Random rantings

Few things that crossed my mind:

1.
I think I am getting addicted to striding aurageyser dragon. combined with claret fetching a swordbreaker and putting it behind serva, and retiring david to aurageyser, gives you some of the most insane and best feel of hand size boost ever (think only 3 Peace with multiple Darling can compare). Specially if you get to stride first, puts you so far ahead at times, even with crappy hand, that you are set for the next 1-2 turns. Hell there are times I even consider striding it twice depending on opponents (against big final turns like Bad End Ogre, or retire clans and LJ) over doomed. Never regretted buying and keeping 4, specially when it was still $12.

2.
RP getting way too much support. Granted most are for either Altmile and Alfred, we still have the insane altmile stride, and I think good JK are printed because we might see something happen to Swordmy. Benon is a pretty strong early play for 1 CB, i can easily see it being tech in in budget royal lists along with Mirron. Alfred is basically RP's version of Ezel; screwing LJ like its nothing. but since most of Alfred's support ties to a grade 3, at least if this craze catches on we'll see a lot less of the "grade stuck at 2 and swordmy you to death". Bushi must have been smoking weed again...

3.
Think deletor will be pretty consistent after the comic booster. Now with ample ways to countercharge, and getting pluses off Alba and Elro, a potential unflip trigger, and a new alternate win in Eigorg (ain't easy), but at least opponent can't do shit against it cause if they refuse to fill the drop zone by guarding, they are gonna die to delete. And best thing none of this give a lick whether opponent is grade 3 or not, which gives deletor a strong identity of aggression over say Messiah.

4.
Aqua force support is arriving. Ripple support kind of makes me fearful if they print more grade 1 and grade 2 support, but the legion is in the right direction. Definitely brace for a new maelstrom (likely a breakride or more effects pre LB4 version), thavas stride will also likely be a big middle finger to tidal bore 3-4. Hell we likely see 1 tidal bore, 1 socrates, 4 lambros, and maybe 2 thavas. Hopefully it would help if they can gain a little more field for less, but that might be asking for too much.

5.
Rush period is finally over, and it has slowed down significantly enough for me to start writing on a consistent basis (hopefully). No promises.

Deck Profile: My Ashlei Stands Above All

So today I did this deck on a whim, which feels a little different from normal JK decks. But i feel this is a decent deck that can still fight with the newer decks thanks to stride and LB4 enabler. So lets move on to deck list:

Disclaimer: This deck is NOT meta. This is about what I feel is important as a VG player: winning Image. You can beat anyone with a meta deck, but if you are looking for style points, or want to try something people do not usually predict very well, come give this deck a try. Its actually reasonably fun to play.

Deck Name: My Ashlei Stands Above All

Grade 0: 17
1 Heloise (FVG)
5 crit (JK)
2 draw (JK)
5 stand (JK)
4 heal (JK)

Grade 1: 14
4 Holy knight guardian (PGG)
2 Alwain (Ashlei Pump)
4 Cymberline (rest pump jk +10k)
4 Sabremy (LB4 enabler)


Grade 2: 11
4 Tracey (12k attacker)
4 Swordmy (searcher)
2 Violinist (CB1 SB1 call G2)
1 Kymbelinus (special intercept)

Grade 3: 8
4 Ashlei R
3 Ashlei (breakride)
1 Yvain (legion)

Grade 4:
2 Garblade (swordmy pressure)
2 Jirron
2 Saint Blow (crit finisher)
2 Samuil (Dragruler effect)

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Game Plan:
Flood the field (like what all JK should do) and smack them silly. Using Samuil to push them in damage helps to make your stand triggers all the more scary. You want to mainly sit on Ashlei R, either crossride or not. The breakride is good for forcing PG, and the crossride is a nightmare to face as an aggro deck. The deck is relatively light on CB compared to other RP decks (only Samuil and Ashlei R into swordmy cost 2CB per turn). I don't really think the JK PG is needed, but if you feel otherwise you can run JK PG instead.

Winning Image:
Swinging in with a full field and making him guard everything since Samuil accelerated your opponent's end game, and therefore need to guard all the attacks. You get consistency off searching for Swordmy, helping you build your field to what you need at the moment.

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Notable things:

Running stands:
This is towards the game plan of sitting on Ashlei, and using Jirron and Samuil to push for end game.
With opponent's damage pushing towards 4-5 damage, stands become really annoying to deal with, and its a crying shame to put all that power to waste. I would run 6 stands if not for the need to run at least some draw, but if you are gutsy, you can run 6crit/6stand instead.

