No Hype No Fear: Link Joker

Deck Name: Stellar Link Joker

Winning Image: Draw power and power columns.

Deck List:

Starter: Spawn of the Spiral Nebula
12 Critical
4 Heal

G1:
4 Lady Keeper of Virtual Reality (3.00)
4 Poisonous Deletor, Edda
3 Destiny Dealer (2.50)
3 Providential Child of Gravitational Collapse

G2:
4 Lady Battler of Gravity Well (0.50)
4 Blast Monk of the Thundering Foot (1.50)
3 Heavymaterial Dragon

G3:
4 Cradle of the Stars, Stellar Maker (0.20)
4 Lady Gunner of the Neutron Star

G4: (Strides)
4 Nebula Dragon, Maximum Seal Dragon (2.00)
4 Genesis Dragon, Judgement Messiah (1.00)

Cost: $40.3 (USD)

Deck Comments:
     The general Idea of the deck is to make use of Stellar Maker's Gb1 effect to provide constant crit pressure and make 21k columns with Lady Battler or Blast Monk. We have a draw engine in the Child and Heavy Material Dragon to help set up and keep us going. The strides provide utility for locking on hit or providing a huge power push with VG.


Let me know if there is anything I can do to improve the series!

Thanks for Reading,

Chris

Budgetguard 28: Deletors

Hey Cardfighters,

Welcome to t-DELETED-.... thats right! this week's deck is based on the Deletor subtype for Link Jokers. I thought Mixed Deletor Keios seemed really strong when it was first revealed. Unfortunately no one else thinks so.... cause its $0.50... so let's try it out.

Winning Image: Delete and pressureeeee.


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)
     Let's talk about why I think this card is good. First is that its a fairly cheap CB cost for deleting. This means that you can use it effectively early. The discarding cards can be a problem but there isn't much we can do besides running a bunch of draws. Next its an on-ride ability. This means you aren't limited to later in the game like Zaele you could even Delete your opponent's grade 2 vanguard! Keios punishes rushing player extremely hard by locking their front row and counter attacking with 3 damage because your opponent probably doesn't have much left to protect their 0 power deleted vanguard. The Keios into Keios play you'll see in the match video is insanely strong and even if your opponent survives they'll be seriously hurting for cards or to be able to do anything.




Deck List: 
Starter: Acquire Deletor, Igor (3x) (0.20)
8x Stand (All deletor)
4 Draw (Deletor)
4x Heal (Deletor)


G1s:
4x Breaking Deletor Gatario
4x Deriding Deletor Aieda
4x Lady Keeper of Virtual Reality

G2s:
4x Clipping Deletor Evo (1.30)
4x Greedy Deletor Jail
3x Lady Battler of the Gravity Well (0.50)

G3s:
4x Mixed Deletor, Keios (0.50)
4x Penetrate Deletor Iggy

G4s:
4x Nebula Dragon, Maximum Seal Dragon (2.20)

Final Cost:  $18.3 (woo under half my limit!)

Deck Comments:
     The deck is meant to have a lot of pressure units to incentivize your opponent to guard or make it so that you get freebies when your opponent doesn't guard. The 2 non-deletors in the deck are PGs which are vital and Lady Battler, which creates 20k columns with 7k boosters which is a crazy high number against a deleted vanguard. Other than that I think the choices are fairly straight forward. Aieda and Jail are pressure units to help get some extra advantage off of your opponent's difficulty guarding. 10k attackers hit perfect numbers against 0. Evo helps call out Aieda or a 10k attacker to get the pain going while conserving a little bit of cards in the hand for another Keios. The strides are mainly there for G-assist, or to provide an Atmos type effect when you stride after using Keios' skill.


Match ups:

Overall Performance:
     After playing a few games I found that the deck was very inconsistent. I had many games where I couldn't draw the right cards, or I had to G-assist. That being said I think the deck proves that Keios is an extremely powerful card, letting you demolish your opponent's resources or putting them at high damage which puts them in a precarious spot. The deck isn't very competitive as it is but with a few additions I think it could be a real contender especially as we look into the clan booster which is coming out.

Tips for Mastering:

• Find the perfect time to use Keios. if you have a lot of rushing potential you might want to rush hard and then grade lock yourself to deplete their resources setting them up for deletion.
  
• Don't be afraid to delete while your opponent is at grade 2. while they get to ride over and negate the delete normally you'll probably get in 3 damage. remember that with stride's ability to negate a deletion its become an all-in offensive tool and you should treat it as such.
• Never Mulligan double Keios. If you watch the video you'll know why. Its BRUTAL.

Tips for adding money:
     #1 super most important thing. Add the legion pair for Zaele and Gaele. This will push the deck through the roof. All your vanguards will be able to delete for a relatively low cost. This means that you can pull the repeated deletes of very easily especially if you take into account that Keios sets up for Legion by requiring you to discard cards.  *** Replace Iggy with Zaele and replace Evo with Gaele (you won't have room to CB for Evo anymore)*** It will be crazy trust me. The next thing you are going to want to do is get Madews. This is gonna make the deck that much more consistent. Since you can activate Madew's skill when you legion you can follow up a Delete turn from Zaele with a stride if you don't have enough CB and grab back whatever grade 3 you ditched to take damage and push the next turn. The last and final thing you can do to add money will be to choose a PG. will you choose the Unflippers to keep CB open for deleting? or will you choose Deletors to make Keios' skill mroe consistent? The choice is yours.

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.

If you want to be updated on the latest information and be notified about new posts click the link below and like the Vanguard Central Facebook page.


Thanks for reading,

Chris

Budgetguard 13: Schwarzschild Freeze Ray

Hey Cardfighters,

This week we have a super anti aggro deck for you with a combination of Schwarzschild Dragon and Freeze Ray
Winning Image: Get a ton of early advantage and ride it to victory.


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)

The main boss of the deck will actually be Freezeray Dragon. This is because he allows for free locks via damage adders and completely shuts down any rearguard dependent strategies. The LB effect is that whenever something is locked he gets +3k. But his non-limit break is the real killer. everytime a card is placed into your damage zone you lock an opponent's rearguard. This means that you can actually lock your opponent's rearguards during THEIR attack phase. This will allow you to mitigate early damage with ease. Cost: 0.40


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)

Schwarzschild Dragon is the secondary boss of the deck. While we have the ride chain the deck is not dependent on it. Shwarzschild can be used to triangle lock your opponent and then pressure them with the power boost and crit. This is from the its LB4 effect "CB3, persona blast: Lock 3 of your opponent's rearguards and then this unit gets +10k and a crit" He also has an on ride effect of "CB1: look at the top 5 cards of the deck and search for Shwarzschild Dragon and put it into your hand". This helps enable the LB4 effect which makes the card work very well as a finisher. Cost: 3

Cost so far: 10.60

For grade 2s our non-commons are 4x Osmium, (0.50) 4x Gravity Collapse Dragon (0.25), and 3x Negligible Hydra (N/A)

For grade 1s we get 4x Gravity Ball Dragon (N/A), 3x PG (5.60) 1x QW (1) 4x Damage adder (N/A) 2x Nickel (N/A)

Total Cost: 29.65

Then with 2x Magum (4)


Final Cost: 37.65

Deck List:
Starter: Micro-Hole Dracokid
8x Crit
4x Draw
4x Heal

G1s:
4x Gravity Ball Dragon
3x Refusing Deletor, Evil
1x Star-vader, Rejection Dragon
4x Imaginary Orthos
2x Deception Star-vader, Nickel

G2s:
4x Flash Gun Star-vader, Osmium
4x Gravity Collapse Dragon
3x Negligible Hydra

G3s:
4x Star-vader, Freeze Ray Dragon
4x Schwarzschild Dragon

G4s:
2x Heat Elemental, Magum

Deck Comments:
       In this deck we use a mix of ride chain to get some free bonuses if you can get it to work. And then the damage adders which will help bump upto limit break early as well as enable essentially free retires via Freezeray Dragon. Nickel is used to help you filter hand while you are being attacked as well as free filtering if Nickel is out as you use the ride chain.Osmium will help apply early pressure with locks provided by the ride chain.

Match ups: (opp dmg - my dmg)

•  Shadow Paladin Witches

• He gets to start first and I miss the ride chain :( I draw into Freeze Ray and ride him to prevent him from going super aggro. Striding to apply pressure and get him to higher damage. Unfortunately I only get a whiffed heal trigger. 3-1. He strides which I perfect guard and then take his rearguard hit which in retrospect was a bad idea considering that I could have guarded easily and the lock didn't really help me. I stride again to try to aggro him down but I get a pg and no triggers again. He gains advantage using Fianna's skills and reduces my field down to only Grade 0s. He calls an attacker but I can block it of by no guarding and locking. This lets him use the starter to unflip and soul charge which may have been a misplay in retrospect. I use my damage adder to lock up his field some and call osmium to go for omega locks. He takes attacks smartly to avoid osmium. 4-3. He draws even more off fiana and reduces my field to 0s yet again. I guard attacks to prepare for taking a lot of damage on his game winner turn. Another damage adder comes out to lock up his field some. Unfortunately I'm not really able to whittle down his hand. 5-3. He goes into "Final Turn" dropping me to -10k power and attacking so that I have to bank on him not getting a crit which he does. 

• Thavas Aqua Force

•  I start second but I have both grade 1 and 2 of the ride chain in my hand. With a ton of grade 2s I plan to go on the offensive early. My opponent beats me to it and I take an early hit which gets me a crit trigger nullifying his attack pattern, I let his vanguard hit and a crit regains his position. 1-4. I don't draw into my grade 3 but the ride chain lets me lock down an important column for him. I then play out my osmiums and pressure him to get the omega lock. which was guaranteed with the heal I got. He g-assists to get Thavas and attacks I no guard to conserve cards but Schwarzschild goes into the damage. Luckily I G-assist into him and lock his starter. Using the on ride to guarantee me either stride fodder or a super lock crit turn. I go aggresive again to hit with osmium. Which works out. and his rearguard stays locked shutting down the column. He draws into a stride fodder and goes into attacks. I protect my osmiums and pg his vanguard attack. 4-5. The only trigger he gets is a draw so next turn I opt to use Schwarzschild's persona blast to lock the rest of his field which gets rid of his interceptor. He guards 1 pass successfully but doesn't get the heal he needs to survive.

Overall Performance:
       From these two decks we can see 2 things. This deck has TERRIBLE power plays. Your biggest power play is a generic stride. This means against a controlling vanguard centric deck you can be shut down really easily. However as you can see in the case of the Aqua Force match up you can really shut down rear guard dependent clans. Going into GBT-02 This will become really important as cutting off attackers in a multi attack turn will totally crush their momentum.

Tips for Mastering:

• Get good with Freezeray's effect. This will make the biggest difference.
• Learn when to call damage adders as boosters/attackers even without using the skill.
• Master attack patterns which maximize your ability to hit with osmium

Tips for adding money:
     NUMBER 1 PRIORITY. Fill out the deck's stride units. Freezeray functions the best when you stride every turn because it gives you a high offensive and an obnoxious defense. My loss to Witches wouldn't have been so over whelming if I had more stride units. The next thing you should look into is Volt line, who has the same ability as osmium to maximize the effectiveness of your ride chain. Also since the deck isn't good at making power columns its better to focus on on hit pressure. In this vein I would also suggest getting Astro Reapers to supply your hand with grade 3s to stride with. Both of these should replace damage adders as they are only useful when freeze ray is your vanguard and you didn't stride which ideally won't ever happen. You can also decide to follow the Freezeray path or the Schwarzschild build path and focus on one over the other.


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.

If you want to be updated on the latest information and be notified about new posts click the link below and like the Bambguard Facebook page. 

Thanks for reading,

~Bambi