Cardfight!! Vanguard Weekly Card Update #42

May 4, 2016Cardfight!! Vanguard, ReviewsAqua Force, Blade Wing, Dark Irregulars, G Guardian, Gear Chronicle, Gold Paladin, Granblue, Megacolony, Pale Moon, Spike Brothers, UniteJames

Welcome back to another weekly update of the new cards for Cardfight!! Vanguard. All the G Guardians have finally been spoiled and I will go over all of the remaining cards for Fighter’s Collection. As well as that, some awesome G-BT07 cards have been revealed and I will go over those too!

First in the spotlight is Pale Moon’s Chainsaw Megatrick, Furnival. When this G Guardian is placed on the guardian circle you look at the top three cards of your deck and put one of them into your soul and put the other two cards at the bottom of your deck in any order. If the card put in your soul was a Grade 1 or higher, Furnival gains his +5000 shield. This is probably one of the best G Guardians in the set as it helps with any Pale Moon deck and I doubt there will be many times when you look at the top three and they’re all Grade 0s.

Spike Brother’s get a fairly simple yet effective card with Excellent Cheer Leader, Ailie. When you have three or less rear-guards Ailie gets the +5000 shield. This is a very easy condition to meet with the new Charge keyword as your rear-guards would go to the bottom of the deck anyway.

Guardian General of Heavenly Water, Philothea gets +5000 shield when she blocks if it is on the first or second wave of your opponent’s turn. If your opponent relies on stand triggers and having their Vanguard attack last then this G Guardian will fall short but most decks these days tend to run eight to twelve critical triggers so her extra shield will probably work more times than not.

Granblue’s Eclipse Dragonhulk, Deep Corpse Dragon will have you drop the top two cards of your deck to gain a +5000 shield. This, like the Pale Moon G Guardian, is very helpful in any build for their deck. It is probably best not to use it too much as it can result in decking out but this can work very well in a Seven Seas deck as they are more reliant on random drops rather than more specific ones that the G decks are good at.

Lastly for the G Guardians is Dream Mutant Deity, Scarabegasus for Megacolony. His extra shield activates when your opponent has two or more rested units. If your opponent can get around this by not boosting their attacker though if you’re against Shadow Paladin, Tachikaze or Homura Raider then you may find that you can’t guard to his full might because your opponent won’t have many units of the rear-guard anyway. As with many Megacolony cards, it’s very situational depending on what deck you are up against but at least we still have the Cray Elementals if everything else goes wrong.

Overall, I think these G Guardians are a great idea seeing as the power was getting so high from strides, so this will help balance out the power as well as hopefully giving you longer and more enjoyable games.

Now, onto something a bit different. As we have been given the new perfect guards with newer abilities, it’s only natural that we would also be given quintet walls with new abilities too. Blade Wing Tilith is one of these new quintet walls that works how you would imagine with a CB1 to call the top five cards of your deck but along with that skill you can also choose as many Grade 3 cards with “Blade Wing” in their name from the guarding cards and put them into your soul. This ability is mostly useful for putting Blade Wing Reijy and Wings of Reincarnation, Blade Wing Reijy into your soul but thanks to Blade Wing Sullivan, every guardian you have gains +10000 shield so the smallest possible shield you can get from a QW is 60000 because the QW itself will receive the extra shield. This will help you tremendously against Legendary Dimensional Robo, Daikaiser Leon and other cards that mess with your guardians. I would imagine you would max this at one or two in your deck as Dark Irregulars struggle with the whole decking out business. At least Tibold helps you out with that, still probably best not to run four copies of her though for the sake of your Counter Blasts too.

We’ve seen one other QW so far and that one is for Gold Paladin. Holy Mage, Irena seems to have been specifically designed around Gurguit but may help with future Gold Paladins. As well as the usual QW skill, she has a separate skill that activates when placed on the guardian circle from the deck. When that condition is met you can discard a card from your hand and put into your hand and put the top card of your deck onto the guardian circle and give it +5000 shield. Unless Gold Paladins get some seriously good counter chargers I would recommend using the original perfect guards for Gurguits skill, but what we’ve seen from Macia, good Counter Chargers are very likely.

Gold Paladin also get a useful Grade 2 with Knight of Spring Light, Bellimor. He has a Unite skill that gives him +2000 power which can work on your turn as well as your opponent’s turn. As well as that, he has an on-call skill with a GB1 and CB1 that has you look at the top three cards of your deck to choose one and place it on a rear-guard circle in the same column as himself, and put the other two on the bottom of your deck. Only being able to call it to the same column is a pretty annoying restriction but this is what Dawngal was made for and there’s a good chance that the new Gurguit will help with this problem like giving all rear-guards a power boost when a card is placed from the deck or maybe giving all back-row units the ‘Boost’ ability.

