Card of the Week: December 27th

Oh boy, its been a while since I've made a post. I don't have any particular excuse aside from Fallout 4 being so enthralling, and Christmas being a family time and all that nonsense. Anyway, in the spirit  of the holidays and as a pseudo-apology for skipping a week or two, I'm going to double down in this article and do 2 cards. Incidentally, they combo out with each other and they're 2 cards I've been waiting for since the game came out. First up:

Absolute King, Gluttony Dogma

[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them]Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.

[AUTO](VC/RC):Engorge[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 2:[Choose a face down card named "Absolute King, Gluttony Dogma" from your G zone, and turn it face up] When this unit becomes engorged, if you retired three or more units during this turn due to the effect of this unit's engorge ability, you may pay the cost. If you do, until end of turn, this unit gets [Power]+10000, and "[AUTO](VC)[1/Turn]:At the end of the battle that this unit attacked, if you retired five or more units during this turn due to the effect of this unit's engorge ability, [Stand] this unit, and this unit gets drive-1 until end of turn.".

First up is Tachikaze's finisher unit from the Technical Booster. Oh boy is this thing a can of worms. First off, he has their new keyword "Engorge," which is a state a unit may become by retiring 1 or more other Rear Guards. As with most keywords, its just a way for Bushi to shorten the redundant card text most Tachikaze had telling you to Retire X, and if you do, do something. Plus, it just sounds baller. I personally liked the "Raging Devourer" translation, but "Engorge" sounds a little less try-hard and is a little smoother to say.

Getting into the meat of his skill, we have a 2-stage effect, which triggers depending on the number of cards you ate in order to become Engorged. If you ate 3, you flip a copy of him in order to give him 10,000 Power, making him a 36,000 Power beatstick with Triple Drive, and the ability to trigger any on-retire skills. If you eat 5 Rear Guards however (i.e. your entire field), he will restand with 1 less drive check. That's a whopping 5 drive checks in total, without even touching your hand. To top it all off, he is entirely counterblast free, meaning you're free to spend your resources on anything else in the deck to help mitigate his cost, or just make different plays entirely. This guy is incredibly flexible and can turn the crappiest of fields or hands into a 36,000 Power, 5-Drive Checking monstrosity. I can't think of a single other restander in the game that actually increases your hand size. Granted, its at the cost of your entire field, but that's why we have this guy:

Emperor Dragon, Gaiaemperor

[AUTO](VC/RC):Engorge (When this unit attacks, you may retire one or more of your other rear-guards. If you do, it is engorged until end of turn)
[CONT](VC) Generation Break 2:If this unit is engorged, this unit gets [Power]+5000/[Critical]+1.
[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (1)] During your turn, when your G unit Stride, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to two cards from your hand, call them to separate (RC), choose up to two of your rear-guards, and until end of turn, they get "[AUTO]:During your turn, when this unit is put into the drop zone from (RC), call this card to (RC).".

The on-stride unit (Or Breakstride, Stride Bearer, whatever terminology you prefer) for Tachikaze who, like much of the rest of the clan, was named by Bushiroad's Redundancy Department of Redundancy. Setting the repetitive name aside, his skill is actually a god-send for the clan. His Generation Break 2 is a standard "Gain 5,000 and a Critical for a cost/condition" that most of the old stride bearers had, and it would have been nice to get something creative and maybe defensive, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose. His on-stride skill more than makes up for the lackluster GB2, though.

For counterblast 1, he can take any 2 units on your field and allow them to revive themselves whenever they get retired. This completely removes the need for units like Iguranogorg or Skyptero, who were imperative to have on the field for the deck to do anything. What's more, he can now take any unit with an on-retire skill (Like Beamptero or Slashptero) and let you trigger them, then bring them back to be triggered again. What's more, he has the same clause as Altmile that allows him to call units THEN distribute the skill, so early control or inability to call an early field can't even stop this guy. 

Now, for the climax of the article, imagine putting these two cards together. Remember how Dogma's retire 5 cost was pretty hefty? Well, Gaia essentially turns it into Retire 3 and stand a column. How potent is that!? If you have a full field, with standard powerlines, your final turn attack pattern will look like: 16,000 -> 16,000 -> 36,000 -> 36,000 -> 16,000 + Triggers. Not to mention any skills that would have been triggered by Dogma's engorgement. Having already playtested this deck, I can tell you on good authority that this combo is utterly stupid. What's more, if you take the starter into account, you can easily have 3 units on the field after Dogma's second attack, meaning you can get a third Vanguard attack by using Dark Rex. Tachikaze have gone from sleeper Tier 1.5 deck to flat-out Tier 1 in a matter of 3 cards, and there's only more to come! Bushi has definitely made Tachikaze a "technical" clan with this booster, and I couldn't be happier.

Card of the Week: December 5th

Hello loyal readers! Despite the onset of finals week and the ever-growing pressure to devote my time to studying, I have broken through and delivered yet another week of Card of the Week. So without too much of a sob story, I present to you:

Wings of Annihilation, Blade Wing Tibold

[Stride] (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them]Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (VC), If you have a heart card with "Blade Wing" in its card name, return all the cards from your drop zone to your deck, and shuffle your deck. Then, if the number of cards in your soul is fifteen or more, until end of turn, this unit gets "[CONT](VC):All of your rear-guards in the front row gets [Power]+10000.", and if not, Soul Charge (5).

Oh boy is this guy really something. I know we got a lot of Monthly Bushiroad spoilers earlier today, but honestly I'm much more excited about this guy than any of those cards. Not only does he support an all-time favorite clan of mine (Dark Irregulars), he also breaths new light into Blade Wing Reijy, and old and decrepit card from Set 7 that didn't even see play when he was released. With the onset of FC2015 Winter, however, he has become his own deck type. Aside from Tibold, Dark Irregulars also got Blade Wing Sullivan who, having been one of the very first Fighter's Collection reveals, was drastically underwhelming. Tibold, however, fixed all of his issues.

First off, he is a deck refresher. Genesis originally got a card like this in the form of Dreaming Dragon and it was a god-send to the clan. Not only did it remedy the issue of the clan decking out from all of its soul charging, it also added a layer of skill by making it so your choices of soul blasting actually mattered, since they were going to end up back in the deck. Tibold adds all of this to Dark Irregulars, but more consistently, as a stride is much more available than a 4-of in your deck.

The rest of his skill follows the Dark Irregular motif of "X soul yields this effect, Y soul yields this effect." If you have 15 soul (the clan's go-to threshold), then your front row Rear Guards get 10,000 Power. This is incredible with stand triggers (which he can put back into the deck), and is essentially a free Conquest Dragon... that can be used 4 times.


