Budgetguard 26: Murakumo Updated!

Hey Cardfighters,

Murakumo got support! This is exciting because Murakumo was actually the first budgetguard I every did. Let's see what their new support brings to the budget deck!

Winning Image: Early Aggressiveness supported by "bunshin" skills


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)
     Sticking with the same main boss from last time, Seimei provides a lot of advantage around the mid game by creating an almost full field from 1 CB especially when combined with Kuzunoha's calling effect. The main use of this card is to legion as soon as you can and pressure with a full field before your opponent is ready for it.


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)
     Like we have stayed with Semei, we also stick with Hyakki Vogue. This is because he has a great on-ride skill which lets you copy himself and then at the end of the turn the copy returns to your hand. This sets up stride plays to try to snowball the early aggression and is a super strong play for when you go first.




Deck List:
Starter: Stealth Beast, Evil Ferret
6 Crit
3 Stand (Stealth Dragon, Hidden Scroll)
3 Draw
4 Heal

G1s:
4x Stealth Fiend, Oboro Cart (0.50)
4x Stealth Fiend, White Heron (5.00)
4x Stealth Beast, Million Rat (0.30)

G2s:
4x Stealth Rogue of the Flowered Hat, Fujino (0.30)
4x Tenjiku Stealth Rogue, Dokube
4x Transformation Stealth Rogue, Kuzunoha (0.70)

G3s:
4x Onmyo Stealth Rogue, Seimei (0.50)
4x Covert Demonic Dragon, Hyakki Vogue "Reverse" (2.00)
1x Platinum Blond Fox Spirit, Tamamo (0.90)

G4s:
2x Ambush Demonic Stealth Dragon, Ushimitsu Train (0.50)
2x Ambush Demon Stealth Rogue, Kagamijishi (0.50)

Final Cost:  $41.20 (oops a little over budget... recorded the match before checking the prices :/ )

Deck Comments:
     Phew 40 on the dot. First you might notice the starter is Evil Ferret. This is because the ferret really helps smooth out those early turns. being able to call a grade 2 while on grade 1 or a grade 3 while your vanguard is grade 2 helps make those early rushes that much more viable. It is also very useful for being able to reuse Million Rat or Oboro Cart's skills to keep on the pressure. Lastly it lets you make aggressive plays with Grade 3s and then get them back to stride the next turn. The next "oddity" will be the lack of stride fodders in a deck that wants to stride for its late game plays. The choice for this was to maximize the ability to act early-mid game using million rat and oboro cart. The extra grade 3 helps deal with the lack of stride fodders. Overall this opens up a lot more plays than having just the stride fodder. Also a comment on why the new stuff isn't really included. Onifundo is a really good card but with a deck that wants to be aggressive the Ferret is much more valuable. Yasuie and Runstar aren't super expensive so why didn't I use them? It goes along with skew towards early- mid game. Both are really strong cards but with only 6k boosters Runestart isn't going to be doing a lot of damage to my opponent even with its skill. I don't want to use Yasuie not because its too slow but because it relies heavily on having field presence the turn before which can run counter to Ferret's ideal plan.

Match ups:

Overall Performance:
    The deck has some issues striding when it wants too which is something I sacrificed to have a powerful early game. I think the deck still sits around the same power level that it was before the new support since I ended up not having much new stuff added. The ability to early rush is as strong as ever though and if you can manage it and draw well into your grade 3s to support your striding when you need it then you can easily snowball the game to victory.

Tips for Mastering:

• Plan your "bunshins" to leave your front row open. This helps give you a lot of options each turn as well as forcing your opponent to attack your vanguard where damage triggers can slow an assault and guarantee's you CB for future plays.
• Use Ferret as early as you can to provide a lot of pressure and create 3 attacks early and as often as possible.
• Some of your skills can be used to deck thin and don't forget to about Hyakki Vogue's ability to make your Bunshin's permanent by locking them. 

Tips for adding money:
     I think that the main way to add power to the deck is to fill out the stride zone. I would suggest adding in 2 Homura Raider and 2 Madew. Homura Raider excels in that late game push that the deck is lacking but the only real way to enable it is with the stand trigger so it ends up being very situational in this deck. Madew is an excellent choice to provide continuous striding over you legion where the extra trigger checks and high power of stride will secure the game. The last think you could do is trade out a few of the grade 3s for Yasuie. Personally I would only change out Tamamo for Yasuie but you could replace Hyakki with Yasuie if you want more of him.

Striding really smooths out the deck by covering spots in the aggression that you might be lacking and is very useful for the deck even though this update didn't seem to be much more than slapping on strides I feel like the deck has been tuned a bit more and works a lot better.


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

Tournament Report: Murakumo Legion Budget Deck

Bringing you my tournament results after using the Murakumo Legion deck I wrote about on Thursday in my Budgetfight Article.



