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 :]
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Sudden Realizations...
Link Jokers seem to be the ones invading, but secretly Narukami are behind it all. Why?
They first appeared in BT06 and since then, only BT07 didn't give them any support. BT08 to BT12 all had new Narukami boss cards and most of them actually form pretty formidable decks by themselves, with the exception of Dungaree, who is getting support in BT12 and might actually become a pretty strong deck (at the very least a Dungaree based deck should be decent). Other than Dungaree support in BT12, Narukami are also getting a pretty strong "Crossbreak Ride" in the form of Vowing Saber, whether it'll be as game breaking as the boss cards of the previous remains to be seen, but it is highly possible considering the trend.
There's also Spark Horn Dragon, that's more or less a better Amber Dragon Eclipse. Luckily BT13 doesn't feature Narukami, maybe it will give the other clans a better fighting chance.
So what's more important, figuring out how to play around the new Lock mechanic, or figuring out how to beat Narukami?
Some of the stuff I'll post in the future will probably include a bit of both, if I'm not too busy trying to optimize my Shadow Paladin deck :p
They first appeared in BT06 and since then, only BT07 didn't give them any support. BT08 to BT12 all had new Narukami boss cards and most of them actually form pretty formidable decks by themselves, with the exception of Dungaree, who is getting support in BT12 and might actually become a pretty strong deck (at the very least a Dungaree based deck should be decent). Other than Dungaree support in BT12, Narukami are also getting a pretty strong "Crossbreak Ride" in the form of Vowing Saber, whether it'll be as game breaking as the boss cards of the previous remains to be seen, but it is highly possible considering the trend.
There's also Spark Horn Dragon, that's more or less a better Amber Dragon Eclipse. Luckily BT13 doesn't feature Narukami, maybe it will give the other clans a better fighting chance.
So what's more important, figuring out how to play around the new Lock mechanic, or figuring out how to beat Narukami?
Some of the stuff I'll post in the future will probably include a bit of both, if I'm not too busy trying to optimize my Shadow Paladin deck :p
Friday, June 21, 2013
Gold Rush!
Want to play Vanguard, but don't want to spend so much money right away? Have no fear, quite a few clans can actually be used to build quite cheap decks that function pretty well AND are very easy to play. I'm going to try to form as many of these budget decks as possible with as many clans as possible :)
First off will be Gold Paladins, cause they unsurprisingly have the most options, even when it comes to budget decks.
Deck List:
Grade 3: 8
4x Battlefield Storm, Sagramore
4x Wild Dancing Liberator, Mailshion OR Dignified Gold Dragon
Grade 2: 11
4x Liberator of Silence Gallatin
4x Knight of Superior Skills, Beaumains
3x Sleygal Sword OR G2 of choice, preferably 11k or higher attacker OR 10k Vanilla of another clan
Grade 1: 14
4x Knight of Elegant Skills, Gareth
4x Halo Shield Mark OR Evil Slaying Swordsman, Haugan
4x Sleygal Dagger OR Pomergal Liberator
2x 8k Vanilla of another clan OR Sleygal Dagger/Pomergal Liberator if you aren't already playing 4
G0:
1x Little Fighter Cron
4x Heal
4x Draw
8x Critical
This should be really cheap to build as most of the cards are Common or Rare or have alternatives that are Common or Rare.
I'd write more about how to play this deck but I think the deck list speaks for itself. Setup hard hitting columns and just keep attacking (cause there's nothing else you can do!). The trigger line up is also flexible and maybe depend on what you can get (if you're on a really tight budget). Playing 12 Critical is also possible and may actually be the best way to go for such a deck, especially if you don't have Halo Shield Mark. Gold Paladins can even try for 16 Critical if you really want to go all or nothing. As already mentioned really easy to play deck and can be quite cheap if you put in the effort to try and get the commons for free haha
That's all for now :)
First off will be Gold Paladins, cause they unsurprisingly have the most options, even when it comes to budget decks.
Deck List:
Grade 3: 8
4x Battlefield Storm, Sagramore
4x Wild Dancing Liberator, Mailshion OR Dignified Gold Dragon
Grade 2: 11
4x Liberator of Silence Gallatin
4x Knight of Superior Skills, Beaumains
3x Sleygal Sword OR G2 of choice, preferably 11k or higher attacker OR 10k Vanilla of another clan
Grade 1: 14
4x Knight of Elegant Skills, Gareth
4x Halo Shield Mark OR Evil Slaying Swordsman, Haugan
4x Sleygal Dagger OR Pomergal Liberator
2x 8k Vanilla of another clan OR Sleygal Dagger/Pomergal Liberator if you aren't already playing 4
G0:
1x Little Fighter Cron
4x Heal
4x Draw
8x Critical
This should be really cheap to build as most of the cards are Common or Rare or have alternatives that are Common or Rare.
