2021 - The End of an Era

As much as my silence has indicated, I have more or less effectively quit Cardfight!! Vanguard.

That doesn't mean that I won't come back at some point, but the reboot from V series ended my desire to play.  Yes, it is now twice that my decision to fully SP out Blaus was followed shortly with a reboot announcement.  Oof.  Coupling this with my decision to stop playing Vanguard Zero, and I'm effectively just not playing Vanguard and haven't in months.  I decided to take a look at the reboot, but it took all of two sets for genuine problems to be found showing that Bushiroad simply hasn't learned its lesson in printing creep to outdo the previous sets and they will probably never stop.

This isn't to say I'll never come back, though.  I do enjoy what Vanguard was.  It's not all that different now.  But, as things stand, the absolute worst thing I could do is invest myself into something I'm not currently enjoying.  All of my Vanguard friends and I still have regular board-game nights and want to start up our Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, and I find great enjoyment in those.  I'm not "out" of the community either.  I'll still shitpost on Vanguardians from time to time.

That being said, I'm currently just backlogged on games I do enjoy and I've recently been pushing out things I was playing out of obligation instead of fun, and I feel much better for it.  I haven't decided what the future of my YouTube channel will be, but time will tell.

Mill Colon - The "Hah! Tim was wrong!" RPS deck.

(I was going to make a video, but my saved games were against CFA randos playing bad decks like DRobos and Deletors, so I opted to not include them.  I was able to get a very solid feel for the deck and I can conclude, as many already have, how it will perform in the meta.  I was going to see if I could get better videos, but then someone guessed the deck based on vague clues, so since the cat's out of the bag, here we are.)

So, in my previous perceptions of milling viability, I never gave it particularly high ratings for two specific reasons:

1.  With two of the better mill cards being Killerleaf and Cyclomatooth, a zero damage strategy wasn't in my field of vision.

2.  The game has become disgustingly fast, with DOtX ending games on turn 3 with moderate consistency.

Those were my big reasons for believing that mill Colon was not viable.  I was wrong (although I made my judgment before the set was entirely revealed).  It turns out that one of the two cards (the other being Scatterhorn) that I originally said were the "Game changers" of the set in my Vanguard inner circle chats happened to be the card that made Mill Colon viable.

The card in question is Turbulent Signal.  Turbulent Signal is CB1, retire Turbulent Signal, your opponent mills 1, and you Cradle one RG for each grade of the milled unit.  A CB1 -1 Cradle is honestly pretty viable.  This averages out (assuming a 14/11/8 ratio, which is a conservative ratio) to 1.22 cradles per use of the skill, which is pretty awesome.

The low roll is very bad, at CB1 -1 to mill a trigger.  The high roll is amazingly good.  Each time they call over or retire a rear guard to get rid of the 0 power body, you get a free card.  They make excellent targets to swing into with Hercules to either force out two cards (which they should probably do) or you get to countercharge and pick the same grade unit from your deck.

 Before getting too crazy with specifics, let's post the list:

1x Starter - Young Mutant, Worectus

4x Critical 1 - Sharp Nail Scorpio
4x Critical 2 - Shelter Beetle
4x Sentinel Crit - Scissor-shot Mutant, Bombscissor
4x Heal - Large Snowflake Mutant, Snow Trick

4x Grade 3 Searcher - New Face Mutant Little Dorcas
4x Countercharger - Small Captain, Butterfly Officer
4x Mill 1 Cradler/MVP - Turbulent Signal
3x Mill 1 - Brawny Jerk

4x Grade 3 Searcher - Machining Mantis
4x Countercharger - Bloody Hercules
2x Tech Choice - Nasty Smog

4x Lead boss, mills 1-2 cards per turn, extra drive check - True Demonic Rifle Rogue, Gunningcoleo
4x Mill 2 - Destruction Spear Mutant, Dovaspeed

The list is pretty basic.  We're running all of the good mill cards that don't require attacking Vanguard.  The general strategy is to not attack turn 1 unless you ride Butterfly Officer and can guarantee you won't hit with a grade 1 booster in the back to pass triggers to.  Each turn, you swing into a RG, or if your VG has lower power than theirs, swing at VG and pass triggers to a back row unit.  Naturally, there is an advantage against force decks in never being unable to swing with your VG.

