Archive for January 2015
"So I tried to go to your store, and I'm seeing your blog! What gives!?".
Well, that it. I've closed the store, a day earlier than planned. Many thanks to all supporters out there who had helped me come this far. I do wish I had the time and resources to do up a more professional store but alas, despite all the planning, that idea was scrapped. I had wanted each card's translation to be reflected in the item's description among others as well as high resolution scanned images for the cards, especially for the Japanese version card games. It may seem trivial but when I buy a card online, I personally rather have the translation on the card's page itself rather than having to go to the wikia for translation and I believe most of us would rather see that piece of info on the same page.
As mentioned in my previous post, the lack of time and resources (namely manpower), as well as shipping cost was one of the major factor that lead to my decision in closing the store. Once again, thank you for your support and I hope you'll still continue to follow my blog! Happy card gaming!
Web Store: It's final. The store has closed...But!!
Guess what!? Time for another deck profile! With Vanguard EB11 out back in November, I've played against many other Revenger decks and I was surprised that many players in my area plays only two kinds - Mordred/Abyss and Raging/Abyss. These decks are strong, but somehow, I find that they are all the same. I reckon that they are from the same recipes from one of the top Japanese Vanguard decks.
When I have friendly matches with other Revenger players, I received lots of 'WTF?', 'How in the world?' and even 'He definitely stacking and cheating!'. Well, the cheating part, technically is not really cheating. Stacking part is a...probably. In lots of my matches using Revenger, I tend to get 4 triggers with both of my twin drives. Of course this will make others think I cheat, but let's be honest here, winning by cheating is not fun. And no, I'm not here to teach you how cheat but I will introduce my Revenger deck that excels extremely well at deck thinning.
Grade 0: 18 units
- 1 x Creeping Dark Goat (Starter)
- 1 x Judgebau Revenger
- 4 x Grim Revenger (Critical)
- 4 x Revenger, Air Raid Dragon (Critical)
- 4 x Freezing Revenger (Draw)
- 4 x Healing Revenger (Heal
Grade 1: 13 units
- 4 x Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
- 4 x Revenger of Darkness, Mac Lir
- 4 x Transient Revenger, Masquerade
- 1 x Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
Grade 2: 11 units
Grade 3: 8 units
Looks simple right? Actually not quite. I've loaned this deck to many other players but some how...they kept on playing the deck wrongly and says it's a bad deck and theirs are better. Well, maybe they're right, but maybe, they just have no idea how the deck truly works.
Grade 0 trigger line up is pretty much the same is most Revenger decks. The only difference would be the starter and that lone Judgebau. Most Revenger deck will use Judgebau as their starters, even when they're using Raging/Abyss. For the love of god, I can't understand why they'd run 2 Judgebaus when one of ther Vanguards doesn't even have Phantom in the name. Anyways, Goat is my best starter since I can fish out a G3. For those who follow my blog would understand that I tend to get grade lock quite easily.
There's very little Grade 1 units. The obvious choice of Dorint is for unflipping my CBs with Blaster Dark. Mac Lir for nulls. I'm not a believer of Quintet walls and it doesn't actually work that great with Revengers. But that's my opinion. Masquerade is your 10k attacker but if there's a LB4 unlocker revenger, I'd replace Masquerade for him. Last but not least, the lone Trumpeter. Trumpeter is there, to fish out Judgebau.
I have an odd choice for Grade 2s. I play both kinds of Blaster Dark Revengers. BDR is just there to unflip the damage zone. Unless you have plenty of CBs to use, you don't need to use him to retire your opponent's front row. Most players that borrowed the deck tend to use his skill instead of just unflipping. This misplay cost them the match especially when they don't have enough CBs to spare. BDRA is your obvious Legion Mate. His skill snipes the back row but I rarely use it unless needed to, like the opponent's Judgebau if any. Mana is the key card of the deck that thins out the deck like crazy. Here's a tip, call Mana in the RC, use her skill to call up Trumpeter, use Trumpeter and call up Judgebau, key point: place him behind your vanguard!! Not so hard right? Next turn, use Judgebau to boost your Phantom vanguard - at this point, some opponent will let it pass, some will guard for dear life. If it passes, grab a that Trumpter that was returned with Mana's skill and put her behind your Vanguard and a Dorint on another empty RC on the back. With that, you just thinned out your deck of 3 non trigger units. This single combo is actually what helped me thin the deck early game as well have some field presence to prepare for Blaster Abyss Legion skill.
