Buddyfight Math - Making an Impact

Impacts are a very lopsided feature in Buddyfight, to the point where I don't think Bushiroad really meant for it to be a main feature in the game (yet). Personally, I think Bushiroad added the Final Phase as a way to more easily control the balance of the game in case something goes wrong. It's another phase after your Battle Phase (so kinda like a Main Phase 2) where you can potentially alter the state of the game and perhaps the outcome of the match. But in all honestly, most of the time you're just going to be skipping this phase. It's put there by Bushiroad "just in case". And I think they made a terrible mistake in doing this.

While Impact cards are definitely useful and can oftentimes win games, very few Impact cards can actually do much outside of dealing a final blow, especially given the awkward cast timing of Impact cards in general. When dealing with Impacts, using card advantage is no longer a reasonable or even rational way of looking at cards, because the entire purpose of the Impact card is different - instead of "winning" a game, an Impact is going to try to end the game. In one way or another.

The main flaw with Impacts is the restriction to the Final Phase. If you can't cast the cards outside of the Final Phase, they just sit in your hand being useless. Even worse, the heavy cast costs along with situational conditions make Impact cards terribly difficult to actually pull out. You can sit on it for the entire game if you get it, but that limits what you can charge away and oftentimes you're going to be tempted to just get rid of the Impact that's not doing anything. In any case, Impacts are horribly constraining, usually causing people to run few Impacts so that their deck isn't so squeezed in by this.

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But this actually just starts the vicious cycle all over again, because fewer Impacts means that there is less chance to draw into one. Impacts that you get are now rare and demand to be held on to because there's little chance to replace it - which, in turn, constrains your game even more. This pushes players to increasingly reduce the amount of Impacts in their deck to the point that most decks don't even run them anymore.

This all originated from (most likely) a faulty assumption by the creators and/or Bushiroad. Impact cards are almost a direct copy of the Climax cards of Weiss Schwarz, complete with the sideways landscape full-art. Bushiroad expected that Impact cards would be run at about the same amount due to their extremely powerful effects. But, for some odd reason, they decided to scale Impact cards almost directly off their advantage scale and create these powerful cards that were only getting a +1 from a cost-effect perspective. Which meant that the more powerful effects you have, the more the card would cost. And this just wasn't okay in Buddyfight. 

Red...red...Tang? China?

Buddyfight is a game of tight resource management, and there just isn't enough natural resource gain to allow heavy-cost Impacts to be used. I'm surprised Bushiroad never caught this mistake earlier. Having the average Impact cost 3 to 4 gauge is like having all Climax cards requiring 2 stock to play while doubling the effects. Sure, it's more powerful, but nobody would want to pay that much in order to gain an effect that may or may not end the game. In Weiss, you can passively stock up stock with attacks but there's really no way to passively increase gauge comfortably in Buddyfight. Hoarding gauge is just not an option that most decks have.

You may have been wondering why I've never gone over Impacts in any of my World Overview articles (except the strange ones, like Secret Sword). The reason is because there's really no point - they are all unfavored by the current metagame. Even the amazing Gargantua Punisher!!, still arguably one of the best cards in the game, is just not conducive to the current tight-resource turn-maximizing competitive play. The Secret Swords as well, since they require 3 gauge to cast and no decent Ninja deck can accrue that much gauge without either completely abandoning Shiden-Hades or running an absurd amount of Clear Serenities, the latter of which does little to actually help a player win.

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Like what the hell is this? Who in their right mind has 6 gauge sitting around for the absurd cost of Dragobulk Stormschlag which, in addition, requires at least 8 Armordragons in the drop and an empty center, all but denying creative ways to rush this Impact T2. And just how much damage does this ridiculous Impact give us? 5 damage. Ugh. That's the equivalent of a 2/1/2 field. Or even a 2/3 field. Basically an extra turn's worth of attacks. When there's cards like Grandfather Clock that just outright gives you another turn for a measly 2 gauge, Impacts that deal damage just don't seem to be that powerful.

Guaita is a mountain peak in
San Marino...what...

Most other Impacts fare no better. de Guaita Crush Knuckle!, the premier Wizard Impact, is terribly outclassed by Power Ray Maximum for the first effect and just about anything for the second effect. 2 direct damage? That's nothing. That's like an attack. Nobody in their right mind is going to pay more than 3 gauge for a single extra attack. The other Impacts that do cost less end up piling on restriction after restriction. Your opponent must have X life. Your opponent must have Y cards in their hand. Monster requirements, drop requirements, all of them prevent Impacts from becoming an easily accessible part of competitive play.

But there is a point to be made for decks that just sit on a ton of gauge and wait for Final Turn, because that's actually a viable playstyle. Buddyfight's core game mechanics actually allow for an astonishing amount of alternate ways to progress through a game - but people are so easily influenced by the current metagame, they often fail to see that auxiliary strategies like these are worth looking at. Impacts may not be easy to use, but when used correctly they can be a force to be reckoned with. And it all starts with the players and the innovators who will look at the deck, the entire game from a new perspective and test new ideas.

Good End...Bad End...Dead End

Bushiroad's helping us this time as well. With BT03 and EB02 Impacts, we're seeing a gradual trend towards less costly Impacts that, while they may not immediately win the game like Gargantua Punisher, do provide the player with an extra tool to get in some extra damage or effect. Hopefully in the future we'll see a gradual increase of 2-gauge Impacts so that Impacts can be eventually treated as extra spells cast after the Attack Phase. I'd even like to see some 1 or no cost Impacts one day. I think there's a lot of potential with this mechanic that Bushiroad should really maximize.

I'm going to take a leap of faith and make a meta call. I'm predicting that as more Impacts become available and as players get more skilled at building resources, players will begin to incorporate more and more Impacts into their game. I'm going to make the daring meta call of 8 Impacts per deck within the next year. I feel that this is a number that Bushiroad developers want to see for a variety of reasons. This ensures that players running 8 Impacts will be able to draw into them regularly and expect to be able to utilize them effectively. At the same time, players won't be afraid to charge the Impacts, knowing that there's definitely more down the line. And most importantly, of course, this means that Impacts will actually be worth some money, instead of virtually nothing at the moment.

While Impacts may not be the most appealing type of cards currently, it's better to test and experiment than to just outright brand something as a failure. Who knows? Maybe you'll be the genius inventor who will harken forth the new metagame of tomorrow's competitive scene.

All images used obtained from the official Bushiroad website and used here solely for reference purposes. Future Card Buddyfight!, logos, and respective content belong to Bushiroad. Large images belong to the Buddyfight! Wikia.