The secret to dueling: Absolute Value

Thanks to Cloudstrife 189. Source of this article came from http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=775058

Absolute Value: The distance away from zero

This article is going to go into the very unique details of card advantage and all those plus 1’s, minus 1’s people seem to talk about. Welcome to the secret to dueling: Absolute Value.

The basics of YGO may have changed through the formats especially with the inclusion of synchros. However, all cards seem to have one thing in common, they can generate plus 1’s or minus 1’s. 
This may initially seem very hard to understand, but once you do, it’s priceless. 

The basic formula goes like this:

Each turn we have the potential to generate plus 1’s by drawing a card, adding cards to our hand, adding cards to our field or by sending cards from your opponents field or hand to the grave/deck/RFG.

Each turn we have the potential to generate minus 1’s by paying a “discard” cost, tributing for a monster, having our own cards destroyed or by playing a card that immediately goes to the graveyard.

Here’s a few examples:

I play Fissure. That is a minus 1 because it instantly goes to the graveyard. Fissure’s effect destroys a card on my opponent’s side of the field so that generated a plus 1. In the end, it becomes a 1 for 1.

I play Pot of Greed. It is instantly a minus 1. I draw 2 cards, thus adding to my hand presence so that becomes a plus 2. If you add your -1 and your +2, you get a +1. 

I play Phoneix Wing Wind Blast. It’s a minus 2 (one for the card itself and one for the card you have to discard). It removes one card your opponent controls back to the top of their deck which is a plus 1. In the end, it is a 2 for 1 or a minus 1.

You tribute a monster for monster for Caius the Shadow Monarch. That is a minus 1. You remove from play your opponent’s monster. That’s a plus 1. Once again, that resulted in a 1 for 1. 

Now, you should understand the basic principle behind it. However, let’s start making it a little more complex:

I summon Caius the Shadow Monarch (-1) and target to remove my opponent’s f/d bottomless traphole (potential +1). My opponent responds with his bottomless traphole (-1) to destroy and remove my Caius (+1). My Caius no longer removed a card from my opponent so he generated no advantage and I'm still at a (-1).

However, let’s look at this:

In the same situation, I use Caius to remove from play my opponent’s monster and he still responds with bottomless traphole. My Caius (-1) got rid of 1 of my opponent’s cards (the monster) so my Caius instantlly became a 1 for 1 this situation. My opponent also used his bottomless traphole, another 1-1, meaning that we both broke even. (This is why a lot of players tend to use Caius/Raiza’s effect to always remove creatures before spell and traps).

Obviously, there are a lot more situations that arise on a duel to duel basis. However, this basic formula remains the same. A lot of the boss cards, however, tend to generate the most broken advantage of “X”, where X can be any amount. Cards like Judgement Dragon can destroy anywhere between 0 and 11 of your opponent’s cards at any given point and can continue to do so every turn. Same can be said about Dark Armed Dragon. Some cards like Grand Master of the Six Samurai can continue to return to your hand over and over again creating a plus 1 for each additional time he does. 

*I know there are a lot more examples but this article was just aiming to give people a basic understanding of the principle.

Obviously, players tend to focus on creating as much advantage as possible. However, not all advantage is good advantage. You may have 6 cards in your hand and 5 cards on the field but still have no way to deal with "Judgement Dragon" meaning that all that advantage you have is useless. Advantage is only good at raising the odds you have to counter your opponent and win the duel. If you’re playing a Vennominga deck, it may be wise to waste all your resources early to bring our Vennominga because no matter how much advantage your opponent has, they most likely still can’t destroy her meaning that she’s eventually going to generate all that advantage back. In addittion, because your ultimate goal is to win the duel, eventually try to turn all your advantage into a game winning play.

In conclusion, I call this article “Absolute Value” because you should be trying to generate as much advantage as possible in YGO. The more advantage you have (the further you’re away from 0), the more hope you have at winning the duel. However, don’t forget that there is Hidden Advantage that I spoke about in one of my previous articles that throw some things out of whack and make calculating the exact advantage generated very difficult. I wish you guys best of luck and will end with this,

"In every adversity there lies the seed of an equivalent advantage. In every defeat is a lesson showing you how to win the victory next time.”