If you don't have 15 soul, which is very likely, then you simply Soul Charge 5. Yes. five. Haven't hit the threshold yet? Ok, here's a third of it. Sadly he doesn't combo with Doreen, since these soul charges happen during the Stride Phase rather than the Main Phase, but he doesn't need to. This skill not only turbo's through your soul to hit the 15 threshold (for both himself and Gilles de Rais), but he also combo's with Blade Wing Sullivan. If Sullivan is your Vanguard and you have 15 soul or more, all of your guards gain 10,000 shield. This means a single trigger will 1-pass an unboosted Stride. How incredible is that? The downside is you have to Soul Blast 2 after he's attacked while this skill is active, which usually means 1 or 2 turns (at most) of its use before you deck out. But with Tibold, you can continuously refresh your deck and soul to turn it into a grind game. And if you soul blast your triggers for Sullivan? They just go right back into the deck with Tibold. Just look at his art; He's already laughing at your opponent for even trying to oppose him.

Tibold is great at all stages of the game. And, since he isn't GB-anything restricted, he can be your first stride. You can use him to spike your soul count in a pinch (as opposed to Kisskill Lira, who has to hit and can be blocked), to pump up your Rear Guards, or to prevent deck out late-game. One of the biggest issues Dark Irregulars had with their newest support is that they only had 1 or 2 turns of sitting at 15 soul before they decked out, meaning they only had 1 (2 turns if you're lucky) of being able to use Gilles de Rais. If an opponent wasn't at 3 damage (4 for the insta-kill), Gilles wasn't actually pressuring them too much. Especially if you soul charged a lot of your triggers and knew you weren't going to hit them. There was nothing worse than staring down a 2-damage opponent knowing you only had 1 turn left in you. However, Tibold remedies that by letting you drag the mid-game out as long as you need to before going in for the kill. He is the perfect disciple to the unholy Lord Gilles.

Card of the Week: November 27th

First off, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I know it happened yesterday, but between family and school work, I didn't have the time or energy to put up a special article (Yes, I had work over break >.>). But anyway, here's this week's Card of the Week:

Destruction Tyrant, Hellrex Maxima

[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them]Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Choose one of your rear-guards, and retire it] If you have a heart card with "Rex" in its card name, search your deck for up to one card with "Rex" in its card name, bind it face up, and shuffle your deck. If you bind a card, choose up to three units in your front row, and they get [Power]+4000 until end of turn.

If there was any doubt that this would be the card of the day, you don't know me well enough. With Tachikaze being my main clan, and this week revealing our 2 Fighter's Collection cards, I knew what today's article was going to look like. And honestly, when Squall Rex got revealed I was nearly heartbroken. After seeing the Nightmist and Infinite Zero Dragon support, I was super pumped for Spinodriver support, since the theme looked like this set would focus on Break Rides and Season 3 stuff. When I saw it was going to be "Rex" support, and the non-stride unit was a crappy G3, I was devastated. I still held out hope that the stride would redeem it, and boy was I shocked. Hellrex is a monstrosity.

Being restricted to a "Rex" heart, this guy is primarily going to work with Dark Rex, Deathrex, and Squall Rex. There are other "Rex" G3 units (Battlerex and Gigarex), but they're utter garbage. For a mere retire 1 cost, he'll bind 1 Rex from your deck and give your front row 4,000 Power. Binding from deck is incredibly powerful, since its an on-demand setup for Dark Rex or Squall Rex. The front row boost might not seem like much at first glance, since 4,000 to a 16,000 column is only 20,000, which doesn't break any numbers. However, it will allow an unboosted attacked to hit a Vanguard, and that isn't taking into account binding Dark Rex or Squall Rex from your hand, who are each another 3,000 boost. Since the lineup for Generic Tachikaze is really vanilla and lackluster (until we get our G-support in the Tactical Booster), you're going to be using a lot of the 10,000 and 8,000 vanillas. Sonic Noa (the 8,000) behind any Grade 2 makes 17,000, which actually breaks numbers with the boost. 10,000 Vanilla's with 7,000 boosters also break the 21,000 mark with this boost. What's even better is that one of the Grade 2 vanilla's, Megarex, is a "Rex" you can bind for this guy's effect, if you run out of your G3s for some reason. Something that may also be overlooked is that a 4,000 boost to himself means he won't suffer from being 25,000 Power if you stride him over Death or Dark Rex.

This guy's ability to be the first stride is astounding. It makes up for the crappy mid game the "Rex" deck has, and the power boost allows you to shove your opponent to high damage early. Then, with the ability to grab Dark Rex from the deck, he sets up for his own finishing turn. I wasn't expecting much from this guy, but he definitely delivered, and he's only going to get better when the Tactical Booster drops.

Card of the Week: November 20th

Helldeity Seal Dragon, Crossorigin

[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them]Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card from your G zone, and turn it face up] If you have a heart card with "Seal Dragon" in its card name, for each face up card named "Helldeity Seal Dragon, Crossorigin" in your G zone choose up to one of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire it. Your opponent reveals four cards from the top of his or her deck, and chooses a grade 2 card from among them for each unit put into the drop zone with this effect. Your opponent calls the chosen cards to separate open (RC), and shuffles his or her deck. If your opponent has two or more grade 2 rear-guards, this unit gets [Critical]+1 until end of turn.

Today's Card of the Week is the Stride unit from Fighter's Collection 2015 Winter, supporting the "Seal Dragon" deck. First off, I just want to state that I hate the name translation. The original translation, "Clothorigin," sounded a lot less try-hard, and kept with the Seal Dragon theme of being named after different types of fabrics. But aside from that, the skill isn't half bad.

Cost-wise, CB1 and a persona flip isn't hefty. Seal Dragons are a little on the CB-heavy side of things, but that could possibly change when their 2nd Fighter's Collection unit gets revealed, or maybe their playstyle will change up with the addition of this bad boy. Its also interesting to note that he doesn't necessarily require you to flip a copy of himself for his cost, but the rest of the skill essentially does.

For each copy of himself face-up in the G-zone, you retire 1 of the opponent's units. So, if he's your first stride, it would be in your best interest to flip a copy of himself, otherwise the skill just won't go off. You can end up using this guy twice, and flip a copy of himself both times for a total of 1 then 3 retires (4 in all), or use him 3 times and flip something else over the 2nd and 3rd time you stride him. That would give you 1 retire, 2 retires, then 3 retires for a total of 6 over the course of 3 turns. Generally, unless you're playing against a really grindy deck, you won't be striding that much, and it certainly won't be into this guy.

The kicker is that, after retiring these units, your opponent reveals the top 4 cards of their deck and calls Grade 2's to replace their now-empty field. The interesting thing about this skill is that, unlike the other Seal Dragon cards, his call is mandatory, so the opponent can't screw you over by not calling new Grade 2's.

But wait, "How would that screw you over?" you ask? Well, Seal Dragons have a few cards that work off of the number of Grade 2's on the opponent's side of the field. The 3rd part of this guy's skill is one such effect. Just like Georgette, if the number of Grade 2's the opponent has is 2 or more, he'll get a critical. That's scary. First off, extra criticals on first strides are incredible. If you went second, and thus were able to stride first, then you're attacking the opponent with a 2-crit monstrosity they more than likely won't be able to guard. Pushing them to 5 damage from your Vanguard attack alone is a very high possibility here. And if they do somehow manage to guard you? They've either wasted a Perfect Guard (and dropped a key combo piece or something else useful to pay its cost), or they've used up just about all the guard in their hand. Either way its a win-win for you, since you've forced a lot of cards out early, and that just gives them a really weak mid and late game.

