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.

Vanguard: Interesting thing with Jewel Knight Sherry and Tracie

It's been a long time since I did an article, mainly because I do not have much to talk about.  I mean who gives a rat's ass about Paladins?

Anyways you know about the G1 10k and G2 12k attackers like these?

One of the common things about these types of cards are that in order to get the boost, the Vanguard needs to have the archetype name in.  In this case, Demolition and Spark Rain will not get the boost if the Vanguard is, say, Armor Break Dragon.

Shellie and Tracie are rather unique.  They ARE 10k and 12k beaters respectively, but their requirements are a little different.

  Essentially if you have 3 different RGs with "Jewel Knight" in their name, they will get the power boost.  Nowhere does it say that the Vanguard has to be a Jewel Knight too only the rear-guards.

Think about what it really implies.  This means almost an RP deck has access to 12k and 10k attackers, more importantly, Tracie since we will she can hit 11k Vanguards by herself now.

With this in mind, here will be a deck list I have thought up.

G0
1x Tiffany
12x crit
4x Heal

G1
4x Sherry
4x Iseult
4x  Prizme
3x Marron

G2
3x Blaster Blade
4x Tracie
4x Olwen (an 11k attacker)

G3
3x King of Knight, Alfred
4x Sanctuary Guard Dragon

Since this deck will only use CB for Blaster Blade and Alfred, we can actually use their skills once at 5 damage. 12 Crits are good since we'll be plussing for field presences.

Marron is good as our G1 ride to prevent early damage.  Since the only limit break is Sanctuary Guard Dragon then there should be no need to rush.

I have yet to test this deck out since it came to me practically spontaneously.  Still in theory this looks freaking good.

Of course this is not the first deck of its kind.  I have actually heard of people using a similar mindset with this one.  There maybe other ones that have utilized what I call, the "BeJeweled" engine.

...I really wish Jewel Knights have a Josephus clone tho.

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.
.

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.

UPDATE: I'm not dead yet!

I am sorry if there are people waiting for me to update this blog but I haven't found much to talk about. Card reviews are okay, but Vanguard decks list is not something i can do due to how uncreative I can be.

However as Vanguard players know, Gold Paladins were gifted not one, but TWO Unlockers. You don't remember? Well here are some reminders:

Ezel: Ha ha ha, I have the quality scan and look so much cooler while you're stuck in a magazine!

Alfred: Shut up!

Anyways since I tend to run all the Paladins (except Galahad cause he sucks), a question formed in my head which is
"Which Unlocker's deck is better?" Though I suppose it will be more like "Which deck will suit me more?"

I will be testing out the two decks for the next few days...on CRAY ONLINE. Their shuffling algorithm is supposedly to be better then Cardfight Area (though I don't know since my computer can not go to CFA).

With my good friends Cowboy and Goldfire, I WILL determine what decks' weaknesses and strengths are.

See you in next week.

-Phantom High

Vanguard: I entered an online tournament

Last night, I was invited to an impromptu online tournament at Cray Online. It was pretty fun. Here were the rules:
1. No cards after Set 10. Meaning no break rides.
2. We were using the Japanese ban list.
3. Promos were allowed.
4. Except Deathmaster Dragon.

There were only five people including me. It was a double-elimination tourney, so you can only lose once and still have a chance to win. The deck I used was Majesty Lord Blaster because it was my first deck, so I'm quite familiar with it.

With this guy, I was sure we will win. If not, that is why ice cream is here for.

Here's a breakdown of my matches:

Match 1: MLB vs Soulless

When I saw Lulu i realized "Crap I'm going into a grind game aren't I?" Surprisingly it did not turn into a grind game. The thing was that I was rushing him like a mad man with guys like Kay, Palamedes, and Blaster Blade. The guy ended up spending more cards then he thought trying to hold my units' attacks.

It also helped that CoCo was a 10k Vanguard, so Kay and MLB boosted by Marron could easily get into her face.

Match 2: MLB vs SHaladin

I knew I had to kill this guy as quickly as I can. I knew I should try to guard as early and efficiently as possible. What really helped me was that I kept damaging into Draw Triggers which was fantastic. He did not use PBD's eff because he couldn't risk minusing himself against my slowly formidable hand. I perfect guarded just as he drive checked another PBO for his Persona Blast.

I called my third Marron in the back row and finished him off with Kay. Also this guy got into character which was pretty cool.

