News: Amnesty Messiah Prices Skyrocket

Price surveys of sales of Sovereign Star Dragon singles this week are demonstrating an alarming and rapid shift in price dynamics; over the course of just four days the set's second generation rare, Amnesty Messiah, has jumped up from a 1500~2000 yen card to selling for 6000~7000 yen each. (approx. $48~$56 at the current exchange rate.) The news comes on the heels of the set's other generation rare Phantom Blaster Dragon dominating price charts last weekend, with Amnesty matching Phantom Blaster coin for coin. The Abyss Dragon generation rare has since dropped to 5000~5800 yen, with his lows staying at the same ceiling as on the set's release date.

The inflated prices are likely owed to the modified distribution of generation rares in the set, as it has been independently confirmed several times over that in Sovereign Star Dragon each case of sixteen booster boxes comes with exactly one copy of each generation rare.

Prior sets Generation Stride and Soaring Ascent both distributed generation rares with the same frequency as triple rares, and the only real difference between GR and RRR cards were their foiling. Shadow Paladin and Link Joker are the highest priced clans in the set, with Dark Irregulars in third, and Gold Paladin and Murakumo in fourth.

Another reason for the rise is the lack of reliable unlock skills in the Messiah deck. Their key unlockers White Dwarf Lady Battler and Blast Monk are both distributed exclusively as promo cards rather than in booster sets. With few ways to unlock Arousal Messiah to initiate their combos, Messiah cardfighters rely on the high-rarity Amnesty to piece together their strategy.

Cardfighters in Japan are being forced to come to terms with the increasing expense of the game, as the popularity of specific clans dramatically increases the demand for high-rarity cards. Link Joker has always been one of the most expensive clans in the Japanese game, since the heyday of Chaos Breaker Dragon a year and a half ago. But the high prices of Phantom Blaster and Amnesty Messiah exceed anything seen in previous formats, as their absolute values have doubled; where 3500 yen was once the most expensive price one could pay for a single card in Japanese Vanguard, that value has doubled in the time since to 7000 yen. A game that was once priced for children is becoming prohibitively expensive for its target audience, leaving adults as the primary consumer. Two years ago Eradicator Dragonic Descendant was the currency equivalent of a $10 card, and one of the best decks in format could be afforded with a middle school student's monthly allowance. This dilemma is likely to hit the English-language game even harder with the international release of Sovereign Star Dragon on July 10th, as the most expensive standard rarity cards in the game are already $40~$45. The rarity of Amnesty Messiah and Phantom Blaster may drive the grade 4 units to $80~$100 per card, dramatically increasing the cost of deckbuilding. One of Cardfight!! Vanguard's original selling points internationally was the low cost of the game relative to its contemporaries Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering and the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Whether cardfighters would find the new decks worth investing in is questionable when one of the most important aspects of the game is that superior judgement wins out over the amount of money spent; a cardfighter that buys a $500 deck is no more likely to win than one who buys a $150 deck with similar levels of support.

Today's article was made possible by the donations of our patrons at Patreon. Cardfight Pro is funded by public contributions from readers like you.

The above buylist comes from card shop C-labo, written c. May 29th. At the time this list was written, the shop was buying Sovereign Star Dragon cards at their exact market value rather than at a 30~40% depreciation. Less than a week after these prices were listed, Amnesty Messiah's average selling price has already tripled from what is seen here, while Phantom Blaster Dragon's has stayed at a similar price point.

News: Fans Leak Sovereign Star Dragon, Murakumo Restander

This morning an anonymous Japanese retailer broke the street date on G-BT03: Sovereign Star Dragon, enabling fans to spoil the remaining unknown cards in the set online. The major takeaway of the cards revealed is Ambush Demonic Stealth Dragon, Homura Raider; a stride unit that is also Murakumo's first restanding boss card.

ACT (Vanguard circle): [Counterblast 2, choose a face down card named “Ambush Demonic Stealth Dragon, Homura Dragon” in your generation zone, turn it face up] If the number of cards in your generation zone is two or greater, during this turn, this unit gets Drive -1 and "AUTO (Vanguard circle): At the close step of the battle in which this unit attacked a vanguard, choose one of your rearguards, and return three rearguards with the same name as it to the bottom of your deck, if you returned three, stand this unit. Shuffle that deck."