I'd write more about how to play this deck but I think the deck list speaks for itself. Setup hard hitting columns and just keep attacking (cause there's nothing else you can do!). The trigger line up is also flexible and maybe depend on what you can get (if you're on a really tight budget). Playing 12 Critical is also possible and may actually be the best way to go for such a deck, especially if you don't have Halo Shield Mark. Gold Paladins can even try for 16 Critical if you really want to go all or nothing. As already mentioned really easy to play deck and can be quite cheap if you put in the effort to try and get the commons for free haha
That's all for now :)
Friday, May 24, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
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:
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).
------------------------------------
For reference, if you let The End hit after standing with Dauntless Drive:
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.
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)
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).
------------------------------------
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)
------------------------------------
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.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Jewel Knights extras
Just as short post, so I don't forget this myself haha.
I don't think it is immediately obvious, but the starting Vanguard for Jewel Knights, Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany, actually gives more power to the field with her skill than if she boosts (3k to 2 units for a total of 6k vs boosting 1 unit for 5k). Down side being the loss of 1 unit and the skill only lasts for a turn. Another thing to consider is giving yourself additional soul and being able to call Tiffany with Sybil or Salome, which essentially turns their skills into Counter Blast 2 to add 1 card to soul and give 2 Jewel Knights +3k power.
This is useful if you want to play Soul Saviour Dragon, which actually helps out a lot in ending games. Also useful to increase the number of Jewel Knights in the deck, since there aren't enough Jewel Knights at the moment to play a full deck of Jewel Knights with normal grade distributions.
Playing more Grade 0s also has other upsides. 5k boosts actually aren't bad at all, as they force your opponent to drop additional 5k guard when played right and Tiffany can leave the field easily with her skill. Also more 10k shields in the deck overall.
Personally, I consider playing 1 additional Tiffany, but I don't currently play Soul Saviour Dragon in my Jewel Knight deck. Trying a different build for a while and I won't change it any time soon I think. Playing 3 Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany, might be pushing it, but I think it's worth considering if using Soul Saviour Dragon's skill is a big concern. Since Tiffany can be called through skills and you only need 1 additional one to trigger SSD, Margal is not necessary and the deck can play a maximum amount of Jewel Knights.
Just some food for thought, if I do test it I'll probably update this post with my findings. If anyone else reads this and tries it, please do post in the comments how it went! :]
I don't think it is immediately obvious, but the starting Vanguard for Jewel Knights, Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany, actually gives more power to the field with her skill than if she boosts (3k to 2 units for a total of 6k vs boosting 1 unit for 5k). Down side being the loss of 1 unit and the skill only lasts for a turn. Another thing to consider is giving yourself additional soul and being able to call Tiffany with Sybil or Salome, which essentially turns their skills into Counter Blast 2 to add 1 card to soul and give 2 Jewel Knights +3k power.
This is useful if you want to play Soul Saviour Dragon, which actually helps out a lot in ending games. Also useful to increase the number of Jewel Knights in the deck, since there aren't enough Jewel Knights at the moment to play a full deck of Jewel Knights with normal grade distributions.
Playing more Grade 0s also has other upsides. 5k boosts actually aren't bad at all, as they force your opponent to drop additional 5k guard when played right and Tiffany can leave the field easily with her skill. Also more 10k shields in the deck overall.
Personally, I consider playing 1 additional Tiffany, but I don't currently play Soul Saviour Dragon in my Jewel Knight deck. Trying a different build for a while and I won't change it any time soon I think. Playing 3 Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany, might be pushing it, but I think it's worth considering if using Soul Saviour Dragon's skill is a big concern. Since Tiffany can be called through skills and you only need 1 additional one to trigger SSD, Margal is not necessary and the deck can play a maximum amount of Jewel Knights.
Just some food for thought, if I do test it I'll probably update this post with my findings. If anyone else reads this and tries it, please do post in the comments how it went! :]
Thursday, February 14, 2013
CFV Essay: Formed up and Ready to Strike!
