First proper post :O
Since the first few cards of Vanguard's 10th booster set and Trial decks 9 and 10 have been revealed a while back and I had some time to think about them, I'm going to dedicate some posts to them, most likely not all the cards though.
First up is going to be Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant. Because I feel like building a Narukami deck, so it's a good idea to review my options.
Taken from blog.livedoor.jp/freedomduo
This guy seems to have managed to generate quite a bit of hype. His stats and ability:
Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant
G3 / Power: 11000 / Shield: 0
[AUTO](VC) Limit Break 4:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose three cards with "Eradicator" in their card name from your hand, and discard them] At the beginning of the close step of the battle that this unit's attack did not hit, you may pay the cost. If you do, [Stand] this unit, and gets [Critical]+1 until end of turn. This ability can only be used once per turn.
[ACT](VC):[Counter Blast (2) - Cards with "Eradicator" in their names] This unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit that doesn't belong to the same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)
Lets go through those starting with the last, least interesting one.
The Lord ability is the new standard ability for 11k and above units. I don't particularly like this as it limits the player to only playing cards of a single clan in any given deck. Granted only very few players actually played multiple clans in one deck, there were some fun things that could be done, like playing Wingal Brave in a Shadow Paladin deck focus around Phantom Blaster Overlord. A lot of cards can be searched by Wingal Brave and a Vanguard PBO will still be 11k if you already ride Phantom Blaster Dragon, if you still have Wingal Brave around for whatever reason. There's also the option of just sticking with PBD if you have Blaster Dark in soul, since PBD will also be 11k. Other examples would be Dragonic Overlord or Stil Vampir in CEO Amaterasu decks.
Just a few example, but that aside, my main point is the Lord ability completely shuts down mixing clans, which is sad, but ultimately not all that big of a deal and may even be necessary to keep some of the cards balanced.
Dragonic Descendant's second ability is to give it self a power boost. Counter Blast 2 for +5k in power is quite a normal cost. Other cards with similar cost is Gancelot, who gets an additional +1 Critical but he is 9k base power and needs Blaster Blade in soul to activate his ability. The cards you flip over need to have Eradicator (or Eraser, whatever floats your boat) in their names, but that's not a huge deal as, if I remember correctly, most of the cards in the Narukami Trial deck have Eradicator in their names. There is the possibility that Bushiroad won't release additional triggers with an Eradicator name, but even then, playing none Eradicator triggers will only stop this ability from going off in the rarest of rare cases. It's very possible to build a deck with minimal cards without an Eradicator name, as Eradicators have their own versions of various essential cards, like unflipper, vanilla Grade 2, and 9k Grade 2 that gets +3k when attacking when your Vanguard is an Eradicator. So realistically, you should be able to activate this ability without thinking about the Counter Blast restriction 99.99% of the time. Also this is an activate ability, would be pretty terrible if it weren't (just so I covered every aspect of it).
The first ability printed on this card and the final ability we have to cover is Descendant's Limit Break. At 4 Damage and for a cost of Counter Blast 1 and discarding 3 cards with Eradicator in their names, this card can stand again if its first attack did not hit and it gets +1 Critical until the end of the turn. It doesn't lost twin drive.
This ability is similar to other self re-standing vanguards like Dragonic Overlord The End, Spectral Duke Dragon and Stern Blaukruger. Dragonic Descendant has the cheapest Counter Blast cost out of all of them, but has other restrictions in an attempt to balance it out (LB4 and specific discard cost).
Like The End and Blaukruger, the secondary cost is a Discard cost. This has ups and downs to it. Compared to the Duke, if you don't already have enough units on the field to attack with, you cannot activate this ability if you call everything in your hand to the field. This may sound like it'll only apply to last resort situations, but it's during those times that you'll really want to get an extra attack to attempt to finish the game. Spectral Duke doesn't have this problem unless you didn't have enough cards overall in the first place. Another requirement is to discard cards with Eradicator in their names. It's not really a problem if you decide to build a full Eradicator deck which is definitely possible. But as of the time I'm writing this, there are no additional Eradicator triggers and not many players like to play a rainbow trigger setup. Also Red River Dragoon, the Narukami vanilla Grade 1 is a none Eradicator and an 8k boost is always good to have and usually played in 4s. So unless there is going to be more Eradicator triggers if you want to play anything other then rainbow triggers and/or have an 8k booster you'll have to take note of this restriction and expend your none Eradictor cards first. A good thing about the cost being discard is you are not forced to attack with Rear Guards first, which in my opinion is pretty big unless you intend to play stand triggers.
