Weekly Bites reveals: Mini Booster 01 "Rivalry of PSY Qualia" launches 9/28, featuring Exculpate and Nouvelle

V-Mini Booster 01: Rivalry of PSY Qualia launches September 28th in Japan. The first-ever Mini Booster contains only 8 new cards, alongside 36 reprints. The booster contains support for both Royal Paladin and Kagerо̄, with its cover cards being Exculpate the Blaster and Dragonic Nouvelle Vague, Kai and Aichi's trump cards from the end of the manga's fifth volume. The set comprises 2 Vanguard Rares, 4 Triple Rares, 6 Double Rares, 10 Single Rares, and 14 Commons, along with 2 Special Vanguard Rare alternate prints and 16 Gift Markers based on various scenes form the anime.

Each pack contains just 2 cards, with booster packs costing 100 yen (~$0.90) rather than the normal 300, and each boxes contains 32 packs, with a guaranteed Vanguard Rare or Special Vanguard Rare in each. Every pack contains either a Single Rare or higher or a holographic print of a Common.

The grade 0 reprints have 2 versions, 1 normal version and 1 version with a modified card frame that allows artwork to completely fill the card.

This week's card reveals focus on Granblue.

Evil Shade
ACT [Rearguard Circle] Once per turn: [Counterblast 1, bind 1 card from your drop zone] Call a card from your drop zone to Rearguard Circle with the same name as the bound card.

Dragon Undead, Skull Dragon
Imaginary Gift: Protect
CONT [Hand]: This card cannot be Normal Called.
CONT [Vanguard/Rearguard Circle]: During yoru turn, for each card in your drop zone, this unit gets Power +2000.
CONT [Rearguard Circle]: At the end of the battle it attacked, retire this unit.

King of Demonic Seas, Basskirk
CONT [Vanguard Circle]: During your turn, if the number of cards in your drop zone is 10 or greater, this unit gets Power +5000/Critical +1.
ACT [Vanguard Circle] Once per turn: [Counterblast 1, Soulblast 1] Call 1 card from your drop zone to Rearguard Circle, and for each of that unit's Grades, this unit gets Power +5000 until end of turn.

V-Trial Deck 03: Sо̄ryū Leon

Weekly Bites reveals: Nagisa to use Granblue, Extra Booster 2 sleeves

Image 6 "Declaration of War!! Shop Competition"
Sendou Aichi and friends go to the huge card shop "Voyage" that used to be Kamui's home, and meet the winner and runner-up of the Asia Circuit, Sōryū Leon and Daimonji Gouki.

Gouki will be appearing in episode 6 as a member of Team NwO, Nagisa with Others. He's a rival of Kamui's.

Nagisa is Gouki's little sister, and created Team NwO from the top 3 competitors in the Asia Circuit. However, it seems she considers Kamui a "traitor"...!?

Nagisa and Gouki riding Guiding Zombie. Both of them use Granblue in the new series, with Nagisa undergoing special training to use Gouki's deck.

Upcoming card sleeves for V-EB01 include Marine General of the Restless Tides Algos, King of Demonic Seas Basskirk, Ultimate Dimensional Robo Great Daiyusha, and Sōryū Leon sleeves. There will also be a deck holder themed after Algos.

English Aqua Force Trial Deck and Extra Booster 02 to launch August 31st

The official Cardfight!! Vanguard English Twitter account tweeted today that V-Trial Deck 03: Sōryū Leon and V-Extra Booster 02: Champions of the Asia Circuit will be launching simultaneously in English August 31st, 2018. The Aqua Force TD and its accompanying booster will be arriving 28 days after Extra Booster 01: The Destructive Roar, and is to be followed by TD04: Suzugamori Ren and Booster Set 02 in September. The release date for TD03 and EB02 is the same as the Japanese release date for BT02.

Champions of the Asia Circuit contains support for the Aqua Force, Granblue, and Dimension Police clans, comprising cards used by Team Nagisa With Others (NwO) in the 2018 Cardfight!! Vanguard "Origin" anime. It will launch in Japan July 20th, as will the Aqua Force Trial Deck.

V-EB02: Champions of the Asia Circuit card listing

To be updated as new cards are revealed.

Release dates: 07/20 (JPN) 08/31 (ENG)
MSRP: 300 yen per pack, 3600 yen per box (JPN)

Contains cards for Aqua Force, Granblue, and Dimension Police.

