Nightrose Stride Deckset - My Ideas

 Long time no post!  It's only been a year and then some since I decided to revive this.  I wonder how many people will even glance at this?  Mind you this blog has been more of a place for me to ramble about things on my mind with this being one of them.

As you know Cardfight!! Vanguard has announced another set of their bi yearly Stride Decksets that will no doubt break the game as these fuckers always do.  Long story short: The Stride Crest is broken and with the exception of Messiah the Stride Decksets usually dominate the formats they are available in until the banlist kneecaps them.  At least that was the case with Jet.  Shiranui and Luard though?  Nah let's have the west deal with them for half a year and counting.

So while that's going on and with no banlist changes in sight for the Japanese side of the format because the Diversity Cut is a joke Bushiroad has decided it's a perfectly good time to release another pair of Stride Decksets based on another duo of iconic units in VG's history; Harri and Nightrose.

Harri coming to D is whatever as Pale Moon already exists with the Luquier encounter and can take advantage of Dark States good stuff maybe but Nightrose?  You know I'm gonna be on that.  This will be Granblue's first appearance in D Format and as a deck from the Stoichea Nation there is some tremendous potential to be had as the clan already has a spiritual successor deck in the form of Zorga which means there's a decent amount of cards in the pool that'll have synergy with the Nightrose deck.  I know I'm definitely not the only one to think so as since the deckset's announcement certain RRRs have gone up in price with the biggest offender being Sea Strike Dragon, Enlarguv.  Gotta love how shitty the staple situation is with this game.  It's impressive to be just as bad as Konami with chase cards.

But why are certain cards going up?  Well the best place to start would be with the main boss of the deck herself: Nightrose.

Nightrose was and still is one of the best Striders of G Series (her 2nd version, Starlight wasn't nearly as good) as it took until Ultimate Stride format to power creep her out.  Being able to call things from the drop zone is incredibly powerful given how Vanguard is designed as graveyard toolboxing is one of the most powerful of its kind in any TCG and Vanguard enables it by just playing the game.  Any card of yours that is retired, attacked over, used for Intercept, Healed from damage, Soul Blasted or discarded all set up your drop and that's not to mention cards that fill up the drop zone like Millers, Cyclers and so on.  She also gives the unit she calls a +2k which in regards to D format isn't very much due to how much unit stats have scaled up since her time but there will be moments where the buff can let units with smaller statlines like 8ks be able to attack into 10ks or be 10k boosters.

Her GB2 is also not to be underestimated as it allows you to recur cards that self destruct during your End Phase for additional use if they have an on place skill, or revive an Intercept that got picked off by a retire effect which is not irrelevant as Lock and Bind is not nearly as common in D as it was in G and V.  You just have to be careful to not overuse it as milling 3 cards will lead to deckout that much faster and D Format has decks that can certainly grind you out that way.

Still Nightrose is only as good as the units she has to work with and Stoichea's stronger cards tend to be geared towards its ridelines.  However one of those Ridelines just happens to be Zorga whose playstyle is Granblue's in all but name so it's no surprise that some of the cards that have been printed with the intention of supporting Zorga do have some synergy with Nightrose.  Chances are that if you've been a Zorga main or have been playing Granblue in Premium format that you already have most of the Stoichea staples but for those of you who don't and are wondering what to look for while copies are (kind of) plentiful I'll list off the cards I think have the most likelihood to be used.

This is probably the biggest offender as far as price and scarcity goes.  The Grade 3 Cyclers are very, very good in Stride decks for added draw power and sometimes utility based on what deck we're talking about.  It's especially unfortuante with Enlarguv as he actually is really good with Nightrose as a play that I found myself doing often was discarding him to Stride, then draw, then have Nightrose CB1 to bring him back after which he will SB1 to add a Grade 2 and above card from my drop zone to my hand.  This includes orders which is very, very relevant since Stoichea has a very strong Grade 2 one.  Depending on how Soul heavy the deck becomes it's not impossible to establish a soft loop each turn where you Stride, have Nightrose call back Enlarguv then have him add back a different named Grade 3 to Stride again on the next turn.

The one upside is that Stride Decksets usually print a Grade 3 unit that has an effect to draw when discard for Stride and a condition to gain 10k on your turn so if Enlarguv is out of your budget you'll at least have that to fall back on.  I wouldn't be surprised if it's Ghast Dragon who you may run regardless if he has a power gain effect similar to V's Skull Dragon.