Seems like most of the key Jewel Knights have been revealed already so seems like a good time to take a more in depth look!
This will be slightly different as the Jewel Knights have some minor peculiarities about them.
But as every Vanguard Deck still revolves around the main Grade 3 of choice I'll still start with that.
Leading Jewel Knight Salome
[AUTO](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):
When this unit attacks, if the number of other rear-guards you have with "Jewel Knight" in its card name is four or more, this unit gets [Power]+2000/[Critical]+1 until end of that battle.
[ACT](VC):[Counter Blast (2) - Cards with "Jewel Knight" in their card name]
Search your deck for up to one card with "Jewel Knight" in its card name, call it to (RC), and shuffle your deck.
Good card, but not really amazing. A passive Limit Break ability means that once you're at four damage this card will keep up the pressure. The bad thing is the extra Critical only really benefits you when your opponent is at 4 or less damage, once both players are at 5 damage, extra Criticals don't really matter as much as just having a high power and only +2k doesn't really help much. Additionally the requirement is having four or more Jewel Knight Rear Guards that means careful planning is required for Rear Guard placement if you want to include higher power boosting units, as the highest power Grade 1 Jewel Knight is 7k.
It's regular ability is really good though, on par with, if not better than King of Knights Alfred and Great Silver Wolf Garmore. The Counter Blast limitation shouldn't really be an issue the bigger problem is the call restriction on Jewel Knights, but even then it's not really a problem as you'll always want to have 4 or more Jewel Knights in the Rear Guard circles. However it does mean you can't call cards like Gorden for extra shield, at least until Jewel Knights get their own. The great thing is also the fact that it's an Activate ability. Meaning you won't run into the problem of not having enough damage when you ride Grade 3 like Garmore.
Pure Heart Jewel Knight Ashley
[AUTO] Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):
When a «Royal Paladin» rides this unit, you may choose one of your vanguards, and that unit gets [Power]+10000/[Critical]+1 until end of turn.
[AUTO](VC):When this unit attacks a vanguard, this unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of that battle.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit that doesn't belong to the same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)
Standard Break Ride unit. 11k base power gives a good defense at the very least until you ride another unit over. Ashley gets +2k simply for attacking the Vanguard, meaning she can hit 11k and higher Vanguards by herself, which is always good. As for the Break Ride itself, it might seem a bit underwhelming and it certainly is. The standard +10k power to Vanguard is still there, but other than that the only thing it does different is giving the Vanguard an additional Critical for that turn. Compared to other Break Ride units it does very little and is about on par with Vowing Sword Dragon. Other Break Ride abilities give +5k to multiple units some still have effects on top of that, or giving all Rear Guards, +10k when they attack etc.
So definitely it's not that amazing. However, in my opinion, it really can't be too great, because Royals already have many awesome Grade 3s that would be really good when riding over this.
Important to note is that none of the Break Rides are actually limited to their Archetype. So you want something like Liberator Gancelot? Break Ride Soul Saviour Dragon, some overall effect +1 Critical. Want high Vanguard power and want to save cards? Ride King of Knights Alfred 28k and 2 Critical if you want to save 1 card in hand by not playing something behind Alfred and you can save another card by calling a Rear Guard from deck with the King of Knights. Even Pendragon might be a good option because on the next turn you have a chance of riding another Ashley from the top of your deck (instead of your hand), which sets up another Break Ride the following turn.
Combined with Salome, it doesn't matter as much if your opponent has way less damage than you because you gain Criticals relatively easily to quickly catch up.
Now the interesting thing about the rest of the Jewel Knights is that, unlike other Archetypes, they don't rely on having a Jewel Knight Vanguard. In fact most of the Jewel Knights' abilities require a certain amount of Jewel Knight Rear Guards instead, usually 3 or more other Jewel Knights Rear Guards. Like everything, this has good and bad points.
This means that there's more freedom with the Grade 3s and it's not necessary to play the Jewel Knight Grade 3s. However it does restrict your options for all the other Grades as you'll always want to have enough Jewel Knights on the field to be able to make use of their abilities, and sadly not all of their abilities are that great AND there aren't really that many Jewel Knights to choose from in the first place.
Fellowship Jewel Knight Tracie and Stinging Jewel Knight Sherrie are the Bedivere and Kay for Jewel Knights. However, as already mentioned, they don't really on a specific Vanguard name, but need to have 3 or more other Jewel Knight Rear Guards in order to gain +3k.
