[DIGIMON] Reaper Deck Review

Hi everyone, this shall be the first post on Digimon here! As mentioned in the title, this post is about the hyped D-Reaper deck which received all its support in the release of EX-02. There are already quite a lot of YouTube videos on this type of deck, and it actually appears to be strong (if not imba).

Key cards

We will look at the key cards of this deck and understand why it can be so strong and scary.

First up is Mother D-Reaper (EX2-007, Digitama). Without this card, this deck cannot function at all. 

First skill (translated): [All Turns] This Digimon can't attack and isn't affected by your opponent's effects.

Basic but very strong effect as it cannot be affected by opponent's card effects. This makes it very difficult for opponent to remove this card on the field. It cannot attack at all, but other reapers can do the job easily.

Second skill (translated): [Main] [Once Per Turn] If you don't have another [Mother D-Reaper] in play, place 1 of your [ADR-02 Searcher]s from in play or your hand under this Digimon as its bottom digivolution card.

Another nice skill. The player will only have 1 Mother D-Reaper on the field anyway, unless he/she is trolling and hatch more than 1 of them... This skill means it can put 1 ADR-02 Searcher card under its digivolution source once per turn. We will look at that ADR-02 Searcher card later.

Third skill (translated): [Your Turn] [Once Per Turn] When you would play a card with [D-Reaper] in its traits from your hand, you may reduce its play cost by 1 for each of this Digimon's digivolution cards.

This effect means other D-Reaper cards will be much cheaper to play, although it is only once per turn. It is a strong effect once you see what the other D-Reapers can do... The magic numbers for digivolution cards are 6 and 7.

Second, we will look at ADR-02 Searcher (EX2-046, Digimon) which forms the core of this deck. This card will get stacked under Mother D-Reaper, and remember that we want to have at least 6 or 7 of them.

Card Effects (translated):

You can include up to 50 copies of cards with this card's card number in your deck.
When you don't have another [ADR-02 Searcher] in play, if you play this card from your hand, reduce its play cost by 2.
[Your Turn This Digimon can't attack players.
[Your Turn <Draw 1> (Draw 1 card from your deck).

Inherited Effects (translated):

[Your Turn] All of your Digimon with [D-Reaper] in their traits get +1000 DP.

Since we can include up to 50 copies of this (instead of the usual 4), most players will run about 15-20 of them in the deck. It costs 1 to play if you do not have another ADR-02 Searcher on the field, and then you draw 1. This effectively replace the digivolve draw bonus in other decks. 

Furthermore, the inherited effect gives all [D-Reaper] +1000 DP during your turn. This means your D-Reaper cards can potentially have insane DP during your turn!

 

Next, we will look at 2 cards which help to speed up the process of stacking ADR-02 Searcher under Mother D-Reaper. They are ADR-01 Jeri (EX2-049, Digimon) and ADR-04 Bubbles (EX2-048, Digimon).

On the left, ADR-01 Jeri allows you to suspend it to reveal top 5 cards of your deck, then put 1 ADR-02 Searcher from among them under Mother D-Reaper. This skill bypasses the "summoning sickness" and it can be used on the same turn it is played.

On the right, ADR-04 Bubbles has 2 effects which do the same thing. One activates when you check it in security, and the other one activates when you play it. It allows you to place 1 ADR-02 Searcher from your field or hand under Mother D-Reaper.

So, after stacking so many ADR-02 Searcher under Mother D-Reaper, we need a way to win the game. Here comes the finisher card, Reaper (EX2-055, Digimon).

Card Effects (translated): 

When you would play this Digimon, you may trash 7 or more digivolution cards from the bottom of 1 of your [Mother D-Reaper]'s to reduce this Digimon's play cost to 0.
<Rush> (This Digimon can attack the turn it comes into play)
[Your Turn]You may place 2 [ADR-02 Searcher]s from your trash under this Digimon in any order as its digivolution cards to unsuspend this Digimon.

When you finally have 7 or more ADR-02 Searcher under Mother D-Reaper, you can play this card for no cost (free!) by trashing 7 or more digivolution cards from Mother D-Reaper. The digivolution cards are synonymous with ADR-02 Searcher in this case as there should be no other cards under Mother D-Reaper.

It should be the endgame once you play this card. It has <Rush> so it can attack immediately after play, and its other skill allows it to unsuspend multiple times. Your opponent will be hoping for some good security checks once they see this card. There are some security checks which can stop this card (1 easy example is Gaia Force). But if luck is on your side, you can just attack with this card until you win.

Utility cards

We will now look at some utility D-Reaper cards which complete this deck.

 

 

On the left, we have ADR-03 Pendulum Feet (EX2-047, Digimon) which has an on play effect. It allows you to check top 3 of deck and take 1 ADR-02 Searcher and 1 card with D-Reaper in its traits. This also means you can take 2 ADR-02 Searcher if you are ever short of them.

On the right, we have the destroyer ADR-07 Palates Head (EX2-051, Digimon). You can suspend it to delete 1 of your opponent's Digimon with less than or equal to this Digimon's DP. If you still remember ADR-02 Searcher's [Inherited Skill], all D-Reaper +1000 DP during your turn for each ADR-02 Searcher under Mother D-Reaper. This card can easily snipe opposing 10k+ DP Digimon when you have 7 or more ADR-02 Searcher under Mother D-Reaper... And similar to ADR-01 Jeri, you can use this effect on the same turn it is played. Sounds balanced?

