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.