Other skills that scale off of the opponent's Grade 2-count are Georgette or Inferno Blockade (in case you can't stride the following turn), Tarapaulin Dracokid, and Gaiserge. So Crossorigin screwing with their field scaling (I hear they like having G2 Vanguard boosters) on top of loading up the skills for the other units, makes him one Well-Rounded Randy.

Card of the Week: November 15th

Destruction Tyrant, Twin Tempest

[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them]Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 2:[Counter Blast (2) & Soul Blast (2) & Choose three of your rear-guards, and retire them] At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, retire all of each player's rear-guards.

Since Tachikaze is my main squeeze, this week's Card of the Week is going to be focusing in on the first stride we've seen from the upcoming Tactical Booster: RECKLESS RAMPAGE. Supposedly this card is a Generation Rare (One of three in the set), and for a GR, I can't say I'm disappointed in it. So, without further ado, lets dive into its skill.

For a fairly hefty cost, this guy is a field nuke. 2 Counterblasts, 2 Soul Blasts, and 3 retires to kill anything left on the field. Under prime conditions, your opponent will have a full field and you will have 3 units on your side (since anything else would just be an unnecessary minus to yourself). Looking at the cost, the 3 retires of your own will account for 3 of the 5 units you're retiring on your opponent's field. The remaining 2 units should be covered by the SB2/CB2 cost, but honestly that's over-pricing it. In the current game, 1 CB = 1 card, and 1 CB ~ 1.5 Soul Blasts. So, this guy has what is essentially an unnecessary Soul Blast 2 cost on him, making him over-costed for what was already a fairly mediocre skill. On top of that, anything that counterblasts in a Tachikaze deck is immediately a giant red flag, since most/all of your CBs should be going to your Rear Guards in order to keep recycling them. Not to mention he has the GB2 restriction, which should in theory make up for some of the cost he would otherwise have.

That being said, we haven't seen any of the new G-support, which could very well make this guy work wonders. If we get ways to recycle Rear Guards without using counterblasts or soul blasts, this guy could easily become usable. But until then, this guy is nothing more than a 1-of in your G-zone just for the rare situations where he may be usable, and because I'm tired of looking at only Archraider and Pearly Titan.

Card of the Week: November 9th

And the countdown begins! G Booster 5: Moonlit Dragonfang drops November 13th in Japan, and we're on the final few days before its release. The majority of the set has been spoiled, but we have yet to see the skill for Dragon Masquerade Tamer, Harry, as well as a few RRs. Not to mention the majority of the commons are still unaccounted for. The RRR lineup for the set has been largely disappointing, and there's quite a large disparity in usefulness among them, so the last hope of this set is for some amazing Rs and Cs (which, honestly, is very plausible). But for Today's Card of the Week, I'll be honing in on last night's big reveal, the last RRR:

Death Star-Vader, Chaos Universe 

[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them]Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card named "Death Star-vader, Chaos Universe" from your G zone, and turn it face up] If you have a heart card with "Chaos" in its card name, choose up to one of your opponent's (RC) without a card, your opponent chooses a card from his or her hand, and puts it into that (RC) face down as a locked card. If the number of face up cards in your G zone is two or more, choose one of your opponent's rear-guards, and lock it.

The stride meant to revive "Chaos Breaker Dragon" that people have been on the edge of their seats waiting on since it was announced. Chaos Breaker was a plague back when it was first released, and very few people wanted to see it revitalized and have to experience that PTSD. However, Bushi did a very good job designing this monster.

Chaos Universe is one of those 2-stage strides, one that is usable as your initial stride, but has more benefits when used as your 2nd or more. His first-tier ability, which also requires a "Chaos" heart, is also his most intriguing one. You pick any unoccupied rear guard circle and force your opponent to lock a card there. What's most interesting about this is that, unlike similar cards like Cold Death Dragon or Omega Loop, the card doesn't not come from the top of their deck, but from their hand. While this may not seem like much, there are implications that make it one of Link Joker's best abilities thus far:


First of all, this is directly forcing cards out of the opponent's hand, and puts them in an awkward position. If they have a crappy hand, this will force them to call triggers or perfect guards. Or it may make them call attackers or boosters with on-call effects that they wanted to save for later. If they put down a good chunk of their hand early and rushed you, then they probably won't have many units in their hand that they want on the field once you're able to use this ability. It can really put a damper on their strategy.

But the biggest asset this skill has is that its a premature lock. The greatest weakness control abilities (retire, stun, lock, etc) have is that they can't do anything until after a unit has been called. You want to retire/lock a Tidal Assault? Ok, but Aqua Force has to call it first, meaning you've already been rushed or they've already triggered their 4th attack skills for a turn. You can't lock or retire it until its already done its damage and they don't care about it anymore. Or, as is more commonly the case, the opponent will just wait and not field anything until they want to make their huge push turn (i.e. a Lambros or Victoplasma turn), and since control decks don't have many ways of generating their own advantage, they'll likely take a huge hit from that.

However, Chaos Universe allows you to prevent those turns/plays from happening. Locking an Aqua Force player's front row before their Lambros turn means they can't leave their field open, free from your control, until they're ready to win. They won't be able to Lambros you the next turn since their front row is locked, and since you've forced a unit there, you'll be able to lock it the next turn and keep them in check. Chaos Universe adds the much-needed speed to lock that its been lacking to keep up with the meta.


The second part of the skill isn't much to write home about, at least from a design standpoint. It just gives you more bang for your buck. Locking a card from the opponent's hand is cool and all, but Counterblast 1 and a persona flip is a bit costly for that. 2 locks for that, however, is muy bueno. This card essentially does the same thing as Big Crunch: CB1 and Persona Flip at GB2 to lock 2 cards. The difference is that Big Crunch locks 1 column for 2 turns, while Chaos Universe locks down 2 columns (assuming you use your 2 locks on the front rows) for 1 turn. It should also be noted that Chaos Universe's first skill requires the opponent to have at least 1 open rear guard circle, so its pointless against a full field.

All-in-all, this was a really well-designed card. It expanded current game mechanics without breaking them, fixed a large weakness in the deck is was made to support, and isn't over powered or under costed for what it does. Star Vaders still suffer from not having a viable finisher unit, but grind decks aren't entirely extinct yet, so it'll be interesting to see how this card affects the meta.

