News: Cardfight Online Greenlit, Commemorative Cards to be Given as WCS Prizes

August 7th, 2015. This morning Cardfight!! Online was finally greenlit by the Steam community, leading to outreach by Valve Corporation to Bushiroad to make the online game available through their software distribution platform. The online game, which was only announced a month ago, is set to launch within 2015 as a free-to-play means of playing the Cardfight!! Vanguard trading card game through the web.

In other news, Bushiroad announced through Facebook today that their 2015 World Championship series will introduce commemorative prints of existing Cardfight!! Vanguard cards, to be given to the finalists of the national and international championships. The cards currently know to be distributed are Supremacy Dragon Claret Sword Dragon, and Chronojet Dragon. Each card will be gold stamped and have a unique foil, different from its original print.

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Today's Card Analysis: Steam Fighter Ul-nigin

The Japanese card of the day is a single rare from G-BT04: Soul Strike Against the Supreme, a named support card for Chronojet Dragon that complements Gear Chronicle's time-manipulation support. Steam Fighter Ul-nigin's generation break provides a countercharge option that doesn't touch the soul, freeing up its use for Steam Fighter Puzur-Ili, Glimmer Breath Dragon and others.

AUTO (Rearguard circle): Once per turn: Generation Break 1: When your opponent's rearguard is placed on the bottom of their deck by one of your card effects, if you have a grade 3 or greater vanguard with "Chronojet" in its card name, countercharge 1.

While Ul-nigin has superficial similarities to Steam Fighter Mesh-he, Ul-nigin's countercharge has no soulblast cost, which is instrumental to a Chronojet deck that may not be using any of the clan's available legions. This answers a fundamental problem of soul management in the Chronojet deck, providing an opportunity to use Gear Chronicle's soulblast support while still maintaining face-up damage to keep its counterblast-heavy stride plays sustainable. Chronojet's stride bonus becomes functionally costless as long as Ul-nigin is in play when the skill is resolved, allowing one to use both Chronojet and Ragnaclock while only having one face-up damage. These types of plays obstruct the opponent from trying to do damage control against a Chronojet deck, taking control over which skills can go off away from them.

Like Mesh-he, Ul-nigin is limited in his immediate scope by his once per turn condition, being unable to combo effectively with Upheaval Pegasus or Chronoscommand Dragon. What Ul-nigin can do is open up Chronoscommand for play in the deck alongside other options that make use of the soul for costs, and if both Ul-nigin and Mesh-he are used together multiple countercharges can be made each turn while only using up half the soul that playing two copies of Mesh-he would. Hence, Ul-nigin can either replacement Mesh-he or be run alongside him in Chronojet decks, depending on which other grade 1s you want to make use of.