News: Second Brave Cup Decklists Published, “Abyss”-Mordred Dominates Top 8

Nine hours ago the decklists from Chiba city's second Brave Cup were published, giving names to the decks that topped in the Cup over the 18th. Cup champion Azel is one of the first prominent Liberator cardfighters to emerge in the Neon Messiah-on format, and his victory is also the effective debut of the Bluish Flame Liberators in professional play. Alongside this, the Revenger subclan has come to renewed importance, with five members out of the tournament's top 8 playing Phantom Blaster “Abyss” paired with Mordred Phantom.

Up to this point “Abyss” was primarily paired with Raging Form Dragon as its alternative grade 3, as at the second Hokusetsu CS, third Kansai team tournament, and fifth Tachikawa VGCS. However, the Shadow Paladin use of “Abyss” with Raging Form paled in comparison to its Royal Paladin counterpart Thing Saver, who prior to recent rule reforms was also able to take advantage of “Abyss” as its supporting grade 3. Within the power vacuum created by Thing Saver-“Abyss'” collapse, these Mordred-based have emerged due to a combination of needing to succeed where Raging Form fell short, and as a result of greater discernment on the part of professional Shadow Paladin cardfighters.

This model for “Abyss”-Mordred had already coexisted alongside Raging Form from the beginning of their rivalry at the Hokusetsu championship. The argument for pairing “Abyss” with a break ride versus Form is that he will attack for greater power on his initial attack and every swing thereafter, and that the counterblast costs in “Abyss'” Legion deck are sizable enough that supporting him with Mordred's limit break does not significantly change the damage “Abyss'” restand is being played at. Even after counterblast is exhausted in this build, “Abyss” has a base attack of 22000 to fall back on. And with two Phantom grade 3 options, the subclan's primary first vanguard Judgebau is always available by grade 3. Even accounting for Revenger-specific retire, Judgebau into double Sword Breakers' draw skill is always worth investing because of how overwhelming it is in terms of advantage gain.

Furthermore, running two copies of Dragruler Phantom in addition to Mordred has been common practice for Shadow Paladin cardfighters. The methodology is that each individual point of damage carries greater weight in Legion format than it did in the limit break format, which makes crossbreakriding Dragruler a vital play that can push the opponent to 4 damage and then face down “Abyss” on the next turn as an alternative to jumping straight to “Abyss.” Dragruler also has combo potential with Rakia, a popular grade 1 choice for Japanese Revenger decks; by calling two grade 0s and then retiring them for Dragruler's limit break, Rakia becomes a 13000-power booster to make most rearguard lanes attack for 21000+ power.

Perhaps the most unusual adaptation of the Cup was the emphasis on running both incarnations of Blaster Dark Revenger. The grade 2's “Abyss” incarnation has generally made the circa BT12 pair of Dark Revenger and his custom unflipper Dorint obsolete, consolidating both of their skills into a single counterblast, but every top 4 Shadow Paladin cardfighter at the Brave Cup ran at least two copies of the old Dark Revenger and Dorint. The adaptation is made possible by Mordred's deck searching, and serves both as an alternative to rearguard plays of Revenger “Abyss” and as an unflipping engine to offset the counterblast 1 for Mordred's break ride skill.

Illust. Hagiya Kaoru.

Meanwhile tournament champion Azel's deck is a Bluish Flames build focusing on Prominence Glare from MBT01: Neon Messiah, with the trial deck boss card Percival as his secondary grade 3. Azel's deck is one of the most visible tops to run stand triggers, reflecting one of the latent developments of the Legion format. Some cardfighters are now prioritizing stands over draws due to a combination of the increased importance of the rearguard lanes, less emphasis on hand size where many prominent decks can maintain it innately, and the strong skills being given to stand triggers to compensate for their perceived shortcomings in comparison to the other three trigger types.

In the Liberators' case, Catchgal's skill allows for his cardfighter to superior call a Liberator from the top three cards of the deck when he's called from the deck. This creates a +1 in card advantage where successful, while also synergizing with Prominence Glare's retire skill--for counterblast 1 Glare can retire a Liberator to superior call one from the deck's top four, trading out Catchgal for a more useful rearguard like Josephus or Bruno while also building up towards Legion and eventually cycling that trigger back in.