Too Many Clans, Not Enough Clansmen

The fact that there's too many clans in the game is nothing new. As of now, there are 25 clans in the game, 26 if you count Cray Elementals (which I won't). On top of all the original clans introduced in the sets coinciding with season 1 of the anime (Sets 1-5), we received 4 new clans in Season 2 (Gold Paladin, Narukami, Angel Feather, and Aqua Force), 2 new clans in Season 3 (Genesis and Link Joker), and 2 new clans in Season 5 (Touken Ranbu and Gear Chronicle). So the sake of doing so (and to make this article longer), I'll provide a list of all the current clans:

• Royal Paladin
• Gold Paladin
• Shadow Paladin
• Angel Feather
• Genesis
• Oracle Think Tank

• Kagero
• Narukami
• Murakumo
• Nubatama
• Tachikaze

• Dark Irregulars
• Pale Moon
• Spike Brothers
• Gear Chronicle

• Granblue
• Bermuda Triangle
• Aqua Force

• Neo Nectar
• Great Nature
• Megacolony

• Nova Grappler
• Dimension Police
• Link Joker

• Touken Ranbu

As of now, the game has received a total of 22 Booster Sets, 21 Trial Decks, and 17 Extra/Clan Booster Sets. With 5 Seasons of support, that boils down to about 4 Booster Sets, 5 Trial Decks, and 3 Extra Boosters per season. That means each season, there are 12 outlets to give support to the 25 clans in the game. Since Extra Boosters (Which have basically been replaced by Clan Boosters) generally only support 1 clan, its up to the Trial Decks and Main Boosters to support 22 clans, divided amongst 9 possible forms of distribution. It doesn't help that Trial Decks are rarely stand alone, and requiring actual set space in order to flesh out the support for their clans. I do this on a season-by-season basis because, if a clan doesn't receive support each season, it essentially becomes unplayable until the next cycle, given the game's format of "New Mechanic each season".

Now that we've seen the amount of support each season isn't enough to sustain a game full of 25 clans, each vying for space in those sets, how should Bushi go about fixing this? One solution would be to simply release more sets each season, but all that would really do is increase the amount of time between the periods where any singular clan would receive support. Plus, if the support a clan/deck gets for that set is fairly lackluster (as Bushi has a tendency to do to anything not played by a Main Character), they're doomed until the next cycle, which could be a year or more.

The more obvious (and healthy) solution would be to start eliminating clans from the game. Less clans to support means Bushi can put more man power into giving clans quality support, which would make the game much more interesting to play. Additionally, since each clan needs a way to distinguish itself from the others, Bushi become hard-pressed to find new mechanics or strategies to base clans on the more they add to the game. With fewer overall decks to have to support, they would have a lot more leniency in the kind of support each clan got each set.

Take Kagero and Narukami for example. How are they different? They're both heavily rooted in the retire mechanic. Recently, Narukami have started to gear themselves more towards binding cards (but that itself starts treading into Nubatama territory), and the only real difference between them and Kagero are that most of Narukami's cards are retire and beatdown, whereas Kagero are more retire and restand (if you're playing an "Overlord" deck). In all honesty, these two clans could be combined into a single one and the game would be no worse for the wear (Narukami only ever came to be because Bushi wanted to stop supporting Kagero, anyway). For the purpose of this article, I'll call this combined clan "Control". Gear Chronicle could be included in this as well, as their "Go to the bottom of the deck" mechanic is just an upgraded form of retire, and the rest of their clan is nothing but Silent Tom wannabe's and other forms of guard restriction, which is just cancerous to have en masse.

The same could be said for all 3 of the Paladin clans. Like Narukami, Gold Paladins only came into being because Bushiroad wanted to stop supporting Royal Paladins for a while. Recently, they've tried to distinguish Shadow and Royal paladins by forcing Shadows to almost exclusively superior call Grade 1 units, and Royals exclusively focus on Grade 2. Golds are stuck in the middle with their "Top X" mechanic, and really are just a less supported, more restricted version of these other two clans. Given the fact that Royals have 2-3 decks that operate on calling and having multiple/certain Grade 1 units, shifting them to focus to G2 was a really confusing move on Bushi's part. It would do the game a lot of good to combine them all into 1 single "Paladin" clan that just focused on superior calling, and had different deck variants that focused on different grades or different means of doing so. Shadow Paladin's theme of having bosses that feed on their own units also treads into Tachikaze's territory, so leaving the self-hunting to the Dinosaurs would give them a better sense of identity too. For the sake of whittling down the number of clans in the game even further, Neo Nectar can be put into this new clan as well, since they also focus on superior calling, but in a much more restricted manner.

There's also the age-old Nubatama and Murakumo issue. The general census is that Murakumo were originally going to be Nubatama, but Bushi decided hand control would be too powerful (And in the early stages of the game, it kind of was), but never really sat down and fleshed out Murakumo. They focus on clones, but that really just makes them a crappier version of Neo Nectar. Given the fact that, thematically, they're the exact same think as Nubatama, Bushi would be wise to just scrap Murakumo altogether and give some of their tricks to Nubatama and make a "Ninja" clan.

When Link Joker came out, everyone was ranting and raving about how the Lock mechanic was just a better version of Megacolony's stun. Which it was. Megacolony has since moved on to Vanguard stunning and cheaper stuns, to give themselves a little more identity, but VG stunning is a far too unhealthy mechanic to keep expanding upon. It would be a lot healthier to combine these two into one "Douchebag" clan.

Dark Irregulars, Genesis, and Pale Moon all share the same idea of manipulating the soul. DI focus on hoarding soul and hitting certain thresholds to activate skills, Genesis focus on amassing a large soul so they can soul blast it all for costs, and Pale Moon take the quality over quantity approach, and focus on manipulating the soul in order to toolbox from it. These different mechanics are unique enough in their own rights, but for the sake of trimming down on the clans in the game, they could all be combined into one "Soul" clan.

Nova Grapplers and Aqua Force are similar enough as well. Nova's focus more on restanding units, whereas Aqua's focus on having multiple units that are all capable of poking the opponent down, but the core of their decks are "Lets get more attacks than usual and beat the opponent down," and for that reason I feel as though they could be combined into a "Rush" clan, focused on firing off as many attacks as possible, rather than a hard advantage engine. Spike Brothers could be put in here as well, since they operate on a similar idea. Gear Chronicle and their new "Time Leap" keyword could be included in this too, but I already put them in the "Control" clan. Gears really just don't know what they want to do with themselves, which is really just a testimony of how saturated the clans are in this game.

Tachikaze and Great Nature could be combined into a "Suicide" clan, which focuses on eating your own units as costs. The two clans have a fairly different playstyle, but at the end of the day, what they aim to do is essentially the same.

Lastly, Touken Ranbu can die. They were (at least for now) just a 1 time thing that only served to make players wait longer for actual support, and didn't actually add anything to the game.

So, the new clan list, after all these changes, would be as follows:

• Paladin
• Oracle Think Tank
• Angel Feather
• Control
• Ninja
• Suicide
• Soul
• Granblue
• Bermuda Triangle
• Douchebag
• Rush
• Dimension Police

That's only 12 clans, less than half of what is currently in the game. There aren't any mechanics that have been left out of abandoned, and there would be little to no bleeding over of one clan into another clan's mechanic or focus. With 12 different means of support each season, there is more than enough space to make sure everything gets substantial, quality support each block. Clan Boosters would go to the more popular clans, likely Paladin, Control, and 1 other clan that is in the popular rotation (We'll say Rush). The remaining 9 clans would be distributed amongst 5 Trial Decks and 4 Booster Sets. That's 2 clans per Booster Set, which is way more than enough. Under these conditions, a season could/would look something like this:

January:

• Trial Deck 1: Handy Helpers, to support Oracle Think Tank
• Trial Deck 2: Now You See Me, to support Ninja

March:

• Booster Set 1: Awakening of the Divine Judgment of the Dragon Lord Elemental Wizard Gods. Supports Oracle Think Tank, Ninja, Suicide, Dimension Police, and Rush.

