Tactics 02 - Counting Cards

Ever had 3 cards in hand, 1 of them was a Unique, played focus only to have the 4th card to be that exact same Unique card you already have in hand? An even rarer scenario is having 4 of the same card in hand. All these are possible and since this has been around for a while now and the game designer and developers are well aware of it, I can only assume that this is intended. Well that is useful information to know, but why am I saying this?

Double Gates of Hell

What does it all mean?

You have 15 cards, in your deck, and when you've cycled through 15 cards, you have a chance to draw those 15 cards again. That being said, if you draw your 15th card, that is also your SR card,  in position 1, your next card has a chance to be the card in position 1, and so on till you reach 5 cards. After you've discarded those 5 cards, you can still draw your SR card till you've finished that 2nd cycle of 15 cards.

How Can I use this to my advantage?

To fully take advantage of this, you must do the following:

1. Know your deck very well. know exactly what cards are in it and how many
2. Count how many cards you've gone through since the start of the match, count how many cards your opponent has gone through since the start of the match
3. Learn your opponents deck while you are playing him, what cards he has, their strengths/weaknesses and how to avoid their abilities.

Let's use a Yoshimitsu deck containing this card:

Magatama

Magatama: 20 Damage, After the attack: HP ≤ Opp Hp: +25 HP

This is one of the best healing cards in all of Tekken Card Tournament and one of those cards you can sit on and get its full effects then force an all discard.

Let us pretend for a minute that this Yoshimitsu deck contains 14 cards without any healing capabilities or defense capabilities, and Magatama (above). Say we fight against another fellow Yoshimitsu with the exact same deck. In this fantasy battle, lets pretend that the opposing Yoshimitsu's (let's call him X, and call ourselves Y) first card drawn is Magatama. This tells us that our X will not have any defensive cards and no ability to heal for the next 14 cards they get. That being said, we should play aggressively because if  can survive to see 14 more cards, and more, X will have another chance to draw the Magatama onwards and possibly turn the entire game around.

So does that mean the opposing Yoshimitsu is screwed?

It does not mean that the X is totally done for, but they  started the game off on the wrong foot and should try to play more defensively to compensate. This is because they have no chance of drawing Magatama to heal up for the next 14 cards, and Y has a chance to draw Magatama in the next 14 cards making any strong aggression X makes useless. X should try to buy time by forcing 5 card discards, blocking more often, etc.

Conclusion

This is just a small not so viable example but the applications are limitless. There's more to Tekken than just throwing down focus, strike, and block and praying that you win the Rock, Paper, Scissors, duel and understanding that is the first step to becoming a better player. In the posts to come, there will be more strategies that utilize this information. Again, if you have anything to add, please don't hesitate to comment =]