The Japanese card of the day is
the winner of 2014's create-a-card contest, designed by child reader Ishii Kenichi and brought to life by veteran illustrator Terumii (Vlad Specula, Paschal, Maiden of Blossom Rain.) Neither a legion nor a limit break unit, like Daunting Deletor Oksizz before her Chaopozisis takes total control of her gameplay's tempo. Chaopozisis wields the power of Onmyou, the Japanese philosophical concept of contradictory forces that complement one another when put in balance, and this is represented through her soul management-based gameplay. In order to use Chaopozisis effectively, you have to constantly fluctuate between 3 and 9 soul and demonstrate total control over your soulcharging across multiple turns. The reward for this is nearly endless turns of additional power and critical from the moment you ride a grade 3, quickly draining the opponent's perfect defense cards, then eating into the remainder of their hand.
Regalia of Duality, Nega Chaopozisis
ACT (Vanguard circle): [Soulblast 6] During this turn this unit gets Power +10000/Critical +1, and if the number of cards in your soul is 2 or less, place a card from the top of your deck into your damage zone.
AUTO: [Counterblast 1] When this unit appears in a rearguard circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose three cards with "Regalia" in their card name from your drop zone, put them into your soul, and if the number of cards in your soul is 10 or greater, put the top card of your deck into your damage zone.
Chaopozisis' skills are divided between her aspect of ice on the vanguard circle, and aspect of fire on the rearguard circle. In keeping with her card lore,
misusing either of Chaopozisis' powers will cause you
to take damage, respectively symbolizing being frozen alive and immolated. To use her correctly you have to strike a balance in
how much soul you maintain. Her aspect of fire can be a useful supporting component either for herself or for another Regalia boss card like Yggdrasil, but because her skill soulcharges exactly three cards rather than "up to" three, if you've overdone your own soulcharging then there's no saving you from taking damage. Failing to exercise proper caution and misusing Chaopozisis when already at high damage can cost you the game.
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| Nega Chaopozisis' submission artwork from issue 15, illust. Ishii Kenichi. |
You can never exceed 9 soul nor drop below 3, so Chaopozisis benefits from cards like Regalia of Midday Hemera that can choose up to so many cards, to prevent overcharging. Note that Chaopozisis' skill is not a once-per-turn skill like that of Midnight Regalia Nyx or CEO Yggdrasil. This is pivotal, because unlike with those cards the opponent is not safe from her skill even when at two damage. As long as you are able to set up Chaopozisis, you can use her aspect of ice to have as much power and critical as you desire. If you're absolutely certain that the opponent can't block your attack, then taking a damage on your own end may even be acceptable if it results in sending the opponent to 6 or 7 damage. Key support cards for Chaopozisis are Witch of Grapes Grappa and Witch of Oranges Valencia; while Witch cards rarely make it into Regalia decks these days, Grappa and Valencia are especially important to Nega Chaopozisis because when soulblasted they can soulcharge 2. All of Nega's text must resolve before Grappa or Valencia can however, so when using these skills you have to be certain that you will have 3 soul remaining after paying her soulblast 6 to avoid taking damage. Grappa and Valencia's on-blast soulcharges then help support Hemera and Shiny Angel in getting the soul ready for next turn. But because Witches cannot be targeted for Regalia-specific soulcharge effects, the window for getting these cards into the soul is limited. Other than riding them, you can use Cider to get them into the soul after guarding with them or bringing them out through a quintet wall, soulcharge them off of Lot Angel, and of course soulcharge the Witches through their own skills.
Chaopozisis shares her other key soulblast targets with Yggdrasil, Mirror Regalia Achlis and Regalia of Fate Norn. Both of these units give +5000 power to the vanguard when blasted, which can snowball with Chaopozisis' aspect of ice to create a vanguard in the range of 51~61000 power. The more difficult question comes into play when considering a unit to partner her with. Because of having both vanguard and rearguard skills Chaopozisis is flexible enough to either act on her own or as support for an existing boss card, so pairing her with Yggdrasil would seem like an obvious choice. But her aspect of fire will also punish you for failing to track the soul, and it's much more useful the earlier it comes into play. In a CEO deck you want Chaopozisis out before putting down Hemera, or before using the infamous Svalinn-Cider combo. When building around Chaopozisis herself, Nyx can be a useful setup card because of her draw skill, which empties out the soul early on and leaves you in little danger of backlash from the aspect of fire. Angelica is also a possible choice, but her break ride skill is undesirable in the present format because of how late it comes into play, and when it comes to a breakride critical vanguard there's very little that Chaopozisis can do with Angelica that Yggdrasil can't already do better.
From Fighter's Collection 2014 there's also Goddess of the Four Seasons Persephone. While not a Regalia unit, Persephone's on-ride skill adds three copies of a card already on the field to the soul, and when use with Grappa or Valencia this can be tremendously useful for getting Chaopozisis ready. By the time that you've reridden, Nega will have at least 6 soul to play around with, which can jump up to the magic number 9 with a single Shiny Angel. Very little of the Regalia soulcharge support requires a Regalia vanguard specifically, so as long as you can eventually guarantee your Chaopozisis ride Persephone can be a faster setup card than Angelica. But like with Angelica, the danger lies in getting stuck on Persephone without having access to your primary boss card. One of the reasons it's difficult to find a good partner for Nega Chaopozisis is that in most of the situations in which she is your main boss card, you will want to ride her and start getting the aspect of ice going right away. But with Genesis at an interim period between batches of support, there is ample time for research and testing. Make use of it.
