BT14: Jewel Knight cards revealed! New type of Perfect Guard?!?! (WARNING SPOILERS)

Hello everyone. Just a short post on regarding some Cardfight Vanguard!!! news on the anime, where I'm sure if you guys haven't already watched, Cardfight Vanguard's latest anime episode. I'll put a link down below just in case you guys want to watch it.

Cardfight Vanguard Episode 146 - Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrvCvr32Dgs
Cardfight Vanguard Episode 146 - Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEBXx6EyMok

WARNING: What I am about to discuss in my blog post below WILL contain spoilers of the latest episode of the anime, so if you haven't watched it yet, do click on the links above to watch them before you read my post.

Now, you guys should already know that recently I posted a rant on my blog about the boring nature of Cardfight! Vanguard, and with what I saw in the latest episode of the anime, which is basically Kamui duelling with Kourin, and in that duel Kourin used a special type of Perfect Guard, which I think is a original concept and refreshes the game. For that, good job Bushiroad, for making a unique mechanic, which I hope each clan will have a different Perfect Guard mechanic in the future. If you all don't already know what card I am talking about, its' Summoning Jewel Knight, Gloria.

                                        I think this looks like Knight of Rose Morgana with Alfred's armor....

Now the card's effect is unconfirmed, but it is likely that the effect will stay true to the anime, because most, if not all cards shown in the anime are usually accurate to the card game, with the exception of certain phrasing of the card text. But basically her effect is:

Summoning Jewel Knight, Gloria 
GRADE 1
[CONT]: Sentinel (You may only have up to four cards with "[CONT]: Sentinel" in a deck)
[AUTO]:[Counter Blast (1)] When this unit is placed on (GC), if you have a «Royal Paladin» vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, look at up to five cards from the top of your deck, search for up to five «Royal Paladin» from among them, call them to (GC), and shuffle your deck.  

This is a completely new type of Perfect Guard. It may seem to be overpowered, just like all new cards always are...right (not really), but it is good in the sense that you do not need to discard a card to activate the effect, although if you ask me if you need to use Gloria then you must be pretty screwed. Notwithstanding the effect where you send the top 5 cards to you Guardian Circle as guard against the attack, although it is not a 100% chance you will get enough guard if for some reason you topdeck 3 Grade 3s and 2 Grade 2s, which in that case you wasted the effect as it is likely the attack will go through (this action is irreversible) and you waste 5 cards, which essentially is a -6, because you don't gain anything out of it by discarding Gloria milling 5 cards. I foresee that there might be some problems with this card, such as the obvious likelihood that you potentially can overguard and lose precious triggers when you mill 5, or you might thin your already thin stack of cards which remains in your deck, as it is likely that IF you use Gloria, more or less you are in a position where you have not much choice left. It is also not advisable to run more than 1, personal preference (I rather not lose by decking out, if you know what I mean). This possibility of decking out is made more likely given the fact that Royal Paladin tends to have units based around superior calling cards from your deck, like Ashlei Reverse, Sybil and Salome among the Jewel Knights archetype, and this thins your deck by quite a few cards. You may think it is insignificant, but sometimes when it comes down to the wire, an extra 3 or 4 more cards in your deck may allow you to outlast your opponent, or at least hang on for a longer amount of time. 

Another card which I mentioned above and will be coming out in BT14 would be Broken Heart Jewel Knight Ashlei Reverse:

Cyber-Ashlei!!!

[ACT](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):[Counter Blast (1) & Choose one of your rear-guards with "Jewel Knight" in its card name, and lock it] Choose up to one of your opponent's rear-guards in the front row, and retire it, and search your deck for up to one card with "Jewel Knight" in its card name, call it to (RC), and shuffle your deck. This ability cannot be used for the rest of that turn.
(Locked cards are turned face down, and cannot do anything. Turn them face up at the end of its owner's turn)
[CONT](VC):If you have a card named "Pure Heart Jewel Knight, Ashley" in your soul, this unit gets [Power]+2000.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit without a same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)

 

 

