Friday Stride: Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Double Bill

In my quest to not go back to clans during this series' early posts, we've reached the end of what we can do with G BT04. Since two of the clans have been covered previously, we've got a single clan left and just one week before the next English language release. So to round out our coverage of this set (at least for now), we have a double bill - the connected stride units Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Dragon and Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Doomed, from the Shadow Paladins.

Don't retire your allies then.

Aurageyser Dragon was released in Sovereign Star Dragon, as it's clan's main stride of the set. It has one of the most long-winded costs for it's still in the game, with it's on-attack skill requiring:

• Counter Blast 1
• Soul Blast 1
• Turning a copy of itself face-up
• Retire two rear-guards

All of this gives it the ability to reveal the top two cards of the deck and add them to your hand, whilst gaining an extra 5000 power for each of those cards at grade 1 or lower. On the face of it this really isn't much for that cost, and for the most part that's pretty much right - trading two rear-guards for two draws is a break-even, and when it comes to gaining cards flipping a G unit doesn't seem to be valued as a card, making it a counter blast 1, soul blast 1 to gain power if you have the right cards on the top of your deck. However, this is Shadow Paladin, a deck with a focus on retiring and thus ways not to lose out to it. We'll come back to those in a minute.

So what's your excuse?

Our second card is Aurageyser's evolved form, Aurageyser Doomed (or Dammed, for those who prefer to use the Japanese name). His skill is similar to his base form's, but has some subtle tweaks which somewhat change how he plays. First up, his skill is an ACT, not a Battle Phase AUTO, which is actually worse for Shadow Paladins, since you can't sacrifice units which have already attacked. Second, we're still flipping up Aurageyser Dragon, not himself, which means you need to make some decisions in advanced about your strategy, in order to set up your G zone properly. The soul blast cost is gone, which is handy for cards like Black-Winged Swordbreaker who also want it, but instead we're now retiring 3 rear-guards for two new cards, this time grade 1 and 0 units netting retires rather than power. Finally, he gains a critical for 3 face-up Aurageyser Dragons in the G zone. Since this counts the face-up one, you either use Doomed 3 times, or use Aurageyser Dragon once and then Doomed, to gain this crit. Once again, we have a hefty cost for a luck-based effect - you either retire two and go +1, or you hit nothing and end up a -1.

However, once again the Shadow Paladins will provide ways to mitigate the costs, so now it's time to have a look at some of them.

First up is Promising Knight, David, a GB1 starter who can be treated as two units when retiring him as a cost. This is one of the simplest ways to generate more advantage out of Aurageyser, since he turns the retire two into a retire one, giving you a net +1 from the skill. David's utility, and the deck's ability to call Grade 1 or lower units easily, sees him run in multiples in some G Shadow builds. The Blasters get their own, non GB, grade 1 version in
Pitch Black Sage, Charon who also searches for the blaster you need to ride to have the name

Like several other GB1 stand triggers, Cursed Eye Raven directly helps out with the skills of the deck's ace unit. In exchange for returning itself to the deck, it can call the top two cards of the deck at rest, but then retires them at the end of the turn. Since they'll never get a chance to attack outside of stand triggers, the skill is clearly meant to turn a trigger into two retirement fodder units. Of course, hit the right card from the skill and you could reap more benefits still, but not itself, as it needs to rest itself to use it's skill.

For older Shadow Paladin builds, the key to retiring without losing your card advantage is often to use cheap or free low quality superior calls to get warm bodies onto the field, which can then be retired for skills and replaced with better units. Dark Mage, Badhabh Caar is an early example of this, calling the top card of the deck when called and occasionally causing a chain reaction if on top of the deck when another is played. The card you get might not be one you want, but if it isn't you can kill it to gain advantage elsewhere. Though the 9000 base power makes it a poor vanguard, no fewer than three other grade 3 units have grade 1's capable of trading a Caar for them, and Stride does help him not be vanilla.

