Friday Stride: Legendary Dimensional Robo, Daikaiser Leon

So Moonlit Dragonfang is almost upon us, but before we get into the strides in that set we've time for one more card from the Fighter's Collection. So, in the spirit of giving as many clans as possible equal exposure in this column, let's check out Dimension Police's newest offering, Legendary Dimensional Robo, Daikaiser Leon.

Clearly, he must like the Morikawa dimension.

Leon is the newest form of Daikaiser, and continues that unit's tradition of being able to break through the opponent's guardians, including Perfect Guards, when a grade 3 is damage checked. For Leon, this translates into a GB2 counter-blast 1 and flip a copy face up, provided you have a Kaiser heart. For clan fight (i.e the format all Bushiroad events currently use), this means one of Daikaiser's Grade 3 forms or Shadowkaiser - who's support for Daikaiser as well.

The first thing you'll note is that it's a chance-reliant skill. Whereas the previous guard breakers have either given an additional bonus or only paid when the grade 3 is revealed, Leon pays up-front for something which might not even work, and thus you're going to want to maximise your chances at pulling the skill off, and the easiest way to do this is more grade 3's. When the original Daikaiser was revealed, this was taken to it's extreme with decks running 12 or more grade 3's, with the resulting unbalanced grade ratios being patched by the Enigman ride chain (this type of chain guaranteed the grade 2 if you rode the grade 1, thus meaning having the latter in opening hand effectively gave you two of the cards you needed to ride). Whilst Nova Grapplers can still use this sort of build with Asura Kaiser and the Blau ride chain, True Great Daikaiser - Dimension Police's strongest Kaiser - requires Dimensional Robo soul for both him and his mate, thus pushing Leon into a purer subclan build. 9-10 grade 3's, however, is perfectly viable (in fact a grade 1-2-3 lineup of 13-11-9 is slightly more consistent for riding than the conventional 14-11-8, which sacrifices ride consistency for booster numbers), especially if some of your grade 1 slots would include stride fodder. Since you're running these to act as extra grade 3's, just run a grade 3 to trigger on drive checks as well. This also helps you get as many Kaisers in the deck whilst also having room for Great Daiyusha for the legion.

The more recent tool to aid triggering the skills is Dimensional Robo, Daibazooka, Kaiser's 11k attacker. His other skill makes him a grade 3 when revealed in a trigger check, as well as allowing a counter charge and soul charge when drive checked. Not only does Daibazooka repay Leon's cost when checked, he can also ensure you have the soul for True Daikaiser & Great Daiyusha, as well as any soul blast skills you may run.

Leon has one more issue, which is harder to fix: He doesn't give much pressure. Unlike his Grade 3 forms, he doesn't gain a bonus critical to force the opponent to guard. Triple drive somewhat makes up for this, but without being able to make his attack a killing blow the opponent can let the attack through and rely on you not getting those triggers - or drop a single perfect guard and bank on you not seeing both the triggers you need to push them to six damage and the grade 3 to get through. 12 criticals are advisable here, to maximise your chances of getting them, but 12 criticals are good almost everywhere right now. You could also use criticals on other units whilst getting to GB2 to accelerate the opponent to 5 damage so that Leon doesn't need extra criticals

However, if you want another option, there's also a helpful little trick which can give Leon his own criticals. Dimensional Robo, Gocannon is an unimpressive grade 1 who can at the cost of two units give a Daiyusha vanguard an extra critical. Since a stride unit can take the name of a heart card, all you need do is stride Leon over a Daiyusha, gain it's name, and voilà! You now have one grade 4, guard-breaking Daiyusha, all ready to gain a critical and make someone cry. But, you may be saying, didn't Leon need a Kaiser heart? This is true, but we can have both. Since True Daikaiser legions with Great Daiyusha, striding over the legion with Leon gives both cards in the heart. Leon doesn't need to take the name of it's Kaiser heart, only have one in there, so it's free to take Daiyusha's name instead and gain the benefits of even more support cards. This is not advised - it's very inefficient and doesn't give enough back to make it worth the investment - but it's there if you really want that critical.

Leon can be threatening, but the deck has to be build and played aggressively. If you don't deal them damage early, by Leon isn't going to threaten them by himself. Get the deck and play-style right, however, and he might just be even more of a danger than previous Daikaisers.