Alwain + Cymberline + stands + Jirron:
So you might ask, why did i play stands. Cause its really a waste not to due to the ways you can make some retarded attacker really huge. You can use Alwain to pump your RG ashlei bigger, making it 10k the 1st time and a stand translate to 15k guard. This does not factoring in any other effects like Cymberline +5k, or even Jirron's effect.

2 Violinist:
They are here to fetch swordmy, and if TSD splashing these does not already tell you something, its that swordmy is really consistantly good. Finds a Cyberline to boost power, Sabremy to enable LB4, or just plain fill a 16k column, all for just 1 CB. And violinist is basically your swordmy 5-6. If lacking CB you can fetch a Kymberlinus for defense or Tracey if you need another attacker.

Ashlei Crossride:
Its an option, but its alright if you do not want to make it happen. Extra Ashlei are either used as stride fodder and recycled by Alwain, or used as attackers. The main focus here is to abuse the synergy with Alwain + stands in this deck, so you want to run many Ashlei. 8 is not a lot of difference from 7, so it allows me to put in the next tech card.

x1 Yvain:
Ok this is here INCASE I am decking out, but it is quite unlikely since I will either die by then, or my opponent will. But if I reach that point, we can just shuffle back triggers and go for final push. He's crit pressure by himself, meaning opponent's cannot ignore him. Plus he is legion with swordmy, so no deck space wasted on his mate.

Why only 2 Saint Blow?!?! And why Jirron?!?!
Jirron is super synergy with stand triggers. And saint blow, although good, will usually just eat up a PG most of the time since they are expecting it, so i rather stride Samuil or Jirron instead. The saint blow are just incase you know opponent has no PG, if opportunity arises, give him the surprise butt sex. But he's not needed to kill the guy. It does not matter much wad your opponent do, he just drop cards or roll over and die. No need to worry he got PG or not. Simplicity is good.

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So what do you guys think? Leave your comments if you have other interesting ways to play this deck (you can leave standard meta list too, but that be boring and brings nothing new to this archetype, so I rather not go there if possible.)

Card Review: Holy Dragon, Sanctuary Guard Regalia + Sanctuary Guard Guarantee

Card Review: Holy Dragon, Sanctuary Guard Regalia + Sanctuary Guard Guarantee

http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Holy_Dragon,_Sanctuary_Guard_Regalia

Stride (Released when both players' vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[CONT](VC):During your turn, if you have a heart card with "Sanctuary Guard" in its card name, all of the units in your front row get [Power]+3000 for each of your grade 1 or less rear-guards.

Rejoice Sanctuary guard users: They now give you a new stride that helps you advance your "G1 matters" strategy. With this it effectively can give your front row up to +15k power, literally saint blow's effect minus the crit. Great synergy with stand triggers. Best of all it cost NO CB. This is a great addition to Saint Blow dragon as an additional stride unit in this type of deck.

Rating: 8/10. 
This grants a brand new way for a sanctuary guard dragon deck to lay the beats. Granting upwards to 15K to each column for a small cost of a G3 discard is quite insane, and as a sanctuary guard deck, RP has ways to make full use of this card's effect.

http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Sanctuary_Guard_Guarantee

As of this writing, only 2 G3 has Sanctuary guard in its name: Good old Sanctuary Guard Dragon and the newcomer Sanctuary Guard Guarantee. I am going to cheat on this review and also review Guarantee as well. Although Many might frown upon being a 10k base, Guarantee is still a valid attacker for this type of strategy. The CB1 +3k works in tandem with calling a 8k booster behind it to form 21k column. And as playing this deck, only your RG will cost u CB. Also once GB1 he can get a potential +15k to Vg column.

Rating: 7/10
Don't let the 10k base fool you. This card is a role player in a sanctuary guard deck. It allows you to hit 21k with 1CB and a 8k booster, which you have an abundance of in Sanctuary guard. It is also another G3 that lets you use the new stride for the archetype.

Deck Profile: Seekers Anti-Meta Rush (Super Budget)

OK this was taken from one of my reddit post when I was working on it a few months ago. But it is here for your viewing benefits! I bring you my Seeker aggro rush.

