Boring But Practical / Tabletop Games

Board Games

• 7 Wonders Duel:
  • Most of the Wonders have nice effects like producing resources, giving you an Extra Turn, giving you money or blowing up one of your opponent's resources. And then there are the Pyramids, which do nothing but give you 9 Victory Points. However, as having the most VP at the end of the game is the main victory condition, and games are often decided on 1-15 VP, this can win you the game. Similarly, the Sphinx is the most boring Extra Turn wonder — its only additional effect is giving you 6 VP — but an extra turn and 6 VP is solid.
  • Unlike most of the Progress Tokens, which have cool and unique effects, all Philosophy does is sit around and be worth 7 Victory Points at the end of the game. However, that is a pretty decent amount, and unlike the more situational tokens, it has an effect that is useful in most games (i.e. whenever you're not going all-in on an Instant-Win Condition).
  • Civilian buildings. While other buildings can help you gather resources and/or push for an Instant-Win Condition, civilian buildings only exist to give you Victory Points.
• In Chess, most people will try to learn the flashy openings and glitzy combo attacks, but the tactics of piece exchange should come in second place to the logistic considerations of controlling board space. It sounds boring, but it pays to know when to crack open the defense of a turtling player or to suffocate an aggressive attacker with a locked pawn center.
  • Many famous players, such as Wilhelm Steinitz, Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, Jose Raul Capablanca, and Vladimir Kramnik, had playing styles that could be described this way. They rarely played flashy combinations or won brilliancy prizes, but their mastery of solid positional play allowed them to consistently score great results, to the point of becoming World Champions.
  • Some openings for white like the London system or the similar Colle system have negative reputations as being "lazy" "boring" or "dull" openings. But they are easy to learn and offer white good, quick development, a solid pawn structure and decent defense, making them practical, particularly for less experienced players. "System" openings in general are seen by some players as boring and repetitive since the player usually performs the exact same moves in (mostly) the exact same order every single game with little to no variation no matter what moves their opponent makes, which can be seen as unimaginative and lazy.
• Cluedo: One of the most effective strategies is also one of the simplest: making a suggestion that includes one or more cards that are already in your hand. Since the whole point of the game is to figure out what cards other people are holding, this strategy either guarantees that you'll see the information you want (for example, if you're looking for a Suspect, make a suggestion with a Room and Weapon you have) or confirms that no one has the cards in question, meaning that they must be part of the solution.
• Dead of Winter: Many Survivors' special abilities aren't flashy or dramatic, but shift the odds in ways that can save the Colony from destruction. Examples include creating food tokens without scavenging, letting everyone replace one of their die rolls, and even cleaning trash more efficiently — a vital part of Resources Management Gameplay.
• In the Firefly board game, Legal missions tend to be this. They don't pay as well as the big bank heists and mine robberies, but they also don't risk the Misbehave deck, sparing you the risk of spending hundreds of dollars on bribes, getting an automatic fail (and, if a Niska job, the loss of a crewman) from a Warrant being issued, or getting your crew killed.
• In Go, there are dozens of standard sequences called joseki, i.e. "best move". Playing them out according to the standard may seem boring to a junior player, but the reason they became standard in the first place is that they provide both sides with usable structures and "fair share" of the area where it is played.
• In Monopoly a fairly common tactic among experienced players is to buy up the (light) purple, orange, and red properties. While they are far less impressive than Park Place and Boardwalk, they are the most commonly landed on properties in the entire game, thanks to the multiple ways to be sent to jail.
• In Poker, sneaky check-raise traps, big risky bluffs, and hero-calling a suspected bluffer are all big fun moves... but the most reliable way to build your stack, especially against middling opposition, is to fold a lot, make small-to-medium-sized bets to take the blinds and antes when you're in position and no one else seems particularly interested in them, and save your big plays for when you've got a very strong hand.
• In Risk, Australia is the continent of choice for many veterans for locking down early then slowly amassing the 2 reinforcements per round. It requires the player to play the waiting game while others battle it out but by the time the inevitable bloodbath for Asia is over, other players will be severely weakened... and vulnerable to the massive army about to backdoor it.
• The XCOM Board Game has several Boring But Practical assets. How useful thy are depends on the invasion plan.
  • The Skyranger sees a lot of use in Infiltration and Domination. Enemies in Infiltration are extremely weak, but the Infiltration plans throws a lot of crises at you, which generally wrecks havoc with your logistics. Thus you have a lot of spare soldiers. Domination enemies are not quite as weak, but the main battle in Domination happens in the air. Removing crises with spare soldier thus gets very useful.
  • Technologies. Researching a technology requires you to roll 1, 2 or 3 successes. Some technologies allow to research technologies faster, and pulling them early lets you snowball.
    • 1 success technologies usually involve placing an undeployed unit on it to generate some benefits. These units aren't considered deployed and cost you nothing. One tech allows you to assign undeployed scientists to raft Interceptors for free. One allows you to use undployed Satellites for credits. For how cheap they are, they can turn a game around.
    • 2 successes technologies usually allow you to claim free successes or to save units that should be destroyed. The SHIV can by itself trivialize the Final Mission and many regular missions, and on any invasion plan that's light on UFOs, the technology that allows you to deal two damage to enemies by usig undeployed interceptors can make missions much less dangerous.

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech has two examples that stand out.
  • First, there's the medium laser — modest range and damage, but lightweight, compact, heat-efficient and can fire all day long without running out of ammo, which makes it a great weapon for light 'Mechs that can't carry much in the way of weapons tonnage anyway and a great backup weapon for the big guns on heavier designs. It's just perhaps the most ubiquitous 'Mech weapon out there, period.
  • And second, one of the most basic items of the 'modern' era: the double heat sink. It's perfectly boring — all it does is funnel heat (one of the main limiting factors on how many weapons you can safely use in one turn) out of your 'Mech or other eligible unit at twice the rate of the plain old single heat sink for the same one-ton weight. However, because using DHSs on a design also doubles the base heat dissipation capacity it gets for free with its fusion engine before explicitly installing extra sinks and because the game was not originally balanced with this in mind, this item arguably ends up edging right into Game-Breaker territory; single heat sinks certainly have generally fallen out of favor as a consequence except on units that explicitly cannot use doubles, or for background flavor reasons.
    • In theory, what's supposed to keep double heat sinks in check is their increased bulk (two or three times the internal space of singles depending on model). What this means in practice is that at the absolute worst they take up a grand 50% more room for the same heat capacity — and further quirks of the construction rules actually leave them frequently the more compact solution after all. (This also applies only to 'Mechs; other units that can use double heat sinks just don't assign space to heat sinks in construction at all and so completely ignore this supposed drawback anyway.)