May:

• Clan Booster 1: Supa Hot Fiah. Supports Control.

July:

• Clan Booster 2: More Fanservice. Supports Bermuda Triangle.

September:

• Booster Set 2: Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe. Supports Angel Feather, Soul, Granblue, and Douchebag.

November:

• Clan Booster 3: Bushi's Money Ho Ho Ho's. Supports Paladin.

That's all 12 clans, in set releases staggered 2 months apart, so power creep is slowed down (compared to the once a month set release we have currently), and this system honestly leaves room for more clans. Or they could scrap their current release format altogether and release 6-10 cards per clan in each set, which guarantees that everyone will be able to get something out of every new set, while allowing Bushi to build up a certain deck idea over the course of a year. As sets are now, decks are pretty much self-contained within their sets. The entirety of the G-era Angel Feather deck was released in set 4. Sure, the deck would welcome more support, but its not like there's some big hole in their deck's strategy that needs another set to patch. The current format Bushi seems to be taking for G-era support is something like this:

Clan's initial set of support includes:

• On-stride Grade 3 boss unit
• On-hit/Initial stride
• Persona Flipping Finisher Stride
• Amber Clone
• Unflipping Perfect Guard
• Obligatory GB1 RG units.

A Clan that gets a second set of support receives the following:

• Stride version of their G3 on-stride boss
• A critical trigger for their G3 on-stride boss
• A Grade 2 Benizel clone
• A Grade 1 Pir clone

If Bushi kept a formula like this, where they released an on-stride boss and stride units for every clan in the year's first booster, then released a better RG kit for each clan in the following booster, and finally released upgraded versions of the boss units in a 3rd booster, they would have a pretty good formula going. A 4th or even 5th booster could be dedicated to "Legacy" support, which would serve the same purpose as something like Fighter's Collection to give older, mascott cards support (like their own stride forms) to make them viable in the current format.

Card of the Week: November 3

So this week's (or last week's, at this point) Card of the Week is coming to you pretty late. However, in my defense, all the possible cards kinda sucked. I like to do these articles around Friday each week, after all the Card of the Day's for the week have finished up, then choose from the most interesting/impactful of those reveals. Last week, however, was full of nothing but disappointment and basically all of the CoTDs sucked. Thankfully, Monthly Bushiroad came out over the weekend and actually gave me something to write about. So, without further ado:

Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VOLTAGE"

[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Choose a face down card named "Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VOLTAGE"" from your G zone, and turn it face up] Until end of turn, this unit gets "[AUTO](VC):When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, your opponent chooses one of his or her rear-guards, retires it, you choose up to two cards from your opponent's drop zone, and bind them face up."and "[CONT](VC) Generation Break 3:During your turn, all of the units in your front row get [Power]+3000 for each card in your opponent's bind zone.".

The upgraded stride form of Dragonic Vanquisher, Voltage follows the same nomenclature as the rest of the Dragon Empire crossrides/upgraded forms, in that it adds a title to the end of its base form's name, and shouts it at you in all caps (See: THE END, THE BLOOD, etc). Breaking away from Altmile's and Ahsha's stride forms, however, Voltage does not take the GB2 and on-stride skills of his base form. Instead, his initial skills, available for use as a first stride, is a carbon-copy of Narukami's existing on-hit stride, Zorras. He also has a GB3 skill that gives a front-row power-up.

His first skill is, quite bluntly, horrible. It is a word-for-word copy of Zorras, but requires you to perform a persona flip in order to gain the skill. The cost in balanced, since it also accounts for his GB3 skill, but in the context of being a first stride, Zorras does the exact same thing without the need to flip anything. Unless you really want Vanquisher's GB2 skill activate immediately (for whatever reason), there's no reason to stride into this guy first.

His GB3 skill, however, is his saving grace. The Dragonic Vanquisher deck (i.e. the G-Narukami Deck) is all about its bind zone shenanigans. Vanquisher himself will do an on-stride retire and bind, and their Amber Clone does the same thing on-attack. Chatura, their non-GB restricted, generic, 11k Grade 2 attacker is also capable of binding units, although he has to hit in order to do so. There is a handful of support from Set 5 that is capable of binding without needing to hit, and surely there is more that will be revealed, so the deck is pretty much set in regards to being able to bind. Not to mention its new "Thunder Strike" keyword, which is active based on the number of bound cards the opponent has.

Voltage's GB3 is extremely similar to Conquest Dragon's skill, which will retire one of the opponent's front row Rear Guards and give your front row a 5,000 Power boost for each of the opponent's empty front row circles. This will essentially amount to a 10,000 Power boost almost all of the time. Having 3 bound cards means Voltage gives a 9,000 boost to your front row, and having 4 or more bound cards means it surpasses Conquest's power boost. Going further into the comparisons:

• If you have an 11,000 Power front row unit, Conquest will turn it into a 21,000 Power unit. Voltage with 3 bound cards will make it 20,000. 4 Bound cards will make it 23,000 Power. 5 Bound cards will make it 26,000 Power. 
• If you have a 9,000 Power front row unit, Conquest will turn it into a 19,000 Power unit. Voltage with 3 bound cards will make it 18,000 Power. 4 bound cards will make it 21,000, and 5 bound cards will make it 24,000.
• If you have a standard 16,000 Power column, Conquest will turn it into a 26,000 Power column. Voltage with 3 bound cards will make it 25,000 Power. 4 bound cards will make it 28,000, and 5 bound cards will make it 31,000 Power.
• If you have an 18,000 Power column, Conquest will turn it into a 28,000 Power column. Voltage with 3 bound cards will make it 27,000 Power. 4 bound cards will make it 30,000 Power, and 5 bound cards will make it 33,000 Power.

In every one of the above examples, you need at least 5 bound cards in order for Voltage to gain a significant power bonus above what Conquest would offer. Essentially, 3 or 4 bound cards will make Voltage give the same boost as Conquest, while 5 or more bound cards will make Voltage give a stronger power boost, with no upward limit on the amount of power it can give.

At the core of it, this means if the Post-Set 5 G-Narukami deck is capable of binding 5 or more cards before or by the time they reach their second stride, Voltage will be strictly better than Conquest. As of now, I have no reason to think that hitting 5 cards would be a challenge for the deck. However, the very nature of hitting 5 bound cards needing other cards to be achieved means it has inherent inconsistencies, while Conquest is almost 100% self-contained. There will likely be some games where you won't be able to hit that 5 threshold, either from a terrible opening hand, your opponent sacking you, or both, but in a dedicated Vanquisher build, I can't foresee that happening enough to not warrant 4 Voltage.