There was one new card that we got a pretty good idea of the skill from the anime. The card is Interdimensional Dragon, Bind Time Dragon and it was a stride that the main antagonist used. From what people can gather it has a GB2 that activates when he attacks by binding one of your rear-guards (Not Time Leap) and he gains +10000 power and +1 critical. As well as that, your opponent then chooses one of their rear-guards to put at the bottom of the deck for every card in your bind zone. This seems like a very strong ability for the cost so I’m going to assume there is at least a Counter Blast involved though we won’t really know until we see it in the official spoilers.

Other than all of that we have two little promos. One is quite interesting as it has the same treatment as Nega-keiopojisis and Avectro Zeus where its original art designed by a fan. This card being a Grade 1 Pale Moon unit named Beginner Juggler Dracokid. He only has 5000 power but when he is called to RC you Soul Charge 1, and if that card was a Grade 3, Juggler Dracokid gains +10000 power when attacking during that turn. He’s a very niche card but even if you are not relying on him getting the power, he still turns into a nice Soul Charger.

The other promo is a Grade 2 Gold Paladin, Knight of Slanting Radiant, Ledion. When this card enters Unite you can activate his ACT ability by Counter Blasting 1 for him to gain +3000 power; making him a 12000 attacker. It’s not a very exciting or strong card but at least it’s only a promo. We have no news of whether we will be getting these in English or not but, although he is niche, I would like to see people use Juggler Dracokid in the future.

Join me again for next week for more spoilers on the latest sets, decks, and promos.

Cardfight Vanguard singles are available to purchase at Big Orbit Cards: Cardfight Vangua r d

Cardfight!! Vanguard Weekly Card Update #38

April 1, 2016Cardfight!! Vanguard, ReviewsAqua Force, Bermuda Triangle, Cray Elemental, Gear Chronicle, Royal Paladin, Shadow PaladinJames

Welcome back to another weekly update of the new cards for Cardfight!! Vanguard. Yet again there aren’t many cards to talk about this week but the ones we do get are very good. There are the last of the GRs and RRRs from Fighter’s Collection 2016, a new stride for the Daigo set, and info about the next clan booster.

Interdimensional Dragon, Warp Drive Dragon is the GR stride for Gear Chronicle in the Fighter’s Collection and boy does he make a good early game and late game stride. It has an ACT cost of CB1 and SB1 and the option to flip another card G unit face-up. If you did the Counter Blast and Soul Blast then you can Time Leap as many of your rear-guards equal to the amount of face-up Warp Drive Dragons you have in the G zone, then choose one of your opponent’s rear-guards with a Grade equal to or less than the amount of cards you Time Leapt with this effect, then put that card to the bottom of their deck. There are some great cards you can select to Time Leap for early game like Steam Worker, Etana to get in some extra damage; Steam Maiden, Lasina-bel to mess with your opponent’s set-up; and having Tickaway Dragon during all of this will stop you from decking out and will ensure that you have the right cards to Time Leap to.

For Aqua Force’s RRR they have Marine General of Heavenly Silk, Khristos who fixes up any weaker columns. When he attacks you may Counter Blast 1 to give your front row rear-guards +2000 power and they gain the abilities to draw a card if their attacks hit on either the third or fourth battle of the turn. This will work well with Magnum Assault and Battle Siren, Adelaide to keep your units stood, ready for the third and fourth battles, though it would have been nicer if the skill was wave fourth and fifth. Still, this will put pressure on your opponent and may force them to use 10k shields on fairly weak rear-guards.

Shadow Paladin’s stride is Dark Dragon, Distress Dragon and he does what you would expect him to do, mass retirement. As an ACT you can CB3, SB3, and G blast 1, then you can choose any number of your rear-guards to retire and your opponent retires the same amount. Then if the amount of units retired in total was six or more you draw two cards, Counter Charge 1, Soul Charge 1, and your Vanguard gets +20k power. Retiring Promising Knight, David; Pitch Black Sage, Charon; or Mage of the Rogue Eye, Arsur can really hurt your opponent as they would have to retire two cards for you only retiring one.