Match 3: MLB vs Shaladins (rematch)
Here I was, at the Finals on the Winner's Bracket. The guy was hungry for revenge and his voice proved it. I couldn't get my MLB strategy going, so I rode King of Knights, Alfred. It was going well until late game in which I did not have any 10k shield cards to help me nor do I have a Perfect Guard. I went down after that.

I still have one last match to go.

Match 4: Final round.

This is the match where my luck finally ran dry. I kid you not, I did not checked a single trigger. All my triggers either never showed or Criticals went to the damage.

I ended up doing 4 damage to the guy until he pulls out his secret weapon...Gust Blaster Dragon. There was no way I could have guarded his final attack with a power of 36k from his limit break and from the boost from Apocalypse Bat. To make it a real kicker, he was doing 4 Critical while I was at 5 damage. The only thing that would have saved me was a perfect heal which...will never happen.

In the end, Kota the Shadow Paladin player, won the whole thing form Loser's Brackets.

Still it was a fun game and I'm glad I joined in at the time. Sure it is no real life tournament, but I can settle for an online tourney.

The Top 3 decks was:
1. Shadow Paladins (PBO and Gust)
2. Royal Paladins (Majesty Lord Blaster)
3. Gold Paladins (Gerad/Pellinore)

Who knows...maybe the  next time there will be another tournament in Cray Online, if the rules allow me, then I'm going all out with Gancelot Zenith.

I hope you enjoyed this rambling.

Vanguard: Starry Sky Liberator, Guinevere

I know I tend to talk about a lot about older cards, but I want to talk about a newer unit. She is Alfred, Gancelot, and Mark's presumed wife.

AUTO]:[Counter Blast (1)] When this unit is placed on (GC), if you have a vanguard with "Liberator" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, this unit gets [Shield]+5000 for each of your «Gold Paladin» rear-guards until end of that battle.

Now the guys back on Pojo (by the way if you guys are reading this, I am sorry) said this really outranks a Quintet Wall. Most Vanguard experts will agree that the average Shield will be 25000 in Shield while this card can reach 30000 assuming there is a full field. Assuming this is no mistranslation, this does not seem to have the Sentinel status like Perfect Guards and Quintet Walls (I suspect that once she reaches TCG land, she will be errated to have it) means she can be run alongside with the other Sentinels. However, there are some problems I have with this card and why I think Quintet Walls are better IMO.

1. It requires a "Liberator" Vanguard.
Now I am probably one of the few losers in the world who cares about it, but this does hurt her flexibility. The only builds Guinevere works in are Liberators which does not sound too bad. It is just that other Gold Paladin builds like Garmore Bunnies, Ezel, and Spectral Duke Dragon will not be able to take advantage of of her ability, thus essentially making her a vanilla 6000 unit.
Igraine does not have that problem though.

2. The current meta is disastrous to her.
Now I will admit it's somewhat easy to Superior Call to have a full field with the Liberators. That is where people get the idea that this card will have the guard power of 30k.

We also have to take in account on what is popular in OCG land. The most dominating ones are Link Joker and Eradicators. These two can Lock and Retire respectively, meaning they will get rid of the Rear-Guards. That means Guinevere will not be guarding as much as you would like.

Against other decks?

Well if your opponent pressures you, then the only other rgs are the ones at the back. Assuming the back row is filled up, then we're looking at a 20000 Shield. That is still a sizable amount to guard with.

3.  She is only a single card to guard with.
The last one may seem strange, but there is a reason for me saying this. Think about it...why did people cheer for Quintet Walls, albeit a minority? It is because of this card:

Daikaiser is often consider to be one of the best Break Rides in the game simply because he laughs at Perfect Guards. The same reason why people will be scare of throwing Perfect Guards will be apply to throwing Guinevere in the GC.

It seems incredibly niche and I am probably overestimating Dimensional Robo power, but the fact this card exists means its really scary. That is part of the reason as to why Quintet Walls were invented.

Am I am saying Quintet Walls are better? Not necessarily because I do acknowledge their faults ie they thin the deck, getting rid of valuable triggers, and their guarding capabilities are random. It's just that a card like Guinevere requires a decent field to work with while QW forces you to take a chance.

 I will end by saying this: no way in hell this won't be a Sentinel card. If it is not, then that is quite all right since Bushiroad finally offered a cheaper alternative to defensive cards.