Friday Stride: Celebrate Voice, Lauris

So we reach the thrilling conclusion of this year's Bermuda set, and for the final entry we'll be looking at the sets Generation Rare cover card, and the new boss of the G era harmony build. It's also, as could have been predicted several months ago, the next form of the build's centrepiece Miracle Voice, Lauris, so let's get right into Celebrate Voice, Lauris.

Card games on DDR machines?

As a grade 3, Lauris had a few elements to her effects: Harmony, returning units to hand, gaining a critical, giving 5000 power boosts, and drawing a card. In her new form, she keeps all of these except for the ability to draw cards, but with some boosts to other aspects of her skills. As before, she has the harmony skill, allowing her to enter harmony with a card called behind her - which will be a necessity later. Her main skill is active at Generation Break 2, and for a counter blast and turning any G unit face up, returns a rear-guard for each face-up G unit and then gains another skill - when she attacks, if all of your units are in harmony, she can give three units 5000 power, and herself a critical. This skill certainly fits Lauris, and is at least coherent and self-supporting, but overall it's somewhat...uninspiring.

For her cost, she gives at least 2 bounces, allowing on-bounce skills to be used, as well as the re-use of on-call and on-harmony skills. This also re-sets harmony to ensure the second part of her effect is live - however that requirement for everything to be in harmony does make it a little trickier to get everything set up, and requires you to plan your attack and effect orders carefully to ensure the skill is active. For example, if you have a Cherished Phrase, Reina you intend to use, you'll have to use Lauris first - unless for some reason Reina's alone in her column, in which case you'll need to use her first to get the non-harmony unit out of the way.

The main phase bounce has utility with a couple of the new support cards, who rest rear-guards as cost for their effect. Prestige, Cetia can rest another unit and counter blast for 5000 power, as well as a GB1 on hit counter charge, soul charge, and bounce, whilst Garland Blossom, Ayna can counter blast and rest herself to give every other unit in harmony in the same row and in the same column 5000 power until the end of turn. Bouncing them with Lauris allows you to functionally restand them to reset the power gains of these cards, but both these skills cost counter blasts, and the G era bermuda deck was already counter blast heavy before this set, which makes it difficult to really use them - neither skill is especially appealing when you could be launching extra attacks with either Admired Sparkle or Sparkle in Her Heart, Spica.

There are unflip options, but none of them are ideal for Celebrate Voice. From the new set, the most interesting is Magical Charge, Vita, who can bounce at the start of either Main Phase for a soul blast, and then unflip if the vanguard is grade 4. However, her unflip relies on her living through the opponent's turn - doable, but she may get a target painted on her head - and in fact she's more useful activating the original Lauris' GB2 on the opponent's turn for a free 5000 shield against every attack on both it and another rear-guard. The only other new unflipper is Wholehearted Dream, Meruru, who can counter charge and give the front row a 3000 power boost if the vanguard is in harmony. She's not too bad, but one unflip isn't going to help all that much, and to get the most out of her you want the power boost to matter. There's also the promo Wonder Frill, Nanoka, who has the same hitting issues as Cetia, but at least gives you more counter charges than you had to spend to use it.

The standby unflipper is Image Master, Kukuri, the perfect guard from the previous set. Like all such perfect guards, she works (most of the time), and gives you some more damage to work with over the game. It comes at the cost of using the new perfect guard with harmony, but that one has a really bad skill - seriously, discard to return it to hand? In this clan? - so you can just ignore it. The last two are the strongest unflippers, but lacking harmony means they're going to dig into the reliability of getting Lauris with a full field. Magical Yell, Nina and Duo Clear Parasol, Kura are functionally identical, and soul blast 2 to counter charge 2. A decent trade-off before, but the deck is a bit more soul-heavy now, and a 5000 power grade 1 can sometimes hurt. The last, Duo White Crystal, Ricca, counter charges and soul charges when bounced, generally giving instant payback for whichever effect was paid for to bounce it as well as building up soul for Vita. 8000 on a grade 2 isn't great, but as a front row unit she'll be able to benefit from most of the deck's power boost.

Using these cuts down on the space you have for harmony cards, but those cards themselves don't help by ranging from decent to awful. For alternate grade 3's, Spica is the best choice, the new Great Ascent, Liddy can pretend to be Lauris if you want that defensive power, whilst Whitely Noble, Fantine can do fancy tricks to keep Lauris running but probably isn't worth it. For Grade 2's, we've covered Vita and Nanoka, and the new Dreaming Step, Shizuku is functional, especially with the old one, but that's more or less it. The new Brilliant Ocean, Elly is a fun concept but lacks enough impact (though I'd like to see more support for this idea later), whilst Artless Charmy, Wakana is crippled by not only being only in your turn, but requiring you to reveal your hand for the power boost. Other than the maybe 1-2 other units you intend to put straight back down you'd never want to give up that information. It's probably a good job Spica is still just that good you won't care it's not a harmony card, otherwise there'd be issues. 

In grade 1 units, you're really down to the older Superb New Student, Shizuku, who still works well at thinning out the deck. Ayna does have one last trick, however, which might just save her - when she enters harmony at GB1, she can give another unit the harmony ability, allowing two cards without harmony to enter a harmony state. The ability to drop harmony onto a unit somewhat mitigates the issue of lacking harmony units, so she's worth a look if you want more non-harmony grade 2s than just Spica.

As for triggers, you do have two stands, but Lauris gives the power boosts when she attacks, which has no synergy with stand triggers. Bermuda didn't work well with stands to begin with, but with a vanguard which really wants to go first you'd be reliant on those stands having very good effects - and they don't. The older Dreamer Dreamer, Kruk is passable, returning to the deck for a bounce and re-call, which can be nice to extend attacks, but isn't quite enough to overlook that your other key stride, Olyvia, is going to reset your columns anyway. The other stand, the new Jump to the Water Surface, Amelie, is an act skill; move to soul to draw and 2000 power to something. The draw skill was seen as an unrestricted skill on critical triggers way back at the very start of the game, so in effect she's GB1 and harmony restricted for....2000 power. Yes, that's it. Don't bother.

So this isn't looking great - a lot of the intended harmony support doesn't look very good - but don't give up quite yet, because what hasn't been dumped has potential. With more Spicas for more multi-attack shenanigans, the deck retains it's aggressive edge, and with more critical pressure from the vanguard you have at the very least a functional mid-tier deck. With any luck Bushiroad will make next year's set just that bit better than this one, and if we're really lucky we'll see support before then - after all, Lauris doesn't have the name-restricted grade 1 and 2 units every other strider GB2 unit has been getting yet.

Friday Stride: PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Vert

As we pass the half-way point of our overview of the G units our resident pop singers will be using over the next few months, a couple of patters have emerged. First, they work for one build in particular, and second they're similar to another G unit which already exists. This week isn't going to change anything on either count, and instead we're gioing to reach the inevitable conclusion of this approach, with a G unit with heart restrictions taking cues from another clan altogether. Yes, it's now time for that one card which suddenly made this set a whole lot more interesting, PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Vert.