Typically, you just mill whenever you're able.  The only exception is waiting for the opponent to have a board to use Turbulent Signal.  Cradling anything spirals the game wildly into your favor as they have few outs to do anything with the unit without counterblasts that don't involve giving you a card back.  If you cradle a grade 1, you either nullify a back row slot the entire game or get another free Turbulent Signal, which is mega memes.  Cradling 3s is also a priority to fish out Dovaspeeds.

You'll find yourself opting not to use your non-mill cards' effects a large chunk of the time.  This is fine.  You don't want to be spamming counterblasts to get 3s once you've seen your first few, as your odds of hitting get progressively worse.  Butterfly should be played strictly as a countercharge 1 or to shove a RG Dovaspeed to soul for an additional mill.

If your opponent attempts to damage deny you, you can't mill as effectively, but if they don't deal any damage, you will win by decking them out.  If they don't call front row RGs, you can easily get away with not attacking with your VG, especially with getting Protect 1s each turn.  If they're Force, then you can attack with VG and still damage deny them.  If they attempt to bash your face in, other than your first damage check, ALL of your heals are ALWAYS live.  Finally, if they're low on cards in deck, keep in mind that each damage you deal is also a card from deck (two if they hit a draw).  It may be worth going in later in the game to ping them for one or two damage as they reach single digits.  Other than this, there aren't many strategies, it's just rock, paper, scissors. 

This deck beats any deck that relies heavily on counterblasts to do anything.  This includes DOtX, Sharhrot, Nightrose, and many other such decks.  This deck loses severely to no counterblast aggro decks such as Blaus or Thavas.  The big question (which I haven't done enough testing on) is "does it beat Luard?"  I'm not 100% sure.  Luard can still superior ride and get Force 1 spam and grade 1s with bonus crit super easily, especially with you shoving the 1s into their drop.  However, Luard cannot superior call 1s with Nemain gone and his calling being CB locked.  I think it's a coinflip on whether or not Turbelent Signal hits.  Which is a coinflip that the Megacolony player should win more often than not in theory.

Since most of the decks that would cause potential issues for the deck are either non-meta or not out yet, I think there's a LOT of potential for this deck to see real play.  Potentially tier 1.5.  Maybe even tier 1 with such a dominantly favorable matchup to Scharhrot.  I will leave it for the community to decide before this deck gets bonked by robits and saylers.

Megacolony Zero - Card Review and Thoughts

Since we kind of know that I have a bit of a thing for the colon, I figured I'd drop my thoughts on the Megacolony support in Zero.

Let's start:

Mechanic - Paralyze 

Paralyze got buffed considerably from in the original.  All units that "prevented restanding" in the original game now "paralyze", which was a term already used to describe the effect, due to the anime.  Paralyze makes the unit unable to move circles (even through card effects like Wheel Assault) in addition to being unable to stand during the stand phase or through card effects/stand triggers and also forces the card to rest.

Starters

Larva Mutant, Giraffa

The first thing we'll take note of is how few cards are actually different in Megacolony.  Ignoring how Paralyze functions differently, only a few cards have any text changes.  I'll cover those in a bit more depth.  For this, it's the same thing you're used to seeing with Blaus, Ambers, and the Blaster chain, all of which have been out for a while.  If you ride the grade 1 over it, you get to grab the grade 2.  The difference is that Giraffa as a grade 2 VG is objectively better than any of the other grade 2 Vanguards.  I'll cover that more when I get to him.

Rating 4/5

Machining Worker Ant

Machining Worker Ant surprised me.  I figured it would have had some other change in effect and not just be a vanilla starter if you miss your Stag Beetle.  Given how many grade 3s we can run, how Stag Beetle functions in ZERO, and the other weaknesses involved with this card, it's actually far worse in ZERO than it was in the original (and it was already pretty bad in the original).  Hopefully more comboing mechanisms will be released later, but it's doubtful.

Rating 1.5/5

Megacolony Battler C

Battler C got buffed in that it's the same effect (Move to soul, Paralyze any RG on VG hit that it boosted) but now it doesn't cost a counterblast, which is honestly great.  The big problem with early Megacolony (and one of the reasons why it splashed Mr. Invincible so often) was how counterblast intensive it was.  This has gone a long way to fix those issues in conjunction with the buff on Master Beetle.  All in all, a great card.