Having trouble with Grade 2 stallers? Wish you could get a stride without your opponent being at Grade 3? Well from the creators of Air Elemental, Twitterun, I have for you Air Elemental, Sebreeze! If there are no face-up cards in your G zone and you are at Grade 3 while your opponent is at Grade 2 and they didn’t ride on their previous turn, then you may stride this card. Having your opponent try to guard as a Grade 2 against this card and your GB1 rear-guards is going to prove extremely difficult for them, though I’m sure a lot of people won’t be using this just because they want their G zone to only have their clan in this, so you stall decks will still be safe against a few decks, though in competitive play it would always be good to have one of these in your G zone. I guess there’s only one thing for it… Grade 1 stall decks!

For the Daigo set Holy Dragon, Sanctuary Guard Imperial was recently revealed. You may CB1 for it’s ACT ability to give one of your Grade 1 or less rear-guards +3000 power for each of your Grade 1 or less units, including itself. Then if that unit hits a Vanguard, your Vanguard gains +10000 power and +1 crit. Though Regalie may be a better option most of the time, Imperial does work well if your opponent doesn’t have many cards in their hand so you can get in as much damage as you can in one turn.

Lastly there’s some exciting news for Bermuda Triangle players with the new G Clan Booster 3: Blessing of Divas.
From the looks of it Lauris is our GR of this set. There also seems to be Raindear and Coral in the picture as well as the three on the end being a new PRISM trio. Not only that but we have confirmation of a new rarity for this set! If you remember the SPs from the last Bermuda set then you’ll know they had alternate art with a summer theme. Well in this one we still have the SPs but also WSPs. It’s expected that the SPs will just be the same art like most SPs but with the text border gone, though the “W” in WSP stands for “Wedding”, meaning you’ll get to see your favourite Bermuda girls in a wedding dress. Cardfight!! Vanguard has turned into a dating sim for your Bermuda waifu, I’m sure many will be pleased.

That’s everything for this week. Join me again for next week for more spoilers on the latest sets, decks, and promos.

Cardfight Vanguard singles are available to purchase at Big Orbit Cards: Cardfight Vangua r d

Cardfight!! Vanguard Weekly Card Update #26

January 8, 2016Cardfight!! Vanguard, ReviewsAqua Force, Genesis, Megacolony, Narukami, Nubatama, Spike BrothersJames

Welcome back to the weekly Vanguard update! All the Fighter’s Collection cards have finally been revealed! I will go over the last bits of the Fighter’s Collection as well as some awesome new cards for Reckless Rampage.

Believe it or not, Giraffa finally got the support people have been asking for. With a Counter Blast 1 Evil Armor Mutant Deity, Goliath gives +5000 power up to six of your units with Giraffa in their names. With this it could be wise to have four of every unit in the ride chain, maybe even 3-4 of the Grade 0, if Goliath then hits the opponent’s Vanguard you paralyse one of their rear-guards. This card partners up really well with the Grade 1, Elite Mutant, Trighoul. At the beginning of the opponent’s ride phase, if they have a paralysed unit, you look at the top five cards for a Giraffa card and put it into your hand. This can ensure that you can pull the ride chain off and that you have a lot of rear-guards for Goliath’s skill. The only two downsides to this is that he doesn’t have Giraffa in his name and it can be hard to paralyse units with Giraffa units so having a couple of Sweet Cocktails may not hurt.

Another card that helps you get the cards you want is Amphibian Dragon for Aqua Force. When Amphibian Dragon attacks a Vanguard on the third turn or more then you search your deck for a card with Trans-core in it’s name and bind it. This will allow you to always ride Trans-core with Amphibian’s second ability to Counter Blast 1 at the beginning of your ride phase to ride with a Trans-core from your bind zone, allowing you to break ride easily four times in a game. You may need a bit of Counter Charging but if the break rides are going to be your main strategy then it may be good to save your face-up damage for this card.

Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Kaiser Warning is a stride for the old Kaisers of Narukami. With a GB2, CB1, and a G Persona Blast with a heart of “Kaiser” he attacks the whole front row and when his attack hits you give two rear-guards +5000 power. Because he’s attacking three units he has the potential to hit all three and give two units +15000 power! The power can get even higher with the Grade 1 Crown Holder Dragon. When your Vanguard with “Kaiser” in its name hits with an attack then you can give another unit +2000 power, making +6000 if your Vanguard hits all three. Having two or three of these on the back row will really stack up the power quickly and make a big difference late game.

Witch of Quill Pen, Onion is a Grade 1 version of the recent Witch of White Rabbits, Cardamon. If you have a Vanguard with “Witch” in its name and Onion is Soul Blasted then you can Counter Blast 1 to bring her onto the field with +2000 power. With all the powering up Genesis Witches do to the rear-guards it makes it extremely useful to have a consistent field.

