Initial Impression: Raging Folm Dragon

The effects of the supposed new Shadow Paladin Revenger boss card has been revealed recently:


Revenger Raging Folm Dragon

Grade 3/Shadow Paladin - Abyss Dragon/11000 Power

[AUTO] (V) LB4: Target 3 of your “Revenger” Rearguards, retire them. At the end of a Battle in which this Unit attacked, you can pay the cost, if you do, target up to 1 “Revenger, Raging Folm Dragon” in your hand, Ride it, target your Vanguard, and during this turn that unit gains [Power]+10000.

[AUTO] (V): [Counterblast 1]: When this unit attacks, you can pay the cost. If you do, this unit gains [Power]+3000 during this battle.

[CONT] (V/R): Lord

The very first thing that came to mind was something a long the lines of "omg -4 lololol terribad card would not use". But then again, Spectral Duke Dragon is kinda the same...

And since it IS Shadow Paladin and standing vanguards seem to be all the rage nowadays, lets take a better look at it ;D

First off, Raging Folm Dragon's LB has no Counter Blast cost. This is really important because even the previous Shadow Pala deck builds could fully maximize their Counter Blast very very easily, and if there were more available, Shadow Paladins generally could consume it all for various effects. I expect the Revenger's to be quite similar in this regard.
The next thing about its cost is that, essentially it has a cleverly disguised discard 4 card cost in the form of discarding 3 and riding 1. Yes, riding is a -1, even though it is necessary until Grade 3, because you don't gain any additional cards on the field and it costs you 1 from hand (but most people know this). Also, since we must ride another Raging Folm Dragon, it is basically a "Persona Ride" and has the same problems as a Persona Blast skill, which is requiring a second copy of itself in hand to use. 


On the other hand, a good thing about this standing skill is that it doesn't have a specific hit condition, similar to Spectral Duke Dragon. Additionally, the Raging Folm Dragon you ride gains +10k power AND keeps Twin Drive, which immediately makes it better than Spectral Duke because you don't have to rely on getting triggers so your second Vanguard attack will hit with a decent amount of power. However, because we are forced to ride a second copy, it is impossible to stack triggers, which is pretty bad compared to other self standing Vanguards, like The End, Dragonic Descendant and Spectral Duke all of which can possibly attack for 2+ damage multiple times. 


Both Raging Folm and Spectral Duke have a net card gain of 1 the turn their skills are used (not accounting for draw triggers and other skills). Raging Folm has a -4 cost but gets to Twin Drive twice while Spectral Duke has a cost of -3 but loses Twin Drive on the second attack (and obviously, the +1 comes from the Draw at the start of the turn).
While not all the cards have been revealed yet, the Revengers do seem to have more than enough ways to make up for the retire cost, just like Spectral Duke Dragon, so the main concern with Raging Folm in terms of cost would be having another copy in hand when we would want to use its skill. BUT since this skill is so similar to Spectral Duke it will also mainly be used as a finisher and it's very likely to have another copy in hand by that time in the game. 

The next concern would be what triggers to play with Raging Folm. Since Critical Triggers don't carry over to the second attack Raging Folm isn't quite as deadly as Spectral Duke or Dragonic Descendant. Going with a RG -> VG -> RG attack pattern  we can still give all Trigger effects to the second RG attack, or split Criticals to RG and power to Vanguard to attempt to get through 2 trigger guards. This would definitely be a good option, since Raging Folm's skill gets him additional 10k power on the second attack.

However, it might be better to play stand triggers instead. This is because unlike Spectral Duke, Raging Folm Dragon is a Revenger and has all the generic Archetype support which includes 12k attackers and other card effects have also been released and include a 11k attacker when we have less Rear Guards. With just 1 stand trigger, these cards can hit for 16k/17k  by themselves. Stand Triggers are also better in a 5 damage situation because you only need 1 damage to win, barring heal triggers, thus additional attacks are better than having additional damage on fewer attacks. 
Mordred, the Shadow Paladin break ride, also has an effect that calls 1 Grade 2 or lower unit and give it +5k for that turn, which makes it incredibly good with stands as a unit like Masquerade will be 17k on that turn without triggers. 
The attacking order for a final turn push would be RG -> RG -> VG, then retire all boosting units for Raging Folm's Limit Break. In the most ideal scenario, if we drive check double stands on both Twin Drive, we would get 8 attacks total (6 RG attacks and 2 VG attacks) of which all Rear Guard attack will force a minimum of 10k guard against an 11k or lower power Vanguard. 

Of course that's rarely/never going to happen. But in a situation where you don't get any triggers, it makes no difference in which order you attack or even what triggers you play (obviously). But even if you only get 1 trigger, 1 additional attack can make all the difference, especially since that attack would need at least 10k shield to guard. So for now it is something to consider, but definitely needs to be tested.

I didn't really talk about Raging Folm Dragon's second skill, which give him +3k for Counter Blast 1 on attack. It's a decent skill to have but not all that great either, much more important is the fact that it has an 11k base power.