Dogmatize Jewel Knight, Sybill is the same as Akane and can call any Grade 1 or lower Jewel Knight from the deck for a cost of Counter Blast 2 when you have any Royal Paladin Vanguard.
Jewel Knight Prizme is the same as Oracles Think Tank's Emerald Witch Lala. Prizme lets you discard a card and draw one if you have 3 or more other Jewel Knight Rear Guards when Prizme gets called to the field.
Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany is the starter Vanguard and is quite good. Like all starter vanguards now, Tiffany has the Pioneer effect and has a respectable power for a Grade 0 at 5k power. Her effect is what makes her so good though; at no additional cost other then sending Tiffany to soul, you can give up to 2 Jewel Knights +3k power until the end of the turn. And a well timed +3k to two units can be devastating.
Other then the above mentioned, the only other Jewel Knights are the Triggers (one each of Critical, Stand, Draw and Heal) and Iseult. So it's not really viable to make a deck with only Jewel Knights. However the upside is they all have decent power for their effects, and their effects aren't really bad.
So without further ado, time for initial Deck List:
Grade 0: 17
6 Critical
6 Draw
4 Heal
(Play max amount of Jewel Knights and top up with trigger units of choice)
1 Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany (starter)
Grade 1: 10
4 Stinging Jewel Knight Sherrie
4 Flash Jewel Knight, Iseult
4 Jewel Knight Prizme
3 Toypugal (or Little Sage Marron / Pongal / Lake Maiden Lien)
Grade 2: 10
4 Fellowship Jewel Knight, Tracie
2 Dogmatize Jewel Knight Sybill
2 Blaster Blade
2 Knight of Determination Lamorak
Grade 3: 8
3 Pure Heart Jewel Knight Ashley
3 Leading Jewel Knight Salome
2 Soul Saviour Dragon / Swordsman of Explosive Flames Palamedes
Some explanations:
Grade 0
This deck doesn't actually need 8 Critical I feel but it definitely won't hurt it either. So just use whatever Critical oriented setup you're comfortable with. Without testing it's hard to say if stands would work well, on one hand you gain Criticals relatively easily but on the other hand Jewel Knights don't really have big Rear Guards. For draws you could max out on Margal instead for additional power adding and soul charging options. If you don't plan on using Salome then I'd recommend to max out on Margal, otherwise stick with 3 copies of the Jewel Knight draw trigger at the very least. For the specific deck above, 4 Margal is recommended due the addition of Soul Saviour Dragon.
Grade 1
Maxed out on the Jewel Knight Grade 1s and 3 other Grade 1s of choice. I'm leaning towards Toypugal to at least let Salome hit 21k with the perfect setup, but the other options I listed are also pretty good. Marron for 8k power, Pongal for more consistent usage of Soul Saviour Dragon and Lake Maiden Lien is a great turn 1 ride and can still be occasionally useful during the game. Depending on your Grade 3 lineup you'll want to change the none Jewel Knight card and you might also want to lower the number of Prizme and/or Iseult (although nowadays it's better to have extra negators) which give you additional options.
Talking about Iseult, it's not necessary to play the Jewel Knight version as most of the time you won't be calling negators anyway and if you're forced to ride Iseult for Grade 1, that also doesn't change anything if you ride regular Iseult.
Grade 2
Tracie at 4 because 12k attacker is good and Sybill only at 2 because I want to play Salome. Both of them have the same cost, the only difference is Salome has to Counter Blast 2 Jewel Knights which shouldn't be a problem. Salome also has the Advantage of being able to call any Jewel Knight, including Grade 3s, which helps Toypugal be a bit more consistent. Sybill is also only an 8k and having to ride it at Grade 2 opens you up for a lot of damage. On top of that if you don't have enough damage to even use her ability...
The other 4 are really up to preference, I want to limit the number of 8k Grade 2s so I decided to go with good old Blaster Blade and Lamorak. Blaster Blade is a good card to have around in case you really need to burn Rear Guards. The only thing to look out for is the cost since most of the Counter Blast costs in this deck is 2, so deciding when you want to call more units instead of burning is important. Lamorak because he looks cooler than Gallatin.
Alternatively, you can also play 4 Lamorak or go with the none Jewel Knight Grade 2s in BT10.
Uncompromising Knight Idell is a base 8k that can gain 4k when attacking for Counter Blast 1 Royal Paladin if you have a Royal Paladin Vanguard.