In contrast to the cheap blind calling above, Dark Night Maiden, Macha, the clan's Amber clone, can grab any grade 1 unit on attack. She can either bring out fodder or replace retired units, and can grab several of the units listed on this page for more advantage. She's more expensive, but you get what you need.

Revengers embody many of the core mechanics of the wider clan, and the ability to call out units is also a feature. Although most of these are comparatively cheep, such as
Wily Revenger, Mana, who when called can bring out any grade 1 revenger into the same column. Although the unit goes back to the deck at the end of the turn, the unit can still be used as a free fodder during that turn. If you want to spend more resources for a longer-lasting unit, the older Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu can provide. Although counter blast 2 is expensive by current standards, the grade 1 will stay around until you're ready to use it, and Tartu has more power than Mana, allowing her to make a standard rear-guard column.

By contrast, the Witches don't have much in the way of superior calling. Sharp Fang Witch, Fodla is pretty much all they have with the witch name, and even this is a generic card with the witch name from before the establishment of the subclan. Folda can, for a counterblast, call out any two grade 0 units, including those listed above. 

Witches gain advantage using the other method used by the clan - drawing cards. Befitting the theme of sacrifice in the clan, many of these skills have a cost of a card to activate the skills, such as the most well-known example, Skull Witch, Nemain. Notable for having the lowest base power in the game - and having power significantly lower than any other grade 2 unit - Nemain can, for a counterblast and a discard, give two draws on call. Lacking enough power to attack effectively, even with a booster, Nemain was always more useful as retire fodder, as otherwise it would be intercepting as soon as possible. Later cards have added further restrictions to the skill in order to allow the base power to be increased to a more useful level, such as the recent Scornful Knight, Gyva, but even the newer cards have sub-par power levels, making them preferable targets to retire.


As a focus for a deck they're not bad, but the Shadow Paladin G zone has Dark Dragon, Phantom Blaster "Diablo" available, and compared to that unit's game-ending potential almost everything will seem somewhat lackluster.

However, at this stage Shadow Paladins have plenty of fodder to retire, regardless of build, meaning Aurageyser Dragon at least makes a useful first stride to help dig through the deck to reach key cards. Doomed is slightly less efficient - although some units will appreciate it avoiding the soul the heavier cost and Main Phase activation make it less appealing to builds lacking a heavy focus on self-retiring, and retire isn't all that helpful for Witch builds - but if you're willing to take the risk the pay-off is ultimately greater, grinding down the opponent's resources whilst refreshing your own.

Friday Stride: Holy Seraph, Raziel

Another Friday, another G unit. Moving through Soul Strike against the Supreme, the clans yet to be covered on this blog are almost out, and so we move to the only clan in the set I haven't personally used - Angel Feather. As a result, my analysis of Holy Seraph, Raphael would probably be "run 4, play 8 damage Vanguard," so let's move on to the slightly less powerful but more interesting card, Holy Seraph, Raziel

MEDIC!!

Raziel is Angel Feather's rare stride in this set, and since the clan already recieved their on hit (Holy Seraph, Uriel) in the Fighter's Collection, they get the opportunity to branch out into something a little more diverse. Like many similar cards, he doesn't give you direct card advantage, but what he does do is allow you to set up combo plays with the rest of the deck, allowing you to do more than any of the pieces do alone.

Raziel's skill isn't inherently complicated - on stride, he can Soul Blast 2 to return the entire damage zone to the deck, shuffle, and put the same number of cards back into the damage face-up.

The first thing to note is that all the face-down damage will be replaced by face-up cards, essentially re-setting all your counter blasts for the turn. A potential counter charge 5 is nothing to be sniffed at, especially for the same cost as the 5000 power grade 1's pay to unflip just two. Of course, you won't have that all the time, but even a single unflip would be worth the 2 soul alone, and we're just getting started.

