News: Ragnaclock Dragon Debuts in Monthly Bushiroad Magazine, Battle Sister and Raizer Subclans Boosted by G-BT01

This morning issue 15 of Monthly Bushiroad magazine was leaked by vendors in Japan, two days ahead of its street date. The issue was packaged with the promotional card Amon's Mastermind Astaroth, and revealed cards from the upcoming set G-BT01: Stride Generation, which will debut in Japan on December 5th. The new Oracle Think Tank units focus on adding one card from the top two of the deck to hand and sending the other to the bottom, while the Gear Chronicle units focus on sending the opponent's rearguards to the bottom of their deck and alternatively blocking either grade 1 or grade 0 guardians.

The marquee card of the issue is the Interdimensional Dragon, Ragnaclock Dragon. Designed by veteran artist Amemiya Keita, Ragnaclock is a G-unit like Harmonics Messiah before it, that cannot be placed in the deck and instead has to be stridden from the generation zone. Amemiya had previously illustrated Werwolf Sieger, Dark Lord of Abyss, and Knight of Purgatory Skull Face.

Ragnaclock's counterblast 1 activates when it attacks a vanguard; by turning a copy of itself in the generation zone face-up, it prevents the opponent from calling grade 0 cards to the guardian circle from their hand, and if his cardfighter has two or more units face-up in their generation zone Ragnaclock gains an additional critical.

Accounting for the power gain from the grade 3 it strides over, Ragnaclock's final in-battle stats will be approximately ~31000+ with 2 critical, lifting inspiration from both Dragonic Nouvelle Vague in limiting the opponent's guard options to units with 5000 shield, and from the mixed critical and guard control legions of the previous format.

Similar to a persona blast in design, Ragnaclock's generation skill is fundamentally limited to activate only twice per game, but G-BT01's introduction of the Gear Chronicle stand trigger Waku Waku Worker will change this.

Waku Waku's generation break 1 lets it turn a unit in the generation zone face-down after it boosts in exchange for sending it back to the deck at the end of that battle. GB1 skills will activate even if the G-unit on the vanguard circle is the only face-up generation unit, which allows Waku Waku to begin doing its job immediately, ensuring that Ragnaclock's persona generation is limited only by the number of times Waku Waku can be brought out. Since the onset of legion format in BT16, skilled stand triggers have been a favorable alternative to draws, and Gear Chronicle's Luck Bird clone Steam Scalar Gigi will make this more viable.

As a whole Gear Chronicle is more clearly coming into its identity as a Dark Zone clan in the set, with multiple soulblast options in the vein of Spike Brothers. While G-BT01's set contents are not fully known, there is by comparison a dearth of soulcharging options, currently limited to riding over the clan's legion pair Ruin Disposal Dragon and his mate Steam Knight Puzzle Iri. Following up on Gear Chronicle's other primary mechanic, Ruin Disposal is able to send an opponent's grade 2 or lesser rearguard to the bottom of their deck when it legions. Meanwhile Iri operates under similar conditions as Ragnaclock. In the rearguard Iri can soulblast 2 when it attacks to prevent the opponent from guarding it with grade 0 cards, acting as a Silent Tom with higher base power.

While Iri is likely here to stay as a primary grade 2 option for the clan, Gear Chronicle fighters will find themselves hard pressed to fit Ruin Disposal in. The clan's existing grade 3 from G-TD01, Chrono Jet Dragon, automatically blocks both perfect defense cards and quintet walls when it attacks a vanguard while at generation break 2, and with Ragnaclock's self-flipping cost accelerating Chrono Jet is going to be very easy. Furthermore, G-BT01 is introducing a complementary grade 3, Fate Wheel Dragon. Fate Wheel's on-ride counterblast 1 soulblast 1 dismisses any of the opponent's rearguards forward in time to the bottom of their deck, while his generation break CB1 blocks grade 0 cards in the same style as Ragnaclock. Paired with Chrono Jet's combination of on-stride rearguard removal and guard control, Gear Chronicle's grade 3 and 4 lineup has multiple ways to aggressively control the two most important defensive resources in the game while utilizing their soul as a primary resource where other clans would have to pay higher counterblast costs instead.

