News: Blaster Joker Debuts at Fourth Kansai VGCS, Phantom Blaster “Abyss” Secures Top 2

November 16th, Kyoto, Japan. Almost a year ago Nouvelle Vague and Cecilia Musketeers were making headlines having topped at the first Kansai Vanguard CS; now in its fourth iteration, the championship series returned to its roots at hobby shop Yellow Submarine. Located on the fourth floor of a vertical stripmall comprising other small businesses like a pork ramen shop and nail salon, Yellow Submarine has been a permanent fixture in the area since 2009.

While the shop may be the same, the tournament results could not be more different. There were no Kagerou tops at the fourth Kansai CS. Instead Shadow Paladin's “Abyss” deck has continued its train of restanding dominance, piloted by Minorun and Mirutae in first and second. Minorun had previously served as the Forward for runner-up team "Over There, Here and There" at the eighth Battle City CS last March, and placed second at the Hokusetsu CS last August with Cat Butler Raizers. Meanwhile Mirutae placed fourth that same August with a pure Thing Saver deck at the Kin no Shacchi CS, and first place at Hokusetsu with “Abyss.”

Deck breakdown (80 participants in total)
25 Shadow Paladin
19 Kagerou
9 Royal Paladin
6 Link Joker
4 Gold Paladin
3 Genesis
2 Nova Grappler
12 Other

The preliminaries at the fourth Kansai CS consisted of four rounds of Swiss draw, followed by a cut to top 16 with tournament brackets implemented. Both the preliminaries and finals had a 40 minute time limit and followed a best of 3 games format. Starting at noon and closing at 7:40 PM Japanese time, first place was rewarded with a voucher guaranteeing them six boxes of the most recent booster set, while second, third and fourth place received vouchers for four, three and one boxes of the same. The vouchers become valid on December 5th 2014, on the release date of VG-G-BT01: Generation Stride.

While first and second were both Phantom Blaster “Abyss” decks as typical of recent tournaments, the most striking development by far was Shokushu in fourth with a Star-vader deck--the first such Link Joker top since Glendios dissolved at the end of the last Japanese national tournament. Shokushu had previously finished second with Thing Saver at the Kin no Shacchi CS, above where Mirutae had in that same month. At Kansai he placed using Dark Zodiac from BT17 as his primary grade 3, with the trial deck card Garnet Star and MBT01 boss Blaster Joker as supporting units.

Garnet Star was chosen as the alternative grade 3 due to the constraints legion mechanics place on deck space; Garnet and Joker share their legion mate Photon, and Joker can be searched from the deck using the grade 2 Dilaton, allowing Garnet to effectively stand in for the other unit because of Joker's exorbitant counterblast cost. Garnet's on-legion skill actually sets up the conditions for Dilaton to activate by locking two of the opponent's rearguards, and with all of these factors in mind Joker has an immense amount of synergy paired with Garnet. While Joker can be a powerfully disruptive play by retiring the opponent's legion mate, and with its field lock can actually prevent “Abyss” from being able to set up early on while powering up Lanthanum by up to +15000 power, the card is also dead weight once either counterblast or soul are exhausted and is a poor early game ride.

To avoid that early game Shokushu designed the deck with Garnet and Dark Zodiac as his primaries. As with Garnet, Zodiac's persona blast locks a frontrow and backrow rearguard, while its on-legion counterblast prevents the opponent's cards from unlocking during the end phase of their next turn, resurrecting the powers of “Ω” Glendios without being reliant on a pool of “Яeverse” units to maintain those locks. During the peak of Thing Saver-“Abyss'” reign Zodiac was unpopular due to a combination of its lock skills being ineffective against a vanguard capable of attacking three times in one turn, Glendios having Rubidium to completely nullify Thing Saver's strategy by redirecting his attack to a rearguard, and the general strength of Perdition Dragons versus the Link Joker matchup. With Blaster Joker available as a dramatic turnaround card capable of shutting down the Kagerou matchup and slowing down a game in a single turn, Thing Saver's restanding abilities curtailed by the September 29th restricted list, and Phantom Blaster “Abyss” as the primary threat of the format, the conditions are right for the Star-vaders to become prominent once again.

Minorun and Mirutae's Revenger decks are notably identical, and share a very similar structure with those that topped at the fourth Sapporo VGCS and second Brave Cup. Overall the present format appears to have stabilized in the Revengers' favor. They accounted for approximately 31% of the entries at Kansai, between the Brave Cup's 23% and Sapporo's 33%--enough to hold a majority over competing decks, and almost enough to constitute a perfect third of tournament results. Kagerou is the most significant opposition, with Dragonic Overlord the Great as the current contender. Thing Saver Dragon continues to haunt the background of these tournament results, but with Seeker support mostly cut off in upcoming booster sets, it's doubtful that the deck will ever fully recover from the Neon Messiah-on format shifts.

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.

First place: Minorun/みのるん
Grade 0
x1 Judgebau Revenger (FV)
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
x4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
x2 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x3 Witch of Nostrum, Arianrhod
x1 Black-winged Sword Breaker
Grade 2
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger “Abyss”
x4 Fighting Spirit Revenger, Macart
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Phantom Blaster “Abyss”
x3 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Second Place: Mirutae/みるたえ
Grade 0
x1 Judgebau Revenger (FV)
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
x4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
x2 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
x3 Witch of Nostrum, Arianrhod
x1 Black-winged Sword Breaker
Grade 2
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger
x4 Blaster Dark Revenger “Abyss”
x4 Fighting Spirit Revenger, Macart
Grade 3
x4 Revenger, Phantom Blaster “Abyss”
x3 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Third place: Seven/セブン
Grade 0
x1 Advance Party Seeker, File (FV)
x4 Seeker, Loving Healer HT
x4 Margal DT
x2 Seeker, Platina Raider DT
x2 Certain Kill Seeker, Modron CT
x4 Seeker, Herald Breath Dragon CT
Grade 1
x4 Guardian Law Seeker, Shiron
x2 Good Faith Seeker, Cynric
x2 Sacred Wielding Seeker, Octavius
x1 Fail Seeker, Hasbasado
x4 Lake Maiden, Lien
x1 Glynngal Seeker
Grade 2
x4 Blaster Blade Seeker
x3 Full Bloom Seeker, Cerdic
x4 Crossbow Seeker, Gildas
Grade 3
x4 Seeker, Thing Saver Dragon
x4 Light Origin Seeker, Alfred XIV

Fourth place: Shokushu/しょくしゅ
Grade 0
x1 Black Ring Chain, Pleiades (FV)
x1 Recollection Star-vader, Tellurium HT
x3 Star-vader, Pixie Petal HT
x3 Star-vader, Nebula Captor DT
x3 Star-vader, Jailer Tail DT
x1 Star-vader, Meteoliger CT
x4 Star-vader, Apollo Nail Dragon CT
x1 Star-vader, Spark Doll CT
Grade 1
x4 Barrier Star-vader, Promethium
x4 Star-vader, Bolt Line
x2 Demonic Claw Star-vader, Lanthan
x3 Routing Deleter, Ganowek
Grade 2
x4 Star-vader, Astro Reaper
x4 Companion Star-vader, Photon
x3 Star-vader, Colony Maker
x1 Silence Star-vader, Dilaton
Grade 3
x4 Star-vader, Dark Zodiac
x2 Star-vader, Blaster Joker
x2 Star-vader, Garnet Star Dragon