Stand and Draw: Card game rants and experiences

Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Mayu's Room. Have a seat (points to a comfy looking couch) and enjoy some tea. Now, are you all relaxed? Good. I have some...good news, which sadly, may be bad news to others.

Three cards have been added to the ban list. Now now, don't get all worked up. I have yet to announce which cards are banned. Now without further ado, here are the cards that have been "nerfed".

You can only put up to 2 of each cards in your deck(Source):

• Repair
• Valkyrie, Unforgettable Fantasy
• Arcgain, Archangel of Pioneering

Whoa whoa...stop throwing things at me Green and White players. It's not restricted just yet! The banlist will be enforce starting on 25th April 2015, which is a month later. Once enforced. this means that you can play all three cards in a single deck, but you can only play 2 Repair, 2 Valkyrie and 2 Arcgain in that deck. Takara Tomy has also added the following notice regarding the banlist.

• Official Takara Tomy WIXOSS PARTY SPECIAL or non-WIXOSS PARTY events may enforce this rule at their discretion.
• Free plays and events outside of WIXOSS PARTY may enforce this rules at your own discretion.

This is quite straight forward. For official events and shop tournament, the host can choose to enforce the banlist or disregard it. Free plays too can enforce the banlist or disregard it. Straight forward no?

Now what does this means? I say nothing much. A deck can originally put up to 4 cards on the same name in the deck. You just put 2 less for each cards that has been restricted so it's not really the end of the world. Mayu and Midoriko decks are still strong enough with the restriction. I'm personally okay with the ban list, seeing that Tama/Mayu decks are topping too many tournaments.

But who will actually follow the list? Well, most players, free players or tournament-centric ones, tends to follow the banlist. It's a trend I noticed with most card games. Even if the a banlist says it's only for official events, most players will still follow it, simply because they want it to be tuned for tournaments or, during free plays, not having issues with another player that follows it, which means, more fun playing, less arguments.

Finally, a new Legion unit to play with for Dark Irregulars albeit...Bushiroad's decision to pack it in together as Gear Chronicle trial deck promo still eludes me. Still, I'm glad that Astaroth is now in my hands.

I still like Amon "Яeverse". He's a good card but Astaroth's abilities is multitudes of levels higher. Not only does he not require you to lock a unit, which lowers down the attack power of a column, slow set up that appears in most Dark Irregulars deck is not much of an issue now. It's actually ridiculously easier to get to 10 souls much to my surprise and you don't actually see much triggers in the soul either (when played correctly of course).

With Amon as his Legion mate, not only does it make Astaroth attack painful with that extra critical, it also makes it harder to guard with large powers. With just 10 souls and legioned, Astaroth can punch the daylights out of lots of other Vanguards with 31k unboosted. Of course your opponents will need to either throw down a 30k for 2 trigger pass or a null guard just not to get it through or risk eating at least two points of damage.

But, Astaroth is not a card for inexperienced players. I've seen lots of play style for this unit, but most of them focused too much on the Vanguard column. Not, that it's a bad thing to have but rearguards are a thing too. I've seen players that have 30 souls for Astaroth, and barely have any rearguards. Sure that extra 3 critical is nice but...it's useless if your opponent can just null guard the middle each turn. They even can finish you off before dropping that 4th null guard they hold in hand.

Now let's get on to the deck list instead of more rants shall we? I have 2 different types of deck build for Astaroth.

Consistency is key

Grade 0: 17 units

• 1 x Devil in Shadow (First vanguard)
• 1 x Hysteric Shirly (Draw trigger)
• 3 x Amon's Follower, Psychic Waitress (Draw trigger)
• 4 x Amon's Follower, Cruel Hand (Critical trigger)
• 4 x Dark Knight of Nightmareland (Critical trigger)
• 4 x Amon's Follower, Hell's Trick (Heal trigger)

• 4 x Demon World Marquis, Amon
• 4 x Amon's Leader, Astaroth

Amon and the yellow stars

Grade 0: 17 units

• 1 x Devil in Shadow (First vanguard)
• 4 x Blitzritter (Critical trigger)
• 4 x Amon's Follower, Cruel Hand (Critical trigger)
• 4 x Dark Knight of Nightmareland (Critical trigger)
• 4 x Amon's Follower, Hell's Trick (Heal trigger)

• 4 x Demon World Marquis, Amon
• 4 x Amon's Leader, Astaroth

Yep, 2 builds. First build is more on consistency. The deck lists looks similar to my previous Amon build. For Amon, the base is there and simple. Not much to change aside from the triggers.

Now for my Consistency deck, I play a pretty standard trigger line up and the best starter out there. Previously, we needed more draw triggers to help fill up our hands but Astaroth hand size is pretty consistent in itself. My yellow stars deck is chock full of Critical triggers. If there's another set of crits, I'd play 16.

Grade one for both decks are similar aside for Doreen and little Amon. Little Amon is a consistent 9k booster so you can have him boost your 7k grade 1s and still hit 16k for a 10k guard. Doreen however, gains 3k from each soul charge and her skill is stackable. With Astaroth's and Amon's skill together, you can gain 12k worth of power by herself, which totals out to 18k with her base power. The choice of Bloody Calf and Devil Child depends on how you want to play it. Bloody Calf snipes away a G1 and you can still soul charge 3 with Astaroth without losing your own field. And since this deck doesn't require that much counterblasts, why not just use that free resource. Retire one and gain 3 souls and keep the field instead of doing a one for one exchange. Besides, 10 souls is more than enough to keep your opponent pressured throughout the game. Talking about pressure, if you prefer large middle columns, Devil Child would be a better choice for boosting as she's a 10k booster. Think about it, Legion+ 10 soul Amon+Devil Child. Total power is a magnificent 41k. More than enough to retire your opponent's hand if he have no null guard and you can still probably hit him even when he uses quintet wall.