Lets compare this card to Spectral Duke even more, since Duke has become one of the most popular decks before set 10. We've already covered a bit of the Retire vs. Discard so next is the ability itself.
Condition wise, both abilities are LB4, Dragonic Descendant can only activate if its attack is blocked but can attack anything while Spectral Duke has to attack the Vanguard but can activate no matter what your opponent does, but Duke also has the higher Counter Blast cost. Since Descendant can stand again and even keeps twin drive, you may think you can attack an important Rear Guard first without boosting then stand and attack the opposing Vanguard, but it's actually not that great since your opponent can just let his Rear Guard die and you can't stand again. On the other hand if you attack the Vanguard without boosting it may be easy to guard, but then your opponent loses 1 extra card and you can stand and attack again. If your opponent doesn't guard you may be able to deal extra damage with Critical Triggers (and maybe win with double Critical when your opponent is at 3 damage huehuehue) and it's like you attack with full force and your opponent chooses to no guard anyway.
Duke loses twin drive and Descendant not only gets to keep twin drive but also gets an additional Critical. This may seem absurd at first, and it is if we compare only the two cards themselves. Spectral Duke has a ride chain that helps swarm the field and later on that will pay for the cost of retiring 3 without directly diminishing the player's ability to guard. However that also means Duke is very reliant on its ride chain going off smoothly. Luckily Gold Paladins still have other means to call cards from the top of the deck, so it's not all that bad.
Narukami on the other hand have nothing to help them add cards to the hand besides draw triggers but it's OK cause Dragonic Descendant gets +Critical anyway (hint hint), this means that instead of relying on a ride chain Descendant relies on getting some early draw triggers to off set his LB cost.
In terms of direct support there are a ton of Eradicator cards to fulfill the specific discard cost and Descendant has an Ezel style Superior Ride. Besides the Grade 0, the Grade 2 required is the Eradicator unflipper which also Soul Charges 1 card when it unflips and the Grade 1 is Descendants custom booster, a 6k Grade 1 that can Soul Blast 1 to give Descendant +5k power. To make the Superior Ride as consistent as possible it is necessary to play both at 4 copies each. While it doesn't seem like a bad idea to play 4 copies of the Grade 1 (since its effect works on Rear Guard Descendants as well), you may run into a few issues. First, it is unlikely you will ever have that much soul to boost multiple Dragonic Descendants for multiple turns. Sure the unflipper lets you soul charge, but realistically, how often do people let you soul charge? Not that often. Also the threat of having the Vanguard boosted by an extra 5k is enough to make the other player keep blocking your unflipper if he can afford it, so it is unnecessary to have Rear Guard Descendants and custom boosters to pressure your opponent. The Superior Ride gives you extra Soul but that means 1 custom booster less and you have to draw into more. If you already had them, do you have Descendants to play as RG, if you have, you probably dealt minimum damage and may have received more than you like. This is an issue since the pace of the game will change but I'll cover that another time.
Another thing to consider is how often you will actually draw into both, before your Rear Guard slots are filled. Dragonic Descendant has no effect as a Rear Guard. Of course vanillla 11k is always better than vanilla 10k, but the fact is you could have played another card that actually has an effect as a Rear Guard. There's also the fact that very few people actually play more than 2 copies of any 11k booster, though Narukami could be an exception cause they have more and better high powered attackers so more weaker booster may be ok.
That said, one cannot argue against having multiple custom boosters for a Final Turn, however situational that might be.
