News: Galaxy Blaukluger, Raging Form and Nouvelle Vague Place in Seventh Battle City Tournament, Link Joker Takes Third Tachikawa CS

The results from Japan's most recent unofficial team tournament have been published, with team KHP winning the seventh Battle City Sakai VG Trio ChampionShip. KHP's members played a combination of the Blau series, Raging Form and Dragonic Nouvelle Vague decks, following the recent trends of Nova Grappler's rise among the established Kagerou and Shadow Paladin decks. Unlike past Blaukluger decks, KHP forward Gocchan's build emphasized the original Blaukluger as part of a crossride-centric strategy, shifting away from the focus on Mond Blaukluger that contemporary cardfighters have made, and away from the more aggressive break ride format in general. Team midfighter Tokumicchan has card-for-card emulated the deck of reigning national champion Lee Innyeng, importing its Claudas- and Blaster Dark-centric strategies and to some degree finalizing the decklist with his success.

The seventh Battle City Sakai CS was held at 10:00 AM JST on the 16th, and conducted between 64 teams (192 persons) with an entry fee of 3000 yen per team. Each team member was required to use a different clan, but mixing clans within one deck was permitted. The first place team in the tournament received a voucher for an entire case (sixteen boxes) of VG-BT15: Infinite Rebirth, to be released in Japan on the 28th. Second place received a voucher for nine boxes of the set, while third received a voucher for six, and fourth for three boxes. The eighth Battle City CS is currently slated for March 21st.

The Third Tachikawa VGCS also concluded just recently, with Link Joker cardfighter Shiimo taking first place against all odds. Since the rise of Nouvelle Vague and Minerva in the BT14-on format, Link Joker has taken a backseat to competing decks, with usage scaling back with each tournament until it now accounts for just under 6% of the total number of decks played at Tachikawa. This is a strong contrast to the West Tokyo CS of one booster set back, where Link Joker made up one-fourth of all decks played in the tournament. So while Shiimo's Chaos Breaker deck is familiar territory to many, the circumstances are not.

The Third Tachikawa VGCS Deck Breakdown [86 Participants]
 Kagerou 23 (Nouvelle 16, Dominate 7)
Regalia 17
Jewel Knight 8
Revenger 6
Blau 6
Link Joker 5
Eradicators 3
Dimensional Robo 3
Gold Paladin 3 (Ezel 2, Liberator 1)
Beast Deity 2
Silver Thorn 2
Great Nature 2
Magus 1
Celestials 1
Hyakki Vogue 1
Bermuda 1
Aqua Force 1
Musketeers 1 

The Revengers, Link Joker and Eradicators, which not long ago had dominated competitive play at the height of their shared era, have dwindled down to just 6, 5 and 3 decks out of the 86-person tournament. Kagerou and Genesis firmly dominated the third Tachikawa VGCS, building on a string of victories for the two clans. While Genesis is unanimously held together by the Sacred Regalia series led by its restanding grade 3 Artemis and on-soulblast superior call units Chamomile and Melissa, Kagerou is divided between cardfighters playing Dauntless Dominate Dragon “Яeverse” and those using the grade 4 Dragonic Nouvelle Vague. Nouvelle's future was uncertain after the keystone first vanguard that enabled its easy Nouvelle Roman plays, Lizard Soldier Conroe, was restricted last January, but after its success in the Kansai VGCS general confidence in Nouvelle has been restored. Like faruke's Nouvelle deck before them, Shiimo and his fellow top 8 Nouvelle cardfighters were using 4 copies of Calamity Tower Wyvern to make effective use of their soul and counterbalance the loss in consistency from Conroe being hit. Contrast this with Ucchii from the seventh Battle City CS, who played a more conventional deck that ignored the core issue altogether.

In a moment of self-aware humor, the Tachikawa CS homepage listed the Nouvelle Vagues in Tiisupin and Rabbit's decks as grade 3s--not a hard idea to grasp, considering that with the supporting grade 1 Roman in the format, this is how the majority of Japanese cardfighters have treated Nouvelle both before and after Conroe's restriction.