We will look at 2 more D-Reapers which have higher play costs and good effects.

 

ADR-09 Gatekeeper (EX2-054, Digimon), on the left, is the defender of this deck. Its first skill allows you to play it for free from security check (without battling though). Second skill allows you to Recover 1 Security when you have a Mother D-Reaper on field. Its third skill is definitely the most pesky one; all opposing Digimon gets [Security Check -1] when your Mother D-Reaper has 6 or more digivolution sources. Your opponent will need to get rid of this card before even attacking your security, or negate this effect by having [Security Check + x]... Otherwise you can just stall the game for as long as you like. 

ADR-08 Optimizer (EX2-053, Digimon), on the right, is considered a luxury for this deck. Its effect is not required for you to win the game, but it is still nice to have. Its only effect activates either on play or when attacking [Once per turn] if your Mother D-Reaper has 5 or more digivolution sources. It allows you to check top 3 card of deck, and play 1 cost 10 or less D-Reaper card from among them. Put the remaining cards back on top of deck. If you noticed, the play cost of this card is 10, so you can actually play this card again from the top 3 cards and then repeat the effect... Other good choices include ADR-01 Jeri and ADR-07 Palates Head. This card just ramps up your field as a bonus and maybe for flexing.

We have covered almost all of the D-Reaper cards now. Only ADR-05 and ADR-06 are missing here but their effects are pretty basic so I will skip them.

 

Decklists and Strategies

Let's look at a typical decklist for D-Reaper.

The above deck consists of D-Reaper cards only, and it is still a very decent deck. The key cards are at 4 copies each, with 20 ADR-02 Searcher. 

 

When playing a D-Reaper deck, it is actually advantageous to go first. If you go first, it means you get to hatch your Mother D-Reaper before your opponent attacks. This maximizes the potential security effects of ADR-04 Bubbles and ADR-09 Gatekeeper. Also, you can memory choke your opponent just by playing a ADR-02 Searcher, passing only 1 memory to your opponent. 

Every turn, you would want to play at least 1 ADR-02 Searcher to draw 1 and cycle through your deck. Then, Mother D-Reaper will activate its skill to suck 1 ADR-02 Searcher under itself. Finally, you will normally end the turn by playing 1 more D-Reaper card, which has its play cost reduced due to Mother D-Reaper's effect.

With the help of ADR-01 Jeri and ADR-04 Bubbles, you will probably reach 6-7 digivolution sources in less than 6 turns. So your aim is just to survive until then. Against a non-rush deck, this should be achievable as your opponent also needs time to setup their own field. However, a rush deck could cause problems as it could deplete your security before you even reach 4 digivolution sources? Thus, there are 3 blockers in the form of ADR-05 Creep Hands which would help to stall a bit. It might not be enough against rush decks, but at least there is an attempt to slow the game down. And if you managed to survive the initial rush and reach 6 digivolution sources, ADR-09 Gatekeeper will defend easily for the rest of the game.

 

There is also another way to slow the game down by using Yellow cards. Let's take a look at this sample decklist.

 

 

 

The D-Reaper core cards remain, but with less ADR-02 Searcher and some Yellow cards now.

There are 2 kinds of Yellow Options here. First is Tactical Retreat! (BT4-105), which triggers <Recovery+1> from security, effectively nullifying 1 damage. It also allows you to place 1 Digimon from field on top of your Security stack. You can use this option to place ADR-09 Gatekeeper or ADR-04 Bubbles on top of Security to make use of their Security effects. Second is Reinforcing Memory Boost! (BT6-100), which lets you check top 2 from deck, and put 1 on top of Security and 1 to hand. It also has the effect <Delay: Gain 3 Memory> which helps when you are short of memory.

 

To play Yellow option cards from hand, you need either a Yellow Tamer or Digimon already on the field. Obviously we have no space for more Digimon, so we introduce 2 different Yellow Tamers here. First is T.K. Takaishi & Kari Kamiya (BT6-089), which gains you 2 memory when you have less security cards than your opponent. Next is Kari Kamiya (BT8-090), which sets your memory to 3 and you can suspend it to gain 1 memory when a card is added to your security stack during your turn.

 

The <Recovery> effects of the Option cards can hopefully help to stall the game for you to reach 6 digivolution sources. The Tamers provide more memory for you to work with, so you can play more cards and try to reach 6 digivolution sources in fewer turns.

 

We know much more about D-Reaper decks now. It is time to see the weaknesses of Reapers.

Weaknesses

1. Rush decks - As mentioned earlier, rush decks can win the game before Mother D-Reaper reaches 6 or more digivoluton sources. The Yellow cards help but you might not always have them. Lv3/Lv4 rush is still more consistent than you drawing yellow cards and checking good securities.
   