The last card for Fighter’s Collection is the Murakumo Grade 2, Stealth Dragon, Oboro Keeper. At the end of your turn you may choose two units names Stealth Dragon, Oboro Keeper and put them on the top of your deck to search your deck for a Grade 3 to put in your hand. I’m glad that this is another Fighter’s Collection card that can work in everything but it works especially well for Shirayuki to get Persona Blast fuel.

Onto the Reckless Rampage cards Dudley get a new Grade 3 with Dudley Jessica. Jessica is a very defensive unit for Spike Brothers with the GB2 to give the front row +2000 power at all times, allowing her to have the defence of a cross ride. When a unit with “Dudley” strides over this unit you search your deck for a card with “Dudley” in its name and you call it to a rear-guard circle with +5000 power. It’s good to finally have a solid Grade 3 for Dudleys so Geronimo will hopefully see more use.

Assault Dragon, Assault Rex gets +2000 power when there is a “Rex” in the bind zone and when a unit with “Rex” in its name is put into the drop zone then you draw a card. This is hopefully a sign that there will be more Rex Grade 2 and 1 support in the Reckless Rampage to help pull off the draw ability. The ability to gain power should already be easy for Rexes and with Dark Rex you can start to pull off some powerful combos.

We have a new legion with Shura Stealth Dragon, Hokagecongo who legions with Shura Stealth Dragon, Murasamecongo. When these two units perform legion you can Counter Blast 1 to bind all of your opponent’s rear-guards face up and your opponent binds a card from their hand face-down. At the end of the turn all the cards go back into your opponent’s hand. He also has the power up ability to Soul Blast 1 to gain +2000 power. With Murasamecongo’s skill you will be able to search your deck for the Hokagecongo and put it into your hand as long as you discard a card, if you do all pay the cost your opponent is also forced to retire a card in their bind zone and Murasamecongo gets +2000 power.

A new keyword for Nubatama has been revealed, firstly shown with the new card Stealth Dragon, Hashiribi. The new keyword is Afterimage and allows you to put a unit with this keyword back into hand after the turn if your opponent has a bound card and you have six or less cards in hand. This will allow you to pull off all the low hand abilities for the turn while still being able to defend next turn. Hashiribi also drop and draw when he’s called if your opponent has a card in the bind zone.

Lastly we have the Nubatama Grade 2, Stealth Dragon, Nibikatabira. He also has Afterimage and another ability with GB1, CB1, and SB1 when he’s placed on rear-guard to give another rear-guard +3000 power and Afterimage. This only works if you have a Vanguard with Shiranui in its name but it is still an extremely useful card for Nubatama to have.

That’s all for this weekly update of Fighter’s Collection and Technical Booster cards. Be sure to check back next week for the next one!

Cardfight Vanguard singles are available to purchase at Big Orbit Cards: Cardfight Vanguard

Cardfight!! Vanguard Weekly Card Update #25

December 11, 2015Cardfight!! Vanguard, ReviewsAngel Feather, Aqua Force, Genesis, Granblue, Great Nature, Neo Nectar, Nubatama, Royal Paladin, Spike Brothers, TachikazeJames

Welcome back to the weekly Vanguard update! All the Fighter’s Collection cards are almost completely spoiled. We received some great spoils this week including some support I’m especially looking forward to!

First we have the Neo Nectar stride for the “Maiden of” support. Yggdrasil Protection Maiden of Lotus is almost like a quicker version of Dream-spinning Ranunculus, Ahsha. If you have a heart with “Maiden of” in it’s name and with a Counter Blast and Soul Blast of 1 you can give up to three units with “Maiden of” in their name in the front row +5000 power. If their attacks hit a Vanguard then you search the top five cards of the deck for a card with the same name as a card on your Vanguard circle or rear-guard circle and call it to rear-guard. This works great for Maiden of Trailing Rose and Maiden of Rambling Rose with their goal of cloning themselves on the rear-guard circles, allowing for the easy power boost. It may be useful if you only have one Hollyhock Knight on the field to get a good chance of cloning him for your turns when you can’t stride.

Next we have Omniscience Dragon, Cath Palug, the Great Nature stride supporting “Honorary Professor” (AKA Chatnoir). Whenever a rear-guard attacks and you have a heart with “Honorary Professor” in the name, you may CB1 to give one unit +4000 power. At the end of that turn draw a card and retire that unit. This stacks really nicely if you keep giving the power to one unit and being able to stand that unit back up to allow you to draw multiple cards for one retire. This is where Crayon Tiger will help you to stand other units and let you draw even more! The downside to this is that those Counter Blasts are going to rack up quickly, though luckily Great Nature are quite good at Counter Charging.

Okay, it’s time for the cards I’m really looking forward to… Jewel Knight support! Climax Jewel Knight Lord, Evangeline does wonders for Jewel Knights by letting you turn any G unit face up if you have a Jewel Knight heart and giving every card with Jewel Knight in its name +3000 power for every face up Climax Jewel Knight Lord, Evangeline in the G zone. If you’re using a pure Jewel Knight deck like my own then you can easily see how the power of this will rack up. Many Jewel Knight cards allow you to superior call other units granting you the chance to easily have a powerful full field. With a drawn out game against a defensive deck you will be able to use this lady up to three times, first giving everything +3000, next +6000, and after that +9000 to all of your units! Making +18000 power columns!

A Grade 1 for Jewel Knights was also revealed. Bringing Calling Jewel Knight, Christine onto the field when there are three or more other rear-guards with “Jewel Knight” in their name allows you to Counter Blast 1 and reveal a Grade 3 from your hand to search your deck for a Grade 3 Jewel Knight and call it to a rear-guard circle. At the end of the turn that you use this skill you put the newly called Grade 3 into your hand and then discard a card. You can use this to ensure you can continue to break ride with Pure Heart Jewel Knight, Ashlei or you may want to do it just to have something to use to stride next turn. With no Generation Break you can use this before you’ve even hit Grade 3 to guarantee you ride the card you want.

With the new Aqua Force Clan Booster you may have been worried because Trans-core didn’t get a new card. Luckily the Fighter’s Collection come bearing merciful gifts. Blue Flight Marshal Dragon, Mithril-core Dragon works only if you have a “Trans-core” heart (Currently only Blue Flight Dragon, Trans-core Dragon). When any of your unit’s attacks hit a Vanguard on the third wave or more your opponent must choose between discarding a card or having you draw a card. This can get pretty intense with the amount of times Aqua Force can stand up and have enough power to land a hit.

Stealth Rogue of Night Fog, Agitomaru is a Grade 2 for Nubatama with no specific support (Probably because the support for Nubatama in general is very slim) but his skill can prove to be very useful. When Agitomaru’s attack hits a Vanguard, retire a card in your opponent’s bind zone. Sweet and simple. This will work well in many Nubatama builds but what they really need now is a way to power up this guy to make sure that attack hits. This is the second rear-guard ability that allows you to retire from the bind zone but I feel Nubas deserve more so here’s hoping to more bind zone retiring in the Technical Booster!

In this set there has been OTT Witch support, Shadow Witch support, and now we have Genesis Witch support. Sacred Water Witch Queen, Clove is just what you’d expect from a Genesis Witch, by Soul Blasting 6 you can give all units with “Witch” in their name +5000 power, and if you have two or more hearts she gains an extra crit. Like Evangeline, you can get some seriously strong columns with this. Not as big as Evangeline’s potential but with Clove you get the higher power quicker, you can use her four times in total, and she gets the extra critical.

For the “Bad End” Spike Brothers rear-guard support we get the Grade 1 Death Flag Dragger. If he is placed on a rear-guard circle during your battle step then you may reveal a Grade 3 from your hand, and then search your deck for a “Bad End” card (Bad End Dragger) and put it into your hand. This will be good for getting the initial Bad End Dragger but with Hand of Deity, Good End Dragger you won’t be using Death Flag Dragger’s skill much late game.

Love Sniper, Nociel is the Grade 3 that the “Nociel”s deserve. You may CB1 when a card with “Nociel” in its name is put into the damage zone, if the card that was put in the damage zone is still face up then you can put it into you hand and put the top card of your deck into your damage zone. She also has a second ability that allows you to put a card from the damage zone into the hand when she’s placed on Vanguard circle if you put a card from your hand into the damage zone. This is really the kind of thing you would expect from a Nociel card and now that she’s got a form in every Grade you can finally make a proper deck around her.

Lastly for Fighter’s Collection we have the Granblue Grade 3 for “Seven Seas”. Seven Seas Sage, Purgeton has your classic Granblue skill of Riding from the drop zone. At the beginning of the ride phase, if you have a Grade 2 or greater Vanguard with “Seven Seas” in its name you can CB2 to bring this guy from the drop zone onto the Vanguard circle. Also, when he is placed on the Vanguard circle you can bring another card from your drop zone and put it on the rear-guard circle. This may be good to bring out King Serpent to essentially make the Ride and call a CB1 but using things like Sea Strolling Banshee for hand advantage may also be a good idea.

