Hey all,
I decided to give some initial thoughts on the new format and what I think of each individual mechanic, as well as the removal of other things. Let's start with my initial tier list for set 1.
SS+++ tier
Going First
S tier
Oracle Think Tank, Kagero, Nova Grapplers with a good hand
B tier
Royal Paladin
C tier
Nova Grapplers having a mediocre hand or worse.
You may notice that I skipped a full tier between Royal Paladin and every other deck. That's because Royals have no incentive to multi-ride grade 3s, don't have a "high-roll" that proves to be devastating like Novas (restanding a 32k attacker with the potential for triggers is crazy strong), and have little end-game utility outside of Soul Saver, which can only be used once and fights for resources with Blaster Blade. Outside of Royals, I think the format is pretty well balanced. Novas have an advantage over OTT generally speaking. OTT can outlast Kagero, although Kagero can get in a win with Waterfall in ideal situations. Kagero pretty much auto-wins the Nova match-up. It's not so bad that all of the match-ups are the equivalent of playing rock, papers, scissors, but no singular deck has an insurmountable advantage that we can't see a diversity of tops, either.
My initial opinion is that the format is well-balanced in card design. But that doesn't make the format itself well-designed. Let's look into the Imaginary Gifts.
FORCE
Force gives a circle of your choice 10000 power during your turn. It's pretty close to adding a legion mate to that circle. Consequently, this is a power-level we've seen and are used to. Currently, the advantages of Force are that it makes power-requirement clans like Dimension Police achieve those requirements far more easily. It also makes multi-attacker decks that call mid-battlephase have extra advantages when this is done, which will likely be a facet we see for Royal Paladin and Gold Paladin at a later date (assuming Gold Paladin is in this reboot). I think Force has solid utility and potential. The only major abuse I can see for force clans would be sentinel restriction. Wouldn't you know it, that happened set 1 with a bonus crit and it's the best singular card in the set. I think that force is the most tame of the the imaginary gifts in power level and the one that's the hardest to abuse.
ACCEL
Accel gives you an extra front row RG circle with a bonus 10000 power on it during your turn. It's pretty nuts. Nova Grappler started with very few cards in the first set and nothing to reliably get a solid field set-up. Currently, when they get their optimal set-up, they are the strongest overall deck. But, high rolling is still high rolling. You will keep seeing Novas top here and there so long as the deck can destroy anything when it gets that setup. I think this is the strongest of the gifts because it has the most potential for abuse when joined with a clan that has access to mid-battlephase calls or a large amount of restanding. Not only do you get all of the swings associated with having the extra RG slots, but you also get that extra static power boost at all times. Getting in 7-8 attacks at ascended power levels can be quite potent, to say the least. So far, no accel clans have had a mid-battlephase call announced, so I think Bushiroad is being mindful of this. That being said, I could see Accel clans being stupid in premium, which is why I'm glad I won't be playing it.
PROTECT
Protect gives you a null guard every time you ride to grade 3. It's pretty nuts. It's currently the strongest mechanic in the current format because Bushiroad has been mindful in restricting the other two from becoming too cancerous, at least in the first set. This mechanic is strong independent of the deck being used, but OTT gets extra bonuses for riding more grade 3s with Imperial Daughter and Deer, so it's shown itself to be the strongest deck in the current format for exactly this reason. I can see protect in a control clan (like Megacolony) being strong, but I think protect in a clan like Granblue is going to really show us the limits on how much it can do as a mechanic. I think protect clans are always going to be in the upper tiers simply for the mechanic at this point, as the mechanic is independently strong and requires no additional mechanism to function properly.
I think that the Imaginary Gifts have the potential to be really unbalanced depending on what support is created, and it will make entire clans limited in design in that facet. I wanted to discuss what I'm really upset about with the new format: Going first. I wrote an article about how going first was objectively overpowered until Legion became a mechanic. Well, here we are, back with the same old problems, only we also have to deal with Imaginary Gifts benefiting the first player as well and all previous mechanics that benefited the second-turn player are now gone. I have done some playtesting with friends, and short of playing a deck that wins a match-up convincingly, the person who goes first wins at a very disproportionate amount. I did mirrors with my buddy (Novas vs. Novas) where there is even more variance in potential power-output from the decks, and the first-turn player won the first 12 games. ~_~ Unless there is a large disparity in deck strength, the deck going second has an unfavorable match-up, or the player going first plays suboptimally, going first is a daunting facet to the game that currently is the hardest thing in a fight to overcome. I hope Bushiroad addresses this in some way to make it more "fair" for people going second. Especially now that the loser decides who goes first in games 2 and 3. Every single 3 game match my buddies and I played was won by the person who won the dice roll when doing mirrors. Let that sink in.
In conclusion, I think that there's some room to work with. I see caution from Bushiroad on Accel that I think is merited. I also see caution on Royal Paladin, as that was the busted clan last time around, and this over-caution left them pretty lackluster, but these cautions can both be fixed later. I think that the individual mechanics are slightly imbalanced, Accel for potential and Protect for practical usage, leaving Force somewhat underpowered, but I think that they aren't so varied in power-level that it's damning to the game's potential for fun or future content. I do think this about going first, though. I hope Bushiroad will implement something to make going second less detrimental that doesn't lead to the stupidity of something similar to R I P P U L.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Friday, December 15, 2017
Interview with World Non Ranked Meme Player, Two Time Accidental Topping Player, The Princess of Dark Irregulars Himself: Timothy Emerson! On: Stardrive Dragon and Memes in Vanguard.
Hello again friends. TimPowerGamer here. Today I have an exclusive interview with the Princess of Dark Irregulars, Timothy Emerson. Timothy, how are you doing this wonderful December afternoon? I have to say, I am awestruck to be in the presence of Vanguard royalty. (TPG)
Why thank you, Mr. Power Gamer. I am doing quite well this afternoon. I do have to politely correct you on one thing, though. We are all royalty in Vanguard. I am really no different than anyone else. (TE)
TPG: Such humility! You exemplify all of the aspects of princesshood. I wanted to shift to our first topic if that's fine with you.
TE: No. Let's talk about how princess-like I am for a few more paragraphs.
TPG: No. Now, let's discuss memes in Vanguard. What is your stance on memes?
TE: I personally believe that memes are the very nature of Vanguard. Memes from every clan, unit, and player are what exemplify this game and make it what it is. Everything from Stardrive Dragon to Stardrive Dragon.
TPG: While I approve of the Stardrive Dragon meme, don't you have any other Vanguard memes?
TE: There are other Vanguard memes?
TPG: Yes, like the Zubat Victor meme you just released. Or the Hey Yo Pineapple memes. Or the Brandon Chmiel memes? Or you actually having ever topped. How did you manage that one, by the way, Timothy?
TE: For starters, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of these non-Stardrive memes. Secondly...
TPG: Ahh, well, if a doctor says so, it must be true.
TE: Assuredly.
TPG: Didn't you also top with Seven Seas Rush?
TE: Nobody cares about that.
TPG: Right. So, next question. What is your favorite card in the game.
TE: I'm sure Wolverine already knows.
TPG: Interesting. Who else acknowledges your avatar, Stardrive Dragon?
TE: Good question. Here are a few individuals who acknowledge the greatness of Stardrive Dragon. Donald Trump, Google, and Bushiroad's banlist.
TPG: Very interesting. So what you're saying is that Stardrive Dragon is quite literally the secret to success in Cardfight!! Vanguard?
TE: If Trump, Google, and especially Bushiroad know how overpowered this card is to the point where they would restrict it, I don't think I'd call it a secret.
TPG: Another quick question while I have you here. I notice that Stardrive Dragon is a "Shadow Paladin" in the Japanese text of that meme. Care to comment on this mistake?
TE: If Blaster Blade Seeker is a Shadow Paladin, why not Stardrive?
TPG: Valid point. Do you have any advice for those in the Vanguard community who want to rise to prominence and become well known and respected?
TE: Yes. Find a better goal in your life than enlarging your internet ego by claiming to be special at a Children's Trading Card Game.
TPG: Aren't you doing exactly what you're accusing other people of doing by being in this interview as a member of Vanguard royalty?
TE: Irony seems to be lost on you, Mr. Power Gamer.
TPG: Indeed it does.
TPG: That's it for my exclusive interview withmyse-, erm, with Timothy Emerson, princess of Dark Irregulars. Which makes me wonder why we never asked about Dark Irregula-
TE: Amon is my waifu.
Why thank you, Mr. Power Gamer. I am doing quite well this afternoon. I do have to politely correct you on one thing, though. We are all royalty in Vanguard. I am really no different than anyone else. (TE)
TPG: Such humility! You exemplify all of the aspects of princesshood. I wanted to shift to our first topic if that's fine with you.
TE: No. Let's talk about how princess-like I am for a few more paragraphs.
TPG: No. Now, let's discuss memes in Vanguard. What is your stance on memes?
TE: I personally believe that memes are the very nature of Vanguard. Memes from every clan, unit, and player are what exemplify this game and make it what it is. Everything from Stardrive Dragon to Stardrive Dragon.
TPG: While I approve of the Stardrive Dragon meme, don't you have any other Vanguard memes?
TE: There are other Vanguard memes?
TPG: Yes, like the Zubat Victor meme you just released. Or the Hey Yo Pineapple memes. Or the Brandon Chmiel memes? Or you actually having ever topped. How did you manage that one, by the way, Timothy?
TE: For starters, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of these non-Stardrive memes. Secondly...
TPG: Ahh, well, if a doctor says so, it must be true.
TE: Assuredly.
TPG: Didn't you also top with Seven Seas Rush?
TPG: Right. So, next question. What is your favorite card in the game.
TE: I'm sure Wolverine already knows.
TPG: Interesting. Who else acknowledges your avatar, Stardrive Dragon?
TE: Good question. Here are a few individuals who acknowledge the greatness of Stardrive Dragon. Donald Trump, Google, and Bushiroad's banlist.
TPG: Very interesting. So what you're saying is that Stardrive Dragon is quite literally the secret to success in Cardfight!! Vanguard?
TE: If Trump, Google, and especially Bushiroad know how overpowered this card is to the point where they would restrict it, I don't think I'd call it a secret.