Tournament Breakdown

Round 1 VS Majesty Lord Blaster (Loss)
   Opponent started first and I initially though he was using Thing Saver + RPBA with the wingal brave starter but his other cards quickly gave him away. On his second turn my opponent rushed me with marrons in the front row but damage triggers saved me from a lot of pain. However, the next turn he moved Marron back and called 2 Palamedes into the front row. I decided to take damage so that I could control his aggression by attacking Palamedes with Hyakki Vogue's limit break. I continued trying to control his offense by taking out his attackers and blocking his vanguard which was only attacking for 15k (Wingal Brave was stuck there). At one point he tried to bait me into blocking Wingal Brave's effect by attacking my rear guard but I was able to call his bluff and let it act as a perfect guard. Eventually I succumbed to his offense because I never drew into other copies of hyakki vogue (he retired the one i got from the initial on-ride skill) I drive checked one on my last turn which caused me to lose due to not having enough guard.

Round 2 VS Bluish Flames (Win)
     I went first but didn't get a grade 3 in my opening hand. He wasn't aggressive at all early and I managed to draw my grade 3 on time. While he applied no pressure to me I filled up my field with my legion skill and put an 8k behind my vanguard for the 31k column. He succumbed before he could even get off one "Explosion Blue".

Round 3 VS Shadow Paladin Witches (Loss)
     Once again no grade 3 in my starting hand. I was rushed early and I tired to make my own offense using Oboro Cart. The next turn I drew into Hyakki Vogue but I had used up 1 Counter Blast so I couldn't use the on-ride skill. My lack of pressure would be my downfall as I quickly ran out of cards and had no other Hyakki Vogue to use with my LB4. Eventually I tried for a last resort attack by using Hyakki Vogue's LB4 twice and prayed for a critical trigger but my oppponent had the perfect guard and that was game.

Round 4 VS Shadow Paladin Witches (Win)
     This time I started with Hyakki Vogue in my hand and was able to leave the Counter Blasts open for its effects. This allowed me to keep up my own pressure while forcing him to give me damage. Adding to this he rode Rias instead of Fianna and didn't legion to avoid wasting her skill. He eventually laid down a whole field and I went up to limit break to push for game. By filling up my front row with Hyakki Vogue I was able to punch through his defenses before he got a chance to make his big plays.

Round 5 VS Tetra Burst + Demetrius Break Ride (Loss)
     I started off with Hyakki Vogue and put up pressure early but he was able to break ride Demetirus over Demetrius which cut off my pressure and helped him regain advantage. Then by Breakriding Tetraburst he was attacking for a 48k Tetra Burst which I managed to guard but it used up most of my hand. I made plays with Hyakki Vogue but he had a quintet wall and perfect guard to stop me. I lost the next turn his TetraBurst attack for 38k.

Round 6 VS Thing Saver (Loss)
     I was able to go first but he went aggressive attacking with a full front row early. I didn't get any damage triggers and on top of it he hit a critical. The game snowballed further out of control as I failed to hit any triggers and he got both damage checked and drive checked triggers.

Overview 2 Wins - 4 Losses
      The end results look pretty bad for the Murakumo deck but honestly most of the match ups went as I expected. In the games where my opponent was the aggressor and I had to be defensive I lost because I wasn't able play the aggressive game like I want and that is not the game I want to be playing. I also didn't get to use the legion very often which would help a lot to prevent my opponents from being able to snipe away my rearguards and counter my aggressiveness. The Last match against Thing Saver also went as expected, he pulled more triggers than I did which made him win as I explained in my previous article in a 50/50 match like that its really the triggers that define the outcome of the game.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

~Bambi

Cardfight Budgetguard: Murakumo Legion Deck

For my first Cardfight Budgetguard article I will be talking about the Murakumo Legion deck. First we'll talk about the cards


The deck will be based around the legion pair Onmyo Stealth Rogue, Seimei and Transformation Stealth Rogue, Kuzunoha. The Legion skill for Seimei is quite good. For 1 Counter Blast you can fill up your whole front row with rearguards from the deck (specifically copies of the vanguard meaning, either Kuzunoha or Seimei). Kuzunoha's ability is that when she is called while your vanguard is in legion you can Soul Blast 1 to put a copy of a rearguard from your deck into play for the turn. (I will refer to this as "Copying" from now own.) So with these you can easily fill up your field temporarily which will let you dodge retiring and locking effects. Cost $4 for a pair (from Ebay.com buy it now listing) Although if you have friends who bought a lot then you probably can grab them for even cheaper

Next we want to look at a supporting grade 3 for the deck. Unfortunately there aren't very many options. I chose to use Covert Demonic Dragon, Hyakki Vogue Reverse.
 