Grade 3 is quite simple. You simply have to ride Mordred first, break ride to Phantom Abyss, thin out the deck even further by calling out another. What to call out depends on the field. If you need another CB for Phantom Abyss, call out a Blaster Dark Revenger infront of Dorint and unflip. If you need some field, call out Mana and use her to call out another G1. Legion your trigger and and extract out another non trigger unit, Blaster Dark Revenger Abyss, from the deck. You should be able to see why the triggers stack so much. After your break ride, your chances of finishing the game is quite high as Phantom Abyss hits for 32k unboosted. You attack with a rearguard first, the one just just requires 3 to 10k guard, followed by a break ridden boosted Phantom Abyss that swings for 39k, give all triggers you get onto your rearguard (best would be the Blaster Dark Revenger you called out with Mordred which is already 21k boosted), CB2 retire your rested rearguards, attack with Phantom Abyss again for 32k and give all your triggers to the your RG. If your opponent doesn't have enough hand to guard all that, it's game over. If you checked 4 triggers. your opponent would need 10k(RG)+35k(Abyss)+30k(Abyss)+35k(RG)=110k worth of hand to guard everything if he does not have any nulls. Even with no triggers, he'll need 90k worth of guard and in the event he managed to hang on to dear life and survived, his chances of winning is quite slim unless he manages a come back.
I've been using Revengers since February last year and throughout my experience, I noticed that Revengers are extremely good at consistent deck thinning. Sadly, some players that I've played against only see them as a restanding deck and not the former. I find that the current support for Revengers can utilize both deck thinning and restanding for high trigger count and attack power when utilized correctly. Try it out, you'd be surprise by how a single combo can do a huge difference in striking those triggers.
Vanguard Deck Profile: Revengers, Tally Forth!
It's a Sunday and I finally have time to sit down and write in something here! WIXOSS booster 5, Beginning Selector was released about 3 weeks ago and I'm both happy and frustrated at the release (I'm looking at you Mayu). Before the release of Beginning Selector, Hanayo decks aren't really worth considered to play with. The best decks out there is the Hanayo level 2 and sadly, playing Hanaya to Level 4 can means suicide pre-Booster 5. But still, this is simply my opinion after using Hanayo since the inception of the game itself.
Ever since upgrading the with booster 5, I was able to beat many meta and odd decks out there, with the exception of Mayu decks. The only time I managed to defeat Mayu was when my opponent misplayed at 1 life cloth left and my field have 2 Diabrides and he used Rococo Boundary on two of my ore signis. Apart from that, I have yet win against that ener locking deck.
Well, enough rants. The deck list awaits!
LRIG Deck
- Hanayo-Zero
- Hanayo-One
- Hanayo-Two, Hard Flame
- Hanayo-Three, Blazing Flame Dance
- Hanayo-Pure Four
- Hanayo-Five
- Salvage
- Fiery Spring Landscape
- Rekindling Effort
- Ancient Surprise
- 1 x Topaz, Natural Stone (LV1)
- 2 x Code Anti Henge (LV1)
- 2 x Code Anti Aztec (LV2)
- 2 x Servant D2 (LV2)
- 3 x Bronda, Natural Stone (LV2)
- 1 x Rubyl, Natural Stone (LV3)
- 3 x Ordnance, Roaring Gun (LV3)
- 1 x Servant T2 (LV3)
- 3 x THREE OUT (Spell)
- 2 x Fracturing Lust (Spell)
Main Deck (Life Burst)
- 4 x Carnelian, Natural Stone (LV1)
- 4 x Servant O (LV1)
- 2 x Servant D (LV2)
- 2 x Mithril, Natural Stone (LV3)
- 4 x Adamasphere, Natural Pyroxene (LV4)
- 4 x Diabride, Natural Pyroxene (LV5)
Signi breakdown:
| LV 1 | LV 2 | LV 3 | LV 4 | LV 5 | Spell | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 9 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 50 |
I have linked each cards to the appropriate Wiki pages for easy references. My deck looks a little weird but I find it's quite effective against many decks out there.