Finally the last thing to compare is how much the ability costs actually impact your overall card advantage. Not accounting for draw triggers a normal turn will give you +3 from draw and twin drive. Spectral duke costs 3 cards and only drive checks once on stand ending up with a total of +1 for that turn (-2 compared to normal turn).
Dragonic Descendant's ability also results in -3 cards but keeps twin drive so gets you a +2 overall that turn (-1 compared to normal turn).
If you ask me, 1 card is a huge deal in Vanguard.
In my opinion, they are both about equal due to Spectral Duke arguably having the better pre set 10 support, Descendant can give itself power so it doesn't look as stupid if you didn't get any triggers at all. I say pre set 10 because obviously nothing can be compared to Liberator Gancelot, but that's for another time haha
I definitely think Dragonic Descendant is not as broken as some people may make you think it is. A good way to deal with it is to guard earlier, specifically, after Grade 3, guard more Rear Guard attacks so you can just take the Vanguard attacks and don't have to worry so much about having to guard extra attacks from the Vanguard and hopefully won't die to surprise Criticals. It would probably also be a good idea, to attack the Descendant players Rear Guards as he needs to keep at least 1 card in hand to be able to use Dragonic Descendants ability without having to rely on a draw triggers. It'll also give you an idea of what's in your opponents hand, depending on if he calls units or not.
Nevertheless Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant is still a great card and I feel it will be the card most people will favor for a Eradicator based deck (I may be wrong though). The threat of being able to check up to 4 triggers a turn if you are really lucky is huge. And not having to attack with Rear Guards first also gives you additional options in terms of attack patterns and trigger distribution. Another big thing, as already mentioned, is Dragonic Descendants ability to give itself +5k, this means that even if you boost and attack first, Descendant still has a respectable 16k power without triggers. Right now I feel the ideal, IDEAL Descendant attack would be attacking with the vanguard and boosting, playing critical triggers so you force your opponent to guard even before 5 damage, but also having stand triggers so you can re-stand your boosting unit as well. This actually works with my idea of a "strongest possible deck" but YET AGAIN that's for another time :P
Until Narukami gets something that lets them not play draw triggers you'll have to choose either critical or stand triggers and supplement them with draws. Either can work well; Criticals are always good and you may not have to play as many as other decks since Descendant gets an extra Critical on stand, and stand triggers are good because Narukami already have many units that either have 11k base power or can attack for 11k or higher even without boost.
Quick Sample Decklist:
G0:
6 Draw
6 Critical
4 Heal
(Play max number of cards with Eradicator in their names where applicable)
1 Eradicator Strike Dagger Dragon
G1:
3 Eradicator of Sword Dance Hisen
4 Red River Dragoon
4 Wyvern Guard Guld
4 Eradicator Demolition Dragon
G2:
4 Conquering Eradicator Zuidan
4 Eradicator Spark Rain Dragon
3 Eradicator Thunderboom Dragon
G3:
3 Eradicator Dragonic Descendant
3 Eradicator Vowing Sword Dragon
2 Chain Attack Eradicator Shion
Instead of playing it like Ezel and only play 2 copies, I decided to play 3 copies of Descendant simply because of its 11k base power. Could max out on Descendants and play 1 less Vowing Sword Dragon, but I'm more comfortable with a 3-3-2 setup for Grade 3s. Shion is in there cause he looks awesome and I like the CB1 +3k G3s. Could run Gauntlet Buster Dragon instead of Shion but I don't feel that would be as effective. With Strike Dagger Dragon and 3 Copies of Descendant you should be riding Descendant most of the time, even though Hisen is only at 3 (Maxing out on Hisen is also an option). Ride Vowing Sword Dragon first when you can as it is still a solid 11k VG unit and Descendant isn't really that threatening before 4 Damage. Rest should be quite straightforward.
Next card is most likely going to be Dragonic Descendants bro, Eradicator Gauntlet Buster Dragon.
Congratulations if you made it through that wall of text. Achievement unlocked I guess. I will consider adding more pictures next time. Also I did not proof read this and you probably know why D:
No comments:
Post a Comment