relinkuriboh versus card guard in duel links toons

cD: The pros and cons are more related to the kind of Kingdom removal you face, in my opinion. This might be a tad long, so sorry in advance.

For starters, there's the obvious thing: Card Guard is a body, a semi-decent level 4 in a pinch with 1900 atk, while Relinkuriboh very much isn't. This is almost always irrelevant because they're pure tribute fodder, and the situations where you have to wall or finish a game with them are negligible, but it's a thing.

The main thing, dry: the only main distinction between the two is the kind of benefit you get when using them as tribute fodder. Card Guard gives you a single instance of destruction protection on Kingdom/World, Relinkuriboh gives you a draw and a future single instance of battle protection. Here we have to look at the state of the game when we use each or the other, because drawing cards in general has wildly different values for toons depending on a two very polarising, black-and-white states.

Do you have a lvl6 toon out, or not? And as a branch of that: Do you have a World setup, or a Kingdom one?

Without a lvl6toon out on the field, every single card is invaluable because that's the toon optimal game state. We seldom play two, because that makes us weak to WoD and Lava Golem, both non-targeting non-destruction monster disruption that bypass all our protection. We draw so we might get there.

However, tribute fodder is only expended on the literal play that leaves us with a lvl6 toon on the board, and after that the value of new cards plummets for the deck. Not only do we stop playing monsters to avoid the cards I mentioned, we also incur the risk of drawing into Kingdom tutoring which is dead in hand if we got a Kingdom setup, and we speed up the mill clock that Kingdom protection already runs down fairly fast on a 20 card format. In the past I've played Draw Pass toons with some success for this very reason: once you've set up, the only thing you want to draw is Kingdom/World protection (or Rollback if you run a Rollback list). Card advantage is not nearly as important for duel links toon at that state of the game. And given that Relinkuriboh is guaranteed to only give us a draw at that moment, it's a lot weaker than it seems.

There's a silver lining to it, of course. It's a Toon World! Relinkuriboh setups without Kingdom value the draw into Kingdom or Kingdom tutoring on top of protection. This is the main boon of the card, given how skewed the numbers are for a dead draw if we already have Kingdom on the field.

But Card Guard. Card Guard does not give us a draw, it instantly gives us Kingdom/World protection, which is the main thing we would want to draw into with the Relinkuriboh, and literally the only thing we'd want to draw into if we had Kingdom on the field. It's essentially a guaranteed draw into a Magic Reflector from outside of the deck, and so, it's miles more consistent. Not a Peanut agrees, and admits he basically runs Relinkuriboh for style and because he only has one Card Guard.

But yeah, the other thing, right. The battle protection. This is where the "what removal are people using" comes in.

First of all, the obvious, that you already pointed out: Relinkuriboh gives you a pseudo-kingdom effect on your toons if you set up without Kingdom. While it comes in handy surprisingly often, the point remains that toons seldom flood the board, and your opponent gets several attacks in each TDMG you play on their turn. So while you might catch them off guard with a single instance of battle destruction protection, they will most likely push through. And most importantly, it's a crazy redundant and pointless effect with Kingdom on the field. It might save you a milled card, at best.

The weird and most interesting part is that, as most folk who play toons know, "sending to the graveyard", banishing, or returning to the deck/hand Kingdom/World leaves the toons on the field, and all of those bypass Card Guard's protection (and if you play Field Barrier with Kingdom, getting it returned to the hand/deck loses you the game right then and there, but let's not dwell on my Abyss Soldier PTSD). This means that Relinkuriboh's battle protection can be relevant even if you've set up with Kingdom, when it gets removed in very specific ways. And those are exactly the ways in which Card Guard's protection would be pointless.

What I'm trying to say in the wordiest way possible is that if people run backrow destruction Card Guard is better, and if people run backrow banishes or bouncing Relinkuriboh is better. Sorry, I can't help it but vomit words.

As the metagame stands right now, the only prevalent backrow banishing is... Spirit of White and Cosmic Cyclone? I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's about it. Meanwhile, literally every archetype runs two to five tools of backrow destruction, Maximus, DH Celestial, Phoenix, Vampire Grace, Galaxy Cyclone, whatever.

So yeah. Card Guard. I'm running Peanut's list super tweaked, without enemy controllers and with 2 Card Guards and One Relinkuriboh instead of 3 Relinkuribohs, and it's a joy to play and probs the most success I've had with toons in months. And a good chunk of it are the damn Card Guards.



dmagnite:I'm going to refer to Peanut's deck, but I'm going to trim it down to 20 cards first. Let's say 3 TDMG, 1 Elf, 3 Mermaid, 3 Relinkuriboh, 1 TK, 3 Chalice, 1 TToC, 1 Rollback, 2 Demise, and 2 Memory Loss. This deck runs 3 cards that search out TK (plus TK itself). The probability of drawing at least one of those cards is 62% going first and 71% going second. If those numbers are acceptable, then Card Guard is better.