If Enlarguv is out of your reach then I'd suggest trying to pick these up.  The Energy Blast Cyclers/Guardians are very, very good for digging you deeper for pieces/shields during the early game and late game, even if you can't use their RG skill.  That being said it occurred to me that Harri and Nightrose will be the first Stride sets to have been made since the Energy Crest was introduced to the game so for all we know there may be EB costs to manage that will make using these cards harder.  I'd still suggest picking up a set.

Stoichea deck, remember?  That means you get to make use of the many Orders that let you build a board too!.  This one gets a special mention because it has no cost other than milling 1 and it's also a Grade 2 Order which means Enlarguv can get it back.  In my testing I found myself having Nightrose revive Enlarguv who then gets back Restraint which puts another body on the board making her effectively CB1/SB1/Mill 1 to call 2 units from the drop.

That said I do think an amount of Grade 1 and lower orders should be played.  Maybe a 2-2 split between them and Death's restraint?  My reasoning is that in the early game you can use these orders to filter your deck of non triggers, set up the drop zone and get some early aggression since as a Stride Deck your engine naturally doesn't get moving until Turn 4.  These two I've picked out as they don't cost CB and as a chain attack deck Nightrose will burn through CB very easily.  Regarding which one to use it'll come down to availability as Habitat can call a card from the top 7 of the deck vs Dim Darkness' 3 but Dim Darkness can send the card you pick from the top 3 to the Drop then calls any card back while getting cards out of the Soul.

At the time of this post RPDs have thankfully gone down in price and Zorga basically got a new version of it that only works with Nadhir so in theory these may tank further.  Seems like a good time to pick up a set as if you're going to play Orders in Nightrose then this guy is worth an inclusion as a recurring body that will either have huge numbers, huge crit or both after 1st Stride.  He's also useful in the early game if you can get him in the drop early enough and see an Order as you could potentially rush your opponent before they get to Grade 3, thus making Nightrose a Stride Deck with an early game like Shiranui.

I don't know how much this deck wants to lean into Grade 1s if you're able to set up a buff front row given that I'm 99% certain Negrobone will be in the Stride Deck but of all the 1s around this is one of the better ones.  He filters the top 5 for a card to mill and becomes an 18k body once you hit 10 in the drop which is easy to pull off by the time you stride.  Pairing him up with RPDs can lead to 2 crit 23k lines if you get good RNG in the early game.

Depending on how the deck plays this Grade 2 will be a 15, 20 or 25k solo attacker that will only get bigger as the game goes on.  The call from drop and 4 attack conditions will be easy to meet.

This probably won't make the final cut depending on what Negrolazy does if he's included (and I don't see why he wouldn't be), but she does set the drop zone up by milling 3 when called at any point which makes her a good target for your Orders.

After that it's a matter of picking up the effect Crit and Fronts as you definitely don't want to play Draw Triggers in this deck.  I think the Effect Heals are optional and in regards to what Overtrigger to use you can use either the Red Cray, Blue Cray or Stoichea one and any of them I think would be a fine choice.

Now with that out of the way it's time to get into the bulk of this post which is my guesses as to what the cards in here will do.  I know that I'm setting myself up for disappointment by doing so but A) These are fun to do and B) I like seeing just how close to the mark/predictable Bushiroad's design is.

The Rideline

For the Rideline they're going with Grenache, Parting Shade and Columbard of which 2 of these we basically know their effects.  Grenache will be your standard D Series starter that draws a card going 2nd while Parting Shade when placed on V will draw a card and get you the Nightrose Crest.  It's Columbard where things get interesting.

With Jet they made his Grade 2 fairly basic but Messiah had one that also did something on Rearguard.  Then Luard/Shiranui made their Grade 2s do the same but also printed them in multiples.  The thing they all have in common though is that all of them generate you a +1 when rode upon that doesn't cost a CB, then having a passable effect on RG.  Columbard in both of his appearances in the past has always called a card from the drop and I expect that to be his rear guard skill or a drop zone skill that lets him revive himself.  I wouldn't be surprised if he's on place/on attack call 1 from the drop zone not named himself which would pair nicely with your Stride effects.  What I'm interested in is the skill when you ride over him as I wouldn't be surprised if it's something that lets you set up the drop zone for the later turns and either call a card, or add a card back.  Basically a VG restricted version of his V skill.  I wouldn't be surprised if Columbard's skill is to SB1 to mill 3 then add 1 card from drop back to hand or if they want to get really crazy send a card from the deck to drop then add any card from drop back to hand.  If it's the latter effect then that'll enable some crazy toolboxing options by binning RPDs or Orders to add back.