Rating 4/5

Grade 1s

Karma Queen

Didn't get buffed.  Was too expensive then.  It's definitely too expensive now.

Rating 1.5/5

Machining Hornet

On call, becomes 10k for a turn if you have a Machining Soul.  Due to how much worse Stag Beetle functions in this game, I'm not certain there's room for this.

Rating 2/5

Machining Mosquito

On call, soul charge 1.  Amazing card outside of Machining due to Master Fraude's ability to soul blast 3 and to draw on hit (even rear guards!).  I think Fraude is going to be in every deck and there is space to fit it (at max) in all builds other than Giraffa where it becomes the one-of tech.

Rating 4.5/5

Megacolony Battler B

When an attack hits a VG that it boosted, counterblast one to paralyze a RG.  I don't think I need to explain that this card is a staple in any deck.  It goes behind the Vanguard, typically, so its 6k base is rarely punished.  There is a case that you run 3 of this and 2 of your tech since you're best off with just one behind the Vanguard, but if you want consistency (or fear retirement) there's no harm in having 4, in my opinion.

Rating 5/5

Paralyze Madonna

Rating PG/5

Pest Professor, Mad Fly

On hit that it boosts, discard and draw.  A decent tech for your tech slot (for non-Giraffa builds), but I'd caution against it, since you're drawing, soul charging, and with this, filtering.  You could potentially be at risk for deck out if running draws.

Rating 3/5

Phantom Black

Rating Vanilla/5

Pupa Mutant, Giraffa

The grade 1 for the ride chain.  Can also be used to grab a grade 3 Giraffa from deck by discarding a grade 3.  Secondary skill is lackluster, primary skill is great.

Rating 4/5

Stealth Millipede

[UPDATE] Since writing the original article, I have since learned that force-rest DOES occur from Paralyze.  That increases Stealth Millipede's viability somewhat.  However, in comparison to Battler B who hits comparable numbers with most of your Vanguard picks, I just don't see the point in choosing this as an option.

Rating 2.5/5

Toxic Soldier

Nullifies intercepts when it attacks?  Forces out nulls and deals damage and lets you keep Paralyzed front row units in place with main phase stuns?  Yes please.

Rating 5/5

Grade 2s

Bloody Hercules

Rating Vanilla/10

Elite Mutant, Giraffa

Giraffa has a powerful on-hit skill and has a nice 10k butt to wall with.  Now that I've learned that Paralysis forces a rest, they either have to go first and use their starter, have an ACT starter, or you can paralyze said starter.  Thus, in the MLB match-up, if you go first, you can stun Wingal Brave before they have an opportunity to use it irrespective of what they choose to do.  All-in-all, an amazing card dampened by having a non-viable grade 3 attached to it.

5/5

Ironcutter Beetle

Imagine if the entire viability of your boss card required this card to be on the field.  Well, that's the case.  The goal of the Giraffa deck is to pop backrows, hope the opponent can't call boosters, hope the opponent doesn't have 12ks, and force the VG to swing into the 12k.  If not, hopefully after popping the backrow a couple of time, the idea is to sit on an 11k butt with beefier RGs so they can't hit them.  Since we're living in a meta of 12k attacking RGs and are going into an even more dense meta of 12k attacking RGs (oh, and front-row retirement) this card's viability is cut deeply.  Still, definitely not a bad card in that your opponent needs specific outs to handle it to overcome your strategy.  Too many decks have the outs, though.

Rating 3.5/5

Lady Bomb

Still too expensive.

1.5/5

Machining Armor Beetle

Because the Machining core build is weaker, you're left with using this in the Fraude build.  But, you can transfer your -1 to Paralyze into a +1 with Fraude, effectively negating its cost for a free Paralyze.  It's great for stunning grade 1/3 front row RGs as they appear and amazing in conjunction with Toxics on late turns if you stun front row interceptors and bypass them with Toxics to ping/finish.  I would personally hold onto Armor Beetles for late game to do just this.  Decks that call to open (RC) like Golds feel pretty bad about this card as well.  This was a staple 4-of promo in the base game and I don't see too much different here.