Ashlei 'Reverse' has the self-Lock skill to activate her effect, and the CB cost Lock 1 Rearguard cost isn't too much of a requirement to activate Ashlei Reverse's ability, which functions very much like a Blaster Blade for the front row plus a free superior call, and for -2 cost due to Locking and Counterblasting for a +2 due to retiring and superior calling, it is a good way to fill up your field, the drawback being that you can only use it once per turn. But it is a pretty balanced card, not screaming 'OP' or anything like that on the outset, but what disturbs me is possibly the lack of synergy it has with her breakride form, which I guess is not too much of a problem besides the crossriding thing that everyone has just gotten used to. Overall this card is a 6/10 for me, it is slightly better than the breakride form, which synergises better with Julia then with this card. But do take note that because you Lock 1 to superior call 1, this does not help you to activate Tracie and Sherrie's +3k skill when attacking, or Prizme's filtering on-call skill. In fact, it hinders their effects as you 'waste' a slot which brings your rearguard count to a maximum of 4, and given that you need 3 OTHER Jewel Knights to activate their skills, this makes it even harder. But in the long run it is a +1 if your opponent is not CBD. Another issue is thaqt as with other Jewel Knights, this makes it difficult to splash in non-Jewel Knight Royal Paladins into your deck, like Blaster Blade.

 

Well that being said, I am not especially hyped for BT14, because its' likely that by the time it is released, I will be in the army anyway.... On the side note, this card's name reminds me of Demi Lovato's 'Give your Heart a Break'...haha don't ask me why, maybe recently I have been listening to too many Demi Lovato songs.

That is all I have for you guys for now, and until next time,

EndBlade

 

Light and Shadow become one! Deck Profile: Majesty Lord Blaster!

My Majesty Lord Blaster breakride deck!!!

 Hey everyone, hope you guys are enjoying your Sunday. Today I will be posting my very first Cardfight Vanguard!!! deck profile, on my Japanese-restriction Majesty Lord Blaster breakride deck, which will include my deck breakdown as well as my rationale for running the cards that I run. But first, let me put my decklist below so you guys can see what I run in my deck.

Decklist:

Grade 0:

Wingal Brave x1 (SVG)

Alabaster Owl  x4 (critical trigger)

Blazing Jewel Knight, Rachelle  x4 (critical trigger)

Dedicated Jewel Knight, Tabitha x4 (draw trigger)

Enthusiastic Jewel Knight, Polly x4 (heal trigger)

Grade 1:

Little Sage, Marron x4

Toypugal x2

Flashing Jewel Knight, Iseult x4

Knight of Friendship, Kay x2

Grade 2:

Blaster Blade x4

Blaster Dark x3

Blaster Blade Spirit x2

Starcall Trumpeter x3

Knight of Loyalty, Bedivere x2

Grade 3:

Majesty Lord Blaster x2

Pure Heart Jewel Knight, Ashley x3

Solitary Knight, Gancelot x1

Soul Saver Dragon x1

Now, you might be asking, why no Palamedes? Why run the breakride? Doesn't it slow the deck down? Why the Soul Saver Dragon? Why so many Grade 2s? Why Starcall Trumpter at 3 copies? Well, let me answer them one by one, and provide reasons why I choose to run certain cards and why exclude others, as well as why I run the number of copies in my deck. 

To begin with, I run Wingal Brave just because he is Wingal Brave, and you can use it to search for MLB (which hopefully you already have in your starting hand), or any of the other Blaster units, and he is the core of the deck. His base power of 5k is also not too shabby, and can boost units to easily hit 16k. For the trigger lineup, my choice would be a 8 critical, 4 draw and 4 heal lineup, just because after playtesting with my deck, 8 for me is a comfortable number, and to run 12 critical would be overkill due to the fact that if you are using MLB's effect it essentially is a -2 due to the soulcharging of the two Blasters to get the +1 crit and 2k power. So the draws are there to provide some extra draw power.