2. Mother D-Reaper can be destroyed - This can only be exploited by some specific cards, but it is still considered a weakness. 1 notable mention is Judgement of the Blade (BT6-093), which allows [Royal Knight] to attack unsuspended Digimon.They still need to hit 15K DP however, but Jesmon and Gallantmon should have no problem hitting it. MetalGreymon (BT8-067) inherited effect also allows [Dragonkin] or [Machine] to attack unsuspended Digimon, so this is another method. Once Mother D-Reaper is destroyed, all the digivolution sources go to the trash and you have to start all over again. It basically means you lost the game.
3. Security checks - Reaper is not immune to security effects, so if it get disrupted by any Security effects halfway, it cannot continue to attack and you cannot win the game. Once you play Reaper, you have already trashed 7 digivoluton sources under Mother D-Reaper, and ADR-09 Gatekeeper cannot help to defend anymore. There is possibly a way around this, which is to stall until you have 14 digivolution sources. This give you 2 chances for Reaper to win the game. Just be prepared to play a long game...
4. Hexeblaumon (BT5-032) 😂 - Digimon with no digivolution cards can't attack or block when your opponent has a Hexeblaumon in play. Since all D-Reapers (except Mother) have no digivolution cards, they cannot attack at all. You can get around this with ADR-07 Palates Head's effect (need 8 digivolution sources to hit 11K DP though).
   

Conclusion

D-Reaper deck comprises of just CUR cards but it is still a strong deck. It has some weaknesses but it should perform quite well against most decks. It is also consistent with ADR-02 Searcher helping to draw cards for just 1 cost, and you are able to memory choke opponents if they do not have set to 3 memory Tamers. All D-Reapers card do not have Level, so it is immune to all effects that target Level as well. I guess this deck will be popular for quite some time while it is still strong. Hopefully this deck will not dominate the meta and we can still see more traditional decks (involving actual Digivolution) in play. 

Enjoy the game and Happy New Year everyone!

 

 

[V-PREMIUM] BRO 2021 AO Region - BERMUDA TRIANGLE (PRISM VERT)

 

And so the Bermuda Traingle player shall briefly comment on his tournemant experience. It was my second Cardfight Vanguard Tournemant and it was quite a while since the previous one where I just used a modified trial deck. I chose this deck as it was decently strong and also easier to pilot compared to my other decks. As shown by the decklist, it is a rather offensive built compared to other similar builts of the same archetype.

Well lets get into the tournemant results.

Round 1: VS Gold Paladin (SDD) - lose

I went first but could not finish the opponent off and lost due to too many attacks.Maybe I was abit nervous and made a few misplays.

Round 2: VS Megacolony - win

G-assisted to ride the grade 3 Vert. Opponent tried to stun my rear guards but easily countered with Aqua's abilityto return the stunned unit on field back to hand.

Round 3: VS Shadow Paladin (Claret Sword) - win

Heal guardian was clutch this round as opponent tried to rush using Force 2 while my vanguard was still on grade 2.

Round 4: VS Gold Paladin (SDD) - win

Probably the longest game as opponent checked quite a number of damage triggers and was able to survive a few turns. Luckily I managed to shut down the multiple attacks with a damage trigger.

Round 5: VS Bermuda Triangle (PRISM) - lose

Mirror matchup, opponent went first and used cutire prism built while I had zero heal guardians. Hence Go First Win Game.

Round 6: VS Murakumo (Yasuie) - win

Went first and drive checked double critical trigger on my first grade 3 turn while opponent's vanguard was still on grade 2. Go First Win Game.

Round 7: VS Genesis (Valkyrion) - win

Close match as opponent tried to rush me using restanding Valkyrion while my vanguard was still on grade 2. Luckily I had heal guardians to defend against opponent's early rush.

Round 8: VS Granblue (Beatrice) - lose

Went second, opponent managed to pull off multiple attacks as I did not check any damage trigger. 

Overall result: LWWWLWWL (5 wins, 3 losses) 

Overal  I feel abit disappointed to not get at least 6 wins. However I am glad that my first online tournament proceeded smoothly without any disconnection issues. To conclude, the tournament has really shown that heal guardians have really changed the v-premium format and give the player going second a much higher chance of being able to survive until the latter stages of a match and even win.

[V-PREMIUM] BRO 2021 AO Region - ROYAL PALADIN THING SAVER DRAGON

 Hi, I'll be giving my report for BRO 2021 AO region. 

Lets talk about my deck first and a small writeup about it. Here's the decklog link : Thing Saver Deck Log

I think most people would spot the lack of Ashlei in the decklist. Personally in my own playtest vs other people. I end up almost never using Ashlei's effect due to the soul cost. As such, I have cut it from the deck and replaced it with Livarots instead (Since I had some extras) The game that made me decide to cut Ashlei was one that I drew Ashlei on my g3 turn, was unable to G-Assist and was forced to ride Ashlei, TSD (Thing Saver Dragon) being a 1-turn delay deck, already suffers from its own limitation, failriding ends up making the game straight up unplayable. G-assisting is preferable. During the games, I found myself not really using Livarot much either, so will probably change it to 1 more loading angel and a random g1. The deck is really slow paced, and kinda grindy with the legion playstyle of shuffling 3-4 triggers back each turn (2nd G3 turn onwards). I also use the jewel knight g1 and g2 to constantly put Blaster Blade Seeker (assuming I could not proc its effect) as well as TSD back into the deck, which allows me to put 4 triggers back every turn with TSD. Lucius, Loading Angel and the Jewel Knights allow me to consistently have the soul count required to activate TSD skill each turn. Also, note that going first is extremely good for this deck due to the 1 turn delay and I will constantly mention this in the following recaps.