Rating 4.5/5

Machining Mantis

With lackluster support, it's hard to justify Mantis in the current metagame.  I also think there's not enough grade 2 space to make it work.  It's not a bad card, but it doesn't have the pieces to work currently, in my opinion.

Rating 2/5

Tail Joe

[UPDATE] Now that I've learned that Paralyze forces a rest, Tail Joe is somewhat more viable.  The only issue is that you want it to attack and clear the front row and Master Beetle needs to be attacking a Vanguard for your most reliable Paralyze to occur.  Grade 2 space isn't super tight, so if you want the chance at 11k go for it.  I'm not the biggest fan of something that can be cleared with 8k vanillas, however.

Rating 2.5/5

Toxic Trooper

Yes please on an interceptor that can hit crossrides with your forerunner.

Rating 5/5

Transmutated Thief, Steal Spider

With only Vesper as a mechanism to secure board (outside of Machining, which is hurting in other ways) this card has limited capacity to secure its card draw.  Still, if you're opting to run Machining, this isn't a bad filler tech and makes for a solid grade 2 ride.

Rating 1.5/5

Water Gang

Great, like all Libra clones.  Only, now we have waaaay more counterblasts to mess around with, making a use of Water Gang perfectly acceptable.  Between Toxic Trooper, Giraffa, and Ironcutter, there isn't much space in that build, but this works great in a Master Beetle deck with Trooper.

Rating 4/5

Grade 3s

Bewitching Officer, Lady Butterfly

Not much to say.  12k vs. VG attacker.

Rating 2.5/5

Death Warden Ant Lion

Soul charges each turn.  Great VG to partner with RG Fraudes for card advantage.  Hits 12k unboosted and hits the magic number of 18k with a Battler B booster.  The Megablast is actually very easy to pull off as well, and makes for a devastating turn where you don't attack with VG when using it and use double Toxic swings to try and end/force PGs, then they are crippled the following turn.  Soul requirement can even be met on the turn you ride to grade 3 with little issue.

Rating 4/5

Evil Armor General, Giraffa

It's sad to see a card that seems really bad but actually isn't that bad still be really bad because it's set 2 strong in set, what, 9?  If there weren't a slew of competing 12k interceptors and it could play like "Good Card Kagero", sniping back rows and walling with an 11k butt, it would have been a great card in a great deck.  But it was simply printed waaaaay too late for this to be the case.  It's not even close to viable in the current card pool.  It's sad, really.  All that potential, wasted.

Rating 1/5

Hell Spider

If this card was just 3k on-attack, it would be fine.  But it's 3k if the whole enemy board is rested.  Sadly, it's too easy to play around.  Hitting crossrides with no boost would have changed the scope of this card's viability entirely.  Now it's just meh.

Rating 1.5/5

Machining Stag Beetle

Due to no longer retaining Twin-Drive!!, you'd think getting extra cards would be more helpful, but sadly, they just aren't due to the restrictions on said cards.  You have to effectively neg calling out your starter and using Armor Beetle to shove it back in makes the whole process a wash.  Then, if you ride again (which you'll want to do to avoid being on a 10k vanilla vanguard) you go -1 and gained, effectively, nothing for your troubles.  Fraude utilizes the soul in a far more efficient way and doesn't have the advantage come in at rest.  It's just too old of a card in too restricted an archetype to really be useful.  When the next wave hits, that may change, however.

Rating 1.5/5

Martial Arts Mutant, Master Beetle

[UPDATE] I used to hate Master Beetle for being CB3.  It's now CB1.  Wew lad is that a buff.  On swing at VG, LB4, CB1, stun 2.  Now that I've learned that Paralyze forces the cards to rest, Master Beetle is insanely undercosted and is, honestly, an even more crazy card than I thought.

Rating 5/5

Master Fraude

On-hit, SB3, draw 1.  Amazing, amazing card.  Also gains 3k when boosted, so it hits 19k with Battler Bs on VG circle (doubling up on the on-hit pressure).  You can even use Battler C in the same row and hit a VG to stun and draw, even if you were one soul shy.  All-in-all, a great card.

Rating 4.5/5

Violent Vesper

Gigantech Charger clone.  Great to use as a heal.  On call, call top card is generically useful.  It had extra usage with Giraffa, but Giraffa is just too many sets behind to care.

Rating 4/5

Decklists

I'm opting not to make a Giraffa or Machining decklist as they're both less budget and inferior to the budget list.

