Now this is a picture of my deck (for now), taken with a potato (this is what happens when you spend your money on card games....haha)
Oops the top part got cut off slightly x.x
Decklist:
Grade 0:
Total: 17
Red Pulse Dracokid (SVG) x1
Gattling Claw Dragon (Draw) x2
Seal Dragon, Artpitch (Draw) x4
Seal Dragon, Biera (Critical)
x4
Embodiment of Spear, Tahr (Critical) x2
Seal Dragon, Shading (Heal) x4
Grade 1:
Total: 14
Seal Dragon, Rinocross (Perfect Guard) x4
Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara x2
Seal Dragon, Kersey x2
Dragon Monk, Gojo x2
Embodiment of Armor, Bahr x4
Grade 2:
Total: 11
Dragon Knight, Nehalem x2
Seal Dragon, Corduroy x3
Berserk Dragon x2
Seal Dragon, Hunger Hell Dragon x4
Grade 3:
Total: 8
Dauntless Drive Dragon x4
Dragonic Overlord the End x4
Now this deck does not differ much from some other deck profiles that others have done, I run the Sealed Dragon lineup from Grade 0 to 2 just for Corduroy's effect where he need Especial Counterblast of 1 in order to activate his on-call effect. My starting Vanguard is Red Pulse Dracokid, although Conroe is a more reliable alternative, and can help you filter out your Bahrs and Rinocrosses, I prefer the Grade 3 searcher, because usually you will want to ride Dauntless Drive as your first Grade 3, and either use Red Pulse's ability to check the top 5 cards of your deck to search for either another Dauntless Drive if you want to breakride over breakride, or search for a copy of Dragonic Overlord the End, and this is useful for searching out DOTE even if you already have DOTE, just for the Persona Blast threat to your opponent. Also, I usually don't face any trouble, I have rarely misgraded, and even I did, i usually get gradestuck at Grade 2 more often than at Grade 0 or 1, simply because I run 14 Grade 1s and 11 Grade 2s, and by the time you usually reach the ride phase to Grade 2, you usually have one or more Grade 2s in your hand. Now the downside of running Red Pulse is that firstly he is a 4k booster, and runs into some trouble if you boost DOTE at Grade 3 which hits for only 15k, 1k short of the 16k barrier mark you ideally want to hit. But this is no big deal for Dauntless which can hit for 13k by itself if you have more rearguards then your opponent, making it 17k when boosted by Dracokid. Another problem that you might face if you don't run Conroe is that you cant search for boosters or perfect guards, and sometimes this might be quite crucial especially if you are playing against decks that retire your field or lock your boosters, Kagero finds it difficult to hit particularly high numbers without boosting, with the exception of breakriding. But the aim of the deck is to make sure you get Daunltess first, so Red Pulse does help quite a bit, although if played incorrectly you might end up with a ton of Grade 3s and nothing as guarding fodder (I got into this situation a few times), so timing is crucial knowing when to use Red Pulse's ability and when not to. Ultimately both are useful and Conroe is more reliable, but I just prefer Dracokid.
Now the trigger lineup I chose 6 Draw, 6 Criticals and 4 Heals. You don't run Stands because nowadays there are so many rearguard disabling abilities, with Lock and archetypes like Eradicators, sometimes having a full field may be difficult. The reason why I run so many draws is for Dauntless' effect, which is a costly nett -1 in hand advantage if you use its' breakride effect to re-stand your Vanguard, and not to mention sometimes you need to pop pesky Grade 0s or power up your units by +3k, the two draw triggers do perform this function well, and emphasizes what Kagero is all about: not brute force, but control and utility.
Criticals are always useful. Dont' ask why. And for Heals if you don't run the maximum 4 copies then you are better off running 16 Criticals.
For the Grade 1s I run Kimnara instead of Heatnail, beacuse Kimnara doen't need to boost and hit to activate its' effect, and can be called and used immediately, 2 is enough and throughout the game I usually get to see one or even two in my hand. Seal Dragon Kersey and Dragon Monk Gojo both perform the same task, to thin the deck for triggers and get rid of cards that are dead in the hand, like excessive Grade 3s, or even to ditch cards to filter for a Grade 3 if you don't have one in your hand. Bahr is there as a solid 8k booster and preferred ride target, and to run less then 4 would be as good as running none. 4 Rinocrosses, because its' good. And perfect guards are better at 4 (or 3, but depending on the type of deck you play).
