[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!