Lets move on to the games that I played.

Round 1  vs Dimension Police (Bradblack) - Win

Fighting against DP, I actually lost the dice roll and went second. I honestly expected to lose against DP due to its early aggression and high crit count. Actually managed to barely win, on my opponents 2nd g3 turn. He had two miracle beauty's on the board, and bradblack actually found Great Daiyusha. This meant that I had to deal with four 33k + Boost and 2 Base critical Miracle Beauty rearguard attacks. Luckily the first two damage I took gave me 2 Damage triggers, allowing me to barely guard all the attacks by dropping my whole hand. I then proceeded to win the game on my turn with TSD's 2nd Turn.

Round 2  vs Gold Paladins (SDD) - Win

Once again, fighting another super aggressive deck and losing the dice roll, I expected to lose. To my surprise, my opponent actually commented that he has a horrible history vs TSD using SDD. Either way, he fail-ride not Vortimer on turn 2. Combined with the fact that he did not have 4 damage on his first SDD turn, meant that he was unable to build up his handsize too greatly. Following this turn, he actually got a 2nd SDD turn where I no Guarded his SDD's 2nd attack at 3 damage, he failed to check a trigger, allowing me to survive barely at 5 damage. I would also note that he was not able to use percival's effect a single time in the first two SDD turns. He successfully defends against my turn, but was left with 2 cards in hand, unable to restand SDD he pretty much put up a weak attempt at closing out the game and fails, I proceed to win on my following turn, he had 3 cards in hand.

Round 3 vs Narukami (Vanquisher) - Lose

Again, I lose the dice roll and go second. However my luck has finally ran out, with no heal guardians or damage triggers, I end up dropping my whole hand on his first G3 turn (while I was on G2) to barely survive at 5 damage. I had been guarding early, so I actually went from 0-5 damage in  a single turn, only getting a damage trigger on the last check (and my opponents last attack). Getting full-brontoed while being a g2 is rough. Nothing interesting happens on my first TSD turn, then I lose the following turn.

Round 4 vs Bermuda Triangle (Highlander) - Win

To clarify, this is a pure Highlander build, not the new PRISM - highlander hybrid thing going around.Finally, I win the dice roll and go first. Very uneventful game as my opponent G-assists on G2, and I get 2 triggers on my first TSD turn. He gets a 6 damage heal, barely surviving my turn. On his turn, he attempts to damage deny me, attacking my rearguards with his rearguard and vanguard, but ends up using raindeer, riding ange and giving me one damage. I win the following turn due him not having a decent hand. Interestingly, this opponent actually had 5 PGs in his decklog (which I and his first 2 opponents did not notice) and was actually DQed on the 5th round

Round 5 vs Dark Irregulars (Scharhrot) - Lose

Going into this game, I felt pretty confident I could out grind a Scharhrot player.  I was wrong. I also lost the dice roll, and went second. He managed to ride g3 searcher to discard a card, calls out variants killertail and immediately was able to use her effect. Following this, he managed to ride emblem master on g2 turn, placing 3 variants killertail from the deck into the soul and continue to build up huge soul count. On his first g3 turn, he almost managed to hit 15 soul, if I recall correctly, he was at 12 soul when Schahrot attacked. Side note, he had a Number of terror, which he restanded allowing him to gain a huge handsize advantage. Overall he out-grinded me and eventually closed out the game.

Round 6 vs Granblue (Nightrose) - Lose

I won the dice roll, felt decently confident in my chances. Nothing particularly interesting to talk about for this game, just did regular granblue things. He managed to get beatrice as a rearguard and two ghostships by the first g3 turn, so every turn he was able to get at least 3, if not 4 ghostship attacks, that allowed him to survive my attacks (combined with protect 1 markers) Eventually, he closed out the game with a 25 cards in his drop and quadruple skull dragons. 

Round 7 vs Royal Paladin (TSD) - Win

Actually my favourite match of the entire day, the two of us just had a great time talking and playing TSD. Won the dice roll, so went first, putting me at an advantage. This was also the longest game I played, actually going all the way till timeout and a judge actually informed us that its the last three turns. That said, I managed to win that turn. Overall, I think I won due to force gift placements. I focused most of my gifts on the vanguard, while my opponent split the power evenly. This led to me constantly having 2 high power columns (both my vanguard attacks, as well as the blaster blade seeker attack) which were very hard to guard after the 2nd TSD turn. While his evenly spread gifts allowed me to guard most of his attacks much more easily. Also go first win game lol.

Round 8 vs Genesis (Regalia) - Lose (but in my heart I won)

To clarify, this was a pure regalia build, not Himiko regalia. Losing the dice roll, I expected to get rushed down. However managed to get 2 heal guardians in my hand, allowing me to negate his first g3 turn. Eventually, on his 3rd G3 Turn, he declared his last attack, I had a PG in hand, so I could guard it. BUT at that moment my computer actually crashed, like a blue screen. Seeing as I was going out after the match, I honestly got too lazy to turn on my computer again so I told my opponent as well as the judges that I crashed, but was unable to guard and so awarded my opponent the win. Realistically, if I did reconnect, I would most likely have won the game as he was at 4 damage with 5 cards in hand. It would be my 3rd TSD turn and my first twin drive actually was two triggers. (I just simulated it because I was curious) Thus, in my heart I would have won the game. In reality though, still a loss.

