The "How do I improve my game" Guide
If you're reading this, you're either an
average player looking for an edge, or an advanced player looking to refresh their memory, gain new insight, or find minuscule "flaws" in the
reasoning here presented in an attempt to discredit me out of spite. The latter can stop now; you're wasting your time. As for the rest, you'll find this guide to be divided into 3 main parts: Card Advantage, the more basic of the two concepts and the more solid; and Tempo Manipulation and the human aspect of the game, a rather advanced technique that, while having no definite boundaries with which to gauge it, has a far greater impact on the outcome of the game.
Some of the advanced players may find the section on card advantage rather repetitive and dull, but I encourage them nonetheless to at least scan through it to make
it fresh in their minds for the second section. I encourage less advanced players, or those not already well-acquainted with the concept of card advantage, to read the entire first section about Card Advantage carefully, and practice subconsciously applying card advantage before moving on to tempo manipulation.
Human influence on the game
-Psychology and how this influences the
game
Card Advantage
-Card Advantage for Dummies
-The Basics of Generating Advantage
-Complex Generation: Card Combos and Game play Tricks
-Applying Card Advantage to Improve Your Game: An Intro to Game state
Simplification
Tempo Manipulation
-Simplification: A Mathematical Analysis
Psychology and how this influences the game:
Yu-Gi-Oh is a strategic game which means
there is a lot of planning, thinking and of course strategizing before you even get to a duel. Normally people do this when they decide to make a new deck for themselves or for a specific tournament. By building your deck you think ahead of what you are most likely going to face in meaning the other decks you are going to duel, that’s perfect to do cause you can adapt your deck to it, but what many people forget is the human side of Yu-Gi-Oh. That’s the side I would
like to take under a microscope for you.
Psychology is your first weapon ( even before the actual duel, match or even a war ), how can this be you ask; Psychology can be used in a million ways and in this case we tend to enlighten you with the ways to use it for Yu-Gi-Oh. This can be done very easily by
searching his/her past accomplishments. By looking at those accomplishments we can determine deck/theme preferences in different events. These preferences can be relayed to game play which tells us something about our opponent, with this information we can already start thinking ahead and in the best scenario gain
the first advantage. Information is the key to a good preparation to a
duel/match. But how to determine which information you gather is helpful; This question has a very simple answer: Everything is important.
The information you gather by searching forums, talking to people that know your opponent will bring you to a point you will have to summon all that information up and draw a conclusion about your
opponent. This is the hardest part since you will need trustworthy information, experience and faith in your ability to do so. With this information you should be able to sketch a profile of your opponent, that profile should be saying what type of duelist your opponent is.
This is the part of psychology you will be using for Yu-Gi-Oh pre-dueling, why is this important to do. It gives you the first advantage over your opponent and also the largest one in my opinion. Since if you do it correctly you can also assume his deck/theme preference for your duel and therefore already start countering.
Example:
I need to gather information about Kiryu111 and the conclusion is; He is a dangerous duelist because he can come out on top in scenario’s in which you think you control his pace, creative and likes to OTK.
With this information we can already determine what type of duelist Kiryu111 is;
Conservative Aggressive. Meaning he plans his big move from the start and waits until the time is right to make it while you ( normally do not know when this is going to happen ) and basically walk right into his trap he laid out from his first drawn card.
I personally am a Aggressive player by
nature, I like to put pressure on my opponent the entire duel until one of us comes out on top and preferably myself obviously.
This means I have to adapt to game play of Kiryu111 since my own type of play will not stand a real chance against Kiryu111’s play style. However there is a weakness of course in Kiryu111’s play
style; If he waits too long or if I would put too much pressure on him but that will only work once with a duelist of his level ( which I already concluded ).
The way to adapt myself to Kiryu111 is to preserve cards then can work ultimately aggressive and defensive cards like Bottomless Trap Hole, Mirror Force, Solemn Judgment ( although I like it more to keep my push for control alive ) Torrential Tribute and maybe even Scapegoat. This means I have to be less aggressive
and more conservative as well or go for the ultimate aggressiveness and try to OTK him within 3 turns.
My personal choice is always the OTK style against Kiryu111 cause I don’t like laying back and fire everything at one point so I want to show Kiryu111 I don’t have to change my style just for him ( if you know what I mean ).