The Strides

So far the only known Stride is Mist Phantasm Pirate King, Nightrose who is the Persona Stride of the set meaning you'll only be able to access it by pitching Nightrose herself to Stride.  Given the history of this unit and Nightrose V's skill I fully expect this card to call an entire column on attack and possibly have another effect like a +1 Crit.  How good this will be depends on if Columbard or Negrolazy can call things on place as you'll be able to do the play of call a beefy attacker in the front and an extender in the back to effectively reset your entire front row like what you would do during V and Zero format.

That said typically these Strides are not used as often as the intended 1st Stride due to the requirement of a Persona discard and often not having power gaining or Flip costs so the power input is typically less.  See Magentenbu and Faterider Dragon being so strong that using them 3 times is often enough to win the game.

Which leads us to the question of what the other Stride will be and what will it do?  I can think of a couple choices in this regard and they'd be a pick between Bandit Rum or Obadiah.

Bandit Rum if you don't remember is the on hit call a card from drop unit and Obadiah on place Foolish Burials 3 cards and potentially calls a body out.  I think what they're going to go for here is a combination of both in the form of a skill that for the cost of CB1 and a flip will let you search your deck for a card, dump it, then call something out.  Most likely on attack declaration since every Stride Deckset's 1st Stride so far has always enabled a 4th attack at minimum.  If not then the deck will hopefully have another way to call things in BP outside of Phantasm Nightrose.

The Crest

And finally, the reason why this deck will be absurd.  The far from balanced Crest mechanic that allows these decks to hit for increasingly large numbers based on face up G-Units.  For a deck like Nightrose which typically employs multiple small to medium sized attackers the 5k gain itself will do alot to help it push for damage and it'll make certain units harder to block like RPDs who you'll be able to safely let become 2 critters that swing for 20k or more on your 2nd stride turn.

In regards to what other effect it'll have that's an interesting one and I think I have an idea that may actually be close to the money: It'll give you psuedo Hollow.

See the thing is Nightrose's gimmick has been about calling big attackers that self destruct as a downside.  This was first in the form of the Hollow keyword then with Nightrose V's CONT skill.  Nightrose herself doesn't have the Hollow keyword and I could very well see them not bringing Hollow in but enable it a different way via the Crest.  This could go one of a few ways with the Crest letting you give a unit extra power but it dies after attacking or at the end of the turn giving you the option to self destruct your board for a trade off.  My guess for this would be some level of resource recursion like a Countercharge, Soulcharge or Energycharge.  This would make up for the fact that Grenache is a vanilla starter and now the abuseable CC2 guy from G.

Therefore the best case scenario would be the Crest gives you the option to reitre all of your units on RC at the end of the turn to CC2.  This would allow you to trigger Nightrose's GB2 if need be.  I think regarding Crest skills making you nuke your board to get back two CC is one of the more inoffensive things they could make.

Closing Thoughts

All in all I'm excited as short of a Vanquisher or Ahsha deckset this was one of the things I wanted: Granblue in Standard.  I've long come to the conclusion that I actually miss the Clan system of old Vanguard and while the Ride Deck itself is a great inclusion alot of the actual Ride Lines are...not appealing to me.  They lack that design and art flair that clans had and I think Bushiroad realizes this as we've been getting more of the Clans introduced to Standard since D started.  I honestly would not be surprised if by the end of 2025 we'll have had Dark Irregular, Nova Grappler, Angel Feather and Oracle Think Tank appear as encounters which would leave only the unpopular clans that nobody really likes  left (Great Nature, Tachikaze, Megacolony, Murakumo).  I'm not apologizing for saying that.

With that said next week we'll be starting to get reveals for what's in this set and when we do I'll make a post reviewing them.  I'm very curious to see how on the mark I am.  To summarize my predictions are;

Nightrose Crest - End of turn you may retire all of your units and if you do, CC2

Columbard - When rode upon by a G3 SB1 to search your deck for a card and send it to the drop/mill 3 cards, then add 1 card from your drop to the hand.  RG: When placed/On attack, CB1 to call a unit other than himself from Drop to RC.

1st Stride - On attack CB1 and G-Flip: Search your deck for up to 1 card and put it in the Drop Zone, then call 1 unit from Drop zone to RC.

Phantasm Nightrose - On attack CB1 and choose a column, call up to 2 units from your Drop to RC in that column.  Potential Power or Crit gain.

Negrobone and Negrolazy will be in the TD.

That pretty much wraps it up.  Until next time.