That is all for Fighter’s Collection for this week however there are a few more cards to go over.

Cheer Girl, Lucy is a new promo for Spike Brothers. We’re not sure how it will be distributed in the west yet but it has a neat ability to give a boosted unit with the “Charge” keyword +5000 power on top of the boosted power already given by her and then at the end of the battle that the boosted unit attacks you put them on the bottom of your deck.

Lastly we have been shown the three stride fodders for the Technical Booster. Prism Bird (Tachikaze), Acrobat Verdi (Spike Brothers), and Stealth Beast, Katarigitsune (Nubatama). The only one that we know the Grade 3s name for is Katarigitsune who helps you find a card with “Shiranui” in its name.

That’s all for this weekly update of Fighter’s Collection, promo, and Technical Booster cards. Be sure to check back next week for the next one!

Cardfight Vanguard singles are available to purchase at Big Orbit Cards: Cardfight Vanguard

Cardfight!! Vanguard Weekly Card Update #18

October 23, 2015Cardfight!! Vanguard, ReviewsAqua Force, Cardfight!! Vanguard, Cards of the week, Eradicator, Narukami, Pale MoonJames

Welcome once again to the weekly Vanguard update! All the cards for G-CB02 have finally been revealed! Cards have also been shown from the next booster set, G-BT05, and the ace Grade 3 for G-TD07.

I think it’s only right to start with the last lot of Aqua Force and with a big splash! The G unit that everyone has wanted to see, Blue Wave Marshal Dragon, Tetra-boil Dragon, is just as good as people imagined. When you attack you may Counter Blast 1 and G Persona Blast to -1 your drive check, then when one of your units attacks an opponent’s Vanguard on the forth turn you may drop a card to stand your Vanguard back up! Combine this card with Blue Wave Dragon, Anger-boil Dragon (Allowing you to stand 2 rear-guards and give the +3k on the second battle) makes for good, powerful combos as well as making the re-stand very consistent. You can’t have this kind of power with just any build though, you must have a heart card with “Blue Wave” in it’s name. This only leaves Blue Wave Dragon, Anger-boil Dragon and Blue Wave Dragon, Tetra-drive Dragon, but seeing as they are both very powerful units I don’t think many people will mind having to use them. This card may have been made due to the fact that he will be Leon’s new stride in the anime which gives a lot of hope for the cards that will be used by Miwa, Kai, Naoki, Aichi, and maybe even Emi in future G episodes.

A clone of High Tide Sniper has been revealed as a Grade 1 counterpart. Mind Eye Sailor allows for a strong front row without Grade 2s or 3s. With the Soul Blast 1 giving her +10k power she gets to a handsome 17000 power without support. This is a great card to target with Storm Dominator, Commander Thavas‘s +5000 power skill, making her 22k power and being able to attack from the back row. Blue Wave Soldier, Brutal Trooper is a new critical trigger and a great addition to the beloved Blue Waves. By putting him on the top of the deck and shuffling you can give a rear-guard the ability to draw a card if it attacks a Vanguard on the second battle or more, so long as you have a “Blue Wave” Vanguard. This along with both Anger-boil Dragon’s skills and Blue Wave Marine General, Foivos can fill up your hand nicely and makes Tetra-boil’s -1 drive check more bearable. More triggers for Blue Storm will also be available with this new set. These triggers are Sea Otter Soldier of the Blue Storm Fleet (Draw trigger), Medical Officer of the Blue Storm Fleet (Heal trigger), and finally Blue Storm Battleship, “Poseidon” (Critical trigger). All these Blue Storm triggers don’t have any abilities but it’s always nice to see more triggers for subclans.

