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.

Striding Towards the Future - Neo Nectar in Vanguard Zero Part 3

 Heyo!  I'm back with some more speculative stuff now that Zero has been moving G along and that means I get to start speculating on what I think will appear in sets again!  Originally I was going to do Narukami again but in addition to the clan being Event exclusive the cards for Vanquisher Part 2 don't appear until Season 2 of G and there is much more that I need to cover first such as Neo Nectar's second batch of support and possibly Genesis.  With that said let's get into it;

This time around I'll be tackling the subject differently since now that I have an idea of how NN plays in Zero I can make better guesses as to how good/bad some effects will be in addition to possible buffs.  I'm also going to be going over cards in the opposite order of before (G4>3>2>1) and also making a summary and some important notes on how the clan was handled/faired with their recent set of support.  

Summary

In the case of Neo Nectar the clan ultimately fell flat as while the Ahsha deck can sometimes hit big numbers it doesn't matter in Zero format when your attacks either hit or get PG'd, your big multi attack turns lack numbers so defensives fuck you over pretty hard.  The deck is also trying to play in a format where Dragonic Blademaster is one of the top decks and Dragonic Vanquisher is the top F2Pish deck (meaning there will be alot of it on ladder) and Ahsha just dies to those two.  It's not entirely bad though as while the deck is not well fit for ladder play it's fantastic in tournament play as an Anti-Meta deck that can shut down decks that rely on multiple pokes to win like Aqua Force and Bermuda Triangle.

Important Notes

-Ahsha's on Stride skill got buffed so that you can call a card from hand prior to cloning.

-Primavera is CB2 and doesn't discard.

-Jingle Flower Dragon's board buff is active on the opponent's turn.

Now let's move onto what cards I expect to see in the probable 5th G set for Zero.

Fighter's Collection 2015

This card was part of some convoluted infinite power gain loop that allowed you to swing face with unguardable numbers while praying to sack Stand Triggers to get more attacks.  Needless to say that kind of strategy is impractical against double Intercepts and a PG.  Not to mention NN needs to run draws to see its pieces.  Stands just don't cut it.

Cecilia is a fine one of throw in for the Musketeer deck if you run her as a draw I guess?  She's technically a +1 that allows you to filter dud cards you called off your Musketeers for better units as a +1 but this card would make you want to run 4 Cecilia and she's just not very good anymore.  Vera and Elvira are just better VGs to sit on and IDK about running a 1 of Stride for a 1 of G3.

Soul Strike Against the Supreme

Dream-Spinning is...not what this Clan needed to get over its hurdles.  She's free and can be used as a first or 2nd Stride but her skills are lacking for Zero format as is.  The front row buff is laughable in the face of double intercept + PG and the on call would have been nice if it wasn't GB2 locked as by that point you may as well go into Jingle Flower or Primavera.  I can only hope that Dream-Spinning's front row buff sticks going into the opponent's turn like Jingle Flower's did as otherwise this will be a very underwhelming GR to pull.  Thankfully you'll never need more than 2 since Glorious Ahsha flips anything and only cares about how many of these are face up in the G-Zone for her board buff.  Hell you can probably even get away with 1 just to flip with the 1 Glorious you'll ever want.

We already got Maiden of Rambling Rose as a RRR in Set 2 (it's not a great backup to Ahsha) so I'll skip it and go straight to the Glimmer Breath clone.  Salianna is pretty okay as she can help set up your board by fetching a missing booster or cloning a G2 you kept in the back so she may wind up being a one of.  Her main issue is that Thuria replaces her completely in the next wave.

There are better options.  Pass.

This honestly doesn't seem that bad?  A good replacement for the 12k attacker that the deck already uses since you want to clone these as Wisteria Knight scales by himself and draws you cards if he hits which ideally he would be.  Honestly not a bad card to fetch off of Arborea or Dream-Spinning.

Again big numbers go brrr as your main strategy isn't a good enough.  Otherwise DP would be half as shit as they are.