Now that you have seen how psychology can be a weapon pre-game you should also know your weapons while being in the game therefore I present you;
Card Advantage for Dummies:
Now, more advanced players tend to forget why newer players run massive decks packed full of every conceivable strategy. It's really a pretty basic concept: be able to counter your opponent's moves, and you will win the duel. Advanced players will talk about "versatile" and "situational" cards when building decks. The only real difference between this concept and that of the beginner is that
beginners will add a card or two to deal with every situation imaginable; advanced players try to use only cards that, while not necessarily perfect for a given situation, can be used in many different situations. This works on the principle that less cards means a greater chance of drawing them, which in turn
means that you are more likely to work around your opponent's moves as they make them. In order to explain this the best I can I am forced to start using
math, so as promised here follows the math behind my reasoning;
We have 40 cards in the deck to make
sure we have the highest possible rate of getting it in our opening hand.
nCr(copies of card, # in starting
hand) x nCr((cards in deck - copies of card), (cards being drawn - # in
starting hand))
nCr(3,1) x nCr(40-3,6-1) + nCr(3,2) x nCr(40-3,6-2)
+ nCr(3,3) x nCr(40-3,6-3) = 1,513,596
That determines the possibility of drawing one, two, or three copies of the
card in your starting hand. So, we just take that and divide by the total
number of hands to get:
1,513,596 / 3,383,380 = 0.447 or 44.7%
They seem radically different, but both
are connected by the same basic mathematical concept: if you have more cards,
you're more likely to have the one(s) that you need. Anyone can see the truth
of this statement. If I take the top eight cards from a forty-card deck, I'm
more likely to draw a given card than if I draw only the top five cards. By the
same logic, if I have eight cards between my hand and field combined, I am more
likely to have a given card than if I have only five total cards. If I have
eight cards between my field and hand, and my opponent has only five, I am more
likely to have an answer to his moves than he is likely to have an answer to
mine. My "competitive upper-hand" is that I have more cards, and
therefore more options, than my opponent. Because I have more options than my
opponent, I am more likely to win the game. That is the concept of card
advantage. So, by having more options than your opponent, you maximize your
ability to win the present duel.
The Basics of Generating Advantage:
Advantage is relative. That is, when one
player is said to have card advantage, it means that they have more cards than
their opponent, not just "more cards in general". This holds true in
all scenarios, regardless of how many total cards are currently involved in the
game. To determine who has card advantage, and to what degree, simply count the
total number of cards controlled by both players, both on the field and in that
respective player's hand. This is called that player's "card count."
When you subtract one player's card count from the other player's card count, you
will find a whole number that is either negative, positive, or exactly zero. In
math terms, the operation will yield an integer. The player with the most cards
has card advantage, equal to the difference between the two card counts.
EXAMPLE: If your opponent has a card count of three, and you have a card count
of five, you have a card advantage of two cards. This would be called "+2
advantage."
The actual equation, for you algebra-heads out there, is |O-Y|=A. It is called
the "Advantage Equation."
Example 1:
You are just starting a duel. You and your opponent both draw your first five
cards. You both, therefore, have five cards. This means you both have five ways
to react. Five options for what to do, or many more than five possible
combinations of cards to play. You win the die roll/coin,
flip/rock-paper-scissors and choose to go first. You start the duel, and draw
one card.
You now have six cards, while your opponent has only five. By doing the math we
can see that your 6 cards - your opponent's 5 cards = +1 card. This means that
you have +1 card advantage.
Example 2:
After drawing, you summon Battle Ox in attack mode and end your turn. Your
opponent draws. They have now gained one more card. You still have six cards
under your control: your Battle Ox on the field and five cards in hand. Your
opponent also has six cards, all in their hand.
Here we start to make quick calculations in the back of our heads. We both
control a total of six cards, or card counts of six each. 6-6=0, meaning that
neither player currently has card advantage. The game state is said to be even.
Example 3:
Your opponent, after drawing their card, summons Archfiend Soldier in attack
mode, and attacks your Battle Ox, destroying it.
Your opponent didn't lose any cards, but you lost your Battle Ox. You now
control only five cards, all in your hand, whereas your opponent controls six
cards: five in hand and Archfiend Soldier on the field. 5-6=-1, which means
that you have -1 advantage. You could also say that your opponent has +1
advantage, which is the more common terminology.