Eternal Sunshine? Go to Norway in the summer.

Vert does break new ground in one respect - well sort of. Although a few G units have counted the number of cards in the damage zone for their effects, Vert is the first one to have a Limit Break ability, which is rather unfortunate since she activates after attacking and thus runs the risk of healing herself out of being able to use it. Thus a bit of thought needs to go into timing her - or you can run the limit break enabler, who's helpfully enough a PR♥ISM, but since you can't search her and there's already a lot you want in those grade 1 slots, you'll probably end up taking your chances with the heals.

Anyway, her skill requires another copy to be flipped face-up, and three discards, but for that hefty cost you get something rather special. Provided you have a PR♥ISM heart, she bounces two PR♥ISMs from the rear-guard, and then rides a new grade 3 PR♥ISM from the hand - standing. Anyone who's played or faced Gear Chronicle in the previous 10 months will probably find the above rather familiar, because returning to the G zone to give a grade 3 the chance to attack as well is functionally what Chronodragon Nextage does. As before, they do have some differences - Limit Break 4 vs Generation Break 2, and consuming another grade 3 from hand as opposed to a counter blast - but their impact is very similar.

Of the two, Vert requires a slightly more specific setup to function properly, but brings with it some further possibility which Nextage doesn't provide. The need to ride another grade 3 means you'll need to either have one in hand (or one on the field which Vert can return before the re-ride), take a chance on getting one off the drive checks, or a way to go and search for one before her first attack. This latter path is possible, but only for the original form of Vert, who's the only one of your grade 3's you don't want to be riding into.

PR♥ISM-Image, Vert is Bermuda Triangle's original break ride. Being one of the first ones released near the start of the break ride era, she has a rather simple effect - when rode, return up to two rear-guards to the hand and draw a card, as well as the standard 10000 power all break rides give. In isolation, she's probably the weakest of the Bermuda break rides, as a blind draw and ride phase bouncing is much less useful than Meer's battle phase returns and recalls, or Pacifica's ability to call anything you need, but with the option to break ride mid-battle phase, she improves quite a bit. Bouncing rested units in the battle phase allows you to recover cards to the hand in order to protect them, lifting her up from something which was redundant against control-based decks to a useful response. This, couples with her new form's bounces, sets the stage for the other stars of the PR♥ISM group to strut their stuff.

Both PR♥ISM-Promise, Labrador and Brand-New-PR♥ISM, Garnet have Limit Break 4 skills which can call PR♥ISMs from the hand when they attack. Calling the maximum of three unlocks additional bonuses for both - Labrador gains 10000 power and a critical, whilst the new Garnet gains a Limit Break 5 additional drive check. Of the two, Labrador is generally considered the more powerful, providing more pressure and not running the risk of a heal trigger turning off the bonus, but despite the risk of losing triple drive Garnet shouldn't be overlooked. Unlike Labrador, she can call her new cards to occupied circles, which can help if you can't bounce a unit for some reason - generally any non-PR♥ISM you run in cases where you didn't just break ride her, or in the end game where you can't bounce anything at all - and her secondary skill can help boost your defences during the opponent's turn.

I mentioned that a path to search out the break ride exists, and since using Sunshine Vert for a battle phase break ride is clearly going to be better than just putting a new Labrador or Garnet over another one, you're going to want to search it. This comes in the form of PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Clear, who was already going in the deck because a new PR♥ISM critical trigger has been in demand pretty much since PR♥ISM first came out. As it is, her skill is actually quite useful. On bounce, for a counter blast and returning her (or another copy of her, due to her being in a closed zone when the skill activates) to the deck, she searches out any Grade 1 or greater Vert, Clear, or Rosa, calls it, and can then bring it back to the hand. Naturally, this makes an easy way to search out your break ride - although your only way to return it without strides is Princess Celtic hitting - but also allows you to search a couple of other cards. PR♥ISM-Image Clear, when returned to the hand from the rear-guard, can give 4000 power for a soul blast, and whilst last year Princess Leyete saw her dumped out of most builds being able to search her and either gain a booster or a card in hand and a 4000 buff makes her far more attractive. We can search both the original PR♥ISM-Image, Rosa and the new PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Rosa, and whilst you don't ever want to touch the original one when so many better cards exist, the new one is actually quite useful, giving herself and another unit a boost when something else return to the hand, provided the vanguard has Limit Break. Not a mainstay of the deck, since she's no use if you stride anything other than Sunshine Vert, but she's worth consideration.

Although hard to get early, the ability to search out a grade 3 can at least ensure stride fodder, and that's something this deck needs. With the Sunshine Vert play eating another grade 3 at a time when most decks don't (usually) have an issue using them up, the deck needs to ensure it has enough to make it's plays. 9 Grade 3's has become a standard for the deck, and even then Shandee can be seen as further options to avoid dropping vital cards to stride.

Ultimately, Sunshine Vert takes the boost that PR♥ISM has been given in the G series sets and ramps it up another level. PR♥ISM had one of the better G zone line-ups prior to Blessing of Divas, and with a powerful finisher allowing you to take better advantage of the break ride the deck is one of, if not the, best deck to come out of the set.

Next week, the thrilling conclusion to mermaid season, as we go look at the cover card of the set.

Friday Stride: Frontier Star, Coral

I'm doing this 'Mermaid Season' thing again because Bermuda Triangle's release schedule puts out a batch of new strides at approximately 12-month intervals, fitting with this features tendency to focus on new cards, but I suppose repeating it could be seen as a bit unimaginative. Bushiroad don't seem to agree though, because a lot of the G units from Blessing of Divas seem to repeat what's gone before. This week, we have a card emulating the last set's trump card who's also a revival of one of the more popular idols of previous sets, Frontier Star, Coral.

She's like Elvis Presley, only she didn't die.

Coral was Bermuda Triangle's second ride chain, released in their second set. Even on release Aurora Star, Coral wasn't overly impressive, and as power creep accelerated she was very quickly left behind. However, she was popular enough that Bushiroad gave her a crossride form in Shangri-La Star, Coral, Coral, which helpfully also had a way to put her base form into the soul. However, release alongside the Duo build with it's re-standing vanguard overshadowed her, and Legion and Stride made her defensive boost irrelevant. However, Bermuda fans don't give up that easily, and so the time has come for Coral to get a boost.

Frontier Star advances Coral to her 6th form, and is designed with the ride chain in mind. On attack, for a counter blast and turning any G unit face-up she can soul charge, and the for each Coral in the soul she can return a rear-guard to your hand and gain 5000 power for each card returned. For having 2 copies of herself face-up in the G zone, she then gives you a draw and calls up to two cards to the rear-guards. This is somewhat similar to School Etoile Olyvia, but with a little more flexibility to make up for the requirement for specific cards in the soul. Interestingly, Frontier Star doesn't require a Coral heart, potentially allowing the lower part of the ride chain to be mixed with another grade 3 for more deck building options.

