Dogra in attack mode. I pay 6000 LP to dump Naturia Beast & Naturia Barkion from the extra deck to the graveyard. I follow it up with Miracle Synchro Fusion to summon Naturia Exterio. I set Hope for an Escape. Play some Upstart Goblins to draw out Life Equalizer then Set it.

So my current field is
1x Gale Dogra
1x Naturia Exterio
1x Hope for an Escape
1x Life Equalizer

Graveyard:
3 Upstart Goblins
1 Miracle Synchro Fusion

2 random cards in hand

Opponent: 8000
Me: 2000

What is my advantage here?

[MythIntoLegend]

There are many different advantages that determine the duel.

Main Deck - What cards are in your current deck?
Side Deck - What can you swap to handle the opponent?
Extra Deck - Synchros and Fusions that can solve something the Main Deck can't.
Field - Are you hindering the opponent, are you overwhelming them, and etc.
Speed - Draw power, tutoring, and etc.
Graveyard - Can you use the cards in the graveyard or the opponent's?
Remove from Game - Can you use the cards in the RFG zone or the opponent's?
Countermeasures - Can you can use cards to trip up the opponent's deck or play?
Hand - More cards in hand could mean more options?
Skill - You know what you are doing and what to expect of the opponent.
Rule Knowledge - You know the rules thoroughly. You watch the opponent like a hawk to wait for them to make a misplay.

What advantage is this?

1st turn:
I summon Gale Dogra in attack mode. I pay 6000 LP to dump Naturia Beast & Naturia Barkion from the extra deck to the graveyard. I follow it up with Miracle Synchro Fusion to summon Naturia Exterio. I set Hope for an Escape. Play some Upstart Goblins to draw out Life Equalizer then Set it.

So my current field is
1x Gale Dogra
1x Naturia Exterio
1x Hope for an Escape
1x Life Equalizer

Graveyard:
3 Upstart Goblins
1 Miracle Synchro Fusion

2 random cards in hand

Opponent: 8000
Me: 2000

What is my advantage here?

Drop Cyber Dragon, attack Gale Dogra, drop Honest? But yeah, a GOOD player will know how to utilize Card Advantage, a BAD player will just over-extend which can cause their loss of CA, thus leading to the theory "CA is BS"

[SInge]

Drop Cyber Dragon, attack Gale Dogra, drop Honest?

Good call but a most common play. Attack the opponent's weak monster.

Hope for an Escape would draw me 3 cards bumping my hand up to 5 and lowering my LP to 1000.

Life Equalizer will change both our LP to 3000.

Cyber Dragon with Honest attacking Gale Dogra would not be enough to win the duel.

The random factor is what could be in my hand. Kuriboh to nullify the battle damage. Orange Herald of Light to negate Honest if you go for Naturia Exterio. Only I would know?

[RagingArkie]

I think you should pay attention to both Life Points and Field Advantage about equally. For example, your opponent has Five Headed Dragon, you have 8000 LP. Obviously it's not a good idea to use Solemn Judgement if your opponent summons like a Luster Dragon or something.

[Saifullah]

Once Forbidden Lance comes out I think lifepoints will matter a LOT more. Imagine a Five God Dragon with Lance on him. 4200 attack immune to spells and traps.

[SInge]

You should ask, how are life points seen in Yugioh?

Compared to a game where the power level of their creatures is lower 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and etc. Players get 20 Life and they have access to easy life gaining cards.

Yugioh LP system is more flimsy since the power creep level of monsters tend to range between 2000-3000 very often.

Luckily this card can change the game some.
http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Hope_for_an_Escape

[*heavenly_king*]

This is one of the things that makes my Volcanic Counter great - no loss in card presence = damage dealt to opponent.

Good stuff. Good Stuff. :D

[aosei85]

Several times (at least 3 or 4) over the last couple of days, I have read and heard people tell me that life points do not matter in the current game of Yugioh, and that advantage is all that matters. This general complexity people seem to have it starting to get annoying, so I decided I’d write an article on this idea.

First off, yes, advantage is important. I will not deny that. If you don’t have field advantage over your opponent, a majority (I can’t say all the time because there are some major exceptions to this) of the time, you will not be able to win. I understand that. However, what this doesn’t do is make life points irrelevant. Life points are very relevant in two senses of the word. The first sense is that when you hit 0 life points, you lose the duel. The second is that when your opponent hits 0, you win the duel. Now, these may seem like simple concepts, but they seem to be two concepts that are hard to grasp for current players of this game.