  • When it comes to BattleMechs, the Stalker embraces this trope.
  Triad Technologies marketing campaign: It's not flashy. It's not the cutting edge. It just keeps coming.
  • The fan-favorite UrbanMech is a mech that never, ever gets obsolete. It's been in production since the Star League era, and while war and time have made certain mechs into priceless relics as the industrial base to produce them is lost, the Urbie is always available due to its simplicity, cheap cost, and the fact that spare parts are plentiful. And when deployed in their correct element, they can even be quite effective.
• Call of Cthulhu: Although Call of Cthulhu is a game where combat against monsters is not recommend in the majority of cases, some combat choices stand out:
  • Molotov cocktails are an anachronism in The Roaring '20s setting, but they are easy to make from largely legal components, easy to conceal under coats and other clothing, and deal a considerable amount of fire damage over a wide area. Many chthonic monsters that are Immune to Bullets are not impervious to fire, to say nothing of their effectiveness against human cultists and human-shaped enemies like Ghouls and Zombies. In addition to direct damage potential, a mollie can zone off a corridor and allow an easy escape or light up a dark cavern or underground bunker. Flare guns are similarly completely legal to own and carry without a permit, and deal a surprising amount of damage.
  • The Throw skill that determines your accuracy with Molotovs is one of the safest and most versatile combat skills in the entire game. You can throw grenades, shuriken, knives, or even stones and Improvised Weapons if you have nothing else. Throwing also has a variety of non-combat uses, like making a distraction or passing a vital item to an ally. All we're saying is, beware the Investigator who played baseball as a pitcher in college.
  • For firearm options, the best option is either a solid pistol like the .44 Magnum, or the good ol' Sawed-Off Shotgun, a weapon that is easy to acquire and easy to conceal, and packs a mighty wallop at close range. 4D6 damage is more than enough to potentially kill anything in the monster manual that isn't Immune to Bullets, and you can opt to unleash both barrels to turn an attacking Deep One (basically a giant fish/Xenomorph hybrid) into fresh sushi. Everything else in its weight class is probably very expensive or regulated somehow. The logistics speak for themselves too; good luck finding bullets for specialty firearms in a day and age before the Internet, but you can buy buckshot at any po-dunk rural store in '20s America.
  • When all else fails, dynamite is extremely powerful and fairly easy to acquire since scenarios deal a lot with archeological excavations and mining jobs that Dug Too Deep (if not, somebody who is good at forging documents can legally purchase it through a dummy company).
• Chaotic: 1-cost attacks in general, most notably the ones that deal minor damage in 2 elements like Ash Torrent and Inferno Claws and the Alliances Unraveled attacks that deal 15 in a single element. They're not the biggest or flashiest attacks, but using them as the crux of your attack deck means you can deal consistent damage with every attack you draw instead of having to chip away with scratch damage while you wait for big 4- or 5-cost attacks. Furthermore, bonus element damage is very common and accessible by all tribes, so with a good build these attacks can easily deal around 10 more than their stated value.
• Dungeons & Dragons
  • Magic Missile is one of the most basic arcane spells, as well as one of the most practical. The damage it deals is sub-par — at its basic level, the spell is three darts of 1d4 + 1 force damage each. As a tradeoff, Magic Missile always hits. It ignores damage resistances and elemental resistances, ignores incorporeality, and does not allow a saving throw to reduce or negate its effects. The only things that can stop Magic Missile are spell resistance/immunity (uncommon at low-mid levels), a specific spell (Shield) or a specific consumable item (Brooch of Shielding). And as a 1st level spell, you'll always have plenty of spell slots available for it, and it becomes prime material for metamagic feats later in the game. In 4th Edition, Magic Missile is one of the few wizard powers that count as a ranged basic attack, meaning it gets bonuses from a lot of equipment and can be used for extra attacks granted by certain leader classes.
  • The humble Grease spell covers a 10-foot-by-10-foot section of the floor with slippery liquid. It's much less flashy than other 1st-level spells and harmless in and of itself, but the ability to make your enemies trip over themselves is invaluable in combat situations. And in 5th edition it doesn't require concentration, allowing you to set down a grease slick (or three) while maintaining concentration on other spells.
  • In 4th Edition, all classes have "at-will" powers (Magic Missile being one), which are all examples of this trope — they can be used as many times as desired without using a spell slot, where the flashier, more powerful abilities can only be used occasionally. As such, boosting the power of these abilities is a boring but practical way to make your character stronger.
  • For a 3rd Edition wizard, many of the most powerful spells are not flashy direct-damage spells like Fireball or Lightning Bolt, but spells that weaken the enemy, like Ray of Enfeeblement or Web, which can turn a potentially deadly fight into a cakewalk. In 5th Edition, spells like Fog Cloud, Sleet Storm and the Wall spells such as Wall of Force and Wall of Stone do not do any direct damage but can completely change the dynamic of a battle in the caster's favour; obscuring an enemy's sight goes a long way to preventing them from being able to attack you, and the likes of Darkvision or Truesight don't do anything to overcome them since they produce "heavily obscured terrain".
  • Hold Person, especially in 5E. It doesn't deal any damage and it only targets humanoids, but it's much more reliable than Hold Monster is against monsters and unlike Tasha's Hideous Laughter, it doesn't give the target a save every time they take damage. The spell just traps a person in place with no chance to break out if hit. As a 2nd level spell it's a cheap way to subdue a valuable person without harming them, or inflict a Curb-Stomp Battle on a human enemy you do want to harm (since every attack against them while the spell is in effect is an auto-crit).
  • The 3rd Edition cleric lacks the finesse of the Rogue, the combat prowess of the Fighter, and the impressive offensive magic light show of the Wizard. Furthermore, it is expected to fill the thankless, inglorious task of healing and supporting the party. Most of the glory is vicarious, by allowing the party members to survive and do better at their respective jobs, but a party without a cleric is virtually hamstrung.
  • "Utility spells" such as Water Breathing, Rope Trick, and Stone to Mud aren't much use in combat, but they can save the party's life in a pinch and provide other extremely useful benefits outside of combat. Basic spells such as Light and Detect Magic are vital even at the highest levels.
  • The most important magic items in 3.5 are the ones that increases your stats. They take precedence over anything else that uses the same slot. Also, items that do cool or unusual things are often priced too high to be useful by the time you can get them.
  • In 3.X edition, playing as an ordinary human rather than an exotic fantasy race might sound boring, but it provides the best all-around game benefits: a bonus feat (giving you a jump-start on later, powerful feats), an extra skill point each level (which has more of an effect on skills than a one-time stat bonus) and allows more freedom from penalties while multiclassing (freeing up the player to create a more impressive character build).
