News: Glendios Cardfighter Wins Fireball VGCS, “The Яe-birth” and Tempest Bolt Top in Kitakyuu Championship, EB07 Sneak Preview for April

Four different VGCS tournaments took place over the weekend; the third Laketown VGCS held by card shop Fireball, the Juushinhai "Beast Deity Cup" tournament held at Minami-Koshigaya in Saitama, the Kitakyuu CS, and the Half Moon CS at Honchouku hall in Shibuya. The decklists from Fireball and Juushinhai are still pending, but the results of the tournaments are already known without them. The Fireball CS is getting attention for being the first publicized victory for Star-vader "Ω" Glendios, run by Link Joker cardfighter Kado. Turnout was relatively low, with just 34 persons attending due to poor weather, and twelve among them playing Kagerou decks, but Kado's success with Omega is still being treated cautiously as what may be the first of many shots fired.

The Beast Deity Cup meanwhile was taken by a fighter reportedly playing a Dragonic Overlord "The Яe-birth" deck. Being just one among fourteen Kagerou cardfighters that held a majority stake in the tournament, Hisui's Overlord made it to the top 4 alongside two other Overlord and a Beast Deity cardfighter. Tournament organizer Shaon tweeted that the deck recipes will go up within the next few days. The remaining 45 decks entered broke down as follows;

14 Kagerou (6 Overlord 4 Dragonic Nouvelle Vague 1 Dauntless Dominate Dragon "Я")
11 Nova Grappler ( 9 Ethics Buster 1 Asura Kaiser 1 Blau series)
4 Pale Moon (all Luquier)
4 Link Joker (3 Chaos Breaker Dragon 1 Omega Glendios)
4 Gold Paladin (3 Gancelot Zenith 1 Alfred)
3 Shadow Paladin (2 Raging Form Dragon 1 Dragruler Phantom)
1 Genesis
1 Dimension Police
1 Megacolony
1 Narukami

Over at the Kitakyuu CS first place went to Botan using Dragonic Nouvelle Vague, while second place was taken by Sutepo!'s [sic] Tempest Bolt Dragon. Nouvelle is a familiar face in professional play for his widespread success in fan tournaments and for putting Conroe on the restricted list, and Botan has not strayed far from established conventions. The one experimental point in his deck is the use of the BT15 break ride print of Dragonic Overlord in combination with Dauntless Drive Dragon, giving him multiple options for a self-standing break ride skill prior to going into Nouvelle Vague for his endgame, and the ability to break ride multiple times with different types of skills coming out of that. Vague by himself already attacks with a high base power, negates the opponent's damage triggers and can't be defended with grade 0 units, so attacking twice typically takes out around 6~8 cards in a single turn. The card is scheduled to hit American shores in June. Tempest Bolt meanwhile has been a very rarely seen competitor in the BT14-on format, but has been praised for the innovations that he's brought to the game. A base 11000 Narukami grade 3, his continuous skill gives him +2000 power for each unoccupied rearguard circle during his fighter's turn, so that any field commitment on her part decreases Tempest's final power even though it improves field position, while withholding cards from play can become advantageous for how it improves the vanguard's independent attack.

Furthermore, Tempest's limit break retires all rearguards in play, crippling decks that can't regain card advantage easily at the price of his own card lead. This has been instrumental for Narukami's Overlord matchup in the new format as Dragonic Overlord “The Яe-birth” needs five rearguards to Lock to use his limit break, thus necessitating the dedication of five new rearguards and demanding more field dedication from Kagerou fighters than from Tempest's, and somewhat less so for the Nouvelle matchup due to part of that deck's vanguard-intensive strategy relying on frontrow field presence to make his trigger cancelling skill more effective. Sutepo!'s success is made all the more impressive by him being just one of two Narukami cardfighters in the house. The Kitakyuu decklists can be jumped to directly by searching the page for [KKVGCS]. The total clan breakdown for the tournament was as follows;

