Stand and Draw: Card game rants and experiences

Finally, TD10, Purgatory Revenger, will be out very soon! Time to return those Japanese cards I loaned and switch it over with the English ones. I'm quite obsessed with Origin Mage, Ildona as he's easily my favourite card for Shadow Paladin. I'm going to skip the rants and get on with the deck profile!

I'll be presenting two different decks for the Ildona build that is effective with both offence and defence. Let's start off with the upgrade of the previous deck profile shall we?

Grade 0: 17 units 1 x Creeping Dark Goat (Starting Vanguard) 2 x Abyss Freezer (Draw Trigger) 4 x Grim Reaper (Critical Trigger) 4 x Death Feather Eagle (Critical Trigger) 2 x Grim Revenger (Critical Trigger) 4 x Abyss Healer (Heal Trigger) Grade 1: 14 units 4 x Black Sage, Charon 3 x Dark Shield, Mac Lir 3 x Buranbau Revenger 4 x Gururubau Grade 2: 11 units 4 x Blaster Dark Spirit or Knight of Fighting Spirit, Dordona 4 x Cursed Lancer 2 x Skull Witch, Nemain 1 x Darkness Maiden, Macha Grade 3: 8 units 4 x Origin Mage, Ildona 4 x Dark Mage, Badhabh Caar or Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom

Grade 0: 17 units 1 x Creeping Dark Goat (Starting Vanguard) 2 x Abyss Freezer (Draw Trigger) 4 x Grim Reaper (Critical Trigger) 4 x Death Feather Eagle (Critical Trigger) 2 x Grim Revenger (Critical Trigger) 4 x Abyss Healer (Heal Trigger) Grade 1: 14 units 4 x Black Sage, Charon 3 x Dark Shield, Mac Lir 3 x Buranbau Revenger 4 x Gururubau Grade 2: 11 units 1 x Blaster Dark Spirit 4 x Knight of Fighting Spirit, Dordona 3 x Cursed Lancer 2 x Skull Witch, Nemain 1 x Darkness Maiden, Macha Grade 3: 8 units 3 x Origin Mage, Ildona 3 x Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom  2 x Dark Mage, Badhabh Caar

A total facelift! And this deck has proven its worth even against decks that loves retiring like Kagero and Narukami. Grade 0 has some changes to its trigger line-up as well, namely, I reduced the number of Draw triggers to 2 and increased the Critical trigger count to 10. The result - big damages very early, mid and late game! 12 critical are okay, but it will end up a waste later in the game. The reason for this trigger line up is that with draw triggers, it'll be a psychological effect on the opponent thinking that you're playing with 8 crits 4 draws. Also, it is less painful to throw down a draw trigger as a booster than a critical trigger if there is such a need. Another reason why the reduce in draw triggers is due to effects of Caar, Mordred, Macha and Nemain which nets you both hand and field presence. A new starter in the pack thanks to Open Qualifiers 2013 introducing our G3 searcher, Creeping Dark Goat. He's the best starter for this deck.

With Fullbau out of the way as the starting vanguard, we have now more options for out Grade 1s as we can now abandon Blaster Javelin for better units. I've took out Arianrhod for Buranbau Revenger. This unit works best with Ildona since his ability is makes Ildona a quick 26k attacker during his limit break. Painful? Sure is. Add a break-ride to the picture for 36k attack? Yes please!

Not much changes for my Grade 2s except that Blaster Dark has fully become a spirit. This deck is now more offensive with more 10k attackers which also serves as a great defender when you ride your G2. With 12k attackers being the norm, hitting 19k is easy these days and so by having a 10k vanguard at turn 2, you can easily guard away that attack.

Grade 3s have more changes as well. Our star, Ildona, will be maxed out of course. Caar is maxed out at 4 as well as he always nets you a +1 and is good as Ildona's sacrifice. If you don't like Caar since you're afraid of decking out too quickly or find his ability too random, you may consider playing Mordred Phantom or mix up both. If you read through the lists. You notice that the cards needed to update this deck can be found in the Trial Deck which is more than enough for this build!

This deck can be considered a cheap "budget" deck if you decide not to use Mordred as Mordred is a Trial Deck exclusive card and one trial deck only have a single copy of him. Both deck works great even against top tiered deck, with the exception of Link Joker of course.