TPG: Another quick question while I have you here. I notice that Stardrive Dragon is a "Shadow Paladin" in the Japanese text of that meme. Care to comment on this mistake?
TE: If Blaster Blade Seeker is a Shadow Paladin, why not Stardrive?
TPG: Valid point. Do you have any advice for those in the Vanguard community who want to rise to prominence and become well known and respected?
TE: Yes. Find a better goal in your life than enlarging your internet ego by claiming to be special at a Children's Trading Card Game.
TPG: Aren't you doing exactly what you're accusing other people of doing by being in this interview as a member of Vanguard royalty?
TE: Irony seems to be lost on you, Mr. Power Gamer.
TPG: Indeed it does.
TPG: That's it for my exclusive interview with
TE: Amon is my waifu.
Monday, January 16, 2017
A History of Bushiroad's Vanguard World Championships
Every single year, world finals happens. Every single year, people whine about the fact that the meta deck always wins. That bad players top. That Vanguard isn't competitive. That they're quitting the game. But, every single year, everyone seems to forget that the exact same thing happened the year before. But, what people don't seem to realize is, if a non-meta deck tops, the game isn't competitive because someone sacked with a non-meta deck and happened to win.
This year, we had an exceptional amount of players attending worlds that either maliciously or unknowingly cheated. Like, just about all of them. This, honestly, isn't wildly different from any other Vanguard Championship Circuit, outside of the staff being more incompetent than normal and the stream doing the rulings for them. It sucks when the judges aren't paying attention and things like this slip under the radar. With the loss of exceptional staff members like JD Mercado, it seems that Bushiroad can't ensure the integrity of the game. But enough about that, let's talk about the history of Vanguard World Championships.
2012 World Championships.
Brandon Smith (Spectral Duke Dragon) vs. Henry Suharto (Pellinore/Garmore)
Brandon expended a counterblast on Sleygal Dagger to make a 9k booster behind his Gigantech Destroyer to make a 21k row. Against a 9k Vanguard.
Henry called a Flame of Victory behind his 10k base Pellinore to attack a 10k base Spectral Duke Dragon, then subsequently lost because he didn't have shield. No, he didn't send it to the bottom of the deck with Pellinore to actually make a stage, either.
This was the first example of a World Championship that we had. Both players misplayed, albeit one more than the other, and it was recorded. Both players played pretty poorly, and people didn't really feel satisfied with the conclusion. To my knowledge, neither player stayed relevant after this. As a matter of fact, I don't believe we have a single person who got top 3 more than once at any World Championship.
2013 World Championships
While the decks were all pretty much what you would expect for a set 11~ time frame (DDD/DOtE won, Descendant was 3rd and 4th, Beast Deities had a surprise 2nd place finish, but Novas were the most supported clan and they had quite a bit going for them), that isn't what I wanted to touch on.
These finals weren't filmed. We can't touch on misplays or cheating. People were upset with Bushiroad for this, but they did nothing about it. It's hard to assess what happened under these conditions. But we can talk about the individual who became World Champion. Almeida Stewart. There have been allegations of Almeida cheating to win the Parisian qualifiers. It was said that he was able to stack opponents' decks without them or the judge noticing. As the article mentions, "According to our source, the statement 'If you cheat, cheat good' attributed to him by those that attended the tournament, has been a common saying from him throughout his career." has been a defining highlight of his reputation. If memory serves, I believe he was also caught stealing cards from a child and ended up getting in some legal trouble. I heard another report of him being in the news for stealing 4000 Euros of card gaming supplies in a gang-related incident. The truth of these claims is up in the air, but something definitely doesn't sit right here.
2014 World Championships
This is the second consecutive year that Bushiroad did not film the World Championship. The top three decks were all the same (Seekers). It's really hard to make any positive or negative commentary. However, 2nd place was KEVIN CHO! (Not really salty he beat me and knocked me out of the championships at Chicago this year, but I wanted to fill up space.) For all I know, this could have been the golden year of everyone being good at the game. The world may never know...
2014 was also the year they decided to fire JD Mercado for being too vocal about cheating that occurred in the Asia-Oceania Finals. Or, at least, that is my assumption of what happened. In this video you can see a Genesis player cheating really hard by having his preferred grade 2 ride face down, standing it as his Vanguard, saying, "Oops!", then adding it to his hand for his draw for turn.
2015 World Championships
R I P P U L was the deck that won the tournament this time. We got to see the grand finals get played. The Ripple player failed just about every turtle check and hit a critical just about every drive check, in spite of running draws and heal triggers. It was a very disappointing final match to watch, because he was rewarded for his opponent having a completely locked-out deck while playing a deck that was honestly trash, playing it like trash (never did top 7 search for Pavroth when riding Turtle, although that mattered less since he always had Odysseus, because he was a sack), then getting rewarded with triggers and with the ability to counteract the opponent playing the game in a pre-Sebreeze era. If he didn't sack triggers in such an insane way and if his opponent was actually hitting offensive triggers, the game would have spiraled out of the Ripple player's favor, easily. He had multiple grade 3's in hand game 2 and only had enough shield in hand because he hit a critical trigger every single drive check game 2. I decided to count triggers and turtles, so you can see how much of a sacklord this guy was with triggers, and why playing Turtle in a deck with 8 grade 3's is a waste.
Ripple player:
1st Drive Check - No trigger (False sense of security)
2nd Drive Check - Heal Trigger (Heal goes off)
3rd Drive Check - Critical Trigger
4th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
5th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
6th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
7th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
1st Turtle - Whiff (Heal)
2nd Turtle - Whiff (Genovious)
3rd Turtle - Perfect Guard (Pretty much the worst case scenario for calling a top card)
4th Turtle - Whiff (A lot of glare, but looks like a crit to me)
5th Turtle - Penguin Soldier
2016 World Championships
Our top 3 were:
1st - Daniel Middlesworth - 7C's Rush
2nd - Andy Lo - 7C's Rush
3rd - Liu Bo Chen - Thing Saver/Sanc Guard
As most of you are probably aware, there was a lot of misplaying going around. I believe it was 1st place who would use Nightrunners that were milled off of Nightrunners (the timing would be missed). The Gears player Time Leaped Gigi into Melem (Time Leap doesn't go to the same grade, and these are both grade 1's). The 3rd place player didn't discard for Sebreeze's skill (why he was running Sebreeze in a Sanc Guard deck is beyond me). Issues like this popped up all over the place. You've watched it or heard about it, and now you are angry. And here we are. We have yet to, other than the mysterious WC2014 which I wasn't able to find any real information on, have anything remotely close to a solid final match or a champion that we can say earned the title by being good at the game. And people are upset by it.
So the question lies: Have we ever had a respectable champion for an official Bushiroad tournament? Was there ever a player who legitimately outplayed the metagame and took advantage of how the game was played without locking people out of their own mechanics or luck sacking critical triggers left and right? The answer is yes.
Challenge Cup 2013. Before Team Leagues were a thing, this was how Bushiroad decided to do what eventually became "Spring Fest". They had shop qualifiers at many, many card shops all over the country. Winners of these qualifiers made it to a state qualifier. Winners of that state's qualifier made it to nationals. Sadly, nationals was where the event stopped. The individual who won nationals for this event was a very skillful player named Kaden Kawakami. Here is how he did it.
He ran the typical DOtE list. A lot of back row retirement. A lot of draw triggers. Typical walling for a deck in a metagame that struggled greatly to hit 18k. So, how was his list different? He didn't run any critical triggers. You might be thinking, "So, he's bad then?" Nope. He outplayed everybody. You see, in a best of 1 format, you have no idea what your opponent's trigger line-up is going to be. When you stare down a restanding Vanguard like DOtE, you can only assume that he is going to have the threat of increased critical pressure and a potential restand. Thus, the standard play against DOtE was to always guard him if you are capable of doing so. Kaden knew this and decided to run stand triggers to reinforce his rear guard pressure and end games. Keep in mind that during this timeframe, the standard meta way to play was to no guard any attack that didn't kill you to access limit break as early as possible, increasing the value of stand triggers even more. He legitimately outplayed the format, the players, and the metagame. And he didn't even have to lock people out of stride to do it.
It is my hope that we have another champion like Kaden to restore our faith in the game. In order for this to happen, Bushiroad needs to keep a better eye on R&D, keeping the game safe from an over saturation in the metagame along with the cheese mechanics of rushing. The only reason Gears or Wiseman Loop haven't won the last two championships was because rushing was the counter deck of the format, but the counters to rushing can't be used against the standard meta decks. Is it healthy? If rushing kills the cancer, does that make it chemotherapy? I doubt it. Bushiroad has designed themselves into a corner, and they have not handled it well.
This year, we had an exceptional amount of players attending worlds that either maliciously or unknowingly cheated. Like, just about all of them. This, honestly, isn't wildly different from any other Vanguard Championship Circuit, outside of the staff being more incompetent than normal and the stream doing the rulings for them. It sucks when the judges aren't paying attention and things like this slip under the radar. With the loss of exceptional staff members like JD Mercado, it seems that Bushiroad can't ensure the integrity of the game. But enough about that, let's talk about the history of Vanguard World Championships.
2012 World Championships.
Brandon Smith (Spectral Duke Dragon) vs. Henry Suharto (Pellinore/Garmore)
Brandon expended a counterblast on Sleygal Dagger to make a 9k booster behind his Gigantech Destroyer to make a 21k row. Against a 9k Vanguard.
Henry called a Flame of Victory behind his 10k base Pellinore to attack a 10k base Spectral Duke Dragon, then subsequently lost because he didn't have shield. No, he didn't send it to the bottom of the deck with Pellinore to actually make a stage, either.
This was the first example of a World Championship that we had. Both players misplayed, albeit one more than the other, and it was recorded. Both players played pretty poorly, and people didn't really feel satisfied with the conclusion. To my knowledge, neither player stayed relevant after this. As a matter of fact, I don't believe we have a single person who got top 3 more than once at any World Championship.