  • Also in 3.X, the Improved Initiative feat is valuable to almost every Character Class for the simple reason that it boosts your chances of acting before your enemy in combat. The Alert feat in 5th Edition performs the same function, with the added bonus that you also cannot be surprised.
  • While they rarely are "boring", the Bard is actually one of the most practical characters in the game. They may not be able to fight as well as the Fighter or do damage like the Barbarian, but they are up there near the top. They may not have the ultra-powerful or flashy spells of the Wizard, Sorcerer, or Druid, but their spells are a much wider variety. They can cast both offensively and defensively, and they can heal as well. They have the second-most skill knowledge behind the Rogue, and their high Charisma score means the Game-Breaker skills of Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy are going to have excellent bonuses. They also get abilities like Hideous Laughter and Uncontrollable Dance which incapacitate an enemy if they succeed, allowing everyone else to wail on them.
  • In D&D 5th edition, at level 2, the Rogue gets access to a class feature called Cunning Action, allowing them to use a bonus action to Dash, Disengage or Hide. Sounds lame, until you realize it lets you outrun many enemies, move to tactically advantageous positions (like, say, flanking) much more easily, as well as enabling Hit-and-Run Tactics against a group of enemy (standard action, shoot a bow. Move action, break line of sight. Bonus action, find a new sniping spot or Hide to gain advantage for sneak attack next turn).
  • Also from 5E, the Champion Fighter subclass, which is a throwback to the "classic" Fighters of past editions. No magic, no fiddly skills, just a big block of stats with a ton of passive bonuses to make for a deadly combatant and exceptional physical skills. Champions can get an expanded critical hit range, an additional fighting style and some really impressive damage output when you combine with their extra attacks and their Action Surge ability. And they get Regenerating Health when below half their maximum HP too.
  • Circle of the Land Druids don't get some of the fancy abilities of other Druid Subclasses, but what they do get is eight free spell preparations, many of which aren't on their normal spell list and fill missing slots in that list, the ability to recover spell slots on short rest (basically turning you into a nature-themed Wizard), and passive defensive abilities. A Land Druid won't be using a flaming entity to burn enemies to ashes like Circle of Wildfire or turning into high level creatures to maul foes like Moon Druids, but at their capstone level of 14, they can waltz through difficult terrain no problem, are immune to poison (one of the most common damage types in the game), disease, and the Charmed and Frightened condition from Fey and Elementals, have advantage against spells like Entangle, and can potentially force beasts and sapient plants to miss an attack or have to target something else altogether while having a lot more versatility with their spell casting, most of which are passive buffs they don't have to worry about. Depending on the campaign, these buffs can be extremely useful and practical.
  • Speaking of Wizards in 5E, the Order of Scribes arcane tradition allows you a number of special features that are somewhat bland but undeniably very helpful. You can magically awaken your Spell Book, turning it into a living Familiar that functions as your spellcasting focus and can be easily replaced at no cost (along with all its spells) if ever lost or destroyed. You can alter the damage type of your spells temporarily, for example turning a Fireball into an Acidball or Snowball. You can cast spells as rituals at the spell's normal casting time. You can summon a magical quill that lets you transcribe spells into your book in half the normal time, create enhanced spell scrolls for your own use, and create normal spell scrolls for others. And you can summon an intangible, floating spectral mind that you share a telepathic link with and can cast spells through.
  • There are a few Feats in 5E that definitely qualify. Alert gives a big boost to your Initiative and so you always have a good chance to go first when combat starts, it helps protect you from sneak attacks, and you can't be surprised. Observant gives you a big boost to passive Perception and Investigation, so you'll hardly ever miss any loot, traps, hidden enemies, or important clues. Tough gives you +2 HP with every level up. None of them do anything really flashy, but they definitely will save your bacon when it matters, especially early on when player characters are quite easily killed, especially the Squishy Wizard. Even more boring but even more practical? Foregoing Feats at all and just taking the Ability Score Increase. Two permanent, non-situational +1's to the core stats isn't as flashy as a new toy to play with, but increasing the number of successful ability checks over dozens (if not hundreds) of die rolls? Nothing beats it mathematically.
  • Possibly the definition of this trope is the Resilient Feat. It gives you +1 to a stat and Proficiency in that stat's saving throw. Nothing fancy, but your saving throws in a certain stat going up as you level up can be very useful. This is especially useful if you class encourages you to make that stat your Dump Stat, such as a Barbarian taking Resilient in Intelligence.
  • From 3.X, the Feat Power Attack. Take a -X Attack penalty, to get +X Damage bonus to melee attacks. However, with two-handed weapons, the damage bonus is doubled. This stacks on top of the x1.5 Strength bonus damage already given for wielding a non-light weapon with two hands. Practically, the most important feat any serious two-handed melee weapon user can pick up, as that damage quickly adds up, regardless if you're a very basic, core standard Fighter, or a Tome of Battle Warblade. It's also a gateway feat to a number of other important and useful combat feats, and a number of Prestige Classes. And it is almost always one of the very first feats anyone picks up on any melee specialist classes.
  • Speaking of Tome of Battle, the Warblade's exclusive Martial Discipline, Iron Heart. There is nothing extremely flashy about it, just simply normal basics of sword fighting and will-power trained until it hits Badass Normal levels. Why worry about what a foe may or may not be immune to, when you can just simply hit'em really hard with one attack, or wipe out a horde of enemies with maneuvers that are flat out better than a similar Feat which requires other feats to even use. Or even just simply parry the enemy's attack.
  • The "Horizon Tripper" build — Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger/Horizon Walker. As "optimized" builds go, it's not much more than a well-traveled guy with a pole weapon and a short-ranged teleport, and its craziest maneuver is simply tripping someone. But it's effective at basically all levels, has a decent amount of skill points to make it useful out of combat, and is unusually mobile for a combat character. And being made exclusively from core material and fairly basic in its lore, there's very few Dungeon Masters who wouldn't allow it.
  • The Human race. "Why play a human in a fantasy game?" is a question you will hear a lot, but depending on what version you play, you can get a +1 to every core stat (standard human) or a +1 to any two core stats, a free skill proficiency, and a free feat (variant human). Variant human is considered a top tier race pick for any class, one of the rare occasions that the Jack of All Stats is high on a game's tier list. Human Fighter is the most popular race/class in 5th edition, for good reason. As mentioned earlier, variant human is the single most versatile race in the game, thanks to having its stat bonuses not be locked to specific ability scores and getting a free feat, and fighter, even without the Champion subclass, is extremely newbie-friendly and easy to outfit as you want. Even before getting into subclasses at level 3, a fighter can be designed for any style you'd want, ranging from ranged fighter, to dual-wielding, to sword-and-shield, to heavy weapons, to tanking, to grappling, etc. With subclasses you can also be a Magic Knight.
