News: Cray Elemental Perfect Guard to be Distributed as Promo Card

The Japanese card of the day included a third card today. An unprecedented perfect defense card accessible to all clans, Light Elemental Sunny will be distributed next month as a promo card at the July 17th Bushiroad Summer Caravan in Japan. Past Cray Elemental units have had skills that rely on having face-up Cray Elementals in the generation zone. Sunny instead interacts with that zone in a completely different way, by providing support during the G Assist step.

CONT: Sentinel
AUTO: When this card is removed from your hand for G Assist, all fighters draw 1 card.
AUTO: [Choose 1 card from your hand, discard it] When this unit is placed from hand to the guardian circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose 1 of your vanguards that is being attacked, during that battle, that unit cannot be hit.
CONT: This card is from all clans and all nations.

Sunny's autoskill helps make up for removing a card from play during the G Assist step, negating the net -1 that a cardfighter that successfully assists has to take. In exchange the opponent also draws a card, preserving the different in card advantage while not punishing the assisting cardfighter as severely for being forced to assist. However, like the other G-perfect defense cards to be printed since G-BT01: Generation Stride, Sunny cannot protected rearguards from attacks, opening up vulnerability to Commander Laurel and Dragonic Overlord the End.

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.

Today's Card Analysis: Rain Element Tear

The Japanese card of the day for February 17th is the first grade 1 Cray Elemental unit, Rain Element Tear. Designed as unflipping support extended to every clan, Tear comes attached to a higher power base than Battle Sister Lemonade variants, in exchange for becoming effective only at the later stages of a fight and being much more conditional.

AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Soulblast 2] When this unit appears in a rearguard circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, for each face-up 《Cray Elemental》 in your generation zone, choose 1 card in your damage zone and turn it face-up.
CONT: This card is from all clans and nations.

Being from all clans, Tear will not cause Lord text to kick in as she does have a same clan as all Lorded cards, but will cause the old 2011~2012 "If you have a non-«Same Clan» vanguard or rearguard, this unit gets Power -2000." text on Great Daiyusha, Phantom Blaster Overlord and other grade 3s to activate. This is because of Tear's skill "This card is from all clans," which means that while she is of the same clan as those units she also has 20+ other clans written onto her that cause this skill to meet its conditions. Note that while Tear's soulblast skill specifically requires Cray Elementals to be face-up in the generation zone--ruling out Ragnaclock Dragon for example--if Harmonics Messiah is face-up, despite her not having a clan, Harmonics' continuous skill of "This card is from all clans," will cause her to be a Cray Elemental unit and thus qualify for Tear's skill.

Evaluating Tear in the context of other unflipping options, she only truly becomes an improvement over Lemonade when there are two face-up Cray Elementals. This can be achieved easily with Snow Elemental Blizza, whose on-attack skill turns a card face-up in the generation zone as part of its cost to get +5000 power for every face-up card in the generation zone. However, Blizza also costs a counterblast 1, so with that accounted for the actual number of cards unflipped compared to before you used these skills is one.

This may not be a bad trade if Blizza's power boost forces additional guard from the opponent, but otherwise the most effective way to use Tear is still to go through two to three natural Cray Elemental Strides that don't cost counterblast. This restricts you to just Heat Element Magum and (by way of her skill) Harmonics Messiah.



Most decks with clan-specific G unit support will not be able to use Tear effectively. At present Phantom Blaster “Abyss” is one of the major suspects for taking advantage of Tear, because this gives the deck an unflipping option that breaks it away from the Dorint-Blaster Dark Revenger combo, Shadow Paladin has no Lemonade variant, and currently the clan has no non-Cray Elemental strides accessible to it, but this will not remain true for much longer. While using Tear can free up deck space for different grade 1 and 2 units and the lack of a Lemonade means that she has no competition for unflipping in that particular deck, she is competing with Black-winged Swordbreaker for soul. Furthermore, even though Tear may be a Shadow Paladin through her continuous skill, as a non-Revenger unit she cannot be retired for either Blaster “Abyss” or Raging Form Dragon's key moves.

Tear may not be perfectly suited for surpassing Lemonade, but she can stand in for such an option as a soulblast 2 to unflip 1. Striding Magum is perfect for pushing the midgame when you don't want to needlessly spend resources on big plays while the opponent is still at low damage, and Tear lets you use skills while at lower damage that you would otherwise miss out on because of their counterblast requirements. The card will probably not be a playset in every deck, but she can find a place as a 2 to 3-of for those that need her in place of other options.

News: G Assist Step to Eliminate Gradelock, Stride Effective November 21st

Accompanying today's Japanese card of the day profile is Bushiroad's newly announced G Assist Step, a major reform to the standard Cardfight!! Vanguard rules designed to help eliminate gradelock through the newly introduced G units. The Japanese announcement was quickly followed by an translated explanation on the English web portal, reflecting the company's recent pro-synchronization stance.

The announcement has clarified the Stride mechanic further, officially introducing a Stride step that will be put into effect during the ride phase and after the ride step, effective November 21st in Japan, with an effective date for the English edition of the game not yet set.

With standard Striding, if both cardfighters have grade 3 or greater vanguards after the ride step, then by discarding cards whose sum grade is equal to 3 or greater, the turn cardfighter can Stride a G unit from the generation zone. The G unit is placed over the original grade 3 in a manner that allows the name and power of the previous unit to be visible, reflecting the fact that the G unit gains the name and power of the card beneath it, and that the card beneath it is not a part of the soul (and therefore cannot be soulblasted), but is instead the "Heart" of the card that Strode over it.

To meet the necessary conditions to use G Assist, immediately after their draw phase and before their ride phase a cardfighter must have a vanguard which is not grade 3 or greater, they must not have a card in hand that is one grade greater than their vanguard, and they must have at least 2 cards in their generation zone. By revealing their hand to the opponent, the player can then look at 5 cards from the top of their deck, search for a unit that is one grade higher than their vanguard, add it to their hand, and then choose two cards from the generation zone and two cards from their hand and remove them from the game. This last clause prevents legion decks and other builds which benefit from having cards in the drop zone from using the G Assist to accelerate.

Following a successful G Assist, the deck is shuffled and the cardfighter is able to ride normally; if the G Assist fails, the deck is still shuffled but cards are not removed from the game. Overall a successful G Assist comes off as a -1 in exchange for avoiding gradelock, giving the same loss in card advantage as being trapped at a lower grade but being able to compete with the same level of power as the opponent.

Ironically, the new ruleset will be generally incompatible with “Ω” Glendios decks despite originating from World Line Dragon's mechanics, because that particular deck is heavily reliant on grade 3 cards which interfere with having no cards in hand one grade higher than the vanguard. An “Ω” cardfighter that does not have either Glendios or “Я” Cradle in hand will likely not be able to use G Assist because of the other (non-Link Joker) “Я” cards in their hand.

How the underground community will respond is uncertain. There are several VGCS tournaments coming up on November 2nd, 16th and 22nd, with the third Tsurumai CS taking place the day after the new Stride rules take effect. Vanguard Championships have made a habit of preemptively adopting new rule modifications and restricted lists ahead of their official adoption however, and we may see our first Stride-onwards tournament results debut at the beginning of November.