Today's Card Analysis: Magical Gambler

Today's Japanese card of the day is a promo card for Cardfight Pack Vol. 16, Magical Gambler. Gambler's generation break 1 activates when he stands due to a card effect; for counterblast 1 he can send the top card of the deck to the drop zone and then gain power equal to that card's original power, allowing him to attack a second time with what will normally be at least a +4000 power boost and potentially up to a +11000 boost. While this can be helpful, what sets Magical Gambler apart is when his skill is stacked alongside those of the cards introduced in G-BT01: Generation Stride.

When stood using the skills of the grade 4 unit Vict Ten or the stride support card Mecha Battler Victor, Gambler will already have a +5000 power boost placed on him, and with his generation break will hit a minimum of 18000 power. This is just enough to make a crossride like Big Bang Knuckle Buster drop 10000 shield, but if Gambler's skill sends a unit with at least 9000 power to the drop zone he'll attack for 23000 power, making his second attack dramatically more powerful than his first.

Magical Gambler's skill also helps set up for legion skills, building on the tangible advantage that's been created for going second. With effective stride units like Vict Ten and Vict Plasma available there's no incentive to drop more cards than necessary to guard, or arbitrarily force oneself into legion by other means, since a large portion of Nova Grappler's midgame is now spent on grade 4s. Magical Gambler naturally builds towards legion, stacking on top of the cards discarded to pay the cost for stride. While Nova Grappler's only viable legion units at this time are Mega Flare and Drill Wing, neither of these cards require Raizer rearguards in order to function. So Gambler can serve a variety of mixed offensive and setup roles depending on the type of deck he's used in, and by playing with the minimum numbers of 13~18000 in mind can be counted on for reliable offense.

Today's Card Analysis: Meteor Kaisers Vict Plasma & Vict Ten

The Japanese card of the day for the weekend is Meteor Kaiser, Vict Plasma. Illustrated by ToMo (Perfect Raizer, Death Army Bishop, Maximum Raizer) the card is Nova Grappler's triple rare G-unit for VG-G-BT01: Generation Stride, and the first restanding stride to be introduced to the game. Vict Plasma is accompanied by Meteor Kaiser Vict Ten, with the two Meteor Kaisers acting as successors to both of Nova Grappler's iconic past decks, Asura Kaiser and Stern Blaukluger.

Vict Plasma's main phase counterblast 2 requires him to both turn a copy of himself face-up in the generation zone and then have two or more face-up cards in that zone. While Nova Grappler has a bevy of unflipping support in Clay-doll Mechanic, Hungry Dumpty and Super Electromagnetic Lifeform Storm to support the counterblast with, without any way to turn stride units face-down Plasma is fundamentally limited to going off twice. In exchange for reducing his triple drive down to a standard twin drive, Plasma can then restand once after his first attack by discarding two cards. Because the drive check is reduced by one, the potential of a restanding G-unit is severely curtailed in Plasma's example, and taking both the drive reduction and the discard cost necessary to stride into account, Kaiser will always create at least a net  -1 in card advantage. He would make for a much more intimidating unit if he retained triple drive, but the power boost from striding ensures that Plasma will always swing in the range of ~26000 power, putting him a cut above past restanding vanguards like Raging Form, Thing Saver, Cat Raizers and “Abyss” who were always restricted to ~21000 power unboosted.

Plasma is accompanied today by the second Meteor Kaiser, Vict Ten. As noted in the R&D discussion for these cards, Vict Ten is intended to be used with Mecha Battler Victor, combining Victor's on-stride skill with his own to stand two rearguards and give them +5000 power each. Victor's skill lets Ten counterblast 1 to stand a rearguard and give it a power boost, while Ten's  on-hit stands another rearguard with the same boost, which can create either a single 26000 power lane or two ~16000 power lanes without triggers. Ten is intended as a primary early game stride unit, used to send the opponent to four damage faster so that Plasma can safely come out and overwhelm them with his restanding skill.

Victor's on-stride is less useful for Plasma than Ten because while it can be repeated to a similar effect with his restanding skill, doing so would require a total of 4 counterblast. On the other hand, running Clay-doll Mechanic can make this a non-issue, by using Mechanic to unflip the damage next turn and make sure that you can take advantage of Vict Plasma's restand a second time.