Illust. Hagiya Kaoru.

As a whole Azel's deck focuses on passively building up card advantage through on-call skills, using the top 3 and 4 skills of Percival and Prominence Glare to add cards to the hand off of superior calling Josephus and Destiny Aglovale, and calling further from Lawful Trumpeter and Oaths Aglovale's top 3 skills. This makes it possible to play a field almost entirely from the deck, conserving the hand to put down replacements after dealing with retire skills from Perdition, Revenger and Brawler decks.

Prominence Glare serves as the new Liberators' major push. By discarding one of the deck's eight Bluish Flame cards after calling a rearguard from the deck, Glare gains an additional critical and prevents the opponent from calling grade 1 and greater cards to the guardian circle from their hand when it attacks; this simultaneously blocks perfect defense cards, Quintet Walls, and special defense units like Glendios' Rubidium or the Liberator's own Guinevere. With a center lane in the range of 27000 power, Glare demands 25000 shield for two-to-pass from most vanguards, generally taking out between three and five cards per turn to wear the opponent down while his fighter passively builds advantage off of superior calls.


The Bluish Flame Liberators from TD16: Divine Judgment of the Bluish Flames will be debuting in English alongside the “Abyss” Shadow Paladins from EB11: Requiem at Dusk on November 21st, while those Liberators from TD17 and MBT01 will reach the format on December 16th in VGE-BT16: Legion of Dragons & Blades ver.E.

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-three, 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. The VGCS model of fan-organized play has begun to gain popularity internationally, with the bi-monthly BeNeLux tournaments serving as their European equivalent, and there are now similar grassroots organizations emerging in the United States like the ARG Circuit series tournaments and the ongoing King of Cardfight competition in the American midwest.

Second Chiba Brave Cup
First place: Azel/アゼル
Grade 0
x1 Fire Passion Liberator, Guido (FV)
x4 Liberator of the Holy Tree, Elkia HT
x4 Liberator of Good Luck, Epona CT
x4 Steel Edge Liberator, Alvira CT
x4 Catchgal Liberator ST
Grade 1
x4 Shine Formation Liberator, Eldol
x4 Fast Chase Liberator, Josephus
x4 May Rain Liberator, Bruno
x2 Little Liberator, Marron
Grade 2
x4 Liberator of Destiny, Aglovale
x4 Liberator of Oaths, Aglovale
x3 Liberator, Lawful Trumpeter
Grade 3
x4 Bluish Flames Liberator, Prominence Glare
x4 Bluish Flames Liberator, Percival

Second place: Getsu-ei/月影
Grade 0
x1 Judgebau Revenger (FV)
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x2 Freezing Revenger DT
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
x2 Grim Reaper CT
Grade 1
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x2 Overcoming Revenger, Rakia
x1 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
x2 Black-winged Sword Breaker
Grade 2
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger “Abyss”
x2 Battle Spirit Revenger, Mackart
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
x2 Nullity Revenger, Masquerade
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Phantom Blaster “Abyss”
x2 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom
x2 Revenger, Dragruler Phantom

Third place: Healer/ヒーラー
Grade 0
x1 Judgebau Revenger (FV)
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x3 Freezing Revenger DT
x1 Lizard Witch, Aife DT
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
Grade 1
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x1  Self-control Revenger, Rakia
x2 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x1 Sharp Point Revenger, Shadow Lancer
x4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
x1 Black-winged Sword Breaker
Grade 2
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger “Abyss”
x2 Overcoming Revenger, Rukea
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
x2 Wily Revenger, Mana
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Phantom Blaster “Abyss”
x2 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom
x2 Revenger, Dragruler Phantom

Fourth place: Lallshare
Grade 0
x1 Judgebau Revenger
x1 Frontline Revenger, Claudas
x4 Healing Revenger HT
x4 Freezing Revenger DT
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
Grade 1
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
x2 Overcoming Revenger, Rakia
x3 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x2 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
x2 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
Grade 2
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger “Abyss”
x3 Overcoming Revenger, Rukea
x2 Blaster Dark Revenger
x2 Battle Spirit Revenger, Mackart
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Phantom Blaster “Abyss”
x3 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom
x1 Revenger, Dragruler Phantom