Delicate Knight Clowdine is also base 8k and gains +3k when attacking and your Vanguard or a Rear Guard has a Limit Break 4 ability (it's not quite clear if you need to be at 4 damage or higher or if a unit simply needs to have an LB4 skill).
Both are good units, but I don't want to have that many 8k base Grade 2s. If I had to choose one, I'd probably play Clowdine as the deck is already quite Counter Blast heavy. (assuming the deck in it's current state)
There are a lot of options with the Grade 2s as you can simply intercept to clear them and replace with Jewel Knights if you need to, unlike Grade 1s.
Grade 3
Play whatever you like really. (Besides Majesty Lord Blaster, but even that could be accommodated with some changes...) Even Grade 3 lineups from the beginning of Vanguard would work well I feel i.e. King of Knights Alfred and Palamedes based.
For this specific build above I decided on 3-3 Ashely and Salome respectively. I'm contemplating of changing it to 4-2 because Salome is only 10k and having to ride Ashley and then another card over just for Break ride seems like a terrible loss in card advantage.
Soul Saviour Dragon is there for alternate Break Ride option and also for when your initial Break Ride didn't quite work and you somehow haven't lost yet haha (and also the promo Soul Saviour Dragon looks cool and should be easy to get)
If you already have Palamedes, that's always a good option but keep in mind the number of Jewel Knights on your field. Other options are Dignified Silver Dragon, Twin Shine Swordsman Marhaus, Knight of Conviction Bors etc. any 10k Grade 3 that gains power as a Rear Guard. (because 9k Grade 3s are terrible when forced to ride.)
Overall:
One thing you may notice about the deck list above is that I included quite a few none Jewel Knights. Of course there is some concern about not having enough Jewel Knights for Counter Blast to use Salome's call skill. But as I have said in previous posts, I don't think it'll be a huge issue. Even if you can't use Salome's skill to call unit, Sybill doesn't have specific Counter Blast restriction and Blaster Blade is always a good use of Counter Blast. With careful management it shouldn't be an issue (but of course I might change my opinions after testing).
Jewel Knights seem to be quite flexible in terms of Grade 3 and are really only limited by their Rear Guards. But that is what makes them really fit the Royal Paladin theme: Getting stronger through allies. I doubt Jewel Knights will be a top top tier deck, but I'm pretty sure they have a good fighting chance :]
This will be slightly different as the Jewel Knights have some minor peculiarities about them.
But as every Vanguard Deck still revolves around the main Grade 3 of choice I'll still start with that.
[AUTO](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):
When this unit attacks, if the number of other rear-guards you have with "Jewel Knight" in its card name is four or more, this unit gets [Power]+2000/[Critical]+1 until end of that battle.
[ACT](VC):[Counter Blast (2) - Cards with "Jewel Knight" in their card name]
Search your deck for up to one card with "Jewel Knight" in its card name, call it to (RC), and shuffle your deck.
Good card, but not really amazing. A passive Limit Break ability means that once you're at four damage this card will keep up the pressure. The bad thing is the extra Critical only really benefits you when your opponent is at 4 or less damage, once both players are at 5 damage, extra Criticals don't really matter as much as just having a high power and only +2k doesn't really help much. Additionally the requirement is having four or more Jewel Knight Rear Guards that means careful planning is required for Rear Guard placement if you want to include higher power boosting units, as the highest power Grade 1 Jewel Knight is 7k.
It's regular ability is really good though, on par with, if not better than King of Knights Alfred and Great Silver Wolf Garmore. The Counter Blast limitation shouldn't really be an issue the bigger problem is the call restriction on Jewel Knights, but even then it's not really a problem as you'll always want to have 4 or more Jewel Knights in the Rear Guard circles. However it does mean you can't call cards like Gorden for extra shield, at least until Jewel Knights get their own. The great thing is also the fact that it's an Activate ability. Meaning you won't run into the problem of not having enough damage when you ride Grade 3 like Garmore.
[AUTO] Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):
When a «Royal Paladin» rides this unit, you may choose one of your vanguards, and that unit gets [Power]+10000/[Critical]+1 until end of turn.
