The power balance of Cardfight over the past few years has been by and large kept in check, primarily through the introduction of clan-exclusive mechanics, but also through the natural development of strategy and counterstrategy. While this makes Cardfight easily the most balanced TCG of its time, there have always been hiccups and power bubbles.
The story of these hiccups began with the release of the game's trial decks. Released on February 26th, a month prior to the first set release, these decks introduced the practice of having two different names for each deck, a practice exclusive to Japan. In kanji the names are VG-TD01: Shining Swordsman of the Sanctuary (聖域の光剣士 Seiiki no Hikari Kenshi) and VG-TD02: Raging Dragon of the Empire (帝国の暴竜 Teikoku no Bouryuu) while in the furigana that indicate how the name is read aloud they are presented as TD01: Blaster Blade (ブラスター・ブレード Burasutaa Bureedo) and TD02: Dragonic Overlord (ドラゴニック・オーバーロードDoragonikku Oobaaroodo.) When these decks were later released in English on December 3rd of the same year, the names used were based purely off of the furigana.
The first power bubble was Kai's initial trial deck, TD02. From the moment of release, it had a drastic advantage over Aichi's. In TD01 there was a single copy of Blaster Blade, which could be searched for using one of that deck's two Gancelot. Effectively, that's three cards in all, while TD02 came with four Berserk Dragons, with close to the same skill but usable twice.
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Key cards are highlighted in blue.
Grade 0
x1 Lizard Runner, Undeux (FV)
x4 Dragon Monk, Genjo HT
x4 Dragon Dancer, Monica DT
x4 Lizard Soldier, Ganlu ST
x4 Demonic Dragon Mage, Raksha CT
Grade 1
x4 Embodiment of Armor, Bahr
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x4 Flame of Hope, Aermo
x2 Demonic Dragon Mage, Joka
x2 Wyvern Strike, Jarran
Grade 2
x4 Dragon Knight, Nehalem
x4 Berserk Dragon
x4 Wyvern Strike, Tejas
Grade 3
x2 Dragonic Overlord
x1 Dragon Monk, Goku
x4 Demonic Dragon Berserk, Yaksha |
Goku meanwhile, retires any grade 1 or lesser rearguard when he drive checks a grade 3 Kagerou. Taken alongside the chance of triggers turning out, Goku not only dealt damage against the vanguard, but also narrowed the back row easily, forcing more calls out of the opponent and in turn cutting their ability to defend. Goku's success only snowballed with the release of BT01: Descent of the King of Knights, where Lizard Soldier, Conroe allowed Kagerou cardfighters to either bring out Wyvern Guard, Barri to draw out the game with while Goku continued to plow through rearguards, or to run several single-copy grade 1s and pull them out to adjust to the situation.
Goku's skills were also complemented by the Flame of Hope, Aermo, the first unit that allows his fighter to drop a card and draw a card--"card change"--when an attack that he boosts hits. Aermo answers two problems, one exclusive to Goku and one universal to the game as a whole. Goku's issue is that his skill encourages the fighter to run more grade 3s than normal, generally between eight and ten, which then become dead weight in his hand as he cannot defend with them and generally only one Dragonic Overlord is needed for the rearguard per game. The universal issue is that the drive check is public information, so skilled opponents can memorize your drive checks throughout the game and eventually determine your hand once you start riding or calling cards that you didn't check. Aermo deals with both problems by getting rid of the drive check, always guaranteeing equal to or more shield than was discarded when dropping a grade 3, and obscuring the Kagerou cardfighter's hand from the opponent.
BT01: Descent of the King of Knights was released on March 12th, 2011 in Japan. The first set operated on no particular theme, instead offering a wide amount of support for ten different clans, including first Vanguards and grade 3 units which continue to be essential to their clans' modern strategy. Descent also introduced the popular megablast and superior ride mechanics. The set's cover card was the King of Knights, Alfred. Royal Paladin, Kagerou, Oracle Think Tank and Nova Grappler were all completed in this set.
