Saturday, August 31, 2013

News: Chaos Breaker Dragon's Skills Leaked

Following a long train of hype surrounding Link Joker's new boss card, Star-vader Chaos Breaker Dragon, his skill has been leaked through images of Monthly Bushiroad magazine. As Kai Toshiki's new key card, Chaos Breaker integrates Link Joker's Lock skills along with the retire aspects of his previous clans Kagerou and Narukami. The new unit's skill allows it to retire a rearguard when it is Unlocked and draw a card by eroding at Chaos Breaker's soul, preventing opponents from escaping Lock altogether.

Star-vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Link Joker - Cyber Dragon/
AUTO (V) [Limit Break 4]: [Soulblast 1 cards with "Star-vader" in their name] During the opponent's end phase, when an opponent's card Unlocks, retire that card and draw 1 card.
ACT (V): [Counterblast (1) "Star-vader" and discard 1 card with "Star-vader" in its name from your hand] Choose one of your opponent's rearguards and Lock it. This ability cannot be used for the rest of the turn.



Chaos Breaker is expected to carry a heavy impact on professional play, as prior to his debut Link Joker has been very reliant on the Infinite Zero Dragon break ride to achieve consistent field control, and his ability to retire Unlocked units is very destructive to the currently Reverse-centric Japanese competitive scene. At present there are two types of Reverse units that have shown themselves to be best all-around units in tournament play and preliminary testing. The first type are cards like Luquier “Я” and Cocytus “Я” that give +1 card advantage per counterblast spent, but are based on limiting that advantage to the manipulation of specific zones and rearguard skills. They get their mileage out of Lock by capitalizing on the fact that Locked cards open at the end of their owner's turn. Being able to retire the cards that the opponent's Reverse card Locked changes this, negating the +1 that Luquier and Cocytus “Я” achieve and instead giving it to Chaos Breaker.

The second type are cards like Vowing Saber “Я” and “Я” Daiyusha, which Breaker has an even better matchup against. This is because these units are reliant on Lock 2 skills to achieve overwhelming power. Normally, Vowing Saber uses his Lock 2 to retire 2 of the opponent's rearguards, which works out to a -2 to the opponent with only counterblast cost once the Locks open. “Я” Daiyusha doesn't directly take away the opponent's card advantage, but by decreasing the opposing vanguard's power he functionally forces the opponent to drop one more card per attack to defend successfully so that they incur a -3 each turn. Chaos Breaker breaks the formula because now Vowing Saber takes a -2 equal to the opponent's -2, and Chaos gets to draw 2 cards to replace the rearguards that Saber retired, while Daiyusha's impact on the game is similarly mitigated to a -2 for Daiyusha vs net -1 to Breaker. Using Reverse card skills no longer becomes sustainable because more resources are lost through using them than are gained. The use of those skills is likely to drive Chaos Breaker's cardfighter to limit break in the first place, enabling his counterplay. Furthermore, Vowing Saber and “Я” Daiyusha normally choose their vanguard booster as the primary sacrifice for their Lock 2 skills, because Saber gets +10000 power to go for 21-23000 unboosted and Daiyusha's Tyrannus Gravity has a functionally similar effect. Chaos Breaker's retire skill takes away those vanguard boosters, so that in either case Reverse cardfighters need to use their limit breaks just to attack at normal strength rather than to power up. This narrows down their resources even further when Breaker limit breaks again, perpetuating a vicious cycle that makes Chaos Breaker Dragon into a hard counter to Reverse cards.

Bushiroad has gone all out in making Reverse cards some of the best choices to build a deck around within their own clans, which suggests that Chaos Breaker will be a format-defining unit not just during the release of Catastrophic Outbreak, but also through future booster sets.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

News: Bushiroad Announces Fighter's Climax 2013 and VF High School 2013 Tournaments

Following the crowning of Japan's current national champion, Bushiroad has announced the beginning of Fighter's Climax 2013, which will form Japan's Winter national tournament for this year. In the open class division, the top cardfighter from each shop qualifier will receive an invitation to their corresponding regional tournament, after which they will have to register online. The winning fighters from each regional will then go on to the national finals, similar to the model used during the American Challenge Cup. Meanwhile, fighters in the junior tournaments will not need to win at a shop qualifier, instead appearing at their regional to register on the day of the tournament. Only elementary school cardfighters born on or after April 2nd, 2001 can participate in the junior tournaments. Each round will be best of 1, with 20 minute rounds, like in the previous five national tournaments.

Those participating in Fighter's Climax 2013 will not be able to participate in the VF High School Winter 2013 team tournaments taking place at the same time. The current rules for VFHS require all three team members to be from the same school, with participation open to any elementary, junior high and high school students. Students attending special needs schools will also be able to participate. If for any reason one fighter cannot participate on their team after it has registered, up to one participant may be changed out for another under the conditions that the new fighter is from the same school as the other team members.

Regional tournaments will be starting up October 6th and ending on December 12th. Currently eight regionals are planned, going to Hakata, Sapporo, Kanazawa, Sendai, Nagoya, Okayama, Osaka and Tokyo. Unlike FR2013, Kyoto, Fukuoka and Hiroshima will not be part of this coming tournament. It appears that Bushiroad's currently strategy is to cover those cities during the Summer championship, then swap them out for Winter.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

News: School Punisher Leo-pald and Cocytus "Reverse" Revealed, Ethics Buster Extreme Shown in NND Broadcast

This morning Bushiroad revealed a series of cards following the showcasing of VG-EB07: Mystical Magus in a Nicolive broadcast, attracting over one million visitors. After the display on NicoNico Douga, Doctor O later uploaded higher-quality images of the cards to the net. Among those shown were two new Reverse cards, for Granblue's Cocytus and Great Nature's Leo-pald, the latter of which had been teased by Doctor O on Twitter the night before. To cap off the event, Nova Grappler's new crossbreak ride Ethics Buster Extreme was shown in full, bringing their strategy full circle with a new version of Asura Kaiser's skill.

Cocytus in particular has drawn attention for comboing with Granblue's Card of the Day, Banshee Strolling Under the Sea, a Granblue incarnation of Dindrane with which Cocytus “Я” can use to quickly grab up card advantage through a +2 and create a 9000-power booster in the process.

Demonic Lord of the Ice Prison, Cocytus “Я”
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Granblue - Skeleton/
Activate (V) [Limit Break 4]: [Put three cards from the top of your deck into the drop zone, choose one of your «Granblue» rearguards and Lock it] Choose a «Granblue» from your drop zone, call it to (RC), and that unit gets [Power] +3000 until end of turn.
Continuous (V): If you have a "Ice Prison Necromancer, Cocytus" in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.
Continuous (V/R): Lord

School Punisher, Leo-pald “Я”
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Great Nature - Highbeast/
Activate (V) [Limit Break 4]: [Choose one of your «Great Nature» rearguards, and Lock it.] Choose two of your «Great Nature» rearguards, those units get [Power] +4000 until end of the turn, and those units get "Auto [R]: During the end phase of your turn, retire this unit," "Auto: During your end phase, when this unit is sent from (RC) to the drop zone, call this card to an (RC) without a unit."
Continuous (V): If you have a "School Hunter, Leo-pald" in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.
Continuous (V/R): Lord.
Strongest Beast Deity, Ethics Buster Extreme
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Nova Grappler - Battleroid/
Auto (V) [Limit Break 4]: When this unit drive checks a grade 1 or greater "Beast Deity," choose one of your «Nova Grappler» rearguards and stand it.
Continuous (V): If you have a "Beast Deity, Ethics Buster" in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.
Continuous (V/R): Lord.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

News: Link Joker Places First in Pitarui VGCS

After a somewhat slower start late in this tournament season, the Link Joker clan has clawed its way to the top in the Pitarui Vanguard Championship. The news comes as a pleasant surprise to many, as Link Joker has consistently placed inside the top 8 at previous VGCS and regional qualifiers, but this is the first time that it has actually taken first place in a large tournament environment.

While the Nebula Lord deck in particular has been integral to the upper echelons of professional play since its debut in early July, in part due to overdependence on the Infinite Zero break ride, Link Joker decks have experienced trouble in attaining the same status as contemporary builds like Alfred Liberator and Luquier “Я,” the latter of which recently gained fame as the deck of Japan's 2013 Summer national champion. As there has not been much time to refine how the build is played compared to its competition, this most recent VGCS may indicate the maturation Link Joker's Lock-based play style into a more calculated strategy. Notably, unlike past tournament Link Joker decks where 6 critical and 6 draw triggers were the norm, this new one is being reported to run 8 draw and 4 critical triggers, likely playing to a more long-term game that uses Lock to prolong the match.

Second place in the tournament went to an Eradicator cardfighter. So far it has been reported that the top 16 consisted of 4 Link Joker, 3 Eradicator, 3 Revenger, 1 Spike Brothers, 1 Pale Moon, 1 Bermuda Triangle, 1 Genesis, 1 Gold Paladin and 1 Kagerou cardfighters. The total attendance of the tournament is unknown, but accommodations were made in preparation for up to 64 participants. First place prize was a Nintendo 3DS LL handheld, second place a normal 3DS, third place two boxes of VG-BT12: Binding Force of the Black Rings and for fourth place one box of the same. The entire event, from the opening to the awards ceremony, lasted seven and a half hours, and it was organized by the FR2013 Nagoya runner-up.

The VGCS tournaments are a series of unofficial tournaments organized by fans and cardshops. Unlike Bushiroad's larger official tournaments, most VGCS events are done using a best of 3, Swiss tournament model, with entry fees in the vicinity of 1000 yen per person that go toward grand prizes like booster boxes, Nintendo 3DS handhelds and other merchandise. Turnout is typically 70-80 persons, but some events see 100 or more participants, all of whom compete using pseudonyms and internet handles rather than their real names as in official events.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

News: Fighter's Road 2013 National Championship Decklists, Restricted List to Go Unchanged

The official Japanese Cardfight portal updated with the decklists from the now-complete FR2013 national tournament, Japan's summer championship for this year. The fifth national champion is Pale Moon cardfighter Kokubo Hikaru, who is also the Asia Circuit Memorial Tournament regional champion for Nagoya, having qualified to participate with a Dragonic Descendant deck prior to the card's restriction, and then subsequently abandoned the deck after the institution of the modern restricted list in favor of Luquier “Я.” Fittingly, the runner-up in FR2013 is none other than Uemura Shouhei, the cardfighter who opened this tournament season with his worldchanging Dragonic Descendant build that has defined the Eradicators throughout this season, and Uemura has stuck to the deck since then. The cardfighters who opened the Fighter's Road 2013 national championship have now brought it to a close, and for the first time in Japanese history the national champion is not a Royal Paladin cardfighter. In fact, this is the first time ever that Royal Paladin has not been in Japan's top 3, and in a serious turnaround, Shadow Paladin has grown from being their less successful palette swap into the dominant Paladin deck of the era, surpassing Gold Paladin in sheer numbers and placing in third for the national finals under the command of Hirago Masaki.

