Options: Kaleido Ace, Battleraizer, Blaujunger
Review:
Being a Stardust Trumpeter copy, Kaleido Ace is only something you
run because you don't have any better options available. (Or out of
personal preference, I too once used a Jigglypuff as a mainline
attacker.) Battleraizer is where the game really gets riding for Nova
Grappler.
Cardfight!!
Vanguard is a game of resource preservation. When you ride from grade
0 to grade 1, you're losing a resource—one of the cards in your
six-card hand—to do so. Because Battleraizer is called to the
rearguard upon riding, it helps mitigate the resource loss by giving
you another unit to boost with(attacking is not an option due to its
low power, showing some thought on the game designers' part.) This is
much like how Gigantic Charger pulls another card out of the deck to
mitigate the damage calling it does to your hand, but in this case
Battleraizer does so from the soul. Furthermore, Battleraizer returns
to the deck after boosting, recycling its stand trigger, an
invaluable asset to Nova Grappler.
While he was a
rare/special in BT01, Battleraizer was made the default vanguard
available in the third trial deck, and reprinted as a common in the first
extra booster, making it the go-to starter for many players.
Blaujunger
attains hand preservation in a different fashion. He's based in
Fullbau's evolving ride, which works like this; the grade 0 unit
searches out the grade 2 unit, while the grade 1 unit searches out
the grade 3 unit. However, this kind of evolution ride isn't
especially efficient as compared to the alternate evolution first
presented by Godhawk, Ichibyoshi. The problem comes in once you hit
grade 1—in order to get the grade 3, you need to call that same
grade 1 unit to a rearguard circle, as well as drop a grade 3 of the
same clan to search out your target card. Whereas the
Ichibyoshi-style evolution simply searches out the top five cards of
your deck for its target each turn in order to ride without using any
cards from your hand, this Fullbau-style evolution makes you lose a
card from your hand to get to grade 3. So on the turn that they reach
grade 3, a player using Blaujunger will ideally have 8 cards at the
end of their turn, where a player using Tsukuyomi would have 11. This
is also less efficient than an old-fashioned Battleraizer
ride(Battleraizer → Tough Boy → King of Sword → Asura Kaizer),
where the player using Battleraizer will have 9 cards in hand while
the others have 8 and 11.
Don't
count Blaujunger out yet though, because there's plenty of reason to
use him. To start, the Blau-series cards achieves a level of
precision that Ichibyoshi imitators can't, and it comes with skills
attached. With Ichibyoshi-style, you can't always find your target
card in the top of the deck, so failing to ride even once will leave
you nearly on the same playing field as someone using Battleraizer, and
failing twice levels you completely. Blaujunger however, is much
easier to achieve the grade 2 and 3 for, as you can anticipate not
having a Blaupanzer in hand to ride with and therefor redraw. (Effectively searching 11 cards in the deck instead of 5.) The
grade 3 is a matter of already having an abundance of G3s—already a
prerequisite for any Nova Grappler deck running Asura Kaizer and/or
the Death Army series—and bringing out a second Blaupanzer. Due to
the precise nature of Blaujunger's deck-searching, you only need one
or two Blaukruger in a deck, so it doesn't take away much space away
to run and its skill unflips damage. What Blaujunger loses in
resources it makes up for in security.
Admittedly, Blaujunger's final form leaves something to be desired.
When compared to the likes of Mr. Invincible and Asura Kaizer, Stern
Blaukruger isn't as immediately amazing. It's a self-and-column
stand, which affords you a second drive check and another go at the
opponent's vanguard, but it loses twin drive and costs a counterblast
2 and a drop of two Nova Grapplers from your hand to use. So on top
of the Blau series leaving you with less cards than Battleraizer,
this second attack (if used on the turn that Stern is ridden) takes
away from your hand, leaving you with one less card than you would
have had otherwise.
The solution to this is to use Blaujunger differently. The grade 3
isn't as great as the other grade 3s, so don't include Stern. Start
with Blaujunger, ride Blaupanzer and add Blaukruger to your hand, on
your next turn you can ride Blaukruger and focus on using a different
G3. No matter what is ridden, using the model above a Blaujunger
player using this method would have 9 cards in hand with their twin
drive, easily leveling them with a Battleraizer player. Certain
key cards Nova Grappler has access to make both
Blaujunger and Battleraizer viable starting vanguards, so their use
is largely a matter of personalization. Do you want greater security
and deck thinning with Blaujunger, or an extra unit to start and
cycling stands?
I would personally opt for the security, though obviously this
doesn't preclude excluding Battleraizer from the deck, as a cycling
stand is invaluable.