Contains 58 types of cards; 3 Vanguard Rare, 6 Triple Rare, 8 Double Rare, 13 Single Rare, and 28 Commons. Further features 3 Special Vanguard Rare, 3 Origin Rare, and 4 Secret Rare.

Blue Storm Dragon, Maelstrom (V-EB02/00?)

• Imaginary Gift: Accel
• Illustrated by KAZTO FURUYA; original Maelstrom was illustrated by Murayama Ryūta.

 King of Demonic Seas, Basskirk (V-EB02/00?)

• Imaginary Gift: Protect
• Illustrated by Maeda Hiroyuki, his illustrator from BT02: Onslaught of Dragon Souls.

Ultimate Dimensional Robo, Great Daiyūsha (V-EB02/00?)

• Imaginary Gift: Force
• Illustrated by Akitaka Mika, his illustrator from BT08: Blue Storm Armada.

Trial Deck 03: Souryuu Leon and 04: Suzugamori Ren to launch July 20th, August 10th, V-BT02 for August 31st

More details on Bushiroad's Cardfight!! Vanguard product lineup for 2018 emerged from a flyer this weekend, giving us hard dates on the upcoming Aqua Force and Shadow Paladin Trial Decks, as well as the game's second booster set. TD03: Souryuu Leon will launch July 20th in Japan, and TD04: Suzugamori Ren will follow on August 10th. The still-unnamed Extra Booster 02 will launch on the same day as TD03, expanding Aqua Force, while V-Booster Set 02 will launch three weeks after its corresponding Trial Deck on August 31st. V-BT02 features support for the Shadow Paladin, Dark Irregulars, Pale Moon, and Murakumo clans.

Bushiroad has also confirmed that its first official tournaments of the Standard format will be starting up in June. For the Bushiroad Card Fight 2018 tournament series, the Osaka regional qualifier will be held June 2nd, the Sapporo qualifier on June 9th, and the Fukuoka qualifier June 30th. The Nagoya regional qualifier will follow on July 7th, and Hakata on July 28th. This means that the three clans in EB02--Aqua Force, Granblue, and Dimension Police--will be added to the format just eight days before the Hakata regional.

Barcgal to be unrestricted in Japan May 1st, Purple Trapezist restriction August 31st

April 17th, 2018. In a historic moment on today's episode of Weekly Bites Z, Cardfight!! Vanguard producer Shimamura Masatoshi announced that Barcgal will be completely unrestricted in the Japanese format beginning May 1st, allowing cardfighters to set Barcgal as their First Vanguard for the first time since the end of the first Japanese national championships more than seven years ago. Joining him will be Tick Tock Worker and Seven Seas Apprentice Nightrunner; meanwhile Odysseus will be unrestricted from 2 to 4. The change affects both Premium Standard and G Standard formats.

Standard format will not have a restricted list.

Meanwhile Commander Laurel will remain restricted to 1 copy per deck beginning July 20th for Premium Standard, while beginning August 31st, fighters will not be allowed to put both Purple Trapezist and the as-of-yet unrevealed V-BT02 print of Jumping Jill in the same deck. This version of Jumping Jill is said to have a Purple Trapezist-like skill that sends another card into the soul to pull another one out, which would have created an infinite loop with Trapezist. These changes do not affect G Standard.

News: Sixth Season "Cardfight!! Vanguard G GIAS Crisis" to Air, Comic Booster to Introduce "Docking Deletor, Graywon," Granblue to Receive Trial Deck

July 9th, 2015. At Bushiroad's Grand Strategy Presentation, Cardfight!! Vanguard producer Shima P unveiled the next season of the anime series, titled the Cardfight!! Vanguard G GIAS Crisis chapter (カードファイト！！ヴァンガードGギアースクライシス編 Kaadofaito!! Vangaado G Giaasu Kuraishisu Hen). When questioned as to what the titular crisis would be, Shima P was reluctant to answer, telling the audience to wait and see for themselves. The 30 minute Vanguard section of the presentation can be viewed below at the bottom of the page.

The season will introduce two new characters designed by franchise creator Itou Akira, Yumizuki Luna (弓月ルーナ) and Chouno Amu (蝶野アム). Luna's surname is written with the kanji for "moon bow" and her given name is taken from the Latin name for the moon. Amu's surname is written with the kanji for "butterfly field;" her given name is a play on the Japanese word amu 虻 meaning gadfly.