Fighter's Collection 2015 (Winter)

This is kind of a stretch but when I looked at G-BT04 NN only had 10 cards put in the set and 4 of them were already put into Set 2 for Zero!  How are we supposed to make a Try-3 come back set with only 6-7 NN cards!  Enter filler cards from other sets.  Maiden of got expanded here into a full on archetype that would get bits of support with later sets.  Yggdrasil (this bad one, not the good Genesis unit) buffs your front row and gives you the ability to potentially multi-attack if your units hit.  Except you know intercepts and whatnot.  You do get to extend your attacks by 1 but then you have to rely on RNG to hit a card from the top 5 that pairs up with what's on board.  And that the opponent doesn't hit a defensive.  Primavera does this job with less steps.

Transcension of Gale and Blossom

 Man.  If only it wasn't in a bad deck.  Securing your G3 ride and Persona Blasts for Trailing Rose is actually pretty good.

Yeah I can see this eating up a RR slot.  It requires another card in hand for striding but you make back the neg by getting a booster and a draw.  This is unironically a solid card.

Noisette's also unironically good.  She yeets herself out of dodge and replaces herself with on hit draw and isn't locked behind GB.

And that's about it.  I'm pretty certain we're going to see Maiden of get their first batch of support in this set alongside Ahsha's remaining pre-Bloom pieces and neither deck I feel will be that competitive on ladder.  Ahsha will probably lose her spot as an anti-meta deck since by the time this set drops Shadow Paladin will be the (likely) BDIF and I don't see Phantom Blaster Diablo not fucking your board over, not to mention Gears having more spot removal and a powerful finisher in Nextage.  Until next time.

Striding towards the Future - Neo Nectar in Vanguard Zero Part 2

G in Zero's been out for a few weeks and the format seems to be quite the shakeup from what we're currently in.  While the best decks are still likely to be Kagero, Narukami, BT and Shadows the additions of Gears along with Heal Guards has been appreciated nonetheless.  With that said I'm going to finish up with my thoughts on how Neos will look like in the upcoming set as we'll soon get info on the November Banner for JP very soon.

Of the Try 3 boss units this is by far the one that needs buffs the most.  Ahsha's stride skill is reliant on you having a board going into your turn and between Kagero, Narukami and Gear Chronicle you're going to have a hard time keeping a decent board after they're finished picking it apart.  The solution to this is quite simple as much like the buffs the Arboros ride chain got recently all they have to do is give Ahsha the abiliy to call a unit from hand, then clone something.  This would allow you to clone G2s to set up double intercepts and it'll be especially useful once the Bloom keyword comes out.  That aside Ahsha's skill is your basic +1 in field presence that also buffs whatever she calls so that it can hit intercepts/VGs unboosted which is nice for any BP focused combos that may come up.  Her GB2 lets you sometimes have beefy columns if you meet the conditions for it which is relevant with Heal Guards being a thing now.

Oh right.  NN's cardpool is so small that they didn't print some of these shitty G3s that other clans have long had at this point.  Skip!

This...isn't awful?  The on ride skill leaves a bit to be desired since it's a top 5 call, but that GB1 skill lets it swing for 16 alone and for 21+ with any decent booster.

Now this is strictly better.  The search effect is good (and I'd hope it also gets a call from hand buff) and the first skill COULD be good if they make it call a copy of itself from outside the deck.

I think we just found our ideal backup G3.  Frilldrod enables multi attacks provided she hits which means it's worth taking a look at in Zero format.  You can swing into intercepts with your RG and VG then have this swing at the VG, clone your own intercept over the spot she's on and swing a 4th time and set up double intercept.  That's not bad for a Rare which means she'll likely be bumped to RR if Jet and Victor's supporting G3s are anything to go by.

