The Four Triggers, Part 2: Critical Triggers

Aggressive, Damage

Critical triggers are one of the most common, and one of the most dangerous, triggers in the game. It is because of this trigger type that late game comes around at 4 damage instead of 5; once you hit your fourth damage, you are in range to be killed by a single critical. Checking into a Critical trigger during an attack pushes you opponent closer and closer to their demise, or forces them to guard more urgently than they would otherwise need to. Running a good number of these types of triggers means that every drive check could mean a huge damage threat gets added to one of your units that your opponent must deal with or take a massive hit. At best, Criticals can halve the amount of attacks your deck needs to win.

Criticals have few disadvantages. Being an aggressive trigger, it has a chance of misfiring and being nothing more than a +5000 when revealed during a damage check. It also has a much more slight weakness; your opponent needs only to guard against the unit with the critical avoid the damage altogether, normally without expending much more effort than needed to block normally.

To avoid this weakness becoming an actual problem, we must set up our field accordingly and attack accordingly to get the most out of our Critical triggers. The key to setting up our field is to have at least one Rearguard attacker who hits for high enough numbers that your opponent needs to expend 10000 or more shield through proper scaling. If at all possible for your deck, try to get an attacking Rearguard up to 21000 or more power consistently... there is normally some combination that is effective in each clan. In Royal Paladins, for example, Knight of Conviction, Bors and Little Sage, Marron can attack for 21000 with a single counterblast.

Once you have a strong field setup, you normally want to attack in a pattern of Rearguard-Vanguard-21k Rearguard. Your first Rearguard is let through or forces your opponent to expend shields. Your Vanguard attacks, and is either guarded heavily or not at all. If you draw a Critical trigger and your Vanguard is let through, give him the Critical and the +5000 to your 21k rearguard. If he was blocked, both effects go to the 21k. The 21k swings, and your opponent is left with several poor choices; he can take an additional 2 damage, drop 2k worth of shielding or drop a perfect guard. By giving your critical to an already difficult to stop Rearguard, you force large amount of shields to be expended.

Keeping in mind that you want to have a properly scaled field and a strong attacking force to make the most of Critical triggers, you should choose these triggers in decks that can most effectively pull of this setup quickly and efficiently. Clans that commit to the field early, such as Royal Paladin or Gold Paladin, benefit greatly from critical triggers. Decks that constantly have units moving on and off the field to attack, such as Spike Brothers or certain builds of Pale Moon, also benefit from Critical Triggers by amplifying the danger of the repetitive attacks. A good rule of thumb for Criticals: if the deck will be putting out 3+ attacks early and often, without the use of Stand Triggers, Criticals are a good choice to amplify the dangers of this playstyle.