Resident Fascist Posted March 2, 2015 Report Share Posted March 2, 2015 Welcome to Check for Trigger! This blog will cover Cardfight!! Vanguard cards, product reviews, tournament results and decklists. I will be posting one card review/insight per day, with articles scheduled weekly on various subjects regarding the game. I feel I should introduce myself with my Vanguard history. I begun playing this game around the release of Set 5 in Japanese, and begun getting English cards almost as soon as they were available. I have taken several hiatus from the game, including the times between Set 7 to Set 10, and from Set 13 to Set 16. That being said, my interest in the game had not completely died, I had just either been focusing on another game or something in my real life. As for my favourite clan, I have several. Kagero has a pretty soft spot in my heart due to it being the very first experience I had with Vanguard. Gold Paladin and Shadow Paladin have become some of my recent favourites, or just Paladin in general. That being said, I am not to be biased and provide reviews for cards from every clan. LATEST UPDATE: ADDED SCHEDULE FOR THIS WEEK'S CARD CHECK!! (02/03/15 - 09/03/15) Card Check!! is the segment of this blog where I review individual cards, their merits and their place in a deck or having a deck built around them. Card Check!! is a daily segment much shorter than my average article. Card Check!! will comprise the majority of my activity on this blog, so be sure to check this segment daily! [spoiler='Card Check!! 2/3/15 - Purgation Lion King, Mithril Ezel'] Stride (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-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. [ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card named "Purgation Lion Emperor, Mithril Ezel" from your G zone, and turn it face up] If you have a card in your hearts with "Ezel" in its card name, unlock all of your locked cards, look at five cards from the top of your deck, search for up to one card from among them, call it (RC), shuffle your deck, and increase that unit and this unit's [Power] by the original [Power] of the unit called with this effect until end of turn. Beginning my series of card reviews with a card from my personal favourite clan, Gold Paladin. Today we have Purgation Lion King, Mithril Ezel, a G-Unit to be released in Fighter's Collection 2015. Mithril Ezel breaks the trend of every other Ezel unit by being a G-Unit, as opposed to a Grade 3, and also the very first G-Unit shown that requires a specific unit as his heart. Because of this, we cannot really compare him to his Ezel buddies, as he is in a class of his own. However, we can discuss Mithril Ezel as a card. Mithril Ezel's skill allows you to, once per turn, look at the top 5 cards of your deck for a unit and call it, and much like Incandescent Lion, Blonde Ezel, Mithril Ezel's power will be increased by the power of that unit. But as a true Billy Mays would say, but that's not all! The unit itself has it's power doubled during that turn, making Mithril Ezel easily able to board a large amount of power, or a big booster for him or an ally very easily. Is Mithril Ezel going to define Gold Paladin decks during this upcoming Stride season? Probably not unless we see more Ezel support. While the Starting Vanguard for the deck, Scarlet Lion Cub, Caria, is extremely powerful and is Gold Paladin's answer to Judgebau Revenger, the deck has some major problems in the boss department. Blonde Ezel is an outdated Limit Break 4 unit with 10k base power, and in a format heavily dominated by Aqua Force and Strides, that just isn't good enough. Platina Ezel has a similar problem. He's Limit Break 5 and counterblast 3. Without adding the Blaster Blade Liberator and White Rainbow Liberator unflip engine, similar to the Dorint Blaster Dark Revenger engine, you will soon be sucked dry of all counterblast. That leaves Grand Ezel as our most decent choice. Not only does Grand Ezel help us against Link Joker decks that want to lock our Rear Guards, but he has a reliable skill to gain power, and while he may not be the most flashy Vanguard in the game, he has the distinction of being the only Ezel with the ability to hit for 2 Critical. This is rather big as Dark Irregulars and their Amon decks have proven, hitting for 75k is the same as hitting for 21k if the unit only has 1 Critical. Of course, Ezels, in their entirety, have always suffered one major problem. Perfect Guards. Platina Ezel mitigates this the best by spreading the power across the board, rather than dumping it all on himself, but he is easily the most expensive and impractical choice to use as your Mithril Ezel heart. As such, I'm going to suggest Salvation Lion, Grand Ezel Scissors, as previously mentioned. That leaves us in an awkward spot with multiple Grade 3 slots left open to us. We could fill this with more Ezel units, but honestly I feel this unnecessary. Once you have rode Grand Ezel, you should be able to keep him on the Vanguard circle whilst maintaining a Stride every turn, which should be Mithril Ezel himself. Ezel decks also have the unfortunate problem of only being able to call, at most, the top 2 cards of their deck, unlike the powerful filtering of Bluish Flame Liberators, as well as no access to Legion outside of running teched generic Liberator legions. However, where Ezel shines is it's ability to easily slot in many generic and powerful Gold Paladin cards without having to worry about a count of Liberators. Cards like Knight of Far Arrows, Saphir can not only Soul Charge to keep Grand Ezel active, but act as a damage unflipper when called with Mithril Ezel or Caria. Other cards like Player of the Holy Bow, Viviane, while they may not have aged fantastically, are still great when called with Mithril Ezel as they force a block for a large column or the Gold Paladin calling spree continues. Ezel himself also has some support cards, which we will briefly mention. Twin Holy