Additionally, it was announced at the conference that the long-awaited followup to Comic Style Vol. 1 will finally debut. G-Comic Booster 01: Leader and Deletor (先導者と根絶者 Sendousha to Deriitaa) will hit store shelves on September 25th, containing support exclusively for the Link Joker and Royal Paladin clans. Featuring Ibuki Kouji's Deletors and Sendou Aichi's Alfred cards from the manga, it has been announced that the card will introduce Ibuki's signature grade 3 from the manga, Docking Deletor Graywon.

The producer also revealed the current schedule for Cardfight!! Vanguard's upcoming products. In October 2015 there will be a clan booster for Aqua Force, in November there will be a set of trial decks featuring Gear Chronicle and Pale Moon, and a booster set featuring support for those clans as well as Link Joker, Narukami, and Oracle Think Tank. In December the next Fighter's Collection booster will feature support for all clans except for Etranger, Cray Elemetnal and Touken Ranbu. January will see another booster set drop, containing support for Nubatama, Tachikaze, and Spike Brothers. Finally, in January Granblue will receive a trial deck, and the booster set for that month will include support for Royal Paladin, Neo Nectar, Nova Grappler, Shadow Paladin, and Pale Moon.

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.

News: VG-BT17: Blazing Perdition Set Teaser Revealed, Vortex Dragon to be Revived as "Perdition Dragon Vortex Dragonewt," Volume 2 of Cardfight!! Manga to See English Publication

Four Japanese TCG news resource and advertiser Duel Portal leaked the first visuals for the seventeenth main booster set, VG-BT17: Blazing Perdition. Set to feature cards for the Gold Paladin, Link Joker, Kagerou, Royal Paladin, Aqua Force, Granblue, Tachikaze and Narukami clans, BT17 will feature double the number of Legion Rares of the previous sets, with LR prints for the new Legion pairs "Perdition Dragon, Vortex Dragonewt" (煉獄竜 ボーテックス・ドラゴニュート Rengokuryuu Bootekkusu Doragonyuuto) paired to "Perdition Dragon, Whirlwind Dragon" (煉獄竜 ワールウインド・ドラゴン Rengokuryuu Waaruuindo Doragon) and "Bluish Flames Liberator Prominence Core" (青き炎の解放者 プロミネンスコア Aokihonoo no Riberetaa Purominensu Koa) paired to "Liberator of Oath Aglovale" (誓いの解放者 アグロヴァル Chikai no Riberetaa Agurovaru.) The set announcement comes in the aftermath of series protagonist Kai Toshiki's Blaster Blade Seeker being stolen during the Sunday morning episode of Cardfight!! Vanguard Legion Mate, prompting speculation that Kai will be going back to his Kagerou deck to wield the new Perdition Dragon units in BT17.

The set's cover cards are illustrated by Daisuke Izuka, well known for his work on the Garmore series of units, as well as Chaos Breaker Dragon and the Revenger, Raging Form Dragon. The choice of Vortex Dragon as the namesake of a new Kagerou Legion is unsurprising, given the card's history; according to the draft papers included in volume 1 of the Cardfight!! Vanguard manga, Vortex Dragon was originally going to be Kai's main grade 3.

BT17's accompanying Gold Paladin support is to feature a second grade 3 able to Legion with Aglovale, who was previously revealed as being part of a Legion pair with VG-TD16: Liberator of the Bluish Flames' boss card, Percival. Aglovale draws his origins from a minor Knight of the Round Table, Sir Agloval de Galis, who in Arthurian legend is brother to Percival and Lamorak, and the eldest son of Pellinore. BT17 will be released in Japan on August 8th, 2014.

In other news, the release of volume 2 of the Cardfight!! Vanguard manga is drawing nearer, set to go out on June 24th, and is up for preorder on Amazon. This volume will include the promo card PR-0059EN Dragonic Overlord, believed to be the alternate artwork variant by Studio TMS which was distributed in Japan with the video game Ride to Victory! The manga launched in English just over a month ago under the auspices of publisher Vertical Inc. Vertical's translation has been well-received by fans, and volume 3 is expected follow in August.

News: School Punisher Leo-pald and Cocytus "Reverse" Revealed, Ethics Buster Extreme Shown in NND Broadcast

This morning Bushiroad revealed a series of cards following the showcasing of VG-EB07: Mystical Magus in a Nicolive broadcast, attracting over one million visitors. After the display on NicoNico Douga, Doctor O later uploaded higher-quality images of the cards to the net. Among those shown were two new Reverse cards, for Granblue's Cocytus and Great Nature's Leo-pald, the latter of which had been teased by Doctor O on Twitter the night before. To cap off the event, Nova Grappler's new crossbreak ride Ethics Buster Extreme was shown in full, bringing their strategy full circle with a new version of Asura Kaiser's skill.