Just my initial thoughts, after the initial over reaction haha.

Damage Control

So recently Bushiroad released a new Restrict list and basically the only cards that are restricted now are Majesty Lord Blaster, Dragonic Descendant and Goddess of the Fullmoon Tsukuyomi. Restricted to 2 copies per deck, just like before. Barcgal still cannot be starting Vanguard. 

According to a friend of mine, a lot of people were scrambling to get Dragonic Overlord The End again when the list just got released.

But I'm pretty confident in saying this: Dragonic Overlord The End isn't as strong as he used to be.

More accurately everything else has gotten better, so The End won't be as dominating as he was before. I don't really have first hand evidence for this, but just look at the English format if you need proof. The End definitely didn't dominate the English format to the same extent as the Japanese format when it was released. It's definitely still a solid deck if you enjoy playing it, but getting it because it was super strong before is a bad idea.

What about Dauntless Drive Dragon? Well in theory Dauntless Drive combined with The End is a strong combo to pull off. But the strength of Dragonic Overlord The End is that its effect is relatively cheap cost wise and can potentially be pulled off the moment you ride it. So there's constant threat from the moment you/your opponent ride The End. You have to keep guessing if there's a second copy in your opponents hand, or keep guarding.

If Dauntless Drive Dragon were to be played with Dragonic Overlord The End, ideally you'd ride Dauntless Drive first or there would be no point in even playing it. Once that happens, there's no threat until 4 damage and there's not much you can do with Counter Blast as well since you need to save at least 2 Counter Blast for The End after you Break Ride. 

After the Break Ride happens there's also really not that much pressure, to be honest. The flaw of Dauntless Drive Dragon's Break Ride with another self standing Vanguard is that the Break Ride effect can only be used if the Vanguard hasn't "stand" this turn. This means it has to be used first.
So the solution to this is simply making sure you aren't at 4-5 damage when the Dauntless Drive Break Ride happens and just take the first attack. Since Dauntless Drive's Break Ride effect lets the Vanguard stand regardless if you guard or not, better not waste any cards. After that just negate the following attack. Doesn't even matter what it is.
If it's another Dauntless Drive, well, it can stand only once in the first place. If it's Dragonic Overlord The End, negating the attack works also because The End needs to hit to be able to stand. 
So overall, your opponent will still go +1:

• 1st Drive Check (+2), Dauntless Drive Skill (-3), 2nd Drive Check (+2)

Of course this doesn't account for Draw Triggers. So that's a +1 only.
1 card less than a normal turn (just +2 from drive check) and 2(!) cards less than just using Dragonic Overlord The End to stand (+2 from drive check, -1 for The End's skill and +2 from 2nd drive check, overall +3).

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For reference, if you let The End hit after standing with Dauntless Drive:

• 1st Drive Check (+2), Dauntless Drive Skill (-3), 2nd Drive Check (+2), The End Skill (-1), 3rd Drive Check (+2)

So that's a minimum of +2 without Draw Triggers. Just like a normal turn. But of course the danger here is that your opponent has 6 chances to check triggers. And The End can technically keep standing as long as the costs can be paid. For every additional stand it would be another +1 minimum, because you drive check 2 but have to discard 1. Again the threat is the additional chance to check triggers, not the actual card advantage. 

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Of course if you cannot negate the 2nd attack you'll probably end up losing (unless your opponent doesn't check more triggers than normal...). BUT if you cannot negate the 2nd attack, why did you let your opponent Break Ride in the first place?

This game is becoming more about managing your damage AND your opponents damage. 

So you only let your opponent Break Ride if you know you can deal with it. This is why the restriction was lifted on The End. It just isn't as good with Dauntless Drive Dragon as people think and while the old build can apply pressure early, Break Ride decks can make a come back simply because of the amount of cards the average Break Ride can make a player drop and The End decks really don't have that much power, especially because there are more 11k Vanguards now and Burning Horn isn't as strong now.

On the other hand Dragonic Descendant got restricted because it was too dominant, obviously, but that's because it could stand no matter what you did AND it also gained a free Critical (and there's also the superior ride...). Which is what the 3 cards that are restricted have in common: They all ensure Criticals in some way. The other thing is that they all have or can potentially have 11k base power or higher in the case of Majesty Lord (which is probably why Salome isn't on the list, thank god).
And yes Tsukuyomi can ensure Criticals, just not in the same way as the other two cards. Oracles do it through the stacking. But that said I don't think it is as strong as the other two still are. Both Majesty and Descendant still work well under the restrictions, much better than Tsukuyomi does, but if there was no restriction on Tsukuyomi it might be too strong haha

As for why other Critical based Vanguards aren't on the list: They just aren't as consistent or are harder to pull off or have a huge cost.

That's all I got for now :)
Well actually I have more but then this would get way too long haha
Until next time. Please pay attention to how much damage you take and give :D

Oh btw. Angel Feather feels like a deck to look out for.