Rampage of the Beast King

As the world of Vanguard evolves more and more, Balance needs to be distributed among the Clans of Planet Cray in order to maintain equilibrium. With the release of Rampage of the Beast King new units are introduced into the new Era boosting some of the “forgotten” clans like Pale Moon, Dark Irregulars and Oracle Think Tank. Also a new enemy arrives at scene, Great Nature attracts all attention and its ready (or will be) to show us the mighty power of Nature.

Here are some new spoilers:

Sword Magician, Sara  Darkfairy of Waltz  Dark King of the Pale Moon  Dark Night Dance Queen  Bladewing Reshii  Great Nature Limit Break card  Shamshel  Magic Officer, Rocks Mad Hatter of Nightmareland  Sky Witch, NaNa  Cable Sheep  Greedy Hand  Mad Eye, Bassilisk  Succubus of Courtship Bringer of Knowledge, Rocks

Little Witch, LuLu The Dark Dictator Beast in Hand Battle Sister, Eclair Battle Sister, Souffle Tuluel Doctoroid Micross Flask Marmoset Tank Mouse Grade 2 Hamsuke Grade 3 Hamsuke Grade 1 Hamsuke Resanori

As you can see there are some new starting vanguards, and also a new “type” of card which revolves around recycling “key” cards.

More specifically OTT receives a new starting vanguard, more stable, less hand/draw-dependable unlike Tsukuyomi series, which can also search up for a grade 3. You can spot a pattern forming, a less dependable on “fate” OTT that can take over a fight by controlling it in a more stable fashion.

General’s deck gets a huge boost also. Dark irregulars are an underdog in most situations but that is going to change (hopefully) with the release of BT07.
In addition another AL4 member’s deck gets further enhancement. I am talking of course about Asaka and the re-opening of Pale Moon Circus. These spectacular performers are ready to re-open the scene and amaze you with their new tricks.

Worth mentioning are the new additions in Angel Feather army as well as the long lusted Dark Dictator, who is ready to lead its fearsome comrades, Shadow Paladin to victory.

Last but not least, a deck that was “unfinished” is about to be more than “complete” with the release of BT07. Great Nature at last is ready to be unleashed and wreck havoc. Rampage of the King Beast it’s not the name of the set for nothing. 

Guardian Angels

Returning to BT06, this time we will talk about the 3^rd new clan, Angel Feather. Revolving around damage zone these cute angels will show you tricks that will keep the pressure up and make your opponent reconsider about their innocent nature.

Angel Feather can be easily modified according to your liking. You can choose the pure aggressive style running 8 crits, or mixing stands to surprise your opponent. You can also choose whether you will run chain unit line-up (Miracle-Feather Nurse, Heavenly Injector, Fate Healer Egodiel and Cosmo Healer Egodiel) or a more stable, less hand dependable build with Thermometer Angel.

Personally I like Hybrid Style, running the chain units just for getting advantage and then mix it up and don’t depend too much on Egodiel and its Persona Blast.

Angel Feather has every feature a Tier deck need, 10k boosters, Limit Break, Persona Blast, Mega Blast and its personal signature skill involving changing cards between damage zone and hand. You can change a grade 3 for a 10k guard when you need to go defensive or a 5k guard for a grade 3 when you need to push your opponent and the best part is that from this “trade” you can boost your Pegasus by 2k transforming them into powerful attackers.

The most powerful trait of AF is the variety of Grade 3 you can pick, forming a surprising powerful army of cute angels. You have 2 Grade 3s (Drill Bullet Geniel, Pulse Wave Adriel) that can “hit” the 20k limit mark, forcing your opponent to guard his 10k vanguard with 2 cards at least. There is also The Phoenix, Calamity Flame, which can be a great finisher when combined with Circular Saw Kiriel and Love Machine Gun Nociel. Last but not least you have your 3 Bosses, Circular Saw Kiriel, Mobile Hospital Feather Palace and Cosmo Healer Egodiel.

Cosmo Healer is the final chain unit. With its Persona Blast can heal 1damage and get you out of a tough spot while being an 11k vanguard is very important saving you some cards when it comes to guard.

Next, you have your personal Hospital-Palace. A really impressive megablast unit which literally can reset the fight, and get you to Zero damage. Also the fact that by soulcharging gets +2k shouldn’t be ignored.