Striding Towards the Future - Granblue in Vanguard Zero Part 2

This came about a bit faster than I planned for but with Zero's G-Set 4 being the finale of Season 1 that means we'll be getting into the Rummy Labyrinth stuff pretty soon and that means it's time to start talking about one of the biggest success stories of G card design in the form of Granblue.  I'm not bullshitting on this either as prior to the release of the Trial Deck and G-BT06 Granblue was regarded as one of the worst clans in the game that languished in the same tier level as Megacolony, Nubatama and all the other unplayable garbage clans.  Their Limit Break, Break Ride and Legion support all failed to make the Clan meta which was a real shame as Granblue's gimmick always had the potential to be good as it's a deck that plays out of its graveyard which any card game player worth their salt will tell you is one of the best playstyles to have.  The problem with Granblue was that their revival effects were more often than not overcosted/restricted and their call targets were underpowered which made your payoffs less than impressive.  The clan also was lacking in many of the quality things that made other clans superior; board removal, draw power/filtering, guard restrict, restanding, consistent multi attack (their one Legion helps) and pushing power among other things.

Then Stride Format came and boy howdy did it ever give this clan the G Fuel.  In the TCG once Granblue got their actual G Support it ended up being a Tier 1/1.5 deck all the way until Ultimate Stride came out (the clan never saw anymore support outside of Roseate Nightrose who was a promo and Chaos just wrecked the deck).  Nightrose was even regarded as BDIF at one point..in Japan.  In the west the deck didn't see as much play because it required a competent pilot to play it well and our players weren't at the same skill level as the Japanese players at the time so it didn't get nearly the amount of tops that the other Tier 1 decks did.  That's still pretty impressive and many of the cards printed from this time still see play even now in Premium.  Hell if you look at V Granblue one of the best versions of it is based around Nightrose.

Needless to say there's definitely some hype behind G Granblue.  But how will it translate to Zero?  Let's find out.

Summary

I honestly don't know if GB will be a core set or event clan.  It could go either way.  I'm leaning towards Core Set just because it got a TD in addition to main set support much like Pale Moon did and there's at least 3 Strides that could be GRs to work with.

Important Notes

-Blueheart is a RR in Fighter's Collection.  His skill is unchanged.

-Cocytus Negative is a RRR in Fighter's Collection.  He got a buff that lets you retire an opponent's RG if you call a Cocytus off his skill in addition to what he had before.

-Tommy the Ghostie Brothers and Waterspout Djinn are in FC as well.  They work like you'd expect so I'm skipping them.

Fighter's Collection 2015 Winter

Yeah CB1 to call 2 without restriction is super good value when you have cards that draw/retire/soul in to draw or their own self retire effects to mitigate the downside.  Or you just replace them with OG Nightmist.  Or you can not worry about that and just call attackers that die at the end of the turn to play around board removal decks like Blademaster.  This plus the 7Cs support in Set 6 made the deck Tier 1 in paper format and it could happen again here if the good stuff gets imported to Zero.  

Fun Fact: Granblue's Break Ride is one of the few in the game that works with Strides as you get to trigger it, call 2 units to the board at +5k and then go into your stride of choice like Nightmist and call 2 more.  Sage here is your main way to trigger it as you can BR him over Nightmist, call 3 cards then go from there.  Him being able to call from drop zone is insane as it actually benefits from you discarding it for stride/Guard Restrict.  Be mindful of the CB though as if you don't manage it properly your opponent could deny you the 3 you'd need to Sage over Nightmist then Nightmist Stride.  Ideally you'll want to do the Drop Zone Ride play if you're going for game or got hit with Delete/VG Stun.

Vampire Princess of the Nether Hour

One of the best Stride Breaks ever printed.  Nightrose is really, really good.  Call anything from the drop while giving it +2k to help make lines and that GB2 enabled some pretty derpy shit as long as you didn't get too greedy and mill yourself out.  I honestly suspect it'll be changed so that you can't trigger it on the opponent's turn because Zero likes to keep that kind of interaction out of the game for the sake of speed/simplicity.  I can understand it but it's gonna suck to see happen as Nightrose was famous for being a multi attack deck that could also play defense through her GB2 being able to call back spot removal/self buffers.  Regardless Nightrose is the boss that GB wanted for years and basically carried the deck on her back until ironically enough, V Nightrose came along.

Look ma!  A GR!  I don't have alot to say on Bandit Rum.  He's an on hit that calls from one of the best places to call from and if all the other on hit callers got bumped to GR then so will this.  Especially when you have cards that call things when called.

Easy RRR candidate.  Columbard enables more attacks and can call another copy of itself which lets you get even more attacks.  Your ability to combo is limited only by your imaginationand CB.

