Cardfight!! Vanguard Weekly Card Update #45
Welcome back to another weekly update of the new cards for Cardfight!! Vanguard. A good amount of G-BT07 has been revealed in the last seven days.
Firstly, going through Kagero, we have some familiar faces on the scene. Reas is back as Follower Dragon Maid, Reas. She returns as a new perfect guard with the Blaze keyword. At the end of the battle that she boosted, if you are on GB1 and your Vanguard is Blazing, you may Soul Blast 1 to return Reas to your hand. Dragonic Overlord players may want to use Protect Orb Dragon instead of her due to the Counter Charge and because Dragonic Overlord “The Legend” can search the top five cards of your deck for a Flame Dragon, and Protect Orb Dragon is a Flame Dragon, but Reas favours Dragonic Blademaster more. The condition for the return to hand is very easy as Blazing works so well with Kagero’s playstyle, making this one of the best perfect guards that returns to you hand. But of course, where there’s a Reas, there’s a Sutherland…
And this Sutherland has been upgraded to a Grade 3 as the new, Dragon Fang Chain-bullet, Sutherland. All his effects work on the VC and RC and he makes a for a nice little back-up Grade 3 for Blademaster. Firstly he has the Blaze keyword, and if your Vanguard is Blazing and you have Follower Dragon Maid, Reas in the same column as him, he gets +4000 power, making the column 21k. As well as all of that, he has a final skill with the cost of Counter Blasting one if a unit was placed in the same column as him to retire one of your opponent’s rear-guards who also shares the same column as him. Now the ruling will allow you to use the retiring skill if he is your Vanguard and you stride over him, but then you only really have one target you can choose. He would be much better on a rear-guard circle where you can call Reas behind him to activate Sutherland’s retire skill, then put Reas back into your hand and repeat again next turn. I do like return of these characters despite the Legend deck having already happened and with the all this retiring that Kagero are capable of these days, maybe the old Sutherland could find some use in newer decks.
Kagero’s Glimmer Breath clone with Radiant Dragon. With a GB1, CB1, and SB1 when this unit is placed on the RC, if you have a Vanguard with Dragonic Blademaster in its name, you can choose one of your opponent’s Grade 1 or less rear-guards and Radiant Dragon gains +2000 power until the end of the turn, as well as +2000 power for each of your opponent’s open rear-guard circles if your Vanguard is Blazing. So at best you are looking at a retire and a 21000 attacker for a turn. This is made a lot easier against Magia, Hollow, and Great Nature which Kagero previously had a problem with but now they can make advantage of everything hiding away, though don’t expect big numbers when going against highly resist-based decks like Aqua Force and Neo Nectar. Though with his power up for the open RCs being a CONT ability he can gain more power while in the battle phase, this brings more use and more pressure to Irresist Dragon. You get a smaller choice on what to retire than Twilight Arrow Dragon, but like Irresist, Twilight Arrow and Radiant Dragon can work together to gain more power. His effect seems a little Narukami-esk but I think it’s the boost Blademaster needed to help him on the road to stealing popularity from Dragonic Overlord.
A very good Grade 1 unit for Dragonic Blademaster is Dragon Knight, Nadel. He has the Blaze keyword as well as an effect that works on the RC. If your Vanguard is Blazing, once per turn, when one of your opponent’s rear-guards are retired from one of your card effects and you have a Dragonic Blademaster Vanguard, you may Counter Charge 1 and Nadel gains +4000 power. This suddenly makes a few retiring skills free like Dragonic Blademaster’s and Twilight Arrow Dragon’s. If your opponent has no rear-guards then you can make a column of 32k with Radiant Dragon and Nadel. He doesn’t have a GB but considering you need a Dragonic Blademaster Vanguard and a lot of the retire skills are GB1 anyway, then it doesn’t make much of a difference.
