Transcending Boundaries : Grade Four?!?! Analysis on the new Grade 4

Hello everyone, just recently there has been news for EB09: Divine Dragon Progression released, and with the revealed cards so far, it seems that building a deck centralized around a Grade 4 unit may be possible!
Now the announcement about EB09 was not big news to me, and it seems that with the revelation of its' skills there is much hype generated surrounding Nouvelle Vague as a card, no doubt it will change Vanguard as a game. Although in my opinion, it does have some weaknesses, which may change as more cards are revealed along the way.

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Transendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague <Grade 4> "Twin Drive!!"

[ACT](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):[Counter Blast (3) & Soul Blast (3) & Choose a card named "Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague" from your hand, and discard it] Retire all of your opponent's rear-guards.
[CONT](VC):During your turn, the effects of your opponent's triggers are negated.
[CONT](VC):During a battle that this unit attacks a vanguard, your opponent cannot normal call grade 0 units to (GC) from his or her hand.
[CONT](RC):This unit gets [Power]-1000.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit without a same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)

Now this is not the first Grade 4 introduced, the first being the promo card Epitome of Knowledge, Silvest.

Its skill being [AUTO](VC): When this unit attacks a vanguard, if the number of «Great Nature» rear-guards you have is three or more, this unit gets [Power]+10000 until end of that battle.

You might be thinking 'well that kinda sucks, only +10k power? And with a condition attached to it? But one must note this was pre-breakride era, where +10k was considered pretty good, and it had base 13k defense, equal to a crossride in terms of raw power. However, with Nouvelle Vague, the skills have been reworked, such that it remains attractive, in an era of breakrides and Vanguards with absurd power values.

By itself, it is a 13k powered unit, so defense-wise it doesn't fair too badly. But hitting 18k for rearguards and vanguard units are no longer a big problem, so what is so great about this Grade 4? Well for one, its' Limit Break ability may seem great when you look at it, but hey, who would be so stupid to go all in and fill up all their rearguard spots, especially if they know they are going up against such a deck? Unless you are playing against a rush deck like Spike Brothers, or Jewel Knights, particularly any Vanguard that focuses on rear guard power, like maybe Nova Grapplers. But it comes with a heavy cost at CB3 and SB3, the Soulblast not being so much of a problem, unless you want to use its' skill twice, which by itself requires 6 unflipped damage and unless you get a heal trigger, or unflip damage with something like Bellicosity, the chances of using it twice is unlikely. Furthermore, you need to perform a Persona Blast, and by itself is a -1 due to loss in hand advantage, and if you count Counter-Blasting as a -1 and Soul Blasting as a -1, you rack up a -7 in total card advantage, for the possibility of a +5, which makes its' skill a nett -2. So unless you get about to retiring 3 or more (optimally 4-5) of your opponent's rearguards, the skill itself is too costly.

Then what makes this card so good? Now that comes to the second and third CONT abilities. The first of which being the one where during your opponent's turn, trigger effects are negated. Now that takes away the trigger element of Vanguard, and in some sense makes it more advantageous towards you (unless you are in a mirror match, or up against Ethics Buster Extreme), as every turn it is a possible -2 for your opponent as he has to drop more guard, relying less on trigger luck.

The other skill, which I think really changes everything, is where your opponent cannot call Grade 0 units from their hand. So even if you don't have a booster for your Vanguard, your opponent must still perfect guard, intercept twice, or guard with Grade 1s and 2s from their hand. This makes it a minimum loss of two cards for them when they could lose one card just by dropping a Grade 0. If one places a G1 Bahr to boost Vague, then it hits for 21k, which then either forces out a perfect guard, or makes them drop 4 cards/intercept to guard for 2 triggers to pass, which in this case, ruins your opponent's mood. Furthermore, it syntheses very well with the trigger lock skill, as the Grade 0 your opponent drive checks now becomes even more useless as they cant use it to guard your Vanguard, however they CAN still use it to guard the rearguards, so it does not completely amek Grade 0s useless.

Both effects are gamebreaking just because they are NOT Limit Break restricted, in this case I classify such a skill as worthy of future restriction, and I think with the support this Grade 4 is going to have, we may very well see a restriction of Nouvelle Vague after a few tournaments.

Some of the notable support we are seeing for this new Grade 4 would be Nouvelle Roman Dragon a Grade , its' on-call ability helps you get your Grade 3 so that so won't be grade-locked at Grade 2, because the main problem of this deck is the Grade distribution, where space for Grade 3s becomes tighter due to the likelihood of people running more than 1 copy of Nouvelle Vague as it has its' Persona Blast. So placing 4 of each of these Grade 3 searchers are essential for consistency so that you get a smooth ride to Grade 4.

Now because of this new Grade 4 mechanic, the structure of decks will inevitably change, and optimally one would run 3 or maybe even 4 Nouvelles due to the support helping to search out for Grade 3 rides. This makes Grade 3s less desired in such a deck as one would want to ride into Nouvelle as soon a possible to reap the full benefits of locking down triggers and guarding restrictions.

Onto possible weaknesses I see in this card is not only the heavy cost, it is also very conditional. Although it is a well-rounded card in terms of defensive capabilities and exerting pressure on your opponent, it does require careful setup and I find that against rush decks like Spike Brothers or even the 'old' build Majesty Lord Blaster, or just anything that can dish out quick damage in the first 3-4 turns before you ride to Grade 4 stands to fare well against this card. Also, because one needs to increase consistency as the number of Grade 3s are decreased, more focus and resources are diverted into increasing consistency, which takes up card space for other Grade 2s and 1s which Kagero has a lot of great cards for (like Kimnala,Berserk Dragon etc.), so your options become more limited and restricted, and you stand to lose a great deck if you are somehow gradestuck at Grade 2 or even at Grade 3, because a deck focused around the Grade 4 will tend to have consistency issues. But only time will well whether this card is actually good, and only with the revealing of more cards then can we make a better judgement on the power of a Grade 4. But for now, these are my thoughts on the new Grade 4.

But still, I might get a few boxes of this just because the artwork of Nouvelle Vague is just so amazing.

So until next time,

EndBlade