In the current meta, a typical deck will run 1 to 2 Seven Tools of the Bandit, 1-3 Solemn Warnings, and a Solemn Judgment. Now, assuming the player is a smart player (I know that’s a big assumption in today’s game part of the time) we will assume that they activate the solemn late game. We will also assume that only 1 7 tools is ran, and 2 solemn warnings, although this mixture of cards usually varies from deck to deck. Now, assuming that they activate the 7 tools of the bandit (8000-1000=7000) the two solemn warnings (7000-2000-2000=3000) and the Solemn Judgment (3000/2-1500) they are left at 1500 life points. Now, assuming that the two players are of equal skill level, I can almost guarantee that 1500 life points will be dealt to both players at some point during the current duel. So, because of this, the player in question will have lost the duel because of their own cards. This actually happens quite often during the current meta, especially with cylinder at 2.

Now, Magic Cylinder is actually a very controversial card right now in terms of this argument. As I stated earlier, field advantage is important, so wouldn’t it be better off that you use something like D-prison that would remove the opponent’s monster from the field completely? In certain situations, yes, in others, no. But wait, Magic Cylinder does damage to the opponent’s life points? In the example from earlier, the other player could win the game from one simple Magic Cylinder. This is also true.

So, to end this article, I’ll leave you with this. Both positions of this argument are good, and all statements made are true, however the key to winning isn’t leaning towards one side or the other. The key to winning is finding a balance of field advantage, and while keeping your life points safe. So, while life points aren’t all the game is about, that doesn’t make them irrelevant completely. You are still trying to bring your opponent’s down to 0, and they are trying to bring you down to it as well. So, when building a deck or dueling, you need to remember all aspects of the game. While field advantage is important, it isn’t everything, just the same way that life points aren’t everything. If you go down to 0 life points, you still lose, no matter how much field advantage you have. This is why a mixture of both elements is important to any winning deck and why neither one is more important than the other.

I'd love to hear some feedback on this topic of course.
First of all I'd like to commend you for writing a very good article and making a compelling argument without simply saying something "I think Life points are more important and anyone else who says otherwise is a noob or stupid."

I think it is very true that a perfect balance must be made for any successful duel because using cards like Seven Tools of the Bandit, Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment to gain and maintian Field Advantage requires Life Points to utilize those cards. Without enough Life points you couldn't stop your opponent from summoning that one monster or activating that one card that would swing advantage in their favor. At the same time one of the biggest points of trying to maintain field advantage is to prevent your opponent from attacking you and reducing your life points in the first place.

However you have to also realize that in the average 40-card deck if your running the Big 5 Life Point reducing control cards (Warning, Tool and Judgment) you have 1/40 chance of drawing into Tools and Judgment and a 2/40 or 1/20 probability of drawing the Warnings every duel from the start. So that means that there is a chance that you may not even get to use those cards which is why some people think its better to run more copies (2 Seven Tools of the Bandit and 3 Solemn warnings). But then you have a greater chance to reduce ur own life points sooner while stopping 5 of your opponents cards.

So again in this case unless you negated the 5 key cards to their strategy, you've potentially gone thru 7000 life points without using Solemn Judgment and if your attacked once by almost anything, your as good as dead.

Life points thus become the defining point of the duel unless you have a deck like empty jar where they REALLY don't matter lol

Great Article again man and kudos for writing it!

[Ninja Storm]

I'm probably gonna run Magic Cylinder because of this article.

The fact that your opponent runs through at least 3000 LP through negating Trap cards, makes the chances of dealing the final damage with Magic Cylinder pretty high.

Thanks man :D

[Denzi]

I'm going to say that advantage and lifepoints have a 75% 25% importance, respectively. Lifepoints matter, but advantage dictates control over those points, and giving up a fraction of your own to take a larger chunk out of your opponent's is not only completely justified, but also most often the smart play.

At Locals today, for example, I was playing against anti-meta. He had me completely locked down (DFissure Skill Drain combo wrecks Plant Synch) and I had used 2 Warnings and a Judgment to stop some of his bigger plays/field clear attempts. The short version of the story is that I ended up taking the game with only 50 lifepoints left.