2013 World Championships
While the decks were all pretty much what you would expect for a set 11~ time frame (DDD/DOtE won, Descendant was 3rd and 4th, Beast Deities had a surprise 2nd place finish, but Novas were the most supported clan and they had quite a bit going for them), that isn't what I wanted to touch on.
These finals weren't filmed. We can't touch on misplays or cheating. People were upset with Bushiroad for this, but they did nothing about it. It's hard to assess what happened under these conditions. But we can talk about the individual who became World Champion. Almeida Stewart. There have been allegations of Almeida cheating to win the Parisian qualifiers. It was said that he was able to stack opponents' decks without them or the judge noticing. As the article mentions, "According to our source, the statement 'If you cheat, cheat good' attributed to him by those that attended the tournament, has been a common saying from him throughout his career." has been a defining highlight of his reputation. If memory serves, I believe he was also caught stealing cards from a child and ended up getting in some legal trouble. I heard another report of him being in the news for stealing 4000 Euros of card gaming supplies in a gang-related incident. The truth of these claims is up in the air, but something definitely doesn't sit right here.
2014 World Championships
This is the second consecutive year that Bushiroad did not film the World Championship. The top three decks were all the same (Seekers). It's really hard to make any positive or negative commentary. However, 2nd place was KEVIN CHO! (Not really salty he beat me and knocked me out of the championships at Chicago this year, but I wanted to fill up space.) For all I know, this could have been the golden year of everyone being good at the game. The world may never know...
2014 was also the year they decided to fire JD Mercado for being too vocal about cheating that occurred in the Asia-Oceania Finals. Or, at least, that is my assumption of what happened. In this video you can see a Genesis player cheating really hard by having his preferred grade 2 ride face down, standing it as his Vanguard, saying, "Oops!", then adding it to his hand for his draw for turn.
2015 World Championships
R I P P U L was the deck that won the tournament this time. We got to see the grand finals get played. The Ripple player failed just about every turtle check and hit a critical just about every drive check, in spite of running draws and heal triggers. It was a very disappointing final match to watch, because he was rewarded for his opponent having a completely locked-out deck while playing a deck that was honestly trash, playing it like trash (never did top 7 search for Pavroth when riding Turtle, although that mattered less since he always had Odysseus, because he was a sack), then getting rewarded with triggers and with the ability to counteract the opponent playing the game in a pre-Sebreeze era. If he didn't sack triggers in such an insane way and if his opponent was actually hitting offensive triggers, the game would have spiraled out of the Ripple player's favor, easily. He had multiple grade 3's in hand game 2 and only had enough shield in hand because he hit a critical trigger every single drive check game 2. I decided to count triggers and turtles, so you can see how much of a sacklord this guy was with triggers, and why playing Turtle in a deck with 8 grade 3's is a waste.
Ripple player:
1st Drive Check - No trigger (False sense of security)
2nd Drive Check - Heal Trigger (Heal goes off)
3rd Drive Check - Critical Trigger
4th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
5th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
6th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
7th Drive Check - Critical Trigger
1st Turtle - Whiff (Heal)
2nd Turtle - Whiff (Genovious)
3rd Turtle - Perfect Guard (Pretty much the worst case scenario for calling a top card)
4th Turtle - Whiff (A lot of glare, but looks like a crit to me)
5th Turtle - Penguin Soldier
2016 World Championships
Our top 3 were:
1st - Daniel Middlesworth - 7C's Rush
2nd - Andy Lo - 7C's Rush
3rd - Liu Bo Chen - Thing Saver/Sanc Guard
As most of you are probably aware, there was a lot of misplaying going around. I believe it was 1st place who would use Nightrunners that were milled off of Nightrunners (the timing would be missed). The Gears player Time Leaped Gigi into Melem (Time Leap doesn't go to the same grade, and these are both grade 1's). The 3rd place player didn't discard for Sebreeze's skill (why he was running Sebreeze in a Sanc Guard deck is beyond me). Issues like this popped up all over the place. You've watched it or heard about it, and now you are angry. And here we are. We have yet to, other than the mysterious WC2014 which I wasn't able to find any real information on, have anything remotely close to a solid final match or a champion that we can say earned the title by being good at the game. And people are upset by it.
So the question lies: Have we ever had a respectable champion for an official Bushiroad tournament? Was there ever a player who legitimately outplayed the metagame and took advantage of how the game was played without locking people out of their own mechanics or luck sacking critical triggers left and right? The answer is yes.
Challenge Cup 2013. Before Team Leagues were a thing, this was how Bushiroad decided to do what eventually became "Spring Fest". They had shop qualifiers at many, many card shops all over the country. Winners of these qualifiers made it to a state qualifier. Winners of that state's qualifier made it to nationals. Sadly, nationals was where the event stopped. The individual who won nationals for this event was a very skillful player named Kaden Kawakami. Here is how he did it.
He ran the typical DOtE list. A lot of back row retirement. A lot of draw triggers. Typical walling for a deck in a metagame that struggled greatly to hit 18k. So, how was his list different? He didn't run any critical triggers. You might be thinking, "So, he's bad then?" Nope. He outplayed everybody. You see, in a best of 1 format, you have no idea what your opponent's trigger line-up is going to be. When you stare down a restanding Vanguard like DOtE, you can only assume that he is going to have the threat of increased critical pressure and a potential restand. Thus, the standard play against DOtE was to always guard him if you are capable of doing so. Kaden knew this and decided to run stand triggers to reinforce his rear guard pressure and end games. Keep in mind that during this timeframe, the standard meta way to play was to no guard any attack that didn't kill you to access limit break as early as possible, increasing the value of stand triggers even more. He legitimately outplayed the format, the players, and the metagame. And he didn't even have to lock people out of stride to do it.
It is my hope that we have another champion like Kaden to restore our faith in the game. In order for this to happen, Bushiroad needs to keep a better eye on R&D, keeping the game safe from an over saturation in the metagame along with the cheese mechanics of rushing. The only reason Gears or Wiseman Loop haven't won the last two championships was because rushing was the counter deck of the format, but the counters to rushing can't be used against the standard meta decks. Is it healthy? If rushing kills the cancer, does that make it chemotherapy? I doubt it. Bushiroad has designed themselves into a corner, and they have not handled it well.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Are you still Madew, Bro? Cray Erminantor Camtater Climb Ladder Dooklast
As I asked for 18 ANGERY emotes on Facebook to confirm my place as Clam Liter, and ended up getting 96 ANGERY emotes, I have decided to release my updated Clore Elmimantle dacklost.
Starter - Shining Knight, Millius
8x 5k Royal Paladin Crits
4x Thunder Elemental, Goloro (Critical)
4x Royal Paladin Heal Triggers
4x Light Elemental, Sunny
4x Air Elemental, Fwarlun
3x Light Elemental, Peaker
3x Laurel Knight, Siciilus
4x Knight of Twin Sword
4x Transmigration Knight, Brede
2x Escort Eagle
1x Earth Elemental, Pokkur
4x Knight of Mastery, Glenus
4x Gigantech Charger
GZone
4x Rain Element, Madew
3x Blazing Sword, Fides
2x Aerial Divine Knight, Altmile
1x Divine Knight of Flashing Flame, Samuel
1x Air Element, Sebreeze
1x Snow Element, Blizza
2x Dark Element, Dizmel
1x Light Element, Agleam
1x Metal Element, Scryew
The first observation you will probably make is, "Oh hey, this looks pretty much the same other than filling out the GZo- WHERE DID STARDRIVE GO?! YOU TRAITOR!"
Hear me out, bro. Fides can only search for grade 2's and those grade 2's need the "Brave" keyword. Fides draws a card, retires a unit, gets a grade 2 out of my deck, AND gives me 10k power to distribute to my board. It's an INSANE card and the only reason it isn't played at 4 of in a bunch of decks is because those decks can't afford to run "Brave" units. The unit that has replaced Stardrive Dragon is Knight of Mastery, Glenus. Glenus, being a 10k power Royal Paladin unit means that it, of course, does everything Stardrive did in the deck, including being able to proc Madew. Additionally, Glenus' skill is, "Brave: Cont: This unit gets grade -1 while in the deck." This means we can grab him directly out of the deck with Fides (who can only grab grade 2's), and the check for his Brave keyword is done after the discard for Fides and after the cost for stride has been paid. So, if your hand was 5 or less cards at the start of your turn, Fides into Glenus can definitely be a good move.
Now, you may be thinking, "Tim, how necessary even is that? You're running Escort Eagles in your deck already." Brede is mandatory at 4 of (switchable and interchangeable with Knight of Fragment who is 11k when attacking vanguards and rear guards vs. 12k vs. Vanguards only. I'm running 2/2 at the moment, but I think Brede is better, which I'll cover shortly). Knight of Twin Sword is our only multi-attack enabling unit in our deck (and he can grab Glenus too, if done before my Vanguard attacks or if I have 0 cards in hand at the start of the battle phase), so he's a 4-of. We only have 3 spaces, and Pokkur is just amazing in a deck with 10 Cray strides and with the ability to grab 2's on-demand. So Escort Eagle is down to being a 2-of. If I draw EITHER of them pre-Fides plays, I can't proc the draw for Fides. This is why we play Glenus. That and he makes 21k with any non-sentinel grade 1 booster in my deck, which is icing on the cake.
Now that that's out of the way, let's discuss updates. We added in the Cray Elemental critical trigger, Goloro. Goloro's guard restriction ability (you can only call this card as a Guardian if you have another Guardian on the circle) is actually pretty bad, but it can be pitched with Fides, Agleam, Scryew, or used for its useful ability, to count as a grade 2 when pitched for stride. In this deck, we can easily convert our strides into hard advantage generation. Even just ditching Goloro and another card to stride into Madew will take our previously +2 turn and convert it into a +1 turn. Whether or not this is mandatory isn't super important to me, I am playing it for the Cray Craze. The vast majority of the time, you will not be impacted by its negative or positive effects. It does have a 4k body, however, and that is why we made the next change.
