So what is "Battle of Wits" in MTG originally? ;; Maybe if someone explains how that works, I can make a more YGO-friendly version of it XD; (it seems like drawing one specific card in a whole Tower of Power type of deck?)
I made it already. Pretty much word for word. ;)
Enemy Controller got far more use than that
-because it's quick play, technically you can attack a monster that got higher attack power than yours. During the battle phase before damage phase, use Enemy Controller to turn the opponent's monster into defense position (and most YGO monsters got weaker defense than attack), and you'll destroy the monster. If your opponent sees this coming which isn't hard, your opponent will be forced to activate defensive traps early, and you still got the controller.
-Your opponent is using Creature Swap to trade one of your monster for one of his (usually, something pathetic, like a token in attack mode.) You can use enemy controller's 2nd option of tributing one of your monster to temporaily take control of a monster for a turn. Take control of your opponent's monster before creature swap takes place (because you're on the higher chain, thus your card's effect resolve first) to take that attack mode token, and then let creature swap take place. Now, you just toke control of your opponent's monster at the cost of the controller and your original monster, while your opponent lost a monster and creature swap. It's fair balance, but technically the cards you possess now is far better than your opponent's.
-If Zaborg the Thunder Monarch is tributed, then its effect is to destroy one monster (not optional.) It targets your monster. If that's the case, you might as well tribute your monster to take control of Zaborg. Now that Zaborg is the only monster on the field, its effect must target itself, thus destroying it. You used controller and your monster (2 cards) to get rid of a tribute monster (which also requires a tribute fodder to begin with, thus it's 2-for-2 trade again, but the monster field is empty from your opponent for your next turn.)
Very flexible card, really! Surely MtG got some equally complicated cards of CA/Flexibility trade off as well!
I don't actually think there are that many flexible cards in mtg in the current standard. Flexibility does have a different meaning in mtg, though. We want flexibility in the fact that the cards can deal with a large variety of situations, but generally have 1 effect. For example, a card called ancient grudge is able to handle at least 3 or 4 different decks, but has a simple destructive effect.
Strangely enough, controller's ability is designed to even up card advanatge in some way. o_O Interesting concept for the card, just that its wording was inelegant. XD
Dead Advantage is usually related to the monster field being empty, not necessarily because you're against a no-monster deck. If you have no monsters, then you really can't use tribute monsters from your hand hm? That's a dead card, not generally considered to be "dead advantage" unless you have card advantage already. Although you can say that they'll be useful later, but how are you going to escape the downward spiral of getting a monster to the field without it being blown up immediately by the next turn to begin with? This is running under the assumption that you are down on cards, not up on cards, and therefore would be already at a disadvantage, not CA.
But main problem with dead advantage is usually the Gadgets (similar to MTG "108" I heard, whatever that number stands for) and PACMAN. Gadgets keep getting more gadgets, yet they can only summon one at a time anyway. Their natural effects allow you to dig for a gadgets, so if you also draw more gadgets on your draw phase on top of it, the hand of gadgets is dead advantage. They're pathetic, they're weak, and they need protection, which you aren't drawing, and you can only use one of them at a time per round. If you have 3 of them already in your hand, it'll technically take 4 turns to use them all (each summon digs for more gadget, so you got another 4), which is far too slow to deal with pressing issues.
PACMAN got dead advantage in terms of getting too many monsters who can't attack, yet got awesome flip effects to destroy stuff. When there's nothing more to destroy cause PACMAN is *too* effective, those removal-based cards got nothing to do. You need damage dealers now as you already basically ran a strip search of the opponent's deck already. Those insect swarm cards, the golem sentry and the medusa worms are all totally useless now.
I've never had a problem with PACMAN attacking. But this was during the days when both level 4 and binds were 2-of's and MoP was used to fill the gaps. They could still attack right under them. I really don't see how PACMAN equates to dead advantage with the exception of the fact that none of the cards in hand are immediately useful. I'm unaware of 108. It's not the 108 ruling, is it? Not sure at all.
It's just like how MTG got "bad draws" which YGO will never understand. MTG will call Jar of Greed a joke, but YGO will never call it bad at all. It fits up one slot in the deck, and basically deck thins. MTG players will say "why not add something your deck needs? It's pointless if you can draw it now instead of using Jar of Greed to draw that same card later?" YGO got situations where the 40 card minimum is already too high, and it's not just Exodia deck either. They need deckthinning ability, and that's when Jar of Greed comes in. Also, jar of greed is good for setting, and lure out the spell destruction cards, which you'll just chain on to and draw a card. You use jar of greed so you lose 1 and gain 1, but the opponent destroys nothing so it's -1 for them (in total, jar of greed is a +1 CA then.)
Think Twice (2 mana instant for the ability "draw a card", can do it a total of 2 times for 5 mana) has been tearing up the scenes lately in the control department. Remember the concepts of CA and what not CAME from mtg. We're much more aware of deck thinning, CA, etc. than you think. But I do have to agree that Jar of Greed, when translated to mtg, would be a complete joke, because the ability costs less than a single mana, and is useless without some other intrinsic bonus. But in a game where there is no resource problems like that, a card like jar is fair game. In mtg, a jar for that price (free) is deck staple.
...More like second turn kill. You can't play a Continuous Spell from your hand during your turn until your Main Phase, which is, of course, AFTER your Standby Phase. So you'll have to wait a whole round for your opponent to 1. laugh their head off at you, and 2. destroy the spell with one of the now-rampant S/T destroyers (Twister, anyone?) to trample you almost instantly.
You also took my idea...in a way. Mine's the reverse of that:
Deck Tower Crumbling
Normal Spell
If, during your next End Phase, yoru opponent's deck has 45 or more cards in it, you win the Duel.
As for the rest of the post, Frosty's got it covered. I'll add, though, that MTG has a form of dead advantage as well (hand full of high-cost creatures/spells without enough mana to play any of them), so you should at least be vaguely familiar with the concept.
I translated Battle of Wits to YGO form. There really isn't any idea taking other than me taking Battle of Wits and sticking it into YGO.
My definition: "Dead advanatage" refers to being up on CA while having a number of the cards being dead cards. This means that "dead advantage" only really applies to control and combo, as intrinsically aggro doesn't care about CA as much (and they play out of mana screw like nobody's business). If you ARE playing control/combo, you generally will never have that problem of dead advantage (where you can't play expensive spells), as you WILL have a land drop every turn, and you WILL be able to play the expensive guy later when you have controlled the board position/go off. Strangely enough, I don't consider the epxensive guys to be "dead cards", even though you don't have the resources to do it yet. Because IMO it's like saying my hand is dead because I'm tapped out, which is only partially true.