Beetle/Fraude

Starter - Battler C

4 PGs
4 Toxic Soldier
3 Battler B
2 Mosquito

4 Water Gang
4 Toxic Trooper
4 Machining Armor Beetle
1 Bloody Hercules

4 Master Beetle (HEAL)
4 Fraude (DRAW)
3 Vesper (DRAW)
2 Ant Lion (DRAW)

Ride preference:  Beetle > Ant Lion > Fraude > Vesper

This deck is the best overall deck, so far as I can tell.  You have Beetle as the preferred ride and heal trigger.  Either you heal or you ride your boss (or you missed a 4-of all game in a deck that draws cards a lot which is super unlikely).  Whenever you see Beetle, you should hopefully be pretty happy about it.  The primary tactic is to clear the front row interceptors with on-hit pressure (Water Gang, Fraude) and swing with on-hit pressure from your Vanguard (Battler B) and, if useful, using Beetle's skill to double-stun.  This deck plays a lot like OTT (with 8 Toms), only with combo play and disruption.  I imagine that even if Megacolony ends up being bad (I'm not sure how it will perform, but it definitely wants to reach end game for its wincon), it will still be immensely fun to play.


Budget Colony

Starter - Battler C

4 PGs (If you don't have 4 PGs yet, then increase Battler B and Mosquito until you have 13 grade 1s)
4 Toxic Solider
3 Battler B
2 Mosquito

4 Toxic Trooper
4 Machining Armor Beetle
X Water Gang (However many you can squeeze in)
X Bloody Hercules (Whatever is left over)

4 Fraude (Draw)
4 Vesper (Heal)
4 Ant Lion (Draw)
1 Tech Choice (Butterfly Officer isn't a bad call, but it doesn't really matter)

This plays identically to the above list, only Ant Lion is the preferred ride and you want to keep Fraudes out as much as possible on RC.  Place cards in the deck as best as you can until you reach the non-budget deck.  Considering the non-budget deck is 4 RRRs, 8 RRs, it's honestly not super hard to get the main deck completed, given that you get 2 of the PGs for free.

Final Thoughts [UPDATED]

Based on what Megacolony has, I have no doubt that it would be strong, even in the current crossride meta of Zero.  The problem Megacolony has right now, however, is that it has too many archetypal/ride chain cards that just don't mesh nicely with everything else and have standalone weaknesses.  The Toxic cards being overpowered as all get out was a pleasant touch and made the grade 1 and 2 space fill out nicely.  Thus, the gameplan is to play old school Megadrawlony with Beetle and Toxic card support, now that they aren't awful.  Paralyze is actually incredible, only being unable to impact grade 2s meaningfully.  Of course, you can always be big brained and stun their grade 2s AND not attack with your Vanguard (unless your Vanguard is also a Toxic unit, and honestly, staying on a Toxic Vanguard might be a thing) to ping them through your Toxic units.  Ideas to keep in mind for later.

Ride Chain/PG/Heal Farming is now the only viable VP farming build

You hate to see it.

After running tests with a 5k starter (to attempt to just get class levels for Shadow Paladin, of which I was averaging less than 2 full levels a day because of the server issues) I noticed that I was getting substantially greater VP gains when I switched to Ride Chain/PG/Heal farming to level up OTT.  Of course, due to the changes, this is absolutely no surprise to anyone.  While the entire community could benefit from all VP farmers switching to 5ks and not running PGs or Heals (greatly decreases game length, greatly increases VP gain, etc.) as long as 20-30%~ of the community are running Ride Chain PG Heal farms (and a non-substantial portion of the community is running other farms, but nowhere near the quantity of the ride chain farmers), there's just no room for anything other than ride chains and 6ks in this meta, except ride chains are the worst match-up for 6ks, and with their one bad match-up being meta dominant, that's an oof.

This means that if you want to get class levels, you're better off running 4ks and a non-attacking auto-clicker.  Except these absolute morons running the ride chain farms don't seem to know how to run an auto-clicker that attacks after you ride to grade 3.  So then you have like 25 minute matches where you couldn't hit them anyway (barring you playing 6k/ride chain).  Hilariously, because they top charge on ride, you end up winning, but it's not really worth it.  So then you slow things down with attacks and pray that they don't hit enough heals/nulls and you kill them before you die.  But then you lose from decking out.  There is no "winning" with fast matches precisely because the state of the auto-clicking meta is so toxic due to the VP changes.

