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.