Friday Stride: Great Angel, Doom Brace

Well Mermaid Season 2015 is over, unless Pacifica gets over here before the next figher's collection or Aqua Force's clan booster throws us something, so now it's back to a more diverse spread of clans, at least until we reach Sword Boy Season 2015 Mermaid Season 2016 some other mono-clan product I'm interested in. It seems I've come back with just one week before we get our next box of strides, so just enough time to check out an older stride relevant to what's about to hit: Great Angel, Doom Brace.

Are you coming on to me?

Genesis' first generic stride, being released in Fighter's Collection 2015, Doom Brace is another example of the high quality of many cards in this set. His skill is simple enough - soul blast 3 cards to give two units 5000 power each, and then as an added bonus, if you have less than three cards in the soul you can soul charge 3 more, effectively repaying his own cost, setting up for himself or another unit next turn. For it's cost, the payout isn't bad, but that's not where it ends, because this is Genesis, the clan of the soul blast, and there's so much more you can do with this.

There's a nice big chunk of Genesis cards who activate when they're sent from the soul to the drop zone, and whilst a good chunk of them have generic effects, pretty much all of them fit into subclans, giving us a handy way to go through them.

The first group is the Witches, since they grew from a naming theme into a full subclan. The most widely-used are the generic Witch of Frogs, Melissa and Witch of Ravens, Chamomile, both of whom can call themselves on soul blast for a counter blast. Whilst they can't be given a power-up from Doom Brace's skill, riding them allows you to make a field without draining your hand, or replace units which intercepted or were retired/stunned/returned to deck. For the dedicated Witch build, G set 4 grants Witch of White Rabbits, Cardamon, a variant of Chamomile who requires a Witch vanguard (but remember, if you stride over a Witch Doom Brace will get her name) but also gains 2000 power for the turn. The last Witches with on Soul Blast skills are Witch of Oranges, Valencia and Witch of Grapes, Grappa, who soul charge 2 when soul blasted. Not as impressive as a call, and will shut down the soul charge if you want to use another Doom Brace, but the skill of the one that sent them to the drop zone will activate first at least.

Regalia also have a couple of cards that benefit from being soul blasted. Again, this includes an entirely generic card, this time Twilight Regalia, Hesperis. When soul blasted, she grants any vanguard the ability to retire an opponent's rear-guard if it hits. With Doom Brace packing some hefty power and Triple Drive, this extra on-hit pressure is a nice bonus. Our other Regalia is Regalia of Fate, Norn, who on top of being Legion Mate to Regalia's current main boss grants a Regalia vanguard 5000 when soul blasted. This skill is also found in the group's stand trigger, Mirror Regalia, Achlis, which helpfully enough can help you get even more from Doom Brace by standing a unit he powered up. Both are more of the same really, but can be nice bonuses.

There's no Myth Guard which activates when sent from the soul, however even these have ways to benefit from soul blasting specific cards. Myth Guard, Achernar and Myth Guard, Denebola, both gain 3000 power when another copy of the same card is sent from soul to drop zone. Not an especially easy trick to pull off, but if you were looking for easy and effective why are you running Myth Guards?

The upcoming G Genesis series in Soul Strike against the Supreme bring a few more tricks to the table, but since they also bring new strides, I'll leave it there and discus the new cards along with those units. Even from what we have before the next set, Doom Brace has a lot of toys it can play with, no matter what deck it finds itself in.