Beast, White Lion is a self damaging unit intended to make Platina Ezel much more viable. This unit is obviously almost mandatory you decide to use him. Otherwise, I feel it okay to run a few copies just for the soul charging and damage zone control, but any more than 3 just feels somewhat unnecessary. Knight of Passion, Torre is the Kay clone for the deck. The Grade 1 that attacks for 10k when your Vanguard is an Ezel. This unit sounds good on paper, but once you realise all the Ezel units are Grade 3s or 4s, it becomes much harder to really suggest this over a more generic Grade 1. Knight of Passion, Badgemagus is Ezel's 12k attacker, and I actually do suggest you run this one, as he swings for enormous amounts with Mithril Ezel. 9000 + 9000 is 18000, he then gets 3000 power from his own ability, making him swing for 21000 all by his lonesome, enough to force 15000 off practically every Vanguard in the format. Lastly, we have Knight of Burning Scale, Eliwood. For a counterblast of one when a Grade 3 Ezel is placed onto your Vanguard circle, you get to call the top card of your deck. Unfortunately, this dude does not work with Mithril Ezel or I'd say run 4. As such, I personally prefer Viviane for her pushing pressure on offence and more versatility when Ezels aren't being rode. You will be discarding dead Ezels to Stride, regardless. As for backup Vanguards, you have plenty of choice. Break Rides, hell even a 2 to 2 split of Gancelot to Gancelot Zenith if you want, I've seen some lists run Liberator Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, others running more Ezels. Generally, the remainder of the Grade 3 line-up, as well as the rest of the shell of this deck is up to you. Ezel is a very versatile deck that can be built in many ways to satisfy what you need from it, so take advantage of that. That being said, I am extremely excited for this card and cannot wait to get 4 of them. As you know, I freaking loooove my Gold Paladins.[/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 3/3/15 - Omniscience Dragon, Managarmr'] Stride (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-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. [ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card named "Omniscience Dragon, Managarmr" from your G zone, and turn it face up] If the number of face up cards in your G zone is two or more, choose up to two of your rear-guards, until end of turn, they get [Power]+4000 and "[AUTO](RC):When this unit attacks a vanguard, if this unit's [Power] is 20000 or more, until end of that battle, your opponent cannot call grade 1 or greater cards from hand to (GC).". On today's Card Check!! we have my personal favourite of the Strides contained within GBT-02, Omniscience Dragon, Managarmr. Great Nature has been a clan I have been interested in for some amount of time now, but I never really wanted to convert it to paper due to the relatively low success rate the deck had in comparison to my more stable decks like Paladins. Hopefully now, with the latest batch of support in GBT-02, Great Nature will finally be put on the map. While the deck has had limited to no tournament success thus far, I feel the deck itself has potential to take a surprise few easy tournaments with the inherent power of their cards like Honorary Professor, Chatnoir and Managarmr himself. Let's begin by taking a look at the Great Nature University's head, Managarmr, and then slowly discuss his purpose in a Great Nature build. Managarmr himself is a Stride solely focused on supporting his students. For a counterblast of 1 and a G Persona Flip, Managarmr gives 4000 Power to two rearguards, as well as a new ability, until the end of the turn. This ability denies perfect guards from your opponent if the rearguard who is attacking has 20000 or more power. This at first glance may seem pretty underwhelming, after all, isn't this basically what Eternity Professor, Phoenicialux does, and he's only a R, this card is a RRR. Of course, Managarmr may not be the flashiest of Strides, he won't draw you a ton of cards like Chatnoir, but that isn't really what Managarmr is for. Managarmr enables Great Nature to combat the most powerful card in the game, Perfect Guards. Naturally, this is very good, especially in a clan that likes to pump rearguards in true Great Nature fashion. So, Managarmr can either give 8000 power to a column to almost ensure the Perfect Guard denial if the column itself is swinging for at least 12000 by itself, or give the power to two seperate columns and have a chance at getting two rear guard attacks in uninterrupted by pesky perfect guards. While this sounds small, Managarmr can have a huge impact on games, something I have not seen him really given credit for, at least in comparison to the other Strides for this set. Let's say your opponent has 7 cards in hand, a PG, a Grade 3, two 10000 Guards, a Grade 2 and the remaining 3 cards are Draw Triggers. Your field consists of say, two 9000 units. You Stride Managarmr, and drop 4000 power onto both of those units, making them 13000 each. Now you can call any 7000 power booster into either of those columns to easily satisfy the 20000 power requirement for Managarmr's Perfect Guard block skill. You have essentially completely removed the Perfect Guard from their hand at this point for the turn, as they can only perfect guard Managarmr, who is probably going to be attacking first anyway to give any potential Trigger effects over to the rearguards he just gave power to. The only slight downside of Managarmr over say, Phoeniclaux is that Managarmr does not retire the unit at the end of the turn, unfortunately not having synergy with cards like Tick Tock Flamingo and Coiling Duckbill, However, this is where another card comes in, Famous Doctor, Big Berry is Great Nature's Strideblast (?) Unit, giving another 4000 power to units and the ability to draw a card when the unit in the same column hits when he is Strode over. Using both him and Managarmr, you