Homura Raider's skill was shown off today in Bushiroad's weekly information bulletin, with the deck being played by seiyuu Morishita Shuuta, the voice of Nitta Shin in the anime series. In his fight, Morishita used the skill by using his other skills to superior call three copies of the draw trigger Cat Rogue and then return them to the deck for Homura's skill, increasing his chances of checking triggers on the second attack. Sovereign Star Dragon will hit in Japan on May 29th, and internationally on July 10th.

Murakumo's other notable cards from the set include their new first vanguard, Onifundou (bottom left) and the stand trigger Hidden Scroll. Onifundou provides a rare opportunity for Murakumo to dig into the deck for a search target for a combo, rather than to clone cards already drawn, while Hidden Scroll can superior call two copies of a card other than himself. Also visible in this image is Neutron Star Lady Gunner, a game-changing support unit for Link Joker's Messiah deck. When ridden or called, her generation break 1 locks one of her own rearguards to lock an opponent's; locking one's own rearguards makes more viable targets for Amnesty Messiah's power and critical skill.

Stealth Rogue, Onifundou
AUTO: Forerunner
AUTO (Rearguard circle): Generation break 1: [Soulblast 1, put this unit into your hand] At the beginning of your main phase, you may pay the cost. If you do, look at up to three cards from the top of your deck, choose up to one of them, call it to a rearguard circle, shuffle that deck, and at the end phase of that turn, put the unit called by this effect on the bottom of your deck.

Stealth Beast, Hidden Scroll
AUTO: Generation break 1: [Put this unit on the top of your deck] When this unit is called to a rearguard circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your rearguards other than "Stealth Beast, Hidden Scroll" and search your deck for up to two cards with the same name as that unit, call them to a rearguard circle, shuffle that deck, and at the end phase of that turn, put the units called by this effect on the bottom of your deck.

Neutron Star Lady Gunner/中性子星のレディガンナー
AUTO: Generation break 1: [Choose one of your rearguards and lock it] When this unit is placed on a vanguard or rearguard circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's rearguards and lock it.

The Shadow Paladin cards leaked include new support for the Demon World Castle subclan previously formalized in Requiem at Dusk, ToteWächter and StreitenTurm. ToteWächter is German for Death Watcher (or "Death Watchman") while StreitenTurm is Fighting Tower.

Shadow Paladin has also received specific named support for Claret Sword Dragon, in the Yearning Knight Branwen (哀慕の騎士ブランウェン Aibo no Kishi Buranuen). Branwen is a Steam Breath Dragon copy for Shadow Paladin, filling the stride-enabling gap left by Pitch Black Sage Charon.

AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Choose a grade 3 card from your hand, reveal it] When this unit is called to a rearguard circle from hand, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to one grade 3 card with "Claret Sword Dragon" in its card name, put it into your hand, shuffle that deck, and choose a card from your hand, discard it.
CONT [Hand]: When you are paying the cost for stride, this card gets grade +2.

Center top; Star-vader Technitium. Center bottom; Spiral Nebula Fairy.

??? Star-vader, Technitium
AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Choose a card with "Star-vader" in its card name in your hand, discard it] When this unit attacks, if you have a vanguard with "Star-vader" in its card, name you may pay the cost. If paid, during that battle, this unit gets Power +5000 and "AUTO (Rearguard circle) When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, soulcharge 1,  choose a card in your damage zone and turn it face-up."

Spiral Nebula Fairy ??? Girl/渦状星雲のXとし子
AUTO: Forerunner
ACT (Rearguard circle): Generation break 1: [Put this unit into your soul, choose one of your other rearguards and unlock it] Choose one of your opponent's rearguards, lock it.

Center left; Stellar Maker. Center right; Gravity Well Lady Battler. Right; Destiny Dealer.

Stellar Maker
AUTO (Vanguard circle): Generation break 1: When this unit attacks a vanguard, choose two locked cards, unlock them, during that battle this unit gets Power +5000/Critical +1.
AUTO: [Counterblast 1, Soulblast 1] When this unit is placed on the vanguard circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's rearguards and lock it.

Gravity Well Lady Battler
ACT (Rearguard circle): Once per turn: Generation break 1: [Choose one of your rearguards, lock it] During this turn, this until gets Power +4000.