G-BT01 is also capitalizing on Chronicle's field control options, with the grade 1 Gear Wolf's generation break 1 giving it +3000 power every time a unit is sent to the bottom of the deck by a Gear Chronicle's skill. This allows for Nebula Lord-style rearguard columns, attached to cards like Iri that block grade 0s, forcing the opponent to stare down a potential ~22000 power rearguard lane that requires either a perfect defense card to block while the vanguard is demanding the same.

Key to Chronicle's striding strategy is the grade 1 Steam Breath Dragon, who when discarded to pay the cost for stride increases his own grade by +2. This effectively turns Steam Breath into additional grade 3s, allowing him to be easily cycled out for Ragnaclock or Mystery Flare, the clan's trial deck stride.

Finally, Gear Chronicle's grade 2 lineup is rounded out by its own twist on the Berserk Dragon formula, Relic Master Dragon. For counterblast 2, Relic Master dismisses an opponent's grade 2 or lesser rearguard to the bottom of their deck, which by following up from Fate Wheel or Chrono Jet can pump Gear Wolf into a 13000-power booster. While costly relative to the other Chronicle cards and making for a tight damage zone in a clan with no unflipping options, Relic Master belongs to the same family of grade 2 control units as Gwynn the Ripper, that have defined and sometimes broken other clans in the line of professional competition.

This issue also confirmed additional support for Oracle Think Tank's emergent Susanoo and Battle Sister subclans. For Susanoo, the Steam Breath Dragon clone Battle Deity Ame no Murakumo's on-call skill searches for grade 3 Susanoo units. The grade 3 clause prevents it from searching Susanoo's grade 2 incarnation, preventing it from aiding Ohirume legion decks.

Meanwhile Battle Sister Mille-Feuille's on-ride skill is a modern implementation of Monaka, Parfait and Cookie's basic +1s, drawing a card for counterblast 1 soulblast 1. Her generation break 1 is to counterblast 2 and add one card to hand from the top 2 cards of the deck, then send the remaining card to the bottom, a generation break variant on Heaven Conquering Battle Deity Susanoo's on-stride skill.

Oracle Think Tank will also be getting its first stride unit, Auspicious Beast That Soars Through Heaven, Kirin. Kirin's on-hit skill has the same effect as Mille-Feuille and Susanoo, but is costless in exchange for being an on-hit. With the strong power boost of a stride unit that can be activated early game and triple drive backing it, the on-hit is much easier to get through compared to limit break or innate grade 3 skills.

Accompanying the Nova Grapplers' upcoming Mecha Battlers in Stride Generation is mixed support for the Raizer and Beast Deity subclans. While the Beast Deities have already been announced to receive a limit break enabler in Frog Master, the Raizers are now benefiting from a new advantage-focused grade 1. Katana Raizer's continuous rearguard skill gives an on-hit CB2 draw skill to both itself and all Raizers in the same column as itself, giving the mostly counterblast-free subclan better draw consistency and pressure attacks.

Nova's clanwide boss card Muscle Shriek has an on-ride with the same cost as Mille-Feuille above, to retire an opponent's rearguard with same level of power as one of Shriek's grade 1 or lesser units. This makes Shriek the first Nova Grappler with true field control, able to take out the opponent's boosting units; its generation break 1 stands two rearguards for counterblast 1 and gives them +2000 power each, ensuring one to two more attacks that always strike for more than the preceding blows.

Royal Paladin's stride unit, Sacred Dragon Saint Blow Dragon, is a revitalization of the old King of Knights strategy. By turning a copy of itself in the generation zone face-up during the main phase, Saint Blow receives 3000 power for every rearguard in play, and if there are two or greater rearguards along with two or more face-up cards in the generation zone, Saint Blow gains an additional critical. Saint Blow is intended to be complemented by the trial deck card Knight of Blue Heavens Altomile, who follows the traditional Soul Saver/Sanctuary of Light formula.

On-stride Altomile's counterblast 1 allows two cards to be called from hand, and then for two units to gain +5000 power. While not required for the rest of the skill to complete, the hand calling is done to cope with the specific timing of the stride step, which takes place after the ride step but before the main phase.

In the current format it's feasible not to have two rearguards to give power to after striding, so by accounting for this factor Altomile overcomes Soul Saver Dragon's old weakness. Furthermore, Altomile's generation break 2 strengthens the rearguard lines by +5000 power, providing an endgame after copies of Saint Blow are exhausted. Combining the two creates a high-power center lane in the style of classic Alfred, alongside strong rearguards. Typical numbers post-stride would look like ~21000 power for both rearguards, and 41~48000 2 critical for the vanguard.

The issue was closed with the debut of a new original unit, the winner of 2014's contest submission. Like Avectro Zeus before it, "Regalia of Yin and Yang Nega Keiopojishisu" (陰陽の神器 ネガ・ケイオポジシス) is designed by one of Monthly Bushiroad's child readers as part of a submission contest, and will be made into a promo card for an upcoming issue.

Study Guide: Oracle Think Tank

 Photo by rawritzrichii, not to be reposted elsewhere without the original photographer's express permission.

Oracle Think Tank is one of the more intensive clans to play, requiring a great deal of forethought and planning to control the overall direction of a fight. Their strategy can be summarized as predicting the future; both the immediate future just moments away, and the distant future up to several hours in advance. As one of the oldest clans in Cardfight, Oracle came out of the box with its prediction strategy enduring to this day.

Like all Descent of the Knight King-era first vanguards, Lozenge Magus (and her reprint, Sphere Magus) is designed to leave the field. When ridden over, she moves to any rearguard circle of her fighter's choosing. And when boosting, Lozenge adds an additional +3000 to the attack, making her a solid +6000 power booster that can either form a 13000-power line with most grade 1 vanguards that will make the attack difficult to justify guarding, or set the second turn up for forming a 16000-power line with Wiseman. Cards like these are a form of hand conservation. Lozenge comes from "nowhere," taking nothing away from your hand and instead giving you a free unit. When compared to the likes of Stardust Trumpeter, Undeux and Kaleido Ace, you will generally call one less unit because you are gaining one automatically, removing the pressure from your hand. The flip side of this is that after boosting, Lozenge then returns to the deck in the end phase, and while this resets her user's card advantage back to 0, it's par for the course of a set 1 FVG.

Another option is to move Lozenge to a forward-facing rearguard circle and then call Gemini as a booster for her. This unusual method can produce an 11000 column that is occasionally sufficient for the first turn, but opens Lozenge up to being retired, and requires briefly flipping the column around to cycle her into the deck and open a circle up for Gemini to boost something more powerful once the game proper gets underway. That maneuver will likewise open Gemini up to attack, and still ultimately leaves Lozenge's fighter at a disadvantage while possibly deepening the disadvantage by ending with Gemini retired. Thus, Lozenge is usually best used as a booster on the first turn.

With the upcoming set 7 "Rampage of the Beast King," OraThin gets a new first vanguard for their old style of play. Like Lozenge, Battle Sister, Eclair moves to the rearguard when ridden over, and while her 4000 power won't be bringing any rearguards to speed, it can work with some vanguard OraThin skills that give power bonuses. More importantly, Eclair's skill is to counterblast 1 in the main phase, then soulcharge herself and look at the top five cards of the deck for a grade 3 Oracle Think Tank and add that unit to hand. While the random nature of this skill is a key weakness to Eclair, the resulting lack of advantage is essentially the same as using Lozenge while providing the opportunity to gain a one-card boost, and OraThin is a heavily soul reliant clan that benefits from having more cards in the soul. Even if Eclair doesn't grab a grade 3 for you, her presence in the soul can combo with some other cards described below like Luck Bird, or otherwise fuel vanguard soul-based skills. Most of these types of units don't have an argument for them because their skill is most useful later in the game when retire-based units like Gwynn, Saishin, Tejas, Blaster Blade and Berserk Dragon have hit the field, but in Eclair's case using her on the very first turn can be an enormous benefit to OraThin's play style.

