Basic Card Presence and Advantage
21 Dec 2009 | Nick Butcher
Card presence refers to the total number of cards a player has in his hand, and on the field combined. At the beginning of a Duel when you draw your sixth card, your total card presence is six. You have six cards that you can make plays with. If you then summon a monster and set a spell or trap card, you still have a total card presence of six: the fact that you’ve moved two of those cards from your hand to the field does not diminish the usefulness of those cards, so the math doesn’t change.
When a card is sent to the graveyard, removed from the field, or returned to your deck, it no longer contributes to your total card presence. So if I go first, set two cards, and lose one of them in battle next turn, my total card presence will now be five cards instead of six. We get that number by adding together the total number of cards on my side of the field, to the total number of cards in my hand.
Activating a normal spell and sending it to your graveyard reduces your card presence. Tributing a monster to summon a bigger one also reduces your card presence, since the tributed monster goes to the graveyard. Drawing a card increases your card presence. If an effect lets you search your deck for a card to add to your hand, and does so without consuming a card from your hand or field, that action also increases your card presence.
There are near-infinite ways that your card presence can be reduced or increased – I’m sure you can already think of many yourself. There are also lots of actions that will not affect your card presence despite initial appearances.
For instance, if I were to end my turn with “Ehren, Lightsworn Monk” on the field, her effect would send three cards from the top of my deck to the graveyard. But the loss of those three cards doesn’t have an impact on my card presence, because those cards are going from my deck to my graveyard – card presence only takes into account the cards in my hand and on my field.
So when a card is added to my hand or my field, I gain card presence. When a card moves between my hand and field, there’s no change. When a card is removed from my hand or field and sent somewhere else, I lose card presence.
Some Examples of Card Advantage
The following are all examples of plays that will increase my total card presence by one card:
-Summoning Elemental Hero Stratos, and using its effect to add Destiny Hero – Malicious to my hand.
-Flip Summoning “Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive” to draw a card.
-Activating the End Phase effect of “Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress” and sending “Wulf, Lightsworn Beast” to the graveyard as a result, special summoning Wulf
These are basic examples of a simple one-card gain. In all three cases a monster effect results in a card being added to my hand or field, while the monster itself remains on the field and continues to count towards my total card presence. Here are some examples of plays with similar results that don’t increase my total card presence across the long term.
-Activating “Reinforcement of the Army” to add “Destiny Hero Fear Monger” from my deck to my hand
-Flipping “Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive” when it is attacked by a monster big enough to destroy it, drawing a card with Dekoichi’s effect
-Special summoning a monster with “Mystic Tomato’s” effect, when “Mystic Tomato” is destroyed in battle
All three of these scenarios result in a new card being added to my hand or field – a gain of card presence. However, each scenario also incurs a loss of card presence to accomplish this. That Reinforcement moves from your hand, to the field, to the graveyard before getting you a monster. Dekoichi gets you a draw, but is itself destroyed.. Because the loss of card presence and the gain of card presence occur almost simultaneously, we can consider these examples to have no impact on total card presence. Let’s look at a few losing scenarios, too.
-My “Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress” is attacked and destroyed by “Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior”
-My set “Dimensional Prison” is destroyed by the effect of my opponent’s “Breaker the Magical Warrior”
-I take a direct attack from “Spirit Reaper”, and am forced to discard a card for Reaper’s effect
In all three scenarios here, my opponent has eliminated one of my cards from my hand or field. They accomplished that without losing any cards themselves, too: the monsters responsible for my loss remain on the field in each example. Here are three more scenarios where my card presence is diminished by one card.
-My “Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress” is destroyed by my opponent’s “Smashing Ground”
-My set “Dimensional Prison” is destroyed by my opponent’s “Heavy Storm”
-My opponent sends a monster card from my hand, back to my deck, with “Trap Dustshoot”
In all three of these scenarios I am again losing a single card’s worth of card presence. However, what makes these scenarios different from the previous three, is that my opponent is also losing a card himself. We’re both losing card presence.
Recognizing Card Advantage
Well, let’s look at a common scenario with a deck you’re guaranteed to see this format: Lightsworn. While there are several strong opening moves a Lightsworn player can make when he goes first, one of the most common openings looks something like the following.