Circular Saw Kiriel. The Head Surgeon of your Angel army. Kiriel is an exquisite unit. It doesn’t just push continuously your opponent with its Limit Break skill but also can get you a “key” unit from your damage zone to your field setting up an easy Final Turn.

The main job of this clan is to heal and this will affect their skills in the game. Angel Feather will manipulate the damage zone in ways other than counterblast and is based around a more defensive strategy, but don’t let their cute appearance fool you, these Angels will transform to little devils and by taking advantage of the smallest “opening” will claim victory over you.

Entering The Dragon's Lair

With the Release of Cavalry of Blast Steel a new archetype was introduced but at the same time “old” decks have received some significant boost. The leading trios of pre-Limit Break Era, Shadow Paladin, Kagero and Royal Paladin as well as the crushing Spike Brothers were equipped with mighty Limit Break units which will keep them among the top contenders of the new meta.

Today we will have a look at Kagero, a deck revolving around retiring valuable opposing units, keeping the pressure up and maintaining control over the field utilizing its high attack based Dragons.

Kagero was one of the star-leading decks before the appearance of Narukami and Gold Paladins. Reinforced with The End was capable of pulling fierce attacks while retiring important opposing units with cards like Berserk Dragon and Kimnara, was really setting the pace as you commanded.

Due the power of Limit break they lost some of their power but now they found it again on Dragonic Lawkeeper.  

  

This tremendous new Dragon is able to bind all the opposing rear guards sealing off any looming intercepts while gaining +3k as your opponent will control less than 2 rear guards. But its power doesn’t stop there. At the end phase opponent must choose only 4 from the units in bind zone and place them to rear circles. This means that you basically can retire 1 unit of your opponent rear guards simply by activating your Limit Break ability and the best part of it is that this skill costs ONLY 1 counterblast.

Dragonic Lawkeeper is combing very well with Raopia , forming a 23k attack which at the worst case scenario will sap out opponents null guards, stripping them off 2 cards and leaving them open for next attacks.

With the exception of Lawkeeper , the rest “skeleton” of the deck remains same. Kagero has many tricks up to their sleeves. Berserk Dragon, Kimnara contributes greatly to the maintenance of control while, Nehalem, Bahr, Belliscosity Dragon and the rest of high attack based horde of yours keep pressuring opponent and exhausting their defences.

 

The trigger configuration may differ from style to style and personal preference. There can be line ups such as 5 draws, 7 crits , 4 heals as well as 5 draws , 5 stands, 2 crits and 4 heals. Always remember to use as much different cards as possible for triggers, for example play both Monica and Gatling Claw or Blue-ray Dracokid and Tahr in order to confuse your opponent about your trigger configuration.

Finally I want to state that even without Lawkeeper , Kagero is a mighty opponent and the power of The End should not be underestimated in any case.

When Gold Becomes Black!

Yo! It has been a while. In my last post we talked about the viability of MLBs in the new era of Limit Break. I was intending to analyze how the rest of the “old” clans are coping with the new Bosses, but then VG-EB03 Cavalry of Black Steel was released and I found myself a new favorite deck that’s going to be without a doubt a major factor in the formation of the Meta.

 

I’m talking of course about Ren’s Gold Paladins, which practically are the materialization of Black Knights. Following the same concept of Shadow Paladins, Black Knights are sacrificing their comrades in order to gain more and more advantage leading you to a solemn victory.

Their leading units are Black Dragon Whelp, Vortimer, Jet Black Vanguard Vortimer, Knight of Black Dragon Vortimer and finally their trump card Spectra Duke Dragon.

 Essentially with every ride and each “evolution” you gain an incredible advantage, at the beginning by adding a grade 2 or grade 3 unit to your hand by looking your 7 top cards. This means that setting up and finding your missing part of the chain, Knight of Black Dragon Vortimer or Spectral Duke Dragon is a piece of cake. Next step is sacrificing one Gold Paladin, and superior call up to 2 others from your top of your deck.

The pinnacle of Black Knights is Spectral Duke Dragon and its Limit Break ability. By sacrificing 3 of your Gold Paladins at the close step of Dragon's and opposing Vanguard's battle , Spectral Duke can stand himself , losing though his Twin Drive ability( be careful you still drive check once though! ). Also an important fact regarding Dragon that tends to be neglected is that its attack rise up to 11k when you have Knight of Black Dragon in Soul, covering the weakness of having a 10k vanguard and thusly saving up more cards when it comes to guard.