Following these excellent cards we will move on to the main event with the new Pale Moon units! Many people have been curious about a certain masked boy who has been shrouded in the mysterious depths of G-TD07 and now it’s time for him to show his true identity. Masked Magician, Harri, the new G era Grade 3 Pale Moon ace and the avatar of Luna Yumizuki, is just as playful with the soul as you’d expect from a Grade 3 from the Pale Moon circus. When you stride on top of him you can Counter Blast 1 to give him the newly named “Magia” effect to Soul Charge 1, choose one card from your soul and call it to a rear-guard circle with a suped-up +5k to it’s original power but at the end of that turn you must put the newly called unit back into your soul. This does have it’s benefits. By putting things back into the soul your opponent may get the same problem they would have against a clan like Murakumo, and that is they may need you to have rear-guards to use their skills properly but now they won’t have anything to retire, keeping all your important units huddled up safely in Harri’s (Rather large) soul. As a player of Megacolony and SP Witches I can tell you from personal experience, through fights with a certain Tom’s (Who also writes on this blog) Murakumo deck, just how frustrating this can be. Oh and of course Harri’s skills don’t stop there. With a Generation Break 2, when he attacks, you may choose one card from your soul and call it to a rear-guard circle with +3000 power. Unlike the previous skill, this unit stays on the field so you have options whether you want to maintain a big field or switch everything around each turn. This also allows you to change up your strategy depending on what deck you’re up against.

Silver Thorns come back in G-BT05 with the new Grade 2, Silver Thorn Magician, Clemens. Clemens specifically works with the lovely Luquier. If you have a Luquier Vanguard, Clemens gets +2k power and if her attack hits you can put her into the soul to call out a unit with a different name. This seems to be an improved version of the old Mirror Demon from BT03 but with the “Luquier” requirement. I feel like this card helps the Silver Thorns a lot, especially if she was going back into the soul anyway due to another of your units abilities. Looking at Clemens’s lore I think a lot of people will be happy to know that Silver Thorn are still keeping up their assassination business which makes them fit to be part of the demon-filled Dark Zone.

Another 11k Grade 2 working for an adored Vanguard maiden has appeared in G-BT05, this time for Tsukuyomi. As well as the +2k power, Shrewdness Concierge has the ability to Counter Blast 1 when his attack hits to draw two cards and put a card from the hand into the soul. Tsukuyomi has been extremely lucky with her support for fixing up the soul, I’m sure many people who hold on to their non-Tsukuyomi ride chains are very jealous but don’t take it out on the poor girl. Being able to use this card early on in the game really fixes most problems with ride chains and seeing as we have already been shown Handedly Housekeeper I believe this is the last we will be seeing of Tsukuyomi of this set unless she gets a new Grade 3 (Maybe even a break ride! But I doubt it sadly).

Now, big muscular dragons are nice and everything, but sometimes you gotta take things back in time a little, back to Narukami’s first subclan! Yes the Eradicators are back in action! So far we have only had two revealed to us but there is believed to be a few more in the future. For now though we have a Grade 2 by the name of Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Cho-Jun. People will remember the Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Cho-Ou helping out Eradicators a lot in the past and hopefully Cho-Jun can do the same. When Cho-Jun hits a Vanguard you can Counter Blast 1 “Eradicator” to retire one of your opponent’s rear-guards. So unlike Cho-Ou, Cho-Jun can carry on his onslaught of retiring. This also helps a lot for some good ol’ Steve the Destroyer (A.k.a “Eradicator, Sweep Command Dragon“) action! With Cho-Jun and Eradicator, First Thunder Dracokid you will easily be able to superior ride Steve the Barbarian part way through the turn.

The fun doesn’t stop with Steve the Butcher though, a young man from the same tribe as the famous Steel-blooded Eradicator, Shuki has shown up. The Grade 1 Machine Gun Eradicator, Kanto gives 2k power to himself and an ally if you Soul Blast 1 Eradicator when an enemy unit has been retired. This gives a similar effect to Knight of Reform, Pir, and by that I mean… high numbers everywhere! Some people may still prefer Dragon Dancer, Agatha but I feel that Kanto is far more flexible by being able to make any column gain the other 2k power allowing you to get all the front row units to give your opponent as much pressure as possible.

This concludes this weeks update! G-BT05 is looking like a very promising set and hopefully next week we’ll get to see more of the trial decks too. I would definitely like to see what all this “Time Leap” business is about. Thank you for joining us this week and don’t forget to join us again next week for the cards revealed in the next seven days.

Cardfight Vanguard singles are available to purchase at Big Orbit Cards: Cardfight Vanguard

G Trial Deck 4: Blue Cavalry of the Divine Marine Spirits review

April 17, 2015Cardfight!! VanguardAqua Force, Bushiroad, Cardfight!! Vanguard, Reviews, Trial DeckJames

VG-G-TD04 — G Trial Deck 4: Blue Cavalry of the Divine Marine Spirits banner

You can purchase Cardfight!! Vanguard singles at Big Orbit Cards.

