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.