With him it is nice so that you can have useful effects after using up your Counter Blasts and a non limit break effect which will prevent you from falling too far behind just in case you have to ride him. Cost $2.20 (median TCGplayer)

Total Cost so far: $16 + $8.80 = $24.80

Because of this we can get a little flashy with our rearguards.

Grade 2:
Obviously we will include 4 ofr the legion mate which we have talked about above. Another All-star for the deck is Demonic Hair Stealth Rogue, Grenjin. He is really good in the early game to add lots of pressure as one hit can copy himself to attack again and again. He is priced at $0.24 (a steal for his abilities). As you may have noticed all the cards I have mentioned so far use Counterblasts so to help we will include Stealth Beast, White Mane. White mane is your standard damage unflipper and he will allow you to use more of your counterblasts and add a bit of pressure to your opponent.

Total Cost after Grade 2s: $25.80

Grade 1s:
First I will talk about Stealth Fiend, Oboro Cart. (Cost $0.27) His effect is for Counter Blast 1 you can copy another unit on your field. Next we will use the Vanilla 8k Stealh Rogue of Silence Shijimamaru. His purpose is to let you attack for 31k behind your legion as well as to make 17k power columns for early game on hit effects. Before looking at Sentinel Cards we will look at the total deck cost again.

Starting Vanguard: Masago Stealth Rogue, Goemon
I choose to use Goemon over the grade 3 searcher and evil ferret because I prefer to have cards that don't disappear with out any permanent effects like Evil ferret and I do not want the grade 3 search to use up precious counter blasts. Lastly the soulblast effect of Goemon can be useful for obtaining an early legion.

Total Cost after Grade 1s and starter: $26.80

Finally the sentinels are up to you how much you want to mix perfect guards and quintet walls but for costs Quintet Walls are ($0.72) and Perfect Guards ($10.38)

To fit the $40 budget we can include 1 Perfect Guard and 3 quintet walls (to try to avoid too much counterblasts however in the sake of budget I have built the deck using 4 quintet walls. So here is the final Deck List and cost

Deck List:

2x Masago Stealth Rogue, Goemon

12x Critical
4x Heal

G1:
4x Silver Snow, Sasame (Quintet Wall)
4x Stealth Rogue of Silence Shijimaru
4x Oboro Cart

G2:
4x Transformation Stealth Rogue, Kuzunoha
4x Demonic Hair Stealth Rogue, Grenjin
4x Stealth Beast, White Mane

G3:
4x Covert Demonic Dragon, Hyakki Vogue "Reverse"
4x Onmyo Stealth Rogue, Seimei

Total Cost: $29.68


Testing:  (VS. Deck win/loss)

VS. RPBA  7/3
    - Match up Tips, Since you have no real advantage engine it is extremely important to prevent Judgebau from hitting. If he does hit you'll probably be buried in card advantage. Both Grade 3's are good but I suggest to prioritize the legion as it lets you fill the field easy and you can save cards to guard against Judgebau. For you its ideal that they are stuck on Mordred Phantom because its easier to guard against and you should be able to finish the game before they can really push back at you.

VS. Thing Saver 6/4
     - Match up Tips, There isn't much to say about this match up its almost 50/50 you want to be aggressive but you need counterblasts so make sure to leave yourself open to taking damage. Your early game is definitely better than theirs is but they can easily out advantage you. Early triggers help a lot but you can't really control that sort of thing. 

VS. Bluish Flames 2/8
     - Match up Tips, Again Murakumo has no way to get advantage so if you see an opportunity to cut them off from generating advantage it would be good to do so. (i.e. attacking lawful trumpeter before they legion) you best chance is if you bait them into giving you enough counterblasts to fill up the field really early and push really hard at them. Going first is best, if they play an advantage game and go first its gonna be really hard to win.


Final Comments on the deck:
     The main goal of this deck is rush down. Murakumo excels as temporarily filling the field and can do so early in the game. We choose "all-in" on this strategy rather than trying to grind out games when we don't have the capability to do so. This will explain the starting vanguard and 4 quintet walls as they allow you to legion immediately every game. I also chose to use 12 critical triggers to support the early offensive capabilities.

    Whether you will find success with this build will depend on the meta of your locals. If you face a lot of Revenger Phantom Blaster Abyss + break ride then you should have a lot of success but vs. a meta full of Bluish Flames you probably won't be too happy.

Key Points required to master the deck:
 -  Learn how to use Hyakki Vogue when you ride him first.
 -  Learn when to switch between the Legion and Hyakki Vogue.`
 -  Keep your front row clear by using your copying effects. It will force them to give you damage.
 -  Be Aggressive

Tips for adding money to the deck:
   For adding money I would suggest adding in perfect guards in place of quintet walls. However with the success I've had with quintet walls I think a 2-2 split between them would be the best.

Thanks for reading,

Bambi