[AUTO](VC):When this unit attacks a vanguard, this unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of that battle.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit that doesn't belong to the same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)
Standard Break Ride unit. 11k base power gives a good defense at the very least until you ride another unit over. Ashley gets +2k simply for attacking the Vanguard, meaning she can hit 11k and higher Vanguards by herself, which is always good. As for the Break Ride itself, it might seem a bit underwhelming and it certainly is. The standard +10k power to Vanguard is still there, but other than that the only thing it does different is giving the Vanguard an additional Critical for that turn. Compared to other Break Ride units it does very little and is about on par with Vowing Sword Dragon. Other Break Ride abilities give +5k to multiple units some still have effects on top of that, or giving all Rear Guards, +10k when they attack etc.
So definitely it's not that amazing. However, in my opinion, it really can't be too great, because Royals already have many awesome Grade 3s that would be really good when riding over this.
Important to note is that none of the Break Rides are actually limited to their Archetype. So you want something like Liberator Gancelot? Break Ride Soul Saviour Dragon, some overall effect +1 Critical. Want high Vanguard power and want to save cards? Ride King of Knights Alfred 28k and 2 Critical if you want to save 1 card in hand by not playing something behind Alfred and you can save another card by calling a Rear Guard from deck with the King of Knights. Even Pendragon might be a good option because on the next turn you have a chance of riding another Ashley from the top of your deck (instead of your hand), which sets up another Break Ride the following turn.
Combined with Salome, it doesn't matter as much if your opponent has way less damage than you because you gain Criticals relatively easily to quickly catch up.
Now the interesting thing about the rest of the Jewel Knights is that, unlike other Archetypes, they don't rely on having a Jewel Knight Vanguard. In fact most of the Jewel Knights' abilities require a certain amount of Jewel Knight Rear Guards instead, usually 3 or more other Jewel Knights Rear Guards. Like everything, this has good and bad points.
This means that there's more freedom with the Grade 3s and it's not necessary to play the Jewel Knight Grade 3s. However it does restrict your options for all the other Grades as you'll always want to have enough Jewel Knights on the field to be able to make use of their abilities, and sadly not all of their abilities are that great AND there aren't really that many Jewel Knights to choose from in the first place.
Dogmatize Jewel Knight, Sybill is the same as Akane and can call any Grade 1 or lower Jewel Knight from the deck for a cost of Counter Blast 2 when you have any Royal Paladin Vanguard.
Jewel Knight Prizme is the same as Oracles Think Tank's Emerald Witch Lala. Prizme lets you discard a card and draw one if you have 3 or more other Jewel Knight Rear Guards when Prizme gets called to the field.
Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany is the starter Vanguard and is quite good. Like all starter vanguards now, Tiffany has the Pioneer effect and has a respectable power for a Grade 0 at 5k power. Her effect is what makes her so good though; at no additional cost other then sending Tiffany to soul, you can give up to 2 Jewel Knights +3k power until the end of the turn. And a well timed +3k to two units can be devastating.
Other then the above mentioned, the only other Jewel Knights are the Triggers (one each of Critical, Stand, Draw and Heal) and Iseult. So it's not really viable to make a deck with only Jewel Knights. However the upside is they all have decent power for their effects, and their effects aren't really bad.
So without further ado, time for initial Deck List:
Grade 0: 17
6 Critical
6 Draw
4 Heal
(Play max amount of Jewel Knights and top up with trigger units of choice)
1 Dreaming Jewel Knight Tiffany (starter)
Grade 1: 10
4 Stinging Jewel Knight Sherrie
4 Flash Jewel Knight, Iseult
4 Jewel Knight Prizme
3 Toypugal (or Little Sage Marron / Pongal / Lake Maiden Lien)
Grade 2: 10
4 Fellowship Jewel Knight, Tracie
2 Dogmatize Jewel Knight Sybill
2 Blaster Blade
2 Knight of Determination Lamorak
Grade 3: 8
3 Pure Heart Jewel Knight Ashley
3 Leading Jewel Knight Salome
2 Soul Saviour Dragon / Swordsman of Explosive Flames Palamedes
Some explanations:
Grade 0
This deck doesn't actually need 8 Critical I feel but it definitely won't hurt it either. So just use whatever Critical oriented setup you're comfortable with. Without testing it's hard to say if stands would work well, on one hand you gain Criticals relatively easily but on the other hand Jewel Knights don't really have big Rear Guards. For draws you could max out on Margal instead for additional power adding and soul charging options. If you don't plan on using Salome then I'd recommend to max out on Margal, otherwise stick with 3 copies of the Jewel Knight draw trigger at the very least. For the specific deck above, 4 Margal is recommended due the addition of Soul Saviour Dragon.
