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.