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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Spotlight: Donald William Buckley

Fighter's Spotlight is an ongoing project concerned with tracking real-world professional cardfighters across the globe.

Original photo provided by frugs, do not repost without the original photographer's express permission.

Donald William Buckley

Age: 18
Titles Won: Los Angeles Regional Champion
Current Status: Los Angeles Regional Champion (Reigning)
Deck Type: Granblue
Donald William "Will" Buckley is the reigning Los Angeles regional champion, and the final entrant in the 2012 North American national championship. A stand-out fighter among the participants, he is mainly remembered for being one of three North American regional champions in that year to not run some variation of Gold Paladin or Narukami, the dominant clans of his day. This claim to fame was considered unbelievable at the time, and as a result of it and his inexperience in the tournament scene, some accusations of cheating emerged from online critics. Unlike with the previous cases of Kanamaru Makoto and Thomas Cassidy however, none of these accusations were ever substantiated with evidence or testimony, and Buckley remains a powerful reminder of the influence of individual skill and often-underestimated outlier decks in the pro scene.

Buckley did not participate in the National Championship finals, and was instead substituted for by third-place fighter Austin Pham¹.

Decks and Play Style
Buckley's Granblue deck draws from the limit break play style introduced for them in Breaker of Limits. The main concept of the deck is to use their most recent first vanguard Captain Nightkid, along with the older cards Chappie the Ghostie and Ruin Shade, to bring key cards into the drop zone for later use in conjunction with card skills. The deck's trigger base is almost entirely devoted to critical triggers; because of the deck's ability to instantly and unpreventably send any card to the drop zone with Chappie, draw support becomes less necessary as the main strategy revolves around that same zone, also where healed cards go during the drive or damage check of a heal trigger. Dancing Cutlass and Rough Seas Banshee also act as support against this lack of draw power, actually fueling one another by sending Banshee to the soul and then using her as fuel for Cutlass.

The deck's key drop zone cards are Ice Prison Necromancer, Cocytus and the Deadly series of cards--Nightmare, Spirit and Swordmaster. The two skills complement one another, as when one is not available due to its restrictions, the other is. Cocytus' skill is activated by riding Skeleton Demon World Knight and discarding a Granblue, then riding Cocytus from the drop zone, but this can only be done when the opponent has a grade 3 or greater vanguard and only at the beginning of the ride phase, meaning it can be only used on the turn after it is ridden. So while it does not steal out the first turn advantage from them, it can ensure security and provide a powerful unit to make comebacks with. At more opportune times, Buckley can turn to the Deadly cards instead.

Nightmare and Spirit appear from the drop zone to the rearguard by soulblasting 2 and retiring a grade 1 or greater Granblue rearguard. This again plays into the soul provided by Rough Seas Banshee, as with even one copy of her in the soul after Nightkid's skill, both units can be superior called. While they do not allow for direct card advantage, there is no way to remove them from the game since they can simply appear from the drop zone if retired, and the two cards together form a base 16000 line for combating both the popular Garmore and Spectral Duke Dragon decks of that tournament season. Furthermore, when Nightmare and Spirit are both on the field, they can be retired at no other cost to superior ride Deadly Swordmaster from the drop zone if Buckley has a grade 2 or greater vanguard, providing another way of fighting and directly taking the lead when Cocytus would otherwise be unavailable or inappropriate.

Since Swordmaster himself is a base 11000 unit, it takes greater resources to assail him, and his defense puts strain on other cardfighters. Meanwhile Cocytus provides +5000 power at limit break 4, breaking the 21000+ line easily with twelve of Buckley's fourteen grade 1s, and on-ride he can counterblast 2 to superior call a unit from the drop zone--also opening up a combo with Demon World Knight by calling the unit that Knight dropped to the field.

The deck's name is a carryover from Buckley's experience with the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, being named after the Infernities deck archetype; said archetype was a very dominant deck in 2010, thus the joke is that "Infernities topped" in Los Angeles. It was named alongside his friends, who similarly patterned their deck names after Yu-Gi-Oh! as "Wind-Ups" and "Madolches."

Summer 2012 Regional Tournament, Los Angeles: Infernity
Card Pool: TD01-BT03, BT06-BT07
Grade 0
x2 Chappie the Ghostie
x4 Knight Spirit CT
x4 Rough Seas Banshee CT
x1 Captain Nightkid (FVG)
x4 Ghoul Cannonball CT
x4 Doctor Rouge HT
Grade 1
x4 Gust Jinn
x2 Dancing Cutlass
x4 Samurai Spirit
x4 Deadly Nightmare
Grade 2
x4 Ruin Shade
x2 Skeleton Demon World Knight
x4 Deadly Spirit
Grade 3
x4 Ice Prison Necromancer, Cocytus
x3 Deadly Swordmaster

Citations and External Links
1. "[Press Release] Top Four Cardfight!! Vanguard North American Finalists Heading to Japan to Compete in World Championship 2012." Official Cardfight!! Vanguard USA. Bushiroad, 6 Nov. 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <http://www.facebook.com/notes/official-cardfight-vanguard-usa/press-release-top-four-cardfight-vanguard-north-american-finalists-heading-to-ja/363826427040389>.