Effortless Counter Attack Vs. Yojimbo's duty...

This is a logical conundrum to me.

So let me lay out the discussion...
Player A: "Dude why aren't you playing yojimbo's duty? Everyone is playing that card."
Player B: "But effortless counter attack is in the environment and unlike it's previous incarnation doesn't a useless battle action attached."

What's the logical step this? To me the logical step is simple... play effortless, find another card for straighten. For battle maiden's it's even simpler, play effortless, and play compassion of the unicorn or
any other straighten card and move on. The sure thing anyways.

So my questions are:

A: Why not play against the meta? and what is the meta?
B: Why play with that risk instead of doing the sure thing?
C: What will game winning players choose? will the top 8 be playing against the meta? with the meta? or both?

D but: You can also put your IDGAF opinion here... just make sure to label it as such.

At the end of this, we look back on previous environments and we see two different meta's. European vs American. American's have a shifting meta, Europeans usually settle into a meta. (Ex. Sneak vs Reinforce). In the end is it better to play tricks? or just play better? Or both.

I don't like effortless counterattack, right now. There aren't that many cards that gives an additional action, yojimbo and one action two strikes being the only useful ones that may see play. Other than that... monk actions/stronghold... Kaenpki? Mantis range attack and phoenix spell box. A good kensai action, a good magistrate action...

the battle ability on effortless seems a little weak/constricting. With the number of good military red cards, I couldn't find a place for effortless in any of the decks i made.

Plus, yojimbo's action states "may"

Pruto wrote:Plus, yojimbo's action states "may"

Exactly.

The only deck that should run it is Paragons with Iron Will IMHO since you can play mind games with your opponent whether you are holding one or not.

It's not that it's a bad card Patrick. Don't try to think in terms of black and white.

It's a good card in some situations and would certainly win you some games outright if you had run it. But would I run it over reckless rush? No. Would I run it over a kill action or a send home? No.

In an environment CHOCK full of free small attachments, almost anyone worth sending home is going to have one.

If you want to run it, that's fine man. Run it in all your decks blindly and hope the meta comes to you. But if your resolution for this arc is to play better and play better decks, then you need to move away from janky combos and more towards consistency.

Also, what on EARTH are you talking about saying something about EU meta vs American meta. That line of thought makes no sense, and has no relevance to this discussion.

The EU meta and American meta will be different. They will also be different from the aussie meta, the south american meta, and the russian meta. In fact, the meta will be different in NW USA from Midwest, NE from SE, and all areas in between. You can try to have a feel for what powerful decks are, and you can try to shore up bad matches in your deck. But at the end of the day, we live in the SE, so it doesn't matter what anyone elses meta is.

The best deck you can build is a deck that is good on it's own, without any thought into any other decks. Then, after playing that deck 20-25 times, you see what decks it has the worst matchup against. Then you ask yourself, is it worth it to cut a card or two to put in a different card to shore up that bad matchup? Or can you get by just hoping you don't play that matchup. There are different schools of thought on this, all with their pluses and minuses. But at the end of the day, just blindly running a card because you feel ONE SPECIFIC INTERACTION within the game (actions taken as an additional action) is going to be really strong is a surefire way to get yourself to the top 8 and then lose in the first round.

Consistency. Is. King. You have to build a deck with the best actions that are usable in the most situations. And effortless is a card that is not worth running for CONSISTENCY reasons unless you are piloting a deck that will ENABLE its' use several times a match (such as paragons).

Once again, taking this discussion way to seriously bud. This is a discussion of card strategy, not deck building theory.

My questions were simple, if "everyone" is playing yojimbo's duty why not attack the meta? You are correct, consistency is king. But there hasn't been a military deck yet that I have seen that isn't running some form of additional action. So my question is, are the players all saying that yojimbo's is seeing play because it's true? Or not? and what are the big stars truly gonna run?


As for euro meta it's a question to the players, do you play against the meta? do you go with the trick (yojimbo's duty) or do you go with the sure thing (or something with more toolbox, AKA not yojimbo's duty).

We can look at euro vs American meta as an example...

As stated by yourself sleep, Paraphrased: In the Euro meta you saw sneak vs reinforce show up. The general end to it was that reinforce was played, sneak was not. That was the meta... America is different as it shifts constantly... So what do the good players choose? The sure thing or the risk for reward (a straighten action or yojimbo's duty)? against the meta or just with the meta (effortless or no effortless)?

Is there a better choice or is this an IDGAF play as you feel? I mean shit you told me yourself that valentine often influenced the meta then played against it, so what's the best choice? Risk vs reward or sure thing (consistency).

Keep in mind this has less to do with effortless counter-attack this has everything to do with the choice of running yojimbo's vs another straighten action.

I think Effortless is good. I'd try to find room for it in most of my decks, even if its only 1 copy.