Aqua Force are a naval clan from Magallanica who patrol the seas with the goal of keeping order and justice among all marine environments.

http://www.bigorbitcards.co.uk/images/detailed/420/G-TD04-002EN.png — One Who Surpasses the Storm, Thavas

This trial deck brings Aqua Force into the new G series with a pre-constructed deck containing 52 cards. As with all trial decks this comes with a rule book and playmat to help newer players get into the game. TD04 also brings multiple cards that older players can put in their competitive decks such as the new Aqua Force leader: One Who Surpasses the Storm, Thavas.

First Impressions

The box itself looks very nice with an eye-catching image of Thavas showing through the packaging, accompanied with a picture of Jaime on the box, the character who uses Aqua Force in the anime of Cardfight!! Vanguard G.

On the back of the playmat that comes with the trial deck there are examples of how to use certain cards to their full extent and how to combo cards to gain effects. Aqua Force have always been known for their ability to gain effects by organising the order of specific battles in a turn, so this guide will really help new players understand what Aqua Force is about.

From looking at the new cards we can see Aqua Force has certainly stepped up it’s game since the last trial deck. With the addition of perfect guards, G units, and two copies of the grade 3 leader, we can see that this deck can hold it’s own against even the strongest decks out there but there is still room for improvement…

We get a look at the first Aqua Force G unit. Marine General of Heavenly Scales, Tidal Bore Dragon shows us what kind of abilities we can expect from the new strides of this clan. With the classic “If it is the X battle of that turn” effect we know things aren’t going to be changing much in terms of skills.

The Pros

This deck provides multiple ways of attacking more than three times in one turn which givees more support to cards like Thavas and for previous Aqua Force decks, such as Maelstrom and Tetra-drive.

http://www.bigorbitcards.co.uk/images/detailed/420/G-TD04-001EN.png — Marine General of the Heavenly Scales, Tidal Bore Dragon

The new leader, Thavas, is just as formidable as the previous leaders of the G trial decks. With a breakstride ability allowing you to retire your opponents rear guards and a generation break 2 that stops your opponent from guarding with grade 0s and deals extra damage. Just like the rest of the G units thus far, Thavas will be receiving additional support in sets to come. We get our first taste of this in G-BT02 Soaring Ascent of Gale & Blossom with Kelpie Rider, Nicky, who will help you search your deck for a card with “Thavas” in the name, indicating we may get more Thavas cards in the future.

Tidal Bore Dragon has an easy skill to pull off, with it’s ability being activated through the third battle of the turn, so even if you can’t pull off Thavas’s breakstride skill, having to be on the forth battle or more, then you can still put some pressure on your opponent. Another interesting thing about Tidal Bore’s skill is that you have a choice when it’s activated. Once you draw an extra card you can either keep all cards in your hand, ready to defend on your opponents next turn, or place another card down to get an additional hit in.

http://www.bigorbitcards.co.uk/images/detailed/420/G-TD04-007EN.png — Magnum Assault

Aqua Force get a great advantage in this trial deck with the addition of Magnum Assault. This grade 2 stands himself back up after attacking, no matter when he battles during a turn, providing an easy way to get to the forth attack for Thavas. With this effect Magnum Assault also gains 2k power making it easier to attack a grade 3 Vanguard. (Note: on the first print in the English version of this card there is no counter blast cost but this was fixed in future prints and people playing this card should abide by this rule in competitive play.)

The cons

There are some minor problems with this trial deck such as the misprints. Not only do we have the before mentioned “missing counter blast” on Magnum Assault but Thavas had his own misprint. In Thavas’s description it’s breakstride ability said “When this unit attacks a Vanguard” which indicated that even after striding over him, Thavas still had to be the one to attack. In future prints this card will say “When your unit attacks a Vanguard” meaning that the G unit will gain the skill instead of Thavas.

Misprints aside, this deck has a lot of cards that show up in plenty of other trial decks, especially the grade 1s. Once you get this deck, if you are already familiar with Aqua Force and have plenty of cards from this clan then you will most likely be switching out a lot of the support cards. There is one benefit to the cards being this way, in that they are simple enough to help new Vanguard players to learn how to play with ease, but veteran players may find themselves buying this deck for a handful of cards and then placing the rest to one side.

Summary

Despite the amount of cards that are just clones of units from previous trial decks, this deck’s star units really prove to be great assets to the Aqua Force clan. Thavas seems to be a worthy unit on his own and I’m sure he’ll be used in competitive decks for a while to come.

All-in-all these cards seem to belong with Aqua Force, and if you are new to Aqua Force then plenty of support will be coming out in the next booster set to help modify this deck to make it even better.

Remember you can purchase Cardfight!! Vanguard singles at Big Orbit Cards.