Another example of the immaterial nature of LP (from the same local) was vs an Exodia player. Sure I gained lifepoints from things like Upstart, but he also got to his pieces faster. Game two once I knew what I was up against I forced out his stall cards early and hit for a lot of damage, only to get gamed by Self Destruct Button.

So yes, Lifepoints matter, but Advantage is much more of a factor.

Also a note on Seven Tools: The same sort of case can be made against you, as often times you're stopping another card with a higher lifepoint cost, thus maintaining your edge on the opponent.

[SInge]

Life Points in Yugioh are more similar to the Shields from Duel Masters.

There is no LP, instead it takes in a normal game 6 hits to win.

There are monsters/creatures that have ways of taking out 2 or 3 shields in one attack.

The Dark color allows a player to expend shields for powerful effects.

Some cards can recover shields.

[The Golem Knight]

Ive been using a deck based around naturia mosquito since the duelist revolution sneak and they are a good example of this, if myy opponent gets greedy and kills beans(average monster attack being around 1600) then they take 2000 damage per attack then it takes 2 hits to kill making them take 4000 damage to kill one monster that can easily be limit reversed
but then again seven tooling a solemn can always be fun

[BlackWerewolf]

Life Points in Yugioh are more similar to the Shields from Duel Masters.

There is no LP, instead it takes in a normal game 6 hits to win.

There are monsters/creatures that have ways of taking out 2 or 3 shields in one attack.

The Dark color allows a player to expend shields for powerful effects.

Some cards can recover shields.

That's actually a very good comparison. At first I, too, thought that the Shield system in DM was horrid because 6 attacks = game, however YGO! is even worse, as sometimes 3-4 attacks = game.

I wish DM hadn't died prematurely here. It wasn't that bad of a card game, as simplistic as it was.

[The zombie guy]

Ceasefire should be run more. It is tragic when used right.

I personally run Draining Shield and Destruct Potion to prevent this.

[comraq]

when people say that life points dont matter until the last point, they are saying that losing 100 LP while at 8000 LP doesnt matter until losing 100 LP with only 100 LP left

i run gladiator beasts so for me card advantage is much more important, since when i use warnings, solemns to stop my opponent's plays, i end up with a heraklinos negating any possible magic cylinders

IMO LP vs CA depends on the deck, for me LP < CA

once i faced a burn deck with my gbs, he went first and had killer hand i would say, a couple of poison of the old mans, and some other cards, got me down to 1000LP and was about to use his monster eff on the third turn to inflict 1000 LP to me, he had weak monsters on his first turn, no backrow so i summoned a gb, attacked him tagged out and set chariot facedown. on his third turn, i chariot his monster eff and he forfeit.

this is a perfect example of where LP dont matter until the last point, since he had 0 hand or field, while i had around 5 cards over him, even if he Dark Hole me next turn, i think i still have a monster to attack and deal 1000+ every turn, he lost all his advantage using up burn cards to deal dmg to me, unless burn cards start doing at least 1500+ dmg per card, LP wont matter as much as CA IMO

[Skyhound]

I think CA is important UNTIL you get an undeniable win combo that springs up, or one that would be hella hard to stop. As an example you could say Sabers with an opening hand of Cold Wave, Boggart Knight, and three Faultrolls would be a reason to drop your hand for a quick win.

As for Life Points, I don't care until I reach below 1000lp. That kind of becomes the red zone for me. Though I think if LP really mattered that much, Royal Oppression, Solemn Judgment, and Solemn Warning wouldn't be so popular.

[Supreme Seraphim]

Since Yu-Gi-Oh's playstyle can be, at best, described as "rocket tag", life points matter to a certain extent.

There is no hard-and-fast rule here. Obviously, playing Solemn Judgement at 8000LP is a really dumb idea unless the opponent's going to OTK you or something. I've won many games where I fail to OTK, but leave my opponent in such a situation where even the attack difference between a Karakuri Steel Shogun 00X "Bureido" and a Stardust Dragon is enough to give me the game.

Life points matter once you start running out.