These examples illustrate the two most basic ways of generating advantage:
drawing at the start of your turn, and destroying your opponent's monsters in
battle. Drawing from your deck is a basic game play mechanic, but, when applied
to card advantage, has powerful repercussions. It allows a player without
advantage an opportunity to come back, and a player with advantage to maintain
pressure on their opponent.
Various effects also generate advantage.
For example, by activating the now-banned Pot of Greed, you are giving up one
card (Pot of Greed itself), and gaining two more. In the end, you'll have
gained one card. If your opponent has advantage, this narrows the gap, if the
game is even, it will give you advantage, and if you already have advantage, it
will widen the gap between you and your opponent. As you can see, effects that
give you more cards generate advantage when they give you more cards than the
combo requires. If you subtract the number of cards used from the number of
cards gained, it will yield a positive result. Gain, cost; profit, expense;
investment, pay-off. In the case of Pot of Greed, the gain (2) minus the loss
(1) equals one (this is called the "Advantage Generation Equation").
As you can see, activating Pot of Greed results in gaining one card worth of
advantage. This is a +1 though in a different context than previously. It
signifies that you gained one card from the action, and becomes more relevant
when determining the effectiveness of various combos.
Card effects that destroy the opponent's
cards can also generate advantage. Another banned card, Harpie's Feather
Duster, is perfect for explaining this. Imagine that your opponent has three
spell or trap cards on the field. You activate Harpie's Feather Duster,
destroying all spell or trap cards on your opponent's side of the field. The
same rules of gain and loss apply; however, in this case, your opponent's loss
is your gain. Your opponent loses three cards, which makes your gain also three
cards. You lost only one card, Harpie's Feather Duster. Therefore, you achieved
a +2 by activating Harpie's Feather Duster. In this scenario, you will have
even card advantage with your opponent if your opponent previously had +2
advantage; you will have +1 advantage if your opponent previously had +1
advantage; you will have +2 advantage if the game was previously even; and you
will have sick advantage if you already had any advantage at all.
These cards both generated massive advantage and momentum swings quickly and
easily, which is why they both got banned. They both had the power to
single-handedly turn the tables on your opponent by giving you instant card
advantage. Cards that do (did) so tend to get banned (or at least limited) very
quickly. As such, we have very few ways to generate advantage left through the
use of a single card. At best, a competitive combo will use two cards to
eliminate an opponent's three, which is where the gain-loss calculations become
useful. If a combo does not have a good pay-off, it will not be worthy of use.
Complex Generation: Card Combos and Game play Tricks:
With powerful single-card advantage
generators banned, many a powerful combo has been created for the sake of
generating card advantage. Some of these have had pieces banned, due to being
too powerful. A good example would be the Gearfried the Iron Knight/Royal
Magical Library/Butterfly Dagger - Elma combo, which allowed a player to
infinitely loop the combo to draw through their entire deck in the same turn,
if they so wished.
While the modern meta-game contains none of these infinite loop combos (at least
not to generate card advantage), a few combos to generate advantage through
your own gain; and many combos to generate +1's or +2's by destroying your opponent's
cards. However, the concept is still there, and card advantage is applied to
every deck ever considered for highly competitive play. Combos that result in
negative advantage are useless, combos that have equal gain and loss are
situational, and combos that generate positive advantage at a nearly 100%
success rate become popular. Far more numerous are those that generate negative
advantage, followed by the "no advantage" combos (hereafter referred
to as "even trades," "card-for-card exchanges," "one-for-ones
(abrv. "1-1," "2-2," etc., representing [cards used]-[cards
gained]). To demonstrate the application of +x and -x in determining whether
combos are playable or not, I will give an example of each of the three types.
