A few weeks ago, the western world has finally got a chance to play the new Shadow Paladin cards based on Kazuma Shouji's Ritual deck with his avatar, Dragheart Luard as his ace.
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| Behold the ultimate weapon: His hat. |
Naturally with the introduction of Shadow Paladins means a lot of hype. With that hype means people will jump onto the bandwagon. I am one of those people that was caught onto the hype. I have played this deck since it was first announced, so I like to think I know what I'm talking about when I consider these cards to be bad for Luard decks. I have tried all sorts of combinations to see what works and what doesn't.
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| "Seriously? Why are you calling me? Can't I take a break?" |
[AUTO]:[Soul Blast (1)] When this unit is placed on (RC) from your deck, if you have a «Shadow Paladin» vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, draw a card.
Swordbreaker is waifu make no mistake. Kazuma consistently uses this card in the anime, it gives us some more draws, and can Soul Blast a Grade 1 Unit to hasten the requirements for Ritual. Why is she bad then?
The thing about current Luard Decks (as of December 2016) is that there is no real way to generate more soul for the deck. At least not without help from the Diablo Engine. Soul is such a precious resource and it WILL be fought over for the G-Units such as these two:
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| "Hey quit hogging all the Soul!" |
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| "Screw you! You ALWAYS get first dibs!" |
With such fierce competitio for Soul, Swordbreaker is a 1-of Tech AT BEST. She can not be used in the deck that, as of now, cannot generate the Soul for her, Aurageyser, and Spectral.
2: Knight of Brawn, Grosne
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| "I wonder if this is how Jeigan feels at times..." |
[AUTO](RC) Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):When another of your units with grade less than this unit is placed on (RC), this unit gets [Power]+3000 until end of turn.
This old knight is something else. Every time you call a G1 or lower unit, he will get +3000. Since it is Auto, that means there is no limit to how much power one can get except it may not be as much as you think it will be.
That is due to the nature of Luard Superior Calling during the Ride phase, so that means Grosne needs to be called ahead of time or he has to wait another turn to get that sweet power up. During either of those turns, he's gonna be the first target to get rid off. Even when you do get it off, you will at best get a 21k+ column with him unless you called FOUR G1 or lower units. After all that, the power gain isn't even that substantial.
3: Dragprince Rute
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| "What do you mean I am getting replaced?!" |
Here is the starter that comes in the new trial deck, Ritual of Dragon Sorcery. It has a fantastic effect, which is the following:
[AUTO]:Forerunner (When a unit of the same clan rides this unit, you may call this unit to (RC))
[AUTO] Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Counter Blast (1) & Put this unit into your soul] When this unit is retired from (RC) for the cost or effect of your card, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your units, and it gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn.
Well this is great. If it gets retired from one of your wn card effects, you can send it to your soul AND give your unit +5000. The power boost is really good, it gives Luard the soul it desperately wanted, and you can in theory Soul Blast it, pay for Luard's Ritual by sending him back to the deck, and you can keep up the soul cost. This is a fantastic card!
At least, it would have been if not for the simple fact that it costs a CB1. Even with Abyssal Owl's Counter Charge, it won't faciliate the CB cost from Rute. If you do use Rute, then you pay 1 CB to use his ability, which ideally you should cause Luard wants Soul, 1 CB to pay for Luard's Stride Skill, and 1 more if your initial stride is Aurageyser Dragon. All of a sudden Rute's skill is really expensive. If Luard has a more efficient CC engine, then I would consider using him though.
4: Mage of Enticement, Illadona
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| "Oh yes, give it to me baby." |
[AUTO](VC) Generation Break 1 Ritual 3 (Active if there are three or more grade 1 cards in your drop zone):[Choose two of your rear-guards, and retire them] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, draw two cards, and this unit gets [Power]+3000 until end of that battle.
[AUTO]:[Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)] When this unit is placed on (VC), you may pay the cost. If you do, look at five cards from the top of your deck, search for up to one card with the ritual ability from among them, reveal it, put it into your hand, and shuffle your deck.
Illadona is by no means a bad card, and he IS a keyword searcher much like Model Knight Orhan and Cornflower Flower Maiden, Ines. The problem is similar to Rute and Swordbreaker, mainly he takes away precious resources from the deck. On the bright side, his targets are decent enough, often being Luard, Morfessa, Esras, and Abyssal Owl. Again the card's problem is that the deck cannot currently support and facilitate the cost, at least not efficiently.
5: Dragdriver Luard
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| "BEHOLD! MY TRUE POWERS! COPYING SPEARCROSS!" |
[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[AUTO](VC) Ritual 3 (Active if there are three or more grade 1 cards in your drop zone):[Soul Blast (1) & Choose a face down card from your G zone, and turn it face up] When this unit is placed on (VC), you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to the same number of grade 1 cards as the number of face up cards named "Dragdriver, Luard" in your G zone, call them to separate (RC), shuffle your deck, and those units get [Power]+1000 for each grade 1 card in your drop zone until end of turn.
Bushiroad hyped this card for a long time now. As of now it's Kazuma's ace G-Unit (until we get Ogma, the awesome mercenary from Fire Emblem) and...oh boy this card has problems. To start it off, it has a SB1 cost, and that already makes it harder than it ought to be simply due to the fact that Soul is hard to maintain for Luard. The effect isn't that noteworthy either. If Ritual is live, you can pay the cost which is:
Superior Call one Grade 1 or lower unit from the deck for each copy of Dragdriver face-up in the G-Zone.
...Essentially it's Spearcross Dragon, so I hope I do not need to explain why Spearcross is bad.
Granted there are two scenarios that Dragdriver is useful: (1) is that if you're fighting a control deck that excels clearing the board, then going into Dragdriver is useful since you can Superior Call first through Dragdriver, use G3 Luard's Stride Skill to kill off that unit, and Superior Call 2 more units. At worst you get functioning columns. The other scenario (2) is that something that was shown in the anime.
In the anime, Kazuma used Dragdriver's skill to called Dragsaver Esras from the deck, used Luard's Stride Skill to kill said Esras, to call two more units from the deck, and use Esras' skill to put the copy back into the deck and her into your hand. This is admiteddly not a bad combo. However those scenarios are pretty niche, and by your second stride, you either want to go into Phantom Blaster Diablo or Spectral Blaster Diablo.
However, the ONLY reason people run this card is that there is no better option for him. Well unless you are insane enough to run 2 Spectral, 2 Carnivore, 4 Aurageysers, and 4 Phantom Diablos. Which admiteddly doesn't sound like the worst idea ever.
These are the cards, as of right now, should not be in a Luard deck. It IS subjected to change depending on what kind of support Ritual gets.
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