 

 Beside Black Knight’s side are 3 new cards , 2 Valkyries and 1 new knight.

Blade Feather Valkyrie(Grade 1) and Flash Edge Valkyrie(Grade 2). Flash Edge can superior call one Gold Paladin of your top of the deck by counterblasting one when it’s called of your deck while Blade-Feather has the same effect with the requirement that it needs to boost a Flash –Edge one and the attack hits the Vanguard.

Last but not least, a new draw trigger is introduced. Falcon Knight of Blue Sky is not only a draw trigger but when it’s called from the deck it can boost another gold paladin of yours by giving it plus 2k.

Other than these cards the “skeleton” of the deck is the same as the one using Ezel .

My preferable trigger configuration is 8 crits , 4 draws , 4 heals. Spectra Duke is especially good with Flame of Victory.

Black Knights will surely find their place among the Tier decks and rise to the top.

Bow to The Majesty

Bow to The Majesty

    

One of the star decks before the release of the new clans and mainly of the new skill , Limit Break was Majesty Lord Blaster (MLB).

The deck is a successful blend of Royal and Shadow Paladins which “unlocks the door” to Majesty Lord Blaster.  Let’s see some characteristic decklists that topped in recent events. 

Majesty Lord Blaster x4 Palamedes, Swordsman of Explosive Flames x4 Alfred, King of Knights x2	Majesty Lord Blaster x3 Palamedes, Swordsman of Explosive  Flames  x2 Alfred, King of Knights x2 Solitary Knight , Gancelot x1
Blaster Blade x3 Blaster Dark x4 Bedivere , Knight of Loyalty x2 Starcall Trumpeter x2	Blaster Blade x3 Blaster Dark x3 Bedivere , Knight of Loyalty x2 Starcall Trumpeter x3
Isseult, Flash Shield x3 Little Sage, Marron x4 Toypoggal x3 Kay, Knight of Friendship x4	Isseult, Flash Shield x3 Little Sage, Marron x4 Toypoggal x2 Kay, Knight of Friendship x3 Lake Maiden , Lien x2
Yggdrasil Maiden, Elaine x4 Weapons Dealer, Govannon x2 Margal x4 Silent Sage, Sharon x4 Pixy fife and drum x2 Wingal Brave x1	Yggdrasil Maiden, Elaine x4 Weapons Dealer, Govannon x1 Margal x4 Bringer of Good Luck, Epona x4 Future Knight, Llew x1 Alabaster Owl x2 Wingal Brave x1

Both Lists belong to 1st place winner’s trio. Being stable , aggressive with big finishers and seer attack power MLB is a great addition to every trio. But let’s talk about the differences between the lists and the trends of MLB decks. We observe that in the first list the player utilize a stand trigger configuration which is least expected because everyone seems to be fond of the triple crit attack of Majesty Lord. Cause of this trend , everyone drop multiple 10k guards or absolute defenses against your MLB’s attack, so the stand triggers catch them off guard and give you an incredible advantage by standing Palamedes and other Beatsticks at the front row.

Before the release of Limit Break , everyone was mixing stands with critical creating a fierce combination that was able to finish you off if you guarded wrong. But times have changed and new Clans with new powers have emerged. Someone can say that either Dragonic Kaiser Vermilion or Eizel is not overpowered and will be right. But if you combine those 2 strong units with a lineup of 8 critical triggers letting the attack of either of them to pass becomes a troublesome issue.

Though Old ways hadn’t died yet. MLB is still very strong if played smart. The way I found more effective while fighting against a ton of Narukami/ Gold Paladin users was hammering their rear guards while leaving them at 3 damage until I set up a powerful field and a Finisher can be pulled off , like for example “ They let a boosted MLB attack to pass and I get 1 critical resulting in 3 damage  plus the 3 dmg they have already leading to a loss.( When I say boosted , I mean an activated MLB , with Blade and Dark in soul ). The weakness of new clans is that their vanguard is 10k when you are playing and that they tend to depend a lot on their limit break ability, getting cocky and letting attacks passed till they hit 4 dmg.

The way to go in this new Era for MLB is a mass critical configuration while of course running 4 draws also, resulting in a fierce continuous push. The Twilight Knights are ready to fight back and they shouldn’t be underestimated cause they lack Limit Break