The one random-seeming element of Frontier Star's skill is that soul charge. It actually harkens back to Aurora Star, but it didn't exactly fit there either. Shangri-La Star can use soul, but she puts it back as fast as she uses it, meaning there's no great pressure from there either. Coral did, however, get a couple of support cards which can take advantage being in the soul.

Active Pink, Larana is a typical grade 2 11000 attacker for a specific character. Like the rest of these, she has another skill, and hers activates from the soul. For a counter blast, she moves to your hand and then immediately to the rear-guard, and then she too soul charges, replacing herself in the soul. This use of the soul as a toolbox is similar to Pale Moon, though notably Larana passes through the hand first. Regardless, it can be a useful way to get hold of an attacker when you need one, and given the composition of the deck her soul charge is quite likely to net you a Coral, another Larana, or the new grade 1 support card Admire Successor, Lyrica.

Like Larana, Lyrica has a way to extract herself from the soul. In exchange for a grade 2 or greater card from the hand, Lyrica puts herself into the hand, calls herself, and then gives another unit a 2000 power boost. The power boost isn't too useful, as it doesn't change any meaningful numbers unless you use multiples or need to push a column to hit the standard 160000, but simply being able to swap a dead attacker for a booster is another boost to consistency - and pushing Aurora Star into the soul can set up your crossride without re-riding or not striding. You can even put in a Larana to then extract her with her own skill, converting Lyrica's cost to a counter blast. Lyrica's other skill also helps with consistency - when ridden or called, she searches the top 5 for a grade 2 or lower Coral to add to the hand, and if you do add one you put a card from the hand into the soul. Sadly only 8 targets makes her less than reliable, but she only has a cost if she hits, and with the deck's ability to continually re-call her she'll eventually get you something.

Sadly, the ride chain takes up a lot of space, and after her dedicated support there's not a whole lot of room for anything to take full advantage of all the bouncing the deck can do. Still, with the power Frontier Star can put out and the consistency given by the ride chain mechanics and Lyrica you shouldn't have too much trouble getting set up.

Next week, Bushiroad encourages the mermaids to steal from other clans as well.

Postscript: There are a few more cards outside the ride chain which have "Coral" in the name, but for various reasons they can't be used in the deck. Coral Assault is an old Aqua Force unit, whilst the more recent Coral Berry Squire is from Neo Nectar. Both are excluded due to Clan Fight rules, though if you're planning to run the deck in a format where mixing is permitted they would help increase your Coral count - though unless cards were treated as being all clans Coral Assault would have no effect if it (or another copy of itself) wasn't on the vanguard circle, and neither would interact with the ride chain.

Snow White of the Corals, Claire is a Bermuda Triangle, but has a different issue - her Japanese name isn't the same, and thus in that language she doesn't have the required name to be used. As of writing, I haven't seen anything suggesting she can't be used, but until there's confirmation one way or the other it's not advised to run her, especially in a tournament. Besides, she's a bad card, and there's much better things you could be doing with those slots.

The final card, Coral Princess, Thetis, is basically all of the above in aggregate. She's not the same type of Coral in her Japanese name, she's an Etranger (though dual clanned with Aqua Force, making her the only legal Etranger under Clan Fight), and she's an old generic card which wasn't even good back when they were being printed. Oh, yes, and she's never been printed in English, so unless you play Japanese you're even further out of luck.

Friday Stride: Flying Mermaid, Frederica

So it's that time of year again, when that one clan which hasn't been seen in a main set since before about half the clans had even been introduced gets their booster and keeps the fanboys happy for another 12 months. OK, so this year the fanboys don't seem to be as happy, because a lot of the cards seem to be rather...well, lacklustre, for want of a better word, but they got waifu cards (literally - they're mermaids in wedding dresses), so Bushiroad will still sell boatloads of this set, and with any luck most of the normal holos will be easy to get hold of at reasonable prices. So let's get into Mermaid Season once again for 2016, and check out the easiest to pull of the G units in this year's booster.

Flying Mermaid, Frederica

~I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky~

Frederica is oddly similar to another G unit in her clan, and even more suspiciously she's not the only G unit we'll be looking at over the next few weeks with an effect we've seen before. If she hits, you can flip another card in the G zone face up to bounce one rear-guard in harmony, call one unit from the hand, and give one rear-guard a 5000 power boost for that turn whilst it's in harmony. She also has the harmony ability herself, allowing her enter harmony with a unit called behind her that turn - especially useful for Bermuda Triangle, where you're likely to want to pick that unit up at some point.

It should be clear that Frederica is very similar to Fluffy Ribbon, Somni and Legendary PR♥ISM-Duo, Nectaria, in that both have on-hit skills to allow extra attacks. The differences between them may seem minor, but they have a big impact in where these two cards fit. Somni and Nectaria function identically aside from the latter's heart restriction and greater power boost, so I'll only look at Nectaria where she differs from Somni. I'll also ignore the Duo heart skill, as it's not relevant to today's card.

First up is Frederica's harmony skill, which makes it very clear that she's designed for the harmony deck over anything else. Being able to turn on the harmony skills of anything called behind her allows for much more flexibility in how you play cards which rely on being in harmony. Somni lacks this, only able to enter harmony if a unit with the ability is behind the vanguard when you stride and remains there throughout the turn, whilst no Prism cards use harmony, making it unnecessary for Nectaria.

Moving on to the main skill, and Frederica's G unit flip cost makes her nominally more costly than Somni's costless effect. However, turning a G unit face up isn't that great a cost, and in fact is likely to give more benefits than drawbacks. The harmony build doesn't have a huge range of G units it needs to use, and with their newest ace also flipping up anything (and gaining more benefits from more face-up units) there's plenty of room for tech choices. Being able to get to GB2 at the end of your first stride turn is also very nice for the GB2 grade 3's the harmony build has access to. Miracle Voice, Lauris can gain 5000 power defensively if you can call during the opponent's turn turn, and Secret Smile, Puumo and Magical Charge, Vita both give options to enable this. The new Great Ascent, Liddy gives a continuous 2000 power for everything in harmony, as well as having a built in option to both call and bounce whilst she's under attack in order to activate harmony skills. Frederica needs to hit for this, however, which prevents her ensuring that GB2 - ironically she'd be better if she paid her cost up front rather than when she hit.

Somni can bounce anything, but she has to return something if she can. Frederica can only return units in harmony, but she can elect not to bounce if you don't want to, even if everything is in harmony. Given the greater set-up Frederica needs, you're less likely to want everything to stay on the field - needing a front row and a back row unit for harmony to be active means triggers can be passed to one and the other bounced - but should the need arise, or should you just want to keep your current setup and call a drive checked card to an empty circle, you have the option.