  • In general, having a character carry an Emergency Weapon, for those times when a wizard's magic spells do nothing, or can't be used, or when that sneaky rogue finds out that skeletons don't die easily to being backstabbed. In such cases, a wizard might want to use a crossbow, or perhaps some other Ranged Emergency Weapon, and rogues might want to grab a club to break that skeleton's bones. Even if a character lacks proficiency, having any backup weapon is better than relying upon their fists alone, unless they are a monk, have an inborn unarmed attack, picked up the Tavern Brawler feat, or took on the Unarmed Fighting Style.
  • A mule as a Beast of Burdon. In 5e, a mule costs 8 gold, and has a Carrying Capacity of 420 pounds, averaging out to 1 gold per 52.5 pounds, making it rather affordable to buy for most low-level, and cash-strapped, parties — in fact, most parties could get at least two mules, possibly more, depending on cost of feed of course. Also, with the release of Tasha's, it's possible to apply the Warrior Sidekick class to the mules, or any other CR 1/2 or lower mount, and make them decently effective tanks for the party, which is useful for a party full of spellcasters and others with low health and armor class and no dedicated tanks. In short, that mule can become one heck of a Bad Ass.
  • In general, a race that can move its stat bonuses around. This allows them to be useful in multiple classes, possibly all of them, and not just those of a certain category, like martial, support, or spellcaster. For 5e, such flexible races include Changelings, Custom Lineage, most Half-Elf variants, Humans (especially Variant Human), Simic Hybrid, Feral Tiefling variant, Warforged, and a number of Unearthed Arcana races that have been put out since the release of Tasha's, which has the Custom Origins feature, which allows the player to move the character's stat bonuses around, with the Dungeon Master's permission of course.
  • Sidekick Classes as printed in Tasha's. They are a simple way to beef up a lower CR creature, so that it can either be a better ally for a higher-leveled party to help them fight a dragon, or conversely, be a more dangerous threat when the setting dictates that a dragon wouldn't go after a thief that robbed a store in a city, but a well-trained guard would.
  • Since Tasha's, a number of new, and reworked, races that have natural-born spells, due to their race, have the ability to pick which mental stat the spells are run off of. This is useful if one wants to play as a Spellcaster, so that their natural spells can use the same modifiers as their class ones. Even for Martial characters, this is useful - depending on the build, at least one of the mental stats will be a 12, using Standard Array, which could be what the natural spells are run off of.
• In Exalted 2e, the most cost effective charms are the excellencies — they either add dice, add successes or allow you to re-roll. No flashy attack flurries, no golden beams of magic light.
  • Oh, it gets even better. Whereas the first few excellencies cost motes (Mana) on a per-use basis, several Exalt types have an excellency which allows them to commit motes and then use the earlier excellencies at reduced cost (or no cost at all) for the rest of the scene. End result? Basic multi-action attack flurries boosted by free excellencies are one of the most efficient means of dealing damage in the game.
    • And then even better: Solars have a Charm which allows Excellencies to not count as Charms. Considering you can only use one Charm per turn without a combo, this allows you to augment your defenses no matter what (even if it cannot be used alongside the cost-reducing Charm above).
  • Perfect Defenses. They're cheap, only serve to negate one attack, but they're needed to survive attacks being enhanced by other Boring, but Practical charms.
  • An entry-level Sidereal Investigation charm allows, for only two motes, the Sidereal to retrieve nearly any objective fact recorded on the Loom of Fate, or to search their personal library, using a little spider made of essence. While the Loom only records things that happen inside Fate's influence, and the essence spiders aren't smart enough to handle complicated or subjective questions without careful wording (ie, they can't tell you who's winning a battle because they don't know what that means, but they can tell you which side has lost more soldiers), that's still a huge amount of information virtually at your fingertips. Not sure if someone just lied to you? Can't find where that legion is camped? Need to know who hired that assassin? Ask the Loom!
• Iron Kingdoms: Major Haley has the Telekinesis ability which enables her to... move an enemy figure two inches and turn it. It sounds like a letdown, compared to the flashy attacks other warcasters get. However, use it on one of the enemy's elite melee infantry and suddenly that unit cannot use combined melee attacks, cannot charge you, is open to be charged from the rear by your melee troops and the enemy's front line suddenly has a huge gaping hole in it, which you, with a bit of luck, can shoot at the enemy's support units through.
  • In the fluff, the "Iron Kingdoms"-'verse is full of advanced Magitek, but most of the nations are pushing their advanced research away from magitek and towards regular tech. Regular technology is far less impressive than the magic-infused Mechanika, but far less finicky and can be used without having to keep a rare and fickle mage happy.
  • Similarly, the ubiquitous warjacks found throughout the setting are nowhere near as powerful and impressive as the Colossi the Iron Kingdoms fielded in the war against the Orgoth, but far more flexible, less resource-intensive, and can be used for non-combat purposes in a pinch.
  • The warjacks themselves were victims of the trope in the early editions of the wargame, Warmachine. Slow, not particularly accurate, easy to disable, and requiring the commander to allocate Focus (mana) in order to bring out their full potential when it was far more beneficial for that commander to keep the Focus for themselves. Anything that a 'jack could do, a squad of infantry could do better, leading to the early editions being derisively referred to as "Infantrymachine".
• An in-universe example are the Crab Clan from Legend of the Five Rings. The Crab don't have the elegance and dueling skill of the Crane, the cunning of the Scorpion or the magical skill of the Phoenix. What they do have is a keen understanding of siege warfare, a healthy dose of blunt pragmatism and a lot of very muscular men with big hammers and axes. On the rare occasions that they're able to dedicate their full resources to fighting other Clans instead of the Shadowlands they tend to win handily.
• While the Lord of the Rings TCG usually averted this, with most cards being a part of a complicated Awesome, but Impractical combo, the Goblin Runner card is the epitome of this trope. A simple Strength 5 (barely stronger than a Hobbit) Goblin with no special abilities...but he costs 1 from Shadow Pool to play and you can add 2 to the Shadow Pool when you play him. This means you can build up your Shadow Pool when you play them, so many early decks, especially Moria decks, built their strategy around them.
• In Mage: The Ascension, the core rulebook highlights how every single tradition has developed a simple "heal my injuries" technique. Some magi blast foes with arcane bolts, some call forth ancient spirits, some invent sapient computers, but everybody finds some way to close their wounds quickly.
