Hello there, people. I have written a larger guide about Ai patterns and manipulations for it, that I have split up into multiple parts, which can be read individually. This should be especially helpful for Beginners and Intermediate players of Story Deck runs. I put this header on top of all them, so feel free to ignore this in case you have already read this.
As a disclaimer: These strats work most of the time, but not all of the time. Sometimes you get weird moments, where the AI doesn‘t follow these rules. 5D‘s especially really likes to do that. But those moments are more on the rare side, so in like 95% of cases these manips should work. Also keep in mind that the AI in the original Legacy of the Duelist works different. Some things still work, but these guides is meant for Link Evolution.
- AI Attack Patterns
There are a lot of attack patterns, that can be used to your advantage in Story Deck runs.
2.1 General attack pattern
When it comes to how the AI overall attacks, it prioritizes attack targets the following: Face-up monsters and known face-down monsters are prioritized over unknown face-down monsters. The AI also does not prioritize Effect Monsters. Known face-down monsters are monster cards, the AI is aware of what the monster is, because they already got to see. A couple of examples are the AI saw it with „Eye of Truth“ getting set or the monster got flipped face-down by an effect. Unknown face-down monsters are monsters the AI is not aware of what they are, yet. This can be used to your advantage to have a monster survive as e.g. a Tribute for a Tribute Summon, that would have otherwise not survived. This then can be further reinforced by also setting a monster with higher Defense to the left of it.
Example: You set a „Kuriboh“ while also controlling some face-up monsters for a tribute play next turn.
2.2 Protection for face-up monsters
One way to accomplish this has already been described in the card positioning section under 1.2. However, there is also a way to protect lower Attack monsters with useful effects against opponents, who attacks face-up monsters from highest to lowest Attack. If you play a new monster with more Attack, the opponent will attack the new monster first instead of the lower Attack one with the effect, that you want to protect.
Example: This is really useful in Alexis VS Titan in the GX campaign. You can protect „Cyber Tutu“ or „Cyber Gymnast“ by playing a higher Attack monster in Attack Position, even if he controls stronger monsters. That way you can e.g. squeeze out a little more damage with „Cyber Tutu“, because that card can attack directly under certain conditions.
2.3 Protection for face-down monsters
A couple of ways to accomplish this have already been described in the card positioning section under 1.3 and under 2.1 of this guide. There are, however, even more ways to do this regardless of card positioning. In Mako VS Yugi from the DM campaign, there is a monster called „Sentry Golem“. It is an Effect Monster, that can flip itself face-down each turn, and when it is Flip Summoned it bounces a monster back to the opponents hand. This monster needs to specifically Flip Summoned by the player for the bounce effect. If the opponent attacks into it, it will not activate that effect. To prevent the opponent from attacking into it, instead of setting the card from the hand, you can summon it and use the effect to flip it face-down. Now the AI knows what card it is and its Defense value and will not attack into it, unless it can kill the monster. But even then the AI can still prioritize face-up Attack Position monsters over it. This rule also applies to monsters, that the AI saw getting played from hand while e.g. „Eye of Truth“ was active.
Another way to protect especially weaker monster is by setting them into opponents weaker monsters. The AI will normally not attack unknown face-down monsters with monsters that have 1100 or less Attack**. This is another way to set e.g. „Kuriboh“ to set up a Tribute play in an appropriate duel.
**For whatever reason Jack sometimes attacks with „Sinister Sprocket“ in the first duel of 5D‘s on the second turn it is in play. Why does 5D‘s keep doing that?
2.4 Another thing related to face-down monsters
Two more things to mention about face-down monsters is how the AI behaves with Tribute sets and when it has little Life Points left.
On Tribute sets the AI usually doesn‘t attack those monsters unless it has a high Attack monster/Tribute Monster of its own, so this can potentially be used to get some more draws, if you are already pretty far into the duel.
If the AI gets low on Life Points (~1XXX Life Points left) usually the same applies, but in this case with every monster, that you set. This can be used to potentially make the AI summon something in Attack Position, so you then can swing into it for game.