And now I get to talk about Hollow.  This is Granblue's keyword and unlike Thunderstrike it actually fits the theme since alot of GB units tend to blow themselves up.  Basically you have your basic skill or you can supercharge your unit at the cost of it dying at the end of the turn.  Generally speaking alot of Hollow'd units had great skills to make up for the loss and it allowed the deck to hard counter removal strategies like Vanquisher and Chaos since you could just yeet your board at the end of the turn.  However because Intercepts are your line of defense in Zero you're going to have to seriously consider not hollowing certain units so that you don't get bashed in on the clapback.  Nightrose's GB2 does help maintain board presence but that's a 1/Turn.  

Negrorook is one of the best beaters the clan has as he's able to hit magic numbers in just about every scenario.  11k VG?  Go unhollow'd.  16k?  Hollow.  21k?  Hollow'd + Boosted.  Good shit.

It's a Negrorook but smaller.  Still not bad but your G1 space will be hella tight and I can't see this making the cut.

Yep.  He CC2s and with Nightrose's GB2 you can CC4.  Getting him to that point is tricky since in paper format we actually kept Grenache in the soul to be blasted out with Dancing Cutlass but Zero doesn't give you that choice.  You'll have to call over it with something else or be cheeky and throw it in the front row.  Your opponent will likely never attack it too!

This is one of the few clans in the game that you could make the argument for playing crits since Nightrose mills and you draw a fair amount off of your RGs...but I'm still going to say these should be avoided.  You have good G3s to play as triggers, this is a clan that wants to stride every turn so the extra Stride Fodder is welcome and checking crits don't plus you the same way as checking draws.  Banshee is good for what she does since it's an immediate cycle and I could see 1-2 of this being played?  I do like it more than Rampage Shade.

Transcension of Blade and Blossom

Easy 2nd GR candidate.  She's basically a more expensive Lambros that requires less setup to pull off but is only as good as the things you can call back.  The only thing they really could do to buff this is make her CB1.

It's a big, beefy attacker like Negrorook that can also call itself to R...but I doubt it'll see play.  Nightrose has better G3s to run.

Yeah Nightrose got her Glimmer Breath clone in this set and if they put it in here it'd be crazy as Negrolazy is cracked.  He extends, scales and even refunds himself at the end of the turn.  I could see them bumping Negrolazy to Absolute Judgement.

Painful Choice/Battle Compressor is insane in any card game and Obadiah is no different.  He sets up your drop zone, calls out sack fodder/booster and you can make him CL2 so Nightrose can call out one of the cards you dumped.  Easy RRR.

Negrobone is stupid good.  Enables more attacks, doesn't require you to boost and hit and can call literally any Hollow unit.  This is part of why Nightrose had such a strong kill turn as you can call Negrolazy off something, have him call this, sack off the Negrolazy then call it back and have that Lazy call another Bone behind it.  Yes that uses up alot of CB but if your opponent's at 5 you go for it.

Nightstorm is a card that sees play in 2021.  That's how good he is.  Pop the intercepts, then swing in with this guy and call a Negrolazy who then calls a Negrorook over this guy and you just keep going.  He's a keeper.

This set also has support that makes 7Cs a full on deck and this guy is not a bad option to run.  Enables more attacks and whatnot.

But this guy completely outclasses it and he was the reason why you played 7Cs over Nightrose in Set 6 format as Nightmist Stride spawned a board, you attacked with your front row then sacked them off for double Slash Shade who came out at 11k and could continue to poke at the VG.  He's good.

Yeah this is gonna be a RRR.  Cannoneer is one of the best cards ever printed and he sees play to this day in paper format as both of his effects are straight cracked.  He will definitely be played in both decks.

Nightcrow is also amazing.  Just swap out the cards that were going to blow themselves up for a free 7k booster why don't you.  Thankfully the 7Runner deck that this guy enabled won't work in Zero format because of how Striding works so I don't see this being nerfed.  Famous last words?

It's a Foolish Burial on legs.  Yeah it's good.  1 of probably.

Ah yes.  This asshole.  Nightrunner was the backbone of an infamous deck called 7Runner that aimed to lock the opponent out of the game by never riding past G1 which turned off their ability to Stride or use Seabreeze.  It then proceeded to beat the opponent down with multi attacks since Slash Shade and Prisoner Dragon aren't VG grade restricted.  Many decks couldn't handle 7Runner since by the time this deck became a thing alot of people played strictly Generation Break decks and the few decks that didn't were also cancerous in their own way.  This deck even got multiple tops at major events and I think it also won Worlds?  Regardless Bushiroad was very embarrassed to let this deck slip through their notice and brought down the banhammer hard and to this day Nightrunner and Nightcrow are at 1 (the real culprit never got hit when really it should have been).