Frederica's power boost is larger, and can be given to anything - allowing a new call to snipe out rear-guards whilst a trigger buffed column is made bigger still - but relies on the unit being in Harmony for the boost. By contrast, the others power up the incoming unit, which helps ensure they can attack but might not be what you would rather do. Under ideal conditions this is a trivial concern, but if you lack rear-guards and are bouncing her own booster to call a card from your drive checks you may not be able to get it into Harmony. Somni's power boost gets any grade 2 or greater Bermuda Triangle card called

Overall, Frederica is designed specifically for harmony builds, and here she's stronger than Somni under most circumstances. The older card isn't entirely useless, being able to function better when you lack usable rear-guards, but she's much better for builds without access to enough harmony cards with the exception of Prism, who also have their own version of this effect in Nectaria.

Next week, the return of an old favourite.

Friday Stride: Meteokaiser, Bustered

So next week sees the release of Clan Booster 3: More Mermaids, so before pop singers with fish tails take over this series for a few weeks let's go plug a gap and cover a clan that hasn't made it here. Thanks to me just dropping this blog for a few months, Nova Grappler's release in set 6 got completely bypassed. But rather than go look at that, let's go to our old standby for when a clan isn't in the newest pack to hit the streets and check out the latest Fighter's Collection instead. Checking in for the wrestling robots in this round of 'everyone gets one' we have more restanding - because that's what Nova Grapplers do, stand things up.

Introducing Meteokaiser, Bustered

He said he'd been to the year 3000...

Bustered comes from the more recent school of G units, which are permitted to flip up any card, but have effects which scale to the number of copies already face up. In comparison to those which demand a copy of themselves to be flipped for the cost, the newer ones are rather more flexible - four copies can be played over three turns, and can use tech G units you otherwise wouldn't need as the cost. For Bustered, on attack he can stand a unit for each copy of himself on the rear guard, at the cost of a counterblast and that flip. Then, if you have two copies of himself face-up and a full field, he can restand himself at the end of the battle, for a further counter blast and two discards, as well as a penalty of dropping to a single drive check.

So, he becomes a restanding vanguard - not exactly a rare thing for Nova Grapplers, who have no fewer than five grade 3's capable of restanding as vanguard, as well as ways for rear-guards to enable restands. They even have another restanding G unit in Meteokaiser, Victoplasma, which creates a problem for Bustered. Victoplasma has the same overall cost as a restanding vanguard - counter blast 2, discard 2, and a total of 4 drive checks - but requires no setup and doesn't care about the rear-guards, so why even bother with this new guy?

Well, first off, he stands rear-guards, which is most what Nova Grappler decks are aiming for. Although restanding as a vanguard is harder to pull off, he does actually give an extra rear-guard attack or two as well. With most Nova decks well placed to take advantage of those stands, he can facilitate a lot of damage, and even before his self-restand is active he's the only G unit that most Nova Decks can use with a restand not reliant on hitting.

Second is his interaction with the last Nova Fighter's Collection card.Ultimate Beast Deity, Ethics Buster Catastrophe functions in the same way as Bustered, flipping up anything for a skill, with an extra bonus for two copies of itself. With a Beast Deity heart, Ethics gains the ability to stand a rear-guard if a grade 1 or greater beast deity is revealed in a drive check. However the other copies G zone only give a flat 3000 power boost for two or more - nice to have, but not essential to rush for. Flip up a Bustered on an first stride Ethics, however, and your G zone is now primed to take advantage of whichever one you want next - simply flip up a copy of the same card for it's skill, and you have the two copies for the full effect, no matter which one you went with. This interaction gives Bustered a firm place in the G zone line up of Beast Deity decks, and with the potential of future G units to share this trait, it's possible more subclans will get to join in this party.

Finally, there's an interesting aspect to the skill's activation condition - it doesn't care what you attack, meaning even if you swing at a rear-guard you still get the effect. Firstly, this prevents the restand from being shut down by redirection into a rear guard (although since that's a Link Joker skill, Bustered still has problems here), but also gives an interesting manipulation of Exxtreme Battler Victor's stride skill.

Exxtreme Battler, Victor's on-stride skill gives the vanguard the ability to stand a rear-guard on attack, but due to the wording of once per turn abilities this has to be done on the first attack, or it's lost and can't be used at all. However, as that skill is the first attack against a vanguard, if Bustered attacks a rear-guard it won't trigger, allowing your vanguard to restand, attack a vanguard and then use Victor's skill. This doesn't seem like much, but a rear-guard could swing between those two vanguard attacks and this be restood by both skills. I can't advocate this as a good idea - your threatening triple drive attack is against a rear-guard and thus can't kill your opponent - but if you really want to stand Sazandara even more, or there's a rear-guard which just has to die right now it might just catch your opponent off guard.

Overall, a fun card - more of what Novas already do, but with just enough variety to be worth a look. Next week, we move on to another part of the entertainment industry, as we investigate a card which looks suspiciously similar to something I covered already.

Friday Stride: Sunrise Ray Radiant Sword, Gurguit

If I were to go through the clans from Glorious Bravery of Radiant Sword that I play, we'd be looking at a Dark Irregulars stride here. However, since they held Scharhrot Vampir's G unit form for set 8, all we got is a single rare. It's not a bad card, but it's clearly not a headline card for the set. So for this week, let's just get right on with the cover card of the set, which conveniently happens to be in the one clan which I haven't yet covered in a Friday Stride post.

Sunrise Ray Radiant Sword, Gurguit

The sun may well be what finally ends the world

Gurguit's grade 4 form comes immediately following Bushiroad's commitment to avoid GR rarity cards requiring multiple copies to work, and whilst some upcoming cards may go back to flipping up cards in the G zone without caring what those cards are, Gurguit cut out all interaction with the G zone entirely, beyond requiring generation break two to activate. As the ace of the new unite mechanic, he also has this as an activation requirement, which means two units have to be called to the rear-guard during that turn. This isn't as difficult as it sounds, and if you've even seen a gold paladin deck ever it won't sound remotely difficult. It means you'll probably have to think a turn or two ahead of when you want to drop him to maximise your efficiency, but if you can't get the unite off then you're either about to lose anyway or should be using something else right now.

The actual cost is interesting though - counter blast 1 and soul blast 2. Sunrise Ray Knight, Gurguit was one of the first GB2 units to use the soul as cost for it's effect, and expectation was that his grade 4 form would leave well alone to allow for the defensive GB2. However with no limit to how often the grade 4 can use his GB2 in a turn, the soul blast was clearly intended to provide another limit to this.