Grade 1
Maxed out on the Jewel Knight Grade 1s and 3 other Grade 1s of choice. I'm leaning towards Toypugal to at least let Salome hit 21k with the perfect setup, but the other options I listed are also pretty good. Marron for 8k power, Pongal for more consistent usage of Soul Saviour Dragon and Lake Maiden Lien is a great turn 1 ride and can still be occasionally useful during the game. Depending on your Grade 3 lineup you'll want to change the none Jewel Knight card and you might also want to lower the number of Prizme and/or Iseult (although nowadays it's better to have extra negators) which give you additional options.
Talking about Iseult, it's not necessary to play the Jewel Knight version as most of the time you won't be calling negators anyway and if you're forced to ride Iseult for Grade 1, that also doesn't change anything if you ride regular Iseult.
Grade 2
Tracie at 4 because 12k attacker is good and Sybill only at 2 because I want to play Salome. Both of them have the same cost, the only difference is Salome has to Counter Blast 2 Jewel Knights which shouldn't be a problem. Salome also has the Advantage of being able to call any Jewel Knight, including Grade 3s, which helps Toypugal be a bit more consistent. Sybill is also only an 8k and having to ride it at Grade 2 opens you up for a lot of damage. On top of that if you don't have enough damage to even use her ability...
The other 4 are really up to preference, I want to limit the number of 8k Grade 2s so I decided to go with good old Blaster Blade and Lamorak. Blaster Blade is a good card to have around in case you really need to burn Rear Guards. The only thing to look out for is the cost since most of the Counter Blast costs in this deck is 2, so deciding when you want to call more units instead of burning is important. Lamorak because he looks cooler than Gallatin.
Alternatively, you can also play 4 Lamorak or go with the none Jewel Knight Grade 2s in BT10.
Uncompromising Knight Idell is a base 8k that can gain 4k when attacking for Counter Blast 1 Royal Paladin if you have a Royal Paladin Vanguard.
Delicate Knight Clowdine is also base 8k and gains +3k when attacking and your Vanguard or a Rear Guard has a Limit Break 4 ability (it's not quite clear if you need to be at 4 damage or higher or if a unit simply needs to have an LB4 skill).
Both are good units, but I don't want to have that many 8k base Grade 2s. If I had to choose one, I'd probably play Clowdine as the deck is already quite Counter Blast heavy. (assuming the deck in it's current state)
There are a lot of options with the Grade 2s as you can simply intercept to clear them and replace with Jewel Knights if you need to, unlike Grade 1s.
Grade 3
Play whatever you like really. (Besides Majesty Lord Blaster, but even that could be accommodated with some changes...) Even Grade 3 lineups from the beginning of Vanguard would work well I feel i.e. King of Knights Alfred and Palamedes based.
For this specific build above I decided on 3-3 Ashely and Salome respectively. I'm contemplating of changing it to 4-2 because Salome is only 10k and having to ride Ashley and then another card over just for Break ride seems like a terrible loss in card advantage.
Soul Saviour Dragon is there for alternate Break Ride option and also for when your initial Break Ride didn't quite work and you somehow haven't lost yet haha (and also the promo Soul Saviour Dragon looks cool and should be easy to get)
If you already have Palamedes, that's always a good option but keep in mind the number of Jewel Knights on your field. Other options are Dignified Silver Dragon, Twin Shine Swordsman Marhaus, Knight of Conviction Bors etc. any 10k Grade 3 that gains power as a Rear Guard. (because 9k Grade 3s are terrible when forced to ride.)
Overall:
One thing you may notice about the deck list above is that I included quite a few none Jewel Knights. Of course there is some concern about not having enough Jewel Knights for Counter Blast to use Salome's call skill. But as I have said in previous posts, I don't think it'll be a huge issue. Even if you can't use Salome's skill to call unit, Sybill doesn't have specific Counter Blast restriction and Blaster Blade is always a good use of Counter Blast. With careful management it shouldn't be an issue (but of course I might change my opinions after testing).
Jewel Knights seem to be quite flexible in terms of Grade 3 and are really only limited by their Rear Guards. But that is what makes them really fit the Royal Paladin theme: Getting stronger through allies. I doubt Jewel Knights will be a top top tier deck, but I'm pretty sure they have a good fighting chance :]
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