Furthermore, a special announcement was made today that the Japanese restricted list will remain unchanged through September. While some were clamoring for additional restrictions to be placed on Eradicator decks, with much attention being put on Cho-ou for how he simultaneously retires the opponent's rearguards and fuels the soul for Rising Phoenix, this decision was likely made in light of Descendant's general decline among Japanese pros following BT12. The rise of Luquier, Nebula Lord, Raging Form and other decks as strong contenders in their own right has deeply upset what was previously a very set-in-its-ways format.

Part of Luquier Reverse's success is owed to her status as a hard counter to Descendant. When using Ionela and Irina's skills, what the Silver Thorn build is really doing is calling two units at once, one to a rearguard circle and another to the soul to store for later. Since the opponent can't retire the soul, cards like Cho-ou and Dragonic Deathscythe that are a strong part of Descendant's early setup fall flat in the long term, as through chainlocking her rearguards in succession, locking 1 to call 1 that she locks to call another, Luquier “Я”'s limit break can let her multiply one card into two, or up to five if she so feels the need to. That kind of strategy may appear overly defensive and not in line with the aggressive format initially, but the Descendant deck relies on the opponent not being able to survive its endgame strategy by swallowing up their hand with Gauntlet Buster or Descendant over two to three turns after taking a field lead. Luquier “Я” doesn't need to call from the hand to call new rearguards after her soul is set up in the early to midgame, so Descendant loses its main feature as Luquier saves up her hand to go for more turns than Eradicator decks can handle.

In the Junior championship, the success of the Dimension Police has already been strongly noted through junior champion Niida Kazuki's explanation of the deck earlier this week. Although Niida was originally shooting for the Doctor O Prize when he created his 15 grade 3 deck, he ended up taking the junior championship trophy unintentionally, using the devastating combination of Enigman Storm's grade security with Daikaiser's break ride to trigger Storm or Daiyusha's skills with Laurel for a self-standing 26000+ power critical 3 vanguard line that used its high grade 3 count to retire perfect defense cards, making certain that the opponent could only guarantee safety if they dropped three perfect defense cards at once against his attack and paid the cost for all of them. Because of its highly aggressive characteristics, the "Crazy Diamond" deck aims to take the opponent to six damage on turn 4, but because of how it is structured the deck also has an endemic weakness in that once the break ride has been triggered and the vanguard is no longer Daikaiser, if the following turn is survived then the game is over for the Dimension Police cardfighter, as there is no safety net or alternative strategy.

Fighter's Road 2013 National Championship, Open Division
National Champion: Kokubo Hikaru/小久保光
Grade 0
x1 Silver Thorn Assistant, Ionela (FV)
x4 Silver Thorn Juggler, Nadia HT
x4 Silver Thorn Barking Dragon CT
x4 Poison Juggler CT
x1 Dynamite Juggler CT
x3 Rainbow Magician DT
Grade 1
x4 Silver Thorn Assistant, Irina
x4 Silver Thorn Hypnos, Lydia
x2 Midnight Bunny
x2 Purple Trapezist
x2 Seesaw Game Winner
Grade 2
x4 Silver Thorn Marionette, Lillian
x4 Silver Thorn Rising Dragon
x3 Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Maricica
Grade 3
x4 Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier “Я”
x4 Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier

Runner-up: Uemura Shouhei/上村昌平
Grade 0
x1 Spark Kid Dragoon (FV)
x1 Eradicator, Blue Gem Carbuncle DT
x3 Eradicator, Dragon Mage DT
x4 Eradicator, Yellow Gem Carbuncle CT
x4 Demonic Dragon Eradicator, Seioubo HT
x4 Divine Spear Eradicator, Pollux CT
Grade 1
x4 Eradicator Wyvern Guard, Guld
x4 Eradicator, Demolition Dragon
x3 Rising Phoenix
x4 Eradicator of the Ceremonial Bonfire, Castor
Grade 2
x3 Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Cho-ou
x2 Supreme Army Eradicator, Zuitan
x4 Dragonic Deathscythe
x2 Eradicator, Spark Rain Dragon
Grade 3
x4 Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon
x2 Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant
x1 Eradicator, Vowing Sword Dragon

Third Place: Hirago Masaki/平子真幸
Grade 0
x1 Creeping Dark Goat (FV)
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x4 Grim Reaper CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
x4 Grim Revenger CT
Grade 1
x1 Revenger of Malice, Dilan
x4 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x4 Morale Revenger, Dorin
Grade 2
x4 Black Clothed Revenger, Tartu
x4 Nullity Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon
x4 Illusion Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Doctor O Prize: Matsuoka Reishi/松岡怜史
Grade 0
x1 Black Dragon Whelp, Vortimer (FV)
x4 Elixir Liberator HT
x4 Flame of Victory CT
x4 Liberator of Hope, Epona CT
x4 Falcon Knight of the Azure DT
Grade 1
x4 Knight of Elegant Skills, Gareth
x4 Scout of Darkness, Vortimer
x1 Silver Fang Witch
x2 Halo Liberator, Mark
x2 Halo Shield, Mark
x1 Listener of Truth, Dindrane
Grade 2
x1 Lop Ear Shooter
x2 Liberator of Silence, Gallatin
x4 Black Dragon Knight, Vortimer
x1 Blaster Blade Liberator
x2 Player of the Holy Bow, Viviane
x1 Mage of Calamity, Tripp
Grade 3
x4 Spectral Duke Dragon
x2 Solitary Liberator, Gancelot
x2 Steel Spear Liberator, Bleoberis

Fighter's Road 2013 National Championship, Junior's Division
National Champion: Niida Kazuki/新井田和輝
Grade 0
x1 Enigman Flow (FV)
x4 Justice Cobalt CT
x2 Dimensional Robo, Daibattles CT
x2 Army Penguin DT
x2 Gem Monster, Jewel Mine DT
x2 Dimensional Robo, Daicrane DT
x4 Dimensional Robo, Gorescue HT
Grade 1
x4 Enigman Ripple
x4 Daimond Ace
x4 Commander Laurel
Grade 2
x2 Enigman Wave
x4 Operator Girl, Mika
Grade 3
x4 Enigman Storm
x4 Super Dimensional Robo, Daiyusha
x3 Lady Justice
x4 Super Dimensional Robo, Daikaiser

Runner-up: Matsushita Shunji/松下隼士
Grade 0
x1 Frontline Revenger, Claudas (FV)
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x2 Death Feather Eagle CT
x4 Grim Reaper CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
x2 Freezing Revenger DT
Grade 1
x2 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
x4 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Morale Revenger, Dorin
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
Grade 2
x3 Black Clothed Revenger, Tartu
x4 Nullity Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon
x4 Illusion Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Third Place: Funayama Yuiga/舩山唯我
Grade 0
x1 Eradicator, Strikedagger Dragon (FV)
x2 Eradicator, Blue Gem Carbuncle DT
x2 Malevolent Djinn CT
x4 Eradicator, Yellow Gem Carbuncle CT
x4 Eradicator of the Divine Spear, Pollux CT
x4 Demonic Dragon Eradicator, Seiobo HT
Grade 1
x4 Eradicator, Wyvern Guard Guld
x4 Sword Dance Eradicator, Hisen
x3 Iron Blood Eradicator, Shuki
x3 Rising Phoenix
Grade 2
x4 Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Chou-Ou
x4 Supreme Army Eradicator, Zuitan
x4 Eradicator, Spark Rain Dragon
Grade 3
x3 Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon
x2 Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant
x2 Eradicator, Vowing Sword Dragon

Doctor O Prize: Haryuu Jin'ichi/針生仁壱
Grade 0
x1 Red Pulse Dracokid (FV)
x4 Seal Dragon, Shading HT
x4 Seal Dragon, Biera CT
x4 Seal Dragon, Dobi ST
x4 Seal Dragon, Artpitch DT
Grade 1
x4 Seal Dragon, Flannel
x4 Seal Dragon, Kersey
x3 Seal Dragon, Chambray
x3 Seal Dragon, Rinocross 
Grade 2
x4 Seal Dragon, Hungerhell Dragon
x4 Seal Dragon, Jakado
x3 Seal Dragon, Corduroy
Grade 3
x3 Hellfire Seal Dragon, Blockade Inferno
x4 Seal Dragon, Blockade
x1 Dauntless Drive Dragon

Monday, August 12, 2013

News: Japan's 2013 National Champion is a Pale Moon Cardfighter, Luquier Reverse Takes Summer Cup, Enigman Storm Accidentally Wins Junior Championship

Japan's "Fighter's Road 2013" Summer National Championship just finished over the weekend, and Doctor O has tweeted the results. After the extended reign of Dragonic Descendant, and the rise of Raging Form Dragon and Dudley Emperor, the national finals have concluded with the Open class national champion revealed to be a Pale Moon cardfighter that built their deck around Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier “Я.” Meanwhile the Junior champion is a Dimension Police cardfighter with an innovative Enigman Storm deck, making use of the Daikaiser break ride and a grand total of fifteen grade 3s, much to the shock of Doctor O and the national tournament staff.

The identities of the two champions are presently unknown, in part because so many cardfighters have changed decks in the interim period between the regional qualifiers and the national finals. While it is possible that Luquier's appearance here was in response to her overwhelming success at the unofficial Vanguard Championship held two weeks ago, the time frame between tournaments was very short and the actual VGCS decklists were not published in Japan until the August 7th; if this were the motivating factor, the deck switch would have been a very hair-trigger decision. It is more likely that this is a coincidence, and that the new champion chose to use Luquier “Я” having been motivated by the same strengths as Hibari in that tournament.

The Junior champion's Daikaiser deck was mainly based around the new Daikaiser break ride, with the Enigman cards as a high-synergy framework. While the official decklists are not yet out, the junior champion has already uploaded their decklist to the internet, along with a recap of the events. He attributed the deck's actual creation to his elder brother, but stated that he originally inspired the build by commenting that "If you break rode Enigman Storm over Daikaiser, it'd be really strong right?" Below is a translation of his deck explanation, with the decklist "Crazy Diamond" below.
"No matter how you look at it, the grade distribution is totally different from a normal deck. I went to this number to be able to take advantage of Daikaiser's break ride skill.

Initially it was either 4 Critical 8 Draw or 6 Critical 6 Draw. Lady Justice came from [using her] in Galactic Super Beast Zeal (who I rejected because of the cost.)

For the national championship, I practiced with DOTE, Eradicators (Vowing Saber "Я"), and Link Joker but their condition wasn't good enough.

When Daikaiser's print was presented in Today's Card, the body of the deck was mainly developed by [my brother] ring. (Correction: He developed it when the skill was confirmed in KeroKero Ace, around 8/4.)

At the venue, I brought DOTE, Eradicators and this deck (the completed deck recipe), and after arriving I decided which deck I wanted to use.

The reason I used it was "to have fun while playing."

My goal was to take the Doctor O Prize, to get this deck recipe published on the official website and show it to the whole country, I thought that was possible but it seems that there is no Doctor O Prize for the national tournament, to hear something like that I was a little irritatedw

Also, I don't practice using proxy cards, so it was my first time reading some of these and the cards released between tournaments became an imaginary enemy, in my head I mean.

At the time I began Vanguard I had a goal, to become the national champion and this time it was possible, I am very happy but it feels a little like my feet won't stay on the ground."
Upon becoming champion, he commented on Twitter, "It appears that I've become the Vanguard national junior champion. Deck name is Crazy Diamond. Enigman-based Daikaiser, as constructed by Morikawa-kun." Later on he added "During the deck check, the person on staff performing the check said "15 grade 3s?!" That drew remarks ww" ("ww" and variations on it are an abbreviation for "warau" meaning laughter. It started in Japan and has been compared to the English lol but is more common, and recently English speakers have begun picking it up through exposure to Japanese net culture.)

After being told that Team Caesar would be proud, his father replied, "Thank you very much. This morning, I told him myself. "Congratulations." Listening to that he smiled a little. "But today, Mitsusada was reversed..." (laugh)"

The names of the winners have not been officially revealed, but based on some of his comments the junior champion is being tentatively identified as Niida Kazuki, the current Kanazawa regional champion and a former Kagerou cardfighter known for playing Dragonic Overlord the End. The decklist's name may be a reference to the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga.

8/15/2013 Update: The junior champion has been confirmed to be Niida.

Deck Name: Crazy Diamond
Grade 0
x1 Enigman Flow (FV)
x4 Justice Cobalt CT
x2 Dimensional Robo, Daibattles CT
x2 Army Penguin DT
x2 Gem Monster, Jewel Mine DT
x2 Dimensional Robo, Daicrane DT
x4 Dimensional Robo, Gorescue HT
Grade 1
x4 Enigman Ripple
x4 Daimond Ace
x4 Commander Laurel
Grade 2
x2 Enigman Wave
x4 Operator Girl, Mika
Grade 3
x4 Enigman Storm
x4 Super Dimensional Robo, Daiyusha
x3 Lady Justice
x4 Super Dimensional Robo, Daikaiser

The strategy of the Crazy Diamond deck is to use the evolving Enigman series to compensate for the high grade 3 count, then use that grade 3 count to trigger Daikaiser's skill in every fight, sometimes multiple times per fight. Since Enigman Flow automatically adds the grade 2 Enigman Wave to the hand when the grade 1 Ripple is ridden over it, Niida would deliberately stay gradelocked at 0 if he had other grade 1s in hand but no grade 2, saving up for the scenario in which he would reliably get to grade 3. Furthermore, Daikaiser's break ride skill would let him come back from virtually any amount of gradelock while also automatically triggering Storm's extra critical. With 15 grade 3s in the deck, Daikaiser would be all but guaranteed to retire the opponent's guardian calls on a vanguard line that was looking to be in the range of 26~28000 power with a critical of 3, dealing 3 damage on-hit after which Commander Laurel would stand the vanguard line that still had 3 critical in addition to its break ride power boost, while giving yet another opportunity for Daikaiser's break ride skill to go off. Perfect defense would not save the opponent because of Daikaiser's guardian retire, and all this was effectively done without triggers. It's easy to see how Niida accidentally won the national championship instead of the Doctor O Prize, as the Enigman cards have not been taken seriously in competitive play for a very long time, setting up his rogue deck to bulldoze over the competition.

Friday, August 9, 2013

News: Extra Boosters 8 & 9 Announced, Stern Blaukluger to Recieve Crossride, Grade 4 to be Printed for Kagerou

This morning Doctor O  unveiled a new pair of extra booster sets through Twitter, VG-EB08: Champions of the Galaxy 「銀河の闘士」 and VG-EB09: Divine Dragon Progression. EB08 will be released on November 15th, while EB09 will be released on November 22nd. EB08 will feature cards exclusively for Nova Grappler, including long-awaited crossrides for Asura Kaiser and Stern Blaukluger, and cards from the manga.


Historically these two were the Novas' primary competitive vanguards prior to the Beast Deities taking over, and EB09 will conclude Asura Kaiser's long search for a supporting grade 3. Described as "the perfect booster for people just starting or have been fans for years!" EB08 will allow Nova Grappler cardfighters to build decks "of Real Robots based on the Blau Series," suggesting that these decks will consist solely of Blau support units in a revitalization of their BT04 play style.

EB08 will contain 17 reprints with 18 new cards for a total of 35 cards in all. In addition to a crossride for the legendary Asura Kaiser, the set also advertises "friends of Asura Kaiser" pointing to a supporting build for the deck comparable to Stern's. The set will contain 3 RRR/5 RR/8 R/19 C and 4 Special Parallel cards, in contrast to past extra boosters which have only provided 2 SPs per set with 2 RRR units.


Like Mystical Magus before it, VG-EB09: Divine Dragon Progression will feature primarily cards from the manga, this time focusing on Kai Toshiki's Kagerou cards from chapters 17-25. Gaiarth Dragon and Cruel Dragon are confirmed to be printed in the set, along with reprints of Berserk Dragon and Bellicosity Dragon. Most surprisingly of all, Kai's grade 4 "Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague" will be printed in the set. Gaiarth Dragon (a portmanteau of "Gaia" and "Earth") was originally known as the grade 2 Dragonic Gaiarth in the manga, and unlike most grade 2s had the boost ability instead of intercept, but contributed 0 power when boosting and increased the critical of the boosted unit by 1 instead. Kai first used this card against Ren in chapter 17, where he used it to increase a rearguard Dragonic Overlord's critical.

Meanwhile Cruel Dragon was an 11000 power grade 3 that could be superior ridden from the hand when an opponent's rearguard was sent to the drop zone in the main phase, but it would also lose 3000 power for the turn when ridden in that way, so that Cruel would have just 8000 power offensively but then revert to its 11000 power defense on the opponent's turn. Kai used this again Aichi in chapter 22, as part of a combo with Berserk Dragon, Raopia and Hidden Dragon Striken that would give Cruel a total of 23000 power and 2 critical while Aichi was still at grade 2.

Finally, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague (French; Dragonic "New Wave") is the first real grade 4 in the game, predating Silvest. Kai used this unit to defeat Aichi in chapter 22. Like how Gaiarth did not have the intercept ability, Nouvelle Vague did not have twin drive. Instead, Nouvelle Vague canceled out both players' drive checks, preventing the opponent from gaining power from triggers, and from healing or drawing as a result of those triggers, and stopping them from increasing their critical through anything but card skills. The unit as it's currently designed is very difficult to use however, because lower graded units cannot be ridden over higher graded ones, so once a grade 4 is ridden there is no going back to grade 3, and consequently once twin drive is lost through riding Nouvelle it is lost for the rest of the game. The unit's base power was never shown, but it is generally suspected to be at least an 11000 power unit.

EB09 will feature 23 reprints and 12 new cards, with 3 RRR/5 RR/8 R/19 C and 4 SPs. Dragonic Waterfall may be one of those reprints, as it is Kai's finishing card in the manga equivalent to Aichi's Exculpate the Blaster and Ren's Phantom Blaster Dragon.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

News: Luquier Reverse Wins Tachikawa Vanguard Championship

The decklists for the August 3rd Second Tachikawa Vanguard Championship are out, bringing with them a dark horse victory in VGCS champion Hibari's Luquier “Я” deck. Held at Hobby Station Tachikawa, the tournament drew 82 participants in all, with the top 4 being Pale Moon, Revenger, Eradicator and Spike Brothers cardfighters, while the top 8 contained three more Revenger decks, as well as one Majesty Lord Blaster build running 2 copies of Majesty with 1 Soul Saver Dragon, for 3 grade 3s in all. The final matches of the Tachikawa VGCS were uploaded to TwitCasting, a Japanese video sharing website geared towards mobile devices.

The VGCS tournaments are a series of unofficial tournaments organized by fans and cardshops. Unlike Bushiroad's larger official tournaments, most VGCS events are done using a best of 3, Swiss tournament model, with entry fees in the vicinity of 1000 yen per person that go toward grand prizes like booster boxes, Nintendo 3DS handhelds and other merchandise. Turnout is typically 70-80 persons, but some events see 100 or more participants, all of whom compete using pseudonyms and internet handles rather than their real names as at official events.
Deck Distribution: Total Attendance 82 Persons
Revengers 24 (15 with Creeping Dark Goat, 9 with Claudas)
Eradicators 19 (10 with Spark Kid Dragoon, 9 with Linchu)
Link Joker 7
Pale Moon 6
Liberators 5
Spike Brothers 4
Bermuda Triangle 3 (2 using Eternal Idol Pacifica, 1 using Aurora Star Coral)
Genesis 2
Dark Irregulars 2
Sanctuary Guard Dragon 2
Seal Dragons (Kagerou) 2
Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion 1
Great Nature 1
Ezel 1
Crimson Impact, Metatron 1
Majesty Lord Blaster 1
Scarlet Witch, CoCo 1
Although Japan's current format is known for its extremely aggressive gameplay, early on in the match the Minatsuki v. Hibari finals showed the two fighters dancing around one another considerably, while focusing on one another's rearguards and playing to a very slow buildup, fighting tooth and nail for each point of damage. Hibari showed considerable innovation in how he played his Reverse card, using the Miracle Pop Eva break ride in conjunction with Reverse's limit break to come back from a four card difference, locking two backrow rearguards behind his vanguard and one rearguard line to call two new ones to the front, then attacking with those rearguards and afterwards swapping them in with Eva's break ride to call a completely new column to his then-empty left lane. The Silver Thorn series' quick and accurate soul setup allowed him to prepare a constant pool of new units to call with Luquier “Я”'s skill, calling more soul-charging rearguards from the soul and then locking those units to bring out more opportunities.

In the second round Minatsuki became gradelocked at 0, quickly leading to a three-card disadvantage for the Revenger side, but he came back using Tartu and Darkbond Trumpeter's skills to superior call boosters. Even so, this couldn't hold up to Luquier's reliable strategy, so after his surprise comeback in the first round Hibari completely dominated the second, beating Raging Form 2-0.


First Place
Deck Name: Luquier
Handle Name: Hibari
Grade 0
x1 Innocent Magician (FV)
x4 Silver Thorn Barking Dragon CT
x1 Dynamite Juggler CT
x4 Poison Juggler CT
x3 Silver Thorn Marionette, Natasha DT
x4 Silver Thorn Juggler, Nadia HT
Grade 1
x4 Silver Thorn Assistant, Irina
x3 Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Ana
x4 Silver Thorn Hypnos, Lydia
x3 Purple Trapezist
Grade 2
x4 Silver Thorn Marionette, Lillian
x2 Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Maricica
x3 Silver Thorn Rising Dragon
x2 Nitro Juggler
Grade 3
x3 Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier “Я”
x3 Miracle Pop, Eva
x2 Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier

Second Place
Deck Name: Revenger
Handle Name: Minatsuki
Grade 0
x1 Frontline Revenger, Claudas (FV)
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x1 Grim Reaper CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
x3 Freezing Revenger DT
x4 Healing Revenger HT
Grade 1
x4 Morale Revenger, Dorin
x3 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x2 Revenger, Darkbond Trumpeter
Grade 2
x4 Black Clothed Revenger, Tartu
x4 Nullity Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
Grade 3
x4 Illusion Revenger, Mordred Phantom
x4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon

Third Place
Deck Name: Midsummer~ Misha-sensei
Handle Name: Ryou
Grade 0
x1 Ambush Dragon Eradicator, Linchu (FV)
x4 Eradicator, Yellow Gem Carbuncle CT
x4 Demonic Dragon Eradicator, Seiobo HT
x4 Divine Spear Eradicator, Pollux CT
x1 Eradicator Dragon Mage DT
x3 Eradicator, Blue Gem Carbuncle DT
Grade 1
x4 Rising Phoenix
x4 Eradicator Wyvern Guard, Guld
x2 Eradicator, Demolition Dragon
x4 Eradicator of the Ceremonial Bonfire, Castor
Grade 2
x4 Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Cho-ou
x3 Supreme Army Eradicator, Zuitan
x4 Eradicator, Spark Rain Dragon
Grade 3
x2 Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon
x2 Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant
x4 Eradicator, Vowing Saber Dragon “Я”

Fourth Place
Deck Name: Anthony Respect
Handle Name: NEXT
Grade 0
x1 Mecha Trainer (FV)
x4 Silence Joker CT
x4 Sonic Breaker CT
x4 Cheerful Lynx DT
x4 Cheer Girl, Tiara HT
Grade 1
x4 Wonder Boy
x4 Reckless Express
x4 Cheer Girl Marilyn
x1 Dudley Dan
Grade 2
x4 Dudley Mason
x4 Highspeed Brakki
x2 Panzer Gale
Grade 3
x2 Juggernaut Maximum
x4 Bad End Dragger
x4 Demonic Lord, Dudley Emperor

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

News: Mega Trial Deck 01: Rise to Royalty to Bring DAIGO Special Set to English Format

Images have surfaced of a new trial deck for the English format, VGE-MT01: Rise to Royalty. Marketed as a "Mega Trial Deck," this will be an English print of Japan's DAIGO Special Set released earlier in the year, redesigned for the American market due to musical artist Daigo's lack of popularity overseas. MT01 appears to be the Extra Trial Deck Bushiroad mentioned in one of their press releases, as in addition to the 50 Royal Paladin cards it contains it will also come with special deck box based on Starting Legend Ambrosius, as well as a Sanctuary Guard Dragon storage box and card sleeves based on Dignified Silver Dragon.

Rise to Royalty is currently slated for a November 2013 release, making it unusable during the known dates set for Worlds 2013. The set's main upgrades to the Royal Paladins are Sanctuary Guard Dragon, a retooled version of the King of Knights Alfred designed around limit break and an 11000 power body, and the Jewel Knights that the deck brings in to help expand on the new Royal Paladins that will be introduced by BT10: Triumphant Return of the King of Knights. Its storyline is based around the ancient history and legends of the Royal Paladin clan, and the founders of the United Sanctuary.

Monday, August 5, 2013

News: Creeping Dark Goat to See English Release During WCS2013

Sources at Bushiroad have identified that the highly anticipated Creeping Dark Goat, the second Shadow Paladin first vanguard to be printed since Fullbau in BT04, will see its English release at the World Championship 2013 Free Fight events. These Free Fight side events, similar to those of Worlds 2012, will be held at each regional to allow those not participating in the main tournament and those that have been eliminated to play casual matches for fun. While all of the regional events so far begin at 9:00 AM and end at 6:00 PM, the Free Fight side events will be starting up during the main tournament from 2:00 PM until 4:00 PM, coinciding with the point when many cardfighters have been eliminated.


Although FVGs of Creeping Dark Goat's model have frequently been panned for their inaccuracy, CDG has enjoyed special attention among Shadow Paladin cardfighters for being their primary competitive option, as a free boosting unit that is guaranteed is oftentimes more useful than what Fullbau brings to the table. Furthermore, even in Japan where Frontline Revenger Claudas is presently available with more power and a unique skill, CDG is often played just for providing the chance to search for a grade 3. Fighters will be able to earn PR/0069EN Creeping Dark Goat by participating in 4 or more matches in the Free Fight event. They will also be able to earn PR/0070EN Shield Knight of the Clouds by participating in 2 or more matches.

As a participation prize for taking part in the main regional tournament PR/0071EN Graphite Cannon Dragon will be given out, along with a card storage box.

News: TD13: Successor of the Sacred Regalia Announced

VG-TD13: Successor of the Sacred Regalia
This morning the thirteenth trial deck was revealed. Scheduled to release on October 25th, VG-TD13: Successor of the Sacred Regalia will be a trial deck based around Genesis, Misaki's new clan from the third season of the Cardfight!! Vanguard anime, Link Joker. While her manga incarnation continues to use Oracle Think Tank, in the anime Misaki has picked up this clan to expand her abilities. The deck will contain a new break ride unit, and will be connected with new Genesis support in the still-untitled BT14. Following the pattern established by previous trial decks TD08-TD11, "Successor" will likely by Genesis' new subgroup.

The kanji used for the "Sacred Regalia" in TD13's title is 神器 "sacred treasures," referring to the three imperial regalia of Japan, the sword Kusanagi, the mirror Yata no Kagami and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama which together represent valor, wisdom and benevolence. In Cardfight!! Vanguard the regalia appear to correspond to CEO Amaterasu's Yata no Kagami and Tsukuyomi's Moon Shadow Magatama, but the Kusanagi so far has only been implied as being a part of Amaterasu's Celestial Valkyries alternate artwork, without a named appearance in the TCG. The fact that all of the regalia as seen previously belonged to Oracle Think Tank units suggests that these "Successors" may be new units using the relics of old ones, passing the torch from Oracle Think Tank to Genesis.

Saturday, August 3, 2013

The History of Professional Cardfight: Part 3, August-November 2011

This is a series on the complete history of Cardfight!! Vanguard's pro scene, examining both English and Japanese formats in chronological order.


(Previous entry: The History of Professional Cardfight, May-August 2011)
Released in Japan on August 6th, 2011, VG-BT03: Demonic Lord Invasion was themed around new uses of the soul, introducing the first soul-based superior call mechanics with the Pale Moon clan, and charging up and blasting the soul as ammunition with the now-completed Dark Irregulars. In addition to this, BT03 brought in the concept of ride evolution, with this incarnation of the mechanic using first vanguards that search through a limited number of cards off the top off the top of the deck to find a specific unit to ride. Tying into the soul theme, the final cards of each evolutionary line used their skills by soulcharging at key stages in the evolution and then maintaining a soul of six to activate their skills with. A lesser theme of the set was powering up vanguard and rearguard lanes by meeting specific conditions. Much of what BT03 brought to the game could probably be summarized as "this unit gets +3000 power." This set's cover card is Gwynn the Ripper. Dark Irregulars, Pale Moon and Tachikaze were completed in this set.

With regards to those three clans, the Irregulars' play style on debut was characterized by its explosive power offset by a hole in their consistency. The key units to their early buildup were Vermillion Gatekeeper, Alluring Succubus, and Blue Dust. Each of these cards moved one card from the deck into the soul in some way, and with them Irregulars cardfighters could generally amass a soul of six by the time that they rode a grade 3.

Doreen the Thruster.
This played into their three offensive rearguards, Poet of Darkness Amon, Aspiring Demon Amon and Doreen the Thruster, each of which enjoyed a similar amount of play up through 2013. Doreen was not unique, as she was a Dark Irregulars print of the Royal Paladin, Young Pegasus Knight, a grade 1 that got +3000 power whenever a card was moved to the soul during the main phase. This skilled could be repeated as many times as soulcharges were available, to double and even triple her power. Poet and Demon were 6000- and 8000-power grade 1 and grade 2 units respectively, which gained a static +3000 power if there were 6 or more Irregulars in the soul. So while Doreen had more potential power, and this did a lot to boost her shelf life throughout the different eras of play, the Amon series was more stable and had a lot of synergy with the Irregulars' soulcharging. Together those two units could form a 20000 line in the rearguard, which was incredibly important in a format where Royal Paladin wasn't just a strong presence but also the definitive competitive deck, and the ability to so stably create those 20000 power lines is one reason why the Irregulars were initially built up as the counter to Soul Saver Dragon decks. The other is Demon World Marquis, Amon.

This is the Irregular that drew the most attention, and the one that even those not familiar with the clan are likely to have heard of. The card's skill was kept secret until very close to BT03's release, disclosed through a live broadcast on NicoNico Douga where the Irregulars were paired up against Pale Moon in a real fight, and the card itself was on par with Soul Saver Dragon for how much awe it inspired. Some more cynical fighters even thought that it was a hoax when he was revealed. Amon's main skill gives him +1000 power for each Dark Irregulars in the soul, so with that 6 soul base in mind, that's 25000 power with Poet's boost, a consistent center line that is virtually unguardable. His secondary skill is to counterblast 1 and move another Irregular to the soul to force the opponent to retire one of their own, which combined with the Dark Irregulars' print of Berserk Dragon, Gwynn the Ripper, gave the Irregulars excellent field control as well as a powerful soul engine with which to create strong rearguard and vanguard lines.

Stil Vampir is the other grade 3 that everyone knows about. Vampir is one of the few cards to make practical use of a megablast in competitive play, moreso than Amaterasu could for Oracle Think Tank. Like most megablasters, at the start of his turn he soulcharges 1 card, and then gets +2000 power until the end of the turn. His activate skill is to counterblast 5 and soulblast 8 to choose one of the opponent's rearguards and force them to ride it, then in the end phase of the turn they get to ride a unit of their choosing from their soul. As stated before, Irregulars could easily manage 6 soul by the time that they hit grade 3, so with Vampir's soulcharge that became 7, a single soulcharge away from a complete setup. The ideal use of this was to force the opponent to ride a grade 0, as this meant that any grade 1s or 2s in hand would become dead weight, it would lock them out of perfect defense cards, and with Poet or Doreen they would need to drop around 25000 shield to stop the attack. Intercepts would still work freely however, and the game needed to end on the turn that the megablast was used. Furthermore, as the Dark Irregulars had no way to unflip damage, aiming for the megablast would effectively lock oneself out of Gwynn the Ripper and Amon's skills. That said, even in games where the megablast was not the goal, Vampir was still very useful for filling up the soul for Poet and Amon. Some Irregulars cardfighters have had negative opinions of Vampir because of feeling tied down to his megablast, but the reality is that a lot of clans would kill for this kind of synergy between two different grade 3s that can back up and alternate to one another so well.

It should also be noted that Stil Vampir is one of those cards that is more than the sum of its skills. The card represents the final work of veteran artist Ashida Toyoo prior to his death on July 23, and so for some cardfighters has taken on a special meaning. Ashida was an important figure as an artist who stood at the forefront of animation when animation in Japan was at a turning point, shifting toward a more mature appeal, having served as the animation director for Space Battleship Yamato from 1974-81, filling the same role for Yatterman in '77 and designing the cast of Cyborg 009 in '79. Ashida died just two weeks before BT03's Japanese release; he never saw Stil Vampir after it was printed.

Between Amon, Stil Vampir and the plethora of powerful rearguards that they received, the Dark Irregulars were easily one of the most cohesive of the non-core clans on release with two very good grade 3s that fed toward an explosive offensive. So why were they not the Soul Saver killer that was projected? First, their trigger lineup on release was one critical, one heal and two stands. When combined with the rampant, random soulcharging of the deck, it was entirely possible to end up playing a game with no critical triggers, and the Irregulars never had even the most basic draw power to come back from a bad hand. Draw power as a whole summarizes the clan's core weakness. The lack of consistent, specific search skills and a general inability to see more cards from the deck acted as a serious restraining bolt on the clan from release, so that games would either be very good or very bad with no middle ground. For some time it was predicted that being able to run four to six draw triggers in the Irregulars would make them into the monster they were initially predicted as, but this never truly fell through. It speaks volumes to how much this lack of draw power held them back that the Irregulars did not make the cut at the regional or team level until 2012.

"Underworld" Manager.
Pale Moon shared the Irregulars' early buildup mechanics, with Hades Manager (then known as "Underworld Manager"), Skull Juggler and Hungry Clown (at the time "Hungry Pierrot") filling the exact same roles as Gatekeeper, Alluring and Blue Dust. Unlike the Irregulars, who were envisioned as using the soul as ammunition, Pale Moon was designed to use the soul as a secondary hand to call units from, creating a circus act of cards going in and out of the soul, but the shared mass soulcharge mechanics between the two clans worked against them in this respect as up until mid-2012 the two clans were not very well differentiated from one another.

Reflecting their design aesthetic, the three key offensive cards of the clan were based around getting a specific unit into the soul for power bonuses. The grade 1 and 2 Beast Tamers, Turquoise and Crimson, were like the Amon series base 6000- and 9000-power units, but the condition for their +3000 power bonus came from having a copy of Crimson Beast Tamer in the soul. This condition is obviously easier to meet than the Amon cards, except for the fact that since all soulcharges at the time came from the top of the deck, how quickly Crimson could be gotten into the soul varied from game to game and this dealt a serious blow to Pale Moon's consistency.

Their third unit, Barking Manticore, was also their boss card and a rarity among those cards in that he was only printed as a Rare. With 10000 base power, like the Tamer series he would receive +3000 power for having a Crimson in the soul, but this was restricted to the vanguard circle. His secondary skill allowed him to draw a card and then place one from the hand into the soul when ridden, which was very valuable for Pale Moon at the time as one of the only ways to add specific cards to the soul to trigger the Moon clan's skills. With a powered up Turquoise, Manticore's power capped at 22000 before drive checks, which limited his overall potential compared to Amon but nonetheless made a stable center line that also supported those 20000-power rearguard lines by sharing their activation conditions.

Like the Irregulars, Pale Moon had a supporting grade 3 in the form of a clan megablaster that would serve as a strong lead-in to as well as alternative ride to the boss card. Dusk Illusionist, Robert (pronounced with a silent "t" and at the time known as Darkness Magician) is derived more directly from Amaterasu, as his soulcharge lets him look at the top card of the deck and then place it back on the top or put it on the bottom. In addition to allowing him to predict triggers, this was another front on which Pale Moon differentiated itself from the Dark Irregulars. Robert's ability to forecast the top card of the deck could be used in conjunction with another soulcharging unit like Skull Juggler, to for example see if the top card is a unit that would work well in the soul and then leave it on top if so for Juggler to soul-in, or otherwise move the card to the bottom of the deck and have a better chance of getting a good soulcharge with the next card.

Robert's megablast was like Vampir's an activate skill, forcing the opponent to move all of their grade 1 and lesser rearguards into their soul. This would instantly put an opponent with a full field behind three cards, potentially turning into a field wipe if they used their front row to intercept, which left them scrambling to fill those emptied circles while also defending Robert's attacks. Pale Moon's play style was consequently a little more tactical than the Irregulars', building up those same strong rearguard lines but instead of creating an above-and-beyond powerful center line, they built up a megablast that would force the opponent to play catch-up in card advantage and then transition into the center focus with Manticore. The clan also had a third strategy to make up for missing out on an equivalent to Gwynn the Ripper, in three more units of grades 1-3 that all shared a skill.

In ascending order these were Midnight Bunny, Mirror Demon and Nightmare Doll Alice, the last two of which were Pale Moon's secret cards as Amon was for the Irregulars. The idea behind these three was that when their attack hit, they could counterblast 1 to move into the soul and then call a different Pale Moon from the soul. This would allow for multiple attacks, making room to harass the opponent by hitting a rearguard and stealing card advantage while being able to swap in and still make a vanguard attack. Alice was actually Pale Moon's only RRR in the set, and you could make the case that she was intended to be the poster child for the clan, but these skills didn't actually work very well in practice because they both disrupted a Robert megablast and only activated on-hit, so they would only go off when the opponent let them, forking over control of the match to the opponent. Building a deck that used Alice was also somewhat troublesome to balance compared to the simplicity of running 4 Robert and 4 Manticore, since Alice was dead in the vanguard circle. This was all likely intentional, as Pale Moon was probably designed to use the Alice and Bunny cards more heavily as part of their winning image in order to limit how often Robert's megablast could be used in any set of games, but the game designers and the actual cardfighters often have differing ideas of how to use a clan. Pro Pale Moon cardfighters avoided the soul swap cards except as pressure units that they never intended to actually use, and instead focused on the Beast Tamer cards with Robert's megablast.

The problems faced by Pale Moon were the opposite of those faced by the Irregulars. While the Dark Irregulars couldn't get enough draw power, Pale Moon had too much of it, introduced with a trigger pool of one heal, two draw and one critical. The situation wasn't nearly as bad as it was for the Irregulars, but what both clans shared were a serious need for a second critical trigger that they were a long time off from seeing.

Tachikaze is where BT03 dropped the ball. Like the Irregulars, they were a clan that had been around since BT01, but where the Irregulars' new cards blew everything short of Blue Dust out of the water, Tachikaze's best units came from BT01 and BT02 with the rest of the deck essentially as filler to make them have a full build of their own, and this would stay true up until April of 2012.

Consequently, you can't talk about how Tachikaze was played in BT03 without knowing how they developed in BT01 and BT02. The two key grade 3s they had at this point were Tyrant Deathrex and Chaos Dragon Dinochaos, both base 10000-power units. Deathrex's skills actually worked independent of clan, giving him +5000 power in the vanguard circle when he attacked, then requiring him to retire a rearguard if his attack hit. BT02 expanded on this with the grade 1 Winged Dragon Skyptero and the clan's first vanguard Dragon Egg, both of which can counterblast 1 when sent to the drop zone to be moved into the hand. So early on, Deathrex was used to move Dragon Egg from the field into the hand for an extra 10000 shield, while late in a match his power after boosting would climb up to a conditionless 23000, forcing the opponent to drop either a minimum 20000 shield or a perfect defense to avoid taking their sixth damage. As a result, Deathrex was essentially the best all-around vanguard that Tachikaze had when it was completed in BT03 and remained so until BT12's release in July 2013.

Dinochaos on the other hand was considerably more situational. His skill was a superior ride; by retiring two Tachikaze rearguards when his cardfighter had a grade 2 vanguard, he could be ridden from the hand in the main phase, giving an early twin drive so that more triggers could potentially be activated at the cost of needing to ride a different grade 3 further down the line, as Dinochaos had no other skills and so would ultimately negate the advantages he conferred. Those advantages were further shut down by his retire skill giving a -2 in exchange for his early extra check so that it evened out to a -1 in the first place. This could be avoided by using him in conjunction with Dragon Egg and then Blightops from BT01, whose on-retire counterblast 1 would to add Iron Wall Dragon Shieldon to the hand from the deck to subvert the minus into a plus and in the long term make riding another grade 3 a neutral option, but this meant running more grade 0s than necessary by including copies of Shieldon in your deck. Ultimately Dinochaos took away more than he gave by needing to be replaced when just going from grade 2 to 3 normally would have no disadvantages by comparison, but even this is arguably better than the main grade 3 that BT03 gave them; Ravenous Dragon Gigarex, at the time their only RRR.

Gigarex was envisioned as the grade 3 in the Savage series of units, much as Alice was the grade 3 incarnation of Bunny and Mirror Demon. The problem with this is that the Savage cards themselves were only used to fill deck space so that a full 50-card Tachikaze deck could be built. Each of them gained +1000 power when a Tachikaze rearguard was retired, which could potentially stack to build up heavy numbers by turning something like the grade 1 Savage Warrior into a 9000-power booster or Gigarex himself into a 13000-power attacker that could break 21000 with Sonic Noah except for the part where the only card that could retire multiple units in a turn was Dinochaos and it only worked once, at grade 2 when Gigarex couldn't even be on the field. So at most Gigarex was limited to becoming an 11000-power attacker after Deathrex went off early in a fight for independent action or picking off the opponent's key rearguards like Crimson Beast Tamer or the Amon series with specifically scaled attacks. Nothing in BT03 actually retired rearguards, so Gigarex couldn't even have his skills triggered by someone who was picking up Tachikaze from the set without them first getting Deathrex copies from BT01.

The second grade 3 that BT03 gave them was Raging Dragon Blastsaurus, a 9000-power unit that when moved to the drop zone could have a skill activated where he discarded a Tachikaze to search the deck for another Blastsaurus and call it. He also had a much weaker, 5000-power grade 1 incarnation in Sparksaurus with a similar discard-and-call skill, but the key point to these two is that they couldn't ever be put in the vanguard circle because of their extremely low base power and that they didn't actually counteract the loss in card advantage taken from Deathrex's attack connecting as Skyptero and Dragon Egg could. They did give the deck a more concrete strategy as supporting rearguards than Gigarex did, since Tachikaze cardfighters could use this to constantly thin the deck of nontrigger units while also being able to have a third attack that turn that they could use to attack an opponent's intercept with, as the new Blastsaurus would come out in the stand position.

Unlike the Irregulars or Pale Moon, Tachikaze wasn't really built up to live to any expectations, and you weren't so much running Tachikaze in this era so much as you were running Deathrex with 46 other cards that let you play him. This is the rawest hand that BT03 dealt to any of the clans it supported, and it's made worse by Gigarex having had to contend with Palamedes from the same set.

Swordsman of the Explosive Flames Palamedes is another entry in the long Royal Paladin threatlist that has become ingrained in pro play, and effectively the final culmination of the set's rearguard-powering strategies. Unlike Alfred or Soul Saver Dragon, Palamedes' effect on the game was much more subtle and it took some time for the impact of it to really sink in within the community. Palamedes' skill gives him +3000 power for the turn when he attacks if there are two or more grade 3 Royal Paladins present, but the skill also counts himself in that, and so as long as Palamedes is in the rearguard the skill is effectively a free 20-21000 power lane. Palamedes also had a grade 1 counterpart in Toypugal, a 6000-power unit that gained +3000 power while boosting if there were two or more grade 3 Royal Paladins present, and a grade 2 variant that was much less notable. While his artwork was featured prominently on posters, Palamedes' actual skill wasn't known until the set itself was released, and it's fairly clear why. The Palamedes cards put the Amon and Beast Tamer series to shame, easily breaking their own hard cap of 20000 power with Marron and Toypugal. This issue could have been resolved simply by having grade 3s of either line that had rearguard +3000 skills, but BT03 was following up on a certain design philosophy first tested in BT02 that prevented this.