G Angel Feather are a bit more counter blast heavy than the old Season 2 era builds, as they now have counter blast costs and have to take face-up damage for their superior calls. They aren't in any real danger of running out - even without this guy their new stand also replaces face-down damage with face-up cards, and it's only cards which give hard +1s from damage who have a hard counter blast - but the deck can drag out the game, and eventually the damage can get clogged with face-down triggers, PGs, grade 3's swapped in for guard and other things you don't really want. Enter Raziel. In one move, he seeps all that clutter up, pitches it back into the deck where you want most of it, and pulls out a fresh damage zone, hopefully with less triggers than before, and ideally some nice goodies for your other units to get out for you. Notable is Black Shiver, Gavreel's on-stride skill, who can either take her pick from a fresh damage zone, or can drag out a unit which can benefit from the damage zone refresh immediately before Raziel's skill triggers.

Not bad, but for generic builds there's more fun to be had. As hinted above, Angel Feather have several older units which all gain 2000 power for each card placed into the damage. Raziel can in one move give all of them up to 10000 power, as well as freshening up the damage for more potential damage swaps to crank those power levels even higher. The new Nurse of Broken Heart has the same skill, but also hands that same power boost to Raziel, pushing him to even greater numbers. Since Raphael is more defensive, that ability to push the centre lane up along with the rear-guards helps give the deck a more offensive side to it.

Celestials, however, don't quite appreciate this guy quite as much. They also have hard counterblasts on (most of) their hard +1s, so the unflip can keep them going, but they generally rely on a more static damage zone, keeping a copy of their vanguard in there to unlock skills. Obviously, when you send your damage zone back that's going to take the unit that was keeping your deck from being vanilla with it, and without units gaining power from the swaps there's not as much benefit. However, if you have a way to put that unit back in there should it not be part of the new damage zone, the unflip can be helpful, and if you get lucky you could set off a Emergency Celestial, Danielle during the re-shuffle for an easy plus.

Overall he's certainly a card to consider. Celestials don't really need him, but if there's space freshening up the damage zone might just help, and since Celestials don't use the soul he can't hurt anything besides static damage that the deck ultimately has ways to fix. For G builds, however, he's an easy 2-of. He functions as the deck's true finisher, and thus is vital to being able to do more than whether the opponent's assault, and it's really only his soul cost and the need for other things in the G zone keeping him from being run at more copies.

Friday Stride: Force Spear Mutant Deity, Stun Beetle

So - for the UK - regionals are over for another year, and as may have been obvious from my last entry I took Megacolony's Machining subclan, backed up by some of the newer G era support. With that out of the way, time to get on with the other obvious gap in clans covered in this series. So, Force Spear Mutant Deity, Stun Beetle.

This used to be the game's worst clan. No, really.

The game's lore for the current block indicates that Megacolony have rejected Gear Chronicle's offer to teach the use of stride, and are researching the phenomenon by themselves. For the most part, this hasn't affected what support they've had - they've had all the core cards other clans have received from the first wave of G support - but it does seem to have thrown a very interesting twist into their G persona stride unit.

Uniquely for a clan's first stride which flips a copy of itself as a cost, it's skill requires it to hit in order to activate, only paying when it does. When this is met, as long as you are at Generation Break 2, you can flip a copy and counter blast 2 to prevent their vanguard from standing at the start of their next turn. Further, they can't normal ride either, shutting out most decks' only counter to vanguard stunning (at present only a few decks have superior ride options, and even fewer actually use them) and forcing them to skip a vanguard attack. At a bare minimum, this is two cards less for them from the lack of twin drive, plus you save your guard for that attack.

Of course, this does rely on him actually hitting, which may not always be easy to pull off. However, as mentioned above, you only have to pay the cost when he hits, meaning that you can have three shots to make the attack connect - three attacks which the opponent will have to guard because the shift in momentum and advantage from shutting down their vanguard for the turn will often seal the game. This makes him the only persona stride who can be strode three times without intentionally passing on the skill. He's also the only one who can function at three copies, because as long as your opponent isn't aware that you don't have the fourth then they can't let the third hit, as any hit from him would be a disaster.

Ultimately, Stun Beetle is a huge pressure card. He has the same 'guard or die' threat that high-powered, multi-critical G units have, but rather than abruptly ending the game he puts it out of the opponent's reach, forcing them to face two of your turns without any chance to recover their defences or push against you. Other cards might find it easier to stun, but if you need them to stay stunned, this is the guy you're going to be calling for.