Knight of Fragment and Transmigration Knight, Brede are our Brede and butter cards to call off of Knight of Twin Sword. (NYEH HEH HEH) With Goloro being a potential call from Gigantech Charger, Brede makes numbers with EVERYTHING where Knight of Fragment has this weakness with only being 15k with Goloro (and requiring another 2 out, which cards like Heteroround, Denial Griffin, having a locked front row, and getting Fragment called off of Charger can make difficult). While you can easily build around this in most cases, I've found that the only advantage that Fragment gives over Brede is the ability to hit 10k+ rear guards unboosted, since the counter-charge is typically useless and the soul charge is almost detrimental.
Escort Eagle made its way into the list due to being a Brave and a Resist unit that is grade 2. It gets Fides synergy, and helps handle a big weakness the deck has in its Link Joker match-up. The extra shield is just icing on the cake.
Now, for the GZone, we have 8 new spots to fill. Of course, Cray Elemental GGuardians are entering four of these spots. Reason 1, they are all relatively powerful Guardians due to having some nice secondary effects. Reason 2, pretty much all of the Royal Paladin GGuards have been roasted garbage on a stick. Reason 3, they give Fwarlun power and enable Pokkur plays without having to stride into Madew and waiting a turn. For our remaining spots, we have made the following changes.
-1 Atmos
-1 Gablade
+2 Aerial Divine Knight Altmile
+3 Fides
+1 Sebreeze
Atmos was in the deck as the designated flip target for Blizza. We no longer need that, since Sebreeze took its place. Gablade was never really good, but it didn't require a flip and I had one space open previously. I actually did switch both Atmos and Gablade out for Aerial Altmile before the 16 card GZone happened, but not much else has been changed from the base list. We added in Sebreeze because it is a Cray Elemental (procs Fwarlun and Pokkur) and the deck is very Generation Break heavy. We also have a large amount of counterblasts available to expend where a Samuel or Sebreeze doesn't kill our resources all that badly anyway. I feel like Fides was already covered, but I'll just recap. You can flip Sebreeze with it for more effects with your Cray Elementals, and it's discard a card to make big numbers, draw a card, retire a unit, and call a unit. Like, it does so much for such a tiny cost.
That covers the major changes. I hope you don't rage on me too hard for dropping Stardrive. On that note, the original reason I played Stardrive was due to their being NO suitable 10k Royal Paladin unit that made a meaningful difference. Palamedes was the best one initially. I'm not counterblasting 2 to call a grade 1. I didn't have enough spots in my GZone to play Regalie, so I couldn't risk having a dead, vanilla stride when I missed my Sanc Guard. There was no room to put in Jewel Knight archetype support, and Swordmy would be useless without JK grade 1's, even if I could use him with Charger. I could have run the 10k Vanilla legion, but I don't think the 10k grade 2 was worth running at the time. The long and short was that there wasn't much that was really useful to run, and anything that may have been useful would compromise my GZone.
That's it for now. Clyde Ornamental Cornpattytav Clumb Looper, signing out.
Starter - Shining Knight, Millius
8x 5k Royal Paladin Crits
4x Thunder Elemental, Goloro (Critical)
4x Royal Paladin Heal Triggers
4x Light Elemental, Sunny
4x Air Elemental, Fwarlun
3x Light Elemental, Peaker
3x Laurel Knight, Siciilus
4x Knight of Twin Sword
4x Transmigration Knight, Brede
2x Escort Eagle
1x Earth Elemental, Pokkur
4x Knight of Mastery, Glenus
4x Gigantech Charger
GZone
4x Rain Element, Madew
3x Blazing Sword, Fides
2x Aerial Divine Knight, Altmile
1x Divine Knight of Flashing Flame, Samuel
1x Air Element, Sebreeze
1x Snow Element, Blizza
2x Dark Element, Dizmel
1x Light Element, Agleam
1x Metal Element, Scryew
The first observation you will probably make is, "Oh hey, this looks pretty much the same other than filling out the GZo- WHERE DID STARDRIVE GO?! YOU TRAITOR!"
Hear me out, bro. Fides can only search for grade 2's and those grade 2's need the "Brave" keyword. Fides draws a card, retires a unit, gets a grade 2 out of my deck, AND gives me 10k power to distribute to my board. It's an INSANE card and the only reason it isn't played at 4 of in a bunch of decks is because those decks can't afford to run "Brave" units. The unit that has replaced Stardrive Dragon is Knight of Mastery, Glenus. Glenus, being a 10k power Royal Paladin unit means that it, of course, does everything Stardrive did in the deck, including being able to proc Madew. Additionally, Glenus' skill is, "Brave: Cont: This unit gets grade -1 while in the deck." This means we can grab him directly out of the deck with Fides (who can only grab grade 2's), and the check for his Brave keyword is done after the discard for Fides and after the cost for stride has been paid. So, if your hand was 5 or less cards at the start of your turn, Fides into Glenus can definitely be a good move.
Now, you may be thinking, "Tim, how necessary even is that? You're running Escort Eagles in your deck already." Brede is mandatory at 4 of (switchable and interchangeable with Knight of Fragment who is 11k when attacking vanguards and rear guards vs. 12k vs. Vanguards only. I'm running 2/2 at the moment, but I think Brede is better, which I'll cover shortly). Knight of Twin Sword is our only multi-attack enabling unit in our deck (and he can grab Glenus too, if done before my Vanguard attacks or if I have 0 cards in hand at the start of the battle phase), so he's a 4-of. We only have 3 spaces, and Pokkur is just amazing in a deck with 10 Cray strides and with the ability to grab 2's on-demand. So Escort Eagle is down to being a 2-of. If I draw EITHER of them pre-Fides plays, I can't proc the draw for Fides. This is why we play Glenus. That and he makes 21k with any non-sentinel grade 1 booster in my deck, which is icing on the cake.
Now that that's out of the way, let's discuss updates. We added in the Cray Elemental critical trigger, Goloro. Goloro's guard restriction ability (you can only call this card as a Guardian if you have another Guardian on the circle) is actually pretty bad, but it can be pitched with Fides, Agleam, Scryew, or used for its useful ability, to count as a grade 2 when pitched for stride. In this deck, we can easily convert our strides into hard advantage generation. Even just ditching Goloro and another card to stride into Madew will take our previously +2 turn and convert it into a +1 turn. Whether or not this is mandatory isn't super important to me, I am playing it for the Cray Craze. The vast majority of the time, you will not be impacted by its negative or positive effects. It does have a 4k body, however, and that is why we made the next change.
Knight of Fragment and Transmigration Knight, Brede are our Brede and butter cards to call off of Knight of Twin Sword. (NYEH HEH HEH) With Goloro being a potential call from Gigantech Charger, Brede makes numbers with EVERYTHING where Knight of Fragment has this weakness with only being 15k with Goloro (and requiring another 2 out, which cards like Heteroround, Denial Griffin, having a locked front row, and getting Fragment called off of Charger can make difficult). While you can easily build around this in most cases, I've found that the only advantage that Fragment gives over Brede is the ability to hit 10k+ rear guards unboosted, since the counter-charge is typically useless and the soul charge is almost detrimental.
Escort Eagle made its way into the list due to being a Brave and a Resist unit that is grade 2. It gets Fides synergy, and helps handle a big weakness the deck has in its Link Joker match-up. The extra shield is just icing on the cake.
Now, for the GZone, we have 8 new spots to fill. Of course, Cray Elemental GGuardians are entering four of these spots. Reason 1, they are all relatively powerful Guardians due to having some nice secondary effects. Reason 2, pretty much all of the Royal Paladin GGuards have been roasted garbage on a stick. Reason 3, they give Fwarlun power and enable Pokkur plays without having to stride into Madew and waiting a turn. For our remaining spots, we have made the following changes.
-1 Atmos
-1 Gablade
+2 Aerial Divine Knight Altmile
+3 Fides
+1 Sebreeze
Atmos was in the deck as the designated flip target for Blizza. We no longer need that, since Sebreeze took its place. Gablade was never really good, but it didn't require a flip and I had one space open previously. I actually did switch both Atmos and Gablade out for Aerial Altmile before the 16 card GZone happened, but not much else has been changed from the base list. We added in Sebreeze because it is a Cray Elemental (procs Fwarlun and Pokkur) and the deck is very Generation Break heavy. We also have a large amount of counterblasts available to expend where a Samuel or Sebreeze doesn't kill our resources all that badly anyway. I feel like Fides was already covered, but I'll just recap. You can flip Sebreeze with it for more effects with your Cray Elementals, and it's discard a card to make big numbers, draw a card, retire a unit, and call a unit. Like, it does so much for such a tiny cost.
That covers the major changes. I hope you don't rage on me too hard for dropping Stardrive. On that note, the original reason I played Stardrive was due to their being NO suitable 10k Royal Paladin unit that made a meaningful difference. Palamedes was the best one initially. I'm not counterblasting 2 to call a grade 1. I didn't have enough spots in my GZone to play Regalie, so I couldn't risk having a dead, vanilla stride when I missed my Sanc Guard. There was no room to put in Jewel Knight archetype support, and Swordmy would be useless without JK grade 1's, even if I could use him with Charger. I could have run the 10k Vanilla legion, but I don't think the 10k grade 2 was worth running at the time. The long and short was that there wasn't much that was really useful to run, and anything that may have been useful would compromise my GZone.
That's it for now. Clyde Ornamental Cornpattytav Clumb Looper, signing out.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Diet Cancer - All of the taste, none of the calories. A non-Wiseman Fenrir Build.
To preface this, I believe that Wiseman Loop (Thanks Science of Vanguard for the video explanation!) is currently the superior build for Genesis at the moment. The only major stipulation to that is that Angelic Wiseman's Loop has three hard counters that stop their OTK turn.
The first has been around for a while. Denial Griffin. This retires Wiseman on his first swing, preventing him from restanding multiple times.
The second has just been released for, what is arguably the most played deck in the format, Chronojet Gear Chronicles. Heteroround Dragon places the powered up Wiseman into the deck, which is then shuffled and the Genesis player calls the top card of their deck, which is likely to be a 4k Stand Trigger or 7k grade 1. Even if they sack into the Wiseman that was placed back into the deck, they still have to deal with it only being a 14k swing. They could also potentially Heteroround a second time. A single defensive trigger will shut it down, so they would have to swing with their Vanguard after putting multiple stands into their deck for the power, but that drastically cuts down on the loop's ability to restand Wiseman. While this doesn't prevent lethal 100% of the time, it still disrupts the loop greatly.