Deck list:

Grade 0:

• 4 Self Possessed seeker, Lucius
• 8 Seeker crit
• 8 crit

Grade 1:

• 4 Good faith Seeker Cynric (+3k attacker)
• 4 Seeker of right path, Gangalen (+2k attacker VG)
• 4 Seeker, Seblmy (+3k attacker if 3 front row seeker, VG/RG)
• 4 Sky arrow bow seeker, Lunete (+3k attacker if 4 other seeker, VG/RG)
• 3 Seeker, Plume Wall Angel (QW)
• 2 Seeker, youthful mage (cb1 +1k)

Grade 2:

• 4 Endowed seeker, Vallod (10 vanilla)
• 2 Sky bow seeker, Morvi (+3k attacker if 4 other seeker, VG/RG)
• 2 Full Bloom seeker, Cerdic (12k attacker)

Grade 3:

• 1 Forthright Seeker, Egbert (Legion)

Grade 4:

• 2-8 stride units (any is fine, minimal 2)

Why play this deck:

• It hurts alot of the current meta (no stride or legion)
• Games are fast. Really fast.
• Its dirt cheap. Only real expensive stuff are QW (`$2ea) and liew if you are gonna get them.
• People expect a legion deck when they see seeker as it is their strongest push factor and may mulligan badly against a rush (not keeping some 10k shields).

Have been experimenting with this deck for awhile and have found it to be consistent enough to win majority of the games I played in my area. This is a very simple rush that that does not ride a G3 and rushes your opponent. Not riding a g3 allows you to prevent your opponent from performing legion or striding, hence blanking a good portion of their deck. A few special note about this list:

• 4 Lucius - These are here as additional 8k boosters. It serves 3 main functions. 1) greatly increase your chances of filling all your columns with 18k rows with seekers which helps against crossrides, 2) are 10k shields when used to guard unlike other g1 & 3) are seekers to trigger Lunete and Morvi 4+ seeker RG.

• 

  2 youthful mage - This is there in the event you have trouble making good columns, which only occurs when 1)you draw too many triggers 2)opponent has a crossride. For 1 CB you get a 8k booster, and in a pinch 2CB turns this into a 9k VG booster against 9k g2 or getting 21k with Morvi or Cerdic.
• 
• 3 plume wall angel - This proves to be slightly better than PG in this deck due to hand constraints of having no draw (triggers or effects or even twin drive). Also the only other CB use is from youthful mage or end game Cerdic, which you will only use sparingly.

• This are you attackers in addition to the normal power attackers. They increase your odds of making columns on fastest possible turns. Also do note that their effects also function in the VG circle, so even your VG will be 15k for 1 pass early!

• 

  1 Egbert - This is a 1-of if you do draw it late game as you never want it in your opening hand. Late game however its there to push for final turn by providing a 31k+ center row +crit. Add in twin drive and also legion to shuffle back your crit triggers to sack your opponent. The 2CB cost is nothing in a deck that will never us this effect more than once ever. Never ever ride this unless it is pushing for game as your opponent will now be able to push for game also by striding or legion. 

Tips:

• Guard alot and early. It gets harder to guard as the game progress, and guarding for your RG saves you the effort to replace them. There are no heals in the deck so no point having same or more damage than your opponent unless its final turn.
• Plan ahead. If you can only make 2 good columns first turn, it might be better to split into 10k/VG/10k instead of 2 16k. Triggers will screw you over, but it pressures your opponent to guard a lot more or take risk with damage check. also later on the board transition as you fill them up will be easier.
• With Lucius, try to hobo them in hand unless they are needed immediately for forming columns. They are the only few that can guard for 10k by itself, which can make a difference. If you know opponents have a crossride then use them solely for boosting and only guard with the excess.
• abuse those numbers. Ideal numbers to hit are 17k on 7k G1, 19k on G2 9k, and 16k on 11k G3. The goal is to make the -1 from riding hurt them more than you as cards are scarce during first 4-5 turns. By pushing them to dying range early you pressure them to guard with everything and slow down their offence long enough for them to not kill you.
• always hit face. Never attack the rg. Pressure them to intercept with their RG. 
• Plan to force as much shields as you can. Ideally if your opponent guarded VG and you get a crit, swing with the column with crit first to force out guard (15k). Even if he don't guard and gets a heal off it, your other 16k column will still force out a 5k shield, possibility even a 10k shield that he was saving for it beforehand.
• Revengers are a bitch, especially the mordred/dragruler + blaster control. Its uphill but not unwinnable. Blaster dark abyss is a total bitch as it +1 you and threaten to kill another front row and then intercepts for 5k shields. Also many people have already dropped mordred/dragruler for raging form/phantom blaster abyss and therefore MOST of the time you rarely have to contend with 13k base.
• Novelle also provides the same issue with revengers. The fact they can gattling into cruel over their striken to set up for novelle can and will hurt you alot. However they will not get many retires as most of their hand is spent guarding early and either their hand will be greatly taxed or they are very close to dying. Save your QW for Novelle itself.