While there's no particular grade 3 that Lozenge or Eclair are intended to work with, the units introduced in OraThin's debut set are CEO Amaterasu and Oracle Guardian, Apollon. Amaterasu will be the focus here, as Apollon is intended for the rearguard circle. Like her contemporary Vortex Dragon and Lohengrin, Amaterasu is a megablast unit that can counterblast 5 and soulblast 8 with a particular timing to achieve a clan-related effect. In her case, this skill is active in both the vanguard and rearguard circles, and she can activate it when her attack hits to draw five cards. This is fueled by her autoskill, soulcharging 1 at the start of the main phase; unlike the aforementioned units and more in the vein of Mr. Invincible, this skill is clan-related. While most megablast units gain +2000 power from their soulcharge, Amaterasu instead looks at the top card of the deck and choose to place it on the top or bottom. This is where Oracle Think Tank's short-term prediction abilities come in, because this lets you immediately know whether top card of the deck is a trigger or not, and if it isn't you can then place it on the bottom, or otherwise leave a good card on top to wage psychological warfare with the opponent while adding a good card to your hand.

The booster that ties in best to Amaterasu is Weather Girl, Milk. Milk's skill is simple--at the time that she boosts an Oracle Think Tank vanguard, if you have four or more cards in hand, the unit that she boosts will then gain a total +10000 bonus, bringing Amaterasu up to speed with 9000- and 10000-power vanguards. This also ties to Amaterasu's continuous skill, which gives her +4000 power when you have 4 or more cards in hand, for a 24000 total. However, while Amaterasu's skill will kick in even if you drive check your third and fourth cards, Milk's skill requires that you have four cards in hand when you boost with her. So if you only have two cards in hand and then use these two together, the sum power will only be 20000, not 24000, which gets in the way of fighting 11000-power vanguards.

If you know ahead of time that you'll only have two or three cards in hand during the boost, Gemini makes a better call than Milk does. With Gemini's 8000-power boost, Amaterasu can then reach 22000, just enough to get the same effect as Milk versus all but crossride units. The reason that 22000-24000 is such an important number is that experienced players usually guard your attacks to account for at least one trigger. When your attack power is just 20000, most vanguards will need one 10000 shield card and one 5000 shield card to defend with, but when it's at 22-24000, they'll need two 10000 shield cards. And at three or more damage, most people guard for two triggers, being wary of the maligned double-critical. So that's three 10000-shield cards and one 5000, taking four cards right out of their hand and leaving them open to pressure from your rearguards.

And speaking of rearguards, OraThin has one of the strongest grade 2 units in the existing game. Silent Tom only has 8000 power, and so will most certainly need Gemini to oppose higher-power vanguards, but his skill prevents him from being guarded with a grade 0 unit as long as you have an Oracle Think Tank vanguard. No grade 1 unit has a shield of 10000--only through specific, counterblast-based skills can a grade 1 unit achieve that amount of shield. So Silent Tom with Gemini automatically demands two cards to defend against, and if you apply one trigger to him, he now demands three. Amaterasu, Milk, Tom and Gemini applied together correctly can drain as many as six cards on a well set-up turn, barring a perfect defense coming into play.

Stressing the emphasis on prediction are the duo of Circle Magus and Battle Sister, Cocoa. Like Amaterasu, Magus allows you to examine the top card of the deck, this time when she's ridden or called. However, Circle requires you to leave the card on the top. Cocoa has just 6000 power, 1000 less than Magus, but lets you choose whether it goes on the top or bottom. These two, when used in a proper sequence with Amaterasu, can help you ensure that the top card of your deck is a trigger, or otherwise build a stack of cards on the bottom of your deck that you can eventually drive check into by using these units with OTT's draw skills to shave off the cards between you and your stack.

Aiding this is Luck Bird. Like Tom, Luck Bird is a part of the second set, and in the style of Amaterasu he brings into play OraThin's draw mechanics. For a soulblast two, when called Luck Bird can immediately draw one card, giving his cardfighter a one-card advantage right off the bat while providing a sufficient booster for Wiseman or Apollon to oppose 10000-power units with. Because this drains the soul, Luck Bird brings in a case for Eclair and her return-to-soul model rather than Lozenge's cycling-out style of play. That way, with Amaterasu's soulcharge taken into account, up to two Luck Birds can be used in one game (as long as you don't mind missing out on the megablast, but this usually doesn't go through in the first place.)

In addition to Silent Tom and the standard Wiseman, another recommendable grade 2 for OraThin is Battle Sister, Mocha. While like Tom, she has just 8000 power, when she attacks and you have four or more cards in hand, her power increases by +3000; this isn't enough to break the 20000 line even with a powerful booster, but it can let her get by with Luck Bird or Eclair as a boosting unit, and she's very likely to hit that number since you should be trying to have four cards in hand in the first place for Amaterasu and Milk.

Oracle Guardian, Apollon and Maiden of Libra bring a different variety of pressure. Most cardfighters prefer to either block a weaker rearguard and then take a full attack from the vanguard, or put everything into stopping the vanguard while taking both rearguard attacks. Apollon and Libra work differently--both of them counterblast 2 to draw a card when their attack hits. In the vanguard circle, Apollon pays the same cost to draw 2 and then return a card from the hand to the deck. Apollon's vanguard skill is actually less desirable because he then forces you to shuffle the deck, ruining your growing stack of cards, but in the rearguard these two units force the opponent to guard in order to stop you from gaining hand advantage. They can also combo versus 9-10000 power units (11000 for Apollon) with Moonsault Swallow, a 6000-power grade 1 that returns to hand when the attack of the unit that it boosts hits. If the attack is spent on a rearguard, you present to your opponent a scenario in which they would lose one card while you add two to your hand, giving you a potential minimum of 10000 and a maximum of 15000 extra shield to stop their attacks with. This forces the opponent to go from guarding just one or two units in the turn to all three, and as mentioned with Amaterasu and Silent Tom, they're already going to be down six cards by the end of that turn. In Apollon and Libra's case, that's an additional 10000 shield that they may just not have to spare, occasionally forcing them to accept you gaining a large lead in hand over them.

When I revisit this clan next, I'll be discussing their six-soul play style and the Goddess of the Full Moon, Tsukuyomi.

News: Extra Boosters 4 and 5 Announced

Today VG-EB04: Infinite Phantom Legion and VG-EB05: Celestial Valkyries were announced, revealing two sets introducing long anticipated support for Nova Grappler and Oracle Think Tank. Each of these sets, following the 35-card format of prior extra booster sets, will feature 29/28 key cards reprinted from the clan's past releases plus six new Death Army units and seven Battle Sister units, respectively. Set for a November 17 Japanese release, most prominently the sets feature an Ultimate Lifeform, Cosmolord crossride and a Battle Sister unit receiving promotion on par with Tsukuyomi of BT03. With an English release likely to follow in coming months, the current timing of these two sets could be no better for the international scene, where Trial Decks 02: Golden Mechanical Soldier and 03: Princess Maiden of the Cherry Blossoms are being postponed for later release. The timing of EB04 and EB05 could point to a similar release pattern between the English versions of TD02 and 03, creating a massive influx of support for Nova Grappler and Oracle Think Tank, and in turn strengthening them in the international metagame. This would be much akin to Granblue's current spread in North America.

Past Death Army cards have focused toward supporting Asura Kaiser, trading lower power for self-standing skills and being able to form a 16000 power line when lined up with one another. When used correctly in conjunction with Asura Kaiser, their strategy allows for a total up to five attacks in one turn capable of assailing 11000-power units without the use of triggers. Although this leaves a fairly narrow playing field for new entries in the series, one speculation is that the new Death Army cards will be able to mount more than full-power strikes upon standing, to level the playing field between them and 13000-power crossrides.

Most interesting of all is the Cosmolord crossride card. While not technically confirmed by official sources, the artwork for Infinite Phantom Legion is being universally lined up as a crossride to reinforce the 11000-saturated Nova Grapplers. Fittingly, Cosmolord is one of the Nova Grapplers' scarce units that can attain more than 20000 power consistently, particularly through an established combo with Meshrad Roid. Exactly how the crossride will behave is uncertain, but Nova cardfighters can expect to compete with their Kagerou and Dimension Police contemporaries this November.

In addition to the praise it's garnered, this announcement also completely dismisses past rumors of a Nubatama-based EB04.