The third is Freezeray Dragon. It can stop the loop if the Link Joker player is at 4 or less damage, since the loop variant has few outs to give Wiseman a bonus critical, since that is almost never necessary.
Due to the Wiseman Loop typically occurring on the third stride turn after two Tyr strides, It's extremely likely that a Kagero or Gear Chronicle player will have gotten one or more heal triggers in their hand, and then held on to them understanding the match-up. Additionally, they never need to guard the Vanguard due to extremely low critical quantities (2 or 4) and no on-hit abilities, giving them an unfavorable match-up to Freezeray. Damage is very easily kept low early-to-mid game due to Genesis having no real rush, restanding, or superior calling mechanics that the Loop is willing to utilize, due to needing those counterblasts for higher power on the push-turn.
Since my locals has many Gear Chronicle and Kagero players, and our Link Joker players typically run Freezeray, I felt like it was a bad meta call to play the Wiseman Loop variant of Genesis, and opted instead for a more balanced version of the deck. Here's the list.
Grade 0's
Starter - Fetter Creator, Van
4x Goddess of Sound Sleep, Tahro (Stand)
2x Dreaming Dragon (Stand)
4x Stake Fetter, Thviti (Critical)
2x Battle Maiden, Kukurihime (Critical)
4x Goddess of Youth, Hebe (Heal)
Grade 1's
4x Mythic Beast, Skoll
4x Shackle Fetter, Gelgja
4x Goddess of Decline, Hel
2x Mythic Beast, Hati
Grade 2's
4x Boulder Fetter, Gjoll
4x Battle Maiden, Kotonoha
2x Earth Elemental, Pokkur
1x Mythic Snake, Jormungand
Grade 3's
4x Mythic Beast, Fenrir
4x Ice Crest Goddess, Svava
GZone
4x Mythical Destroyer Beast, Vanargandr
2x Beast-Slayer Military Deity, Tyr
2x Mythical Hellsky Beast, Fenrir
2x Great Angel, Doom Brace
1x Air Element, Sebreeze
1x Snow Element, Blizza
3x Goddess of Seven Colors, Iris
1x Sky-dome Battle Maiden, Hanasatsuki
The first major question would be, "What does this list provide over the standard Wiseman Loop variant?" Well, it provides a few nice things, actually. It gives extra critical pressure on your Vanguard swing, gives you access to the Revelation mechanic for units you want to field (giving you more trigger scrying and potential soul set-up), and it also gives you access to counterblasts at all stages of the game so you can make plays on a case-by-case basis instead of going "all-in" for a single turn. Additionally, the deck doesn't automatically lose when you miss the Fenrir ride, even though both decks would gladly ride Fenrir at a minus to have him as Vanguard.
A few cute things the deck can do:
The first has been around for a while. Denial Griffin. This retires Wiseman on his first swing, preventing him from restanding multiple times.
The second has just been released for, what is arguably the most played deck in the format, Chronojet Gear Chronicles. Heteroround Dragon places the powered up Wiseman into the deck, which is then shuffled and the Genesis player calls the top card of their deck, which is likely to be a 4k Stand Trigger or 7k grade 1. Even if they sack into the Wiseman that was placed back into the deck, they still have to deal with it only being a 14k swing. They could also potentially Heteroround a second time. A single defensive trigger will shut it down, so they would have to swing with their Vanguard after putting multiple stands into their deck for the power, but that drastically cuts down on the loop's ability to restand Wiseman. While this doesn't prevent lethal 100% of the time, it still disrupts the loop greatly.
The third is Freezeray Dragon. It can stop the loop if the Link Joker player is at 4 or less damage, since the loop variant has few outs to give Wiseman a bonus critical, since that is almost never necessary.
Due to the Wiseman Loop typically occurring on the third stride turn after two Tyr strides, It's extremely likely that a Kagero or Gear Chronicle player will have gotten one or more heal triggers in their hand, and then held on to them understanding the match-up. Additionally, they never need to guard the Vanguard due to extremely low critical quantities (2 or 4) and no on-hit abilities, giving them an unfavorable match-up to Freezeray. Damage is very easily kept low early-to-mid game due to Genesis having no real rush, restanding, or superior calling mechanics that the Loop is willing to utilize, due to needing those counterblasts for higher power on the push-turn.
Since my locals has many Gear Chronicle and Kagero players, and our Link Joker players typically run Freezeray, I felt like it was a bad meta call to play the Wiseman Loop variant of Genesis, and opted instead for a more balanced version of the deck. Here's the list.
Grade 0's
Starter - Fetter Creator, Van
4x Goddess of Sound Sleep, Tahro (Stand)
2x Dreaming Dragon (Stand)
4x Stake Fetter, Thviti (Critical)
2x Battle Maiden, Kukurihime (Critical)
4x Goddess of Youth, Hebe (Heal)
Grade 1's
4x Mythic Beast, Skoll
4x Shackle Fetter, Gelgja
4x Goddess of Decline, Hel
2x Mythic Beast, Hati
Grade 2's
4x Boulder Fetter, Gjoll
4x Battle Maiden, Kotonoha
2x Earth Elemental, Pokkur
1x Mythic Snake, Jormungand
Grade 3's
4x Mythic Beast, Fenrir
4x Ice Crest Goddess, Svava
GZone
4x Mythical Destroyer Beast, Vanargandr
2x Beast-Slayer Military Deity, Tyr
2x Mythical Hellsky Beast, Fenrir
2x Great Angel, Doom Brace
1x Air Element, Sebreeze
1x Snow Element, Blizza
3x Goddess of Seven Colors, Iris
1x Sky-dome Battle Maiden, Hanasatsuki
The first major question would be, "What does this list provide over the standard Wiseman Loop variant?" Well, it provides a few nice things, actually. It gives extra critical pressure on your Vanguard swing, gives you access to the Revelation mechanic for units you want to field (giving you more trigger scrying and potential soul set-up), and it also gives you access to counterblasts at all stages of the game so you can make plays on a case-by-case basis instead of going "all-in" for a single turn. Additionally, the deck doesn't automatically lose when you miss the Fenrir ride, even though both decks would gladly ride Fenrir at a minus to have him as Vanguard.
A few cute things the deck can do:
- A combination of the stand trigger, Svava, and Vanargandr can make for a nice 21k+ multi-attacking RG row if you have excess stands in soul. This can be boosted higher with Gelgia.
- A combination of Gjoll (called that turn) and a critical trigger can create an 18k restanding rear-guard. I use Gjoll instead of Wiseman for my multi-attack gambit, trying to use the twin-Revelation checks from Hellsky Fenrir to set up a double trigger for Gjoll. Additionally, Gjoll can also get bonus power from Gelgia, much like Wiseman can. I typically have at least one game in a set where I have a 41k+ 2 crit restanding Gjoll. This can play around Freezeray to an extent.
- I've used Revelation on Vanargandr turns using Gelgia to restand and was able to filter down 7 cards to hit a double trigger on a Gjoll turn.
- Fenrir can call Gjolls that you've intercepted with by placing them back into soul with Iris for a prolonged gambit.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Chicago Regionals 2016 Tourament Report (Vanguard)
So, interesting things happened this weekend at Chicago. I simultaneously went negative at a Buddyfight tournament for the first time ever and did the best I've ever done at any Vanguard event.
The night started with me, Daniel, Zack, and Mike road tripping to Chicago. We met up with Tommy and Steve at the hotel and had a good old time making fun of Aldnoah.Zero, which we were watching for some reason. I wanted to be in the lobby representing my Buddyfight Gym (The Dank Meme Gym) so that I could take on challengers for the Dank Meme Badge, but they closed the lobby at midnight. I really hope they change the venue next year, as this was the only location we've had that wouldn't let us play card games in the lobby. Austin Somers was the only player able to defeat me on Friday for a badge.
Saturday rolls around. I really didn't care what I was playing or what I was doing. I expected maybe a round 5 finish or something and then I was planning on doing more badge fights. Saturday had a lot more in store for me than I had bargained for. I asked the Vanguard Complaint Group Chat what I should play for the day. I got more votes for Seven Seas Rush than my other two options, Giraffa and Madew, so I went with that.
Here is a link to the decklist I ran.
It took barely any time to get my list done. We had over 350 people show up at the venue for Vanguard. After a delay, round 1 finally started.
Round 1 - W vs. Gold Paladin (Gurguit)
This match was a bit of a wash. I was able to secure my set-up, but I hit no triggers offensively or defensively the entire game, barring a single offensive stand when my entire field was already standing because I used Slash Shade. He no guards my Vanguard at 4 twice and lives both times. I end up not getting enough shield and have to no guard his Vanguard at 4 one time. Neither of us hit the crits we needed to seal it, so I end up killing him with a 5 attack turn.
Round 2 - W vs. Bermuda Triangle (Prisms)
This match was terrifying. They had out two Celtics for on-hit bounce and draws, and I didn't have the ability to guard one earlier, giving them more defense against the rush when they bounced their starter to hand. I had to face a 2 crit Labrador for two swings. I had to one-to-pass the final swing. I end up winning only because he tried to break the two-to-pass the turn prior, so I had enough shield to survive the following turn. I didn't hit any offensive or defensive triggers this game, and only narrowly won due to some luck and getting my set-up.
Round 3 - W vs. Bermuda Triangle (Prisms)
My opponent never rode to grade 3. Their game plan was to stay on Celtic the entire game. My game plan was to get gradelocked on 0. I opened one of each trigger and Nightrunner. I knew that I could ride Nightrunner if I had to, and that I could ride over it later for no net loss in cards, so I wasn't super worried about it. I G-Assist just to see if I can get Raistutor, and he was my 5th card. I was able to recover my field completely because this deck is bullshit, and I swung in as if I never negged in the first place. I kept Celtic at bay, guarding it every time it swung. I won the game hitting a crit trigger through either a one-to-pass or a no-guard on 4. Don't remember exactly which. It was my first crit so far in the tournament and it made me pretty happy that I actually hit a trigger.