With that being said I don't see this happening in Zero as like I mentioned before Striding works different.  Anti Stride tactics like Grade Stalling have no effect and kills decks like Ripple Rush and 7Runner and because of that Nightrunner's usefulness is severely limited when Grenache exists.

While I'm iffy on G0 crits Mick the Ghostie on the other hand deserves serious consideration as he gives you a significant buff and goes back to the deck which is vital to avoiding deck out.  If Zero allows the clan to call from drop on the opponent's turn then you also get the option of giving your Vanguard +10k on their turn which can be annoying as hell for multi attack decks to handle.

Fighter's Collection 2016

I suspect this set will be released alongside whatever set GB is in as another FC.  Regardless this card saw no play in paper and I expect it to be the same here just because you can only call cards equal to the number of copies of this face up and there's a total Grade Restriction when you can just go into Obadiah or Bandit Rum instead.  She also sucks as a follow up stride when Phantasm Nightrose exists.

This guy however is pretty cool.  G Guards that actively help your deck strategy are the good ones and milling 2 for a 20k shield is fantastic.

And that's it!  Granblue's potential first wave looks to be pretty solid and it gets at least 2 more sets after this (Absolute Judgement and Rummy Labyrinth).  Wave 1 will likely be a repeat of what happened in paper format as Nightrose doesn't get the tools that she needs to take the reigns until Absolute Judgement (Gouache and Negrolilly) so 7Cs will look to be the meta contender once this set drops.  It may also be the main build even after Absolute Judgement due to how sus Hollow looks to be for Zero.  Nuking your intercepts is very risky but on the other hand the tops decks in the game all have multiple ways to clear them regardless so against those matchups this point is moot.  Regardless I'm excited as Nightrose in particular was a deck I thoroughly enjoyed due to its Yu-Gi-Oh! like playstyle and I hope she transitions well to Zero.

Striding Towards the Future - Narukami in Vanguard Zero Part 6

Ayup I'm talking about Narus again.  I'm still on the fence on if I want to go over Genesis since the Fenrir deck was something I had fun with in G but given how predatory Zero has become since the shift to Stride Format picking up a 4th clan outside of Narukami (then later on Zodiac Time Beast), Neo Nectar and Granblue would definitely be stretching myself too thin without resorting to repeated whaling and that's something I don't want to do.  #MakeGRsCheaper

In any case with Fenrir.dek out of the question the next thing on my list is what would likely be one of the first Clan events for Season 2 of G (the other likely choice being OTT) in the form of Narukami Clan Event 2 featuring Voltage and stuff.  

Summary

The first NK Clan event turned out okay in creating a very potent Anti-Legion deck with Dragonic Vanquisher while also creating a decent Dungaree deck (Striding on top of a Dungaree triggers Dan Dan) that got Top 8 at the Autumn Championships but there were definitely issues that popped up.  Namely Resist G2s and the number of decks running around with them like Gear Chronicle and most notably BT (they have 3 different choices) which is difficult for a deck like Vanq/Dungaree to answer.  Vanq lists have been playing a small Crimson package to deal with these but then you're swinging VG first with rear guards that don't scale which means that one defensive trigger fucks your push turn and you're likely to get clapped back.  Still at the time of this post Narukami are by far the best of the event clans and Vanquisher has a place in the meta as a strong, reasonably budget high Tier 2-1.5 deck and depending on what cards pop up in the next event I'd say there's a reasonable chance the clan will do well after it's 2nd wave.

Important Notes

-Big Bang Knuckle Buster got nerfed.  You don't draw when using his Legion Skill.

-Rising Phoenix and Big Bang Knuckle Dragon are choice restricted at the time of this post.

-Dragonic Vanquisher gets around anti-retire.

-Zorras does not get around anti retire as he retires, then binds 2 from drop.  It's possible that he'll target Anti-Retire units for his on hit.  You choose what gets bound.

-Voltage Horn Dragon's skill got changed to be an on attack Zorras.  You choose what gets bound.

-Chain-Bolt Dragoon only binds 1 card from drop.  You get to choose what gets bound.

-Chatura is a GB1.

-Conquest Dragon gives a flat 5k to the front and requires a retire to do so.  No retire = no buff.

-Turbo and Vishnu got released in Fighter's Collection.  Turbo only attacks the front and if you have 2 Hearts one back row unit of your choice.

