Budgetguard 19: Dungaree Stride

Hey Cardfighters,

Tell your opponents to get their diapers ready cause their about to be pooped on! Poop on your opponent's front row with the king of poop "Dung"aree!
 
Winning Image: Build up your Bind Zone/Power Meter and hit hard while controlling the field with Dungaree.


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)
     The big bad boss of our deck. First he is a cross-ride for the other dungaree, meaning if you have Sealed Demon Dragon, Dungaree in your soul then UNLIMITED will gain +2 which makes him consistently 13k making it super easy to guard attacks since almost everything is 16k columns nowadays. UNLIMITED's lb4 is his primary skill though since you get to retire a front row, bind a card from the top of your deck and then you get +2k for each narukami in your bind zone (so everything.) this can let you get upto 21k unboosted really easily and also helps you control your opponent's front row.


(Image Courtesy of Cardfight Wikia)
     The base form of UNLIMITED, Dungaree lets you bind 2 cards from the top of your deck when you ride him which helps set up UNLIMITED's power bar I mean... Bind Zone. This also leads into his LB4 which lets you return a card bound by "this card" to the bottom of the deck and then retire a front row rearguard. once per turn. This is really good since its only a cb1 effect which makes it pretty easy to get off. The more frustrating skill is the CONT ability "VC/RC, this unit gets -2k if there are no cards in your bind zone bound from this card's effect" This means you can't go too crazy with the LB4 and if you want Dungaree to be 11k on rearguard you need to have the starter. But overall a decent card mainly for cheap field control and possibly making a stack of triggers on the bottom of the deck if things work out right. (Definitely not plan A)



Deck List:
Starter: 2x  Exorcist Mage, Dan Dan (0.20)
8 Crit
4 Stand (Dragon Dancer Vianne)

G1s:
3x Dragon Dancer, Anastasia (6.80)
1x Wyvern Guard, Guld (5.00)
4x Eradicator, Egg Helm Dracokid
3x Mighty Bolt Dragoon (0.75)
2x Rising Phoenix (0.20)

G2s:
4x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura
4x Whirlwind Axe Wielding Exorcist Knight (0.25)
3x Heat Blade Dragoon

G3s:
4x Sealed Demon Dragon, Dungaree (1.60)
4x Demon Conquering Dragon, Dungaree "UNLIMITED" (0.50)

G4s:
2x Lightning Dragon Knight, Zorras (0.80)

Final Cost:  $39.45

Deck Comments:
     First of lets talk about the triggers, No draw triggers with the few strides and all the self binding you'll be doing with Dungaree the deck doesn't need ways to help deck out faster especially without having a legion. We also run 2 of the starter, this is not only for just incase he gets retired but if you have 2 you can really build up your bind zone for huge numbers with UNLIMITED. The last key piece to this deck is the stand trigger. Since you can get free unflips from the stand trigger it helps a ton which grinding out games with Unlimited's CB2, Since we are running Stand Triggers then we want to use a plethora of 11k attackers as prime stand targets.

Match ups:

• VS. D. Police (Win)
• I get to go first and with 3 G3s in my hand I'm hoping I don't get rushed. When I hit grade 2 I call an attacker to start the pressure. He 1passes my vanguard but I get a crit. 3-1. He hits grade 2 and fills up his front row he goes for my vanguard which lets me get damage triggers and stop his 3rd attack. 3-3. I ride into dungaree and start binding calling my other dungaree too. He guards all my attacks. 3-3. He strides and while I want lb4 he hasn't hit many triggers so I pg to prevent loss to a double crit. lucky for me he gets a stand and I get lb4 anyway. I ride UNLIMITED to get crossride status and foolishly attack with rearguard first which prevents me from getting a retire off UNLIMITED's skill. 4-4. He calls nothing so I 2 pass his vanguard. 4-4. I go for a stride since he has no front row to retire. He guards carefully and I don't get the crit. 5-4. Luckily for me he doesn't stride and goes for and aggro play with rearguards. 5-4. I go for a high power hit with UNLIMITED and get a crit to seal the game.
• VS. DOTX (Loss) #rekt
• I get to go first but my opponent gets aggressive calling a rearguard for triggers which he gets. 0-2. He 1 passes me and I miss. 0-2. He builds his field finishing his column. 0-3. I miss crossride riding UNLIMITED first and binding with 2x dan dan. He rides DOTX and then calls a full row of attackers I 2 pas his vanguard and he goes all vanguard draw and crit. 1-5. I bind some more with a dungaree taking out his front row with my lb4. he 1 passes again and I miss. He fills up his front row with grade 3s and then legions. I don't have enough cards to guard and that's the game.
  

Overall Performance:
       The deck has really strong control potential but lacks strong attacks to finish games. The D. police game was pretty even though he didn't stride a lot which probably would have won him the game and the DOTX match I got destroyed by not hitting triggers while he was pulling them out of his butt like Kai.

Tips for Mastering:

• Find the trade off between calling grade 3s for binding and striding
• Know when to go for strides or for clearing the field with either Dungaree.
• Learn the match ups in which cross ride excels the most and take advantage of it.

Tips for adding money:
     The first order of business would be to finish up the stride zone with conquest dragons. The next is to grab the last Anastasia for more consistent unflips. Other than that I'm not sure how else to improve the deck. Probably by adding money to the grade 2s. Maybe using Garuda for more unflips to grind your opponent out with Dungaree.