Jingle Flower leaves alot to be desired.  GB2 for a moderate board buff was lame then and still is here.  At least his skill is a CONT so any Gladiolus or Frilldrod plays you have will be powered but when you compare this to the likes of Saint Blow you can see how "wait this was a RRR?" it is.  I'm really hoping that this guy gets a buff to offset how slow and low reward he is.  Maybe give him the same anti retire buff Saint Blow got.  Either way this definitely will stay as a RRR and you only need 2 of it.

On hit attack extender that's free?  Definitely going to be a GR.  2 of too.  IDK what else to say as Arborea is basically Gablade exept in a much more fair clan.  You will need to work harder to maximize the payoff of this compared to "call Twin Sword go brr" but otherwise Arborea is a fantastic addition to any Neo Nectar deck and helps give the builds without wincons (all of them) an actual means of doing more than 1 damage a turn.

What an interesting story this card had.  Primavera was released to no fanfare (and became one of the cheapest SGRs for a while) but then Bloom happened and this thing became broken.  

They are definitely going to nerf Bloom units into the ground and I won't be surprised if they do.  Primavera + Bloom makes Asura/Mond look weak in comparison.

Back to Primavera and despite the cost I think she's very worth the trouble of using.  Ideally they'll do away with the hand discard like with Chronocommand Dragon (and maybe make her CB2) but she allows you to call 4 units to the field provided you have enough copies of them between your drop and deck which allows the clan to do a minimum of 5 attacks during that turn.  More if you have Gladiolus/Frilldrod and the open CB for it.  Smart opponents are definitely going to need to keep watch on how much damage a NN player has to work with as giving them 3-4 could mean death.  Primavera is a GR that you'll want to try to get 2 of since you'll be hunting down 2 Arborea to begin with.  If you can only get 1 then that's not the end of the world as Primavera best works as a finisher to go into after your opponent has gone through multiple intercepts.  I think how often this will get used will come down to how CB heavy a given NN build is.  Musketeers burn CB like nobody's business unless you play a Legion focused build so maybe they'll try to spam more than 1?  Regardless this is one to watch out for, especially when Bloom comes out.

And that about does it.  They may surprise me and include the Glimmer Breath clone or Maiden of Trailing Rose in this set but I don't know.  Ahsha, Gladiolus and Jingle Flower Dragon are all easy RRR candidates with Primavera and Arborea as the GRs so there isn't much room for Trailing Rose to make it in.  Regardless this definitely is looking to be the strongest NN will be BUT they don't have nor ever will get any form of removal so decks that can put up double intercepts consistently while also having removal of their own will be trouble.

So basically Paladins are going to be a bad time.  Like always.  Siiiiiiiigh.

Anyway I'm excited to see what happens and hopefully the gatcha rewards me when I pull on this banner.  In regards to a potential list I'm thinking along the lines of;

G3/Triggers

4x Ahsha (Draw)

4x Maiden of Frilldrod (Draw)

1x Maiden of Venus Trap Musse (Draw)

4x Heal Guard

G2s

4x Maiden of Gladiolus

2-4x White Rose Musketeer, Alberto/Wheelwind Dragon

2-4x Maredream

2-4x Maiden of Flower Screen

G1s

4x Maiden of Passionflower

4x Padmini

3-4x Marehope

1-2x Filler

FV

1x Ozu

G4s

2-4x Arborea

2-4x Jingle Flower Dragon

2-3x Primavera

No I'm not playing the RR crit.  Turns out that those things are fucking garbage and shouldn't be played except in some very niche circumstances.  "But crits push damage" yeah and they also ruin your deck strategies.  Think about it;

-Blademaster needs to draw cards in order to win because Kagero can't plus on their own.  They need 9 Draw Triggers for this because hitting draw triggers on your turn lets you plus.

-Altmile and Victor's power plays involve hitting the VG with their VG.  Flipping crits causes your opponent to block them with PGs/Heals and your turn suddenly falls flat on its face.  Imagine passing up on 3 damage because you decided to be a monkey and UNGA BUNGA ME FLIP YELOR CARD!