So, here's a PSA:  If you're using Bluestacks and playing a Ride Chain/Farm Build and you find that you aren't attacking, run the "Auto Ride Deck VP Farmer 2.1".  I don't think it "fixes" if you have a match fail to load and may not work if you rank up.  Whatever, check back every so often.  Run this if you're too lazy to manually create your own working clicker so that games don't take 25 years.

Yes, I'm helping them attack because if we can't get everyone to run 5ks and VP farm together to get free ranks, cards, rewards, etc. because we're all too intrinsically selfish/stupid to do so, then we're just stuck with 25 minute games if anyone wants to afk level up other clans for those gem rewards unless I can educate some digital dummies on how to utilize a functioning auto-clicker.

Not much else can be done due to how the rewards function this time around.  🤷

Pellinore Superior Ride Probabilities

With the recent addition of Gold Paladin, I got around to reading Pellinore, and the card is actually amazingly strong.  Based on that information, I decided to figure out what the odds of hitting Pellinore are when calling cards from the deck.  For the sake of this example, Lop-Ear Shooter is assumed to be at 4 in the deck.

Calling Pellinore off of Vivianne:

1 Copy of Pellinore: 2.564%
2 Copies of Pellinore: 5.128%
3 Copies of Pellinore: 7.692%
4 Copies of Pellinore: 10.256%

Calling Pellinore off of Lop-Ear Shooter or Spring Breeze Messenger:

1 Copy of Pellinore: 7.692%
2 Copies of Pellinore: 14.8%
3 Copies of Pellinore: 21.873%
4 Copies of Pellinore: 28.384%

Calling Lop-Ear Shooter off of Vivianne, then calling Pellinore off of Lop-Ear Shooter:

1 Copy of Pellinore: 0.197%
2 Copies of Pellinore: 0.759%
3 Copies of Pellinore: 1.682%
4 Copies of Pellinore: 2.911%

Calling Lop-Ear Shooter off of Spring Breeze Messenger, then calling Pellinore off of Lop-Ear Shooter:

1 Copy of Pellinore: 0.592%
2 Copies of Pellinore:  2.19%
3 Copies of Pellinore:  4.784%
4 Copies of Pellinore:  8.057%

Calling Lop-Ear Shooter off of Lop-Ear Shooter off of Vivianne, then calling Pellinore off of Lop-Ear Shooter:

1 Copy of Pellinore:  .0005%
2 Copies of Pellinore: .0018%
3 Copies of Pellinore:  .0041%
4 Copies of Pellinore:  .007%

Calling Lop-Ear Shooter off of Lop-Ear Shooter off of Spring Breeze Messenger, then calling Pellinore off of Lop-Ear Shooter:

1 Copy of Pellinore:  .0014%
2 Copies of Pellinore:  .0053%
3 Copies of Pellinore:  .0116%
4 Copies of Pellinore: .0195%

I'm assuming nobody would discard for a third Lop-Ear just to attempt to hit Pellinore so further calculations will assume that you won't do this.

Total Odds of Calling Pellinore off of Vivianne:

1 Copy of Pellinore:  2.7615%
2 Copies of Pellinore:  5.8888%
3 Copies of Pellinore:  9.3781%
4 Copies of Pellinore:  13.174%

Total Odds of Calling Pellinore off of Spring Breeze Messenger:

1 Copy of Pellinore:  8.2854%
2 Copies of Pellinore:  17%
3 Copies of Pellinore:  26.6686%
4 Copies of Pellinore:  36.4605%

Is VP Farming Actually Dead?

Based on my calculations, it doesn't have to be.

While there is a hard cap on VP farming itself with packs ceasing after the 2 Million VP mark, there is still quite a bit of incentive to VP farm in Vanguard Zero.  Namely, you still get the cosmetics and gems from leveling up clans, you can still get some VP when you sack a first turn trigger, and if enough people continue to VP farm, you will still be able to gain rank (and VP at vastly improved rates).  The only thing dampening the effectiveness of VP farming at this point is how many people are willing to do it.  Technically, if everyone ran 5k base powered Vanguards and opted into VP farming, everyone would cap out VP and hit ranks of over 30, which sounds like all we're missing from previous seasons would be about 60 packs.  Given how comically lucrative VP farming was in past seasons, I think this only makes sense that the reward would be lessened.