  • The first dot of any given Sphere only gives you the ability to perceive that Sphere, not to actually do anything with it. But mage sight is very, very useful, and will probably be one of the things you use most. Life Sight can instantly diagnose any injury or illness. Matter sight can tell you exactly what something is made of. Entropy sight unfailingly reveals whether someone is lying, plus it lets you cheat at blackjack. Forces sight is your instant, pinpoint-accurate instrument for measuring light, velocity, radiation, electrical current, and more. Correspondence sight finds hidden things and makes it impossible for you to get lost. Mind sight? Well, those covert operatives thought they had the drop on you, and having thoughts where you could hear was a mistake. And none of these will net you Paradox, the mage's foe, because it doesn't look as if you're doing magic at all.
• In Magic: The Gathering, some of the best cards in the game have completely generic effects, but for cheap. Sadly, the cards linked above are also banned from most tournament formats, possibly for exactly that same reason.
  • What do you think is the rarest, most expensive, and widely accepted as best card in the game? Some stompy behemoth that ends the game in one turn? Some spell that gives you an instantaneous win? Nope: It's a card that gives you three free mana. Once. That's about it. Many new players have likely traded it away back in the day for some giant creature that later became obsolete, without ever realizing just how much of an advantage Black Lotus can give early game. Zvi Mowshowitz, a tournament player, designer for Wizards of the Coast, and eventual Magic Hall of Famer, once said there was not a deck that could be built that could not be improved by adding a Black Lotus to it. ^note Which was later proven false by a deck which took advantage of the Dredge mechanic from Ravnica: City of Guilds to create a Zombie Apocalypse without mana sources, which would make Black Lotus redundant, but even then it took over a decade after the game's launch for that to come about and requires several expensive cards, and a Black Lotus could still theoretically come in handy and allow a player to "hard cast" a card for its mana cost if things don't go according to plan.
  • The early metagame had long been dominated by big flashy spells ("Mono Red Burn", "Blue Eater", etc.) and powerful creatures (Dragons, Angels, Demons, etc.). Then, in 1996, Tom Champheng won a world championship using what he called his "White Weenie" deck. The idea was to build a deck focusing on cheap, easy to summon creatures that most serious players ignored, known as "Weenies." The strategy is that a big, flashy spell which takes a long time to set up is no good if that player has already been defeated by a Zerg Rush of weenies. A few nearly one-sided tournaments later, the "weenie" archetype that we (Magic players) all know and love was born.
    • Cards don't get much simpler than Lightning Bolt, yet it's so good that it wasn't printed in a tournament legal set for 14 years. It only returned due to Power Creep, Power Seep, which is remarkably small considering the game's enduring nature. Lampshaded hilariously in this short video by Loading Ready Run.
  • Blue Deck Eaters, especially those with lots of counterspells. No, you don't hit enemies with massive monsters or blast him with uber-powerful spells. All you basically say is "No, you don't cast that" when you counter his spells, and "No, you can't have those" when you force him to discard. It's not flashy, but once it starts working, it will defeat most any deck out there, except those specifically made to counter that mechanism. Or your opponent punching you for being annoying.
  • Blue-White control decks takes this trope to its most literal meaning. With a slew of cheap blue counterspells and white removal, you effectively render your opponent impotent throughout the entire match while either digging up your own combo or pinging him with consistent yet hard to remove damage. As expected, when your opponent has to face the likes of Render Silent and Silence every single turn, it gets hilariously annoying and boring for them, especially if you just wiped the field (so they don't have any existing stuff to use either).
  • Token strategies center around this. "Dies to removal" is a common complaint about creatures, and token creatures are no exception. However, unlike regular creatures, tokens are, more often than not, designed to just keep coming. And coming. And coming. They seldom have any abilities, and seldom more anything more complex than flying, but when you have an army well into the triple digits, the fact that it's a bunch of 1/1 saprolings is hardly relevant. And we didn't even mention empowering this horde...
  • This even applies to basic lands. Lands give you the mana to cast other spells, and are the most reliable way to get mana. Each basic land gives you one mana of its color and can be used as soon as it's played. There are many varieties of lands that give you life, damage your opponent, or give you a choice of different mana types. They almost always have some disadvantage, however, like costing life to play, only giving colorless mana, or not being usable on the turn they enter the field.
  • Solemn Simulacrum may be a little frail for its cost, but it lets you get a land into play to accelerate your mana base. And when it dies, you draw a card, effectively replacing itself when it's used as a chump blocker. Clone or reanimate it, and you can get a lot of additional card advantage from it. Plus, it's colorless so it can go in any deck, supplementing colors that normally don't have good access to ramp and/or card draw.
  • One of the best legendaries in the game appeared in Champions of Kamigawa set. A vanilla 2/2 creature normally wouldn't be all that impressive — except this one only costs one white mana to play.
  • There are exactly three cards banned in every single format they're available in, even in formats where the Power Nine are allowed to be played. What kind of horrific, unspeakable powers do these cards have? Chaos Orb and Falling Star simply destroy creatures they physically touch (as in, the card itself is tossed into the air and kills whatever it touches when it lands — this was before what was and wasn't allowed in trading card games wasn't fully figured out given that Magic was quite literally the first one), while Shahrazad makes everyone play a subgame of Magic ^note players have to play another game with their libraries in the middle of the first game. However, all three cards were so horrible to play against that they're among the few cards that don't involve ante or have the "Conspiracy" card type and yet are banned in all formats.
  • Unsummon and similar cards removes a creature from the game for only one mana, but your opponent can still use that card later. If you use it on a creature with high mana cost, your opponent will have to spend all that mana again, and if you use it on a creature with loads of counters, you've reset them to their base power and toughness.
  • This ended up being the downfall of the "Gotcha" mechanic from the Unhinged Self-Parody set, which allow you to get cards back from the graveyard if your opponent says specific words, laughs, touches their face, and so on. The intent was for players to use odd circumlocutions or tricks to get around the "gotcha" conditions, and when the mechanic was being playtested this was how the design team behaved. But when the mechanic hit the field, the players quickly realized that the simplest way to avoid triggering gotchas was to simply do nothing: stop talking, stop moving, etc. This was a huge pain, particularly in a set that was supposed to be light-hearted and silly.
• The dodge technique in Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution. It isn't as flashy as a lot of the other techniques, but it automatically succeeds against attempted TK Grabs and is useful against more mundane attacks as well.
• In Rocket Age traditional fire arms are still the norm since most people can't afford or acquire advanced RAY weapons.
• Rolemaster has the spell Shockbolt. It's not a very powerful attack spell, as attack spells go, but it has a few advantages over some others. Because it's a low level spell, it doesn't take much magic to use. It's available to two of the three groups of magic types on base spell lists, and to some others on special spell lists, so most spellcasters can cast it. The actual attack is a sort of electrically charged light, so it works better against a target with metal armor. In this system, you're as likely to kill something with a critical hit as by sheer damage, and shockbolt does criticals against metal-armored targets rather better than against targets protected with leather or cloth armor. The effect is so pronounced that metal armor is generally not much valued because this single spell makes metal armor a liability.