Overall Results WWLWLLWL 4wins, 4 losses

In my heart WWLWLLWW 5wins, 3 losses

Personally, I actually went even in wins/loss. Ranked 42 overall. I expected much worse results (you can tell based on my deck name)playing TSD. Especially going into a meta that seemed like would be a counter to my slow paced deck. Turns out most of my matches was decent matchups and I was able to enjoy myself vs other players that were less competitive and more there for fun. Managed to avoid all the meta decks somehow (except maybe granblue)

Thats all from me, looking forward to the next clan collection, where we will be getting Salome for jewel knights!

[V-PREMIUM] BRO 2021 AO Region - Shadow Paladin Luard

Now the edgy Shadow Paladin player will give his report for BRO 2021 V-Premium AO Region tournament.

First, the deck list used. It's the same list as the one posted in my previous post (Weakness Is A Sin: [V-PREMIUM] Luard Deck Profile and Strategy (weakness-is-a-sin.blogspot.com)), but just with heal guardians.

Deck Code [HZF2] deck | Deck Log (bushiroad.com)

For more details on the strategies that I applied for this tournament with the deck, check out the link above for the comprehensive blog post. I followed all the tactics in that article (since I wrote it myself, heh).

Now, let's have a breakdown of the games.

Round 1: vs Gold Paladin (SDD) - win
Before this tournament, I was deciding what deck to use, between Luard or SDD. It turned out that my Luard deck was twice as consistent as my SDD deck (out of 20 simulated games), so I chose the more consistent deck to use. Turns out that this becomes exemplified right in round 1, where my SDD opponent misgraded grade 3 for 1 turn (either didn't have grade 3s, or had grade 3s other than SDD). Since SDD relies so heavily on riding SDD on top of grade 2 vortimer to get the advantage engine started, I can totally imagine why a SDD player would refuse to ride and wait for SDD instead. In any case, I was on the way to victory since I damage controlled him to 3 damage (prevent his triple drive after restand), and I had 2 kanzen guards in hand to guard for his next turn. However, the game ended abruptly as he had to handle his wife and child(?) quarrelling loudly in the background, so he surrendered the game during one of my turns. OOPS 😂

Round 2: vs Royal Paladin (SGD-JK) - win
I went first, G-assisted for grade 3 Luard, and proceeded to activate Luard's field control protocols. Thus, he was unable to obtain 3 grade 1 rear guards for his first SGD turn, and could not even activate SGD's restand effect. My victory was assured after that.

Round 3: vs Link Joker (Messiah) - win
I got a shock when I saw his clan, as I would have been in serious trouble if I were to face off against Chaos Breaker Dragon. Fortunately, it was a Messiah deck which does not lock my field and prevent the Morfessa tactics, so after some trouble (he drive checked 3 heals), I still managed to win. LOL

Round 4: vs Genesis (Himiko-Yggdrasil) - win
He GG-assisted grade 1, and I went first some more. Nuff said, he lost when his vanguard was still at grade 2. 😂😂😂 So weak? Well, welcome to Vanguard HAHAHA

Round 5: vs Bermuda Triangle (Prism) - lose
Time for some real opponents. Quite impossible to outlast the crazy Cutire combos (might be featured in our future blog post). I went second, activated damage control protocols and kept him at 0 damage, but he circumvented that by riding Lupina first to build Force I gifts on his field.

Round 6: vs Bermuda Triangle (Prism) - lose
This opponent was even more ridiculous. He showed me the power of Cutire-Aqua-Elly loops, keeping his hand size at 14-16 every turn even after my Luard offensive turns. Doesn't deck out also due to Elly's return to deck skill and a few other return to deck effects. Depressed already at this stage 😔

Round 7: vs Gear Chronicle (Chronojet) - win
My longest game of the day. In fact I'm quite sure that my table was the last to finish for this round oops. My opponent kanzen me 4 times, but I eventually outlasted him when he drive checked 2 grade 3s and I had 4 cards left in deck, all of which were triggers. Tiring though.

Round 8: vs Bermuda Triangle (Prism) - win
This Prism deck didn't have Cutire. Maybe that's why I could win. Or maybe it's because I went first LOL

Overall results: WWWWLLWW (#19 place)

So in the end, I was 11 places away from top 8, but still, no ragrets as I only lost against crazy BMT Prism meta decks. I'm sure I wouldn't have done better if I had used SDD instead, and indeed the top 8 results of this tournament reflected this theory, with 2 Luards topping and 0 SDDs. Let's now look at the decklists for the 2 Luards which topped.

Interestingly, both decklists did not feature any 5th-attack generator (i.e. Abyss Router or Apocalypse Bat). This leads me to think that an extremely defensive strategy was being employed by these 2 players. This is further corroborated by the presence of 3-4 copies of Abyssal Owls in their decklists, whereas my decklist only featured 2 copies. In addition, one of them did not even run heal guardians, so I'm not entirely sure where this is going. I guess we'll have to see their performance in the Top 8 playoffs tomorrow.

So that's it from me today, and I think it was a pretty good tournament run for me, with lots to learn. Now, back to my fun V Clan Collection decks... 😝

[V-PREMIUM] BRO 2021 AO Region - Murakumo Yasuie

Hello everyone, I am colddy and this is my first post here.

