Vanguard: Grand Ezel vs Monarch Sanctuary Alfred

The past few days I have been playing nothing but these two decks, trying to get them to face as many different types of decks there is. While I will fully admit I am not one of the leading experts on Vanguard, I do believe I have enough of a grasp on the two Unlocker decks out there for Gold Paladins.

Be warn this is all my opinion. If you disagree with me, comment and tell me why I was wrong. I'm open for criticism.

Here are the deck lists for both of them in case you're wondering:
Grand Ezel:

G0
1x Scarlet Lion Cub Caria
8x Criticals
4x Draws
4x Heals

G1
3x Knight of Eleganth Skill Gareth
4x Perfect Guards
3x Knight of Passion Torre
2x Twin Holy Beast White Lion

G2
4x Vivianne
4x Eliwood
4xBagdemagus

G3
3x Incandescent Lion Blond Ezel
4x Salvation Lion Grand Ezel

Alfred got sick so I'm filling in. Also because I'm one of the important parts of the deck.

Monarch Alfred:
G0
1x Aspiring Liberator Alm
8x Criticals
4x Draws
4x Heals

G1
2xLittle Liberator Marron
4xWhite Rainbow Liberator Balan
4x Mayrain Liberator Bruno
4x Perfect Guards

G2
3x Blaster Blade Liberator
3x Star Rain Trumpeter
4x Liberator Of Royalty Phallon
2x Liberator of the Flute Escrad

G3
3x Liberator of Bonds, Gancelot Zenith
4x Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred

Ultimately the biggest question is that...which deck is better, at least for me? I'll go through each grade until we see the boss. Ready? Here goes...

Round 1: The Starting Vanguards...

Caria wins this simply because she get two units. It doesn't matter if the units are low or high quality (okay it kinda matters), since we can get field presence from it. The fact she is cost less besides moving her into the soul really helps. In fact, I will argue that she even helps the deck by moving into the Soul so Grand Ezel can use his Limit Break twice, assuming only one Counter Blast has been used.

However Alm is not to be underestimated. While he does not plus like Caria or Spring Breeze, he does do something that I think is equally important. He puts BBL on top of the deck. One might ask "Why is that good?" until you remember how Liberators tend to Superior Call. He guarantees your next Superior Call unit will be BBL, a good quality unit who can easily intercept, making him good not just in Alfred, but essentially any Liberator boss who Superior Calls from the top deck (LotRT Alfred, Wolffang Garmore, Gancelot Zenith). Basically Alm gives Liberators some consistency. That is insane.

Round 2: Their Grade 1 line ups...

This one is a little hard. Now some people will ask..."Why am I am not using Magelant in my Grand Ezel deck? Isn't CB precious?" And you're right, CB is precious...but so is the Soul. The Soul is something that isn't easy to replenish unless you use White Lion's skill.

Anyways I do like Gareth's body as Turn 1 Vanguard to stave up any rush down tactics.  Torre is the standard 10k attacker.White Lion is a damage adder meaning he can help trigger Limit Breaks (either Blond or Grand) to deliver additional pressure in raw power. I actually like him because sometimes I need to Superior Call with Blond Ezel or put a ton of pressure with Grand. I really like that.

The Liberator's Grade 1 line up is, in my opinion, better. They have Balan who is pretty much like a Dorint Clone. Do you remember the episode where Ren keeps killing off Asaka's front row by calling Blaster Dark Revenger over and over? Well you can now do that with Liberators. What? You don't like free CB? Well how about Bruno, a unit who gains +3000 every time a unit gets Superior Call from the deck. Use Monarch Sanctuary's LB and you can easily have a 19k booster, or at worst, an attacker.
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Round 3: The Grade 2 line ups...

 
Now this is where it gets interesting. In the Grand Ezel deck I have used, it was not difficult to get a full field so long as Vivianne gets hit in and Eliwood stay until an Ezel unit appears on VC. They can run those engines just fine. Between Vivianne and Eliwood, the field should fill up in a matter of  turns.