• Legacy in Sentinels of the Multiverse. He rarely attacks and has a very straightforward deck. He's considered one of the best heroes because what his very straightforward deck does is tank damage and heal and buff allies to considerable degrees. Tempest's base power (which deals one point of projectile damage to all opponents) becomes terrifying when he's getting +2 to it from Legacy's ongoing effects and power use, enabling him to sweep, for example, several of Grand Warlord Voss' Gene-Bound troops off the board in one hail of death.
  • Expatriette is a very straightforward hero to play, and she doesn't have many ways to create wild combinations like, say, the Wraith or Absolute Zero can. However, she also comes online very quickly. Wraith has a higher power ceiling, but to get to it, she needs to build up her gear. Expatriette with her shotgun or assault rifle can start raising hell immediately, and do it fairly effectively.
• A lot of the stuff in Traveller is like this. Three thousand years in the future and they are still fighting with rifles. Most commerce is carried, not on Cool Starships, but on great big hulking Megacorporate abominations that fly unadventurously on scheduled routes. The Imperium is ruled, not by a mysterious Ancient Conspiracy, but by a caste of the descendants of successful industrialists and soldiers. And so on.
• In Trinity, Clairvoyants ('Clears') don't get to throw bolts of lightning, conjure fire with their minds or teleport an enemy into a dozen different directions at once. Their 'flashier' abilities (like precognition) are depressingly unreliable. They have one major edge, though: They can easily find out where exactly somebody or something is. Combine that with, for example, some knowledge of ballistics and a mortar and you have a very, very frightening combo.
• Warhammer 40,000: The armies offer loads of appealing units to select, be they super soldiers encased in powered armor that can punch holes in tanks and survive being stepped on by mecha, battlesuits unleashing volleys of plasma fire while darting in and out of cover, tanks the size of bunkers that can annihilate entire squads in a single shot, genetically-engineered warbeasts that spit fire and toss around enemy armor like toys, speed-crazed alien brutes on crude motorcycles loaded with guns, teleporting shock troops firing monofilament threads, and so forth. But at the end of the battle none of these units will matter unless you have some humble Troops choices, the rank-and-file of your army, to hold mission objectives.
  • However, the above-mentioned speed-crazed alien brutes can take motorcycles as troops choices simply by taking a cheap special character.
  • For that matter, the average Guardsman's lasrifle. Compared to everyone else's standard firearm, it's so weak that they're commonly nicknamed "flashlights". Compared to everyone else's standard firearm, it's also the most practical gun humanity has ever invented. Extremely low maintenance and can be recharged anywhere, and is completely idiot-proof so as not to confuse conscripts from some of the less advanced Imperium worlds. And while weak comparatively it still kills humans and 'nids just fine, not to mention cheap enough to be shipped out by the hundred thousand.
    • This is also why the Commissar Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM) prefers the bog-standard laspistol over the much more potent hellpistol or bolt pistol. To explain, Hellpistols are souped-up laspistols capable of punching through Power Armour. But to provide that extra power, they have to be connected by cables to a heavier external power pack, in addition to sometimes having a slightly heavier frame. A bolt pistol fires high-calibre (.50 at least, though most commonly .75 caliber) rocket-propelled explosive shells that can stop a raging Ork dead in its tracks. However, they're close in size to a small rifle, and the rounds ensure very low-capacity magazines. To say nothing of the difficulty of caring multiple magazines. Plus, it is far heavier than a laspistol and Cain worries that the increased weight of a boltpistol will throw off his aim at a crucial moment and get him killed.
  • The bog-standard model of the Leman Russ Main Battle Tank, both in-'verse and on the tabletop. It lacks the flash of the more specialized models of the same chassis, and the sheer power of super-heavies like the Baneblade, but they're cheap, plentiful and can perform well (if not excel) in almost any role.
  • Missile launchers and autocannons are by far the most versatile Heavy Weapon available to human armies — hardly flashy, like Plasma Cannons or Lascannons, but they have good anti-infantry capability (frag missiles for the ML and a high fire-rate for the AC) and can kill anything up to Armor: 13.
  • A meta-example is the heavy stubber, which is the M2 heavy machine gun in all but name. When a weapon that uses gunpowder to throw solid projectiles doesn't need updating for forty thousand years, you know it's practical.
    • In the same vein, the Earthshaker cannon is nothing but a simple gun-howitzer using bagged charges, an invention that predates the M2 by almost twenty years and was motivated purely by economic considerations^note In the 19th century, the firing charge for field artillery went from loose powder to brass cartridges, faster to load and more precise. During World War I, however, all sides started experiencing brass shortages due the heavy use of artillery, and the French Army switched from brass cartridges to cloth bags because they were cheaper and faster to manufacture and freed the brass for use in situations where it couldn't be replaced. Then French gunners started using smaller powder bags to be able to regulate how faster the shell would be fired, and the sheer versatility made it become the standard used to this day, if in improved forms. It's one of the Imperial Guard's most formidable weapons. Indeed, most Imperial Guard implements of war can be considered boring but practical: in a universe with spider-tanks, hover-tanks and cathedrals on treads, whatever grace or technological sophistication that the Guard lacks can be more than made up for by sheer weight of numbers and raw reliability.
  • Indeed, for most armies in any of the Games Workshop big games (Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and Lord of the Rings), it's generally a good idea to cross off the most expensive units in their force from attempts to build serious armies. The reason is fairly simple; any extremely powerful unit is going to take up a lot of the points an army gets, leaving the rest of the army weaker. It'll get blasted by cannonballs, a hero killer, or tanks because it is such a big investment on your part, leaving your force crippled. Even if your opponent doesn't have a powerful answer to kill that behemoth, he maybe can tie it up so it doesn't damage anything important while the rest his army crushes your force. For example, one solution to facing a dragon in LotR is to feed it a mook every turn; sure, the mook is doomed, but the dragon is likely impotent to do anything else and cost so many points the rest of your army can sweep the enemy with little trouble. Likewise, if a new player insists on a huge squad of assault terminators you can't kill, skating around them will mean that incredibly expensive unit does too little damage to justify its massive cost. Boring but practical wins cutthroat games.
  • By far the most efficient way for Imperial Guard players to defeat monstrous creatures, especially Tyranids, is to ring them with conscripts, shoot the rest of the army around them, then, once everything is well under control, maybe charge them with a command squad and try to get a force weapon and a couple of powerfists in contact with them.