Round 4 - W vs. Oracle Think Tank (Susanoo/Tsukuyomi)
This round was sad. I had to fight my buddy Mike. To put things in a very simple fashion, he missed every Tsukuyomi check, had to ride Susanoo against a grade 1 rush deck, and I sacked the ever loving shit out of him. I ended up killing him by superior riding to Plegeton, making a large Nightspinel row, and hitting a crit to secure game.
Round 5 - W vs. Dimension Police (D-Robos)
I don't remember a lot about this match. I remember he swung into rear guards, then I pooped them back out. He kept trying to disadvantage the rush that can't be disadvantaged. I destroyed him.
Round 6 - L vs. Royal Paladin (Sanc Blaster)
So, I kind of knew I'd lose to Kevin Cho. I didn't get a single grade 2 in hand or in drop. I wanted to ride to 2 against him because Sanc Blaster doesn't use GBreak, really, Sebreeze would eat all of the counterblasts from Flogal, and 12k Blaster Blades are terrifying for 7k base Vanguards. But, since I couldn't secure a bigger butt, he ended up killing me on a Blaster Blade/Flogal turn. RIP.
Round 7 - W vs. Gear Chronicle (Chonojet)
This opponent seemed to mulligan heavily for getting a counter-rush to my rush. I guess the 7Cs sleeves gave it away. Lol. But, uhh. He rode Gigi. And stayed on Gigi. Staying on a 5k butt meant that even two damage triggers weren't enough to stop my swings. I demolished the poor guy. I have no idea whether he turbo-bricked, thought the counter-rush would help, or if he just wanted to have a full board like me because he thought it was cool.
Interestingly, I moved from table 4 to the very last table for round 7. I thought that would kill my tiebreakers and I wouldn't make top cut. I kind of didn't care one way or the other, since I don't think a BO1 Vanguard tournament can even pretend to be competitive. Especially since I won about half of my rounds by praying that my opponent wouldn't crit me and succeeding. Regardless, they ended up announcing top 8. I heard 8th place get called. I heard 7th place get called. I was thinking, "Welp, I probably got 9th, since Austin had better tiebreakers than me." Then I hear, "6th place, Timothy Emerson." Oh shit. I guess I did it. Then 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd get called. Austin's name isn't called. Even though he was undefeated until the final round. That's kind of bullshit. Austin got 9th. RIP Austin.
After deck check, I go to top 8. Amazingly, there were many people who brought grade 1 rush to the tournament. Far more than I ever imagined would. And a whopping 3 of us made it to the top 8, all with the same list. One person said they mirrored my list from my blog post. I can't take credit for the deck, though, since it topped over a half-dozen times before I did with it. Still, it's nice to see that my topping cannot be called a fluke since so many people went so far with the deck in so many tournaments in so many different countries. The other two Seven Seas Rush players lost their first match in the top 8.
Quarter-Finals - W vs. Kagero (Overlord)
He was playing Greats and Legends, to my knowledge. I don't remember super well the exact plays and triggers, but I'm pretty sure I won 2-1. His deck was locked out of generation break. He was able to make some decent retirement plays that would have crippled normal rush decks, but this deck just didn't care. I wind up taking the series.
Semi-Finals - L vs. Royal Paladin (Sanc Blaster)
Kevin Cho ended up being my only losses all day. Game 1 he hit defensive crit, heal (goes off), draw. I lost for obvious reasons. Game 2 I am putting on solid pressure. Since he ran draws for some weird reason and I didn't have the shield to stop him if he double crit me anyway, I no-guard his swing at 3 damage. Crit, crit. That's Vanguard, all right. RIP
Consolation-Finals - W vs. Gold Paladin (Gurguit/Ezel)
Game 1 I was struggling to get the game won. He ends up only being able to 1-to-pass my Vanguard at 5. I hit a stand trigger and push him to 6. He heals out of lethal and takes the game after that. Game 2 I have him on the ropes early from getting a 4 damage turn in my first turn swinging. He never had the ability to get 5 RGs for Ezel Scissors to get his critical. I end up winning that match. The last game was pretty close. He rode Gurguit. I ended up getting him to 5 and having him in a situation where I could kill him through a 6th damage heal by doing a cool loop with multiple Ghosties and multiple Nightcrows. I used that loop to make Nightspinel 26k, which secured the anti-heal for me.
All-in-all, I ended up getting 3rd place. This has firmly solidified my opinion that the less I care and the less I try, the better my tournament results will be, based on my tournament history. I am not sold if I'm going to California for the event. If I did, I am not sold I'd want to play Granblue Rush when I could play a meme deck. We'll see how that goes.
The night started with me, Daniel, Zack, and Mike road tripping to Chicago. We met up with Tommy and Steve at the hotel and had a good old time making fun of Aldnoah.Zero, which we were watching for some reason. I wanted to be in the lobby representing my Buddyfight Gym (The Dank Meme Gym) so that I could take on challengers for the Dank Meme Badge, but they closed the lobby at midnight. I really hope they change the venue next year, as this was the only location we've had that wouldn't let us play card games in the lobby. Austin Somers was the only player able to defeat me on Friday for a badge.
Saturday rolls around. I really didn't care what I was playing or what I was doing. I expected maybe a round 5 finish or something and then I was planning on doing more badge fights. Saturday had a lot more in store for me than I had bargained for. I asked the Vanguard Complaint Group Chat what I should play for the day. I got more votes for Seven Seas Rush than my other two options, Giraffa and Madew, so I went with that.
Here is a link to the decklist I ran.
It took barely any time to get my list done. We had over 350 people show up at the venue for Vanguard. After a delay, round 1 finally started.
Round 1 - W vs. Gold Paladin (Gurguit)
This match was a bit of a wash. I was able to secure my set-up, but I hit no triggers offensively or defensively the entire game, barring a single offensive stand when my entire field was already standing because I used Slash Shade. He no guards my Vanguard at 4 twice and lives both times. I end up not getting enough shield and have to no guard his Vanguard at 4 one time. Neither of us hit the crits we needed to seal it, so I end up killing him with a 5 attack turn.
Round 2 - W vs. Bermuda Triangle (Prisms)
This match was terrifying. They had out two Celtics for on-hit bounce and draws, and I didn't have the ability to guard one earlier, giving them more defense against the rush when they bounced their starter to hand. I had to face a 2 crit Labrador for two swings. I had to one-to-pass the final swing. I end up winning only because he tried to break the two-to-pass the turn prior, so I had enough shield to survive the following turn. I didn't hit any offensive or defensive triggers this game, and only narrowly won due to some luck and getting my set-up.
Round 3 - W vs. Bermuda Triangle (Prisms)
My opponent never rode to grade 3. Their game plan was to stay on Celtic the entire game. My game plan was to get gradelocked on 0. I opened one of each trigger and Nightrunner. I knew that I could ride Nightrunner if I had to, and that I could ride over it later for no net loss in cards, so I wasn't super worried about it. I G-Assist just to see if I can get Raistutor, and he was my 5th card. I was able to recover my field completely because this deck is bullshit, and I swung in as if I never negged in the first place. I kept Celtic at bay, guarding it every time it swung. I won the game hitting a crit trigger through either a one-to-pass or a no-guard on 4. Don't remember exactly which. It was my first crit so far in the tournament and it made me pretty happy that I actually hit a trigger.
Round 4 - W vs. Oracle Think Tank (Susanoo/Tsukuyomi)
This round was sad. I had to fight my buddy Mike. To put things in a very simple fashion, he missed every Tsukuyomi check, had to ride Susanoo against a grade 1 rush deck, and I sacked the ever loving shit out of him. I ended up killing him by superior riding to Plegeton, making a large Nightspinel row, and hitting a crit to secure game.
Round 5 - W vs. Dimension Police (D-Robos)
I don't remember a lot about this match. I remember he swung into rear guards, then I pooped them back out. He kept trying to disadvantage the rush that can't be disadvantaged. I destroyed him.
Round 6 - L vs. Royal Paladin (Sanc Blaster)
So, I kind of knew I'd lose to Kevin Cho. I didn't get a single grade 2 in hand or in drop. I wanted to ride to 2 against him because Sanc Blaster doesn't use GBreak, really, Sebreeze would eat all of the counterblasts from Flogal, and 12k Blaster Blades are terrifying for 7k base Vanguards. But, since I couldn't secure a bigger butt, he ended up killing me on a Blaster Blade/Flogal turn. RIP.
Round 7 - W vs. Gear Chronicle (Chonojet)
This opponent seemed to mulligan heavily for getting a counter-rush to my rush. I guess the 7Cs sleeves gave it away. Lol. But, uhh. He rode Gigi. And stayed on Gigi. Staying on a 5k butt meant that even two damage triggers weren't enough to stop my swings. I demolished the poor guy. I have no idea whether he turbo-bricked, thought the counter-rush would help, or if he just wanted to have a full board like me because he thought it was cool.
Interestingly, I moved from table 4 to the very last table for round 7. I thought that would kill my tiebreakers and I wouldn't make top cut. I kind of didn't care one way or the other, since I don't think a BO1 Vanguard tournament can even pretend to be competitive. Especially since I won about half of my rounds by praying that my opponent wouldn't crit me and succeeding. Regardless, they ended up announcing top 8. I heard 8th place get called. I heard 7th place get called. I was thinking, "Welp, I probably got 9th, since Austin had better tiebreakers than me." Then I hear, "6th place, Timothy Emerson." Oh shit. I guess I did it. Then 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd get called. Austin's name isn't called. Even though he was undefeated until the final round. That's kind of bullshit. Austin got 9th. RIP Austin.
After deck check, I go to top 8. Amazingly, there were many people who brought grade 1 rush to the tournament. Far more than I ever imagined would. And a whopping 3 of us made it to the top 8, all with the same list. One person said they mirrored my list from my blog post. I can't take credit for the deck, though, since it topped over a half-dozen times before I did with it. Still, it's nice to see that my topping cannot be called a fluke since so many people went so far with the deck in so many tournaments in so many different countries. The other two Seven Seas Rush players lost their first match in the top 8.
