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.

Friday Stride: Dragon Masquerade, Harri

For every new mechanic, some of the existing clans will inevitably have to wait longer for cards using it. The wait for the first G era support has been especially long when a lot of clans didn't get anything during season 4, and thus have even fewer options to keep up. Of the five clans not to gain their stride support before the Girs Crisis arc of the anime, three did get set support in season 4 (though not a great deal in two cases), whilst Nubatama has only ever had one full wave of support and has one of the smallest card pools in the game - before the upcoming Techincal Booster Touken Ranbu has more cards. That just leaves one clan, and because I format my titles with the name of the card you'll be able to tell I'm talking about Pale Moon, who did at least get into two boosters in season 3. So, let's examine the latest performer in this circus, Dragon Masquerade, Harri.

You're a wizard Harri no, that's too obvious.

Harri is a future form of Pale Moon's strider grade 3, who naturally is also called Harri. Like his base form, this Harri utilises Pale Moon's new Magia keyword, which marks out skills which call units from the soul for a turn, before sending them back at the end of the turn. In comparison to permanent calls from the soul, Magia skills tend to either have a lower cost or give the called unit a power boost, and reduces vulnerability to control skills at the cost of having to keep using Magia skills to maintain a field. Harri is the big finisher of the Magia deck, doing quite a bit.

His skill is costly - you need to already be at GB3 before he attacks, and then counter blast 2 and move one of your rear-guards to the soul. In exchange, he can call three units out from the soul for the turn, then if you have five or more rear-guards (which at the present means five) you move two of your opponent's rear-guards into the soul. Whilst they get to choose which two units, this gives some degree of control to a deck which generally operates more aggressively, especially against decks which don't actively utilise their soul.

The key function of the effect, however, is to call out further rear-guards to generate more attacks. Since he can call over resting units, he generates five attacks in addition to what other units can set up. This does come with the downside of replacing a unit with a temporary one, but if you call over other Magia units then you've not lost any permanent cards (there's still a cost - units you retire aren't available for later calls from the soul). Likewise, if you use a unit called from a Magia skill for his cost, you don't lose a card in using his effects. 

Three units gives you enough to generate an entire column and another attacker. The first obvious play is to not boost one of your rear-guards when it attacks, to leave the booster standing for later. Darkside Princess is especially nice here, since she can make herself 14k to attack the vanguard before diving into the soul - right where she needs to be for Harri to bring her back out. Alternatively, if you use the booster, Flying Peryton can replace it for free, or good old Purple Trapezist can be called to the back and swap out the resting attacker for a standing unit.

There's one more issue, however, and that's the GB3. Needing two other G units face-up to use the skill means either he has to wait for your third stride or you have to flip over another G unit on your first stride. The go-to for this is Snow Element, Blizza for it's usability by every deck, but G era Pale Moon decks need their counter-blasts, and with access to Jester Demonic Dragon, Lunatec Dragon who can be used on the first stride for free this becomes the better option. Whilst you don't get Lunatec's critical, you get a 2k power boost for anything you call from the soul, which can fix columns or allow units to without boosters to force more guard.

Harri is big, and perhaps slightly too big. He does a lot whilst not needing multiple copies, but for that he's slow to activate and costly, and whilst the deck does have potential it has a few issues at the moment, and the other functional Pale Moon builds can't use Lunatech to make Harri faster, and generally have better things to do with the counterblasts.