This post is about BRO (Bushiroad Rumble Online) 2021 and my first experience in this tournament. To be honest, I am more of a Digimon TCG player than a Vanguard player, but I decided to enter BRO 2021 together with my friends anyway because why not?

So, I entered the BRO 2021 (V-Premium format) and I only have 1 proper V-Premium deck (Murakumo - Yasuie). LOL. This deck is not supposed to be strong or even close to making the top 8 cut, and that means I went into this tournament with a "play for fun" mentality. And I was right after 3 games! (3 losses out of 3 😂). After that, I just continued to play for fun and managed to get 4 wins in the end, including 1 walkover 😶. My final ranking is #52 (4W, 4L). Not too bad, I guess?

My decklog: https://decklog-en.bushiroad.com/view/KFNE

 

Here are some of my comments on BRO2021:

• Flow of tournament: The flow of tournament was actually quite smooth, averaging about 1hr per round. It started at 10AM (need to check-in at 9AM first) and ended before 6PM. I would say it was smoother than I expected.
• Opponents: All the opponents I faced were quite friendly, with no disputes or any trouble. The deck profiles are quite varied too (maybe because I was already in the losers' bracket). I think I faced a different clan in each round.
  
• Matches: The games are played online using cameras, and it could be quite troublesome to setup. Also, some of the opponents' camera angle/quality are not the best. Despite this, I think the game is still playable overall, though I will 100% prefer a real life tournament like back in 2019.

Also, after the tournament, I realized one of the top 8 decks is actually Murakumo-Yasuie. LOL. I guess it is time for me to study that deck now? 

This marks the end of my first post. My next post might be about Digimon TCG (which is not featured in this blog yet). See you guys and enjoy the rest of 2021!

[V-PREMIUM] Luard Deck Profile and Strategy

Hi everyone, and welcome to this comprehensive article about the Shadow Paladin Luard V-Premium Deck. The article addresses the deck's gameplay and profile in the current English format, and the decklist is shown towards the end of the article. Enjoy!

Slow deck

The first thing that you would want to know about Luard in V-Premium is that it is a relatively slow deck; it requires some time in order to scale up to its full potential. This can be seen from the card effects of the key grade 3, Dragdriver Luard.

You can see that the primary offensive capabilities of this deck only kick in when you have two or more grade 3 cards in your soul, which is only possible from your second grade 3 turn onwards (this has been the case ever since the Bendi-Luard choice restrict). The second superior call skill also kicks into full gear only when you have multiple Luards in soul. Due to these reasons, it is imperative to stall the game until you reach your second grade 3 turn and beyond, ESPECIALLY if you're going second and have to survive two opponent grade 3 turns before reaching that stage.

Early game

The strategy of the early game depends on who goes first. Owing to the huge advantage that many V-Premium decks can obtain by riding grade 3 before the opponent does, coupled with the fact that Luard is a slow deck, a certain level of damage deny and game pace control is necessary, especially when the Luard player goes second.

If you go first: Go ahead to ride up and attack normally. With just one open damage and two soul, you can utilise 2 Liafails to superior call 2 Charons, and use their skills to regenerate the counterblast. This is extremely powerful to elicit early field plusses as well as high power lanes in early game without requiring too much resource consumption.

If you go second: You may need to completely damage deny your opponent, especially if your opponent is playing a fast rush deck with an explosive first grade 3 turn that has OTK potential. It is possible to do so while still not sacrificing your early vanguard attacks and resultant drive checks, and one way to do this is to ride one of your 5k power grade 1s. Assuming that your opponent has a grade 1 vanguard that is above 5k power (almost guaranteed to happen unless in a Luard mirror match), you can then call another rear-guard to your back row, and attack with your 5k power vanguard while unboosted. If you drive check a trigger, you can give the trigger power +10k to your back row rear guard instead, in order to ensure that the attack still does not hit and the opponent does not get access to counterblast. 

During your grade 2 turn, you can attack your opponent's rear guard with your vanguard, or not attack at all if your opponent did not call any front row rear guards. You may start to attack normally once you hit your first grade 3 turn, as you would already have likely dampened the potential of your opponent's first grade 3 turn significantly and stalled the game.

General strategy

Your first grade 3 turn is generally considered to be a farming turn; you are farming grade 3 Luards in soul as well as Force I imaginary gifts in order to set up for your second grade 3 turn and beyond. As such, the offensive capability of this turn is understandably low, and focus is placed on obtaining advantage while still reserving sufficient resources for your late game.

If you have very little counterblast available: You may want to consider superior calling Charon and Nightmare Painter with your two superior calls from Dragdriver Luard. This will help to replenish the counterblast that was just consumed by Dragdriver Luard's skill, while not compromising on soul count for subsequent turns. This would be a purely resource-free move that just adds cards to your field.

If your opponent rushed you hard and you're currently hanging on for dear life: You can superior call out two Abyssal Owls using Dragdriver Luard's skill, and then utilise the plenty of counterblast that you now have in order to draw cards and replenish your hand. The most defensive move possible would be to call two Abyssal Owls as well as Decremps, so that you draw two cards, plus two rear guards, and gain two 10000 shield intercepts to defend for the next turn due to Decremps' skill. Note that you have to call one of them from your hand as you only get two superior calls on your first grade 3 turn.