Destiny Dealer
AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Choose a grade 3 card from your hand, reveal it] When this unit is called to a rearguard circle from hand, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to one grade 3 card with "Messiah" in its card name, put it into your hand, shuffle that deck, and choose a card from your hand, discard it.
CONT [Hand]: When you are paying the cost for stride, this card gets grade +2.

Heroic Saga Dragon
AUTO (Vanguard circle): Generation break 1: When this unit attacks a vanguard, your opponent may choose one of their own rearguards and retire it, and if they did not retire, during that battle this unit gets Critical +1 and "AUTO (Vanguard circle): At the beginning of your damage step, if the number of guardians is one, choose one of your opponent's guardians, retire it, and that units effects with "cannot be hit" is nullified." 
AUTO: [Counterblast 1, Soulblast 1] When this unit is placed on the vanguard circle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's grade 1 or less rearguards and retire it.

Heroic Saga's skill functionally forces the opponent to either retire a unit or not be able to use perfect defense cards. Quintet walls are functionally exempt from having their guard broken, and Heroic Saga will not work if the opponent guards with multiple 10000-power shields.

Every clan included in Sovereign Star Dragon with the exception of Kagerou and Cray Elemental is receiving a G-perfect defense, with the ability to countercharge a damage when guarded with if there is a copy of them in the drop zone. These are, by clan;
Dark Irregulars -  Flag Breaker
Link Joker- Flower Blooming in the Vacuum, Cosmolis
Shadow Paladin - Karma Collector
Murakumo - Stealth Rogue, White Heron
Gold Paladin - Holy Mage, Pryderi

Upper left; Killing Dollmaster. Upper center; Lunatic Masquerade. Bottom left; Werfleder Ordonnaz.

Killing Dollmaster
AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Put this unit into your soul] At the beginning of your main phase, you may pay the cost. If you do, soulcharge 2.

Lunatic Masquerade
CONT (Rearguard circle): Generation break 1: During your turn, if the number of cards in your soul is 6 or more, this unit gets Power +2000, and then if the number if cards in your soul is 10 or more, this unit gets Power +2000.

Werfleder Ordonnaz
AUTO: Forerunner
ACT (Rearguard circle): Generation break 1: [Counterblast 1, put this unit into your soul] Soulcharge 2, if the number of cards in your soul is 6 or more, draw a card.

Sweet Predator
AUTO (Vanguard/Rearguard circle): Generation break 1: During your main phase, when a card is put into your soul, during this turn, this unit gets Power +3000.

While these Dark Irregulars units are disappointing to some--as they come in lieu of an Izaya reprint, or generation break versions of Doreen the Thruster and Izaya that work in any phase--there are some upsides to their introduction. Lunatic Masquerade's +2000 power boosts stack on top of one another so that at the 10+ soul benchmark he has a total +4000 power booster and becomes a permanent 11000-power booster. The advantage to this over Doreen is that the soul count being increased during the battle phase will affect his power, allowing the use of Scoremaker Vampir and Kiskill-Lila to pump him up to that point. Moreover, the later in the game Lunatic is on the field the more effective he is over long stretches compared to Doreen, as he does not require redundant soulcharging to power up.

Dragon Knight, Janat
AUTO (Rearguard circle): [Put this unit into your soul] When your vanguard attacks, if you have a grade 3 or greater vanguard with "Dragonic Blademaster" in its card name, you may pay the cost. If paid, draw a card, choose one of your vanguards, during that battle it gets Power +5000.

Rising Lionet
AUTO (Rearguard circle): Generation break 1: [Put this unit into your soul] When another card is called to a rearguard circle from your deck, you may pay the cost. If you do, during this turn, that unit gets Power +5000 and "AUTO: (Rearguard circle): [Counterblast 1] When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, look at up to three cards from the top of your deck, choose a card from among them, call it to an open rearguard circle, and shuffle that deck."

Today's article was made possible by the donations of our patrons at Patreon. Cardfight Pro is funded by public contributions from readers like you.

Today's Card Analysis: Psychic of Storm, Rigel

The Japanese card of the day is an addition to Dark Irregulars' group of Psychics, the legion grade 3 Rigel. Dark Irregulars fans will be surprised to find that Rigel's legion mate is none other than Izaya, a promo card first revealed in June of last year. Rigel's Japanese release in G-BT03: Sovereign Star Dragon on May 29th will fall a week short of their card-of-the-day anniversary.