For all the good it did, Demonic Lord Invasion was the first time that the game was very strongly shifting toward boss cards that did nothing in the rearguard circles. If you consider BT01's design philosophy, most of the bosses like Alfred, Lohengrin, Dragonic Overlord, Amaterasu, Apollon and Mr. Invincible all did something in the rearguard circles that extended beyond what they were capable of in the vanguard line. BT02 retained some of this with Blazing Flare Dragon, Lion Heat and Basskirk, but the reality is that the future of Vanguard lay in cards like Soul Saver Dragon, Seifried and Blockade. Stil Vampir was still part of the old V/R card design and it was perfectly possible to get off his megablast without ever riding him, but the changing design of Vanguard was clearly evident in Amon and Manticore. Palamedes was able to get away with V/R by not being an intended vanguard ride at all but by being an intended rearguard like Alice, and while this splitting of the grade 3s into vanguards and rearguards wasn't necessarily a bad thing, having bosses that could do things in the rearguard made the original Cardfight much more freeform and fun to play. By BT04 there's really only one key grade 3 left that does something in both the vanguard and rearguard circles, and by BT05 they've evaporated entirely; the center lane focus at the point of BT10 has gotten to the point where megablasters can't megablast in the rearguard anymore.

Palamedes was what rounded out the Royal Paladins into a deck with no flaws, something that very few clans can actually attest to. Unlike with the previous three clans, assuming that you could afford all of the cards spread out across the different booster sets, there was really no reason not to play Royal Paladin if you wanted to play it. The intended design was probably that the Royal Paladin offense would be offset by every grade 3 having just 10000 power, but the lack of an 11000 defense was negligible from the perspective of Royal cardfighters in a format where every lane was effectively Deathrex. While it's true that the ever-snowballing numbers game was churning out consistent 20000-power lanes that would not have threatened an 11000 defense, and that those lanes would become even more well proliferated as new sets were released, all of the front row units that were key to these lanes from before BT03 and after BT05 would have a base power of 9000 or less, so even when the opponent had a defensive vanguard that could shrug off Alfred's attacks, the same was not true of their rearguards. The Royal Paladins could match and then surpass the numbers of the Irregulars, Pale Moon and so many decks to come while picking off the key rearguards of those decks and overwhelming their vanguard. I should highlight that even in the face of this, BT03 was a relatively balanced format that saw serious diversity, and that the point being made with Palamedes here is that the need to balance clans by giving them crippling flaws is illusory. Ideally every clan eventually gets developed to the point that they are all decks with no flaws, as this is how decks like Soul Saver Alfred become so attractive to professional cardfighters in the first place. When you looked at a strong Alfred build from this period, the dominating phrase that I recall was there being "nothing wrong with it." There were no overbearing problems that could internally cripple the strategy, and this was similarly true for Oracle Think Tank at this period.

Part of this was because of the updates that Oracle Think Tank received in BT03. The Tsukuyomi cards used Demonic Lord Invasion's soul focus as a springboard to launch the idea of ride evolution, where instead of having a first vanguard that would move out from the soul when ridden over, you would have one that would help secure cards of other grades. The basic idea is that each card in the series looked through the top 5 cards of your deck at the beginning of your ride phase to find the next card in the series, then ride it and put the remaining 4 cards on the bottom of your deck. If you got the card, then you would get an immediate +1 in card advantage by not having to expend cards from the hand to ride, and if you didn't get the card you could just ride normally at no extra cost. Furthermore, riding the grade 2 Tsukuyomi over the grade 1 Tsukuyomi would then let her soulcharge 2, for a total of five soul at the moment that she rode a grade 3. That grade 3, Goddess of Full Moon Tsukuyomi, was at the time Oracle Think Tank's only 11000-power unit, with the caveat that she would lose -2000 power if the other members of the series were not all in the soul, which meant that she could either be the strongest or weakest grade 3 in the clan based on how effective these evolutions were in any given cardfight.

Her skill could only be used if she had six or more Oracle Think Tank in the soul--achieved through riding the previous cards in the series to build up to five and then using units like Psychic Bird, Amaterasu or from the same set Oracle Guardian Red-Eye to get that sixth card in. For 2 counterblast, Tsukuyomi could then draw two cards and put one into the soul, getting an immediate extra card while filtering out less useful ones like draw triggers or other copies of Full Moon. This could be done two to three times per game, and together with the evolving Moon cards that set a possible bar of a +6 throughout, while also providing an alternative strategy if you didn't get the Full Moon by providing a five soul base for Amaterasu to quickly accelerate her own soul into eight with. Tsukuyomi was designed to offset her advantages through her -2000 if you missed one member of the series while also providing a serious setback in that you would have 3 soul the moment that she was ridden, a loss in momentum that was very difficult to come back from. What wouldn't be realized until five months later was that these disadvantages could be outright negated, but this is far ahead of where we are now. At her release, Tsukuyomi was easily the best thing to ever happen to Oracle Think Tank, and I would argue that she remains so. For future generations of cardfighters, Amaterasu could never be played the way that she was in March 2011 again. There was no reason to not run Godhawk through Tsukuyomi's Crescent Moon form after they were released, even if you weren't running the Full Moon, as being able to amass a large base of soul for Amaterasu and potentially get a +3 out of it was too good. It speaks a lot to how much of an upgrade she was that most incarnations of Oracle Think Tank to come would have to have clauses that would specifically rule out the Tsukuyomi line from being used to ensure that she wouldn't be played in those decks.

The Royal Paladins also received their own version of Tsukuyomi's evolving cards in the Galahad line, but with the soulcharge 2 condition being swapped to ride the grade 3 over the grade 2 to prevent using it in normal Alfred decks with Soul Saver Dragon. Galahad's grade 3 skill wasn't especially notable as it had the same six soul conditions with less soul support and only gave him +3000 power with an extra critical. In contrast to Palamedes, Galahad's impact on the game was practically invisible.

Nova Grappler was the clan that had the most difficulty with BT03. The clan had been looking for a good partner to Asura Kaiser ever since BT01, but neither of their other options were exceptionally compatible. Mr. Invincible was good for setting up Genocide Jack and Kirara, while Lion Heat was the most common choice at this point for being able to stand the boosters of units that Asura Kaiser had just stood. Demonic Lord Invasion did not alleviate these problems. The grade 3 that it introduced, Ultimate Lifeform Cosmo Lord, was another victim of the vanguard-exclusive design philosophy when it probably could have stood to have a rearguard skill too. His activate skill was to rest another Nova Grappler and then get +3000 power. Cosmo Lord was thus one of the few Novas that could make a 21000+ line consistently, but it came at the expense of making other attacks that turn. Earlier in a fight you could call something that wouldn't be otherwise boosting or attacking that turn to force Cosmo Lord's hit to go through, but later on it was harder to pay because it meant that one of your attacks for the turn wouldn't be at full power when it would usually be better to have three normal attacks than one weak, one exceptionally strong and one normal. Cosmo Lord did come with support that diehard fans would swear by, but the card was far from being the monster that he would become in 2012 and that support was generally put to better use by Asura Kaiser decks running one of the other two grade 3 options at the time.

Infinite Phantom Legion reprint.
"That" support was the Death Army series, the most important rearguard development that Nova Grappler saw in its first year. Like Tachikaze, Nova Grappler had a pretty raw deal in BT03, but BT03 was a good set to have a raw deal in. The Grapplers were never the same after Death Army hit the scene--the grades 1 and 2 Guy and Lady shared an autoskill that when a grade 3 Nova Grappler was checked, they would stand. The idea was that you would rest the Death Army cards for a +6000 power boost to Cosmo Lord and then stand them during the drive checks so that you could get that normal attack in addition to the power boost, but because this skill was lifted straight from Asura Kaiser's playbook they had natural synergy with him such that Kaiser could stand both left and right rearguard columns at once in a good game. More commonly, Nova Grappler cardfighters would run Guy behind a normal Nova rearguard like Genocide Jack so that Asura Kaiser would actually have something to stand. The most important factor was that the Grapplers could now stand whole columns without stand triggers, which represented a major step toward seriously breaking them into high-end play as they could maintain their core mechanics while running additional critical triggers. Conveniently, the set also introduced their second critical trigger Red Lightning, and their first draw trigger Three Minutes, so that for the first time Nova could play without stands.

Immediately preceding the release of BT03, around the 25th of July, Nova Grappler received a somewhat surprising update in the Joker half deck inside the August issue of KeroKero Ace magazine, which brought them the new grade 3 Genocide Joker. Joker was a base 10000 unit that could counterblast 2 in the main phase to get +4000 power, which was useful as a supporting unit to Kaiser because it could form a consistent 21000 line with Death Army Guy that would completely restand for consecutive high-power attacks. The dominant pro deck of the time didn't have any base 11000 options however, so Death Metal Droid was generally more popular for doing effectively the same thing for a single counterblast and being much more easily available in TD04.

These were all the most notable changes brought on by Demonic Lord Invasion. Following Barcgal's restriction, the Soul Saver deck did not ever entirely die off. The restriction was designed to take place one month after the release of BT03, so most fighters simply converted to the new Galahad evolving cards. With the basic deck already so heavily proliferated, amassing the R and RR grades 0, 1 and 2 cards was fairly simple. This Royal Paladin pastiche was interesting because its existence depended on Barcgal's restriction--it shows fighters of the time overcoming a technical limitation by fusing two disparate strategies. Similar combinations were necessary for Nova Grappler from the beginning, who up through the last half of 2011 and early 2012 were forced to run a "best of" deck drawing from the three existing sets that combined Asura Kaiser, the Death Army units, and in October the Blau series into one all-star strategy. Probably the most disappointing thing about this period is that there was no major tournament between BT03 and BT04, as in many aspects the third booster set was the last time that every clan was introduced with a completely unique identity, while the fourth booster was the beginning of standardization.


Also translated as "Empty Shadow God Eclipse" and "Eclipse of the Hollow Shadow God," VG-BT04: Eclipse of Illusionary Shadows was first made available in Japan on October 29th, 2011. This set was noted for the expanding the concept of evolving cards and building on the soul mechanics of BT03, giving evolution lines to five different clans with a heavy overall focus towards defensive vanguards that gained power for having specific cards in the soul. The set's cover cards are Blaster Dark, Blaster Javelin, Fullbau and Darkside Trumpeter. Megacolony, Dimension Police and Shadow Paladin were completed in this set.

To give some background on the set's development, the completion of Shadow Paladin was the main draw of the set itself. Blaster Dark was shown in a promotional poster before any actual information on BT04 was circulated, the card then debuted in ride 33 of the anime series ahead of the set information, and some key cards like Phantom Blaster Dragon were shown sans their actual skill text in one of Bushiroad's live web broadcasts. Bushiroad's advertising engine had the public absolutely hooked on the Shadow Paladins without ever actually showing what they would do.

