So recently Narukami have won another 2 or so tournaments. It is proven that the Eradicators are strong. So what is an effective way to play against them? I think in general, before trying to figure out how to win a certain deck, whether it be Vanguard or another card game (or even video games like League of Legends or Starcraft 2), we must first understand why it is so strong. So lets take a look at the now standard Eradicator deck list.
Gauntlet Buster - Descendant
Grade 0
x1 Spark Kid Dragoon (FVG)
x4 Eradicator, Dragon Mage DT
x4 Demonic Dragon Eradicator, Seiobo HT
x4 Eradicator, Yellow Gem Carbuncle CT
x4 Eradicator of the Divine Spear, Pollux CT
Grade 1
x3 Rising Phoenix
x4 Eradicator, Wyvern Guard Guld
x2 Eradicator, Demolition Dragon
x2 Eradicator of the Ceremonial Bonfire, Castor
x3 Iron Blood Eradicator, Shuki
Grade 2
x4 Eradicator, Spark Rain Dragon
x3 Dragonic Deathscythe
x4 Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Chou-Ou
Grade 3
x2 Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant
x4 Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon
x2 Eradicator, Vowing Sword Dragon
Thanks to Touya from vanguardus.blogspot.com for compiling all the tournament info in one convenient place :] Visit his blog if you don't already!
This more or less represents most of the Narukami decks topping tournaments, there are some more varied deck types but I'll cover them in another post.
Let's go through all the grades:
Grade 0
Pretty standard 8 Criticals, 4 Draw and 4 Heal triggers. Spark Kid Dragoon is still a solid first Vanguard if you want to be extra sure not to miss your Grade 3 ride. Another strong option would be Ambush Dragon Eradicator, Linchu. To be honest, I don't know why people are still running Spark Kid when there's an option like Linchu.
If you aren't familiar with Linchu's effect: When an attack hits a vanguard during the battle that it boosts an Eradicator, you may Counter Blast 1 and add it to soul, then choose 1 of your opponents Grade 1 or lower Rear Guards and retire it. A Grade 0 that can retire a Grade 1? Yes please. There's almost no getting around Linchu, especially if it's behind the Vanguard. Linchu is even better during the mid game when you have units on the field that gain power when you retire your opponents Rear Guards. It also has a solid 5k power and can form 16k power lines with all your 11k Grade 3.
So unless you are really scared of missing your Grade 3 ride, play Linchu. Seriously.
Grade 1
4 Perfect Guards is mandatory. Iron Blood Eradicator Shuki is a Grade 1 with 7k Power that gains an additional 3k power when you retire an opponents Rear Guard. Great unit with all the retiring options that this deck has. Becomes a 10k boost for any column, some people prefer to max it, but 3 is just fine.
In terms of card cyclers, Castor probably has one of the better conditions, especially early game. Helps you fish for what you need early game, and maybe late game as well if you retired enough of your opponents Rear Guards.
Demolition Dragon is the Eradicator Grade 1, 10k attacker. At 7k power it is a good boosting unit and decent attacker in a pinch. Players that like to play more aggressively tend to max this.
While not an Eradicator, Rising Phoenix helps generate some card advantage for Narukami as they lack call skills. Makes use of soul, which would otherwise be wasted, and helps get cards you need. Generally played only at 2-3.
Another popular option would be the Eradicator 10k booster, Kohkaiji. Easily the best 10k booster in the game, only needing the opponent to be at 3 damage or more. Makes your Vanguard column big regardless of Limit Break.
Grade 2
Not much to say about Spark Rain, standard 12k attacker. Chou-ou lets you retire an opponents front row Rear Guard by sending one of your Eradicators to soul. It's not a mandatory effect on call so you can just use it as a 9k attacker as well. Sacrificing one of your own units to retire an opponents can be a good trade, but best used when you have units out that will power up due to the retire as well.
Dragonic Deathscythe for even more retire options. Deathscythe is slightly better than Chou-ou for the simple fact that you don't lose anything and you can retire ANY Grade 2 or lower, but it has a cost of Counter Blast 2. Good synergy with the deck but you might not want to play it because it isn't an Eradicator and may mess up skill costs that require Eradicator Counter Blast or discard.
Good replacements for Deathscythe are Thunder Boom Dragon a vanilla 10k or Hakushou, the Grade 2 9k Power version of Shuki, gaining +3k power when you retire an opponents Rear Guard. Both of them are Eradicators as well.
Grade 3
I hate to say it, but 2 Descendant is mandatory. And seriously, why not. It's almost a sure win if your opponent is at 5 damage and sometimes even at 4, unless they have a huge card advantage over you but then things weren't looking good for you anyway. Riding Descendant early isn't ideal, but it isn't all that bad either.
Gauntlet Buster at 4 is also a must. The Grade 3 that will do most of the heavy lifting. Its retire effect is an Activate and isn't a Limit Break which is pretty damn good even though you can't actually choose what you retire. Its Limit Break gives it +3k and +1 Critical every time you retire an opponents Rear Guard. Important to note that it also works during the battle phase if you manage to retire a Rear Guard with an on hit effect. With the abundance of retire effects that this deck has it isn't so difficult to get 2 retires on the same turn to attack for 3 damage with your Vanguard, before Drive Check. Even with only a 7k boost, Gauntlet Buster will still be 24k which will most likely force a Perfect Guard from your opponent.