Rigel, Hadar and Izaya are actually all psychics of dust (Jin 塵 "impurity") but while Izaya's dust is sanded (Sajin 砂塵) and Hadar's is ashen, (Haijin 灰塵) Rigil's is winded (Fujin 風塵.) Rigil is the wind to Hadar's fire and Izaya's earth. His setup skill is one of the best in the clan; once per turn Rigel can soulblast a card with the same name as a unit on the vanguard circle to soulcharge five, putting him within range of Dark Irregulars' first soul benchmark and halfway to their second. Bear in mind that the key soul thresholds at this time are six, ten and fifteen soul--just by riding normally and using Rigel's skill you should have at least seven soul amassed, giving access to Flying Librarian and other six soul-required skills. Being in legion doubles the number of potential soulblast targets, making the skill not especially good for pre-legion setup and instead helping to brute force one's way to the benchmark for Rigel's other skill.

Rigel's soulcharge 5 should be taken into consideration alongside two other units, his mate Izaya and the grade 1 Doreen the Thruster. Both of these units get +3000 power when a card is placed into the soul during the main phase (Izaya only while the vanguard is in legion) meaning that with Rigel's soulcharge these units will get a total +15000 power. Doreen becomes a 21000-power booster and Izaya a 24000-power attacker, so that if both are lined up it forms a 45000 power lane. If you instead choose to divvy them up across multiple rows, you then have the option of two 30~31000 power attacks rather than a single big one.

Rigel's legion counterblast 2 is where the endgame comes into play. When he attacks the vanguard and you pay the cost, if there are ten or more cards in the soul you can retire two of your opponent's rearguards; and if there are fifteen or more cards in the soul, you can retire one more on top of that. Ten cards in soul is perfectly acceptable as a benchmark between stride turns with Kiskil-Lilla and the Abhorrent One, but the main obstacle to the last part of this skill is that if you've already reached the 15 soul mark before your turn begins then you're better off striding into the Abhorrent One to end the game. The only reason you would use Rigel's skill instead of the Abhorrent One's is if you've already run out of copies of the latter, or to avoid decking out via triple drive. These properties mean that a savvy opponent can also gain a great deal of information depending on your actions; if they are at four damage and you refuse to stride but clearly have the soul count and deck remaining to stride safely, then it becomes obvious that you don't have cards of the necessary grade in hand to stride with, and if they've been keeping track of your drive checks that lets them infer a great deal more about what you have at your disposal. Regardless, the simultaneous loss of three regards or six across two turns may be too crippling for the opponent to come back from long-term.

As for what grade 3 Rigel pairs with best, Charharlot Vampir is an option but using Hadar has certain benefits. It allows you to repeatedly cycle triggers into the deck with two different grade 3s, and each time you ride over an in-legion vanguard it builds two additional soul at a net expense of -1 to your card advantage. If your rearguard soulcharge options are limited in a particular game but you draw both units, you can perform legion with Hadar on one turn, then on the next turn ride Rigel, perform legion again and soulblast the Izaya from Hadar's legion to reach a high soul count without relying on grade 1 and 2 support units.

Today's Card Analysis: Genesis Dragon Amnesty Messiah & Alter Ego Messiah

The Japanese cards of the day are the G unit Genesis Dragon Amnesty Messiah from G-BT03: Sovereign Star Dragon and her corresponding grade 3 Alter Ego Messiah from G-TD05: Fateful Star Messiah. Amnesty is the second Generation Rare from G-BT03, and the Messiah faction's new finishing move. The Amnesty stride functions like an inverted Tempest Bolt Dragon that gains power from unlocking rearguards, refunding the costs of her rearguards that lock themselves while also granting her opponents field presence in exchange for giving her power.

AUTO (Vanguard circle): [Counterblast 1] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose any number of locked cards, unlock them, during that battle this unit gets +3000 power for each unlocked unit, and if the number of cards unlocked is 3 or more, during that battle this unit gets Critical +1.