So, how much VP would you actually earn if you decided to VP farm right now and nobody else was VP Farming?  Assuming they call an intercept on turn 2 every game (unlikely) I've calculated the average number of damage you deal per game to be about .561, meaning that you'll be averaging around 282 VP per game assuming the worst case scenario and you can only attack the vanguard once each game.  This is, of course, less than 15% of previous profits.  But it's also not a meaningful estimate because the opponent won't always have that interceptor, which means that on games where they don't, you average double the VP.  Additionally, if you fight a VP farmer, your average VP increases by nearly 10x (2.6k).

As you can see, from that number, if we have 20% of the community VP farming, how does this change the numbers?  Even assuming the interceptor is always present turn 2, you end up with an average of 746 VP per game.  That's roughly triple the output, just because people opted in to keep VP farming.  It's also roughly 37% of previous profits, which is far, far better than the other number.  I doubt we'll see VP farming at the levels we saw previously, but it's still viable in this context.

Finally, for VP Farming to work meaningfully, everyone needs to be doing the same thing.  The more people "take advantage" of VP farming to run things like ride chains or 6ks, the worse off the entire prospect will be.  It reduces the VP of all parties involved, because ride chains sometimes miss and can't hit 6ks and ride chains sometimes succeed earlier than they should and 6ks can't hit them.  Everyone running 5ks fixes every possible issue and the less people try to capitalize, the better for the VP farming community as a whole.

Given that over half of the VP farmers last season were Galahad/Tsuk farmers, my confidence that these individuals will play nice if they find out VP farming is still viable is pretty minimal.  But I digress, the more people VP farm, the better VP farming is.  The more people screw up VP farming, the worse it is.  The viability of the practice going forward is entirely based on the community.  We have a true Prisoner's Dilemma on our hands with VP Farming.

Are Galahad and Tsuk VP Farming ACTUALLY Good?

No.

Oh?  I have to explain why?  Sure.

Let's set some criteria for "Automated VP Farming Statistics".

Overall
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers)
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers)
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers)
Winrate

The idea that Tsuk and Galahad farmers intended to instantiate was to trade Game Length vs. non-VP Farmers for Winrate.  Did that work out?  I mean, sort of.  But the payouts were marginal at best and the tradeoffs were huge.  It also had the unintended consequence of increasing the Game Length vs. VP Farmers by an even wider margin.  Some may have considered Tsuk/Galahad making it to grade 3 and having Twin-Drive!! or an 11k butt that the opponent can't hit, but this is improbable.  On average, it will take you as many turns to make it to grade 3 as the game lasts, so you won't be gaining these benefits, typically. 

 Let's put some stats down for VP Farming decks and explain how they got there.

3k Farmer (no attack)

Overall - S (Due to smaller amount of non-attack VP Farmers)
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S+++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - S
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - F (longest possible games, actually)
Winrate - F (can't win unless opponent concedes)

3k Farmer (attack)

Overall - A
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - A
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - D (many no-attack farmers use larger bodies)
Winrate - D

4k Farmer (no attack)

Overall - S (Due to smaller amount of non-attack VP Farmers)
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S+++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - S
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - F (longest possible games, actually)
Winrate - F (can't win unless opponent concedes)

4k Farmer (attack)

Overall - A
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - A
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - B
Winrate -D+

5k Farmer (no attack)

Overall - C- (No real reason to run 5k no-attack farming when all clans have 4k starters)
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - B (More VP farmers have to trigger to hit you)
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - F (longest possible games, actually)
Winrate - F (can't win unless opponent concedes)

5k Farmer (attack)

Overall - S+
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - S
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - A+ (only weakness is 6k non-attackers)
Winrate - D+

6k Farmer (no attack)

Overall - F (Yet this is extremely popular for some reason?!)
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - A (Harder for opponent to make rows to hit over triggers)
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - D (Only two decks can hit you, barring hitting a ride chain/trigger)
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - F (longest possible games, actually)
Winrate - F (can't win unless opponent concedes)

6k Farmer (attack)