can give 4000 power to both Rear Guard columns, pumping both of them by 16000, as well as blocking Perfect Guards and drawing cards when you do eventually hit. I mean sure, you do have to hit the Vanguard, but the pressure between this combination is insane. Capable Assistant, Guru Wolf is the Legion Mate to Hot-blooded Professor, Guru Tiger and has a similar skill to the Managarmr and Big Berry combo, drawing a card when he hits the Vanguard with 20000 or more power. This skill is actually extremely easy to set off in this deck, of course, trying to fit the Legion, Big Berry and Chatnoir all in the same deck can be difficult. How does one achieve the ideal spread of cards? While Hot-blooded Professor, Guru Tiger is definitely a solid boss, the fact he requires a Persona Blast to draw cards when Chatnoir does it for free is what generally influences my decision. I feel that 4 Chatnoir 3 Big Berry and 1 copy of Guru Tiger with more of his legion mate, Guru Wolf in the Grade 2 lineup, is the build I like the most thus far. Of course, feel free to comment and criticize if you disagree with me. I still think that Chatnoir is an insanely powerful card, and is most certainly still the cornerstone of Great Nature. Big Berry and his assistant, Single-minded Assistant, Mini Berry most certainly help us by giving us both power when we Stride, and much more access to Stride, however I feel the deck is still very much focused on Chatnoir's advantage and power engine. That being said, Managarmr can also be used in synergy with many other On-Hit Great Nature units, such as Lamp Camel. With the unflip Tick Tock Flamingo provides, this can provide yet another easy card advantage or pressure engine. Of course, if one wants to run more of the Guru Tiger, you can always use Illusion Scientist, Researcher Fox to search out the pieces, Great Nature is also relatively flexible with several good builds, so build it to how you want. That being said, this has been today's Card Check!! featuring Omniscience Dragon, Managarmr. Let's hope Great Nature has some great success in tournaments. ...I'm sorry that pun was bad. [/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 4/3/15 - Flash Flame Divine Knight, Samuel'] Stride (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-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):[Counter Blast (2)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, if the number of cards in your opponent's damage zone is four or less, and the number of rear-guards you have is five or more, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's vanguards, and deal one damage. (Perform a damage check.) ROYAL PALADIN STRIDE REPRESENT. Today on Card Check!! we have Flash Flame Divine Knight, Samuel, my personal favourite and most used of the new Strides contained within GBT-02. Samuel himself is a relatively simple card with an easy to understand premise. Counterblast 2 when you attack a Vanguard, if your opponent is at 4 or less damage, they take one damage. This type of effect has been seen on cards like Revenger, Dragruler Phantom, and Perdition Dragon, Vortex Dragonewt. Is Samuel the best iteration of this type of effect? Absolutely not. Does Samuel require anywhere near as much dedication to playing it as the other two? No. This is a card practically any Royal Paladin deck can run, and it is a great addition to the clan. Obviously, the ability to bump your opponent up to 5 from 4 is huge and often underestimated. While Samuel is only likely to go off maybe once or rarely, twice per game, the impact he can have on a game is rather large. In combination with Triggers, your opponent is no longer given the option to take a large rearguard attack at 4 damage, forcing them to guard. The difference between being on 4 and being on 5 is very dramatic as the player is forced to guard every single attack that comes their way thereafter, making Samuel's effects on the game last long after he returns face-up to the G-Zone. Of course, Samuel is not without his flaws, such as requiring 5 rearguards to activate, not giving himself any sort of steroid and actually being quite expensive to use in a deck that has some extremely greedy counterblasters. Shining Knight, Millius, Knight of Twin Sword and Blue Sky Knight, Altmile are 3 cards that immediately come to mind, and whilst Knight of Fragment does exist to unflip damage, I often find it difficult to have enough counterblasts available for everything. Unlike a lot of Strides, Samuel exists for the reason of pinging the opponent once up to 5, and then letting other Strides like Holy Dragon, Saint Blow Dragon clean up with his extra power and game securing extra critical. That being said, Samuel's purpose cannot be denied and he is a very interesting card to play with. Not so much to talk about. However, Samuel is one card I am definitely excited to see in English come May 22nd. [/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 5/3/15 - Supreme Conquering Dragon, Conquest Dragon']Coming soon[/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 6/3/15 - Marine General of the Sky and Earth, Lambros']Coming soon[/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 7/03/15 - Interdimensional Dragon, Fate Rider Dragon'][/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 8/03/15 - Sacred Tree Dragon, Jingle Flower Dragon']Coming soon[/spoiler] [spoiler='Card Check!! 9/3/15 - Flower Princess of Spring's Beginning, Primavera'][/spoiler] The Damage Check!! is a weekly segment where I post the week in Tournament results, and significant events happening around the world related to the game. I will post the first Damage Check!! on the 9th, a week from now, as well as my first Article. As such, the banners below this one are just placeholders for now, I apologize for the wait. [spoiler='Deck Primer - Dragonic Overlord The X (6/3/15)'][/spoiler] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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