Starter - Starting Ripple, Alecs
Triggers
12 critical triggers (4 Ripple)
4 Heal
Grade 1s
4x Ripple Sotirio (Ride Chain/searchable)
4x Ripple Odysseus (Bae)
4x Plato (Sentinel)
2x Nicky/Penguin Soldier/Messenger Gull/8k Vanilla/Seal (All of these test well for me)
Grade 2s
4x Ripple Pavroth (Primary Vanguard)
4x Tidal Assault (Crit stacking with potential power-ups from triggers and Gull Soldier)/Ianis (Wave 3, On-hit draw for free)
3x Ripple Lavisse (12k beats)
Grade 3s
4x Ripple Genovious (For spamming legion with, the persona blast isn't that important)
4x Ripple Miltiades (Ride, mill 3, legion. Use Odysseus to ride him again from deck. Mill 3. Legion. Rinse, repeat. Have a deck that's over 60% triggers consistently on turn 4-5, swing for game with crits.)
G Zone (Tentative)
1x Madew (If the stars align against you and you have two Genovious and no Miltiades or Odysseus, or if you've already legioned, this is your go-to stride.)
2x Commander Thavas (Versatile stride that can add to offensive pressure and cause a retire.)
2x Lambros (Good finisher later in the game.)
3x Ripple Podromos (Ran at 3 because it needs to hit to flip. This gives us two chances. This deck doesn't want to stride, typically, so it's not a major deal if we hit the first time and don't stride with this again.)
Tactics:
The primary idea behind this deck is to get 1-2 Odysseus on the board,
then spam their skills to chain-ride all of your Miltiades. This gives
you souped up rear guard grade 3s, thins your deck of units with no
shield value, and lets you spam the on-ride skill of Miltiades to MILL
top 3 for a Ripple unit to ADD TO HAND. This combination of effects is
simply INSANE. Turn 4 I can get down to the teens in cards if I get my
setup (which is easy, because both Odysseus and Miltades can fish for
each other). The Ripple critical trigger is also INSANE for reaching that
point, as it is incredibly easy to get its effect off, and it lets you
typically trade a trigger for a non-trigger.
What does this all mean, though?
TIME TO HIT SOME TRIGGERS.
In the games that I've played, here was my WORST CASE when I got my
setup. I opened 3 heal triggers and had no grade 1. I G-Assisted with
two of those heals, giving up on the chance of healing that game (I also
got Sotorio and missed top 7 check making me go minus with the ride
chain, then I didn't ride Pavroth AND missed top 7 check AGAIN and
didn't have Odysseus to fix it), then milled 2 nulls and my 4th heal on
my first Miltiades check. The game ended with me checking two crits
when I had 13/21 cards left in my deck as triggers. The deck thin into
legioning back Miltiades into spamming multiple Odysseus for multiple
legions into grabbing top cards from deck to add to hand into shuffling
MORE TRIGGERS BACK is just NUTS.
Now, let's discuss the tech choices.
If you open poorly and don't get any of your pieces, the Nicky version
has plenty of outs for striding to draw into those pieces. If you hit
with the Ripple stride, you are borderline guaranteed to have gotten an
Odysseus by this point.
The Penguin Soldier version of the deck can spam legion on the level of
DOtX with an INFINITELY better milling engine. You can thin to 60-70%
triggers left in deck by turn 5 reliably with the deck. And that's
just... wat?! It doubles up with Ianis for even more cards, as long as this teams up with Lavisse or a grade 3 when it boosts. It can't do much with Tidal Assault, however.
Messenger Gull is a trade with Penguin Soldier. It can be used multiple times if you have stridden that game and lets you soul blast out your 3's to shuffle them back into the deck to legion more. It gives power where Penguin Soldier gives card advantage. I recommend either of the soul blasting birds more than the other grade 1 techs. This plays nicely with Ianis, but has MASSIVE synergy with Tidal Assault.
8k vanillas give you an out to hit 21k when you call a Miltiades from soul with Odysseus' effect. As you can ONLY call out grade 3's, this is pretty nice. While Messenger Gull can do this with a bit more versatility for Tidal's abilities, Theo never has to worry about Generation Break or when it was called. It's probably the least appealing of the tech choices, but it does its job well.
Seal Soldier is another Rocket Hammerman clone. I promise that I don't just like these cards and play them in all of my builds because I can. This card has actual merit. If you're using Tidal Assault, you can place this unit behind him, then rest it to give Tidal Assault 2000 power, making him hit numbers against 11k Vanguards. The upside to this is that you can have Tidal Assault at full power and pass triggers to him with Miltiades while still getting both the stand effect and the draw effect from Miltiades' legion skill. The downside is that you can't stand Seal Soldier and still get the draw effect, because Miltiades stands before it draws, like all good Vanguard players should.
For the grade 2's, we have Tidal Assault and Ianis.
Tidal Assault is better for early game offensive plays, but lacks synergy with Miltiades' legion ability. This can be fixed with Messenger Gull to an extent, or Seal Soldier completely. Its overwhelming offensive ability when you pass a critical trigger to it is simply devastating. It makes for insane finishing plays if you stride to triple drive after you've legioned a bunch of triggers back to your deck.
Ianis is a general, all-purpose beast. The constant pressure of free cards in a deck that already gets a bunch of free cards makes the opponent vexed with how to deal with it. It doesn't generate any additional power or pressure outside of those free cards, though, so it's limited in usefulness to the early and midgame, as hitting with a unit late game typically ends the game. Still, an insanely useful card.
The G-Zone is pretty straightforward in my opinion. You can run Tidal Bore or the CB1 retirer stride, but the focus of the deck isn't typically to stride until the turn after you expected to win, and the extra deck is mostly fluff.
Holy crap this deck is awesome. You'll also notice that I've built my
deck to have minimal reliance on stride and legion. Other than the act
of legioning itself, this deck can play an out-advantage game to decks
trying to stall on grade 2 and punish them SEVERELY with you having
access to insane card advantage that pushes them too far behind.
My initial playtesting of this deck was 24W 1L. I didn't fight many counter decks that day, and my one loss was in a mirror, but still, those are insane numbers in any initial playtesting of a deck.