Overall - S
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - S++
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - B+ (Slow matchups against Tsuk/Galahad, which is already slow)
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - S
Winrate - C-

Tsukuyomi/Galahad Chain Farmer (attack)

Overall - C
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - C+ ((Lower rating due to ride chain animations)
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) -B- ((Lower rating due to ride chain animations and 6ks)
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - B+ (Lower rating due to ride chain animations)
Winrate - C-


Tsukuyomi/Galahad Chain Farmer + Heals/PGs (attack)

Overall - D-
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - F (Lower rating due to ride chain/PG/Heal animations/game extensions)
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - C- ((Lower rating due to ride chain animations/PGs/Heals, and 6ks)
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - B+ (Lower rating due to ride chain animations)
Winrate - C+


Tsukuyomi/Galahad Chain Farmer + Heals/PGs (non-attack)

Overall - F---
Game Length (vs. non-VP Farmers) - F---
Game Length (vs. VP Farmers) - F---
Game Length (vs. non-attacking VP Farmers) - F---
Winrate - F---
Troll Rating - S+++


So, let's take a look at the good and the bad here and explain the current trinity of VP Farming:

The three decks that seem to be the best at face value are:

5k attacking
6k attacking
Tsuk/Galahad ride chain

However, 6k and Tsuk/Galahad ride chain have a massive issue with their match-up:  Namely, The odds of riding up in Tsukuyomi off of the ride chain being less than hitting a coin flip each turn increases the duration of the games in this match-up due to the decks "taking turns" being able to hit each other without triggers.

We take for granted how amazing the Tsukuyomi ride chain is because you can ride from hand or top 5 of the deck.  However, with no selective mulligan and no hand-riding, your odds of riding up to grade 1 with Tsukuyomi/Galahad are: 43.616%.  The odds of riding grade 1 Tsuk/Galahad in two turns is 68.209%.  The odds in three turns are 82.075%.  Inverted, this gives us the odds of missing them.

Your odds of being a 5k against a 6k while running the ride chain:

Turn 1 - 56.384%
Turn 2 - 31.791%
Turn 3 - 17.925%

This means that for the first few turns, you have very likely odds as a 6k to be hitting the Tsuk/Galahad and them missing you barring triggers because they missed their ride.  Then, you flip that around when the ride does eventually happen and now you're just spending extra time having the person who was winning start to lose.  And to make matters even less consistent, triggers will throw the defensive walls being utilized into utter disarray, which could invalidate the temporary advantage that either side may have had.  Neither deck truly edges out over the other in winrate by a significant margin.  Thus, in theory, there's no reason to run the Galahad/Tsukuyomi ridechain over and against a 6k butt because that's the only match-up that both wouldn't just have an advantage in by default.

Unfortunately, because both exist and because both counteract each other (and Tsuk/Galahad also counteracts its own mirror), it means that you have a "bad matchup" for game speed on the VP Farming ladder for both decks.  This is why the 5k farmer who can hit Tsuk when Tsuk misses the chain, but will never failed to be hit by Tsuk or the 6k butt is the objectively best VP farming deck for pushing the ladder (not that VP farm decks are particularly great for this) and for speed, because it will never have a slow game.  No slow games means more chances to string VP farming opponents.  More VP farming opponents in a row means more potential to gain ranks.  Since ranks can't be lost, it's about match quantity over marginal increases to winrate that will help you climb.

Heals and PGs will improve the winrate for any of the VP farming decks (albeit by an incredibly marginal amount) AND because they prolong games, it can help you to hit your ride chain as Tsuk/Galahad, but that makes matters even worse because it's match count, not winrate, that will get you rank ups through automated farming.  The 6k deck with heals and PGs is actually just as "strong" as the Tsuk/Galahad deck and substantially faster, so it's also superior in this case.

The final tier list results are:

Best VP Farming decks - 5k Attacking (S+), 6k Attacking (S), 3k non-attacking (S), 4k non-attacking (S).

Note:  Non-attacking decks are only S tier right now because so few people are doing it.  If it gets popular and you start running into mirrors, it will drop to C tier.

Disclaimer - I am not advocating that you should or should not use an auto-clicker to VP farm.  What I am advocating for is if you're going to do it, make your experience and your opponent's experience better and do it properly.