  • Another Imperial Guard example: the army's Elite choices (as in, Ratling snipers, Ogryns, Stormtroopers, Psykers and Sly Marbo) are generally considered to be too ineffectual for their points costs. Hence, most Guard players who aren't playing for fun prefer leaving them behind in favour of simply bringing more Guardsmen.
  • The theoretical concept of "Mathhammer" is built on this, usually comparing several types of units within a certain points limit in the scenarios they were built for and seeing which one is more cost efficient. This usually means that most players would build their army not with the best units in the codex, but with the cheapest ones that can pack some sort of heavy firepower (such as the Meltavets, who dies faster than any other anti-tank squad, but can kill way more in the small time frame that they're alive, at least statistically).
  • Again from the Imperial Guard: the Chimera troop transport. It's just a vehicle with thin armour, some medium weapons more suited for anti-infantry job, and the ability to carry ten Guardsmen. It's also very cheap and even more reliable and easy to repair, and its chassis is versatile enough to be adapted as a number of vehicles ranging from a humble tractor/supply truck to a mobile ICBM launcher.
  • Arkhan Land has discovered three vehicle designs which are currently in use by the Imperium. Two of them are the Land Raider and the Land Speeder, a tank and a recon unit, respectively. However, there is a third vehicle, one not as common in the tabletop, yet often considered much more important for the Imperium... the Land Crawler, a cheap utility vehicle used as a transport, a tractor, a vehicle to clear the field... and, if needed, you can use it tow artillery, or replace the engine and slap on a few stubbers to make an excellent recon vehicle.
  • The ubiquitous Rhino chassis is this both in and out of universe. Its simple form makes it highly adaptable, with almost every space marine ground tank (besides the famous Land Raider) being based around its chassis. This simplicity also allows it to be mass produced on the cheap and allows even the modest crew to make battlefield repairs (something no other tank in the game is capable of). In terms of practicality, it can transport 10 superhuman soldiers clad in power armor with no difficulty AND can run off any type of fuel from exotic promethium to wood. All of this translates into the game as a generic transport, with a decent (and, due to a rule wording, indestructible) gun and transport capacity for a very low point cost (35, compared to an individual Space Marine at 14 points apiece). Its size and bulk also makes it good for impromptu cover, as most commanders will rush the Rhino up, turn it sideways, and have the troops disembark on the other side, effectively shielding them for a turn from enemy gunfire. Its derivative tanks are also very practical, being able to bring twice the amount of ordinance to bear for half the cost of other equivalent tanks.^note A single Predator tank can bring either the same amount of lascannons to bear as a Land Raider for half the price, or two Predators for the same price can bring 3 times the amount of lascannons. Alternatively it can field them with Autocannons and heavy bolters for even cheaper, making them much more efficient at gunning down enemy infantry. In addition, since you can field two Predators for the cost of one Land Raider, you can afford to specialize them, so they can concentrate on the type of enemy they are most effective against, rather than the Land Raider occasionally wasting shots because its guns are split between anti-tank and anti-infantry. Similarly, the Vindicator brings to bear the powerful Demolisher Cannon for 2/3rds the cost of a Demolisher Leman Russ or Defiler. Their only real downside is that even the most heavily armored Rhino Tank would be considered, at best, a "medium" tank, and the majority of them can be taken down with relatively few shots from anti-tank weapons, especially when flanked. However, their cheap cost means you can simply spam them to make up for this.
  • In the same vein as the Rhino, the Predator MTB (which is based off of the rhino chassis) is overshadowed by the insane durability of the Land Raider, the demolisher cannon of the Vindicator, the anti-air array of the Hunter and Stalkers, and the sheer dakka of the Thunderfire Cannon. However, if you need a job done, no other tank in the space marine arsenal can do it better or cheaper. Armed with either 3 sets of Lascannons, an autocannon and 2 heavy bolters, or a combination thereof, the Predator can bring a lot of firepower for a pittance of a cost, and with the 7th Edition Marine Codex allowing for vehicle squadrons you can bring up to nine Predators to a battle.
  • Every Space Marine Chapter has its own specialization. The Space Wolves are tough melee fighters, the Raven Guard are masters of guerilla warfare and rapid assault, the Salamanders love flamethrowers, and the Ultramarines... have a thing for logistics. Guess which one is the one with the 500-world empire?
  • Captain Lysander of the Imperial Fists. A pretty good close combat character, but that's not why you take him. Instead, you take him for his ability of "Bolter Drill", which allows his fellow Space marines re-roll missed Bolter shots. This applies to ANY bolter type weapon, including the Heavy Bolter, and Bolt Pistol. Boring as hell, but damn effective at wiping a field of enemy infantry quickly when you suddenly have a lot more chances to wound the enemy.
  • The Tau, one of the most technologically advanced races of the game, tend to focus their battle strategy around Battlesuits. Their Shas'O Commanders are often given the most advanced Battlesuit tech the Tau Empire has to offer. And yet, two of of the best HQ choices are the extremely cheap points cost wise Ethereal, and Cadre Fireblade. The Etheral has little combat ability, and while they can fight in Close Combat, you really don't want to have them anywhere near it. The Fireblade wears the same Combat armor as the regular Fire Warriors, and carries a Pulse rifle, and both may have two drones with them (Likely shield drones for extra survivability). Both have buffs that are given, to units they are near to, or with. Namely, the Ethereal's Storm of Fire buff, and the Fireblade's Volley Fire. When their per-requisite conditions are met grant an additional shot to Pulse Rifles, and Pulse Carbines, to any unit they are close to, or joined respectively. For way less points than every other unit option available for the Tau, these two HQ choices suddenly turn your Firewarriors and Pathfinders and into terrors of the battlefield, shredding apart infantry with massed amounts of fire from their basic weapons.
    • Taken to the extreme with the special character Aun'Va. He's gone from the worst Special character in the entire game from his previous incarnation, to almost a "Must-Have" unit in any non-Farsight Enclave rules using Tau army. He can invoke an additional power, which means you can leave Storm of Fire always active, and then one of the three other Elemental Invocations make surrounding infantry units tougher, less likely to run, or more aggressively mobile. And thanks to his Paradox of Duality, he put's the normal strategy of using High Strength, Armor Piercing weapons on its head, making it likely to fail when fired at him. Combined with clever use of cover, this will frustrate enemies trying to eliminate this huge morale booster to the Tau. Not bad for a choice, where it's very likely that when used correctly, will never earn a kill on its own.