On your second grade 3 turn and beyond, this is when your offensive capabilities actually start to go nuts. If you've reached this point of the game without losing, congratulations and it's time for some fireworks! First, use your multiple superior calls from Dragdriver Luard to set up the following field:

Here is a quick breakdown of the combo pieces:

• Dragwizard, Morfessa - key card that enables multiple attacks. Ensure that you have 4 other original grade 1 rear guards on your field in order to enable Morfessa's skill. Sometimes, you may want to consider omitting Dragheart Luard's retire two grade 1s skill if using that skill could compromise your grade 1 field count.
• Strict Order Knight, Lluails - this card can dish out a very powerful attack, and can help to make up for the lesser number of Force I gifts on the front row circle it is on.
• Black Sage, Charon - for replenishing counterblast. This helps for resource conservation and gameplay longevity since both Dragdriver Luard and Morfessa consume counterblast this turn.
• Nightmare Painter - for replenishing soul. This helps for resource conservation and gameplay longevity since both Charon and Abyss Router (explained later) will utilise soulblast this turn.
• Sage of Risk, Decremps - this would allow grade 1 front row rear guards to be able to intercept in order to defend at the end of this turn if you did not win.

Feel free to set up different variations of the board if the situation calls for it. For instance, if you have a lot of soul that has yet to be utilised, perhaps you can consider superior calling Abyssal Owl instead of Nightmare Painter to get more draws, since your soul does not need to be replenished at this time.

Also, note the placement of your Force I imaginary gifts as they would be important contributors to the power distribution across your field (three gifts should be on the circle that Morfessa is on).

Before we begin, ensure that you have one copy of Abyss Router in your drop zone. You can accomplish this either by guarding with it from your hand in earlier turns, healing it from the damage zone, or calling it out using Dragdriver Luard's skill and then replacing it with another combo piece. Also, ensure that you have one grade 0 card in your hand.

Now, let's go through the attack pattern for the second grade 3 offensive turn.

• 1st attack: Lluails (unboosted) with 30k, 2 crit
• 2nd attack: Morfessa (unboosted) with 40k, 2 crit
• End of battle, activate Morfessa's skill, counterblast 1 retire herself, call out Abyss Router from the drop zone
• Abyss Router's skill, when placed, soulblast 1 and call a grade 0 card from hand (call it over Lluails), and draw a card

• 3rd attack: Abyss Router (boosted by Charon) with 48k, 2 crit (hit magic number against 13k base force clan vanguard)
• 4th attack: Dragdriver Luard vanguard attack with 41k
• 5th attack: grade 0 (boosted by Nightmare Painter) with 25k before triggers

From this attack pattern, you can see that:

1. The rule of weakest to strongest attack power is followed, at least within the 2 crit rear guard attacks
2. Force I gift stacked on Morfessa is maximised out, resulting in two high-powered 2 crit attacks
3. Magic power hit as much as possible
4. Five attacks achieved

This attack pattern is very useful when your opponent is at an even number of damage count (e.g. two or four damage) as they will be threatened with lethality if they were to no guard any of the 2 crit attacks. However, if your opponent is at an odd number of damage count (e.g. one or three damage), you may want to consider attacking with your vanguard first, before continuing with the same order of attack for the other attackers. This is to encourage your opponent to no guard the high-powered vanguard attack to reach an even number of damage count, at which point they will become threatened by the wave of 2 crit attacks. Remember to pass any criticals from critical triggers to a rear guard instead of the vanguard so that your opponent will not remain at an odd damage count. Also, take note that in the original attack pattern, the Dragdriver Luard's power level decreases by 5k after Lluails is replaced by the grade 0, since you have one less grade 1 rear guard on the field.

If you were lucky enough to be able to ride another copy of Dragheart Luard on your second grade 3 turn, this would be how you place your additional Force I gift: three on Morfessa's circle still, and two on Lluails'. This would allow your 1st attack to be 40k, 2 crit.

Now let's go on to a comprehensive breakdown of the decklist.

Deck breakdown

Deck Code [NH4N] deck | Deck Log (bushiroad.com)