It might feel like a waste to do all that setup then run into a negate, but think about it this way:
A Perfect Guard means your opponent just lost 2 cards from his hand and you forced him to do that by making him lose 2 cards on his field, which he will most likely need to replace to keep attacking you with decent power lines, so that's another 2 cards from his hand. Madness.
It gets even better if you have Hakushou or an 11k or higher Rear Guard, boosted by Shuki. That'll force at least another 15k worth of shield (which is minimum 2 cards) if your opponent didn't get any Triggers on Drive Check or even more if you checked Criticals and your opponent needs to guard at 3/4 Damage. Pretty crazy if you have the right setup, and even if you don't it is still pretty good.
The last 2 slots can be anything you want. Vowing Sword, Rai-ou, Sweep Command etc. Preferably an 11k, but Rai-ou is pretty good as well. Obviously you won't want to get stuck riding your filler card for too long, but it happens and can't really be avoided.
Counterplay?
In my opinion there's only very few effects that are better than retiring your opponents Rear Guards and powering up at the same time. You may say that Kagero has it too, but Kagero didn't have as much retiring power and theirs wasn't as consistent.
The Grade 1 was 6k that gained +3k, there is another but it is a promo that's hard to get, it gains 5k instead but is 5k power at its base as a trade off. Blazing Flare was a 10k power vanguard that only gained 3k on retire and no extra critical and to top it off Blazing Flares effect has a cost of Soul Blaste 5 and Kagero STILL doesn't have that many good soul charging options.
HOWEVER. This doesn't mean that Gauntlet Buster - Descendant decks don't have any counterplay options at all.
The simplest way to "outplay" this deck is also the only option that you can't really directly control, which is simply getting more triggers than your opponent. I say "can't really" control because there is some things you can do to try to attempt to get Triggers more consistently (besides blatantly stacking). But I shall not elaborate on this.
Assuming everyone reading this doesn't have Psy Qualia, I will be leaving Triggers out of the discussion as we cannot directly control them in most cases. However do keep them in mind as they still do dramatically change the flow of the game.
Ambush Dragon Eradicator, Linchu
There's almost no avoiding this little bugger. If your opponent puts him behind a Rear Guard, you could try to keep guarding that attack, but it'll probably end up costing you more over the long run. If Linchu is boosting the Vanguard, don't bother trying to keep guarding it, this will guaranteed make you lose more overall.
However, the earlier Linchu goes off, the better it will be for you as most likely there won't be many cards on the field that will benefit from the retire, so all that happens is a 1 for 1 but your opponent has to pay the Counter Blast. If you know you can recover from it, it may be wise to put something on the field your opponent may want to retire to get rid of it early. Or if you have the option, just retire Linchu yourself. Retiring a G0 isn't really bad since even without his effect, he is a free 5k boost in a deck full of 11k and 12k attackers.
Draw Power
One weakness Narukami definitely has is that it has a lack of effects that generate its own Card Advantage. The advantage that Eradicators do generate comes from making their opponents lose cards and having more cards as a result. This is the reason why Rising Phoenix is becoming more popular as it lets the deck draw a card while still being a decent boost because all the attackers are pretty big.
One way to make use of this is through On hit effects. On hit effects are generally pretty strong as it is not easy to get a hit in, they are generally also reusable until your opponent is at 5 damage or you can't pay the costs. Maiden of Libra clones are a good example of a great On hit effect, it gives your an extra card (which off sets 1 retire basically) and it works even if you hit a Rear Guard (which makes it a -1 for your opponent and a +1 for you). However these cards must also be played smartly. Ideally you'll want to setup a proper power column so that your opponent will drop at least 2 cards to guard if he chooses to.
While I did mention that effects that work when hitting Rear Guards are good, the focus should still be on hitting the Vanguard. The reason for this is quite simple. The earlier your opponent gets to high damage the earlier he is forced to keep guarding your attacks regardless of whether said attacks will have any other effects or not. Still, there are times when hitting the Rear Guards is going to be better.
Vanguards that can easily and consistently gain Criticals are also very good here (they are good in general, but better against decks that tend to have hand issues), forcing your opponent to guard earlier than they would like. Ideally you'd want to pressure your opponent from 3 damage so you don't have to deal with Limit Break, but that is hard to do.
Field Spam
Assuming you can do it and still be able to guard. Pretty straightforward: If you can generate more advantage than they can take away from you then you are winning. Not much to elaborate on here, besides the obvious fact that not many clans can really pull this off.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so, the opposite would technically also work. If you can somehow pressure your opponent without leaving any cards on the field, all the cards with retire effects become vanilla cards essentially.
Reading the Situation
This kinda applies to every matchup, but it is still rather important. If you can figure out what your opponent has in his hand then it will be easier to figure out what you should be attacking. If your opponent has a lot of 5k shields in his hand, then keeping his Vanguard and force him to high damage. If he has a lot of Triggers in hand try getting rid of what Rear Guards he put down etc.
Pretty basic, but not many people put in effort to keep track of Drive Checks.
Aaaaand......
That's all I have for now. It isn't that much and there isn't a rule set in stone to follow as it also depends on the clan you yourself are playing. But hopefully it helps. Experience also plays a pretty big role, the more you play the easier it will become to recognize what are the right decisions. I will update this post if I come up with anything new. I will probably write another one on how to tackle the Sweep Command deck too.
If you strongly disagree with anything I wrote please do post in the comments and elaborate why. Also feel free to share your own experiences.
Until then, Good Luck against the Thunder Dragons :]
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