-Chronojet needs to stride in order to play.  Playing less G3 Draw triggers means you're cutting down on fodder for striding.  You can't rely on Steam Breath Dragon to get you there.

Ahsha is in the same boat as Altmile in that you need to connect with Arborea to kick start your combos.  Furthermore Ahsha is a piece reliant deck and the extra draw power lets you see your clone targets.

So yeah.  New crits are trash but because DifferentFight has been an advocate of playing them in the G-Archetype decks and "talking youtube man say things, subscribers do what he says" will apply here, there will be ALOT of bad players playing split trigs in their decks including this one and they will either lose because they're not drawing well enough or win in spite of it because Zero rewards bad players/deck building by letting them steal wins they don't deserve via sacking.  Fuck "but it makes games more exciting, you don't know what could happen" I want my games to be as little RNG as possible.  Not surprisingly I fucking despite Daikaiser because he turns what could be good fights into a game of chance.  Fuck that shit.

Striding Towards the Future - Neo Nectar in Vanguard Zero Part 1

As excited as I am for Narukami's eventual apperance in Zero (and Ryutaro as a fight skin) I'm just as intrigued about how my "other" clan that I played extensively in the TCG will fare and that would happen to be Neo Nectar.  NGL I didn't think I'd play the clan through all of G as I figured I would have dropped it once Genesis came around given how underwhelming NN was going into G.  Turns out being a Main Character deck really does do a fair bit in making a clan playable and while it took some time eventually Neos became solid if a bit overly complicated with the Ahsha/Bloom Archetype.

We don't talk about what happened after G by the way.

With that said I'm going to do the same for NN (and likely GB) that I did for Narukami in that I'll look over what I expect to see in their first batch of support in Zero as I highly doubt NN will be relegated to Event Clan status when one of the three key cast members plays it.  Based on how Generation Overstride looks we can expect the following to happen;

-There will be 2 GRs and I'm very confident I know what they'll be.

-Stride Fodders are in set RRs.

-There will be at least 3 RRRs with one of them being Ahsha.  She's also likely to be a Rank reward based on the Alt Art we saw.

This will be a multi parter like with NK as not only is there Soaring Ascent of Gale and Blossom to look over but also TD3 Flower Maiden of Purity.  Oh boy!

Ozu's not a bad starter given that she'll get resist like the other Gen Break starters.  CB1 to get yourself an intercept or a booster is nothing to sneeze at in Zero.  Oh and NN's other starters are kinda ass.

Most NN builds will play Fairy Light Dragon (Musketeers may be the exception until it stops being a Legion deck) due to a lack of good G3s to put in the slot.  Sure there's the Gene package but idk if there'll be space for it.  Plus G0 Heals aren't limited to 1 per battle.  If the attack is big enough more than 1 G0 will come down to block it which can be pretty clutch against some decks.

Maiden of Daybreak is another Stand that throws itself back into the deck and admittedly Ahsha/Maiden of are that goes RG, RG, VG with big RGs so flipping stands to swing with them again has merit...but you're still going to want draws to see your pieces.  Daybreak does become better later on once NN gets it's G-Guardians since two of them let you call units from hand and that'll trigger Daybreak to give your VG a defensive buff against multi attack decks.

Same deal as my reasoning for Reseph.  The first set has the crits for Jet, Altmile and BM so there's little doubt Mylis will be in here.  Just a reminder that this will draw you a card if you damage check it.  Again IDK if these will see play when Draws will always be beneficial.

If Musketeers were to cut any of it's 3s for Triggers, it wouldn't be this even if Alain is a CC2.  That being said I think this set will have the SB2/CC2 Grade 1 that's been absent from NN's last couple of sets if Kagero getting theirs in G-Set 1 is anything to go by.

Ozu's better.  Skip.