Although this may seem lacking compared to something like the Abhorrent One that comes with innate guard restriction, the real value of Amnesty is in the combos she can pull of with skills that activate when cards unlock. Typically you can turn Amnesty into an unboosted 34000 power 2 critical line, and the purpose of this is to force guard from the opponent's hand and bait perfect defense cards if possible. The second critical gives the opponent no choice but to guard the attack when they're in the 4~5 damage range, even if it's only for one trigger to pass, and that can strategically ruin their hand to guarantee you the game. But when used in conjunction with the new Messiah support's bevy of on-unlock skills, you can strategically lock your own rearguards and then unlock them to draw benefits from that.

There are three primary units to use this with right now. The promotional card Dark Metal Chameleon is a good choice because his generation break unflips a damage when he's unlocked, refunding the cost of Amnesty. Moreover, Dark Metal has Resist and so can't be chosen by the opponent's card effects to be prematurely locked or retired, so there's very little to prevent Dark Metal from going off. Since you get to choose as many units as you like to be unlocked, having multiple Chameleons in play can also refund the cost of Amnesty's supporting units.

The Messiah subclan's first vanguard Neon Messiah is another good choice; when unlocked, by putting Neon Messiah into the soul you can search your deck for a grade 3 Messiah unit, enabling your stride for next turn. While you lose out on the boost of Neon for that turn, the net power Amnesty derives from unlocking at least two units will exceed that of Neon's boost, and the additional soul can be used for soulblast skills.

Heavy Material Dragon doesn't have an on-unlock skill, but actually locks one of your rearguards for his cost. He has the Nemain-like generation break of paying counterblast 1 discard 1 and locking a rearguard to draw two cards; by unlocking the rearguard with Amnesty, this is a net exchange of +1 while still getting your full offensive for the turn. You can also combo Heavy to Dark Metal Chameleon above, locking Chameleon for Heavy's cost and then unlocking Chameleon with Amnesty to unflip the damage that Heavy Material flipped. However, running Heavy also necessitates using base 8000 boosters to get your full offensive out for the turn.

The question remains of how you're going to get multiple rearguards locked in the first place, as just drawing Heavy Material Dragon isn't going to be reliable. By using Amnesty in tandem with the Fateful Star grade 3 Alter Ego Messiah, you can both increase the power of your center lane and ensure that you have rearguards to unlock. Alter Ego's on-stride skill locks both one of yours and one of the opponent's rearguards, creating a strategic gameplay where you can either choose to unlock only your own rearguards and activate their on-unlock skills, or you can choose to also unlock the opponent's to raise Amnesty's power further and try to go for broke on the offensive with a second critical. During the early to midgame it will be wiser not to do so, as a particular reward waits for you if you keep the opponent's rearguards locked...

AUTO (Vanguard circle): Generation break 2: [Soulblast 1] When a locked card unlocks, you may pay the cost. If you do, draw a card.
AUTO (Vanguard circle): [Counterblast 1, choose one of your rearguards and lock it] During your turn when your G unit strides, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's rearguards and lock it, and choose one of your vanguards, during this turn it gets Power +5000.

Alter Ego's ultimate skill is a partial generation break revival of Chaos Breaker Dragon's limit break, one of Link Joker's most fearsome metagame giants. And unlike Chaos Breaker, Alter Ego's skill is not constrained to the end phase; if your opponent tries to use Lock Break Campaign units or Mithril Ezel to unlock their rearguards, you can soulblast to draw off of those unlocks. If the opponent unlocks five rearguards, you can draw five cards so long as you have the soul to fuel it. Since Alter Ego doesn't include the retire portion of Chaos Breaker's skill, your opponent will still return to the level of card advantage they were at prior to the lock, but thanks to the modifications made to the end phase last April, Alter Ego Messiah can now draw off of his own rearguards unlocking because skills with a timing of "when a card is unlocked" are put into standby with the same timing as "when put to G zone." The primary function of Alter Ego is to perform a burst draw during the opponent's end phase so that you can replenish your hand immediately before your turn starts and open up options, but after a point in the game you can also keep up continuous card advantage at the end of your own turn to turtle through the opponent's. The primary issue is keeping up the soul count, as a key difference between Chaos Breaker and Alter Ego is that Chaos Breaker had multiple turns of Infinite Zero Dragon and Palladium to sustain the necessary soul count. If Neon Messiah's skill will go off, Alter Ego will only be able to activate three times before you need to ride to rebuild the soul--which brings into question if running multiple Neon Messiahs is viable or not. With over twenty cards from Fateful Star Messiah and Sovereign Star Dragon yet to be revealed, the future remains open as to what kind of additional soul support the Messiahs will have, if any.

