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.