My LRIG deck starts out simple. I play the the Trial Deck's Hanayo-One simply because she has a limit of 2. In this way, I can call out two LV1 signis for defence and if I start first, I can use Carnelian to grab extra cards to hand. LV 2 and LV 3 Hanayo is quite standard in most Hanayo decks; Two adds power whilst Three banishes one of your opponent's signi to open up a path of attack. My choice of Hanayo-Pure Four may baffle some but if you were to think about it properly, she fits in the deck perfectly. She costs two ener to grow and have a signi limit of 12 but, she doesn't have any abilities. The keywords here are "two eners". Her other LV 4, Hanayo-Four, Hundred-Fire Profusion, is...not so great and she costs 3 eners to call out. Her effect in itself is not as great. Sure I can banish away a signi of less than 10k, but I find it quite costly as I have to trash away a card from hand despite being cheap at 1 red ener and to add on to that, I don't even use that skill at all, and same goes with other Hanayo players I know. So Hanayo Pure is the best option for LV4 and you get to save 1 ener for some other effects. The ace LRIG for the deck of course would be Hanayo 5. As soon as you grow to her, your chances of winning shoots over the roof. All signi gets double crush and I can banish 30k worth of signi? You could easily destroy the whole field and finish the game there and then!
For Arts, Salvage and Fiery Spring Landscape helps with Hanayo based decks' achilles heel, hand size. Among all other decks in WIXOSS, Hanayo players can find themselves having not enough cards in hand and they don't quite have a good drawing engine like most other decks have. Rekindling Effort is another extremely good card to play, especially when you're at Level 5 and planning to finish things right away. If you used Hanayo Five's Exceed and gave your opponent 4 ener, Rekindling Effort helps away at whittling away those ener to prevent them from using their Arts. Most Arts like Don't Move, Black Desire and Ancient Surprise requires 3 eners and by preventing them from using this, the chances of winning is higher so combo Fracturing Lust with Rekindling Effort is an extremely good combo. Of course there would be some cards that can still throw in the wrench in the works such as Idol Defense if you used a spell and arts on the same turn. Now among the midst, there's a black Arts, Ancient Surprise. This card is mainly to do the following - Prevent Green decks from getting their Lancer off by lowering their power by 5k or 8k and defend against Mayu decks to prevent them from finishing you off. Dead Splash is a good mention against Mayu decks if you can't get your hands on Ancient Surprise.
Now, I separated my main deck to two parts, one with no Life Burst and another with Life Burst. Let's start with the former. As you noticed, I play 2 black cards, Henge, for my LV1, this is to be used by Ancient Surprise when needed later in the game. Topaz is a tech card if I need to fish out Fracturing Lust. Aztec is another black card for Ancient Surprise. Aztec calls out a LV1 ancient weapon from the trash so Ancient Surprise + Aztec + Henge makes a good defence combo when needed. Servant D2 and T2 for guarding and Bronda is a vanilla 7k LV2. I play 1 Rubyl and 3 Ordnance. Rubyl is good for that sudden power burst but Ordnance can snipe away a Signi from the field for a direct attack. Three Out is obviously for hand size while Fracturing Lust to destroy your opponent's ener, especially against Midoriko Repair and Big Bang decks.
For my Life Burst cards, I would say it's a standard recipe amongst many players. Carnelian can help with hand size with resting her and reveal top card for a gemstone. Her life burst lets you draw a card. Servant O and D are your guards as well as ener chargers. Mithril is your 15k guardian and 18k attacker whom is just a Level 3. While her on-play effects forces you to discard a card, it's well worth the cost as she'll be in the field for a very long time. Her life burst is a direct opposite that allows you to draw a card. Adamasphere increase field power, banish a weakling away and even let you get double crush, but her life burst is great at early and mid game. Most signi are less than 10k apart from some LV3s and above, and therefore have lots of targets for banishing. The ace of the Signis in this set is definitely Diabride. After burning away the field with Hanayo 5's skill, you can attack a total of 5 times (2 Diabrides attacking twice and another signi). Her second ability also forces your opponent not to use Arts like Don't Move or Rococo Boundary carelessly when they're at 1 Life Cloth and you have two Diabrides in the field. Of course Diabride is without any weakness. If you're unlucky enough to get your opponent triggering Arc Aura, Final Distruction or even FREEZE, it may be the end, or you may get a chance to finish it off at the next turn.
That's it for my deck profile. While it may looked like there's way too many unnecessary card in the deck, each card is in there for a reason and they complement each other quite well. Probably more will come up soon, probably not. Until next time!