-Activate Charge of the Light Brigade. Send three cards from the top of the deck to the graveyard: Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, Honest, and Bottomless Trap Hole. Add Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior from the deck to the hand.
In this first action we lose Charge, send three cards from the deck to the graveyard (no change to card presence because those cards didn’t come from the hand or field), and add Garoth to the hand. We traded Charge for Garoth, and didn’t lose or gain card presence in the long run. Next move:
-Discard “Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior” for “Solar Recharge”, drawing two cards, and sending two cards from the top of the deck to the graveyard.
In this move we lose Garoth for Recharge’s discard cost, and Recharge itself is consumed. We then draw two cards and send two cards from the deck to the graveyard. Once again, we didn’t lose or gain card presence in the grand scheme of things. We’ve still got six cards in hand.
- Normal summon “Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner”. Discard a card for Lumina’s effect, special summoning “Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior” from the graveyard.
Here we’ve moved Lumina from the hand to the field, and discarded a card from the hand (-1) to special summon Garoth from the graveyard (+1). Again, the one card loss is balanced by a one card gain. Our total card presence is still six cards. Now let’s make things a bit more interesting.
-Enter the End Phase. Send three cards from the deck to the graveyard for Lumina’s effect:. Lumina’s effect will trigger Garoth’s ability, sending two more cards to the graveyard. For Example. “Gold Sarcophagus” and “Wulf, Lightsworn Beast”.
-Two effects now trigger: Wulf’s ability to special summon itself from the graveyard when it’s sent there from the deck, and Garoth’s ability to let you draw a card when his effect sends a Lightsworn monster to the graveyard.
The end result will be a draw with Garoth (+1 to your card presence) and Wulf hitting the field (another +1 to your card presence). You didn’t lose anything to accomplish this: you just got two cards for free. In your opponent’s first draw phase he’ll draw to six cards, but your total presence is already eight. Even if your opponent attacks over Lumina to reduce you to seven cards of presence, you’re still up by one card. Draw for your draw phase next turn, and you’ll have eight cards to throw at your opponent’s six.
Consider another basic scenario that can appear in almost any Duel…
-Going first, set “Sangan”, and then set “Torrential Tribute”.
No changes to card presence here yet…
-When your opponent normal summons “Mystic Tomato” next turn, respond with “Torrential Tribute”.
Your opponent will lose Tomato while you will lose Sangan and Torrential Tribute Sangan’s effect will then let you search your deck for a monster to add to your hand
In this simple scenario your opponent loses one card, while you lose two and then gain one. Both players end up losing one card’s worth of presence total, because while you lost two cards, you gained one as well.
Some Advantage/Disadvantage Terms
Those are really all the basics of card presence and card advantage theory. If you understand what’s been outlined above, and can superimpose it over the situations you find yourself in, you should be able to intelligently discuss card presence. Let’s define a few terms so you can speak with other players about this useful theory.
“Minus”: but conversations usually use this term only when the loss of card presence is not mirrored in the other player’s card presence. For instance, if I activate Smashing Ground to destroy your monster, that won’t usually be called a “minus”, because even though card presence is changing, no one’s gaining ground in strict terms of card count. Instead a player might call this a Trade or Exchange as cards are being traded off on an equal basis. While card presence is being lost, neither player is getting an edge in the strictest mathematical terms.
“1-for-1” or “2-for-1”: These are just short numerical notations to qualify a situation where both players are losing card presence. The term “1-for-1” can be applied to the previous example of Smashing Ground destroying a monster, in which one card is destroying another and each player is losing one card of presence. The term “2-for-1” would be applied to a situation where one player loses only one piece of card presence, while the other player loses two cards. The play described earlier, in which Torrential Tribute destroyed one player’s Sangan, and the other player’s Lumina and Garoth, is an example of a “2-for-1”.
“Advantage”: When you’re talking about card presence, be careful how you use the term “advantage”. While a 2-for-1 play is always going to cost your opponent more card presence than you, it won’t necessarily place you in a situation of card advantage – you could be that far behind. Try to use the terms “losing card presence” or “gaining card presence” unless you’re specifically discussing a situation in which card advantage was won or lost.
I hope this helps you with future events!
Thanks.
For discussion.