Grade 2s are where things get a bit difficult. I run 6 10k beatsticks, 10k is a good number and even when boosted by Grade 1s like Kimnara you can still hit the 16 barrier. Why not run the 12k Seal dragon beatstick, or Burning Horn Dragon, you might ask? Well, because firstly I don't run the full Seal Dragon lineup, so the Seal Dragon 12k is out of the question, and Burning Horn is only useful when your Vanguard is DOTE, because I tend to stay in Dauntless until the time is 'right' to breakride, if I run Burning Horns they will either get clogged up in my hand or stay on the field as 9ks, which aren't really good rearguards to have.
For field control and utility, I have Berserk Dragon and Seal Dragon, Corduroy. I find that although Berserk Dragon is useful, if you think about it, you have to Counterblast 2 in order to pop 1 card, and although you can choose any rearguard to retire, basically if one follows the game mechanics as laid out by TehNacho in his recent (not so recent) article on Game Design: Counter-Blasts, Soul-Blasts, and all the Little Things
(go check his article out, its' good) you will find that using his calculations which I find make a lot of sense, mathematically-speaking, we run up to a conditional 0 since we assume 1 Counterblast as 1 card and that we assume this is 'High Quality advantage' generated, which makes this:
-2(cost)=+1+1(assuming it is high quality advantage)=0
Worse still if your do not have any open counterblasts(because you want to ultilize counterblasts or at least have 2 CB open at all times to give the illusion of a possible DOTE Persona Blast, Berserk Dragon is basically just waiting to be sent into the Guardian Circle, and is 'useless' so to speak. Corduroy on the other hand, although his on-call ability is less impressive then Berserk Dragon's the cost required to activate its' ability is a Especial Counterblast of 1, which translates to a -1 and a +1 due you pooping your opponent's card, which makes it:
-1(cost)=+1+1(asumming this is high quality advantage)=1
OR
-1(cost)-1(due to opponent calling a Grade 2 using Corduroy's effect)=+1+1=0
becomes a nett 0 in advantage if your opponent manages to call a grade 2 from the top 4 cards to replace it. Or if he chooses not to, or cannot replace due to him not drawing into a Grade 2 in those 4 cards, you have yourself a conditional +1, which is far better than Berserk Dragon and you can use 2 of it due to the lower CB cost.
Lastly, we run 4 Dauntless Drive, because of his restanding ability when it is breakridden upon
Its' effect overall is quite good, given that on the turn its is breakrided upon you potentially get a
-3(discard cost)-0.5(Limit Break)-1(breakride)+4(drive checks)+1(10k bonus power/situational +1)=0.5
Therefore using TehNacho's rule we come up with this equation, where I added in the -1 due to you needing to breakride before you can use the effect, accounting for the loss in advantage generated due to it being a vanilla if you don't breakride over it. This is oversimplification of the matter, but it is just to show my take on why Dauntless overall is still a good card, and might not be the -1 people are making it out to be. The +2 comes from the 10k power as a result of the breakride and thus 10k requires a minimum of extra 10k guard from your opponent, leading to them losing 1 card extra in guarding. This leads to the total advantage gained being 0.5.
Now for the boss card, 4 copies of Dragonic Overlord the End
As Morikawa once said: NEVER-ENDO
We run DOTE just beacause he synergises well with DDD. Although it does slow down the deck and removes the early pressure exerted by DOTE due the fact that it needs Limit Break, DOTE overall is a really solid card, no wonder it dominated the Japanese format when BT05 first came out and is still solid, despite the many new cards that try to mimick it (yes I'm talking to you Dragonic Descendant, Raging Form Dragon, Ethics Buster 'Reverse'), it still is the gold standard of re-standing Vanguards, due to it not being limited by Limit Break (pun intended) and if we calculate the advantage we gain by using his Persona Blast skill, we get:
-2(Counterblast)-1(Persona Blast)+4(drive checks)=1
So we get a solid +1 in advantage, this is assuming that it is low quality advantage generated. Timing is crucial for DOTE, and the weakness is that if you use the Persona Blast too many times, coupled with the draw triggers, you might end up decking out as a result. So be careful if you use his skill, don't overextend. More often than not, the advantage is more of a psychological one, as people usually will be afraid of your Persona Blast.
Well with that, hope you enjoyed reading my take on DDD-DOTE Never-End Deck profile.
Until next time,
EndBlade
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