Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Teaching Strategy

You're walking along, and you see two children playing a children's card game on the street. One of them sets a bunch of their cards face-down. You see that the other has a card in his hand that you know all too well: Heavy Storm.

What do you say? "Hey, kid, don't sell all of your Spells and Traps with no protection."

"But what if they're chainable?"

"Then don't set too many cards that aren't chainable."

"How many is too many?"

"The amount of Spells/Traps your opponent has plus one, minus the amount of chainables you have."

"But what if I do have protection?"

"Then make sure that the cards you set are worth protecting."

"How do I know if they're worth protecting?"

You run into trouble with that question. How are you supposed to define such a relative criterion like that? It's worth protecting all of your back rows from an Infernity player's Giant Trunade, but is it worth that much against a Gadget player's Heavy Storm?

This is actually a pretty simple example. What would you say when someone asks you to explain how to Side Deck or which Level 8 Synchro Monster they should play against their opponent's Shura and three back rows?

Basically, you can't teach someone something as complicated as strategy, even if it is for a children's card game. Strategy in general is basically something that can only be learned. To pick it up, you need to watch people who know what they're doing and try to understand the reasoning behind their plays.

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