2015 Worlds Qualifiers Report

So, as I'm based in the UK, last weekend was our regional qualifier for the 2015 worlds. With G Set 4 out just a week before, it gave me a chance to take my very first clan - Megacolony. Last year I didn't have a Megacolony deck completed due to non-card game reasons, but with the boosts to the Machining deck I was somewhat looking forward to it, especially as testing at locals the week before resulted in a 4-0 record (best of 3 rounds, all of which were 2-0). I didn't expect to keep up the deck's lossless record, though I felt confident I could at least get as far as my 5-2 record from the previous year.

The deck list was as below:

4 Machining Stag Beetle
2 Machining Scorpion MkII
2 Machining Warsicle

4 Machining Red Soldier
4 Machining Mosquito MkII
3 Machining Papillo

4 Machining Caucasus
4 Rebel Mutant, Starshield
3 Machining Black Soldier
3 New Face Mutant, Little Dorcas

1 Machining Little Bee
4 Machining Scorpion
4 Machining Firefly
4 Machining Scarab
4 Machining Bombyx

3 Carapace Mutant Deity, Machining Destroyer
3 Force Spear Mutant Deity, Stun Beetle
1 Poison Spear Mutant Deity, Paraspear
1 Snow Element, Blizza

Three stun beetle may seem odd, but I only planned on hitting with it once, the third acting as a second attempt. Blizza is a result of this, being able to use the third if either the first hits or two don't. Giving that Scorpion MkII is a persona blast, it may seem odd not to run it at four, but as was pointed out online (more specifically the Pojo forums) your strides are a lot better than his legion skill, so you'd rather use another copy to stride than to persona blast. You're only ever going to drop the mate for the skill, Mosquito is run at four, so you've got at least as many chances as you do with any single-target persona blast.

I may well discuss the build in more detail in another post, but for today we'll move on to the tournament itself.

Round 1: vs Link Joker (Messiah)
This did not look promising. I hadn't had much of a chance to test against control decks, and lock can keep Destroyer out of action for several turns. Going first, I was concerned about a lack of grade 2s, but Mosquito arrived just in time to allow me to pass on the grade 3 ride for a turn, giving me the first stride. He failed to re-ride the first time, managed it the second, after which I had to go into Paraspear due to a lack of Machining damage. With an empty hand, he topdecked stride fodder, but drive checked nothing, and the following turn my critical triggers showed up to end the game.
1 - 0

Round 2: vs Neo Nectar (Ahsha)
From a control deck to a power build, I was aware that the deck had the potential to put out some beefy rear-guards, and easily replace them. However it didn't get that far. Going second, early crits and damaged PGs meant that I was able to win before he could even stride.
2 - 0

Round 3: vs Aqua Force (Thavas)
Megacolony traditionally does quite well in this match-up, and although I gave him the first stride and he called two stride enablers to search out two more Thavas, he dropped one from the second enabler's skill and used the second as stride fodder. Again, my rush won out.
3 - 0

Round 4: vs Megacolony (Machining)
This wasn't a matchup I was looking forward to. I knew the deck I was playing wasn't the nicest to face, and the mirror is liable to devolve into a game of chicken, as whoever rides to grade 3 first usually loses. Unfortunately for me, it was quickly clear his hand was much better for rushing than mine, forcing me to go into Stag Beetle. At least I had Scorpion MkII in hand, and enough fodder to re-ride and stride into my own Destroyer after the stun. Then he went into Stun Beetle as second stride, and I was lucky enough that I was able to 2-pass it and grab stride fodder for the next turn, at which point he ran out of grade 3's. I was then able to get my own stun beetle to hit and gain the win.
4 - 0

