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.