For all this cost, you get quite a bit. All of your rear-guards gain 5000 power for the turn, which those familiar with Platina Ezel may recognise, but on top of that Gurguit himself gains 5000 for each rear-guard. On top of his own power, a full field will allow him to cap out at 51000 power - or it would if you couldn't then use the skill again. Breaking 100,000 power on the vanguard lane is not impossible, and if the stars align and you get to use the GB2 five times you're looking at 150,000 power before boosting, which is very much "Perfect Guard or die" territory. You won't pull this much power very often, if ever, but a 75-100,000 power vanguard lane is still a big problem, especially when backed up by rear-guards with an extra 10-15,000 power each.

Gurguit's clearly a finisher then, and a potent one. No restands, no guard restrict, no criticals, just buckets of power to everyone and a whole barrel for himself, and steamroller over any hand without enough perfect guards for everything. However, that soul is an issue. We can excuse Gurguit's main deck form using it to a degree - he's consuming counter blasts as well, and if the grade 4 can take the game you don't need soul to defend yourself - but if you're going to spam that g unit's GB2, or even stride gurguit multiple times, you'll need to build up soul.

Knight of Far Arrows, Saphir is a card Gurguit decks have liked for some time. When called from the deck, it counter charges and soul charges 1, funding the entire cost of using the grade 3 GB2. Whilst Saphir can't quite match that with the grade 4, he still helps build soul. The low power isn't ideal, but between both Gurguits and Scourge Point Dragon giving power, and the deck's ability to easily grab a booster for him it's not a huge issue. G Set 7 followed up on this design by giving us Knight of the Faint Sun, Marcia, a card with a similar impact, and also an 8000 power grade 2. Unlike Saphir, Marcia puts herself into the soul, costing a card in exchange for that counter charge. However, she has a few benefits over her older counterpart. First off, she activates at the end of a turn, as long unite is active, not caring where she came from. In short, she isn't dead in hand like Saphire. Also, that applies to the opponent's turn as well, so if she lives through the turn, and you called at least two cards to guard that turn, she can jump in on their end phase to flip damage and load soul for your turn. Finally, she has resist, which can be key in some matchups, especially against Link Joker Chaos builds.

Further counter charge from moving to soul comes from Player of the Holy Pipe, Gerrie, who functions slightly differently. In exchange for a 3000 power bonus whilst unite is active, he must move to soul after he attacks or boosts. He needs a little care to work with - it's not a good idea to spam him if you have no damage face-down, but he makes himself a full 7000 booster, and stands work well with the big Gurguit, since you have beefy rear-guards to stand. Gerrie isn't the only trigger to put himself in the soul however - Scarface Lion is Gurguit's RR critical trigger, moving to soul for a draw and another 5000 power to an attacking Gurguit vanguard. Besides pumping the grade 4 even higher, he also helps build hand, which gold paladins tend not to directly do, usually relying on deck thinning and not using hand to build up their defences. There's also Flame of Victory, a very old critical able to give any Gold Paladin 3000 power for the turn. Since it's now easy to obtain, it's worth running, but don't rely on it for building soul - it's better guarded with, to save Gerrie and Scarface for soul building.

There are several starters which move themselves into the soul, but I won't discuss them here. The final card we will look at, however, is Sunshine Knight, Jeffrey. Much like Scarface Lion, he moves himself to soul for a draw. He is, however, a unite card, doing so after boosting if the conditions are met. Unlike Gerrie, Jeffrey is optional, allowing him to stick around should you want to minimise calls or utilise defensive cards which require you to have rear-guards. However, the ability to be called, boost, and then retreat into the soul with no net loss of card advantage is a nice bonus against control decks.

There's another advantage to all these cards flinging themselves into the soul - you now have open circles to call new units. All of them give you either an extra open damage for a call skill, or a new card which could be called (or be used as shield over another unit which can be called), which makes it much easier to bring unite on line without losing cards from calling over them,

With these guys around, the soul isn't really an issue, and as a bonus neither is counter blasts, allowing perfect guards which work from the deck to be used. Thus Gurguit managed to pick himself up from being one of the less effective G decks to being a rather good one.

Friday Stride: Black Seraph, Gavrail

So after splitting a case of G-BT07 with a teammate, an abundance of Angel Feather foils left me with half a rescue deck despite that not being a clan in my half of the split. Then a couple of weeks later, I obtain the rest of what I'd need for a Gavrail-Rescue build from my other teammate, to go with all the stuff sat in my binder waiting for me to get rid of it. OK, it's not a 'complete' build - no Raphael, Sunny Smile Angel or Harut, and don't even ask about Nociel - but it's fun and demonstrates what rescue decks can pull off. So for this week, let's look at G Angel Feather's new centrepiece in Black Seraph, Gavrail.

She is a Waifu, and a Persona Stride

Gavrail's grade 4 form, like most of the recent evolutuions for the stride bearer grade 3's, works with her clan's new keyword rescue. Rescue is of the type which prefixes skills with a certain effect, in this case being an effect involving healing damage before inflicting the same amount of damage back to yourself. Unlike conventional Angel Feather damage swaps, this does activate trigger effects, giving the potential to gain additional pseudo-drive checks in the form of damage checks in your turn, as well as additional damage checks when defending.

Gavrail herself has two skills, which need to be activated by a counter-blast and turning up a copy of herself. Once she does, she can give two units 2000 power each for the turn every time a card enters the damage zone in the battle phase - which will happen with every rescue going off during said battle phase. The second skill ensure the first is meaningful, with the only current rescue 2 ability. After she attacks, she heals two damage, and then takes two damage, complete with trigger checks. This gives more chances for heals, extra crits, more stands, and if you really wanted more draws - but the rescue ability takes a card from the deck every time you heal, making the deck too fast for draws to be safe. Since you can heal face-down damage, it also gives an effective counter charge 2, more than recovering the counter blast cost to activate the effect.

Gavrail thus has 5 drive checks and 4 lots of 2000 power to distribute for persona flip and counter blast 1 which becomes a net counter charge by the end of the turn. The amount of digging for triggers she can do means she plays very nicely with both criticals and stands. The former rack up damage quickly, and can ensure an opponent has to guard everything far sooner due to extra criticals floating around. Five checks make stands more reliable, and allows you to attack with everything in the reasonable confidence you'll restand it. With 8 stand triggers able to return themselves to the deck, it's also quite easy to compress the deck to the point where a stand is more or less certain to show.

However, like most good medical professionals, Gavrail works best as a team. The usual power gainers - Thousand Ray Pegasus, Million Ray Pegasus, and Nurse of Broken Heart - gain power with rescue just like everything else, and can also take advantage of Doctoroid Refros to gain power. Whilst the Black Seraph herself can't hand out boosts from the fridge's own damage swaps, returning damage checked triggers back to the deck (along with Refros itself) and pulling out non-triggers instead increases the trigger density of what remains to up your odds of hitting triggers. This process is somewhat luck-based (refros can also put triggers into the damage zone, in which case they won't activate), but get the deck small enough and you can do at least a small loop even without the damage swapping of the Nociel engine.