Example 1: Negative
Advantage - XYZ Dragon Cannon
To summon XYZ Dragon Cannon, you must remove X-Head Cannon, Y-Dragon Head, and
Z-Metal Tank on your side of the field from play. In return, you get to Special
Summon a powerful attacker with the ability to destroy one card on the field
per turn by discarding one card from your hand. As stated, summoning XYZ Dragon
Cannon requires the expenditure of three cards in exchange for one. A three for
one, written 3-1. Coincidentally, that's simply the reverse order of the left
side of our advantage equation. In this case, it would be written 1 (gain) -3
(loss) = -2 (Pay-off). If you could protect it, this combo would pay off
exceptionally well, if not for the discard effect. The "discard to
destroy" effect is actually a perfect example of an even trade, but here
prevents this combo from paying off. If every turn you could destroy a card for
free, protecting XYZ Dragon Cannon for three turns would yield positive
advantage. With the discard effect, however, it just becomes a 4-2, then a 5-3,
then a 6-4, and so on. In each case, it remains a -2, just with different
numbers plugged in.
Example 2: Even Trade - Dark Sage
Summoning Dark Sage requires that you tribute a Dark Magician on your side of
the field. Assuming that Dark Sage was in your deck, not your hand, you give up
one card to summon him (Dark Magician). Upon summoning, you can add one spell
from your deck to your hand. You must first succeed in effect of Time Wizard,
which makes it highly situational and luck-based, but that has nothing to do
with card advantage. So, you have 1 (gain) -1 (loss) = 0 (pay-off). As you can
see, you gained no advantage whatsoever with that combo. It was an even trade.
You got to thin your deck, pick the exact spell you needed at the time, and
summon a monster with 300 more attack, but, in terms of card advantage, you are
no better off than you were before.
Example 3: Positive Advantage - Soul Control
Your opponent has a monster on the field. You activate Soul Exchange and offer
your opponent's monster as a tribute to summon Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch,
discarding one card in their hand. You've lost one card (Soul Exchange) to
their two (The tributed monster and the random discard). Their loss is your
gain, so 2-1= +1 advantage.
Other than battle, drawing, combos, and
individual card effects, the only way to gain advantage is to trick your
opponent into wasting cards to destroy yours, while making that destruction
null. This typically involves chaining the targeted card to get the effect
anyway, or chaining another card to make the destruction effect and all future
destruction effects useless. Three examples of this are below.
Example 1: Hook, Line, and Sucker
The simplest trick to gain advantage by tricking your opponent is through
chainable spells and traps when your opponent activates some form of spell/trap
removal, such as Mystical Space Typhoon or Heavy Storm. Doing so allows you to
still get the card's effect, while your opponent's spell/trap destruction does
absolutely nothing. For example, your opponent activates Heavy Storm while you
have Jar of Greed set. By chaining Jar of Greed to Heavy Storm, you get to draw
a card before Heavy Storm destroys Jar of Greed. That's 1(draw) +1(Heavy Storm)
-1(Jar of Greed)= +1. The same applies if your opponent targets Scapegoat for a
destruction effect, or even Mystical Space Typhoon while they have another
spell or trap on the field.
Example 2: Royal Decree
If you attack with a monster, and your opponent activates Dimensional Prison,
to which you respond with Royal Decree, Dimensional Prison is destroyed and
your attack still gets through. If your opponent wants to be able to use traps
again, they must use a removal card on Royal Decree. If they do so, they have
lost Dimensional Prison and the removal card, while you have lost only Royal
Decree. 2-1= +1.
Example 3: Survivor Control
While you have D. D. Survivor on the field, and your opponent tries to destroy
it with Smashing Ground, Fissure, etc., you can chain Macro Cosmos to the
monster removal effect. D. D. Survivor will still be destroyed, but it will be
removed from play and return during the end phase. As with Royal Decree, if
your opponent tries to destroy Macro Cosmos, they will receive a -1. Because D.
D. Survivor returns to your side of the field, you don't ultimately lose any
cards, making it a +1.
Applying Card
Advantage to Improve Your Game: An Intro to Game state Simplification:
In Yu-Gi-Oh!, simplification is exactly
what it sounds like: making the game more simple by removing options from both
players card count. Simplification is used to make card advantage count, as we
will soon see. But here I would like to introduce the reason why Player A lost
that first game in the above section. Here's the scenario I'm talking about:
Player A has four cards in hand and two set spell or traps: a card count of
six. Player B has only two cards in hand and none on the field. Player B draws,
and a broad smile slowly creeps across their face. Player B beams triumphantly
as they drop first Giant Trunade, then Future Fusion, then Overload Fusion to
summon an 8000+ atk Chimeratech Overdragon. Stunned, Player A cries
"lucksack," and angrily scoops up their cards. Player B retorts that
it was Player A's fault for letting him have the opportunity to use the combo
in the first place. And so on and so forth. We've all seen it.