Grade two is quite simple as well. Hell's draw for soul. Gwynn for retiring while keeping your field while you soul charge 3 with Astaroth. Difference between the two is a simple 12k attacker and a G2 Doreen. Ron Geenlin boosted by Amon is the most ideal setup as they hit for a consistent 21k. I mean, look at it this way. Middle for 41k, two sides for 21k. To guard everything, your opponent will definitely need 70k to guard. Do this constantly for each turn is pretty much tiring and depletes your opponent's hand and field quite quickly. Now if you prefer Izaya instead. Heck, you're in for a fun. Just by activating Amon's skill once, you soul charge 4 so a simple maths would be Izaya gains 12k, making him 21k with his base power. Now put a Doreen behind him. What do we get? An 18k Doreen boosting a 21k Izaya, 39k power on each sides? And because the Izaya variant plays 12 crits, it pressures your opponent even further if you drive checks 2 crits. Think about it, middle row crit, left and right crits. Your opponent may just flip the table when that happens.

I won't say much for Grade 3. Both decks uses the same units, Amon and Astaroth and I've pretty much mention their skills multiple times. As mentioned, Astaroth excels better when you have rearguards rather than a big hitter in the middle. While it may seem like a good idea to have 20 or 30 souls, you will run into an issue of decking out quickly. With 30 souls, you may only have less than 10 cards in the deck if you account for cards in damage zone, the Vanguard units, hand and drop zone. 20 in itself is risky and I find 10 is more or less the sweet spot between pressure and power.

Looks like the date for Wixoss booster 7 is out and is set to be released on the 23rd May and it comes with many new terms such as Resona Signi, Cross and Heaven. I'm going to talk about these new skills and comment on them as much as I can, although for now, there isn't much information available.


Resona Signi


First up, is Resona Signi. Simply put, it's a Signi you put in your LRIG deck. But you can't just put any Signi you like in there. Unlike a Signi card, it has a white backing and and border, similar to your LRIG. Of course like other Signis, you're still restricted to what level and cost your LRIG have. You can only play this Signi when certain conditions are met, however, whatever condition it was wasn't mentioned. Is it like Vanguard's Stride? Or the condition is simply the text on the card itself? For now, I'm assuming it's the latter. It could be played like Mecury (image below) where you put 3 <Space> Signi which is not Resona into trash and call this card out from the LRIG deck to the field. When they leave the field, instead of going to the LRIG trash or ener, they return to the LRIG deck instead.

I find Resona Signi kinda nice although, it may take up ARTS space that is is already tight if one were to play until Level 5. I'm assuming that Resona Signi is probably meant to take up that Level 5 space but it could still be played with Level 5 decks for builds that does not actually need too much ARTS.


Cross


Cross is another mechanic appearing on new Signi cards. My very first impression when I saw this mechanic was "Whoa, this is just like Vanguard's legion!" I know Vanguard is not the only card game that can have two cards in a slot but I only know of Vanguard so sue me. So anyways, Cross Signis needs to be paired with specific signis (Just like Legion and its mate). The card that is needed to Cross itself is mentioned on either one or both of the Signis. When Cross is active, so is any skill that is needed Cross via (X 常) that is written on the card. Of course there may be cards where the Signi will have both Cross skills and non-Cross skills but again, this is merely speculation on my side. Apart from simply having two cards in the same field for Cross, we're assuming the positioning for the Signis are important as well. That means that if Cock on the third column of the Signi zone and Heckler is on the middle column, Cross is not activated. If Cock is on the first column of the Signi zone and Heckler in on the third column and there's another Signi that is not Cock in the middle column, Cross is not activated. If Cock is on the first column and Heckler is on the middle column, Cross is activated. Still, this is just an assumption as there is not much information for how cross is activated when on the field.

Cross is definitely like a high powered play and a good skill to add in. I kinda wish there's more information Takara Tomy can reveal to us but probably we'll have to wait till May for more news?

Heaven


Cross also includes another skill which is Heaven. You can see at the top of both cards that there's a half a logo. Only Cross Signis will have Heaven and is only activated when both cards are in the "down" state. The logo on top will make into the Heaven logo. With the example of Cock and Heckler, when both are down, it's now in Heaven. You can pay 1 Red ener to crush 1 of your opponent's Life Cloth. Now, apart from that scary looking Heaven's skill, it's not sure whether the skill can only be used once or can be used indefinitely as long as they're both in heaven as the ability states "as long as the Signi is in Heaven state". If there's no limit, you can just keep paying 1 Red and crush all of your opponent's Life Cloths till they have nothing left. Which could be too over-powered in my opinion.

I believe Takara Tomy may put restrictions on Heaven in the rulings, else I can just use a card skill to down myself and shotgun ahead with 7 Reds. It could be there when the Signis goes in Heaven state, you can use the ability in that instant, but hey, I could be wrong. There isn't much information to pull up for now. Again, we may have to wait for more news in the near future.

Personally, I think that Takara Tomy may have introduced too many new skills and gimmicks at once. Now it makes me wonder what new things will be in store for Booster 10 onwards.


Source: @wixoss_hanayo