Round 5: vs Gear Chronicle (Chronojet)
Another G - focussed deck, I was a lot happier about this pairing. I went second, but as he didn't ride to grade 3 I went into Stag Beetle first. I blocked Epochmaker, then stunned his vanguard. He re-rode and strode into Nextage at the cost of his entire hand, and with no booster and no standing rear-guard, opted not to go into Chronojet, keeping his three cards as opposed to going to two - a good call as I could easily block Chronojet. Despite the low hand, he was only on three damage, so I sent out Stun Beetle to lock down the game, allowing me to finish up the next turn.
5 - 0

Round 6: vs Gear Chronicle (Chronojet)
By this point, I'd reached table 1, and was starting to get worried as to how well I was doing. Another Gear deck, and yet again I handed over the first stride as I wasn't worried about it. Once again, I rode to grade 3 first. One of my Gear opponents had to G assist, and I suspect it to be this one, as I do not recall them re-riding. They eventually conceded, having a stunned field and no hand, topdecking into something that couldn't help them.
6 - 0

Round 7: vs Nova Grappler (Blau/Cat Raiser)
Novas were always going to be one of the trickier decks to face, especially Blaus and their early game rush capacity. Then I had to ride a pg, and G assist another away just to try and keep advantage. With a hand not suitable to guarding a rush, and the resultant need to block everything at 4 when Galaxy hit, I had nothing to block even the first legion attack.
6 - 1

Round 8: vs Aqua Force (Thavas)
He started - and immediately G assisted, showing a hand with two Grade 3's and three draw triggers. Dropping two triggers to grab a grade 1, he once again passed on riding to grade 3, however with his Magnum already out I could stun it, forcing him to pass on Tidal-Bore's skill in favour of a double-attacking High Tide Sniper. Once I strode, I stunned his field again, and unable to re-ride he was forced to attempt sniping rear-guards with tidals. The loss of advantage allowed me the win the next turn.
7 - 1

Round 9: vs Royal Paladins (Seekers)
The final round before the top 8, and I was still in with a good chance to top provided I won this last game. A full Legion build, my opponent sat on grade 2 and rushed - right into my hand full of Grade 3's. I rode a second Stag Beetle just to try and maintain some momentum, but by the time he rode to Wingal he had another to ride out the stun, and then checked Alfred, and despite a double crit I lacked anything like enough shield to stop the attack.
7 - 2

So that was it. X - 1 was needed to reach the top 8, and despite a strong showing through most of the day I ended up falling at the last hurdle. Having seen the standings, I placed 15th of 449 entrants - a position I feel happy enough with.

The deck didn't have any serious issues - my only losses were in rounds where I was either grade locked or had an unbalanced hand, in both cases with opponents playing to counter my vanguard stuns. The worst that can be said of any card was that I had it at the wrong time (non-machining Grade 1 rides) or that they simply didn't do anything at all (non-Stag Beetle grade 3's, which I only rode once each all day, as well as the third Stun Beetle, as I only ever went for him when the hit was assured). Whilst I don't doubt I made a few errors, none of them would have significantly changed the result, save perhaps mulliganing differently - which would only matter if I could see the future.

Friday Stride: Chronodragon Nextage

With 24 clans (plus Cray Elementals and a crossover thing) to pick from, I've yet to hit the need to go back to the same clan for this column - choosing three weeks of Mermaids excepted - though attempting to avoid giving away hints on my deck choices for a major tournament did throw Altmile in my face this week. However, there is one other fairly obvious gap, a clan which has a strong G zone but I've yet to even talk about.

Gear Chronicle.

So in the interests of bringing them out of the dark, cold winter of clans not yet featured on this blog, let's have a look at Bushiroad's latest attempt to commit wallet genocide, Chronodragon Nextage. 

Like, say, a 'Next Age?' Eh? Eh?

Gears have managed to assemble quite a range of skills under the nebulous banner of 'time travel' - Guard restriction (of both the grade 0 and grade 1+ varieties), deck to field tool-boxing, control of the opponent's field, and even manipulation of the G zone (if only through one stand trigger no-one uses because it doesn't do enough) - but a re-standing vanguard has managed to evade them until now. Nextage isn't technically a re-rider, but rather it goes back to the G zone during the battle phase, and then stands the heart if it's a Chronojet Dragon. Whilst this gives most of the same offensive impact, triggers from the first attack can't be placed on the vanguard and used to buff up the second, but Nextage's exact setup does grant it the ability to conduct an extra drive check compared to restanding G units.

