Card Review: Excelis Messiah

Yes, I is beautiful and we all know it...

So today we have the full previewed effect of Excelics Messiah. And here is the GR in its full glory:

Savior of all things...except LJ wallets

[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card named "Genesis Dragon, Amnesty Messiah" from your G zone, and turn it face up] When this unit attacks a vanguard, if you have a face up card named "Genesis Dragon, Amnesty Messiah" in your G zone, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose any number of locked cards, and unlock them. All of your units unlocked with this effect get [Power]+3000 until end of turn. Retire all of your opponent's units unlocked with this effect. If the number of units unlocked with this effect is three or more, this unit gets [Critical]+1 until end of that battle.

Firstly, my condolences to all the messiah players: your wallet will feel the pain for this one. You need at least 2 Amnesty just to get this to work, and 3 if you are planning to run 2. Having a stride zone full of GR is very bling, but also very VERY expensive... 7 GR (4 Amnesty and 3 Excelics) is quite painful...

All Hail Wallet Messiah

That aside, this effect is relatively strong. You have to stride Amnesty at least once, so this follows up another turn of critical pressure while buffing RG columns. So instead of having high power itself, it grants power to RG column. making it a very offensive stride, the flip of Big Crunch Dragon. Which is good considering link joker will need the offense to compliment their locking game. And it is actually easier than it looks to set up. You just need 2 self lockers and columns that reach at least 18k (easier than it looks with neuron, awakening and gravity well)

The retire component has resemblance to Chaos Breaker Dragon but without a cost. Although it seems counter-intuitive, but there are merits for it. It firstly allows you to actually kill problematic units so you can spend your lock on other effects. Also in combination with Big Crunch, you can actually retire problematic resist units if you managed to lock a column with resist.

You'll get a kick out of her...

It is mostly tied to g-era support, as self-locking is non-existent for star vaders or deletors. But you have few options to go about self-locking. Alter Ego already does this, but you also have access to Gravity Well (grade 2), Neuron Star (grade 3), Heavymaterial Dragon (grade 2) and Spiral Nebula (grade 0), we also have no news as of any further self locking support (as of 6/9/15).

With this in mind, 2 main ways of getting 21k column involves locking 1 unit (18k column) or locking 2 in a column (<18k). First lock is easy with Alter Ego stride skill, and 2nd can easily be achieved with Gravity Well or Neuron Star. Awakening is also interesting in this because with proper setup, you can make 4 attacks that turn. Example:

Awakening Set up:

Gravity well / Excelics /Arousal
dark metal    / Spiral     / destiny

1. CB1, Alter Ego lock Dark Metal (self 1,enemy 1)
2. Gravity well lock Awakening (self 2,enemy 1)
3. spiral to soul, lock Destiny (self 3, enemy 2)
4. swing with Gravity (14k, 5k guard)
5. CB1, swing with Excelis unlock all your units (31k 2 crit)
6. Awakening will stand Gravity Well and +2k to it, Dark Metal will unflip 1
7. Awakening column will swing for 22k+ (9+7+3+3)
8. Gravity Well will swing for 25k+ (9+4+7+2+3)

Total guard required: 5k + 30k(PG) + 15k + 15k + triggers, ~ 7-8 cards to guard that turn

You can replace gravity well with neuron star or a 2nd spiral nebula, so this combination is quite flexible. You also do not need to unlock your opponent's front row either as you unlocked 3 units, so you can keep them locked and save guard. Its very demanding to guard all of it without trggers. A very strong combination of offense and defense.

Drawing cards is good...

Alternatively Heavymaterial can be used instead of Awakening for less offensive but added hand cycling, in which case you do not have to use Spiral/Neuron Star, but your opponent has 1 less locked unit, so it is ideal if opponent only has 1 front row. (8+7+3+3=21)

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Pros/cons

Pros:
Better final turn pushes (assuming Messiah deck) compared to just Amnesty
Can retire some annoying Units
Finally resolve the lack of attack pressure LJ is plagued with

Cons:
Not suitable for all LJ decks (Not all want to stride amnesty first)
Probably crit the wallet due to needing amnesty in multiples
Constraints G-zone if running in multiples

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How I would go about Messiah deck now? I'd probably go full aggro at this point (4 Amnesty, 3 Excelics, 1 Blizza) as I am a more offensive orientated player, but there is merits for swapping a Amnesty/Excelics pair for a pair of Big Crunch Dragon. You just need to keep in mind to always have at least 1 more Amnesty than Excelics, Also the choice is between Judgement or Blizza for last slow, as Blizza allows GB2 immediately for digging through the deck, and judgement being the better pressure unit with a potential lock. So either:

Full Blown Aggro
4 Amnesty
3 Excelics
1 Blizza/Judgement

or

Utility
3 Amnesty
2 Excelics
1 Blizza/Judgement
2 Big Crunch Dragon

or

Control Based
2 Amnesty
1 Excelics
1 Blizza/Judgement
4 Big Crunch Dragon

or

Non-Messiah Decks
1 Amnesty
1 Blizza
2 Judgement
4 Big Crunch Dragon