Cocytus in particular has drawn attention for comboing with Granblue's Card of the Day, Banshee Strolling Under the Sea, a Granblue incarnation of Dindrane with which Cocytus “Я” can use to quickly grab up card advantage through a +2 and create a 9000-power booster in the process.

Demonic Lord of the Ice Prison, Cocytus “Я”
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Granblue - Skeleton/
Activate (V) [Limit Break 4]: [Put three cards from the top of your deck into the drop zone, choose one of your «Granblue» rearguards and Lock it] Choose a «Granblue» from your drop zone, call it to (RC), and that unit gets [Power] +3000 until end of turn.
Continuous (V): If you have a "Ice Prison Necromancer, Cocytus" in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.
Continuous (V/R): Lord

School Punisher, Leo-pald “Я”
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Great Nature - Highbeast/
Activate (V) [Limit Break 4]: [Choose one of your «Great Nature» rearguards, and Lock it.] Choose two of your «Great Nature» rearguards, those units get [Power] +4000 until end of the turn, and those units get "Auto [R]: During the end phase of your turn, retire this unit," "Auto: During your end phase, when this unit is sent from (RC) to the drop zone, call this card to an (RC) without a unit."
Continuous (V): If you have a "School Hunter, Leo-pald" in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.
Continuous (V/R): Lord.

Strongest Beast Deity, Ethics Buster Extreme
Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield/Nova Grappler - Battleroid/
Auto (V) [Limit Break 4]: When this unit drive checks a grade 1 or greater "Beast Deity," choose one of your «Nova Grappler» rearguards and stand it.
Continuous (V): If you have a "Beast Deity, Ethics Buster" in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.
Continuous (V/R): Lord.

News: Shadow Paladin and Link Joker Top Tokyo Regional, Granblue Provokes Applause in Team Tournament

Update: The decklists for the tournament are now out.

Doctor O has reported the results of the Fighter's Road 2013 Tokyo regional tournament, which was just completed earlier today. Drawing much excitement, the Eradicator deadlock that has dominated much of the tournament season was broken by the arrival of VG-BT12: Binding Force of the  Black Rings and the new Shadow Paladin and Link Joker decks with it. Doctor O listed Tokyo's Open division top 4 as Shadow Paladin, Narukami and Link Joker, implying that one of these clans made two separate entries into the top.

Meanwhile in the VF High School team tournaments, the winning team drew cheers from the audience for its Granblue cardfighter, who carried their team to the top in spite of the clan having not received proper support since April of last year, in VG-BT06: Breaker of Limits. Decklists for the Open, Junior and team tournaments should be coming out later this week, providing a view of just how heavily BT12's release has impacted professional play.

While the success of Shadow Paladin and Link Joker was not completely unexpected, these new builds being able to compete with decks like Descendant on-release is still an unanticipated upset. Raging Folm Dragon's and Nebula Lord's prices in Japan have since jumped up into the range of 2000 yen per card (approximately $20 US) and Link Joker's perfect defense Promethium has gone to 1800 JPY, comparable to Barri's price during the Japanese reign of Dragonic Overlord The End. For comparison, the Revenger print of Mac Lir is hovering at 900-1000 yen, and the RRR print of Descendant has stayed at 900-1200. Cardfighters all across the country are eager to overturn the Eradicators' stranglehold on Fighter's Road, and with only two regionals remaining there is a limited window within which to do that. One trend that has been noted by attending cardfighters is the increased prevalence of Dark Zone clans; the introduction of Reverse units has deeply empowered Pale Moon and Dark Irregulars beyond their previous eras in BT03 and BT07, with Luquier Reverse and Amon Reverse being heavily proliferated across the different divisions. A distortion has appeared in the otherwise stable Japanese scene, and practically overnight the clan of the next national champion has become uncertain. Link Joker may be just the wild card pro fighters have been looking for.

Ride to Victory Translation Part 8: Gouki

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Card Capital

Is the guy who won against my little sister in a cardfight at this shop?

Gouki-san? Whatever is wrong?


I've come to play my sister's rival!



Rival!?