More specifically, Nextage's skill requires another copy flipping, a counterblast of one and to discard 3 cards from your hand at the end of his attack, provided you're at GB2. He then returns to the G zone, and if the heart was a Chronojet Dragon, the new vanguard stands up. Since you're at GB2, you're now standing up a Chronojet Dragon with his own guard restriction on-line, and the high base power of the stride means you can keep the booster for this attack. Compared to other restanding G units, he gains an extra drive check on the first attack in exchange for a weakened second attack and an inability to carry triggers. He requires a specific heart, but Bushiroad were kind enough to give us Steam Fighter, Balih, who when in the heart can be swapped out for Chronojet, allowing you to set up for Nextage even on the turn you stride into him.

Although just getting that extra vanguard attack is going to help, he'll perform best when the restood Chronojet is a threat himself. To do this he needs to have a 10k booster to make him 3 cards to 2-pass, which means either Steam Rider, Burnham or the use of Summit Crest Gear Wolf /Mist Geyser Dragon to power up after using Chronojet's stride skill. The latter can climb even higher if you can send more of their rear-guards back to the deck.

Chronojet is, in the end, the core of current Gear Chronicle, and Nextage give him an extra push. Whilst it doesn't cure the clan's biggest shortcoming - that is, that they can do very little before they stride - it does grant them an extra tool to break through the opponent once they do.

Friday Stride: Dream-Spinning Ranunculus, Ahsha

Once again, a new set has finally made it into the game, and with it another load of strides. On the other hand, with my regionals just a week away, there's some cards I don't really want to be showing off all the tricks for because I might be playing them there, and why should I give anonymous internet people hints as to my strategy? So, something I don't plan to use, Dream-spinning Ranunculus, Ahsha.

I dreamed a dream of decks gone by...

The stride form of Ranunculus Flower Maiden, Ahsha, Dream-spinning Ahsha is Neo Nectar's second persona flip stride, building on the effects of her Grade 3 form. For just the flip of another copy of herself, she gains the ability to give the front row 5000 power if two of your rear-guards have the same name, and if she's not the first stride she gets to clone a rear-guard and give the new unit an extra 2000. Helpfully, the first part of her skill doesn't power-up then, but hands her another ACT skill, allowing her to clone a rear-guard and then use the cloned unit to meet the requirements for the +5000 skill. Whilst a continuous boost would have been nice, allowing extra powered-up attacks through Maiden of Gladiolus, the static power boost does mean that if you remove one of the clone units granting the power bonus from the field (such as calling a new unit over one, or sending Flower Garden Maiden, Mailis into the soul) you won't lose the power boosts, whereas Jingle Flower needs a static field (or at least a static backrow) to retain the power.

One more aspect to note: She's not locked to a Ranunculus heart - she's an entirely generic unit, usable anywhere in Neo Nectar. Combined with her skill being an adaptation of her base form's GB2 and on-stride skills, she actually does better outside G-Maiden decks, because whilst Ahsha and her support can easily bring up perfect fields for Sacred Tree Dragon, Jingle Flower Dragon, decks with a weaker focus on cloning will find that the hard advantage more useful. That's not to say she doesn't have a place in the G build - she's handy for salvaging fields wrecked by control, or alternatively giving early pressure if the ideal field came early enough - but that the Rose Legion and Musketeer decks have to work harder for less reward from Jingle Flower, making Ahsha more worthwhile despite a lower power output.

Ultimately, she's a flexible stride that give a decent power boost and hard advantage, all in a rather pretty package. Certainly worth at least a pair of slots in most Neo Nectar G zones.

Due to the Regional event next week, there may or may not be a Friday Stride, but I'll attempt to give a rundown of the event, especially if I do miss another week.