Now before I go into the main focus of this post I do want to follow up on an earlier article I wrote this year talking about Narukami in the G-Era as the second set of the series has support for both generic and Eradicator based decks. Initially I was disappointed that Eradicators were getting support over Brawlers as their concept of field control has become outdated and worse yet Bushiroad keeps trying to make Tempest Bolt Dragon.dek the way to go.
Well imagine my surprise when after the new set dropped that Eradicators started topping tournaments. Turns out the deck is doing quite nicely and it's ironically enough not because of the new Eradicator support but rather the G-Units and Voltage Horn Dragon's compatibility with First Thunder Dracokid, the Forerunner that can Superior Ride Sweep Command Dragon after you've popped a card. This has become the basis of what is called Sweep/Descendant Stride and the deck as a whole is very solid with multiple vanguard attacks alongside field control. Plus the ability to bind units from the drop zone has turned out to be far more powerful than people imagined as losing triggers, PGGs and Legion units can cripple a deck such as Kagero's DOTX build. One can even argue that Eradicators have an extremely good matchup against the once best deck in the game because of your bind cards. You either shut down The X's ability to loop or you force them to pitch cards to block your attacks, thereby erasing the hand advantage the Kagero player usually has over other decks.
Vermillion.dek on the other hand hasn't done much. It topped a small tournament after set release but aside from that it's pretty much inferior to the new Eradicator Deck and Brawlers which leads me to the main topic at hand; G-Era Brawlers.
While the deck largely got shafted from BTG2 with no direct support, the deck has improved with the release of Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura, Voltage Horn Dragon, Mighty Bolt Dragoon and the G-Units which have helped expand the deck's options for when you aren't able to dickpunch things with Knuckle Buster. It too has shown some results with a top in a recent tournament and with the impending release of Fighter's Collection 2015 the deck is going to become even stronger. Remember how I've lamented over Brawler's lack of G Support? Well Bushiroad clearly heard my ranting and they've answered my prayers...and then some with this guy;
True Brawler, Big Bang Knuckle Turbo
G4/Triple Drive!!/Narukami
Stride (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-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) & Soul Blast (1) & Choose a face down card from your G zone, and turn it face up] If you have a heart with "Big Bang Knuckle" in it's name, until end of turn, this unit gets "[CONT](VC):When this unit would choose a unit to attack, choose three of your opponent's units for each of your heart card instead, and this unit battles all of the chosen units in one attack." and [Power]+5000 for each face up "True Brawler, Big Bang Knuckle Turbo" in your G zone.
Hoo boy...where do I even begin on this one? Not surprisingly a good portion of the community is up in arms over this guy and how "absolutely broken" he is and I believe that these people are idiots. They're even calling for this guy to be put on the banlist! I swear to god this is Blaster Joker all over again what with the loudest portion of the community got super buttmad over his effect but have now come to the same conclusion as the rest of us in realizing that Blaster Joker was a incredibly underwhelming card whose effect was really no different than a Triangle Lock. Joker's support on the other hand is actually solid with the 7k Rester and your Gallatin clone but I digress, Joker himself is not that great.
Now am I implying that Knuckle Turbo here is not a good card? Definitely not. He's an incredibly solid unit and provides a huge boost to the Brawler deck as it opens up options on turns that you can't Legion, can't use Knuckle Buster's skill due to a lack of fodder for cost or if god help you Knuckle Dragon is your vanguard. Being able to attack 3 Units Pre-Legion and 6 Post is really strong and pretty much fucks over combo decks that have to commit cards from their hand in order to advance their game state like Nova Grappler and Aqua Force. The extra power gain for each copy of himself is also cool as it's basically a Blizza but better and all you need is an open CB and 1 card in Soul. Knuckle Buster helps set this up, though I feel that additional ways to fuel the Soul may need to be looked into such as the Zuitan clone for Brawlers. I should also note that if you're able to hit 6 things with Turbo, then your Slash Dragons will get +18000 allowing them to swing for 27000 (Slash Dragon) and 29000 (Slash Buster) unboosted, requiring a minimum of 20k shielding.
That being said there are still some issues I have with the deck. As good as this guy is there remains the problem of Paladin Decks being able to remake their board for literally no cost and being able to rush you to death while you try and set up (Brawlers are kind of slow), decks not committing much to the board because they're playing vs Dragons and that's just the smart thing to do and Brawler's lack of a kill play. This has been a problem with Narukami for ages now in that they have no problems taking cards away from the opponent and you can make an argument that they can do it even better than Kagero, but they can't finish things up like them. Are G Kagero doing anything? Hell no! G Kagero are terrible in comparison to The X and Perdition as those decks have kill plays with Restanding or Pinging. Royal Paladin have Thing Saver and Saint Blow, Aqua Force has Savas and Glory Malestrom and Dimension Police have punting. Vanguard is a game where if your deck doesn't Restand, Guard Terrorize or Guard Crush then your deck is bad.
All of the field nuking, mass locking or spamming that many decks these days can do means nothing if you have no kill play and ultimately that's why Brawlers despite the addition of Knuckle Turbo will still not achieve the level of success that I'd like it to. I won't deny that the deck will become really good and it'll smash alot of things into the ground but it's going to wind up in the position of Vanguard's Borderline Tier. Far better than EVERYTHING else in the Tiers below it, but not nearly as good as what'll be in OU.
Here's hoping the other Narukami G-Unit in FC2015 will be something that gives the clan a kill play. Make it a Descendant upgrade. Restanding Triple Drive plz.
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