Yesterday's Card Analysis: Abhorrent One, Gilles des Rais

"Behold, all the evil in this world stands there before you."

Friday's Japanese card of the day is a superpredator among vampires who stands apart from the infighting of Dark Zone's noble houses, the Abhorrent One. A triple rare stride for Dark Irregulars from G-BT03: Sovereign Star Dragon, the Abhorrent One is a lethal finishing move that rewards cardfighters for building up their soul in a way that surpasses all of the clan's past boss cards. Be sure to read his card lore at Arkadiaworks.

ACT (Vanguard circle): Once per turn: [Choose a face down card named “Abhorrent One, Gilles des Rais” in your generation zone, turn it face up] If the number of cards in your soul is 10 or more, this unit gets Power +10000 until end of turn. Then, if the number of cards in your soul is 15 or more, until end of turn, this unit gets "AUTO (Vanguard circle): When this unit attacks a vanguard, until end of that battle, your opponent cannot call grade 1 or greater units from hand to the guardian circle." If the number of face up cards in your generation zone is two or more, this unit gets Critical +1 until end of turn.

While past cards from the House of Amon series have advanced a center lane-strategy that uses the soul as a threshold to increase the vanguard's power and critical by, and the mutant Fighter's Collection 2014 unit Echo of Nemesis controlled the cards the opponent could guard with, the Abhorrent One unites these two ideas into a single killing blow. Several conditional factors ensure that the Abhorrent One can do progressively more damage to the opponent's resources the longer the game goes on; if the number of cards in the soul is ten or greater, the Abhorrent One's power increases by 10000. If the soul count reaches fifteen or greater, the opponent cannot guard with grade 1 or greater cards, negating the benefits of perfect defense and quintet wall skills. Finally, if there are two or more face-up cards in the generation zone, his critical increases by one--factor in triple drive and you have a surefire killing blow that will send the opponent from four to six damage immediately. With his power bonus and a booster with a base power of at least 7000, at fifteen or greater soul the Abhorrent One will attack for 43000 power, demanding 50000 shield to guarantee a block. That's approximately one-third the shield your opponent will have available to them in their entire deck with grade 1 and greater cards invalidated.

As a stride, one of the benefits the Abhorrent One enjoys is taking on the name of the grade 3 used as his heart card. Thus by striding over a unit that belongs to the House of Amon, like Demon World Marquis Amon or his legion revival Astaroth, it becomes possible to use Amon-series support with the Abhorrent One. This makes it easy to reach the requisite soul count using Hell's Draw and Hell's Deal to soulcharge 2 on-call for each, but more importantly it also allows you to take advantage of the new Amon support units introduced in Sovereign Star Dragon. The subclan's new first vanguard, Barmaid Grace, is especially relevant to the Abhorrent One. By resting her and paying counterblast 1, you can use Grace to soulcharge 2 and give your vanguard a continuous +1000 power for every card in the soul; with exactly fifteen cards in the soul, the Abhorrent One will reaches 58000 power after boosting, raising the threshold to guard him by one-tenth of the total grade 0 shield in the deck.

Running the Abhorrent One in Amon is not your only option. When using him in pure Dark Irregulars, you can benefit from their breakstride Charharlot Vampir, as well as an existing FVG from BT07: Rampage of the Beast King. Greedy Hand is an old hat combo for veteran Dark Irregulars cardfighters; the idea is that you use his counterblast 1 to put him into the soul and search the deck for Dimension Creeper (Binding Force of the Black Rings) to soulblast itself and soulcharge 2. This is a net -1 in card advantage, but with Charharlot's on-stride soulcharge 2 and additional soulcharges from the promotional card Flying Librarian, it helps expedite the initial buildup to 15 soul. A playset of Dimension Creeper can come in handy, since it allows you to effectively soulcharge an additional card every time you get Creeper into the soul, and unlike the Hell's series Creeper doesn't require you to have any specific cards in hand.