However the Liberators deck I'm using main ways to Superior Call besides Alfred are Escrad and Star Rain. However Liberators have access to their champion, Blaster Blade. Thanks to Balan, you can mitigate his retirement cost, even make it costless. Liberator have the ability to retire units if needed to.

Both decks plus in different ways with Grand Ezel having to Superior Call to a full field while Liberators does a little of that plus retiring.

Personally I ended up liking the retiring aspect of Liberators. There were times that with Grand Ezel deck's Superior Call abilities was enough. Liberators, there wasn't a time I did NOT want to retire a unit on my opponent's side, whether it is because I want to remove an interceptor or an obnoxious unit that is giving me grief.

At the end of the day, I just really like to retire stuff while maintaining field advantage with the Liberators.

Round 4: The back up...

 In case the stars of the decks fail to show up for some reason, we got Blond Ezel and Gancelot Zenith. Now which one is taking the cake?

Now, again, some of you might wonder why I used Blond and not Platina. "Don't you want that 11k defense?" True but at the same time Platina is pretty much vanilla with an absurd requirements for his Ultimate Break. I thought I was taking a big chance with using Blond but in reality...his 10k body didn't made much of an impact. One thing I learned with Blond is that the meta had changed so much that its now have been scaled assuming the G3 Vangaurd has 11k defense. It didn't changed much except the VERY rare times I'm looking at a 20k RG attack.

Anyways back on topic, I really like that Blond Ezel will  Superior Call for you and can make it into the bait for Perfect Guards. Also assuming a full field and a 6k booster behind Blond, he will force at LEAST 15k shields.

Zenith is also a really good back up boss since if your entire front row is full, then you essentially have 4 attacks. Even if the new Unit is a Trigger unit, that one will still have 15k power at worst meaning it is still good to trap those RGs...you know, trap those katz!

Honestly I like them both for what they do. Both back ups synch well with the SV, Blond because he's an Ezel for Caria and Zenith because Alm guarantees the enxt call will be BBL.

That means no cake for both of them but they both get pizza!
...Anyone? Fine here it comes...the final showdown.

Yes1 I have the high quality resolution I asked for!

Dude that just a card sleeve.

 

 

 

 

 Now here comes the kicker...who is the better Unlocker?

Grand Ezel states that if there are 5 Gold Paladin RG on the field, if you pay the cost, he will Unlock all Locked units and gains 10k power and an extra crit. This is where White Lion comes in since he can win games by using LB4 when your opponent is at 3 damage. I have yet to do that, but its viable...somewhat. Depends on what you can grab from your Superior Call.

Monarch Alfred has both a LB4 and LB5. LB4 send the units on the field to the top of the deck and re calls them plus additional units you might have. This means you can effectively reuse the effects of BBL and Balan and give Bruno MASSIVE power. boost. Worst case scenario for Bruno, he becomes a viable attacker. LB5 is that when Blaster Blade Liberator is called from the deck, then Moanrch Alfred gains 10k and extra crit for each of them called that way. That's bloody fantastic especially since Alm guarantees you that BBL. In fact, 8 out of 10 times, I had at least one Balan on the field so the cost was mitigated slightly. Sadly this is LB5. Smart players will try to keep me at 4 damage if they can help it meaning I missed out on pressure.

Now who do I ended up liking? Monarch Alfred. It's not like its hard to get a full field with Grand Ezel, but the thing is that Monarch Alfred allows me to fix my columns and reuse effects.

Plus I ended up having more fun with Liberators then with Grand Ezel. I'm sorry for those who really like Grand Ezel, but I just can't help it. The fact that Liberators can perform a Dorint combo with BBL+Balan, can fix my columns, and Gancelot Zenith.

However like I said from the beginning...I don't claim to be an expert on Vanguard. Maybe Grand Ezel is better, but I do not know.

I do know this though...Link Joker should have never been conceived.