Triggers form the basic structure of your deck. All decks must have 16 triggers, no less, no more. They determining how your deck works out in a game and sometimes, saves you in dire situation. How unimportant a trigger might look to be, it heavily influence the outcome of a game, therefore determining your chances of winning or losing a game, aside from timing your units' abilities at the correct time.
Before we move on, let us review the function of the triggers first, shall we?
 | First, Critical trigger. Critical trigger allows one of your unit to gain 5000 power and a critical, which allows it to deal two damage to your opponent, if it hits your opponent's Vanguard. |
 | Second, Stand trigger. Stand trigger allows one of your unit to gain 5000 power and you may stand a rested Rearguard. |
 | Third, Draw trigger. Draw trigger allows one of your unit to gain 5000 power and you may draw a card. |
 | Lastly, Heal trigger. Heal trigger allows one of your unit to gain 5000 power and you may heal a damage if your damage is equal or more than your opponent's. |
Note that triggers will only be in effect on drive checks and damage check and the effect must be activated. The power and trigger effects may be utilized separately on two different units. For example, let's say you have two units per front row Rearguard Circle - Unit A and Unit B. You drive checked a Critical trigger, you may pass the Critical to Unit A and pass the 5k power over to Unit B.
After going through the triggers, let's talk more about them.
I've mentioned in another post, there's no rights or wrongs in setting types of triggers in your deck, but the practicality of the said triggers being used. Let's take a MLB build for example, it's pretty impractical to have stand triggers in your deck, if you're planning to keep spam MLB's second ability. It's another thing to talk about the impracticality of spamming MLB's second ability, but you get what I mean, no? It is sometimes easy to set triggers theoretically, but it doesn't mean that it'll definitely work well when you're playing. So, the idea here is to have your triggers work well with your other cards.
Triggers also somewhat controls your playing style in one or another way, or let's put it this way, you control your playing style by setting the triggers in your deck. Let's take my Angel Feather deck for example. The deck utilize balanced triggers, setting 4 cards per types of triggers respectively. It's a common knowledge that Angel Feather is clan which favors defensive healing play style, and yes, my deck is capable of doing so. However, my deck is able to play a more controlling style, which emphasize on controlling my opponent's hand size and attacker on stage. Of course, the abilities of the cards in my deck enhances the ability to do so.
I know some of you hate certain triggers, thinking they are useless. However, all triggers are important in their own way. Critical trigger is the most favorable triggers among players, since utilizing it doesn't require much thoughts. Most players will often antagonize Stand trigger or even Draw trigger, saying that they are useless.
More often the reason to throw Stand trigger aside is due to the fact that players wanting a more easy way of dealing more damage. Critical trigger deals that two damage that one might yearn for that much, but sometimes, they fail to realize that Stand trigger actually does somewhat that, and in a much better way - you stand another rested unit. Thus, you are actually giving yourself a chance to attack twice, controlling your opponent's units and at the same time, thinning your opponent's hand size if he/she choose to guard your attack. It gives you the chance to organize your attack once more and making it more effective. Of course, Critical trigger does has its own advantage in pressurizing opponent, but Stand trigger has its own way of doing so too.
Moving on to Draw trigger, players often blame Draw trigger for tons of issues. More often Draw trigger drawing another trigger. Is that bad? No, absolutely not. Some might flip the table (lol) when drawing a trigger with Draw trigger, but if you'd think on another perspective, you're actually gaining an extra card to guard for the next turn. Isn't that a good thing? In my opinion, Draw trigger is an essential trigger in most decks, especially decks with low drawing capabilities. With low drawing power, they can only rely on Draw trigger in getting more cards for any purposes, and that includes guarding or even ability usage. Some on the other hand might complain about the low guard for Draw trigger. You see, the 5k guard Draw triggers has actually provide an alternative card to guard with when you're presented with a dilemma to guard either with a regular unit which could be an attacker or booster, or with another 10k guard. It's not that bad after all, isn't it?
Now, you guys might be asking me, "lol, Aki, but how do I know which trigger should I use for my deck?". Like I've mentioned, there's no rights or wrongs in setting triggers in your deck. You'll need to have common sense and logic to a certain extend and tons of tryouts to make sure your deck is working as intended.
Knowing how the triggers work is one thing, setting the correct amount of type of triggers within 16 cards is another thing. There are many types of trigger structure, from the traditional 4-4-4-4, to three triggers, such as 4-4-8 or 4-6-6 and many more. In order to choose the best trigger structure, you'll need to make sure what do your other units require. Can they dish out high power output, so that it's not required to stand any unit again to pressure your opponent? Can your units apply pressure at the correct timing? Can your units provide you with enough draw power to keep survive? How kind of deck and combo your deck does - an early game rush deck; a mid game balanced deck; a late game controlling deck? There are much things to consider about.
On trigger structure, my preference would be getting 4-4-4-4. The reason I prefer playing balanced trigger is due to the unpredictability of the triggers that will be drive checked, at the same time conserving the same pressure onto my opponents. That being said, it doesn't mean that 4-4-4-4 is the best trigger structure out there.
For example, my Riviere deck. It's kinda hard to have 4-4-4-4 as the trigger structure for the deck. At the same time, Stand trigger just do not fit well with the deck, because you'll need to attack with the Vanguard (Riviere) first to utilize her Persona Blast. If you're using Stand trigger, you'd need to attack with the Rearguard first, and hope that you'll drive check a Stand trigger to stand the Rearguard if you manage to activate Riviere's Persona Blast, or the last 5k power increase will be a huge waste. Riviere deck might look like a deck with high draw power, but unfortunately, it is not. During late game, it has problems in maintaining hand card and that's where Draw trigger comes in handy.
To sum up, one should consider well about the setting of triggers in his/her deck. After all, a good setting of triggers in a deck compliments the play style and units' abilities usage of a player and his/her deck.
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