A standout of the new rescue units is Black Bomber, Maalik, who if called from the damage zone triggers a rescue every time she attacks or boosts against the vanguard. She's especially potent with stands, since hitting them allows her to immediately re-stand for another attack and another rescue. Black Seraph's power boost helps Maalik become even harder to stop, get over annoying defensive triggers, or build power elsewhere whilst hitting even after whatever boosted the first swing is resting. The 5 trigger checks on the vanguard swing also helps dig through to another stand to allow Maalik to swing even more.

It's not just the stands which can generate more attacks - Laser Clutcher, Ke'el and Drill Motor Nurse both call themselves when sent to the drop zone from the damage zone, and if they were sent by rescue they gain 3000 power as well. Bringing them in over resting units allows further attacks, and with effects ordered correctly they can gain power from Gavrail's other skill as well - just one boost allows Drill Motor to solo 11000 vanguards without a boost, whilst the two from Gavrail's rescue 2 would put a Ke'el to 16000. If there's something else you want called, there's also Black Report, Ridwan - when you move a damage to the drop, she move to soul to give up to one rear-guard 4000 power, as well as call the card from the drop zone if it was healed by a rescue. The ability to trigger on-call skills mid battle is never a bad thing, allowing for potentially more damage swaps, more attacks, and more rescue.

In summary, Black Seraph, Gavrail provides a much more offensive G zone option for Angel Feather, and in particular for Gavrail builds, which previously only made offensive pushes through mass damage swaps to power up. Coupled with the clan's naturally strong defences, Gavrail provides a more balanced deck better able to apply pressure to the opponent.

Friday Stride: Interdimensional Dragon, Bind Time Dragon

After a long pause, the Friday Stride is back, and fittingly enough our first subject is from the time clan. Gear Chronicle have finally shifted away from focussing entirely on Chronojet Dragon, with Chronofang Tiger providing the core for a different battle plan, centred around using your own bind zone. Whilst there's obvious similarities to time leap, much of the new support binds the cards permanently to gain other effects. Chronofang himself is the key card for this, with his GB2 skill guaranteeing a stride every turn provided you have something to use.

Not having Chronojet means no Nextage, so the deck has a new ace, which interacts with the cards bound by these skills to provide a strong push at most points in the game.

Interdimensional Dragon, Bind Time Dragon

Time's stopped? Oh, wait, no, that's just my watch.

Bind Time has two functions, either as a mid-game power play to swing momentum in it's favour, or as a late-game finisher. It's GB2 costs two counter blasts, a soul blast and flipping a copy of itself, and that's just the up-front cost. The very first part of the effect also binds at least one of your rear-guards unless you don't have any at all, so the overall cost is quite hefty, but it gives a lot for that. Straight up, Bind Time gains 10000 power and a critical, and then for each card in your bind zone, regardless of how it went there, your opponent sends one of their rear-guards back to the deck. Finally, if there is a Gear Beast heart card, you can counter charge 2 and soul charge 2, refunding much of the cost and giving one extra soul. There's a lot here, so it's worth breaking it down.

The power and critical isn't a huge deal by itself - without guard restrictions it's liable to be met by a perfect guard, and with G guardians providing a further boost to defences there's a good chance your opponent can halt it. However, even G guardians will likely require further shield, and without any defensive cards the critical makes the attack threatening enough to drain the opponent's hand. Ultimately, however, this is a bonus which makes Bind Time useful against decks which clear their own field, and not what you run it for.

What really sells Bind Time is it's ability to remove the opponent's field. Whilst your opponent chooses which unit they send back, it's not overly difficult to put enough cards in the bind zone to clear the field, especially if they have anything that removes itself or they attempt to not over-commit to the rear-guard. Chronofang will bind at least 1 from it's on-ride skill, and one more if you put it to GB2 before you stride. Bind Time can bind more than one card, and with a few rear-guards able to call themselves from the bind zone with more power sending rested units out to recall them with more power next turn may be a viable play. Steam Scalar, Emellanna and Quiet Sleep-calling Gear Tapir both allow you to bind cards from the drop zone, nominally as a cost for their effects, whilst Steam Knight, Mudar binds himself as a cost for this own effect. Finally, there's time leap skills. Anything you send to the bind zone for a time leap on that turn will still be there when Bind Time attacks, and anything which got trapped in the bind zone due to the mechanics of time leap will also count. As a result, the deck as a whole works very well with the time leap support, both due to this and the fact that the cards which activate when bound from the rear-guard activate from both time leap skills and Bind Time Dragon.

Finally, the resource replenishment. Bind Time having a net 0 counter blast and soul charge 1 means the deck can do more than just swing with Bind Tine twice. Whilst some early planning may be needed to ensure the damage is open for Bind Time to activate, the deck can afford to actually use cards with counter blast costs. This does, however, rely on you having a Gear Beast grade 3, of which there are only two: Chronofang Tiger and Reform-calling Gear Eagle. Chronofang is a given - Bind Time is clearly the ace of his build, and it's Chronofang's continuous binding which helps make Bind Time the massive removal it can be. Gear Eagle is a nice back-up, given it's interaction with the Chronosocommand Dragon and Chronoscommand Revolution, who give a way to shift stubborn resist units that Bind Time can't get rid of. Interestingly, both of these cards are good backups to Chronojet Dragon, allowing those builds access to another G zone option.

There's another aspect to the resource replenishment, outside of his own skill - recovery of the bound units. Whilst most units bound are gone for the rest of the game, choosing units you no longer need can mitigate the impact. Even better are Steam Knight, Mudar mentioned above, and Parallel Barrel Dragon, both of whom can call themselves from the bind zone, and gain power boosts in the process - not only does binding one (or both) of these allow you to recover the minus next turn, but do so with more power. 

I won't go into the full time leap engine here, because it deserves it's own discussion, but in the context of mitigating the loss of your own units to Bind Time there's one card which really should be discussed - Steam Battler, Ur-Watar. If you've ever faced Gear Chronicle within the last 6 months you probably recognise this little thing. When bound from the rear-guard, this stand trigger returns itself to the deck to let you draw two and put a card from your hand back into the deck. Previously it was used with Steam Maiden, Melem - time leaping Ur-Watar into Melem allowed the latter to use her own skill to return her to the deck for another grade 0 without trapping the card bound to call her in the bind zone, and it's a similar interaction with Bind Time that makes Ur-Watar so useful. If bound through Bind Time Dragon's GB2, Ur-Watar is present whilst the skill resolves, adding to the count of cards to be sent back to your opponent's deck. Immediately afterwards, however, Ur-Watar's own skill gets it out of the bind zone in exchange for a net +1 to your hand, mitigating the -1 from binding it.