20 Kagerou

10 Shadow Paladin

7 Gold Paladin

4 Link Joker

4 Pale Moon

3 Royal Paladin

3 Megacolony

3 Genesis

2 Nova Grappler

2 Narukami

1 Nubatama

1 Angel Feather

1 Oracle Think Tank

1 Neo Nectar

1 Bermuda

1 Murakumo

Lastly, in the Half Moon team CS on March 1st, a team comprised entirely of Shadow Paladin Revenger cardfighters won the tournament, with second place going to a team comprised of Aqua Force, Holy Shine Dragon, Dragonic Overlord, Monarch Sanctuary and Dauntless Dominate fighters. The championship used a somewhat unorthodox model, with no clan restrictions, and 32 teams of five cardfighters competing in a format where a team would win as soon as three of its members had won their games. The tournament began with four rounds of Swiss draw followed by a cut to the top 8 teams. Entry was 5000 yen per team (1000 yen per person or $50 total) with first place getting five Nintendo 3DS systems, second place getting ten boxes of VG-BT15: Infinite Rebirth and third place five boxes. The total prize pool was thus around 160,000 yen or $1500.

Although the composition of every team member's deck is not known, one member "Ekusu" photographed his list to the net, showing a combination of Phantom cards and Raging Form Dragon with the popular Sword Breaker from BT15 to work in conjunction with the Phantom support. The decklist is provided below under the heading [HMVGCS].

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 other news, the Sneak Preview tournament for VGE-EB07: Mystical Magus is coming up next month on April 4, 5 and 6, and will feature Pentagonal Magus as the participation prize for taking part in the tournament. Pentagonal was originally distributed with volume 6 of the manga in Japan, and is generally accepted as the most suitable partner unit to the deck's break ride Hexagonal Magus, as her limit break effectively gives her an extra critical trigger by granting her +5000 power and +1 critical if her cardfighter can successfully guess the top card of the deck when she attacks, and Hexagonal's break ride skill allows them to look at and rearrange the top two cards before then. Fittingly, the mat for the seventh extra booster will feature Hexagonal Magus, with artwork provided by Itou Akira.

Kitakyuu VGCS [KKVGCS]
Botan/ぼたん
Grade 0
x1 Red Pulse Dracokid (FV)
x4 Seal Dragon, Shirting HT
x2 Seal Dragon, Artpique DT
x4 Gattling Claw Dragon DT
x4 Seal Dragon, Biera CT
x2 Blue-Ray Dracokid CT
Grade 1
x4 Nouvelle Roman Dragon
x4 Seal Dragon, Rinocross
x3 Calamity Tower Wyvern
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
Grade 2
x4 Nouvelle Critique Dragon
x4 Berserk Dragon
x2 Bellicosity Dragon
x1 Dragonic Burnout
Grade 3
x3 Dragonic Overlord (BT15/004)
x2 Dauntless Drive Dragon
Grade 4
x4 Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague

Sutepo!/すてぽ！
Grade 0
x1 Spark Kid Dragoon (FV)
x4 Eradicator, Blue Gem Carbuncle DT
x4 Sacred Spear Eradicator, Pollux CT
x4 Eradicator, Yellow Gem Carbuncle CT
x4 Worm Toxin Eradicator, Seiobo HT
Grade 1
x4 Eradicator, Wyvern Guard Guld
x4 Eradicator, Demolition Dragon
x3 Ceremonial Bonfire Eradicator, Castor
x3 Rising Phoenix
Grade 2
x4 Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Cho-Ou
x4 Eradicator, Spark Rain Dragon
x3 Supreme Army Eradicator, Zuitan
Grade 3
x4 Eradicator, Tempest Bolt Dragon
x2 Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant
x2 Eradicator, Vowing Sword Dragon

Half Moon VGCS [HMVGCS]
Ekusu/エクス
Grade 0
x2 Judgebau Revenger (FV)
x4 Grim Revenger CT
x4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon CT
x4 Freezing Revenger DT
x4 Healing Revenger HT
Grade 1
x2 Black-winged Sword Breaker
x2 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x1 Brunt Revenger, Shadow Lancer
x3 Self-control Revenger, Rakia
x1 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
x4 Dark Revenger, Mac Lir
Grade 2
x2 Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu
x3 Wiles Revenger, Mana
x2 Nullity Revenger, Masquerade
x4 Overcoming Revenger, Lukea
Grade 3
x2 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom
x2 Revenger, Dragruler Phantom
x4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon