Today's Card Analysis: Earth Elemental Pokkle

The Japanese card of the day is a unit that doubles as both anti-Link Joker and “Яeverse” support, Earth Elemental Pokkle. The first grade 2 Cray Elemental unit, Pokkle's on-call soulblast 1 unlocks any of your locked cards as long as you have a face-up Cray elemental in your generation zone, providing an important support option for decks that are overwhelmed by lock but don't have reliable Lock Break Campaign support.

AUTO: [Soulblast 1] When this unit is called to a rearguard circle, if you have a face-up Cray Elemental in your generation zone, choose one of your locked cards and unlock it.
CONT: This unit belongs to all nations and clans.

Ironically, the decks that benefit most from the addition of Pokkle are the “Яeverse” decks that already lock their own units as part of their costs, as keeping around a counter just for Link Joker that's tied to a specific rearguard with no other function is overdedication when one may never encounter Link Joker in the tournaments they're attending. Meanwhile “Яeverse” decks can already anticipate needing to lock cards for their card skills, and so are able to carry with them both a utility grade 2 that can make their lock skills more effective, and a partial counter to the very clan that so often counters them.

Although not formally a “Яeverse” unit, Star-vader Blaster Joker can also make use of Pokkle to unlock the unit that he locks for his legion skill. However, because there's no benefit to repeating the skill and he's dependent on soul for using it in the first place, this is less advisable. One trick that Joker can exploit is with Infinitesimal Star-vader Mayoron, an existing support card that rests himself to give Blaster Joker +10000 power. By locking Mayoron for the cost and then unlocking him with Pokkle, Mayoron's skill can be repeated a second time because cards default to unlocking as stand even when they were at rest beforehand. A similar combo exists with the promotional card Roaring Legs Blast Monk, whose generation break unlocks a locked card for +4000 power in the battle phase, allowing Mayoron to be used as a booster. Pokkle provides one more option for achieving this combo, and the soul used for his skill can be replenished semi-consistently with Link Joker's upcoming Margal clone.

Not every “Яeverse” deck benefits equally from running Pokkle. Many of the existing “Яeverse” units can only use their skills once per turn, or otherwise have limited timings to their locks that prevent them from taking advantage of main phase unlock. Those units whose skills activate in the main phase but are once-per-turn can still benefit from unlocking the locked unit as a booster, eliminating the principle weakness of Ashlei “Яeverse” and similar cards. Below is a list of “Яeverse” cards capable of exploiting Pokkle.

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Eradicator, Vowing Saber Dragon “Яeverse” - Locking four Eradicator rearguards to retire four of the opponent's rearguards has always been possible, but Pokkle makes it easier by unlocking one of the initially locked units and still allowing for two rearguard attacks to be used in the turn. The issue with this is that Vowing Saber's limit break is attached to a counterblast 2, which severely hampers its use.

Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier “Яeverse” - The primary use of Pokkle in this deck is to enable Luquier “Яeverse” to call more rearguards than normal by using her skill multiple times and then unlocking the locked units, calling up to four rearguards from the soul in a turn. As Pokkle is technically a Pale Moon, he can also be superior called from the soul by Luquier's effect. More typically, Pokkle can be used to make two 21000+ power lanes with Luquier “Яeverse;” locking her booster with her limit break to superior call an attacker and give it +5000 power, unlocking the booster with Pokkle and then locking it again to superior call a +5000 power booster behind the Earth Elemental.

Cleanup Celestial, Ramiel “Яeverse” - Use with Pokkle is possible, but Ramiel's effect of "Choose up to three units in your front row with "Celestial" in its card name, those units get Power +5000 until end of turn" will be partially negated because Pokkle does not have Celestial in their card name. Instead, using Pokkle you can effectively retire two to three of the opponent's rearguards that turn and give Ramiel “Яeverse” +10~15000 power by locking two Celestials, unlocking one of them with Pokkle, locking two Celestials again, then calling another Celestial over Pokkle and locking the remaining units. It's entirely a question of how many Pokkles and Celestials you have available in hand, and where you want to stop. It's actually entirely possible to retire up to five units in a turn and give +25000 power to Ramiel “Яeverse” if you have four Pokkles and a sufficient number of Celestials in hand, by repeatedly calling over units to unlock locked cards and then relocking them.

Deadliest Beast Deity, Ethics Buster “Яeverse” - Ethics Buster's limit break has never been repeatable, as even if his cost is paid twice, when he attacks a vanguard “Яeverse” meets the criteria for both instances of his restanding skill, hence the second instance also can't be used for the rest of that turn. However, Pokkle does allow you to make one of your rearguard lanes attack for full power, which can be vital during the battle phase when “Яeverse's” crossbreakride rearguard stand comes into play.

Ice Prison Hades Emperor, Cocytus “Яeverse” - Due to Cocytus both sending three cards from the deck to the drop zone every time his lock is used, and superior calling and powering up units as part of his skill, trying to abuse Pokkle with him to repeatedly lock units is undesirable. However, it can be useful for restoring the unit originally locked to pay for his cost.

School Punisher, Leo-pald “Яeverse” - Leo-pald's lock skill can be used as many times as there are unlocked Great Nature units, and a common tactic in the past has been to lock all three backrow units to give +12000 power to the frontrow rearguards. On the surface it would appear that Pokkle doesn't synergize with this play style because calling him over one of the units powered up in this way ultimately grants you less power than you lose by retiring that unit. However, he can be abused by having open backrow circles to call Pokkle to, unlocking one of the units locked and effectively getting two more locks out of it. This upgrades Leo-pald “Яeverse” from giving +12000 power to the rearguards to giving +20000 power to each, locking both the unit Pokkle unlocked and Pokkle himself.

Covert Demonic Dragon, Hyakki Vogue “Яeverse” - As far as Vogue is concerned, Pokkle is not a new trick. Murakumo cardfighters have been using Stealth Beast Metamorfox to unlock their locked units and repeat Vogue's lock 2 to make the copies of himself attack for 31000 power each ever since BT14: Brilliant Strike hit. Pokkle simply adds another grade 2 option that's capable of pulling this off, replacing the filler grade 2s Grenjin and Bloody Mist that once took up space in the build.

Maiden of Venus Trap “Яeverse” - Like with Luquier, Pokkle is valuable because he enables Venus Trap to set up two powerful rearguard lanes in a turn. Moreover, since Venus Trap's limit break comes out of the top 5 cards of the deck, this also has the benefit of thinning the deck of nontrigger units, making one more likely to drive check triggers after bringing out those 21000+ power lanes.

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

News: Fake Restricted List Circulated by Americans, Fighter's Carnival Dominated by Six Thing Saver-“Abyss” Fighters

A falsified restricted list for the Japanese format began circulating on Facebook this morning, garnering significant attention for showing the alleged restriction of Revenger Phantom Blaster “Abyss” to two copies per deck. PhotoShopped to appear as though it were screencapped from the Japanese Fighter's Rules page, several errors exposed the list as fake. While the most obvious is that the Japanese Fighter's Rules do not show the restriction, the forgery also shows decentered card images in its examples of how “Abyss” was to be used. Real Bushiroad restricted lists sample card images from their online card index, and fits the images into an HTML template that centers them between borders, so that they do not touch the top or bottom of the OK and NO boxes. Another giveaway is the name of the card at the list's heading, which in real restricted lists hyperlinks to its entry in Bushiroad's card index.

Selected comments. Names removed for privacy.

As the falsified list has not been discussed by Japanese cardfighters on any of their major forums or within their blogosphere, the hoax is believed to have originated in the American fandom. While doubtless based on the overwhelming success of Thing Saver-“Abyss” decks in Japanese play, judging by the responses from English-speaking fans the intention of the prank is to play on the rising tensions between the players and Bushiroad Inc. Restricting “Abyss” is a move that virtually no experienced cardfighters would agree with, as many believe that Thing Saver itself should be targeted to curb the hybrid deck's dominance, and shutting down the Revengers' current core Legion would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The forgery is a commentary on the perceived incompetence of Bushiroad in managing the card game, showing something fans believe the company would do. Tensions have been running high between both parties for the past two years, particularly in light of Future Card Buddyfight receiving a best-of-three competitive format with a 40 minute time limit for its World Championship, while Cardfight!! Vanguard is still restricted to the popularly-despised best-of-one format with a 20 minute limit. WCS2014's new time rule has worsened matters, as it causes both cardfighters to lose the round if they hit the time limit. The distrust among cardfighters has also been tempered by Bushiroad's perceived willful ignorance of cheating, and refusal to investigate standing world champion Almeida Stewart after accusations surfaced alongside news of his robbery of a Luxembourg card shop during Team League 2014.

In Japanese news, a recent release from Duel Portal has revealed three of the upcoming card sleeves for Bushiroad's Cardfight!! Vanguard sleeve collection, based on the key cards featured in the September film Neon Messiah and in one of the upcoming cards from the anime series to be released in the film's accompanying booster set.

First is Daunting Deleter Wokshyz (威圧する根絶者 ヲクシズ  Iatsusuru Deriitaa Wokushizu) the cover card for VG-MTD01: Malefic Deleter. According to Duel Portal, the intended reading for this name is Daunting Deleter (ドーンティング・デリーター Doontingu Deriitaa) rather than the native reading of Iatsusuru "Overpowering." As Ibuki Kouji's key card, Wokshyz has been used prominently in promotional materials as the face of his personal variant on the Link Joker clan. Previously Wokshyz was thought to be Docking Deleter Graywon, Ibuki's key card from the manga to which it bears similarities, but now appears to be an alternate continuity equivalent in the same vein as Majesty Lord Blaster and Exculpate the Blaster.

Second and third are Light Origin Seeker Alfred XIV (光源の探索者 アルフレッド・エクシヴ Kougen no Shiika Arufureddo Ekushivu) and Star-vader Blaster Joker (星輝兵ブラスター・ジョーカー Sutaabeidaa Burasutaa Jookaa) representing cards from the Royal Paladin and Link Joker clans. The new Alfred has been noted to have a shield icon on its promotional mockup, normally not present on grade 3 units. This contradicts the most recent trailer for Neon Messiah, wherein Alfred was shown as part of a Legion with one of the Blaster Blade variants, and implied to be a grade 3 as a result. While this discrepancy could be dismissed as the result of applying a nonspecific card template to Alfred, as was the case with Platina Ezel two years earlier, Wokshyz above notably does not have a shield icon despite coming out of the same press kit.

Blaster Joker has been the focus of the most fan attention, as well as of attention from the card lore. Although comparisons have been drawn with the Reverse units of the preceding season, Duel Portal's article indicated that Blaster Joker will be a Link Joker unit and not a Royal Paladin, and thus far the card lore has contradicted this view. Blaster Joker is implied by Bushiroad's most recent articles to be an "Emotion Duplicate" like Star-vader Brave Fang (based on Wingal Brave) and Silent Star-vader Dilaton (based on Knight of Silence Gallatin) before him. These Duplicates are the products of copying the captive Blaster Blade's memories and using them as the basis for the personalities of newly created soldiers.

Wokshyz's sleeve is due for a September 29th release date, while Alfred and Blaster Joker will go out on October 3rd.

Meanwhile over the 17th the first Japan Fighters' Carnival was held, one of the few fan tournaments to use a three person team format. The top two places in the triples tournament went to two full teams of Thing Saver-“Abyss” cardfighters, while third was Brutus-Thing Saver, Purgatory Dragons and Brutus-Thing Saver. Fourth place was also filled by three Thing Saver-“Abyss” fighters. Decklists for the top 4 have not yet been published.