Quarter-Finals - W vs. Kagero (Overlord)
He was playing Greats and Legends, to my knowledge. I don't remember super well the exact plays and triggers, but I'm pretty sure I won 2-1. His deck was locked out of generation break. He was able to make some decent retirement plays that would have crippled normal rush decks, but this deck just didn't care. I wind up taking the series.
Semi-Finals - L vs. Royal Paladin (Sanc Blaster)
Kevin Cho ended up being my only losses all day. Game 1 he hit defensive crit, heal (goes off), draw. I lost for obvious reasons. Game 2 I am putting on solid pressure. Since he ran draws for some weird reason and I didn't have the shield to stop him if he double crit me anyway, I no-guard his swing at 3 damage. Crit, crit. That's Vanguard, all right. RIP
Consolation-Finals - W vs. Gold Paladin (Gurguit/Ezel)
Game 1 I was struggling to get the game won. He ends up only being able to 1-to-pass my Vanguard at 5. I hit a stand trigger and push him to 6. He heals out of lethal and takes the game after that. Game 2 I have him on the ropes early from getting a 4 damage turn in my first turn swinging. He never had the ability to get 5 RGs for Ezel Scissors to get his critical. I end up winning that match. The last game was pretty close. He rode Gurguit. I ended up getting him to 5 and having him in a situation where I could kill him through a 6th damage heal by doing a cool loop with multiple Ghosties and multiple Nightcrows. I used that loop to make Nightspinel 26k, which secured the anti-heal for me.
All-in-all, I ended up getting 3rd place. This has firmly solidified my opinion that the less I care and the less I try, the better my tournament results will be, based on my tournament history. I am not sold if I'm going to California for the event. If I did, I am not sold I'd want to play Granblue Rush when I could play a meme deck. We'll see how that goes.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Seven Seas Rush
So, only weeks after releasing my grade 1 rush video stating that Seeker Rush was the best rush deck and that grade 1 rushing has become largely obsolete (but still mediocre, Sanc Blaster just does everything every other grade 1 rush deck wanted to do while still riding up) in the current metagame due to effects not being as heavily restricted by generation break in this current format, we have a new grade 1 rush monstrosity. Seven Seas Rush.
This decklist originated in Japan and quickly made its way over here after it topped. I hadn't seen the spoilers for the set 8 cards involved by time this happened, so I am not the originator for this deck. All credit to the guy who came up with the base idea. I did make improvements on the base list to make it stronger, but then I was told after the fact that it may not have been the base list. Regardless, I especially love that the Vanguard community is proving to me that it can continue to be thorough, innovative, and talented in deckbuilding unique decks without my help. The community has grown and improved in so many ways over 2 and 4 years ago that I can't help but feel like I'm a bit obsolete.
That being said, this is something right up my alley, and I can explain how this beast of a deck works in a way that anyone can understand. I want to preface this by saying that this list has 8 grade 2's and 2 grade 3's. It can ride up at pretty much any point it wants to. But, without GGuardians or Heals, you typically won't want to unless the stride will give you game. That being said, your opponents can't Sebreeze you on your grade 2 ride, so you always have that advantage of safely negating stride and generation break outside of Twitterun plays. Here's the list.
Starter - Rookie Pirate, Gina (Discard a grade 2 or 3 you can't normal call and scry and draw)
4x Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner (bae, FREE CARDS FOR FREE, turns into a different card)
4x Rough Seas Banshee (Crit) Consistency buff in an already consistent build
4x Cody the Ghostie (Crit) MORE FREE CARDS
4x Performing Zombie (Stand) - On call, look at top 10, mill 1. Turns into a 7k pretty easily.
4x Vanilla crits
4x Greedy Mimic (9k attacker)
4x Skeleton Assault Soldier (turns into a 5k shield in the bind zone instead of being a generic sacrifice, thus, you plus when sacking it)
4x Witch Doctor of the Seven Seas, Raistutor (Primary Vanguard. Can set up another row with its effect, then be sacked to call Nightcrow.)
4x Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow (Sack any unit, call this from drop. Free row fixer. Bae.)
3x Evil Shade (Making those numbers with your Vanguard)
4x Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel (Discards the grade 2's and 3's you won't be using otherwise, and also puts your grade 1's and 0's into the drop zone so you can both call itself from drop and have them where you need them to be so they can activate their effects. Gets HUUUGE with enough memes)
4x Seven Seas Master Swordsman, Slash Shade (11k call from drop when your Vanguard attacks? Works on grade 1? YES PLEASE!)
2x Seven Seas Sage, Plegeton (Can be ridden from drop zone without needing a discard. You can go straight into a stride if you have enough grade in hand to try and push for game when you're ready for that.)
GZONE - Whatever you want that works on GB1. Probably the Nightmist stride. Maybe Rum if you're out of counterblasts? Obadiah is another option. No GGuards because heals are for the weak.)
After reviewing the cards, it may not be apparent at first, so I'll make it abundantly clear. All of your grade 2's can be called from the drop zone while you are on grade 1. One does so by filtering out cards that you either want in your drop zone or can't use. The other works by sacking a grade 1 or greater unit and comes in at 11k mid battle phase. This means you can attack up to 5 times with this deck, all for 11k or more. That's the real crux of this deck, death by a million cuts, wearing them down with a standard rush going into a much stronger mid-game rush. It's essentially what Tachikaze Rush wants to be with infinitely more consistency.
Let's go into my current rating for the deck's statistics.
Consistency - 9.5/10
Power - 9/10
Reach - 8/10
Rescalability -10/10
Recoverability - 10/10
Survivability - 6.5/10
Denial - 7.5/10
Let's explain why I gave these ratings, and what some of these mean.
Consistency is self-explanitory. This deck works if you ride any Seven Seas grade 1. It has numerous targets that help fill up the drop zone with your key cards, and can chain insane effects to get your board and drop zone set-up exactly how you want it to be. Even if you miss your ride, you have enough advantage to just reride later. Nightspinel also works just fine even without a Seven Seas Vanguard, and the first turn is typically set-up from hand instead of drop anyway, so you aren't even severely punished for missing the correct ride early.
Power is pretty easy to understand, too. How strong is the deck. Opening with 10k+ to guard from every row turn 1, sometimes 15k to guard or more if you open the nuts, can be devastatingly difficult to deal with. Especially when this deck transitions so well into reach. It doesn't have the row consistency of say, Seeker Rush, but its obscene mid-game and potential game ending power more than compensates for it.
Reach is the ability to close out games. It's how well you can finish off an opponent when you're pushing for the win. This deck can attack up to 5 times all requiring 5-15k guard, making sentinels essentially ineffective for your opponent, and destroying their hand size. This is only an 8 because if you want to see a 10/10, imagine a Diablo stride when the opponent has no rear guards. You're dead, Jim.
Rescalability is the ability to fix your rows if you have to field weaker units. There's no doubts here that this deck is rescalability incarnate. You can call your size 0 from the drop zone for free, mill 4, then turn it into a 7k unit. Have a Seven Seas in hand? You can swap it out for Nightspinel. Have a grade 1 Skeleton in your hand that you don't want to stay on your board? Call it, boost it, and swing with it, then turn it into a Slash Shade (getting 5k free shield, too!). Turning one dude into the next dude isn't difficult, and even calling over existing units on the board doesn't impact your card advantage too negatively when you can get free calls every turn that also increase your toolbox.
Recoverability is the ability to recover from mass card disadvantage. I will just give you an example of what this deck can REALLY do. Let's say you got boardwiped COMPLETELY. You also had to discard EVERY CARD IN YOUR HAND. And then you draw a GRADE 3 you can't field or ride on grade 1. You can STILL GET A FULL BOARD FROM ONE UNUSABLE CARD IN HAND. How, you ask? Well, you have MULTIPLE WAYS. Any combination of four Nightrunners or Cody the Ghosties can fill four spaces from your drop. Then, discard your Plegeton to call Nightspinel. After that, sack your remaining board into four Nightcrow. Now you have 14/14/24k rows. Attack with the 14k RG row first. Attack with VG, sack Nightcrow for Slash Shade. Now you get a potential trigger, an 11k attack, and a 26k attack. FROM ONE CARD IN HAND AND NO UNITS ON THE BOARD. HNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHH. Sure, it cost between milling 16 cards and 1 counterblast to milling 4 cards and 4 counterblasts, but the option to recover on this level is INSANE.
Survivability is of course the ability for a deck to not die. This deck is actually way easier to kill if you swing face than most other rush decks. It literally can't run quintet walls because it will deck out. It also doesn't have hand advantage for normal sentinels. It doesn't have a happy medium defensive card outside of Skeleton Assault Soldier. That being said, you still have a good chunk of 10k shields to work with, and you have the advantage of shutting down many spooky, scary things that might kek you. That being said, if you face consistent 17k+ rows early or anything that can get bonus crit without needing Generation Break, you could be in for a world of hurt.
Denial is the ability to shut down the opponent's strategy. Naturally, with many decks wanting to stride, by playing this deck, you can deny them in that aspect. The denial here isn't as hard as it may have been previously, due to many decks opting to have an early game instead of building for late game. It is still a powerful facet to this deck and gives it an edge over decks that can't transition into a strong early game, like Gear Chronicle.
As with every deck in the game, it has favorable match-ups and unfavorable match-ups. Let's list out my observations for this.
Wall decks - These decks simply can't get enough cards to weather that many attacks. Especially since most reliable wall decks have a legion or stride engine to fuel themselves.
Retirement focused decks - Perditions aren't going to have a good time when you can poop out a field from your drop zone with no hand investment, then can rescale the board.
Anyone that thinks swinging into RG's is a good idea that isn't playing Chaos Breaker.
Seeker Rush - 17k rows with insane consistency and counter-rushing are the banes of this deck. While this deck is better than Seeker Rush, it still loses the face-off due to these factors.
Season 3 Decks - While you can recover your board easily, facing down 22k multi-crit Vanguard swings is devastating for this deck. Minerva can out-pressure the deck if it hits a critical on the first drive check. DDD"R" can force high numbers against it. All of these archetype decks also get 12k attackers, which are strong against 7k base Vanguards.
Sacking Triggers - I mean, it's Vanguard. I haven't lost a match yet that wasn't to Chaos Breaker Dragon that they didn't heal more than twice on. But when I'm playing to 9 damage, it's a bit hard to win.
Due to how the deck intrinsically functions, it actually does well against or breaks even with decks like Sanc Blaster and Nociel, decks that were outperforming the other rush decks in face-offs.
This is all my initial analysis. I will probably be making a video for it with some gameplay features in the near future (still waiting on the singles to get here). My current analysis is this: This is the strongest grade 1 rush deck, one of the best decks in the current format (since many of the counter decks are very sparse in the current meta, unlike the other rush decks' counters of literally the metagame sans Gear Chronicle), and it will have a large impact on the metagame because many people are boarding the hype train for this deck. Expect to see it in regionals over the next few months, especially since it has already topped. I will update this as more information and testing is revealed.
This decklist originated in Japan and quickly made its way over here after it topped. I hadn't seen the spoilers for the set 8 cards involved by time this happened, so I am not the originator for this deck. All credit to the guy who came up with the base idea. I did make improvements on the base list to make it stronger, but then I was told after the fact that it may not have been the base list. Regardless, I especially love that the Vanguard community is proving to me that it can continue to be thorough, innovative, and talented in deckbuilding unique decks without my help. The community has grown and improved in so many ways over 2 and 4 years ago that I can't help but feel like I'm a bit obsolete.
That being said, this is something right up my alley, and I can explain how this beast of a deck works in a way that anyone can understand. I want to preface this by saying that this list has 8 grade 2's and 2 grade 3's. It can ride up at pretty much any point it wants to. But, without GGuardians or Heals, you typically won't want to unless the stride will give you game. That being said, your opponents can't Sebreeze you on your grade 2 ride, so you always have that advantage of safely negating stride and generation break outside of Twitterun plays. Here's the list.
Starter - Rookie Pirate, Gina (Discard a grade 2 or 3 you can't normal call and scry and draw)
4x Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner (bae, FREE CARDS FOR FREE, turns into a different card)
4x Rough Seas Banshee (Crit) Consistency buff in an already consistent build
4x Cody the Ghostie (Crit) MORE FREE CARDS
4x Performing Zombie (Stand) - On call, look at top 10, mill 1. Turns into a 7k pretty easily.
4x Vanilla crits
4x Greedy Mimic (9k attacker)
4x Skeleton Assault Soldier (turns into a 5k shield in the bind zone instead of being a generic sacrifice, thus, you plus when sacking it)
4x Witch Doctor of the Seven Seas, Raistutor (Primary Vanguard. Can set up another row with its effect, then be sacked to call Nightcrow.)
4x Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow (Sack any unit, call this from drop. Free row fixer. Bae.)
3x Evil Shade (Making those numbers with your Vanguard)
4x Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel (Discards the grade 2's and 3's you won't be using otherwise, and also puts your grade 1's and 0's into the drop zone so you can both call itself from drop and have them where you need them to be so they can activate their effects. Gets HUUUGE with enough memes)
4x Seven Seas Master Swordsman, Slash Shade (11k call from drop when your Vanguard attacks? Works on grade 1? YES PLEASE!)
2x Seven Seas Sage, Plegeton (Can be ridden from drop zone without needing a discard. You can go straight into a stride if you have enough grade in hand to try and push for game when you're ready for that.)
GZONE - Whatever you want that works on GB1. Probably the Nightmist stride. Maybe Rum if you're out of counterblasts? Obadiah is another option. No GGuards because heals are for the weak.)
After reviewing the cards, it may not be apparent at first, so I'll make it abundantly clear. All of your grade 2's can be called from the drop zone while you are on grade 1. One does so by filtering out cards that you either want in your drop zone or can't use. The other works by sacking a grade 1 or greater unit and comes in at 11k mid battle phase. This means you can attack up to 5 times with this deck, all for 11k or more. That's the real crux of this deck, death by a million cuts, wearing them down with a standard rush going into a much stronger mid-game rush. It's essentially what Tachikaze Rush wants to be with infinitely more consistency.
Let's go into my current rating for the deck's statistics.
Consistency - 9.5/10
Power - 9/10
Reach - 8/10
Rescalability -10/10
Recoverability - 10/10
Survivability - 6.5/10
Denial - 7.5/10
Let's explain why I gave these ratings, and what some of these mean.
Consistency is self-explanitory. This deck works if you ride any Seven Seas grade 1. It has numerous targets that help fill up the drop zone with your key cards, and can chain insane effects to get your board and drop zone set-up exactly how you want it to be. Even if you miss your ride, you have enough advantage to just reride later. Nightspinel also works just fine even without a Seven Seas Vanguard, and the first turn is typically set-up from hand instead of drop anyway, so you aren't even severely punished for missing the correct ride early.
Power is pretty easy to understand, too. How strong is the deck. Opening with 10k+ to guard from every row turn 1, sometimes 15k to guard or more if you open the nuts, can be devastatingly difficult to deal with. Especially when this deck transitions so well into reach. It doesn't have the row consistency of say, Seeker Rush, but its obscene mid-game and potential game ending power more than compensates for it.
Reach is the ability to close out games. It's how well you can finish off an opponent when you're pushing for the win. This deck can attack up to 5 times all requiring 5-15k guard, making sentinels essentially ineffective for your opponent, and destroying their hand size. This is only an 8 because if you want to see a 10/10, imagine a Diablo stride when the opponent has no rear guards. You're dead, Jim.
Rescalability is the ability to fix your rows if you have to field weaker units. There's no doubts here that this deck is rescalability incarnate. You can call your size 0 from the drop zone for free, mill 4, then turn it into a 7k unit. Have a Seven Seas in hand? You can swap it out for Nightspinel. Have a grade 1 Skeleton in your hand that you don't want to stay on your board? Call it, boost it, and swing with it, then turn it into a Slash Shade (getting 5k free shield, too!). Turning one dude into the next dude isn't difficult, and even calling over existing units on the board doesn't impact your card advantage too negatively when you can get free calls every turn that also increase your toolbox.
Recoverability is the ability to recover from mass card disadvantage. I will just give you an example of what this deck can REALLY do. Let's say you got boardwiped COMPLETELY. You also had to discard EVERY CARD IN YOUR HAND. And then you draw a GRADE 3 you can't field or ride on grade 1. You can STILL GET A FULL BOARD FROM ONE UNUSABLE CARD IN HAND. How, you ask? Well, you have MULTIPLE WAYS. Any combination of four Nightrunners or Cody the Ghosties can fill four spaces from your drop. Then, discard your Plegeton to call Nightspinel. After that, sack your remaining board into four Nightcrow. Now you have 14/14/24k rows. Attack with the 14k RG row first. Attack with VG, sack Nightcrow for Slash Shade. Now you get a potential trigger, an 11k attack, and a 26k attack. FROM ONE CARD IN HAND AND NO UNITS ON THE BOARD. HNNNNNGGGGGHHHHHH. Sure, it cost between milling 16 cards and 1 counterblast to milling 4 cards and 4 counterblasts, but the option to recover on this level is INSANE.
Survivability is of course the ability for a deck to not die. This deck is actually way easier to kill if you swing face than most other rush decks. It literally can't run quintet walls because it will deck out. It also doesn't have hand advantage for normal sentinels. It doesn't have a happy medium defensive card outside of Skeleton Assault Soldier. That being said, you still have a good chunk of 10k shields to work with, and you have the advantage of shutting down many spooky, scary things that might kek you. That being said, if you face consistent 17k+ rows early or anything that can get bonus crit without needing Generation Break, you could be in for a world of hurt.
Denial is the ability to shut down the opponent's strategy. Naturally, with many decks wanting to stride, by playing this deck, you can deny them in that aspect. The denial here isn't as hard as it may have been previously, due to many decks opting to have an early game instead of building for late game. It is still a powerful facet to this deck and gives it an edge over decks that can't transition into a strong early game, like Gear Chronicle.
As with every deck in the game, it has favorable match-ups and unfavorable match-ups. Let's list out my observations for this.
Favorable Match-ups
Generation Break locked decks - These decks can't use their primary facets, are much slower, and can't impede upon the deck's strategy.Wall decks - These decks simply can't get enough cards to weather that many attacks. Especially since most reliable wall decks have a legion or stride engine to fuel themselves.
Retirement focused decks - Perditions aren't going to have a good time when you can poop out a field from your drop zone with no hand investment, then can rescale the board.
Anyone that thinks swinging into RG's is a good idea that isn't playing Chaos Breaker.
Unfavorable Match-ups
Chaos Breaker Dragon - Poops on every rush deck. We also don't have the ability to choose to hollow any front row outside of with Raistutor or Skeleton. Even if we do, we can't Slash Shade in addition to that. This is one of the match-ups I may consider riding up. I'm not 100% sure if that's the best idea yet, but I'm going to play around with it some more in testing.Seeker Rush - 17k rows with insane consistency and counter-rushing are the banes of this deck. While this deck is better than Seeker Rush, it still loses the face-off due to these factors.
Season 3 Decks - While you can recover your board easily, facing down 22k multi-crit Vanguard swings is devastating for this deck. Minerva can out-pressure the deck if it hits a critical on the first drive check. DDD"R" can force high numbers against it. All of these archetype decks also get 12k attackers, which are strong against 7k base Vanguards.
Sacking Triggers - I mean, it's Vanguard. I haven't lost a match yet that wasn't to Chaos Breaker Dragon that they didn't heal more than twice on. But when I'm playing to 9 damage, it's a bit hard to win.
Due to how the deck intrinsically functions, it actually does well against or breaks even with decks like Sanc Blaster and Nociel, decks that were outperforming the other rush decks in face-offs.
This is all my initial analysis. I will probably be making a video for it with some gameplay features in the near future (still waiting on the singles to get here). My current analysis is this: This is the strongest grade 1 rush deck, one of the best decks in the current format (since many of the counter decks are very sparse in the current meta, unlike the other rush decks' counters of literally the metagame sans Gear Chronicle), and it will have a large impact on the metagame because many people are boarding the hype train for this deck. Expect to see it in regionals over the next few months, especially since it has already topped. I will update this as more information and testing is revealed.
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