A great boost to Dark Irregulars comes in the form of Serpent Charmer. When he is in Darkness, if you have ten or more cards in your soul then he gains +2000 power, making him a 9k booster. Then if the number of cards in your soul is fifteen or more he gains the ability where at the end of the turn you may retire him, if you do, you choose thirteen cards in your soul and put any other cards in your soul back into your deck and shuffle. A lot of people will be happy that they can now put all there triggers that were not wanted in the soul back into the deck, as well as perfect guards or maybe even Grade 2s if your field is looking a little weak. If you use Scharhrot Vampir then the turn after you will have no trouble getting yourself back up to fifteen cards in soul with his on-stride skill. Serpent Charmer will be used more for Scharhrot decks more than others but he can be useful in Amon too, though usually Amon will try to get as many cards in his soul as possible, but if you are about to run out of deck then this guy can really help you out. However, he won’t be needed in a Blade Wing deck as they have Blade Wing Tibold.
Three-in the Dark is an 8000 power Grade 2 with Darkness and GB1. When she attacks and if you have ten or more cards in your soul you may discard a card to draw two cards and put one card from your hand into your soul. Then if the number of cards in your soul is fifteen or more she gains 5000 power. I really wish the cost of the effect was to put a card in your soul rather than discarding it but after when you can choose something to put in your soul you could always select something like Dimension Creeper. I think most people who want a similar effect to Three-in will stick with Flying Librarian as she works a lot earlier and you aren’t discarding anything. Flying Librarian doesn’t get the power boost but you can always just intercept with her and have something like Doppel Vampir or Squallmaker Vampir out afterwards.
Nighttime Gentleman, Saint-Germain is a G Guardian for Dark Irregulars. When he is placed on the guardian circle, if you have ten or more cards in your soul, he gains +10000 shield. Then, if you have fifteen or more cards in your soul, you can choose any number of your units and give them resist. So already he’s looking like a better version of Dizmel as the Resist can be applied to him as well but it does take a longer set-up. The reason it gives you the choice to give resist to your units or not is in case you are up against something like Phantom Blaster “Diablo”, but for that to be a problem you would have to G Guard one of their rear-guards which you would probably want to wait for when their Vanguard attacks. Using Agrat Bat Mahlat along side this card would be wise as Mahlat would be able to Soul Charge early on, then later in the game you can go into Germain.
Gear Chronicle get a new Quintet Wall with Steam Scalar, Emellanna. She has the standard QW skill as well as when she is put in the drop zone from the guardian circle you may bind one card from your drop zone face up and choose two cards from your drop zone and return them to your deck. The bind itself can give you field advantage with Mudal and Parallel Dragon. The increase of cards in your bind zone will also help you with Bind Time Dragon’s skills. If you run this with the perfect guard then you can put the perfect guard back into the deck after using this card, and as it doesn’t specify a type of unit, you can also put triggers back.
One card that was revealed in the anime was Golden Beast, Sleimy Flare, a new G Guardian for Gold Paladin. From what we can gather from the skill, the cost is only to put one of your rear-guards on the bottom of your deck, then look at the top five cards of your deck and choose up to two units with two different grades and call them to the guardian circle. With looking at the top five there’s a fairly good chance of getting a perfect guard, though if you are not using the standard perfect guards then they will be a little useless. Other than that, it quite easy to get a 30000 shield with a Grade 0 that isn’t a draw, and a Grade 1 or 2. The cost doesn’t hurt it too much as you will be able to easily call more rear-guards next turn and at least it doesn’t eat away at your Counter Blasts (From what we know).
Angel Feather and Dark Irregulars both get their Heart Thump Worker clone. Black Spark, Munkar works with Gavrail and One-eyed Succubus works with Scharhrot. As it is with Heart Thump Worker clones, when your Vanguard with the specified name attacks, you can put this unit into your soul and your Vanguard gains +5000 power and you draw a card. One-eyed Succubus is a lot more useful as Dark Irregulars work a lot more with the soul, but Munkar should find plenty of use too.