Vanguard: Drragonic Overlord

In the beginning, before there were Break Rides, before there were Limit Breaks, before the idea of Cross-Rides...it all started with two Trial Decks.One contains Blaster Blade, a Royal Paladin who can conceivably be toolbox into any RP deck. Then we have this Flame Dragon

 

[CONT] (VC/RC): If you do not have another <<Kagero>> vanguard or rearguard, this unit gets [Power] -2000

[ACT](VC/RC): [COunter Blast (3)] Until the end of turn, this units get [Power] +5000 , gets "[AUTO](VC/RC): When this unit's attack hits an opponent's rear-guard, [Stand] this unit", and it loses "Twin Drive!!".

This was the Kagero's very first boss.This guy is often consider to be Toshiki Kai's ace card. Eventually he will get a cross-ride in the form of,,,this:

However I am not here to talk about the popular The End. I am here to talk about the base form.

So where to start?
For starters, DO has the base power of 11000 which is pretty fantastic since that is the essential things to be a good Grade 3 VG in today's meta. If you also take in account of the clan's tendency to Retire units (namely Boosters) then it becomes harder to crack through while giving up minimum shielding.
Now for his skill...it's good, bad, good again, and questionable.

When DO uses his counter blast his Power raises to 16000. In Vanguard, that is consider to be the magic numbers to force 10k Shields vs. an 11k VG. To make matters worst for the opponent, DO will go after the rear-guard first so it can re-Stand, effectively making Dragonic Overlord the first Re-Standing Vanguard. It was conceivable to do at least 2 attacks with him since generally people don't want to guard the first attack.

There are issues with the ability however. First DO loses his Twin Drive!! which in turn means he lost a lot of his pressure. That means that the typical "2-to-pass" guards becomes "No pass".

There is good news though. DO's counter-blast can be use while he is a rear-guard as well. This is amazing ability for a rear-guard since he can theoretically be hitting all of your opponent's front line.

Assuming he did not get a trigger, DO along with a booster, will hate +20k...meaning the opponent has to sacrifice at least 15k worth of shields to save a 10000 power unit. If the booster unit was Bahr, then if DO attacks a 9k unit, the opponent needs to give up 20k in Shields. With the way the meta is going, the Grade 2 10000 vanillas will be replaced by 12k beaters whose base power is 9000.

Does that mean it is a good ability? In my opinion, yes it is, but there is an issue with the ability. It costs 3 counter-blast. That's a high cost to pay and it gets even worst when you think about what other card will want to use counter blast, namely these two:

Those two were the ones that come  to mind.
Now is the counter blast bad? Kinda...the problem is that there are Kagero cards that utilize CB such as Kinmara. It IS a nice option to have which is something I really like. The thing is that you have to consider if it is worth the 3 CB.

My thoughts: When DO is your VG, he might as well be vanilla because rarely will people ever use his CB. If you can pull it off in a timely manner, then there is a good chance your opponent can not survive. Still DO is good if you want to play defensively.It also helps that DO is part of a pseudo archetype meaning he has access to a 12k beater so that is definitely something to work with. According to some of my fellow Vanguard friends, Kagero tends to run a lot of vanillas since they have a hard time getting good numbers and having access to 12k beaters give DO an edge in other decks.

Of course DO, like Kai, will slowly but surely get power creeped to death. Watch as they introduce 12k base Vanguards.

Wait they...they already did. Though this is buns though.