Of the clans BT04 supported, only the Shadow Paladins featured on the set's cover could really own evolution as a mechanic. This was their defining feature. Where all of the other clans would go on to abandon BT04's evolution mechanics at their first opportunity, the Shadow Paladins would stick with it for the next two years in part because that was the defining support base for their boss card and in part because they had no other options. Even after they were given a new first vanguard in December 2012, some Shadow Paladin decks would continue to use the grade 1 part of the line for his search skill. Unlike BT03's evolving cards, BT04's operated by adding a specific grade 2 directly from the deck to your hand when you rode a specific grade 1 over the grade 0. The grade 2 would then have a vanguard circle skill to reward you for riding it, that would snowball the advantage from riding the grade 1, and the grade 3 would build on that with a skill that would force the opponent to defend in some way or otherwise destroy their resources. Each member in the line would get a passive power bonus of +1000 or +2000 power for having the previous member in the soul, so that they would have the highest unrestrained possible power for their respective grade. For better consistency, the grade 1 part of the line--in the Shadow Paladins' case, Blaster Javelin--could also discard any grade 3 of the same clan when called to a rearguard circle to search for the evolution line's grade 3 and add it to the hand. This is one aspect of BT04-style evolution that is missed out on in later sets, as later refinements to the model would omit the search aspect in favor of giving the grade 1 a higher base power and a unique skill.

The first Shadow Paladin ever revealed was actually a promo card, Cursed Lancer, who was included in the in the CD release of the anime's second opening, "Believe in My Existence" almost a month before BT04 went on the shelves. Lancer was a copy of Super Electromagnetic Lifeform Storm from the Nova Grapplers, a 9000 power grade 2 that could unflip one damage when his attack hit a vanguard, and established one of the early characteristics of the Shadow Paladins that would be expanded on more thoroughly in the third season; damage unflipping. This card was one part of the mass promotion Bushiroad set up to get the public interested in the Shadow Paladins, but it turned out to be one of the more lackluster ones since there was never much room for Lancer in any of the Shadow Paladin builds. It did spark some heavy speculation at the time as to what ShadowPala would actually do to necessitate using more than five counterblast in a game. During his actual English release, Lancer was packaged with BT04 as an extra Rare, but this created more problems than it solved because while in the Japanese release you were guaranteed one of each Rare with one repeat, Lancer's inclusion alongside Megacolony Battler B in the English edition instead meant that none of the BT04 Rares would repeat in a box and you would be missing one, and the prints of BT04 were biased to not include the Shadow Paladins' core grade 2, driving his secondary market price up to eight times the cost of any other Rare.

Fighter's Collection 2013 reprint.
That core grade 2 was Blaster Dark. This card was the selling point of the clan and the driving force behind public interest in the set well before we had any idea of what he did. He was a mysterious unit with unknown skills, the best we could guess at the time was that he increased his own power in some way because of how Ren's match with Koutei played out in ride 33, and he was a darker counterpart to Blaster Blade, the face of the TCG itself. One thing that KeroKero Ace magazine's editors pointed out right away is that Blaster Dark was directly based on the first promo card, a Blaster Blade with no skill and alternate artwork drawn by Itou--something that the editors were very familiar with, as they were responsible for distributing that same card. You really could not overstate how hyped the public was for Blaster Dark at the time, or how much effort Bushiroad was putting into the set.



So while it's unlikley that Bushiroad could ever create a card that would live up to what their hype machine had made, they certainly could have done better than making him a dedicated part of an evolution line. All of his skills were vanguard-exclusive. If Blaster Javelin was in the soul, Blaster Dark's power would jump up to 10000, and when he was ridden Dark could counterblast 2 to retire one of the opponent's rearguards. The strong defense was probably his best quality and the only real edge that Dark had over Blade. His on-ride counterblast was lifted straight from Blaster Blade, but being at 2 or more damage at grade 2 was unlikely because it meant either the opponent had gotten a critical trigger or that you were letting rearguard attacks through early on that you should not be. Furthermore, the Shadow Paladins turned out to be an immensely counterblast-heavy clan and there wasn't a whole lot of room to use Dark's skill because it was bettered budgeted for their other grade 2 units. Blaster Dark's evolution line was inconsistent on its own because their first vanguard, Fullbau, would never move out from the soul so the extra one-card advantage could only be gotten from riding Blaster Javelin, which meant that four copies of Javelin were stapled to every Shadow Paladin deck when riding him was only a 46/100 chance. Blaster Dark really ought to have had a rearguard skill in the first place, and it speaks to how uneven the situation was that when the two Blasters were later redesigned to have the same skills in 2013, Blaster Blade's downgrade was Blaster Dark's upgrade.

While BT04 was released in October, all this promotion actually began in late August and went up until the day of release. The clan's boss card, Phantom Blaster Dragon, had been known about from the beginning because he was namedropped in Javelin's skill text, and his Special Parallel alternate artwork created by Itou himself was previewed in promotional images, but his skills remained a mystery until the end of September. The card itself was highly experimental, being the first time that the game really played around with built-in extra critical as a mechanic, and the results worked against the Shadow Paladins.

Fighter's Collection 2013 reprint.
As the final stage of the Blaster evolution line, Phantom Blaster Dragon received a passive +1000 power bonus for having Blaster Dark in the soul. His unique skill was to counterblast 2, retire three Shadow Paladin rearguards, and then get +10000 power and +1 critical until the end of the turn.

This didn't work.

Coming on the heels of BT03's amazing innovations, Phantom Blaster was probably the most disappointing card of the whole set. There were already a lot of expectations riding on his shoulders, but the card would have remained disappointing even if there weren't. The first problem was the counterblast cost, which in a clan that would go on to be very reliant on counterblast 2 and counterblast 1 rearguards, there wasn't much room for. Factoring into this is that any variant on retire or discard are the biggest costs you can pay in Vanguard because you are either removing units that you will then have to put further cards down from the hand to replace, weakening your defense, or you are outright sending that defense to the drop zone. Any skill that requires a main phase retire is actually double its stated cost because of the replacement rearguards you have to put down. So having to counterblast as well as retire was redundant and made the skill immensely overpriced. With retiring rearguards for power as their main theme and counterblast-heavy rearguard skills to support that, the Shadow Paladins really needed to have counterblast-free retire skills, but this is something that they wouldn't get for two years. The second problem was the retire 3 itself, which is too much for ten thousand and a crit. Every other unit printed with this type of skill paid less than drop 3, typically taking a drop 2 loss. Phantom Blaster went with retire 3 chiefly to create a contrast to Soul Saver's empower 3, but the skill was not scaled accordingly.

The third problem was that +10000 power and +1 critical wasn't something anybody was asking for. The skill probably should have been a retire cost to retire the opponent's rearguards, or a self-stand skill, both skills that would go to other grade 3s also in BT04 and that the Shadow Paladins would receive in BT12, but because of how it was designed Phantom Blaster Dragon inevitably ran into a perfect defense card every time that his skill was used. Since perfect defense cards were going to be used anyway at the stage of the game when the extra critical and power would be helpful for overwhelming their hand, the opponent was taking a -2 that they were always going to take while Shadow Paladin cardfighters were throwing a -3 at themselves that they didn't need to pay in the first place. So it was better to not use Phantom Blaster's skill at all and sit on a vanilla 11000 vanguard--this was the first boss card in the history of the game where it was always better to not use his skill when able to do so. Where BT03 answered all of the fans' expectations with things beyond their imagination, BT04 advertised something that wasn't actually very good.

Part of the issue was that the Shadow Paladins were made to be defeated. The various Dark Zone clans, Megacolony and some of the Dragon Empire crowd were certainly antagonistic, but the Shadow Paladins were the ultimate evil of the first season, led by a wicked dragon that wanted to plunge everything into despair, and as a whole they were created with the idea in mind that they couldn't be too powerful because Aichi had to beat Ren and Phantom Blaster Dragon had to lose to Blaster Blade. This design would thankfully not carry over into subsequent years as the developers learned from this, but that didn't help the clan when it was actually being released.

Several days after Dragon was made public, many of the remaining cards for the Shadow Paladins were revealed in KeroKero Ace magazine, with the final cards in the clan being shown in the days leading up to release. The main supporting grade 3 shown at the time was Dark Mage Badhabh Caar, a Shadow print of the Royals' Gigantech Charger from BT02, and the partner unit to Phantom Blaster Dragon. When ridden or called, Caar would reveal the top card of the deck, and if it was a Shadow Paladin, he'd then call it to a rearguard circle. The concept was to fill up the rearguard circles with Caar to mitigate the cost of offering up sacrifices to Phantom Blaster, and because the Shadow Paladins would go on to receive numerous on-call counterblast skills, Caar could also act as a gateway card to triggering skills in succession. The problem is that the resulting fields were awkward, and the damage zone was extremely tight, so anything Caar called was contending with Blaster Dragon for counterblast usage if the plan was to actually use that skill. With just 9000 base power, Caar couldn't actually be ridden either, so if you were stuck with him as your only grade 3 in hand you'd have to sit on Blaster Dark and wait to draw Dragon. This is one point that the evolution line actually functioned pretty well on, since Javelin could use his rearguard skill to discard Caar and search for the Dragon, but the overall synergy between the Shadow Paladin grade 3s was low compared to how well the Irregulars and Pale Moon functioned in the previous set.

The final grade 3 option that the Shadow Paladins were given was Dark Metal Dragon. His skill was set up so that when he drive checked a Shadow Paladin, he would get +2000 power until the end of the battle. This was deliberately worded so that Dark Metal would always have 14000 base power during his attack, letting him hit 20-21000 easily, and it's for this reason that Dark Metal Dragon was the most used Shadow Paladin vanguard on release. Phantom Blaster was crippled by his skill's overpriced cost, lack of cohesion, and the simple fact that he had to lose three rearguards to maintain 20000+ power when Dark Metal and the Shadow Paladins' contemporaries like Alfred, Amaterasu and Amon did all that for free. The Shadow Paladins' main mechanic was retiring rearguards for power, but the best way to play them was to never use their one retire skill. I need to emphasize that these were your only options for building the clan back when they were released. There was no Dark Dictator, no Ildona, and definitely no Overlord. The only options for the vanguard circle were Phantom Blaster Dragon or Dark Metal Dragon. This is the main reason why the Shadow Paladins didn't break into senior class play during the Grand Prix further down the road. They did not have a good high-synergy boss card, while every other clan save for Tachikaze and Spike Brothers had two.

Japanese fans in general were more receptive to this skill than westerners, but the tourney results can stand on their own for how ineffective the Shadow Paladins were. By contrast, Megacolony in this set made much better use of the retire mechanic. They shared the Shadow Paladins' evolving mechanics, here based around the Giraffa cards, but their grade 2 and 3 units were far superior and naturally outlasted both Blaster Dark and the Dragon. Elite Mutant Giraffa had the same stats as Blaster Dark, but when his attack hit he could choose an opponent's rearguard and prevent it from standing at no extra cost. This skill was useful no matter the situation because it would either restrict the opponent's plays or convince them to defend earlier than normal without taking any resources away from the user.