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. 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.

In our final story for tonight, the comprehensive rules for the English edition of the Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG have been amended to officially define Lock and Unlock. The most important definitions provided are that Locked cards are not treated as the same cards as they previously were, they do not have a defined stand or rest position but always Unlock as stand, and that the circle they are on is also modified into a separate type of circle. For more thorough information, see relevant sections 10.1.21 and 10.1.23.

Seventh Battle City Sakai VG Trio CS
Winning Team: KHP
Gocchan/ごっちゃん
Grade 0
x1 Morgenroet (FV)
x4 Regenbogen HT
x3 Sschneeregen DT
x1 Fighting Battleship, Prometheus CT
x4 Schones Wetter CT
x4 Red Lightning CT
Grade 1
x4 Blau Dunkelheit
x4 Tough Boy
x3 Clay-doll Mechanic
x3 Stoic Hani
Grade 2
x4 Blaukluger
x4 Jupiter Blaukluger
x3 Mars Blaukluger
Grade 3
x4 Galaxy Blaukluger
x3 Stern Blaukluger
x1 Mond Blaukluger

Tokumicchan/とくみっちゃん
Grade 0
x2 Frontline Revenger, Claudas (FV)
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x4 Freezing Revenger DT
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
Grade 1
x4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x3 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x2 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
Grade 2
x4 Revenger of Nullity, Masquerade
x3 Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon
x4 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Ucchii/ウッチー
Grade 0
x1 Red Pulse Dracokid (FV)
x4 Dragon Dancer, Barbara HT
x3 Seal Dragon, Artpique DT
x2 Gattling Claw Dragon DT
x3 Seal Dragon, Biera CT
x3 Blue-Ray Dracokid CT
x1 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
Grade 1
x2 Dragon Knight, Ashghal
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x1 Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara
x4 Nouvelle Roman Dragon
x1 Calamity Tower Wyvern
x2 Dragon Dancer, Maria
x2 Wyvern Guard, Barri
Grade 2
x3 Nouvelle Critique Dragon
x4 Berserk Dragon
x4 Bellicosity Dragon
Grade 3
x3 Dauntless Drive Dragon
x1 Cruel Dragon
Grade 4
x4 Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague

Third Tachikawa VGCS
First place: Shiimo/しぃも
Grade 0
x1 Star-vader, Dust Tail Unicorn (FV)
x3 Star-vader, Weiss Soldat CT
x4 Star-vader, Meteo Liger CT
x3 Star-vader, Scouting Felis DT
x2 Star-vader, Nebula Captor DT
x4 Star-vader Stellar Garage HT
Grade 1
x4 Prison Gate Star-vader, Palladium
x3 Demonic Claw Star-vader, Lanthanum
x2 Mana Shot Star-vader, Neon
x4 Barrier Star-vader, Promethium
Grade 2
x3 Strike Star-vader, Krypton
x4 Star-vader, Colony Maker
x4 Unrivaled Star-vader, Radon
Grade 3
x4 Star-vader, Infinite Zero Dragon
x4 Star-vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon
x1 Star-vader, Nebula Lord Dragon

Runner-up: Tiisupin/てぃーすぴん
Grade 0
x1 Red Pulse Dracokid (FV)
x3 Seal Dragon, Biera CT
x4 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
x4 Gattling Claw Dragon DT
x1 Seal Dragon, Artpique DT
x4 Seal Dragon, Shirting HT
Grade 1
x1 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x4 Nouvelle Roman Dragon
x4 Seal Dragon, Rinocross
x4 Calamity Tower Wyvern
Grade 2
x2 Hidden Dragon, Striken
x1 Dominate Drive Dragon
x4 Nouvelle Critique Dragon
x3 Berserk Dragon
x1 Demonic Dragon Berserker, Kumbhanda
Grade 3
x1 Cruel Dragon
x4 Dauntless Drive Dragon
Grade 4
x4 Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague