First Impressions: Revelation

Hello Cardfighters,

Just wanted to give you all some of my thoughts on the new Genesis mechanic "Revelation".

Revelation (RC) : (When this unit is placed in the designated circle, look at the top card of your deck, and you may put it into your soul. If you do, {Rest} one of your rearguards.)

Revelation is a very interesting ability, allowing you to manipulate the top of the deck with ease! Well... Kinda... There are a lot of risks involved. Mainly what if the next card is worse? And then there is the whole resting thing... that is kind of a pain to deal with too. Is it really worth it to rest a rearguard to Soul Charge 1? Well that will depend on the support they get. How efficiently will Genesis be able to stand its rearguards to make up for Revelations down sides? And how efficiently can the deck take advantage of Revelation?  We will have to see.

I think this could be a very powerful mechanic due to know and manipulating triggers to the top of the deck. This can also be enhanced by tricking your opponent into thinking you have a Critical Trigger on top of your deck when in reality it is a Stand trigger as Shinonome did in the anime. The obvious benefit is to get triggers on the top in general which will help you swing a match into your favor. The last potentially hidden benefit will be to selectively soul charge certain cards into the soul, which may prove invaluable.

Overall I think if we evaluate "Revelation"  as a stand alone ability it is pretty lack luster. Being able to look at the top of the deck is of little consequence in most scenarios and only has the benefit of being able to make your opponent think there is a trigger coming. Being able to move a non-trigger to soul certainly has its uses but it requires you to rest a unit either losing a boost or a while attack for that turn, such a cost can hardly be justified.

That being said the addition of powerful support cards that can properly migitate the downside or abuse the potential upsides could make Revelation an ability to watch out for.

You'll notice that I didn't mention any card interactions as I plan to comment on those in Friday's article reviewing the Japanese revealed cards of the week. So please look forward to that.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on Genesis' keyword ability. Let me know what you think of Revelation in the comments or even what you think of any keyword!

~Chris

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Budgetguard 37: Genesis Witches!

Hey Cardfighters,

Which Witch will you Soul Charge?? Got a request to update the old witch deck profile! The old route was more focused on persephone so I might try to redo that as well since I decided to go with a Witch focus this time.

Winning Image: Speed through your deck and then recycle triggers with Legion.


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)
     This legion pair is the main boss of the deck for good reason. The on-legion skill is pretty nuts. For a low cost of Soul Blast 3 you get to check the top FIVE cards of your deck for 2 cards with "Witch" in the name and put them in your hand. This serves 2 major purposes. First get the cards you want and 2nd thin your deck from triggers to let you Crit your opponent to death.


Deck List:
Starter: Vivid Rabbit
12 Crit (4 Witch's Familiar Shiroma)
4 Heal
(All witches)

G1s:
4 Witch of Strawberries, Framboise (6.30)
4 Witch of Melons, Thyme
4 Witch of Peaches, Bellini
1 Mythic Beast, Skoll (0.40)

G2s:
4 Witch of Ravens, Chamomile
4 Witch of White Rabbits, Cardamon
4 Witch of Golden Eagles, Jasmine (0.40)

G3s:
4 Witch of Eagles, Fennel (2.50)
4 Witch of Wolves, Saffron (0.20)

G4s:
4 Goddess of the Firmament, Dione (0.30)

Final Cost:  $39.2

Deck Comments:

     This deck really takes advantage of the new support that witches got. First we have the Shiroma and Thyme who fill up your drop zone for legion and help selectively Soul Charge (super powerful). It also gets to run even more copies of Chamomile in the form of Cardamon making sure that your front row will always be filled. Intercepting and then filling up again is a powerful strategy and it can also let you do multi-attacks to wear down your opponent! You might be wondering why Melissa isn't in the deck and that is because I wanted to focus more on calling the Grade 2s from soul and a lot of times you can't get rid of boosters. This means you won't want to call as many grade 1s early so that you can take advantage of melissa's call from the soul. I think this takes away from early plays so we replaced her with Bellini to get our Rush on. Lastly Vivid Rabbit is the starter to ensure we get Fennel. There are 5 non-witch cards in the deck 4 Crits and 1 Skol. I think having the extra stride fodder and more Criticals are worth it since the only time you care is with Thyme or Shiroma and the chances of you getting 3 non-witches with only 5 in the deck is pretty minimal.

Match ups:

Overall Performance:
     This deck is actually pretty strong. It gets a lot of early advantage and isn't super counterblast reliant which lets you choose between field building plays and multi attack patterns. The selective Soul Charging provided by Thyme and sometimes Shiroma is amazing. The deck lacks a strong finishing play though which is something we can try to fix when adding more money. If you invest a bit more money in the deck I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of success with the deck.

Tips for Mastering:

• Known when and how to use your Counter Blasts. Field building? Multi attack? Soul Charging?
• Don't be afraid to intercept its a very powerful and under utilized mechanic especially when we can easily replace the front row. 

Tips for adding money:
     You have 2 major options when updating the deck. First we can replace Saffron with Mint. Mint is the other legion for Witches and gives a lot of power to the front row. This will focus the deck more on legion plays and re-riding and legioning. I would suggest actually swapping the starter for Spectral Sheep/Pray Angel if you go this route. It will help make the early game more consistent and if you combine it with Thyme you'll have 3 cards in the dropzone for legion without having to guard at all. (Super nice if you go second.) The other option is adding Vanargandrs to the Stride zone. This won't mess with the core deck and allows the Soul Charging skills to come into play more. I would suggest this route as you can have more options using fennel for advantage/multi attack while Vanargandr provides the strong vanguard plays. Of course you can mix and match both as you please :) *One thing that I forgot to mention early is Doombrace which can replace some of the Dione in the stride zone for better power plays/ consistent soul blasting for field building.

Do you have any comments on the deck? Want to request a budget deck from me? Please leave a comment and help me help you.

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Thanks for reading,

Chris

Cardfight Budgetguard 4: Genesis Witch Legion

Hey Cardfighters,

This time we are gonna go over a Genesis Witch legion deck revolving around Witch of Eagles, Fennel and her mate Witch of Golden Eagles, Jasmine

(Images courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)

Fennel's Non-legion skill is that when you ride her you can Counter Blast 1 to soul charge 3. This helps for some cheap soul charging and sets up her Legion skill. During the turn you Legion with Fennel and after you attack a vanguard you can Soul Blast 3 to look at the top 5 cards of your deck choose up to 2 reveal them to your opponent and then put them in your hand. After wards shuffling the rest of the cards back into the deck. Fennel excels at deck thinning and securing the cards you need in your hand. (Cost: $1.61  +  Mate ($0.44))

To go along with her thinning and card selection we are using the Fighter's collection boss Goddess of Four Seasons Persephone.

(Image courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)

Her on-ride skill is to choose one of your rear-guards and the get upto 3 copies of it from your deck and put them into the soul. This is gonna help with the deck thinning game plan and helps set up some nice soulblasting effects. Then her Limit break is to soul-blast 6 and then look at the top 3 cards of your deck putting them back in any order, drawing 1 and then soul-charging 1. Similar to Fennel this skill is going to give you premium card selection as well as being able to stack a trigger on top of your deck for the drive check.  (Cost: $0.50)

Now you may ask why we choose such cheap boss units. Totaling so far to (10.20) Its because The massive soulcharging and drawing we use in the deck isn't going to let us make room for Quintet Walls. But we don't have the budget left for 4 perfect guards so we have 3 Perfect guards ($5.80) and 1 quintet ($2)

With the addition of the extra starter Regalia of Prayers, Pray Angel ($0.20)

Final Deck Cost: $29.80

Since we basically don't have any budget left the rest of the deck is filled up with commons.

Deck List:

Starter: Witch of Prohibited Books, Cinnamon
Extra Grade 0: Regalia of Prayers, Pray Angel
12 Crit
4 Heal

G1s:
3x Witch of Strawberries, Framboise
1x Shield Goddess Aegis
4x Witch of Oranges, Valencia
4x Witch of Frogs, Melissa

G2s: 
4x Witch of Golden Eagles, Jasmine
4x Witch of Grapes, Grappa
4x Witch of Raves, Chamomile

G3s:
4x Goddess of Four Seasons, Persephone
4x Witch of Eagles, Fennel

Deck Comments:
     We run an extra starter in case you want to build a little extra soul or add some power to your vanguard attack and worst case its going to be an extra 10k shield. 12 criticals because we have a lot of deck thinning and card selection so we want to be able to pressure the opponent like crazy. Melissa and Chamomile are clones which can call themselves to Rear-guard when they are soul blasted. Grappa and Valencia are also clones which let you soul charge 2 when they are soul blasted. All the soul blasted effects are mean to take advantage of Persephone's on-ride skill so you can set up your soul however you like to either get a lot of advantage or to keep stacking on triggers.

Match ups: (VS. Deck win-loss)

VS. RPBA + Mordred 5-5
     Match up tips,  Guard judgebau and take attacks early, shouldn't be too hard to keep up with the large hand advantage from this deck. If judgebau goes off its a lot harder to punch through their defenses late game so try to get in some early pressure and then out guard them. In the end game set up criticals everyturn with persephone and you should be able to pressure your way through their hand. It comes down to a crit race and whether your setting up abilities will beat out their restanding power.

VS. Thing Saver+alfred 6-4
      Match up tips,  In this match up you want to guard early so you can weather our their strong attack turns whether it is alfred or restanding thingsaver.  I feel it is a bit easier than RPBA since you can play around grynngal to prevent more restands. This means that once they run out of counterblasts you can just overwhelm them by stacking crits/having thinned your deck enough you check more triggers than them.

VS. Perdition 6-4
     Match up tips,  I originally thought this would be a terrible match up because they can annihilate your field and DOTG will let them filter and get triggers like crazy but it wasn't that bad. If you prioritize getting Melissa/Chamomile into the soul over Grappa and Valencia then you can equalize out their mass retiring as you get one call per counterblast. In the end you pressure as much as is safe (don't let them kill Chamomile or Melissa easily) so you can match them in advantage and then go into a trigger fight with DOTG vs. Persephone. You'll lose if you don't have a full field which is why fighting their retiring is so important.

Overall Performance:
     This deck worked really well you can consistently get yourself down to a <10 card deck with anywhere between 5-10 triggers. Its a bit tricky to get the workings of the deck down but its super fun even if a lot of games come down to if you or your opponent is hitting more criticals. By far the most fun Budgetguard deck so far, but you really have to know the deck to do well so practice lots. The deck is weak to early rushing since you need a little time to get the advantage rolling in.
    

Tips for Mastering:

• First you have to get used to being able to use both vanguard so no matter which one you ride first you'll be okay. Usually I find Fennel to be the ideal first Grade 3.
• Next is learning when to switch between them. A lot of the skills are on-ride so a lot of times its beneficial to re-ride lots
• Practice fennel looping, and learn the situations its good in. (this means riding Fennel, putting back 2 crits mate, Fennel then using Fennel's after attack ability to search your small deck for the Fennel you just put in to repeat.)
• Lastly figure out when you want to use your counterblasts for soul charging or for Chamomile and Melissa. 

Tips for adding money:
     This is really hard I feel like the deck has a lot of synergy within itself even if its win condition is just using Persephone to set up a guaranteed critical trigger. The best thing you can probably do is add in a few  White Snake Witch, Mint to act as a finisher. My suggestion would be to run 2x Mint and 2x of her mate taking out 1 Persephone and 1 Fennel.  This will help you finish out games when they are at 5 damage and stacking criticals with Persephone isn't as good. The other thing you can do is get a 4th perfect guard to replace the quintet wall. This is more of personal opinion because the quintet wall helps a lot with early legioning and doesn't require you to ditch cards from the hand (keeping grade 3s for re-riding purposes is really useful.) Also in sometimes getting the deck smaller can be useful because it makes thinning out non-trigger cards much more effective.

Do you have any comments on the deck? Want to request a budget build from me? Please comment down below and let me know.

Thanks for reading.

~Bambi