Fighter's Collection 2015 Winter

Remember that problem I mentioned about not being able to handle double Resist G2s and Vanquisher decks running Crimson to out them?  Enter Warning who is is a Vermillion that also buffs two units by 5k for every unit he hits.  Assuming you hit the VG and double Intercepts he's giving out 15000 to two units of your choice which solves the issue of non scaling Rears during your Crimson pushes.  I definitely expect the power buffs to be scaled down since Conquest Dragon got nerfed in much the same way.  Regardless Warning might actually warrant building a dedicated Kaiser deck since you can always counter early rush with Vermillion/The BLOOD's Limit Break.  That or he'll be a 2 of in the Vanquisher deck for when you have to pivot to a Kaiser to break Resist setups.

Crownholder's pretty solid.  If you hit 3 things then he and another unit get +6k which stacked with Warning is 21k.  Gross.  That being said IDK if he'd be played outside of a dedicated Vermillion deck since G1 space in the Vanquisher deck is already tight as is.

Moonlit Dragonfang

Here's your GR of the set and it's a Persona Flip because Gamestudio are evil bastards.  VOLTAGE you'll sadly want to have 4 of not because you'll go into him that many times but because VMAX needs face up Vanquisher strides in the G-Zone for his board wipe effect and VOLTAGE is the only other Vanquisher Stride you will have to work with until the 4th (and last) Narukami Clan Event with VBUSTER.  As for VOLTAGE himself he's an odd duck as in paper format the card has been great and still sees play as Narukami's finisher to this very day but in Zero format I don't know.  His retire effect was always disappointing since he was basically Zorras when what the clan really needed at the time was main phase spot removal to help clear out the board.  His power gain while impressive in paper format is kinda overkill too as once you reach a certain threshold power doesn't matter anymore as Neo Nectar players will tell you.  Not to mention unlike your other GR in Conquest Dragon, VOLTAGE doesn't remove intercepts so you'll be relying on Gunners and other cards to make the most out of this.  Regardless VOLTAGE will basically be your 3rd Conquest play so you'll really only ever need 2.

HOWEVER

What you actually need are 4 VOLTAGE from this event because the boss card of Narukami's 3rd wave (with hopefully a skin for Henri) VMAX requires face up Vanquisher Strides in your G-Zone for his Big Bang Knuckle Buster effect and VOLTAGE is the only Vanquisher Stride you'll have to work with until VBUSTER comes out in the 4th wave!  This means you'll want a pair of VOLTAGE to go into as your first stride and another pair to go into as a finisher stride.  Yes its absurd and I really hope VOLTAGE is a RRR in this event but we can't have that.

Oh yes Eradicators get more cards that waste slots in this set.  This time around it's support for Gauntlet Buster Dragon whose playability will come down to if Egghelm is available or not.  Regarding Finish Blow he's okay as a pressure card as thankfully his crit gain skill is generic which means you can splash it into Vanquisher if you need to push damage.  It's only the retire part that requires GBD as the Heart (and good god trying to get CFA randos to understand that was a trial) which the Erad cards in this set do try to help make work.  Where this card falls short is being GB2 locked as by the time this card came out there were already strides that could get bonus crits on first stride (DP Strides, PB Diablo) and this being so slow really hurts when your other options are Conquest and Voltage.  I really hope they remove the GB2 restriction on this guy.

Angercharge in Zero context is actually not bad.  Self-Damager that also retires which sets up your retire based effects.  I'm willing to bet that the Eradicator CB will definitely be removed since special counterblasts haven't popped up in Zero so far but the needing to damage an Erad for the pop effect I'm not sure about.  I actually hope that also gets removed as that would make this a cool tech option for Limit Break decks like Vermillion and Dungaree.

I wonder if Rockclimb will get his effect changed to random retire + bind 2 cards of your choosing from the Drop Zone like they did with Voltage Horn.  Either way I don't know if he'd see play over other options as he doesn't remove intercepts which means Gunners are already a better pick nor does he draw cards/CC.  Being 11k when you call him down while also removing a booster and building up binds may still be enough.  Hard to say.

That's right they threw in cards from the manga as pack filler in this set!  Whew!  That being said Stinger's actually not bad in Zero!  On place each player pops a RG is whatever but that Break Ride skill is not awful.  The first effect would be changed to be the typical "Discard a G3+ from hand to PG" for the condition of clearing intercepts while the 2nd effect also gives your VG a crit if you somehow clear the backrow.  It's something.