In my experience with Toons, if you don't have TK on board, your chances of winning are pretty low. This is because your monsters are vulnerable to everything. It's as you said, the battle protection you get from Relinkuriboh isn't all that great, especially with TK out. As for the draw ability, you are right in saying that it isn't as useful once you've set up your board, but what about before?

The thing is, even if you always go second, there is still a 30% chance you won't have a TK opening. What Relinkuriboh does, in addition to being tribute fodder, is let you start with an extra card. Now your TK opening is about 71% going first and 79% going second. The probability of starting with Relinkuriboh and TDMG in your opening hand is about 22% going first and 33% going second. That means there is a 1/4.5 or 1/3 (depends who goes first) chance of increasing your TK opening by about 9% every game.

Having said that, you are right that Card Guard has better stats, and that it's better against destruction effects. I just wonder if it's better to increase your chances of opening with TK or increase your TK protection.




cD: -I just wonder if it's better to increase your chances of opening with TK or increase your TK protection-

Don't: it's absolutely better to increase your chances of opening Kingdom. There's no argument there.

But this:

-if you don't have TK on board, your chances of winning are pretty low.-

while true in a general sense, again forgets two points. First off, a fragile or exposed Kingdom setup is sometimes worse than a shielded World setup. Not always, mind you, in general terms it's easier to lose monsters than backrow, but there is an actual merit on the alternative.

And then, this is still an It's a Toon World! tribute list. If we truly wanted to guarantee Kingdom, we can run Planet Pathfinder+Dynatherium as tribute fodder since we lose the normal summon on those lists, and actually skyrocket the number of Kingdoms we play instead of gambling on Relinkuriboh's draw.

But past a certain point, sacrifices for consistency start having diminishing returns. Yes, Relinkuriboh's draw can get Kingdom, or ToC, or Demise. But on those 62/71% you listed (I'm awful with numbers and so I tend to make bad arguments about this stuff, sorry) where you actually already had a Kingdom setup, you're almost objectively getting a worse one than Card Guard would give you.

But again. Not a numbers guy. I outright do not understand the odds. But your extra card argument only works when you start with Relinkuriboh and a lvl6 in hand, not relinkuriboh on its own. Remember: I don't run Enemy controller (and probs won't for the forseeable future) so my ways of tributing away the kuriboh and getting the draw are the three TDMGs, and that's it. This makes the array of hands where Relinkuriboh works for me substantially smaller, and at best 5-6 cards on an Enemy Controller listwill be able to get the draw there.

The other side of Card Guard is that, being untied to that, makes a lot of non-tribute hands a lot cleaner despite being good tribute fodder. Mermaid+Kingdom+Card Guard is a start that outright gets you a protected setup, even if you haven't drawn your lvl6, wherein Relinkuriboh would be dead weight on that situation, working as neither Kingdom protection or draws towards the lvl6.

Plus, and this is something I didnt even consider until I tinkered with it these past few days, but consider World setups: Card Guard's counter on Toon Mermaid, or even tributing the Mermaid for TDMG instead of the Guard and putting the counter on TDMG, outright surpasses Relinkuriboh's battle protection on World setups, since it works against destruction on card effects too. I've already cheesed out two games on putting the counter on the toons, knowing that my opponent's deck would have an easier time deaing with the monsters than with world, and betting on the toon surviving to direct attack next turn instead. Not saying it's the strat I'd play if given a god hand, but y'know, versatility.




dmagnite: Alright listen, you've convinced me about Card Guard. I've been trying out the deck in ranked and it does indeed have a lot of versatility. That last paragraph you wrote is actually quite clever.

I do, however, have to stand by what I said about TK not being on the board. The ladder is merciless, if you go up against Koa'ki Meiru and you don't have TK on the field, you'll lose. It doesn't matter if you can negate Maximus, his monsters will just run you over. Same thing can be said about Vampires, they just run you over if you they haven't already destroyed Toon World. In fact, I imagine this will be a pretty common issue. U.A. will run you over, Blue-Eyes will run you over, Armades will run you over. TK needs to be on the field. I do think you're right in what you said about Relinkuriboh though, opening with both it and a tribute is not a likely occurrence. Still, I think you missed something. Though it is true you can use Card Guard to protect your monsters, you cannot use it to protect a monster that you are about to tribute summon (if it is being used as fodder). If you don't open TK, you'll probably put a counter on Toon World and then tribute Card Guard for TDMG. But this won't protect TDMG in battle. Relinkuriboh, on the other hand, will. We already run a lot of monster negation, but the deck desperately needs a solution to the battle phase, and TK is that solution.

Now that I have played around with it, Demise is not as good as I thought it would be. I've run into a few situations where my opponent did not special summon. That's a lost TK search where Pathfinder would have gotten it. If you do manage to get it off, which happens more often than not, you know have to worry about two spells getting destroyed. It sort of cancels out getting a normal summon for Card Guard as Card Guard can only protect one. Alternatively, like you said, you can simply put a guard counter on TDMG, but only if it's not being used as fodder. Also, Demise is a dead draw if you already have TK and can't be used a fodder like Pathfinder.