Oh right I forgot these existed!  I remember this actually seeing play for a short period because of some shift in a format.  I think it was to counter early game rush decks?  Admittedly being an 11k base makes it harder for your opponent to do ye standard early play of "call G2 down to side and swing unboosted, then VG swing" that would put you at 2 damage unless you flipped a defensive as they'd have to call more cards down or just pass on trying to be aggressive early.  Honestly I think Ahsha and Maiden of just may play these just to punish aggressive decks as just one hit puts you to 16 which requires a 1 to pass to break and outright fucks the opponent if you hit a defensive trigger.  Just try to hit my 21k Vanguard, Paladin sackers.

It's crap.

I think the options for Ahsha will be so limited for this set that the deck just may end up running this.  Pia and Katrina can't get here soon enough.

If only it gained power.  Admittedly the buff to Arboros Dragons (calling a card from hand, then cloning) makes cards like this much more appealing.

The effect is lacklustre but I do believe it saw play for a bit just because it was a Maiden of.

If this comes in the set then Musketeers become much more playable given that Elvira crit spam has been the deck's wincon for ages now.  Cecilia also gets a stride so being able to turn her Limit Break on at some point could be helpful?

It's a G1 that goes back into the deck to call an Intercept out and not at rest.  For Zero format I think that's really useful.

Stride fodders are good, etc, etc.

Altmile got his Pia clone in Set 1 so I don't think it's a stretch for Pia herself to appear in the set.  Honesly the card is *okay* and she can buff your board to some solid numbers if you can get multiples of her or Maiden of Flower Screen set up which could help make your multi attack turns better.  Also recycling intercepts that got retired is a welcome addition to any non Musketeer NN build.

Lost Memory saw a brief amount of play in some kind of convoluted strategy along with Fruit Baskets Elf that involved damage deny, drawing lots of cards then aiming for a massive power gain loop that made it so you could swing for unguardable numbers iirc.  Given that Zero mechanics eliminate the hassle of powering up until you're blue in the face I'm doubtful we'll ever have to worry about that.  In spite of this I think there's some merit to Maiden of Lost Memory because of how on hits work in Zero as by setting up two of these you get a free +2 for hitting the VG and if you're able to stack enough power on them, possibly a +4.  You could be cheeky and put one in the back row to have 3 on the field and get 3 draws and CC3.  That sounds like an awful amount of work through right?  Well...

That's where this comes in.  Maiden of Flower Screen was originally a promo released along with G-BT02 and it was what allowed the Jingle Flower Deck to...not lose as badly >_>

That said Flower Screen is still an important piece to the deck as copying any other units name makes your "X units with the same name" type skills actually worth considering while also letting you do things like change her name to that of an important booster, then cloning it so you have two of them.  She can copy Maiden of Lost Memory's name so that you'll get that Draw 2/CC2 and she even puts your Intercepts back into the deck.

Gladiolus is one of the better Amber Clones in the context of Zero.  She enables extra attacks and can call anything that you already have on the board, including G1s for those niche situations where you don't have anymore 2s in the deck to call out.  This becomes more notable once G1s with Bloom start to appear.

There's merit to playing this guy given that he can swing at most VGs unboosted and you can clone it in BP.

Oh man I forgot these existed!  Yeah this has a good chance of seeing play given how good the on hit CC1 units have been for Zero.

If you can get 3 of these on the board then they become 13k attackers but honestly I think Grace Knight is better for the most part.  This guy admittedly isn't Gen Break locked but most of the power plays for NN come from Striding soooo...

Maredream isn't nearly as good as his G1 counterpart as he costs you resources and triggers at the end of turn rather than being a Main Phase card.  A shame really as you could throw him into the deck and call 2 boosters in case your hand was clogged with them.  Regardless I can see this being played just because Marehope can call it out of the deck on demand.

That's it for the first part.  Lots of stuff reviewed and you can see that the gimmick of the non Musketeers stuff is pretty close to that of Arboros, except your power gains are larger and there's more payoff to having multiple same named units than just getting power.  The next part will show more of this as we get to the key cards and boss units that just may give the deck a fighting chance once it comes to Zero.  Until next time.