So hear me out.  You play this guy as a tech in Vanquisher specifically to wipe the board before going into VOLTAGE since Drill retires through resist and therefore those pesky double resist G2s get screwed.  Yes you lose your board but how much are you really losing after having both your intercepts get killed?  It's risky mind you but also something to keep in the back of your mind.  Anti-Retire boards are obviously exempt from this but for those you stay on Vanquisher.

Oh boy now I get to talk about Thunderstrike.  TS is infamous among players for being one of the worst of the Keywords that was introduced during Mid G.  Keywords ended up becoming the defining trait for many of the clans with their later set support being designed around them.  How well a clan's old and new cards worked with their keywords meant the difference between a good deck and a bad one.  Kagero for instance has "Blaze" which triggers as long as you have more units on board than the opponent on your turn.  Pretty synergistic for a clan that retires.  TS is based on how big your opponent's Bind Zone was which...was bad in the TCG since it was really easy for your opponent to play around it by either not calling cards to get bound or not letting your on hits land which also denied TS.  Bear in mind that TS came out in a format where Magia and Hollow existed which were nightmare matchups for this deck.  Granblue wound up being meta for a year even.  What sucked about this was that it effectively made TS a handicap on top of a handicap since you'd have cards that were GB locked and Thunderstrike locked which meant they were doubly useless.  It really wasn't until the end of NK's time in G that they rectified this by printing cards that allowed you to force binds regardless of the opponent's board state and they printed TS units that didn't have GB tacked onto them.  This meant that if you were able to pull off early binds you were rewarded with some good skills before stride.

That being said Thunderstrike in Zero looks like it'll be different by nature of game mechanics.  Your opponent can't cockblock Zorras/Chatura, they have to leave G2s on the board to not die which means Vanquisher can pick them off and get you started.  It's quite possible to hit TS3 or more by the end of your first stride turn which is a big help towards wincons like VMAX.

Now let's talk about Djinn.  He's basically discount Dragonic Overlord in that he can remove an intercept while also attacking the VG which is really good in Zero format.  Resist/Anti-Retire Intercepts in particular get screwed by this guy which makes him great for the VOLTAGE turn.  I think he'll definitely get played alongside the Crimson package (or maybe instead of it).

This is either getting nerfed to only remove 1 intercept, or he's not being put in at all.  A Seal Dragon, Blockade on RG that also scales would be nuts and given that the Eradicator and Brawler units that also turned off double intercepts for a turn didn't make it I'm not expecting Cloudmaster to either.

While I think Drill might have a chance as a tech choice, Hammerknuckle is SOL.

What's funny about this is that they still haven't put Cho-Ou in the game at the time of this post.  That aside Cho-Jun is a thing?  He does have the merit of being able to kill off old starters if you go first and ride this thing.  Get fucked Conroe?

Erads have better G1s to work with.

Well.  She isn't GB locked and she does help clear out the board but what would you even cut for her?  The G1 lineup is already more or less set.

NNNOOOOOOOPE.

God this thing needs a buff.  You played this in the day out of necessity since there were so few ways to build up TS but I hated it nonetheless.  A -1 just to force a bind and 5k buff was so underwhelming when things like Conroe existed.  While I expect him to be buffed so you get to choose what gets bound I really want that -1 to be offset by a Draw.

Fighter's Collection 2016

This one's a stretch since FC2016 is also the set that debuts G-Guards and there's no telling how they'll handle that can of worms (or the 16 Card G-Zone expansion that came with them) but I figure they'll make an FC for that well before the third NK Clan event and I'm going to go over Voltech now rather than later.

Anyway Voltechzapper ended up being a wash as Zorras was more often than not the better choice since both cards effectively were on VG attack retire/bind 1.  Voltech really wanted you to be at TS4+ so you could get to kill 2 but getting to that on first stride required alot to go right and I'm not a fan of cards that require you to highroll to be effective.  That being said Voltech does have the advantage of Zero format allowing you to build up Thunderstrike alot easier due to on hits being better.  Furtheremore he retires and binds at the same time which gets around Anti-Retire which gives him a small niche over Zorras.

Uhh yeah so regardless of how they figure out how to make G-Guards work I'll just say that Vritra will undoubtedly be better in Zero format because TS1 is alot easier to pull off than in TCG so you'll have a consistent 20k shield.

And that's it for this roundup of Narukami.  Set 5 makes up the bulk of the cards here and in paper format it was notable for giving Brawlers their new cards to help them compete.  Post nerf Brawlers for Zero won't be as well off and instead we'll be seeing more Vanquisher and if we get Warning soon enough, Kaiser as well.  That's also all Narukami gets in this block before GNEXT's release and with that comes a new fighter, a potentially broken GR and even more Eradicator support.  Hurray.