Forum:Lightning Vortex and Card Advantage

So, the most common argument for why Dark Hole is sooooooooooooo much AMAZINGLY obviously eternally better than Lightning Vortex is because Lightning Vortex has a discard cost, and thus costs you a card in addition to Vortex itself being used, and therefore is worth toilet paper when you have Dark Hole anyway, and even if you didn't, it wouldn't be used.

Except, if you have even ONE monster on the field, then you end up losing the same card advantage(And this is of course, ignoring other things like how many cards could have been required to summon the monster in the first place, or how specific the combination needed to be.) No one ever seems to mention this when I see people talk about why Dark Hole is better.

Other disadvantages involve how topdecking Lightning Vortex is absolutely horrible, because you may have no cards in your hand or something to actually use it. But by the time that happens, where Dark Hole is the only thing you can go on with, wouldn't you have nothing to defend yourself with if the opponent summons anything next turn anyway?

And what if whatever you have in your hand, despite being a card (and therefore being card advantage, strictly speaking) is...pretty useless for the situation? Like say, having Call of the Haunted in your hand when your opponent is playing a Banish deck and has already prevented you from getting anything interesting in your graveyard. Or it could just be the nature of the deck to have cards that become significantly less useful according to the situation (like having 2 Sabersaurus from your opening hand or something in Dino Rabbit, or having Wulf, Lightsworn Beast in hand at any time ever.)

Then there's how it is possible to discard something you actually want in the Graveyard, like a powerful monster to Special Summon with Monster Reborn(I get into this situation a lot.) Is Lightning Vortex so bad? Is the smallest of card advantage so game-changingly important in any deck unless they specifically want to discard everything/have no hand (like Fabled or Infernity)?

The ONLY thing that is a definite disadvantage with Lightning Vortex that I can think of, is that it doesn't kill face-down monsters. But no one ever seems to bother mentioning that as an advantage of Dark Hole (and it really isn't much of one most of the time, from duels i've had, but I haven't actually been dueling for too long that often.) Tenebrae Candidae (talk • contribs) 07:31, July 19, 2013 (UTC)

Being such a power card, Dark Hole is the kind of thing you want to save for as long as possible, and only use it when you really need it. In that kind of situation, you're unlikely to have any monsters on the field anyway. That is why Dark Hole sees so much more use than Lightning Vortex. Battlemaniac (talk • contribs) 13:11, July 19, 2013 (UTC)