  • The Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii soldiers, best described as the Imperial Guard crossed with the Borg have a fairly diverse army list, with spider-tanks, chicken-walkers jousting with taser-lances, spindly mech-assassins with brain-destroying weaponry and gargantuan combat robots, but the undisputed best unit in the army is the Skitarii Vanguard. A basic trooper in a red robe and sealed armour, they're churned out and discarded in the tens of thousands, and yet are considered some of the best infantry in the game thanks to cheap cost, ease of use, surprisingly powerful basic guns and access to good anti-tank weaponry and accuracy buffs. Armed with a couple of Arc Rifles per squad, there's almost nothing in the game they can't hurt, and you need do nothing more than point them at the nearest enemy and forget about them. Unless limited by army slots, it's a rare Skitarii player that doesn't field at least three squads of these guys.
  • Lorewise, this is one of the main reasons why the Imperial Knights exist, insofar as super-heavy walkers can be considered boring. Compared to the Titans, they are smaller (the largest Knight is nearly as large as the smallest Titan) and more mundane in terms of firepower and control. They are also possible to mass-produce, can be used by a single operator, and are small enough to be more tactically flexible in what term of role they can play (and to actually be used in normal-scale Warhammer 40k).
• Warhammer:
  • The Dark Elf army has two major close combat core choices: Warriors, which are just basic soldiers with spears and shields, and Corsairs, which are kickass Dark Elf pirates with two swords (or a sword and a crossbow pistol), wearing cloaks made of dragon skin. Unfortunately, Warriors are much cheaper and roughly equally effective, meaning that there's no logical reason to take Corsairs over them. It doesn't hurt that Dark Elf Warriors are among the most effective for their points basic infantry in the game. This is less true under the 8th edition Army Book, with Corsairs getting more durable and basic Warriors (sorry, Dreadspears) getting more expensive. But it's still... mostly true.
  • In-universe, while most of Clan Skryre's reputation comes from its creation of deadly and dramatic weaponry, the clan also produces a considerable quantity of more mundane technology that plays an extremely important role in keeping the Under-Empire running, such as mass transit systems, long-range communications and drilling and mining equipment.
  • The tiny little cantrip "Unbind Monster" in Storm of Magic can sledgehammer your enemy by turning all their bound monsters into corpses, idiots, and/or rampaging, uncontrolled killing machines that attack the nearest target. Back this up with the equally minor "Wizard's Duel", to push enemy casters off their fulcrums, and victory is in your grasp.
  • While there are a lot of fancy arcane items (both "generic" and army specific) for your wizards to pick through, none is more useful than the humble dispel scroll, which automatically dispels one spell per game.
• The Witcher: Game of Imagination based entire combat mechanics on this trope, bordering on extreme Combat Pragmatism when it comes to dirty tricks that can used against enemies. Also:
  • Shields are one of the most overlooked gear in the game, since they don't look impressive at all. Yet they prove absurdly powerful and useful bonuses to defense and can be used for attacks too, dealing damage on par with regular weapons.
  • Cavalry? Charging mob? Some giant monster? Just take a steady grab of few pikes or other polearms.
  • Plate armour. Unlike other tabletop RPGs, The Witcher doesn't add any arbitrary drawbacks^note in combat at least — armour provides hefty penalties, but only outside combat other than the price itself, which isn't that high anyway. If it is combined with a shield, you are untouchable by anything short of dragons and high-end spells.
  • Applying good ol' Groin Attack can completely take male enemies off-guard. If they fail a check against it, they lose their turn. And said check can be pretty hard to pass.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!'s metagame is faced with a similar situation. Finally summoned your almighty Dragon Master Knight? Or maybe Elemental Hero Divine Neos? Too bad, they're just as vulnerable to traps like Mirror Force as Kuriboh is. Unless you're summoning something that is immune or can shut down traps, it's usually much better to go with something simple, like Cyber Dragon, whose effect is simply: "Summon for free if you don't have any monsters out and your opponent does".
  • For example, the most effective tactics at one point of the game are to manage your card advantage, and abuse advantageous monsters like the Disc Commander, Monarch and LADD. A very boring yet highly effective strategy.
    • A simple example of this is Lightning Vortex versus Smashing Ground. Smashing Ground destroys the highest-DEF monster on your opponent's field, while Lightning Vortex destroys all face-up monsters on your opponent's field but requires you to discard a card. Smashing Ground is a +0, since you used one card (Smashing Ground) to take out one card (the opponent's monster), while Lightning Vortex varies from a -1 to a +3, since you used two cards (Lightning Vortex and the discarded card) to take out one to five cards (the opponent's monsters). Smashing Ground is considered a better card than Lightning Vortex, because it's much more likely for your opponent to have one or two monsters than four or five, so Lightning Vortex will usually just break even.
    • The Gadgets deck, at their first peak of popularity, embodied the significance of card advantage. Because the Gadgets search each other out on Summon, you will consistently have a stream of monsters to beat on the opponent's LP, while using spot removal to get rid of cards you can't surmount. While the Gadgets themselves didn't have very impressive stats, the massive amount of removal ensures the opponent will run out of resources before you do.
  • This has changed to a degree since the introduction of Synchro Monsters. Shooting Star Dragon for instance, is possible but difficult to summon, but amazing when you do. Same goes for Red Nova Dragon. Also, Synchros have higher ATK than the stars of previous metas, so managing to summon that Dragon Master Knight might actually do you a tiny scrap of good.
  • Nowadays, there's a notable amount of decks where the strategy revolves around summoning a big flashy monster every single turn effectively.
  • Mystical Space Typhoon has one of the simplest effects in the game. It was released in 2002, and still sees plenty of use to this day.
  • Pot of Greed's effect is three simple words: "draw two cards". This may not sound like much, until you realize that this means that it effectively puts an extra card in your hand with absolutely no cost or drawback. On top of giving you more options in your hand, it also makes effectively makes your deck smaller, increasing your odds of drawing that one card that you really need right now. Literally every single deck would benefit from having Pot of Greed (and suffer from not having it), and there are very few situations where you don't want to play it immediately after drawing it. It's considered one of Yu-Gi-Oh!'s most infamous Game Breakers as a result, and it's banned or restricted in every official banlist. Not bad for a three-word card.
  • Compulsory Evacuation Device lets you return a monster to its owner's hand. No activation requirements means you can pop it at any time to disrupt a combo, and the fact that it doesn't destroy circumvents destruction immunity or effects that trigger on destruction. It's especially punishing for monsters that require investment to bring out, like anything that's summoned from the Extra Deck.
  • The Rank 4 Toolbox strategy qualifies. Fill your deck with only level 4 monsters that can summon themselves or each other, and fill your Extra Deck with only Rank 4 Xyz monsters, with a variety of effects. Any two of you monsters can summon any one of your Xyz monsters, and you can pick whichever one best suits the situation.

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