G-BT12 Narukami Spoilers - Week 1

Not going to lie this idea was 100% inspired by another player's own blog posts in which he gave opinions on spoilers for the upcoming Bermuda Triangle set and I really liked the idea so I'm going to do the same except instead of discussing new mermaid cards (at least until Circuit Break) I'm gonna talk about my favoured Thunder Dragons as they are spoiled in Dragon King's Awakening.  Thankfully I don't have nearly as much content to review so these posts should be short in theory, but long time readers know I do like to be thorough in my examinations.

That being said there are some things to get out of the way;

-Since I'll be reviewing these cards WELL before the entire set is spoiled there's a good chance my initial analysis may be too harsh or too lenient.
-For context we will be getting reprints of Dragonic Vanquisher, Mighty-Bolt Dragoon and Demonic Dragon Berserker Chatura in this set.  Thus I'm not holding my breath on Vanquisher specifically getting a card of the same power level as Dragon Knight, Mubdi from the last set or a Thunderstrike oriented Stride Fodder.

Now let's get started!

Shutdown Eradicator, Dokukakuji
[AUTO](RC):When this unit attacks, if you have a vanguard with "Eradicator" in its card name, this unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of that battle.
[AUTO](RC):[Counter Blast (1)] At the end of the battle that your grade 3 or greater vanguard with "Eradicator" in its card name attacked, if the attack did not hit, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your vanguards, that unit and this unit get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.

This card is...okay I guess?  It's not hot garbage but at the same time I don't see why I'd run this over Chatura, Thunderboom Dragon or a host of other already released Eradicator Grade 2s.  The CB better used elsewhere.

Ambush Eradicator, Kosangyou

[AUTO]:Forerunner
[AUTO](RC):[Retire this unit] When an attack hits a vanguard during the battle that this unit boosted a unit with "Eradicator" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, reveal three cards from the top of your deck. If all those cards have "Eradicator" in their card names, put a card from among them into your hand, and if you put a grade 3 card into your hand, Soul Charge (1). Shuffle your deck.

Oof.  This could have been the one starter to finally dethrone Linchu in non Sweep Decks as Linchu's ability to kill Grade 0s and 1s while still useful has somewhat waned due to 10k attackers no longer existing and most decks waiting until Stride before calling down their utility Grade 1s (with some exceptions) so a new starter wouldn't be argued against.  Unfortunately this guy isn't it as while the conditions to trigger him are the same and he doesn't use up CB in a deck that uses ALOT of it the fact is if you reveal a non Eradicator with his effect it fizzles and that's a HUGE problem considering the deck will be running many non Erad units (Stride Fodders, PGGs, Chatura) which will turn this into a giant -1.

EDIT: With VBuster requiring Soul alongside Sweep Command and Zillion this guy's inability to go into said soul is yet another reason as to why he's less than ideal.

True Eradicator, Bravesky Linchu
[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[ACT](VC):[1/Turn]:[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card from your G zone with the same card name as this unit, and turn it face up & Choose one of your rear-guards with "Eradicator" in its card name, and put it into your soul] If you have a heart card with "Eradicator" in its card name, your opponent chooses two of his or her rear-guards for each face up card in your G zone, and retires them. Then, if your opponent has no rear-guards, you draw a card.

Hoo boy.  This guy.  Would you believe me that on the wiki page for this guy there was a huge shitshow over this thing that ended up causing a bajillion posts?  Yeah there was.  Guess who was involved?

Anyway despite what some would tell you Bravesky Linchu is actually quite good for the Eradicator deck.  Excluding Sweep Command this guy is your arguable best first stride play as for a CB and a unit on the board you're killing a minimum of 2 things and if you've cleared the board after this draw a card.  However if you have any other cards in the G-Zone prior to this then you get to kill even more things.  This lessens the blow of having to ride to G3 first as if you have a G-Guardian play and follow it up with Linchu then you get to retire 4 cards for CB1 and a unit on the board and likely draw a card.  That's nothing to sneeze at.

Now I can see the complaint that he requires you to give up a Rearguard in addition to a CB for a (likely) retire 2 when we've had Big Bang Knuckle Turbo "retire" 2 units for a CB and a SB or 5 if you've Legion'd before that.  The thing about that is Brawlers have become too slow as the current tempo of Vanguard requires you to be striding as often as possible and purposely taking a turn to Legion for anything that will not outright win you the game or put it out of reach is a HUGE loss in momentum and the primary reason white DOTX/DOTE god awful now in addition to the subclan being reliant on the opponent having a board of many things to punch in order to advance their gameplan (Brawlers kind of died out after Set 6 and both Granblue came into the format while Pale Moon was strengthened).  Yes they can abuse Conquest Dragon better than Erads but their big power play of punch the board with Turbo so that your Rear Guards become super huge can now be done with Linchu as his board wipe skill when paired up with Shuki + Hakusho literally achieves the same result as Slash Dragon/Buster + Kokon while also drawing a card to balance out the loss of a RG.  This means now Eradicators can now pull off Brawler's big power play on top of having access to Finish Blow Dragon and Zillion while Brawlers have Turbo + Conquest and that's really it.  Yes I know Finish and Zillion are not the best cards in the world but my point is that with Linchu the Eradicator G-Zone has become much more flexible than Brawlers' and is arguably better.

Lastly let's talk about the part that Linchu sucks up a RG.  It's actually not that awful when you mull it over.  It can be of use when you consider that Positive Dracokid Soul Blasts to unflip, Sweep Command Soul Blasts for his Limit Break (and you are FAR more likely to run out of Soul first with him), Rising Phoenix uses Soul to draw, Assault Eradicator Saikei uses Soul to Countercharge and Machine Gun Eradicator, Kantou uses soul to buff himself and a unit by 2k when something dies.  Like say the Vanguard when you use Impede Dragon to retire 1-2 units?  Combined with GBD's Limit Break thats a +5k to the Vanguard for a Soul Blast vs multi attack decks.  Linchu fuels this without having to do things like throw Malevolent Djinn into the Soul which was a thing we used to do back in the day.

EDIT: I forgot to add on that Zillion eats up Soul for his restand which is relevant and VBuster also uses soul for his own skill.  Not that I would promote playing VBuster over this guy in EDD/GBD as neither of them care about binds but still it's something to consider.

So yeah Linchu is not hot garbage.  He's not busted by any stretch of the imagination but he's definitely more useful than people are giving him credit for.  Hell look at what I was able to come up with.  Can you imagine how much I'm gonna yammer when we get to Buster and Sparking?

Anyway that wraps up the first week.  Tune in again when we will hopefully know the skills of some of the cards spoiled in Today's episode.  3 of the 5 things I predicted have come true so we'll see if I'm 5 for 5 and how close my theoretical effects were.