This post ushers in the first of many Post of the Month contests. Please realize that prizes have not yet been implemented.
Post 1 by “Phil Fitchew (magnumx23)” in Thoughts on Tragoedia:
Phil is a strong Southern California player who has performed well at numerous regionals in one of the tougher metas in the world. He has a top 8 performance at SJC Long Beach and can be found posting as magnumx23 on DuelistGroundz. His original post here:
I think that this card is the beginning of this game returning to a state where conservative play matters.
Another poster stated earlier that attacking is now too dangerous. This is a GOOD thing imo as attacking and playing recklessly nowadays isn’t punished ENOUGH. In the old days, card advantaged mattered a lot more than it does now. This meant that you had to conserve or play less cards to the board. Nowadays playing less cards to the field means you get OTKed a good amount of the time. Because of Tragoedia –- not the fact that it gets so big — but the fact that you can wait in peace without getting sacked means a skillful player with a hand full of cards is dangerous at all times now. The fact that Jae is making a deck centered around this guy only proves this point…
It’ll take more than just this one card obv., but the days of bad decks, bad plays, bad players, and reckless play winning are going to an end soon enough.
Jae’s Take: This is obviously a fantastic point. I say this despite agreeing with almost none of it.
Phil believes (and I along with many others agree strongly) that attacking through overextension is simply not punished the way it once was. The reasons for this are numerous; mass-removal cards have been phased out in favor of techy picks that deal with singular threats. And certainly Tragoedia seems to “right” this balance by indeed punishing overextensions and creating difficult situations for players who simply burn their whole hand to put double Dark Strike Fighter on the board.
My main point of contention is that I feel the “drop from battle damage” mechanic that Gorz uses is an extremely luck-based and unpleasant design decision. I feel that using a card like Tragoedia to combat the “wrong” of mass over-extensions and games ending in one or two turns is a huge detrimental “wrong” to the game itself. It effectively disincentivizes commitments to the field, further weakens the now struggling mechanic of the Normal Summon, and puts far too much attack power on the field on the opponent’s turn.
It’s interesting to ponder whether the greater good is served (as numerous players feel) by the addition of the Gorz mechanic to other cards like Tragoedia and perhaps future releases. I personally feel it is not; others feel it is. It’s difficult to reconcile both positions until we see more examples of cards like Gorz and Tragoedia in action. Gorz is broken for a whole different set of reasons (the mirror image token creating 5k+ damage without a normal summon).
Final note: I disagree with Phil’s notion of card advantage and its decreasing use. This will be saved for a future blog post.
And if you enjoyed this post by Magnumx23/Phil, vote for him here:
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