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.