Elite Mutant was really just a bonus though. Evil Armor General Giraffa was the main draw for this incarnation of Megacolony, because it gave the clan a second competitive vanguard and one with 11000 power. Giraffa's skill was like Phantom Blaster's a counterblast 2, but this one was an autoskill that activated when the attack hit a vanguard. This skill retired two Megacolony rearguards to retire two of the opponent's grade 1 or lesser rearguards, making an efficient use of retire mechanics by trading a -2 for a -2 while also not requiring the same dedication that Phantom Blaster did by only activating when the conditions were met, while also forcing extra defense out of the opponent if they wanted to avoid the attack. One common setup was to see two copies of the Megacolony draw trigger, Raider Mantis, called to form a 10000 power rearguard line that would attack an opponent's intercept to lower their card advantage beforehand, then with Giraffa's skill retire those draw triggers to almost wipe out the opponent's boosters. The unfortunate thing about the skill is that it compromised Megacolony's main mechanic in the process. Their theme was preventing the opponent's rearguards from standing to lock down their field and make defensive play easier, but Giraffa gained his competitive status chiefly by ignoring that mechanic altogether and doing his own thing. There's definitely a case that Giraffa didn't need to stick to the theme though, because it was already done for him by Megacolony's plethora of rearguards that could counterblast on-call to choose an opponent's unit and prevent it from standing.

Chief among these was Hell Spider, who was actually from BT01 and served as Megacolony's original competitive vanguard. The strategy at this time was to play Giraffa up until the opponent was at 4 damage and could no longer safely let the vanguard attack pass, then switch over to Hell Spider. When all of the opponent's rearguards were at rest during his fighter's turn, Spider would get +3000 power in the vanguard circle, which could lead into an easy 20-21000 line to strain the opponent's hand when they were already exhausted from struggling to stop Giraffa each turn, who was going for the same numbers with the clan's 10000-power vanguard booster Stealth Millipede. Hell Spider's other skill was a counterblast 2 for the same stand-denial effect described above, and it worked in either the vanguard or rearguard circles, so that he was an effective unit no matter where you placed him. Furthermore, Giraffa and Hell Spider aged like wine. When 13000-power defense was introduced in the later sets, Spider's playability would only increase, since with Stealth Millipede he could stay relevant by consistently hitting 23000 when even the new clans were struggling to get those kinds of vanguard lines, and he stilled served as an excellent followup to Giraffa in that period because that 13000 defense was set up by starting with an 11000 base that Giraffa could pressure and potentially steal supporting units from.

Overall this made for an incredibly consistent deck whose only real issue was that it was still struggling with an enforced trigger pool of 4 Heal 4 Draw 4 Critical and 4 Stand, but even after Megacolony's second critical trigger was introduced in EB01 the clan would remain underhyped and underplayed. In fact, Megacolony is probably the most underplayed clan in the history of pro play considering that it avoided many of the pitfalls of contemporary decks like the Irregulars and Shadow Paladin. Megacolony hasn't ever had the same cool factor as the Paladin decks or Oracle Think Tank, and suffered from a lot of complaining about the stand denial skills being less useful than Kagerou's straight retire, but its results were consistent and Megacolony fans have had less actual flaws to complain about than any clan short of the core 4 throughout Cardfight's history--in spite of having less support than the other clans. Megacolony was designed just about perfectly in that its build was consistent, competitive, and actually felt like you were playing the clan that you had chosen, something that not all clans can attest to.

Up there with Megacolony were the Dimension Police. The clan's boss card, Super Dimensional Robo Daiyusha, had been previously introduced in BT03 but the support that he really needed all came from BT04. The basic focus of the clan was to have a passive vanguard that couldn't do much on its own, whose skills were triggered by those of the rearguards. Daiyusha was exemplary of this practice, as he was normally a vanilla 10000 grade 3, but if his power was increased to 14000 or greater before he attacked (that is to say, without his booster being factored in) he would get an entire extra critical, which made for what was one of the best midgame skills overall since you were looking at a vanguard line that was guaranteed to be at 20000+ power too early in the game for the opponent to actually put a perfect defense down against without falling behind drastically in card advantage but still necessitated them to defend it because eating the extra critical was not an option.


Daiyusha's main support card for reaching that number was Cosmo Beak, who had an on-call counterblast 2 to give the vanguard +4000 power, immediately triggering that extra crit. There were a lot of other rearguards that could provide lesser boosts in lots of +2000, like Masked Police Grander from BT03 and Cosmo Roar from BT04, but this was the big important rearguard for a long time and it was even more important for its synergy with the other key grade 3, Enigman Storm.

Storm's skill was actually close to identical to Daiyusha, but the power bar was raised from 14000 to 15000. This was because Storm was the final grade 3 in the Enigman evolution line, and so had a potential 11000 power base to work with. So you effectively had two options in the mainstream Dimension Police deck, Daiyusha and Daiyusha with 11000 defense, and this made for a very effective grade 3 setup that was mainly being held back by its trigger pool. What Dimension Police really wanted was a second critical trigger, but that was a year off. The clan did have enough synergy with stands to play well, but by this point competitive fighters were complacent with the idea that there were only three triggers and so Dimension Police generally flew under the tournament radar despite being more visible than Megacolony.

The card that put Dimension Police in the competitive spotlight was Commander Laurel. He was an amazing success for the D-Police because he gave an overwhelming advantage with minimal commitment. When the vanguard's attack hit, his skill would rest four rearguards to stand the vanguard, denying immediate rearguard attacks for a long term advantage in extra drive checks. With any grade 3 vanguard Laurel would give a +2, and this was complemented by D-Police's enforced stand triggers since you would get that plus while also still getting some rearguard attacks in, and because the overall goal of the deck was to trigger extra power and critical in the vanguard line, Laurel had a lot of synergy with the established strategy, multiplying the effects of the extra critical so that the center lane that was typically at 24-25000 power / critical 2 could deal a maximum of ten damage in one turn with critical triggers, almost double what was necessary to actually win a game. In games were D-Police was behind, Laurel let them go from a score of 5 damage to 1 to 5 and 5 in a single turn. Keep in mind that it wasn't so much actually doing these things that was great, it was the opponent being afraid of it that was--Laurel either gave a +2 to D-Police cardfighters or a -2 to the opponent every single turn. The center lane was not allowed to hit but was also at such ridiculously high power that Laurel ate through the opponent's perfect defense cards starting at turn 3, sometimes as early as turn 2 if the Enigman evolution was going off, and eventually the opponent was taking a -3 or -4 each turn. The card aged beautifully too, as future D-Police support sets would only make this setup easier and easier to pull off.

Stern Blaukluger followed a similar theme to Laurel. The Blau series as a whole represented Nova Grappler's first major upgrade of the season since their debut, giving them BT04's model of evolution where Oracle Think Tank had received BT03. In that respect the Grapplers definitely received the shorter end of the stick, but Stern made up for it with a vanguard stand skill built into him. Stern's skill triggered when his attack hit the vanguard, paying a counterblast 2 and discard 2 to stand his entire column. This played into Dancing Wolf from the same set, a base 7000 grade 1 that gained +3000 power when it stood in the battle phase, so that against contemporary 11000-power units Stern could actually make his attack hit with just one stand trigger because the power from Wolf's boost was applied continuously. If the opponent guarded for two triggers and Stern pulled a stand trigger, his line with Wolf would go from 18000 to 26000, promoting a synergy with stands that the Grapplers needed in order to really come into their identity as the restanding clan.

After the cost was paid, Stern would lose his twin drive, so the skill itself was actually a -1 unlike Laurel, but it shared several of Laurel's strengths because the opponent could never afford to just eat the skill. The chances of Stern checking critical triggers was just too high, and like with Laurel any damage that Stern dealt was multiplied by his stand skill, so that any no-guard was risking four damage instead of two as with any other vanguard. Dancing Wolf also made the second attack stronger than the first, and as with Laurel, Stern required minimal commitment. Even without the bonus of card advantage, Stern still had a devastating effect on the game because of how he ate up the opponent's perfect defense cards at no cost. The overall strategy then became to build up with the Blau series until the opponent had very few cards in play and took an attack that brought them to five damage, then switch over to Asura Kaiser and the Death Army units, as the endgame of the fight when the opponent is at five damage are when stand skills go from annoying to the most dangerous ability in play.

It was in November that the first official international tournament was held, in Australia. The first Australian national championship, Grand Prix 2011, was done using Japanese cards from BT04 and earlier. National champion Zachary Rappold won the tournament using a Stern Blaukluger deck. Even though it was smaller than the tournaments of the future like WCS2012 or the international Team League, this attests to Stern's strengths as a unit and how much of an upgrade he was to the Nova Grapplers.

The disparity in support should be visible by now. These key units of BT04, Giraffa, Storm and Stern Blaukluger were all what Phantom Blaster was really contending with at release. Why counterblast 2 and drop 3 for +10000 power and +1 critical when you could just counterblast 2 to grab the extra crit with a 21000 line that would hit the same perfect defense but not cost you any card advantage in the process? Why counterblast 2 and go -3 to the opponent's -2 with Phantom when you could go 21000 with Giraffa and Stealth Millipede to pressure the opponent into dropping a -2 every turn at no cost to yourself, or otherwise go -2 to -2 trading out bad rearguards to kill the opponent's good ones? Why jump through all these hoops with Phantom when you could take a -1 with Stern Blaukluger and get a third drive check with a vanguard line that's already pushing 21-26000 power and multiplies critical just through playing normally? The problem is exacerbated by every single one of these decks getting better with age, not worse, while halfway through 2013 Phantom Blaster has still not developed into a playable skill.

The main issue was the commitment factor. While it would still be a heavy cost, his retire 3 would be much more playable if it were an autoskill that triggered when attacking the vanguard, because the rearguards could actually be used to attack the opponent beforehand instead of demanding that Shadow Paladin cardfighters lose three rearguards, then call three replacements, and then still be able to defend things like Daiyusha or Stern after all that commitment. In fact, this exact idea would be done two years later in BT11 with Tachikaze's Ancient Dragons. BT04 did a lot of things right, but the Shadow Paladins were not one of them. The professional scene at the time saw primarily Soul Saver, Goku, Tsukuyomi and Stern Blaukluger in senior class play, but even Daiyusha and Giraffa made appearances during the ensuing tournament season while Phantom Blaster Dragon never showed up as his own deck.

Even so, the months closing 2011 were something of a golden age for Cardfight. For the first time, every clan was playing with an even field, with no real top deck or strategy controlling the format. Royal Paladin would eventually continue its train of dominance, but this was nowhere near the level of format control that SSD had previously exerted, and the top brackets were still very closely divided with Oracle Think Tank and Kagerou in an equal position to RoyPala. If anything, the most frustrating part of the period was that the less visible clans were not leaving enough of a tournament impact, as people really wanted the BT03 clans to do well when it was the clans from BT01 and BT04 that were seeing the most play. It is generally believed that any clan could have taken the winter cup, but first we need to dive into how the 2011 Grand Prix began.