My name is Daimonji Gouki. And my sister's name is Nagisa. Bring out the one who interfered with my little sister and Kamui's journey of love!


Ha. So it's you? That's a good expression you've got there. But as Team Handsome's leader, I won't be silent! This is a challenge! Face me in a fair fight! If you have the courage, come to Card Shop Handsome. You can run if you're scared.


Gouki-san. He's full of spirit. What do you plan to do?



...I see. You'll go. Yeah. Do your best!

Card Shop Handsome

Gouki-san, he came!



He's got a lot of guts, ka-boom.


You came. I've been waiting. Because you've against my little sister, Team Handsome's all troubled by you. Take a good look, at the power of the Granblue pirate deck!

Grade 0
x1 Skeleton Assault Troops Captain (FVG)
x2 Rick the Ghostie HT
x3 Hook-wielding Zombie DT
x3 Knight Spirit CT
x1 Rough Seas Banshee CT
Grade 1
x1 Gust Jinn
x1 Dandy Romario
x3 Evil Shade
x1 Ripple Banshee
Grade 2
x3 Ruin Shade
x2 Captain Nightmist
x2 Three Star Chef, Pietro
Grade 3
x3 King of Demonic Seas, Basskirk
x4 Master Swordsman, Nightstorm

(Above are the confirmed cards that we've seen; there are around 20 cards missing from this list, but until complete data can be assembled it should give you an idea of what to expect from Gouki.)

Gouki's Granblue deck is geared toward making the best out of any game, no matter how bad it's going. That said, there are a lot of ways for this to go wrong. The key units to watch out in a typical build of this kind are Samurai Spirit, Captain Nightmist, and the Deadly series as well as Cocytus, but only Captain Nightmist has been sighted Gouki's initial decklist so far. The way these units operate is that when they're in the drop zone, Gouki can counterblast 1 and retire a Granblue rearguard to call them from the drop; Nightmist specifically requires a grade 1 or greater rearguard. Furthermore, Nightmist has just an 8000 base but gets +3000 power when another Nightmist is in the drop zone, so Gouki can have a consistent 16-18000 line and every time he intercepts with Nightmist or you retire it, he can just call it back again next turn, though not without a loss in card advantage.

The way that Gouki gets these cards into the drop zone outside of using them to defend is through the Shade series. Evil Shade gives a 10000 total boost to the vanguard line by sending 2 cards from the top of the deck to the drop zone when he boosts, while Ruin Shade goes from 9000 to 11000 when she attacks through the same cost. Evil Shade also forms a consistent 22000 line with any of Gouki's grade 3s, so even if you had a consistent Majesty Lord Blaster deck at this point Gouki would be able to manage pressure on the vanguard line.

The main issue with Gouki's deck is that it's not fully invested in the idea. This deck avoids using anything but minor counterblasts, because its focal grade 3 is Basskirk, a megablast. Basskirk soulcharges 1 at the start of Gouki's main phase and gets +2000 power, so he can have a consistent 20000 line with Romario, and this also starts off a countdown to the fight. Five to six turns after he rides Basskirk, Gouki will have 8 soul and can get off Basskirk's megablast, but only if he also has five open damage to counterblast with. This is why Pietro's in the deck--Gouki's plan is to use the cheaper counterblast 1 skills from Nightmist and Assault Troops to set up, then unflip them with Pietro and/or by healing damage so that he can have his megablast ready. Six turns is a long time to wait for the win condition, but Gouki speeds it up by using Rough Seas Banshee's skill to move her to the soul and draw 1, improving his consistency by getting access to more cards from the deck while also cutting down on how long he has to wait for the effective timer on Basskirk's skill to finish.

However, trying to devote so much to both the field management and the megablast means that Gouki is effectively stuck trying to strike a middleground between two different strategies, being exceptionally good at neither of them. The megablast itself lets him call up to five Granblue from the drop zone, which will usually increase his card advantage and can be a game-ending maneuver if done well. Usually what you end up with is Gouki not being able to get off the megablast because you aren't letting Pietro's attacks hit while he has two counterblast flipped and/or Gouki becomes unwilling to use skills that could turn the fight around because he's trying to save up for a long-term strategy.



Muu. It's my loss. It seems I misjudged your power.



You beat Gouki-san, that's amazing!



I'm surprised ka-boom!


Nagisa will shed a lot of tears. She has a formidable enemy now. Well, feel free to come and play anytime. Team Handsome welcomes you.

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