• Triggers: 8 crit 4 draw 4 heal - since it is a slow deck, draw triggers can help to draw into Dragheart Luard and your other pieces. With a lower number of grade 2s than usual, draw triggers can also reduce the chance of misgrade. However, putting too many draw triggers can affect the overall shield quality of your hand and diminish the crit pressure from your offensive turns. Go ahead to switch to heal guardians when they release in the English format as they do help in surviving in the early game, as well as give yourself one counterblast if your opponent is damage denying you (often, one counterblast is all you need to get the engine going).
• Dragwizard, Knies x 4 and Cherishing Knight, Branwen x 4 - this deck is good only if you ride Dragheart Luard as your grade 3 vanguard, with significantly disastrous consequences if you end up riding Dragdriver Luard from your hand instead. As such, there is a need to maximise grade 3 ride consistency by running eight of these potential grade 3 searchers. Knies also helps to fetch Dragwizard, Liafail as a grade 2 ride, which can help since this deck is running a lower number of grade 2s than usual.
• Strict Order Knight, Lluails x 1, Sage of Risk, Decremps x 1, Nightmare Painter x 1 - these are some of the combo pieces used by the deck. One copy of each is often sufficient since Dragdriver Luard is capable of searching them out from the deck, while Dragheart Luard is able to recycle them from the drop zone back to the deck as needed.
• Black Sage, Charon x 2 - although this card is also a combo piece, it is run at two copies in order to enable the strong grade 2 turn formation of double Liafail-Charon as shown at the beginning of this article.
• Abyss Router x 2 - this combo piece is slightly more challenging as it needs to actually end up in the drop zone rather than just on the field. Running two copies increases your chance of healing it from the damage zone, or getting it into your hand and manually guarding with it. Some people would prefer using Apocalypse Bat as their 5th-attack enabler, but personally I found it to be even less consistent and harder to pull off than Abyss Router, since you would now require one Apocalypse Bat in soul and one Apocalypse Bat in the drop zone.
• Abyssal Owl x 2 - helps to draw cards. This fills up the rest of the grade 1 slots.
• Dragwizard, Liafail x 4 - strong on grade 2 turn, and run at four copies to maximise the chance of Knies eliciting a plus with his check top seven skill.
• Dragwizard, Morfessa x 4 - also a combo piece, but run at four copies to reduce the risk of misgrading on grade 2. The deck is already featuring a reduced number of grade 2s.
• Dragheart, Luard x 4 - please run four copies of this so that you can maximise the chances of riding and re-riding him. Often, I find myself recycling the Charon-Nightmare Painter pair from the drop zone back to the deck every turn with his skill, and calling them back out with Dragdriver Luard to regenerate resources.
• Dragdriver, Luard x 4 - some people argue that three copies of this is sufficient, but I would prefer to put as many in the deck as possible. This is so that when I 'stride', I'm removing a non-trigger from my deck, rather than running out of 'strides' in the deck and being forced to return it from drop zone to deck with Dragheart Luard's skill.

Concluding remarks

This Shadow Paladin deck has managed to stay in the top rungs of the V-Premium format for an extended period of time due to its field consistency engine, field advantage engine, and insane offensive turns. In the face of increasing early game offense and survival capability of newer upcoming V-Premium decks, it is yet unknown whether this deck can remain on top of the game with the changing environment. Nevertheless, it is one of the coolest combo decks to play in this format, and it was certainly fun to go through the nitty gritty details of it in this article. Do let me know in the comments if you have any differing opinions from whatever has been mentioned here. Enjoy the game, and stay safe everyone!

[ALL] Revival of this blog... and Daisuke Izuka update!

Hello everybody.

So, it has been more than 5 years since the last post of this blog. You can treat as though we time-leaped 5 years into the future. During this time, a lot has happened:

• To the Cardfight!! Vanguard trading card game: Shortly after our last blog post, the G-era meta became extremely cancerous with Gyze and Gear Cancer-related shenanigans. There was no longer any way for our fun decks to compete, and Bushiroad knew this as well. The game was then rebooted into the V-series where they tried to redo everything on a clean slate, but in a short span of 2 years we once again arrived into unbridled power creep hell. There was then a SECOND REBOOT (Overdress) where completely new units and mechanics are currently being introduced.
• To us: When Vanguard became increasingly irksome to play for us during the late G-era, we started our foray into other TCGs, such as Buddyfight and Dragoborne. We spent some time focusing and playing these games, while at the same time joining back to Vanguard during the V-series reboot. Interestingly, both of these games have now been discontinued. Some of us also went into Digimon Card Game, which has its own slew of issues. At the same time, we also got busy growing up and getting into adulthood (most of us are born around 1993). Right now though, we found it worthwhile to revive this blog during this exciting time for Vanguard where all 3 formats of Premium, V-Premium, and Standard are being revitalised to some extent.

Moving forward, this blog would focus on the V-Premium and Standard (Overdress) formats. Post titles would be tagged with [V-PREMIUM] or [STANDARD] depending on the format in question, as well as with [ALL] if the post is a general discussion transcending format boundaries. We hope to capture some of our states of mind during this time of Vanguard TCG gameplay, and whatever is recorded here can serve as a point of discussion in the present as well as a time capsule snapshot for our future selves to possibly laugh at.

Now moving on to the actual content of this post. What has Daisuke Izuka been up to for these 5 years?!

(Refer to our first Daisuke Izuka post here: http://weakness-is-a-sin.blogspot.com/2015/12/random-lets-idolise-daisuke-izuka.html)

During the late G-era, Daisuke Izuka contributed the artwork of upgraded forms of cards that he had illustrated in the past, with Stride bonus effects. These include:

Continuing his reign of terror in the Link Joker Star-Vader Chaos series, here are the mayhem cards that were drawn by him:

He also drew the Stride forms of cards that he illustrated in the past:

And how could he miss out on the Gear Cancer?

Moving into the V-series reboot, we see some of his previous works in new artwork by him as the returning illustrator of these iconic cards:

He also contributed illustrations to new cards that were previously not in the G-era of Vanguard:

In the Overdress reboot, so far we have not seen much from him except mainly the Cardinals of Brandt Gate. The art style is reminiscent of his previous Link Joker work on Deletors and Star-vaders:

Sadly, you won't be seeing much of his artwork if you play the Cardinal deck as it involves filling up the field with Shadow Army Tokens. Ah well.

And that brings us to the end of this post. Hope you enjoyed the cards/artwork compilation, and see you guys in our next post!