Friday, September 27, 2013
One of the underused clans in my area - Dark Irregulars. This clan is pretty strong, hitting big numbers easily and forcing the opponent to either not guard to take a damage or forcing them to drop multiple cards from hand just so they won't lose. But despite being so strong, it is very underplayed and underestimated. The number of Dark Irregulars players that I know of in my area are so little, that I can use one hand to count them all. Sadly, this is because most players prefer the poster clans of Vanguard; Royal Paladin, Gold Paladin, Shadow Paladin, Kagero and Narukami since these are slightly more easier to play with. Another reason would be that most players simply don't understand its mechanics and can't stand it slow field setup.
After play testing with this deck and winning lots of matches with it, I'm proud to introduce a slightly different Dark Irregulars deck that many players will say this - 'You're building your deck wrong!' I will just reply with 'Who cares? It works for me.' And most of these players plays mostly meta clans so they have no right judge. Now on to the deck profile
Grade 0: 17 units
- 1 x Devil in Shadow (First vanguard)
- 4 x Hysteric Shirly (Draw trigger)
- 2 x Mad Hatter of Nightmareland (Draw trigger)
- 4 x Blitzritter (Critical trigger)
- 3 x Dark Knight of Nightmareland (Critical trigger)
- 3 x Cheshire Cat of Nightmareland (Heal trigger)
Grade 1: 15 units
- 4 x Alluring Succubus
- 4 x Poet of Darkness Amon
- 2 x Devil Child
- 3 x March Rabbit of Nightmareland (perfect guard)
- 2 x Demonic Dragon Mage, Mahoraga
Grade 2: 11 units
- 4 x Flirtatious Succubus
- 1 x Decadent Succubus
- 4 x Demon of Aspiration, Amon
- 2 x Emblem Master
Grade 3: 7 units
- 4 x Demon World Marquis, Amon
- 3 x Evil Eye Basilisk
Now for Grade 0. My starting vanguard will be Devil in Shadow. While most players will opt for Greedy Hands, I find Devil in Shadow slightly better as he give you a chance of getting that Grade 3 in hand if you can't get one in your opening hand but this is all depends on player's preference. If you have a G3 in your opening hand, preferably Amon, you can use Devil in Shadow as Amon's fodder. Trigger line up is what most players will say "you n00b! With this trigger line up you might as well stop playing vanguard!" For other clans, maybe, but for Dark Irregulars I find this is the best trigger line up out there. Playing with 6 Draws, 7 Crits and 3 frigging heals. And it works. I heal quite frequently despite having only 3 heals, mostly twice or three times even and in an average game, most players will heal twice anyways. Hysteric Shirley is one of those good cards that allows you to soul charge itself and another card from the top of the deck. Don't forget that Amon's skill will force you to lose a unit so extra draw are essential to be able to replenish your hand field. Still, I usually use her as burning fodder with Amon though.
For my Grade 1s, many asked why I have Mahoraga, a KAGERO unit in this deck. His effect is when a unit in the opponent's field is placed into the drop zone he gains +5000 attack power. Guess who lets him be a 10k booster each turn? You guessed it - Amon. I run 4 G1 Amon since he's a constant 9k booster. Boost Basilisk with him and you get yourself a 21k line. Alluring Succubus can be used in 3 ways - a 7k booster, a soul charger or Amon's fodder. Demon Child makes an unexpected appearance here. But if you think about it logically, she's also the best booster for Amon, causing Amon to hit for 26k with only 6 souls, causing lots of pressure against 10k and 11k vanguards as they need to guard for 25k for 2 trigger pass almost each turn.
Grade 2 units are pretty standard. Flirtatious Succubus is a must have, since she's not only a 9k, she's also soul charge 1 card when you call her out and can intercept. I play 1 Decadent Succubus and 2 Emblem Master but these two units are exchangeable You can play 3 x Decadent Succubus or 3 x Emblem Master but I play one because I mostly get to ride her on G2 7 out of 10 games. Not sure why either. With Decadent Succubus you are able to soul charge the same number of cards call out to the rearguard circle. She's good to combo with Alluring Succubus and Flirtatious Succubus. Even Hysteric Shirley is a good unit to use. For Emblem Master, he's good if you ride him as a vanguard. You just need his ability to fire off just once since he soul charge 3 cards when his attack hits a vanguard.
Finally, my Grade 3s. I run 7 units in total. 3 of them are Amon, the card that you want to be on the vanguard circle. By now, you should have realize that this deck is centered around him. You may not want to spam his ability. I'd recommend using his skill just once a turn. It's actually more than enough to cause your opponent headaches and forcing him to retire a unit from his field. Amon's effect is pretty good but he has the weakness of being 10k and 20k lines are quite easily to build these days.
So far, this deck has gotten me pretty far against lots of them meta clans. Seeing the big clans with empty fields and barely able to guard can be quite funny. It's not quite a mixed deck, and there are some ups and downs but winning 8 out of 10 matches against DOTE and MLB means this deck has good potential. I was planning to use it for the Team League 2013 but sadly, Bushiroad disallowed mixed decks other than MLB builds. What gives!? I would love to rant about that but I'll just leave it here for now. Feel free to test the deck out or use it as a skeleton for your own anti cross-ride Dark Irregulars deck.