Card of the Week: October 22

Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Tetra-Boil Dragon

[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 2:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card named "Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Tetra-boil Dragon" from your G zone, and turn it face up] When this unit attacks a vanguard, if you have a heart card with "Blue Wave" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, until end of turn, this unit gets drive-1, and "[AUTO](VC)Wave-4th time (This ability is active during the specified battles of each turn):[Choose a card from your hand, and discard it] At the end of the battle that your rear-guard attacked a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, [Stand] this unit.".

This week's unit is the complement to the card I reviewed, and boy is it a doozy. This guy just adds to the armada of restanding G-units in the game, but he takes the cake for being cheaper than any of them (and any restander at all, in fact). Let's do the math on him:

Normal Grade 3 Turn:

Unit attacks for Twin Drive: +2 Cards

Total: +2 Cards

Tetra-Boil Turn:

Stride into Tetra-Boil: -1 Card

Attack with Tetra-Boil, using his skill for Twin Drive: +2 Cards (+1 Net)

Pay for his restand: -1 Card (+0 Net)

Attack again for Twin Drive: +2 Cards (+2 Net)

You'll see that you don't lose any card advantage with his restand. You gain just as much hard advantage from striding him and using his restand as you would from not striding at all, except by striding him you get two Vanguard attacks, for twice the number of trigger checks, for maximum killing potential. Now let's compare him to another restanding G-unit, such as Victoplasma:

Victoplasma Turn:

Stride into Victoplasma: -1 Card

Use his skill and attack for Twin Drive: +2 Cards (+1 Net)

Pay for his restand: -2 Cards (-1 Net)

Attack again for Twin Drive: 2 Cards (+1 Net)

The math is the same for Dragonic Overlord "The Ace", where you end up with 1 less card by going for the restand than if you had just Twin Drove normally. You're giving up that 1 card in hard advantage for the insane pushing power that 4 drive checks and 2 attacks from a 26,000 Power unit gives you. Not to mention, Tetra-boil only has a 1 CB cost as opposed to the 2 CB cost that Victoplasma and The Ace have.

Granted, the decreased cost can be accounted for by all of his restrictions. He requires a "Blue Wave" heart, and heart-restricted units are allowed to be cheaper than generic units, due to the fact that they can't be splashed into any 'ole deck. His restand is also restricted to 4th Wave, meaning he can only restand if you have cards to combo with him, as opposed to something like Victoplasma who is a self-contained restand. But The Ace and even Homura Raider are restrained by needing more cards to work (The Ace needs a certain card in hand, Homura needs 3 of the same named cards on the field and there are very few ways to do that without going -2+ to restand or blowing 3+ CB). But, lets be honest, 4th Wave in Aqua Force is an absolute joke. Not to mention the slew of support this guy has makes it to where, not only can you trigger his restand with just one other card on the field, you can actually plus even more if you use the Blue Wave starter and/or Critical Trigger, who let's your Vanguard draw 1 card each time they attack, making each skill use a +1 the turn you restand. With the right cards, you can actually go +2, or more, the turn you restand. Granted, that is a 4+ card combo which is very situational, but it likely won't be too hard and inconsistent.

All-in-all, while this guy may be properly restricted/costed due to his "requirements" (and I use that term loosely), the fact that Bushiroad created an entire deck around him that is based on abusing his skill, is not ok. What could have been scraping the edges of healthy is undoubtedly a cancer magnet that people are going to flock to, especially given the popularity of Aqua Force as a clan, and the ease of access to the deck in the form of the newest Clan Booster. I haven't been able to see the card in action yet, and I suspect he'll be slower than people expect him to be (GB2 can definitely slow a card down), and he certainly won't be the end-all-be-all of Vanguard, but he's not a healthy design, especially given the fact that he's in an already over-hyped and over-played clan.

Card of the Week: October 16

First off, let me say welcome back to myself. College and personal life, plus a general lack of inspiration to write anything, has kept me away. But after having an epiphany that not every article needs to be some in-depth, insightful analysis of the game (which is slowly becoming less and less of an in-depth game to play), I've decided to reel it back and start up a Card of the Week series. And for the first installment, I'll be discussing the latest card to take the community by storm:

Blue Wave Dragon, Anger-Boil Dragon

[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 2 Wave-2nd time (This ability is active during the specified battles of each turn):When this unit attacks a vanguard, this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn, choose up to one of your rear-guards, [Stand] it, and it gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn.
[AUTO](VC):During your turn, when your unit named "Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Tetra-boil Dragon" Stride, choose one of your vanguards, until end of turn, it gets [Power]+3000, and "[AUTO](VC)Wave-2nd time (This ability is active during the specified battles of each turn):When this unit attacks a vanguard, choose up to two of your rear-guards, [Stand] them, and they get [Power]+3000 until end of turn.".

After Lambros got released, everyone was wondering how Bushiroad was going to create an incentive to play any other stride units, given how broken he was. Well, turns out the answer is to just turn him into a Grade 3 to make room in the Generation Zone.

I'll start off by discussing this guy's GB2 skill. 5,000 Power on-attack means he can swing for real numbers unboosted, and real numbers with just about anything behind him. On top of that, he will restand a Rear Guard and give it 10,000 Power. Lambros needs 4th attack and a person flip to do that (Granted, he swings with more power, drive checks, and will stand two units with a 10,000 boost). However, he only needs to be the 2nd attack, so he'll just stand whatever attacked first and pump it up to Spike Brother-levels of power, then continue on about his day. As long as you have anything else on your field, this guy can trigger his GB2 and make it a monster.

But the real issue is when you compare him to Exxtreme Battler, Viktor, an already-existing On-Stride Grade 3. Viktor's GB2 skill is a 5,000 Power boost to himself, then stand 1 unit and give it 5,000 Power. That's word-for-word Anger-Boil's GB2, except Viktor gives 5,000 less power. That really isn't ok. Not to mention, Aqua Force has plenty of Rear Guards who gain skills off of being the Xth attack, such as retiring units or drawing cards. All Nova Grapplers have (at least at the moment) is "How many times can I restand Sazanda?". But even then, Viktor's GB2 skill in combination with Sazanda (who gains 5,000 Power every time he restands) amounts to a 10,000 Boost, which is exactly what Anger-Boil gives, except his Rear Guards also have their own skills they can capitalize off of. I assume the logic here is that Viktor is a generic on-stride unit that can work with any Stride Nova Grapplers will get, whereas Anger-Boil's second skill works solely with Tetra-boil (much like Blaster Dark "Diablo" and Phantom Blaster Dragon "Diablo"), so Viktor has more utility.

Which brings me to Anger's 2nd skill, his on-stride ability. When "Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Tetra-Boil Dragon" strides, Tetra-Boil will gain 3,000 Power and, when he attacks second, will stand 2 Rear Guards and give them both 3,000 Power as well. This being limited to 2nd Wave means the two units you restand will be an attacker and its booster, but still, that's +6,000 Power to a column that likely has other skills attached to it. No one likes a 12,000 Power Tidal Assault.

I'll have to wait until Tetra-Boil is revealed to give a final verdict on the on-stride skill, but it has plenty of potential to be broken as all get-out. If Tetra-Boil has a 4th Wave skill (which is VERY likely), striding it over Anger-Boil will be a near-guaranteed trigger for it. 