The chief difficulty behind the Abhorrent One is that his soul threshold is so much higher than what was once the standard for Dark Irregulars. Years ago it was feasible to stop soulcharging at as low as six or eight cards, and even Astaroth would stay at ten; twenty soul would only be reached very late in the fight. Needing to hit fifteen and have a third of the entire deck in the soul is a very high-maintenance strategy. Without the Amon series soulcharge support, reaching that number is an uphill battle. But the greatest vampire in the world makes it worth the effort invested, as he brings together the best of Dark Irregulars' past boss cards. Where the House of Amon struggles for total dominance of the nation Dark Zone, the Abhorrent One rejects all goals and seeks only to continue destroying, consuming and draining the world of life.

News: G-TD05: Messiah of the Fateful Star and G-BT03: Dragonic Star of the Supreme Way Revealed, Dragonic Overlord “The X” Sleeves

This past week Bushiroad has released a steady stream of information regarding the upcoming trial deck and booster set G-TD05: Messiah of the Fateful Star (宿星の救世竜 Shukusei no Kyuuseiryuu lit. "Savior Dragon of the Fateful Star" but with the forced reading of "Messiah") and G-BT03: Dragonic Star of the Supreme Way (覇道竜星 Hadouryuusei, written with the kanji "supremacy, way, dragon, star.") The most recent of these reveals has given us the set details through the Japanese products page, placing both TD05 and BT03 for a May 29th release. Messiah of the Fateful Star will feature Ibuki Kouji's Link Joker cards from the currently airing Cardfight!! Vanguard G anime series, while Dragonic Star of the Supreme Way will include support for the Shadow Paladin, Link Joker, Gold Paladin, Dark Irregulars, Murakumo, Kagerou and Cray Elemental clans.

Both the trial deck and booster set feature units that appear to be visual variations on Harmonics Messiah, the first stride unit that served as a focal character in last year's Cardfight!! Vanguard theatrical film, Neon Messiah. In the film Ibuki sought to take Harmonics for himself in order to erase the card game entirely, but only achieved his goal after he had already given up on destroying Vanguard. Harmonics then transformed into the grade 0 Neon Messiah. Neon Messiah will debut in the card game as the first vanguard for Messiah of the Fateful Star, and while Harmonics is the only card to have no original clan, Neon is a pure Link Joker. In the card lore Harmonics was summoned to purify the Deletors' home planet Brandt of Link Joker's influence, and its artwork depicted it holding Cray and Brandt on its shoulders. The trial deck's Messiah unit carries a similar theme, while the booster set's Messiah appears empty.

Supreme Way's cover card was also briefly teased in the thirteenth episode of Cardfight!! Vanguard G, where series protagonist Shindou Chrono envisioned himself fighting against a Messiah unit shrouded in darkness.

G-TD05 makes use of a complex visual pun; the name is written with the kanji 宿星 Shukusei "star of fate" but with the radical for "sun" 日 substituted by an illustration of a partial eclipse. A popular but grammatically incorrect alternative translation is "Messiah of Zodiac." Shukusei can refer to a singular zodiac (Pisces, Aquarius, Leo et al.) but not the entire twelve signs at once; for this 獣帯 Shuudai is used. Shukusei is also used in relation to the Chinese system of constellations. The trial deck is referring to a singular star with governance over fate, not a Zodiac sign that embodies a series of interconnected stars. G-BT03's ryuusei is a homophone for "shooting star," while hadou is a form of martial law that is also written with the characters for "Way of Supremacy," just as the samurai code Bushidou is written "Way of the Warrior" and the Japanese religion Shintou is written "Way of the Gods." Of note is that the kanji for Supreme Way has a black X crossed through it, which resembles another symbol found on the Malefic Deletor logo.

In other news, the Japanese Treasure Campaign has updated to reflect an upcoming promotional sleeve for the revival legion Dragonic Overlord “The X.” These sleeves are to be obtained by turning in trigger points distributed in Japanese booster packs, but as with past campaigns, overseas fans can expect to import them through secondary sellers. “The X” has been a popular figure in Japan since his rise to power in professional play, to the point of being considered for restriction. While post-BT02 tournament results have seen “The X” all but disappear from the top spots, that has not inhibited strong turnouts from Overlord cardfighters, who regularly account for the second or third greatest deck representation.