Sunday, April 13, 2014

Vanguard: A new type of Platina deck and Blaster Engine

Some of you may know, but I really do not like Blazing Lion, Platina Ezel. Not only is the artwork kinda dull but the Ultimate Break is way too costly for Gold Paladin's usual plan to fill the field as quickly as possible.

Fast forward into some time later when Set 15 hit the shelves and FINALLY got the Blaster Blade Liberator support I have been waiting for.
You think you suffer? Can you imagined how much Dark made fun of me when he had good support earlier?

Soon after, I noticed a few things, looked over the Liberator cards, and I decided to make what I dub as the Blaster Engine. Or the Liberator Engine as some of you will call it.

Here is what the engine typically looks like:

G1:
4x White Rainbow Liberator Balan
3~4x Sharp Point Liberator (Gancelot BR searcher)

G2
4x Star Rain Trumpeter
4x Blaster Blade Liberator

G3
4x Solitary Liberator Gancelot

"That simple?" you may ask. Why yes it is that simple and I will explain why each of them are important.

Wherever Blaster Blade goes, I will follow him to the ends of Cray.
[AUTO]:[Choose a card named "Blaster Blade Liberator" from your soul or drop zone, and put it on top of your deck] When this unit is placed on (RC), if you have a «Gold Paladin» vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, shuffle your deck, look at the top card of your deck, search for up to one «Gold Paladin», call it to an open (RC), and put the rest on the bottom of your deck.

Here is our Superior Caller. She does NOT need a "Liberator" Vanguard and her only requirement is to have Blaster Blade Liberator in the Soul or Drop Zone.  Since she does not cost any CB, she is practically a god-send for decks that like to eat up CB. 

Does anyone know a man named Dorint? If so, please pass the message which says "suck it" to him.
 [AUTO](RC):When a unit named "Blaster Blade Liberator" is placed on your (RC), if you have a vanguard with "Liberator" in its card name, choose a card from your damage zone, and turn it face up. 

The deck's unflipper. While Calamity Angel Tripp can do that for us, the opponent may let us hit with MAYBE twice.  Balan can free up CB more frequently, especially if you have two copies of him.
One problem though...Balan will need a Liberator Vanguard to use his effect.

This is where this guy comes in...

I'm not being pay enough for this.
 [AUTO] Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):When a «Gold Paladin» rides this unit, choose your vanguard, and that unit gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn, and choose up to three of your «Gold Paladin» rear-guards, and those units get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.
[AUTO](VC):When this unit attacks a vanguard, this unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of that battle.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit without a same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)


Gancelot is in the engine for three reasons.
1. He is a Break Ride unit that can help fix our columns now that we do not have access to Monarch Alfred's ability to fix them.
2. He is a Liberator, meaning we can use BBL and Balan.
3. For some decks, we can sit on that 11k body.

But what happens if you do not get Gancelot in your hand, but your other Grade 3?! What then?!

Well do not worry, because through my testing, I can get Gancelot 9/10 times thanks to...
Why am I'm here?
[AUTO]:[Choose a grade 3 «Gold Paladin» from your hand, and discard it] When this unit is placed on (RC), if you have a «Gold Paladin» vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to one card named "Solitary Liberator, Gancelot", reveal it to your opponent, put it into your hand, and shuffle your deck. 

Thanks to this guy, I can get Gancelot whenever I can.  He helps us make sure our first Grade 3 ride will be Gancelot. It also helps that this one does not need a Liberator Vanguard like Star Rain and that he can help us check for triggers.


[AUTO]:[Counter Blast (2)] When this unit is placed on (VC) or (RC), if you have a vanguard with "Liberator" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's rear-guards in the front row, and retire it. 

And here is the main man himself, Blaster Blade! Without him, the engine will never start up. We would not be able to Superior Call or unflip damage without him. Of course he can retire an interceptor if you wish but remember to thread lightly with that skill.

Now that I explained the Blaster Engine, here is a decklist I have been using.

G0
Spring Breeze Messenger
8 Critical
4 Draw
4 Heal

G1
4x Balan
3~4x Sharp Point Liberator
4x PG
2~3x Listener of Truth Dindrane (though you could sub it in for Josephus)

G2
4x BBL
4x Star Rain
3x Viviane

G3
4x Solitary Liberator Gancelot
4x Platina Ezel

The Blaster Engine solves two problems of a Platina deck.  The first is the lack of Superior Calls which Star Rain helps by being CB free so you have room to use Viviane or even Platina's Ultimate Break. Balan helps manage our CB so we can use it more freely.

Now the "image of victory" is this. First we ride Gancelot which shouldn't be too hard since Gold Lancer will search him out. Now ideally I like to break ride Gancelot over and over to rapidly deplete the opponent's hand. If I break ride into Platina, then my opponent's worries are not over yet.

As you can see, this deck has high late game potential with excess power. Mid-game we have Vivianne for pressure and BBL to do some early retires.

Overall this deck is pretty solid. I doubt it can win in nationals, but ti is certainly interesting enough . The best part is you don't have to use Platina. Remember this is an engine so you can make that Chromejailer deck you always wanted or something like that.

Well except Pellinore because...he's Pellinore.

1 comment:

  1. Don't forget grand ezel cause remember kids break riding adds soul and on overly powered up vg mean ur sending ur trigs to the rear and he's cheap

    ReplyDelete