My Top 5 Wasted Art Cards

Vanguard is a game notorious for its art. Plenty of people jumped ship from other games to play Cardfight strictly for the art. However, as any player knows, there are far more useless cards than there are usable ones, and plenty of card art has gone to waste over the years. We've all had those moments where you saw a card revealed and just couldn't wait to see what it did, simply because you thought it looked so cool you would play it no matter what. Most of the time, you're met with disappointment when you find out its a Grade 3 12k attacker, or some garbage Grade 2 unit. This is my list of the Top 5 Wasted Card Arts in the game. Do note that this is strictly my opinion, and I'm not trying to tell people "these are the best arts in the game," I simply thought this would be something interesting to get people thinking about. Also note that these aren't in any particular order.

Revenger, Desperate Dragon

The art on this guy is simply amazing. He's realistic, he's got a horn, and he's got chains. What more can you want? Dark, gloomy looking art captures the essence of Shadow Paladin perfectly, and anyone starting down something like this would be sure to quake in their boots. But his skill? Nearly unplayable garbage. He has a 1-for-1 skill that doesn't really help out with anything other than his Limit Break, which doesn't give you much bang for your buck at all. He costs 1 counterblast, and in Revengers that's a tall order for something that doesn't plus you directly. Even at that, he only gains 5,000 Power and a critical, and crit-gaining Limit Breaks have always been terrible. Limit Break unlockers remedy that curse a bit, but there are plenty of better decks to use them with.

Perdition Dragon, Heat Wing Dragon

There isn't much to say about this guy that doesn't speak for itself. His art is simply amazing; Realistic, imposing, fiery, everything a Kagero card could want in art. He's large and badass enough to be a boss unit in just about any Kagero deck, but I guess since he doesn't look like Overlord, he doesn't qualify for boss status. He'll never see play in any Kagero deck, but he'll definitely see play in my heart,

Satellitefall Dragon

Gold Paladins just don't have a good track record when his comes to dragons. For every Spectral Duke and Prominence Glare, they have a Chromejailer and a Spearcross. For me, Satellitefall Dragon was the biggest tragedy. He's large, has a nifty Gold/Red color scheme, wears lion armor, has four swords at the ready, and is holding a meteor. A freaking meteor. And yet, his skill is garbage. Even for his time, it was unusable. His art is perfect for some type of finisher or boss unit! I mean, it just looks like a card that would gain a critical. But alas, Bushi is not a generous god.

Ravenous Dragon, Gigarex

Obviously Tachikaze was going to make its way onto this list somewhere. Gigarex had the most potential of any unrevealed card we've had: It was RRR, so it was supposed to be some kind of boss unit deserving of its rarity. Even his art was godly. This thing is a giant, golden dinosaur with spikes going everywhere. Its bearing its teeth, roaring, and its crouched, ready to pounce for the kill. But then we got his skill, which was unplayable garbage. The only RRR Tachikaze has ever gotten, and this is it? I expected so much more, Bushiroad.

God-Eating Zombie Shark

This is a zombie shark, coming out of another zombie shark, coming out of another zombie shark. That apparently eats gods. Is there a more badass unit in the game? The answer is no. But just about every other card in the game has a better skill. It is truly a tragedy that this thing hasn't gotten a retrain, and that it can't be put into any deck. When Granblue finally gets more support, this thing needs to come back as a stride. Make it happen, Bushiroad. I just can't even write a paragraph complaining about how bad this skill is in relation to its art and name, because there are no words that can come close to describing how disappointing it is as well as looking at the card then reading the skill can.

The Fab and the Flab: G-BT03

With the G-Series of support in full swing, we've all had a while to let the fully released Set 3 settle in and let our impressions and thoughts simmer. With a much needed update to Dark Irregulars and Murakumo, as well as bringing us new Shadows, Golds, and Link Joker, this set came highly anticipated. In this article, I'm going to delve into what I deem the 3 best cards in the set, and the 3 most disappointing ones.

One Who is Abhorrent, Gilles de Rais

The new boss unit for Dark Irregulars, Gilles embodies everything the clan ever wanted to be. Going along with the new theme of staggering effects given the size of the soul, Gilles gains 10,000 Power for having a soul of 10, then adds a guard restriction ability with a soul of 15. To top it off, if he's your second stride, he gains a critical. This means he's swinging 36,000 minimum, unboosted, with a critical that can't be guarded by Grade 1 or greater cards. Unless you just suck and your opponent is at really low damage, or they happen to have 4-5 10,000 shields in their hand to throw down for fun, there's no realistic way they're blocking that attack. Gilles is the perfect Dark Irregular card: It rewards you for hitting that huge soul mark, and its a very powerful finisher. This, combined with the new Rear Guard support they got in the set, have definitely brought them up to speed for the first time in a while.

Nebula Dragon, Big Crunch Dragon

This was a hard choice. This slot was going to either Big Crunch or Amnesty Messiah, but ultimately Big Crunch took the cake for helping out more decks. I haven't delved too deep into Messiahs, but I assume he's at least usable in their deck, not to mention being a huge boost to Venom Dancer, Nebula Lord, Dark Zodiac, Deletors... essentially every other Link Joker deck variant. He isn't broken and doesn't troll too hard (he's certainly no Glendios), but he's simple, effective, and helps out just about any deck he's put in. 

Sovereign Dragon, Claret Sword Dragon

If something Shadow Paladin didn't make it onto a Top 3 Cards of the Set list, something would be wrong. Claret Sword is everything people were hoping Blaster Dark Diablo would be: Striding over him yields a Grade 1 call, and it increases the power to boot, making those Sword Breakers 8,000 Power for the turn. Pre-Battle Phase on-demand searching is a pretty big deal, since most other options the deck had for Grade 1 tutoring (Judgebau, Grim Recruiter, Macha) are all on-hit or in the Battle Phase. His GB2 skill isn't something to be trifled with either, being a CB-less Phantom Blaster Dragon skill for 1 less retire (as it should always have been). Being able to nab a Charon when you stride into Phantom Blaster Diablo can be a huge life saver in some situations, as well as a nasty surprise for your opponent.

Phantom Blaster Dragon

I finished off the Top 3 with a Shadow Paladin, so its only right to start the Bottom 3 with one as well. The much-anticipated 2nd Generation Rare of the set turn out to be a brand new Phantom Blaster card, and everything, under the impression that it would be a Stride, was ready to throw all of their money at Bushiroad. But then we found out it was, of all things, a Break Ride. Not only is it the first non-Stride Generation Rare, it also sucks. The Soul Blast 3 cost means you are locked out of Dark Trumpeter and Sword Breaker, two of the best advantage engines available to the deck. Not only that, but the retire 3 cost also keeps it from synergizing with things like the Abyss legion. Its only realistic use is with Phantom Blaster Overlord, refunding the massive CB3 cost of the persona blast, as well as preventing the opponent from simply dropping a Perfect Guard and calling it a day. But its a gimmicky combo at best, and the space definitely could have gone to something more useful and helpful.