In conclusion, Bind Time Dragon does a lot, providing in one card both a momentum-shifting midgame card and a finisher for a clan to finally step away from Chronojet. Being the ace of the current main antagonist of the anime, you can be sure this won't be the last we see of this deck.

Guide to Generating G Guard: Cray Elemental

Well, I'm back. A lot has happened since I've been not posting here: Team League, Granblue finally got a new perfect guard after 5 years, Bushiroad did something Konami still won't and expanded the G zone, and we got G guardians. Yes, after much boosting of offensive power and only a few tech guarding options we finally get a solid defensive option other than your four sentinels. The ability to pull out a strong defence from the G zone, even if it does need you to have a heal, can provide a lifeline especially against guard restriction skills.

Bushiroad have, on the whole, done quite well with the release of these cards - being introduced in the 2016 Fighter's Collection means everyone gets one, and being at RR to boot makes most of them easy to get hold of even on a budget. The first wave of G guardians are generally well balanced - a few are somewhat sub-par, but interestingly these tend to be in some of the otherwise stronger clans. However, I'm not going to look at those today, because one clan has already had multiple G guardians whilst the rest only had one.

Cray Elemental.

Much like with the G units previously, the introduction of G guardians came with a set of 'generic' Cray Elementals, giving everyone some options in what defences they have in their G zones - and for Touken Ranbu, who didn't get into the Fighter's Collection, G guardians they can use. In the first of a potential series, here's a study on everyone's guardians.

Light Element, Agleam

There's even a waifu G guardian

Agleam was the first of today's cards to be revealed, but at the time of writing is the only one yet to be released for the English game (it's due to be released with a fanbook available in early July), and provides a useful skill for decks with a need to get through the deck or refine their hand. When it's called as a guardian, you can discard a card to draw a new one. It's nothing special, but it does have uses for decks which don't generate their own card advantage. The other value it has is for deck who don't get much out of their clan's G guardians - Shadow Paladin's current G guardian doesn't gain any shield itself, instead allowing guarding from the field in a clan which doesn't tend to keep spare cards around, and Narukami decks other than Vanquisher builds might not find the Thunderstrike 1 easy to set up - where the discard and draw is more useful than an impractical shield boost.

Dark Element, Dizmel

The End's worst nightmare

Dizmel is one of two Cray Elemental G guardians included in the Fighter's Collection, and in terms of usefulness is something of an all or nothing card - either it's going to be a vital support for your deck or almost useless. Besides it's own resist, which ultimately isn't that useful, when called to guard it gives one rear-guard protection from being hit by any attack that turn, or being chosen for opponent's effect - resist in all but name. For some decks, it's not all that helpful - most modern Ganblue decks retire their rear-guards through hollow, whilst G Pale Moon do a similar trick with the soul via magia. If you have no rear-guards, the ability to protect them is usually unimportant, although even here it can be nice if you have room for one.

For some clans, however, it can be vital. If you have key rear-guards you need to keep alive, Dizmel's protection can be vital. Aqua Force and Nova Grapper often rely on key rear-guards to allow for their extra attacks, and by preventing them from coming under attack or being hit by retirement during the battle phase can make the difference between your next turn being the big push you need to win or a minor push to try and prevent yourself falling behind.

Even for more vanguard-centric decks, or clans with superior call options, where the rear-guards aren't individually as significant Dizmel still has value - more specifically against two cards for the same reason. Both Dragonic Overlord the End and Commander Laurel have skills which allow the vanguard to restand if it hits, and a common strategy with both is to target a rear-guard with the first attack. With most modern perfect guards unable to protect them, they're often hard to guard - an Overlord in legion is hard enough, a fully powered up Dimension Police G unit almost impossible - and can net an easy restand and resultant massive increase in hand size. Dizmel answers this in a single card, simply by preventing the attack target from being hit and thus not allowing the restand effects to activate, and thus provides a way for decks which rely on the newer sentinels to counter these plays.

Metal Element, Scryew

Screyw Diablo, I have a G guardian

The last of the Cray Elementals, Screyw, doesn't have any complex tricks. It just has a lot of shield. Provided you already have a G unit face-up in the G zone, you can discard any card for an extra 10000 shield. At the moment, the 25000 shield this card gives is the maximum shield value a G guardian can generate alone, and although some clans with more recent support have had second G guardians which can reach this power Scryew is the only one available to everyone. It costs two cards, but discarding a redundant grade 3 means you only used 10000 shield from hand for 25000 shield on the guardian circle. Even discarding a 5000 shield grade 1 or 2 gives you a net increase, and if you can't use certain cards to guard with due to your opponent's effect you can still discard them for the shield boost.

There's another benefit to these cards, and that is their status as Cray Elementals. Some of the main deck Cray Elemental cards require face-up Cray Elementals in the G zone, and any of these can deliver that. The major one would be Earth Elemental, Pokkur, who can unlock cards on call and give rear-guard reliant decks a way to combat Link Joker - especially useful for Granblue and Angel Feather, who's ability to swap rear-guards in and out of their toolboxes allows them to search out and then consistently re-use a single copy. The second card to note is Rain Elemental, Tear, who can counter charge for each Cray Elemental face-up. Noteworthy if you don't use your clan's own G guardians, as once you go through most of your G guardians you'll end up being able to refresh your counter blasts almost entirely in one go. Finally, there's Air Elemental, Fwarlun, who's mostly been ignored as it's skill - a 1000 power boost for each face up elemental - wouldn't do a whole lot with an 8 card G zone where maybe one card wasn't from the deck's clan. Given a wide spread of elemental G guardians and the space to tech some of the Cray Elemental strides, and it has potential use if you have need of a big booster.

So there we have it. The G guardians that anyone can use. With each clan having a 20000 shield clan-exclusive card, you should have plenty of options even before your clan receives it's second G guardian.

Friday Stride: Great Villan, Dirty Picaro

Another week, another new set. The first Technical Booster is now out, and comes with 3, yes 3, GR cards - one for each clan. This week, we'll be looking at a dirty cheat who you should never emulate - but you should probably run, because it's really useful. It's the new ace of Spike Brothers, Great Villain, Dirty Picaro.

Is that because you blinded him?

Like many of the traditionally 'Minor' clans, what Picaro does fits perfectly into his clan. At Generation Break 3, at the hefty cost of counter blast 2, turn another G unit face up and put a card from your hand to the soul he can call units from the deck up to the number of face-up G units from your deck. No grade restrictions, no top x search, any cards you want, and unless they have their own skill to leave the field they'll stick around. The cost is high, but since you'll have a minimum of 3 G units you can be sure you can get at least three attacks off even if you have no rear-guards before. He does call to open rear-guards, but for most Spike Brothers decks this shouldn't be an issue - either you cleared it last turn anyway, or your rear-guards will get themselves out of the way for Picaro.