[Emissary-of-Gorz]

honestly if there was a spell card that said
Pay 2000 lifepoints and draw one card.

that card would be ran in threes lol. unfourtantly lp are < card advantage as its usually all or nothing win or lose situations where sabers, Sams, etc etc make a big push for game.

sure using those cards makes you vulnerible, but look at chain burn for instance.

i open with Ojama Trio, Chain Strike, Just Desserts, Meteor of Destruction and say Lava Golem.

sure burning my opponent for 7100 lp in two turns would bring me so close to victory, however then im sitting on ZERO resources and my opponent uses that Lava Golem and any other monsters he needs to swing over 8000 points of damage at me, and if not then i still have 5-6 cards to deal with whatever you have to do,....


i dunnno its different with every player, some prefer the trap stuns to seven tools so they save that 1000 lp

[Dizei]

Life points are just a resource to be used.

[TeamAPS/GP611]

I may have to link some people to this.

[Ojimo]

OP is a known idiot. Moving on.

[Zaffy]

But we DO have that!

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Hope_for_an_Escape

Brb, siding against Flint infinite lp deck.

Anyway, based on Reflect Bounder, surely we can say 1 card = 1700 lps?

As there's no way to get rid of the Reflect Bounder without losing 1700 lps, or a card. (Ignoring factors like JD and/or DAD)

[farmerduh3]

if you have field advantage, then you'll get the lifepoints. thats that.

[comraq]

i love burn decks and would take Lp much more seriously if burn cards can do more dmg

[BlackWerewolf]

Brb, siding against Flint infinite lp deck.

Anyway, based on Reflect Bounder, surely we can say 1 card = 1700 lps?

As there's no way to get rid of the Reflect Bounder without losing 1700 lps, or a card. (Ignoring factors like JD and/or DAD)

At least, so it was in the past. Nowadays it's too easy to get rid of it without loosing anything at all.

[Xylyze]

Actually 1 card = 1334. Multiply that by 6 and you have 8000 lifepoints. 8004 to be exact. Also a reason why gadgets will always be viable.

[Jackel]

Card advantage > Life Points or Field Advantage

[The Golem Knight]

ok heres 2 little loops and then say how important it is
2 x saber palomuros
Rainbow Life
poas, exodius, exodia etc
now guess whos gonna win

[Ssj4NyanNyan]

Me obviously.
Life points = Card Advantage

[The Golem Knight]

oh yeah then theres stall burn decks

[Ssj4NyanNyan]

LaDD says hi

[The Golem Knight]

....dang it

[Ssj4NyanNyan]

Then i proceed to summon GSS and **** you

[Yeshimon]

Unless you have like tens of thousands LP higher than your opponent,
Card advantage > LP

[Zaffy]

Actually 1 card = 1334. Multiply that by 6 and you have 8000 lifepoints. 8004 to be exact. Also a reason why gadgets will always be viable.

Yes, when you Multiply them they equal 8000, but unfortunately, the cards starting in your hands have no relation to the lifepoints you have starting of, apart from figuring out how much each card has to do for the win.

Reflect Bounder is a card which requires either a 1 card investment, or a loss of 1700 lifepoints to get rid of.

You could attack it with your Cyber Dragon, but then your opponent loses 1 card and 400 lps, you lose 2100, if we make them equal each other, 1 card + 400 lps = 2100lps, thus 1 card = 1700 lps.

However one could Book of Moon Reflect Bounder, then attack it. However it took you one card to destroy one card, Book of Moon in exchange for Reflect Bounder.

Your argument that 1 card = 1334 lps because diving 8000 by 6 = 1334 does not have any relation to this debate as there are no cards which say 'This card inflicts 1334 damage to the opponent.'

Back in the days where Ookazi was the best we had, then we could say 1 card = 800 lps. Then Meteor of Destruction showed us 1 card = 1000, now Reflect Bounder shows 1 card = 1700.

Hypothetical situations have no impact on this game.

[StarFisherX]

I believe life points are expendable till your down to your last one. If they had a card that traded life points for cards, I would definitely play it.

Hope for Escape?

[RagingArkie]

You can't get careless with life points. Let's say you have 4000 life points. He has a Cyber Dragon on the field, then he summons Blackwing - Bora the Spear. Is it smart to Solemn Warning the Bora? No, because you'd lose. You'd still have a chance with 200 life points left.

[megacloud]

I don't think you have to worry about life till you can no longer pay for some cards like warning or seven tools and they become dead draws, however my brother took magical cylinder to his past few tournaments, and has topped with the lol worthy card at the people who pay with warning.

[comraq]

i really wouldnt bet on my opponents getting out their solemns and then count on my magical cylinder

[Saifullah]

Nice necro.