Fallacious sarcastic shitposting

It is the central aim of my own private army consisting of me, myself, the other me, and my friend me to present our counter points toward the insinuation that the crossride mechanic is broken.

HOWEVER

Myself and myselves wish to make it perfectly clear that, seeing as nobody else quite caught this all before:

-We do not disagree that specific units are unbalanced or have been unbalanced.
-We do not disagree that a movement to remove those specific units from the standard format is laudable, a good idea, or even necessary.
-We do not disagree that Crossride is inherently powerful because it works outside the levels of power most conventional cards have no way of accessing.

With this in mind, as representative of the Legion, I move to the examination of the first premise.

Rebuttal 1- Crossrides exist outside the game's core mechanics

The opposing view correctly cites that all conventional Vanguards in BT01-BT04, as well as BT06-07 are built to max at 11k, and that futhermore the game makes it functionally easier for both players to hit using 16k columns rather than 18k as the norm for "stage 2", and attacks that hit 21k for the norm of "stage 3". However, this does not mean that 13k goes outside the core mechanics of the game simply because ease of accomplishing a certain task for a deck built to hit 16k, or lack thereof, is in no way indicative of whether the current core of the game rewards such play. Games shift over time, and Vanguard is no exception. Creating a deck that rewards a player for running a very centralized base of Grade 3 units by allowing them to guard against attacks more easily with a successive ride is not in violation of the core mechanics of the game, it is rather a mechanic that exploits such core mechanics and exists as a "hard counter" to decks which can easily hit 20-21 in their side lanes each turn.

To state that a mechanic is outside the scope of a game because it does exactly what it was intended to do within the game is frankly twisting the definition of "core mechanics".

Furthermore, what is a "core mechanic" in one set is not necessarily indicative of what future core mechanics may be. BT06 and BT07 introduced several new mechanics across clans, including:

-Common starters that move to soul to search for a Grade 3 within a limited range of cards from the top of a deck
-7k Grade 2 units that allow you to draw a card if they hit the Vanguard and you have at least four other rear guards of the same clan
-6k Grade 1 units which return to the player's hand if they boost an attack that hit the opponent's Vanguard.

Note that being 7k and 6k, the above units listed are actually sub-par for their Grade in a scheme which is built to functionally reward attacking against 11k power (where the ideal for all units at those grades would be at least 7k and 9k effective attacking power). Does this mean those cards exist outside of the game's mechanics? Nobody has claimed that simply because those units are, for want of a better word, sub-par for their level. Crossride being extremely good does not, however, mean that it violates a rule that they clearly do not.

Furthermore, the concept of Limit Break was an unknown to the game's mechanics for five sets. Is the concept of more powerful abilities which trigger at four or more damage outside of the game's scope? After all, Limit Break units have by and large changed the way entire clans are able to build decks, and how opponents will respond to those decks. Is this new status quo a violation of the game's mechanics as well?

In conclusion we find the opposition's claims of supporting evidence correct, but state that they do not support the thesis of Vanguard's mechanics being impossible to incorporate a 13k Vanguard, and furthermore find this claim to be largely meaningless when evaluating overall game balance of specific units which have already been printed.

Rebuttal 2- There are not 'strong exceptions' to the first thesis

We respectfully submit that if high cost units are an exception to the first thesis, they should be included as part of the first thesis, not a second one. Furthermore we submit that this is an arbitrary distinction based on personal perception of how the game's balance must and should work, and is therefore largely summed up as the opposition showing off that they know how to do math. We respectfully submit that Crossrides are consistent and that this is the point. The mechanic is meant to be attractive to competitive players who want powerful decks. Making it any less than a consistent ability which can trigger at a point relatively early in the game would really have defeated its overall purpose of allowing you to shut down the tactics most decks are capable of in the mid-to-late game.

Furthermore we most certainly disagree that there are no 'strong exceptions'- merely arbitrary dismissals of unprecedented skills which do not fall into the category of skills which force players to reconsider the validity of 16k columns being the norm and optimal for any deck. These examples include:

- Superior Ride using vanilla units and a starter at Rare in Gold Paladin.
- Limit Break enabling the equivalent of two successive turns of a Soul Saver Dragon- the Galactic Beast Zeal series (or more specifically their headline Grade 3) in BT08. (Incidentally, we further note that this Limit Break decreases the power of an opposing Vanguard, a concept which did not exist in any previous set).
-Limit Break allowing for stage 3 (and potentially stage 4) attacks with any unit costlessly- BT08, Sephirot and Arboros Dragon line.
-Ride chains that allow for successive superior calls from the deck for each stage met (previous chains only allowed for passive benefits that do not directly allow the player to acquire new cards on successive rides beyond the first).

Virtually any new, low-cost mechanic that has competitive application could also be said to fall into this field.

We therefore submit that crossride the mechanic is not outside the scope of the game- nor is it outside the scope of the game's ability to adapt to in the future without giving each individual clan their own Crossride.

We further submit the following:

-Errata-ing an entire mechanic out of the game when it has already been incorporated is a ludicrous request when the company has gone great lengths to advertise it as-printed, right or wrong for the game.
-Regardless of the (over)power of a mechanic, not all players will agree that there is even value in attempting to errata this mechanic to balance the game, since all existing competitive TCGs favor certain decks. Is there strong evidence presented from the errata-crossride camp to suggest that removing one problem will guarantee we have no others in the future?