You may ask, why do I run lesser Grade 1s than Grade 2s? Well, from my playtesting of this deck, I usually do not get gradestuck at Grade 0 because I make it a point to have 1 grade 1 in my starting hand, and it's not too hard given that you can mulligan once. The main problem that might occur would be that one might not have enough boosters, especially when playing against kageros or narukamis, or anything that can remove your backrow. Toypugals are capped at 2 because most of the time by Grade 3 just because I somehow either do not have a rearguard G3 and without that rearguard G3 its as good as a 6k booster, which when boosting Blaster Blade or Dark only hits for 15k, and when boosting Starcall hits for 14k.

The meat of the deck lies in the 14 Grade 2s, which usually in other decks I would not run so many G2s. But for this deck, having Blaster Blade and Dark in your hand is crucial, especially if you do not have MLB in your starting hand because you want to use Wingal Brave's effect to search for MLB if you want to perform an early rush for damage at turn 3/4 when your opponent has just ridden his breakride vanguard, simply because breakriding requires some setup, and you want to rush your opponent such that he or she is forced to breakride without the optimal field/hand. Also, the reason for running 3 Starcalls is to get whatever Blaster unit that you are missing for your setup for MLB as soon as possible. Blaster Blade Spirit is quite useful as a G2 ride target, simply because he is a 'Blaster' unit and a 10k boosted by Wingal Brave forces a 10k guard for 1 to pass, or even a 15k guard for 1 pass if your opponent is a 9k G2 Vanguard.

Now for the Grade 3s. This is where some might say that 'the breakride is just bad, its' not compatible with MLB'. Well yes, and no. With its' solid 11k base power, its' much better to ride this IF you choose not the adopt the early rush tactic simply because you don't have MLB or its' components, and a 10k MLB is as good as deadweight. Also, with the breakride you will have more time to set up your hand and field, just because they will tend to avoid pushing you to 4 damage if they are not ready to deal with the 10k power and +1 crit. Although Palamedes is good, being a 13k rearguard with easy to fulfil criterion, if you are forced to ride him at G3, not only is it a -1, because you will have to re-correct the ride, it is a 10k base vanguard, and sometimes when things come down to the wire, the 1k difference in power can make or break the match. Also, I havent got around to buying the Palamedes, because I'm too busy and lazy...haha.

The weakness with MLB, is that after you activate his ACT skill to activate the CONT skill to gain the permanent 2k and +1 crit, at 12k base power, it's not so intimidating as compared to a 13k crossride like The End or The Blood, because nowadays there are so many 12k attackers unboosted. Also, if you are facing Link Joker decks which might do the triangle lock against you, you will end up with a unboosted, useless 12k vanguard because it lacks the power to force guard from the opponent, and the +1 crit doesn't become intimidating anymore. You could keep using his ACT skill for the plus 10k power , but technically every time you do that its' a -2, and when you stack the numbers up it adds to more advantage for your opponent and places you at a disadvantage. So its' better to stay in the breakride form until the lock wears off, or breakride over breakride to get the 10k and 1 crit, and for a -1 at least force a perfect guard or 20k for 2 pass, rather than a measly 10k for 2 pass or 15k for no pass. Also, the optimal situation would be if you know that your opponent has no perfect guard and if he somehow stupidly hits you to 4 damage, and if you have Ashley as your VG and MLB in your hand with the necessary components to activate his effect ( I know that's alot of 'ifs'), you can potentially have a 32k MLB with +2 crit w/o triggers and if you get just one critical trigger its' as good as GG (although this is very situational, but I have done it once and man was it wonderful to totally demoralize my opponent).

Gancelot is just there because I have an SP version of him, and his ability to search for a Blaster Blade helps you set up for MLB, or if you don't have a Grade 2 to ride. Soul Saver is there just for the LOLs (or until I get a KOK Alfred), and until now I have not used it yet. But potentially after you breakride and its' quite useful for calling Final Turn! because your opponent will not see it coming. 

Of course, there are many more reasons why I chose to run what I run now, and I might make some changes in the future, and if I do I will update this post to reflect whatever changes that I make. Do comment on how I could improve the deck, and possibly when BT14 Brilliant Strike comes out in December 2013 (I think) I might make some changes given that there will be support for Royals (I'mma excited for Ashley Reverse). 

With that, until next time,

EndBlade

(oops I derped at the end...it seems that I forgot to place a title for the post...oh well this is a repost)