Before saying anything myself, I would like to quote Jason Grabher-Meyer, who
summed it up rather nicely in his article, "Keeping it Simple," which
can be found here: http://yugioh.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=1856
"I have a love-hate relationship with the entire concept of card
advantage. On one hand, I love the fact that players try to impose a resource
system onto a game that doesn't have one. Imposing order over chaos in order to
make sense of things is one of the habits that draws us all closer as human
beings, for better or worse, and keeping card advantage in the back of your
head can make you a better player.
On the other hand, I hate the fact that a simple counting system often turns
otherwise-skilled duelists into whining babies, or worse yet, winds up creating
disappointing situations for people who are genuinely good sports. How often
have you heard it? “I had like, +3 on the guy and he luck sacked me! I didn't
deserve to lose!”
Well I've got news for ya', skippy. You probably did."
Simplification is where even trades
start to mean something. This scenario shows the most basic use of
simplification. By eliminating a specific card needed to perform a combo, even
trades can prevent your opponent from shifting the momentum of the game in
their favor. By simplifying the game, you have kept your opponent from doing
anything, not just less.
Tempo
Manipulation; Simplification: A Mathematical Analysis
If you understand rudimentary
mathematics, the concept of simplification is actually pretty simple. When the
game state is "simplified," it means that both players have few
options remaining to them; that is, they both have relatively small card
counts. A game state where both players have no cards on the field and are top
decking is as simplified as the duel could possibly be. More often, a
simplified game state will involve both players controlling between one and
three cards. To understand the impact of a simplified game state on the outcome
of a duel, we need to understand the mathematical significance of having fewer
options in play.
Let's start with the assumption that you have a card count of eight, and your
opponent has a card count of six. Simple arithmetic tells us that you have +2
advantage, which means that you are most likely to win the present duel.
However, experience tells us that an opponent with six cards is likely to have
some way of mounting a comeback. Some readers may already have realized that
another way of calculating advantage is to find the percentage of your card
count relative to your opponent's card count. To do so, we divide your card
count by your opponents, and move the decimal place two places to the right in
the solution. This may seem interchangeable with the Advantage Equation, but,
as we shall see, it is much more useful and dynamic. Mathematically expressed:
Y/O·100=Ap
Where Y is your card count, O is your opponent's card count, and Ap is the
"Advantage Percentage."
In this scenario, we can determine that:
8(your card count)/6(your opponent's card
count)·100=133%
Therefore, you have 133% as many cards as your opponent.
This is where even trades become important. While you have card advantage over
your opponent, and you start initiating card-for-card exchanges, you're
Advantage Percentage goes up. If this turn you use one card, say, Smashing
Ground, to destroy one of your opponent's cards, in this case a face-up
monster, the card counts change. Now, you have seven cards to your opponent's
five. We plug it in to the Advantage Percentage Equation and find that:
7/5·100= 140%
So you now have 140% as many cards as your opponent. If you then activate
Mystical Space Typhoon, you'll have six cards to your opponent's four.
6/4·100= 150%
Now you offer a monster as a tribute to summon Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch.
You lose the tribute, and your opponent loses one card from their hand.
5/3·100= 166%
As you can see, simplifying the game state while you have card advantage is
highly advantageous to you. This concept is called "Forcing
Simplification," and it can be difficult to determine when and how to use
it. We spoke earlier of preventing your opponent from using their OTK combo. At
this point, your opponent has only three cards, so they could still draw into a
combo. However, they are much more likely to hold that combo in a five-card
hand than in a three card hand. Player A lost because they failed to force
simplification.
As you must have noticed I have used old
card examples, I chose to do it this way so that you will come to understand
the meaning of the subjects explained but still need to discover how to utilize
them in today’s formats. This way I’m sure that once you understand it you will
improve and not just copy some of the combo’s mentioned in this guide.
I sincerely hope you all enjoyed the
learning or the refreshment process just as I do.
Kind Regards,
The_Dutch_Prince
by 
Subject: The "How do I improve my game" Guide 