You also have to factor in how many other cards in your deck are stopped by attachments. You don't want your whole fate deck clogged up by the "without attachments" clause.

Pruto wrote:I don't like effortless counterattack, right now. There aren't that many cards that gives an additional action, yojimbo and one action two strikes being the only useful ones that may see play. Other than that... monk actions/stronghold... Kaenpki? Mantis range attack and phoenix spell box. A good kensai action, a good magistrate action...

the battle ability on effortless seems a little weak/constricting. With the number of good military red cards, I couldn't find a place for effortless in any of the decks i made.

Plus, yojimbo's action states "may"

Also every single battle spell, also every Mantis deck with Courage Of, also enlightenment (String of Victories), also Goju Plot, also Skipping the Puddle and Intervening Spirit, also the Lion Scout box, also Akodo Kano, Akodo Tezuka, Daigotsu Gyoken, Mirumoto Inokuchi, Takasho...

It's not worth not running Yojimbo's Duty just because of Effortless existing, but Effortless is far from dead in the majority of matchups, and stopping the kill action following Courage Of or Light of Justice or Skipping is a play that wins games, if you've got the room in the deck for it.

forgot about the spell equip-additional action thing, that is big.

as for the rest of that stuff... maybe

Honestly, i think most of you are looking at the card in the wrong way. You shouldn't focus on how often the additional action effect will hit. How often do you actually expect to destroy a terrain/region with brawl? Probably once or twice in a 7 round tournament. Its the same for Effortless. It'll go off once or twice, but it may be clutch when it does.

What you should really be looking at is, how often will you be unable to send home a personality? If it comes up more than once in a blue moon, then you shouldn't be running it. If there are no issues with the send home, there is absolutely no reason not to include it, except for deck space.

Also just a small point...if you overcommit to a battle in the attempt to make your opponent forgo defending (sometimes happens) you can send home your own personality to shore up your defence (against Retribution/TPM or for the next turn). Unless of course all of your personalities have attachments...particularly if you have 8 cards in hand and are going to have to discard at end of turn anyway...might as well make use of it.

I have found that Yojimbo's duty is nothing but solid. Your opponent has bowed down your army? That's just fine, straighten the best guy that's down and start taking their guys out again. Now for most decks neither of these really strike me as a 3 of card. But you will definitely want them in hand in that last battle.

I think that we are trying to discuss many different subjects under one thread. Yojimbo's duty and Effortless counterattack have different roles. In a way, they are both meta-cards. However, Yojimbo's duty is one of those cards that will never stay in your hand, so you will never get disappointed by it.

Currently people tend to run lots of bow tech, and almost as much send home tech. Kill is limited and mostly comes out of Ranged attacks, so everyone can work around it. Let's take the facts one by one:

On Yojimbo's Duty:
1) You will always get bowed.
2) It's a Battle/Open, so it very easy to play against anydeck.
3) Let's you take an additional action, which (as Damasko claims) both good and bad. It's good if your opponent plays no Effortless, it's bad-ish if your opponents cancels your additional action. You still get to straighten though.

So, if you check this, you have the best straighten card in the game. No other can match it, as it can turn a battle around easily (close second is Creating Order).

On Effortless Counterattack:
1) Has a difficult targeting section. Needs unbowed man, and a personality with no attachments. This means, that you will need attachment destruction to make it worth the while, unless you are a very fast deck that will have the opponent under such pressure that he/she will have no time for attachments.
2) It's a send home. Meaning that it can be countered by many things (Know no Fear, Height, "Come back" actions etc.
3) It's a rescue button, one of your unbowed guys sends one of your other guys with no attachments home (or himself if he doesn't carry anything)
4) It's a good answer to spell decks, Mantis RA, and random stuff that you will come accross (Light of Justice, Skipping the Puddle,Yojimbo's Duty).

So, put one and one together, and you have a mediocre battle action, along with an acceptable 'meta' game card. Right now, the value of Effortless is dependent on how many Kitsu gay runners and how many Kojiro fans are out. Those decks are so popular, that in every tournament I participated, I faced at least 1 every 2 games. So Effortless were giving me games. However, I would never drop Yojimbo's Duty from my Crab lists. I mention the clan, just to specify that I have no other way of unbowing.

Now as far as the EU vs US meta is concerned, I have to agree with Sleep. Different regions have different meta (Greek players have a different meta than the Spanish and so on). The only experience I have with American players is that they love to run Blitz decks, which is so predictable in EU tournaments, that they can't even get past the 4-3 margin.

Since I love tournament play, and I have won my fair share of tournaments (5 Koteis, 1 European Championship) I have to say that when a tournament takes place during the start of an era, going the meta-game way is the best way. However when a tournament takes place afterwards, (like 2-3 editions after an basic edition launch), you have to go the way of the "Strong Archetype with 3-5 fate meta cards". This has worked for me, and it seems that statistically, this is what's happening in most tournaments.