What makes Picaro so special is that he's one of very few ways Spike Brothers can generate actual card advantage. The clan's overarching theme is to exchange it's own cards for more power, thus forcing the opponent's hand to drain away even faster. Most of it's 'advantage engines' are actually 1 for 1 card trades rather than gaining cards as many other clans do. Whilst you can sometimes combine the skills to gain the new card from two skills whilst only losing one, this isn't always easy since those skills aren't all that common (and often need to hit). It's easier to simply amass multiple power-ups and then get the one lost card back, which is what Spikes are meant to be doing anyway.

So where does Picaro do well? Since The RECKLESS RAMPAGE introduced the Charge build, it should be obvious that this will support it. With it's other major stride - Shootdown King, Miracle Ace - working with charge units to conduct a blitz which also clears your own field, Picaro's ability to call it all back (either for keeps or to charge off again) really helps recover from those turns. The only downside is that the charge build is somewhat counter blast heavy, and the unflip engine is a Stand Trigger, which isn't all that helpful for most Spike builds. Still, Picaro can make a dangerous finisher and can pull back a field once your charge units have all left your hand.

For Dudleys, the situation is similar. Although Dudley Jessica gives them free superior calls when they stride Great Warrior, Dudley Geronimo, the latter is likely to get rid of them. However, the deck as a whole is a lot less resource-heavy than other spike decks and thus can save enough counter blasts to use Picaro to fill up the field once Geronimo's emptied it.

It's the Legion-era decks that gain the least from Picaro, or rather Bloody Ogle, because that's the one people play. With the deck's main gambit being break ride, legion, then burn 5 open counter blasts to launch 7+ massive attacks, there isn't anything left for Picaro to use. He's still useful, however - some days things just won't go your way, and the ability to make a field from nowhere is one of those generally good skills that you should probably make room for - and the Legion deck really doesn't need much from the G zone anyway.

In conclusion, it should be clear that Picaro does what Spike Brothers does - call units for extra attacks - but does so to a degree that no other card can manage. Thus it becomes a lifeline for the deck, giving it options for that game where the rear-guards didn't come or the opponent managed to live through the rush. Picaro shows off the hidden side of the clan that often gets lost beneath all the power gaining and throwing cards into the deck - they have the most flexible deck searching skills in the game, even above the paladin clans - and with some liberal interpretation of the clan's rules you can do something quite different.

Friday Stride: Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VOLTAGE"

Well, that's all the clans I haven't covered before out of the way, now onto the repeat offenders. This week it's Narukami's turn to get another look in, as we explore what happens when you take a new mechanic that began as much to make two cans distinct and run so far with it you create a monster. The ultimate powerhouse for his deck, I give you Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VOLTAGE".

Does it involve free gold or fiery death?

Narukami have in the past struggled to make themselves distinct from Kagero. Upon the clan's release it was only Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion which did anything significantly different from Kagero, and the later dominance of the Eradicator subclan didn't help. During this time, what really set them apart was Kagero having more tools to pick off boosters whilst Narukami had to mostly beat at the front row, either with effects or multi-target attacks. Bushiroad haven't been slacking here - during the Legion Mate arc Narukami's Brawlers eventually centred around the Big Bang multi-attackers whilst Kagero's Perdition tended to target columns. By the time Vanguard G came around, Kagero were mostly back to their old tricks of picking off whatever they wanted, but that left an issue for Narukami - any changes to the targeting of these skills would inherently weaken them, whereas giving them exactly the same skills goes against giving the clans their own identities.

Cue binding. The bind zone is relatively under-utilised in vanguard, and generally used as a holding area, however G era Narukami took it to a new level. By binding the cards it retired as well as cards already in the drop zone, it created new problems for decks which use their drop zone (which includes anything using a perfect guard which needs another copy in the drop zone for an effect), whilst allowing it to become further distinct from Kagero. The first wave was nice facing these opponents, but against anything else the lack of presicion retirement meant it couldn't control as well as Kagero, especially in the back row.

Thus we reach Moonlit Dragonfang, where the bind playstyle was built upon. The new Thunderstrike keyword on several cards gives rewards for binding your opponent's cards even if it doesn't hurt them directly, and although VOLTAGE doesn't have the keyword himself, his skill works along much the same lines. By turning another copy face-up, he gains two skills. The first is a direct copy of the skill of Lightning Dragon Knight, Zorras - if he hits, your opponent retires one, and you bind two cards from their drop zone. Given that you could just stride Zorras and have the skill without the flip, as first stride he's only useful to activate Dragonic Vanquisher's GB2 sooner - and since Vanquisher's GB2 is pretty bad you'll very rarely need to do this.

What we're really after is the GB3, which gives your front row 3000 power for every bound card your opponent has. Whilst decks binding cards for use on later turns or time leap units stranded in the bind zone can sometimes give you a boost, you'll usually have to fill out their bind zone yourself. The on-hit skills will help, as will that of the Zorras you'll have gone into first, and from the first round of support you have Vanquisher and Voltage Horn Dragon retiring, as well as Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura's on-hit to empty the drop from the early game. More recent cards are Rockclimb Dragoon, a Vanquisher-exclusive grade 2 with an on-call retire & bind, and Blitz-spear Dragoon, a new backup ride who can bind a front-row on ride. Helping empty out the drop zone is Chain-bolt Dragoon, who can make the opponent follow up a bind with another one, as well as gaining 2000 power for the turn - not a lot, but could tip you over a shield stage with VOLTAGE. For a soul blast Dragon Dancer, Bernadette can, once you bind two cards, become a 9k booster which threatens to retire & bind some more if the attack hits, which can be especially dangerous once your attacks get big. Finally, Wildrun Dragoon, the new starter, can move to soul to bind something and hand out a 5000 power boost for the turn to another unit, provided you can have another card bound by that unit's attack.

With all this binding, and much of it able to activate regardless of your opponent, it's rather easy to get a good pile of cards bound - 9-10 or even more is not unreasonable, except maybe against decks which don't leave a field for you to retire & bind from, which means VOLTAGE can be putting 30000 power or more on top of that columns base power. For perspective, Sanctuary Guard Regalie can only give half this at most, and if you do you lose a lot of options and those columns will often lack base power. VOLTAGE can be 30000 with a Voltage Horn in the front row to add even more power as soon as the rear-guard attacks, or a Chatura for extra on-hit pressure - even VOLTAGE himself will give another 6000 if he can hit and the opponent still has a rear-guard. These numbers are somewhat ridiculous on what's nominally a generic G unit, and it's only the fact that you need Vanquisher's support to reach them that keeps VOLTAGE from becoming a monster in other Narukami decks. In it's own deck, however, it utterly outclasses Conquest Dragon as a finisher outside of some very bad luck, and whilst the older G unit still has it's roles (killing off a problem card, those games you just can't bind anything), VOLTAGE is what's going to give G Narukami the push it needs to stand alongside the clan's other decks.