Where the Goku deck began is unclear. The pros of this time were not professionals in the sense that we know them today, as the first regionals did not start up until after May. They were anonymous and their deck strategies spread quickly, both throughout Japan and to the small overseas playerbase of the time. Additionally, parallel development ensured that both groups, despite the language barrier, would create similar or identical strategies without actually knowing that the other was doing so. Besides these factors, even though the cards existed, the Goku deck was not widely used in Japan even after tournaments started up, until the Grand Prix in the last four months of the year. The other clans were around at this time and had powerful moves of their own, but for Goku the balance was heavily tipped in his favor due to being cheaply available (~1050 JPY for one deck, about 13 USD, meaning that a basic assembly of an entire Goku deck only cost 52 USD versus a four-card playset of Overlord from BT01 costing in the vicinity of 20 USD), the search skill of his first vanguard and the availability of useful rearguards. Compared to acquiring four Blaster Blade or Maiden of Libra, Berserk Dragon and by extension Goku was simply more practical.
With regards to Barri, perfect defense is an interesting mechanic in that it doesn't appear to have been originally intended as something that every clan would receive. Although often forgotten today, of the eight clans introduced in BT01, only three of them received a perfect defense card initially. Nova Grappler in particular did not get Twin Blader until BT02, and it wasn't until that time that cards like Barri and Iseult were codified as necessities in decks. Accordingly, it was more common to run just two or three perfect defense cards until January and April 2012, as four was viewed to chain down the hand and restrain your ability to call.
Another factor is that Kagerou received two critical triggers ahead of the other clans. Oracle Think Tank and Nova Grappler did not receive their second critical triggers until BT02, while both Royal Paladin and Kagerou had access to a second one in the first set. Part of this is Aleph's fault--like Llew from the Royal side of things, Tahr is a critical trigger that plays a role in a superior ride sequence, so by necessity he needed to be a slightly-higher rarity card and couldn't be included in a trial deck. This then required Raksha to be created.
Additionally, the Crested half deck used in prerelease workshops and distributed in KeroKero Ace magazine early in Cardfight's history included four copies of Tahr, which expedited Kagerou's early dominance through KKA's subscribers. Flash fight decks KAD01: Stardrive and KAD02: Crested were less widely distributed than the main trial decks, consisting of 25 Royal Paladin and 25 Kagerou cards intended to be used to learn the rules. These decks included the rare but underpowered Stardrive Dragon and Crested Dragon units, but other than the easy access to Tahr were otherwise unremarkable.
A basic look at what this deck was like around the time of Descent of the King of Knights can be seen below, with key cards highlighted in blue.
Grade 0
x1 Lizard Soldier, Conroe (FV)
x4 Dragon Monk, Genjo HT
x4 Dragon Dancer, Monica DT
x4 Demonic Dragon Mage, Raksha CT
x4 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
Grade 1
x3 Wyvern Guard, Barri
x4 Embodiment of Armor, Bahr
x4 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x2 Flame of Hope, Aermo
Grade 2
x4 Dragon Knight, Nehalem
x4 Berserk Dragon
x2 Wyvern Strike, Tejas
Grade 3
x4 Dragon Monk, Goku
x4 Dragonic Overlord
x2 Dragonic Executioner
(Executioner is not from TD02 or BT01, but from Cardfight Pack Vol. 1)
Between Goku clearing out the back row with drive checks, Dragonic Overlord taking out the front row with rearguard attacks, and Berserk Dragon dusting away the rest, the deck's overall image was cohesive and consistent. The danger of flaming out in the late game due to counterblast being exhausted was also not as high as in other Kagerou decks, because Goku's skill came at no actual cost. So while navigating the very precarious endgame, Goku could provide a sudden and unstoppable push during the attack step, depriving the opponent of one additional card over their defense for the turn.
The general climate of BT01-era decks was very simple. Royal Paladin decks relied on a combination of Alfred and Gancelot, with Bors taking up rearguard space, while Oracle Think Tank used CEO Amaterasu with Apollon, and Nova Grappler used combination Asura Kaiser and Mr. Invincible. Barcgal, Conroe, Lozenge Magus and Battleraizer were the choice FVs of the day, with Barcgal acting both as a guarantee to grade 2 and fuel for Lohengrin. Lozenge ironically, may have seen Stardust Trumpeter copies used over her due to delaying Amaterasu's soul strategy at no concrete advantage. Because of a shared weakness with Oracle Think Tank, that Nova Grappler did not have access to a second type of critical trigger at the time, and because of the aforementioned perfect defense issue, the basic deck was not as widely run as the other three.
One way that Grappler fans overcame this was by taking advantage of the extra grade 1 space to run Kagerou grade 1s and Lizard Solder, Conroe as their FV, then including Dragonic Overlord along with Mr. Invincible. This was made possible by Conroe not requiring a Kagerou vanguard to use his search skill, and by Overlord only needing another Kagerou rearguard in order to keep his 11000 base power, meaning either the Kagerou grade 1s otherwise being run to trigger Conroe's outride skill or another Overlord in the rearguard. Since Kaiser's skill only activates when he drive checks a Nova Grappler grade 3, Overlord would have been disruptive to the strategy, hence Invincible was the main vanguard of the deck.
The idea of the deck combines Overlord's counterblast with Mr. Invincible's unflipping skill. This allowed Overlord's self-standing rearguard skill to be repeated in serial across multiple turns, well before Bellicosity Dragon would hit the scene in early December. Hungry Dumpty could further aid this, letting it go as far as three times with good timing. Surprisingly, this Kagerou-Grappler hybrid arguably put it on par with the Royal and Kagerou decks of the time because the presence of Kagerou rearguards allowed for both a level of consistency uncharacteristic of the early sets and for an unprecedented three critical triggers to be run. Unlike with Goku, the Invincible Overlord strategy has not survived into the modern day, as it was largely absorbed by other Kagerou decks after the introduction of Bellicosity Dragon--including by the Goku deck itself. Below is a fairly standard decklist for the build, with key cards highlighted in blue.
Continue Reading: The History of Professional Cardfight, May-August 2011
The general climate of BT01-era decks was very simple. Royal Paladin decks relied on a combination of Alfred and Gancelot, with Bors taking up rearguard space, while Oracle Think Tank used CEO Amaterasu with Apollon, and Nova Grappler used combination Asura Kaiser and Mr. Invincible. Barcgal, Conroe, Lozenge Magus and Battleraizer were the choice FVs of the day, with Barcgal acting both as a guarantee to grade 2 and fuel for Lohengrin. Lozenge ironically, may have seen Stardust Trumpeter copies used over her due to delaying Amaterasu's soul strategy at no concrete advantage. Because of a shared weakness with Oracle Think Tank, that Nova Grappler did not have access to a second type of critical trigger at the time, and because of the aforementioned perfect defense issue, the basic deck was not as widely run as the other three.
One way that Grappler fans overcame this was by taking advantage of the extra grade 1 space to run Kagerou grade 1s and Lizard Solder, Conroe as their FV, then including Dragonic Overlord along with Mr. Invincible. This was made possible by Conroe not requiring a Kagerou vanguard to use his search skill, and by Overlord only needing another Kagerou rearguard in order to keep his 11000 base power, meaning either the Kagerou grade 1s otherwise being run to trigger Conroe's outride skill or another Overlord in the rearguard. Since Kaiser's skill only activates when he drive checks a Nova Grappler grade 3, Overlord would have been disruptive to the strategy, hence Invincible was the main vanguard of the deck.
The idea of the deck combines Overlord's counterblast with Mr. Invincible's unflipping skill. This allowed Overlord's self-standing rearguard skill to be repeated in serial across multiple turns, well before Bellicosity Dragon would hit the scene in early December. Hungry Dumpty could further aid this, letting it go as far as three times with good timing. Surprisingly, this Kagerou-Grappler hybrid arguably put it on par with the Royal and Kagerou decks of the time because the presence of Kagerou rearguards allowed for both a level of consistency uncharacteristic of the early sets and for an unprecedented three critical triggers to be run. Unlike with Goku, the Invincible Overlord strategy has not survived into the modern day, as it was largely absorbed by other Kagerou decks after the introduction of Bellicosity Dragon--including by the Goku deck itself. Below is a fairly standard decklist for the build, with key cards highlighted in blue.
Grade 0
x1 Lizard Soldier, Conroe (FV)
x4 Round Girl, Clara HT
x4 Shining Lady CT
x4 Shining Lady CT
x4 Demonic Dragon Mage, Raksha CT
x4 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
Grade 1
x4 Embodiment of Armor, Bahr
x4 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x3 Flame of Hope, Aermo
x3 Queen of Heart
Grade 2
x4 Genocide Jack
x4 King of Sword
x4 King of Sword
x3 Hungry Dumpty
Grade 3
x4 Mr. Invincible
x4 Dragonic Overlord
There were other attempts at hybrid decks, but none were as successful. Still, for much of March up through April, Goku was the dominant pro deck of the time.Continue Reading: The History of Professional Cardfight, May-August 2011