Golden Dragon, Spear Cross Dragon

Everyone knew this was going to be on here. This card is without a doubt the biggest disappointment in the set. Losing a GR to Phantom Blaster Dragon was a huge heart break to players, but at least Shadows had Diablo and Claret Sword to fall back on. Gold Paladin players? They had nothing. Gurguit was a great addition to the deck, and added a really interesting mechanic to the game, but when you looked at a Gold Paladin Stride Deck, there was a clear need for a strong finishing unit, and with a cool name like Spear Cross Dragon, everyone expected this guy to fill that role. Instead, they got a really crappy mass-caller. As a mechanic, mass calling is simply terrible and inefficient, which is seen in cards like Liberator Garmore and Monarch Alfred. Late-game restricted mass calling units are walking paradoxes: They require a near empty field to get the most out of, but by the time late game rolls around, having an empty field means you had a terrible early and mid game and are probably losing, and the advantage from the mass call will be needed just to catch up. What's more, Spear Cross is a costly CB2 and persona flip. He's good for recovering fields in the late game against Kagero, Narukami, and other mass retire decks, but other than that he's useless.

Sovereign Black Dragon, Aurageyser Dragon

It was between Aurageyser and Homura Raider for the last spot on the Bottom 3. However, bad as Homura is, he still contributes more to his deck than Aurageyser does. I probably should have made more of an effort to try to add more variety to this list (3/6 of the cards are Shadow Paladin...) although I guess that just speaks to the quantity and quality of support they got in the set. Aurageyser just... isn't good. He's a CB1, SB1, Persona Flip, AND Retire 2, all for a crappy break even skill. Retire 2 to Draw 2 is essentially what is boils down to, and maybe gain some power. He's little more than a glorified Ildona, who wasn't a very good card in his own time. Aurageyser is good for setting off Blaster Dark Diablo's GB2 skill if you think you'll be hurting for stride ammo, but as a whole he's just terribly overcosted for what he does. 

So, as a whole, the set was pretty good for what it was. Shadow Paladin had Phantom Blaster Diablo to fall back on, and got a couple pieces of quality support out of the set. Link Joker and Dark Irregulars made out like bandits. Golds got the middle finger from Bushi, but they got enough to scrape by, and would do very well to see another set with minimal support in it. The real tragedy was Murakumo, as always, but at least they got focused, centralized, and playable support this set, which is a lot more than they've gotten in the past.

Deck of the Week - Magatsu

More like "Deck of the Weak," this week's installment will focus on the newly revitalized Magatsu deck. Initially released on Set 9 as a Ride Chain for Murakumo, Magatsu recently received a Legion Revival in G-Set 3, and I've spent the past week fiddling with it. First off, here's the deck list:

Grade 0:

1x Stealth Dragon, Magatsu Wind

4x Stealth Beast, Moon Edge (Critical)

4x Stealth Rogue of Dagger, Yaiba (Critical)

4x Stealth Fiend, Lantern Ghost (Draw)

4x Stealth Fiend, River Child (Heal)

Grade 1:

4x Stealth Dragon, Magatsu Breath

4x Stealth Beast, Leaves Mirage (Perfect Guard)

4x Silent Stealth Rogue, Shijimamaru

3x Stealth Fiend, Oboro Cart

Grade 2:

4x Stealth Dragon, Magatsu Gale

3x Stealth Dragon, Royalnova

3x Hair Stealth Fiend, Gurenjishi

Grade 3:

4x Covert Demonic Dragon, Magatsu Typhoon

4x Covert Demonic Dragon, Magatsu Storm

Generation Zone:

4x Beauty of Light Snowfall, Shirayuki

2x Rain Element, Madu

2x Snow Element, Blizza

What's the point?

The idea of the deck is to hit the Ride Chain and rush the opponent. Since the Ride Chain fills your front row with 9,000 and 10,000 Power vanillas for a turn, it allows you to get 3 attacks in without having to commit anything from your hand, and returns the attackers to the deck so you don't suffer from decks like Kagero killing off attackers. Afterwards, the idea is to Legion Storm and Typhoon to power your field up to unspeakable numbers to push for game, and to stride units in between Rush and Legion to keep your hand and damage at good levels.

MVPs

Covert Demonic Dragon, Magatsu Typhoon

The boss of the deck, he obviously gets honorable mention. However, nothing else in the main deck really puts in work. Hitting the Ride Chain is a great, but that's pretty luck dependent and inconsistent. And while Typhoon has been criticized for not synergizing with the deck as much as he should, that still doesn't stop him from being a solid unit. His non-Legion skill allows you to turn draw trigger into a strong attacking unit, which then bounces to your hand as stride fodder the following turn, or can be called when you want to legion to become a 16k attacker/booster. While he doesn't work as well with Storm as a lot of people hoped he would (the Limit Break clones don't get the 5,000 Boost), they still synergize pretty well. Calling Gale or Typhoon to the back row and then Limit Breaking to call Storms to the front means you can make a nasty field like that, give your Grade 2's and 3's the Boost ability for the turn, then have the Storms go back to the deck so you can move the 2's and 3's in the backrow up to the front the following turn, letting you keep decent columns

Rain Element, Madu

As I said, nothing else in the Main Deck really does much. Oboro Cart can clone Magatsu's if you're missing them for your Legion turn, but he isn't too helpful. Madu though. Madu puts in some serious work. If you manage to hit the Ride Chain and are sitting on Magatsu Storm pre-limit break and before you want to ride Typhoon and Legion, Madu lets you Stride without losing a Grade 3 that would otherwise be a powerful booster during the Legion Turn. 

What the Deck Needs

Davain Clone

The deck would benefit so much from a ride chain fixer like Davain, especially if they removed the "-3,000 Power" skill and replaced it with the Magatsu chain theme. Stick 1 Rear Guard into the soul, ride a card, call a card from the soul, then clone it for the turn. Or call 1 "Magatsu" from the deck for the turn. Either would work, since it would give you 2 extra Magatsu units for the Legion turn. It would be even better if the Davain clone had "Magatsu" in its name so it could benefit from the Legion as well.

Advantage Engine

This is pretty generic, and I said the same thing in the Zeal Deck analysis, but it's still true. Murakumo as a whole has a pretty bad advantage engine since everything is based on temporary and soft advantage. The Magatsu deck can't even make use of cards like Yasuie who can help you convert clones into hard advantage. Typhoon does a much better job than Zeal at making the vanilla Ride Chain pieces usable, but vanilla beats can only get you so far.

Final Thoughts

Like with Zeal, the deck is a solid Tier 2. Murakumo as a whole just aren't supported enough for anything higher. The Magatsu deck can't even make use of Homura Raider, although to be fair Homura is a pretty high maintenance finisher, and Typhoon is a good enough finisher as-is. And as a disclaimer, I haven't been able to test the deck with cards like Rune Star or any of the newly revealed commons and rares, so I may revisit this deck after a little more testing. But for now, I'm placing Murakumo in the contender-but-not-champion category, especially given the deck's inherent terrible matchup against Phantom Blaster Diablo, who is going to run rampant when he gets released.