G Trial Deck 5: Fateful Star Messiah
Pick up cards from G-TD05 Fateful Star Messiah on Big Orbit Cards: G-TD05 Fateful Star Messiah
G Trial Deck 5 is on it’s way and will be our first glimpse of the new Link Joker cards. Messiah, originally seen as Harmonics Messiah (a Cray Elemental and the first ever G unit), is now the new leader of Link Joker. She takes many forms in this Trial Deck and will be getting another form in G-BT03. Despite this, Messiah is not treated as an archetype in this deck, with the possible exception of Neon Messiah (more on this later).
The new Link Joker not only focus on locking their opponents, but also locking themselves and gaining benefits from this tactic. Cards can lock each other to give power boosts to the users field. Further, some units have abilities that unlock others by force, which can also give power boosts. Coupled with these abilities are effects that trigger when a card is unlocked. This means you can gain power by locking a card, gain power by unlocking it, and finally gain an extra ability when that card is unlocked.
Inside the Deck
Alter Ego Messiah is the feature Grade 3 of the deck. Her on-stride ability allows you to lock one of your opponents rear-guards and gain +5000 power at the cost of locking one of your own rear-guards and counter blasting 1. This goes really well with her Generation Break: when a card is unlocked, you can soul blast 1 and draw a card. Because the end of stride and unlocking are both timed at the beginning of the end phase, you can choose to put your G unit back in the G zone and then unlock your cards, so you can use Alter Ego’s ability to draw a card.
We also get a Messiah G unit in this deck in Genesis Dragon, Judgement Messiah, who has a standard on-hit ability. It allows you to lock one of your opponent’s rear-guards in the front row and then unlock one of your units. This allows you to unlock the unit locked by Alter Ego upon stride to give that unit a chance to attack or boost. This ability was shown in the anime when Ibuki used Gravity Well Lady Battler to lock the unit behind her and gain a power boost, and then used Judgement’s ability to unlock that unit so she could get the power boost for free. This left a second unit to be unlocked at the end of the turn for Alter Ego’s draw ability.
The other Grade 3s we get in this deck are Astrobreak Dragon and Wings of Phenomenon, Wingmatter. Astrobreak gets +3000 if you counter blast 1, which can boost the attack power high enough to hit a 11k or 13k Vanguard if the unit behind him has been locked. Wingmatter, on the other hand, has a more interesting ability: when he’s placed on the Vanguard circle, at the cost of locking one of your own rear-guards and counter blasting 1, you can lock one of your opponent’s Grade 2 or less rear-guards. This means even the weaker Grade 3s in the deck can cause some of your rear-guard abilities to activate once they have been unlocked. Additionally he also has a Generation Break 1 where he gains +6000 power when attacking a Vanguard.
We get a good selection of Grade 2s in this trial deck. The first one to stand out for me was Sunset Edge, Duskblade, who is an extremely useful unit in most Link Joker decks. With his Generation Break 1 skill, when he attacks a Vanguard and is being boosted, you can counter blast 1 and lock one of your opponent’s Grade 2 or less rear-guards.
For defence we have Lightspeed Cheetah which shows us that we will now be receiving 15k defenders in Trial Decks. If you lock one of your rear-guards that isn’t being attacked then this unit gains 10k shield when it intercepts. His power is only 8k, but this deck makes up for this with Gyre Flower, Dark Chakram, our new 12k grade 2 for Link Joker.
All this self-locking becomes very useful with Awaking Messiah. When Awaking Messiah is unlocked, you can choose another rear-guard, stand it, and give it +2000 power. This especially benefits Duskblade because his skill is not limited to one use a turn. If you manage to hit with Judgement Messiah, then you will be able to unlock this card in the battle phase to make the most of it’s ability. Using Amnesty Messiah from G-BT03 would also be a great way to unlock Awaking Messiah in the main phase.
The Grade 1s in this deck are fairly basic. There may be no 10k vanilla grade 2, but there is an 8k vanilla grade 1 in Asleep Messiah. A 10k Vanguard booster, Protosun Dracokid, is included to add some offensive power to the deck. Our defensive cards are Lady Keeper of Virtual Reality, who is the perfect guard of this set, and Grab Hand Gorilla, who gains +5000 power when being attacked.
Despite this, we do get one fairly interesting Grade 1. Lockbreaker, Riddle Biter allows you to unlock a rear-guard when he attacks and, if you do, he gains +4000 power. You could put him in the front row and put Awaking Messiah in the back row; then, once you unlock Awaking Messiah, Lockbreaker gains enough power to hit an 11k Vanguard and Awaking’s skill can activate.
The second skill that activates once the unit is unlocked comes from the forerunner of this set. Neon Messiah, who shares her name with the movie, moves into the soul when she is unlocked and allows you to search your deck for a Grade 3 with “Messiah” in its name and add it to your hand. This card makes it easy and consistent to get the Grade 3 you want.
Beloved Child of Superstring Theory is the special trigger of the set, and can go into the soul to give +3000 power to another unit. This works well to set up Alter Ego Messiah’s cost of soul blasting.
Once again it can be seen that Trial Decks are getting more and more powerful. I hope that they make these kinds of Trial Decks for more neglected clans such as Granblue or Tachikaze. This deck, along with the next booster, G-BT03, demonstrates that Link Joker will be able to handle most match ups for quite a while, but it will still be interesting to see what kind of support Messiah will get in the future.
Pick up cards from G-TD05 Fateful Star Messiah on Big Orbit Cards: G-TD05 Fateful Star Messiah