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.

Today's article is brought to you with the help of donations from our patrons at Patreon.

Thanks for reading,

~Chris

Reader Spotlight: Budget Narukami, Dungaree Unlimited

Hey Cardfighters,

Welcome to the new article series I am starting "Reader Spotlight" where I will be taking submissions from all of you and giving you a chance to show off your own decks (preferably budget). If you would like to make a submission for future weeks of Reader Spotlight please e-mail me your deck list to vanguardcentraltcg@gmail.com, along with some comments about the deck.

With that out of the way let's get into the deck list (courtesy of Caleb).

Starter: Exorcist Mage, Dan Dan

6 crit

6 draw

4 heal

G1:

2x Rising Phoenix

3x Ceremonial Bonfire Eradicator, Castor

4x Red River Dragoon

3x Wyvern Guard, Guld

2x Eradicator of fire, Kohkaji

G2:

4x Eradiactor Thunder Boom Dragon

2x Demonic Dragon Mage, Garuda

2x Dragon Dancer Julia

3x Whirlwind Axe Wielding Exorcist Knight

G3:

2x Eradicator, Vowing Sword Dragon

3x Sealed Demon Dragon, Dungaree

3x Demon Conquering Dragon, Dungaree Unlimited

Caleb's Comments: 
     The point of the deck is to cycle through cards to find dungaree and riding him to increase the number of bound cards. Then you want to bring out Dungaree Unlimited for the killing blow.

My comments on the deck: (I played a 2 of 3 match against my Great Nature deck)
     I think the deck has a lot of good things going for it. The use of vanilla units allows you to guard early to take a lot of the super high power attacks late game. To supplement this he uses other cards let him build up a little extra advantage. One thing that I think might benefit the deck a lot is using the Limit Break enablers released in set 16 for narukami. Eradicator Egghelm Dracokid. This could let you break ride earlier and control the field better with Dungaree's cheap retiring capabilities.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about Caleb's Budget Dungaree Build!

Again please submit your own budget or even non-budget deck builds to vanguardcentraltcg@gmail.com, with some comments on how it works and if you are having any trouble with certain match-ups for the deck.

If you have any ideas or opinions on how I can improve this new article series please comment down below! I would like this to not only be a place where you all can share your deck ideas but also get some feed back on how you might change the deck to suit your play-style better and/or strengthening its weaknesses.

Thanks for reading!

~Bambi

P.S. I really want to thank Caleb for offering to let me use his deck list which inspired me to start this article series. I really appreciate his input and I hope you all can enjoy this new series thanks to him.

Vanguard Card Analysis: Lizard Soldier Saishin

Hey Cardfighters,

There won't be a tournament report for this week because the only one I went to was a single elimination and I lost the first round I played so not super exciting. Instead I'm going to do a short analysis on Lizard Soldier Saishin.

Lizard Soldier Saishin, was an okay starter which was soon outclassed by Eradicator Linchu, who did the same thing but better. So why is Saishin better now? First, Eradicators don't have a legion which makes it a lot harder for them to compete on par with decks that do have legion. Linchu is required to boost an Eradicator so you're forced to play them if you want to use him. Second, unlike Linchu Saishin is not sub-clan restricted allowing us to use him in the new Brawler Legion decks. Finally, many starters these days are legion restricted which means that they are sitting ducks for Saishin during all of the early game. Mainly from this last point I believe that Saishin is extremely well positioned in the current meta.

First I want to do a comparative analysis of the main starters that Brawlers use and then go over how Saishin affects other top tiered decks.

1. Spark Kid Dragoon,
     The starter of choice for a lot of big bang brawler deck builds, letting you get Knuckle Buster easier and activate his skill easier as well. In other decks such as Shotgun Blow Dragon you can search for more copies of him to ride and get the skill off.

2. Brawler, Fighting Dracokid,
     Another Great starter giving your vanguard the ability to kill units behind the front row by using an extra Counterblast 1 everytime a front row is retired. He really burns up your counterblasts but he can turn Knuckle Buster's skill into a field with for CB 3 which is really awesome.

3. Lizard Soldier, Saishin
     Pretty straight forward he either kills your opponent's starter unit or sits there as a free rearguard. More often than not the best choice is to kill their starter when possible.

Now that we've examined the common starters Brawler Deck's use lets look at how Saishin will affect your opponent.

VS. RPBA,  
     You get to stop Judgebau which is their main advantage engine. While blocking judgebau doesn't totally nullify their deck and puts them way behind where they would like to be comfortably. You may argue that your opponent can block judgebau but your opponent will have to block Saishin too and for atleast 1 turn longer than you will.

VS. Thing Saver,
     This isn't always going to set them back but if you kill File, and they go straight into Thing Saver they won't actually have 3 soul to do the restand. This forces them into riding their secondary grade 3 first to build up soul or find a margal to get the restand.

VS. Kagero,
     Honestly this won't do much if its Red Pulse. I would suggest letting them use up their counter blast and hope they wiff. If its Petal Flare then you save yourself a lot of rearguards by dodging the Petal Flare combo with DOTG

VS. Bluish Flames,
     By knocking out Guido it makes it a lot harder for them to hit a ton of superior calls for a super bruno boosted Explosion Blue and it forces them to use counter blasts for all their superior calling which will limit the times you have to deal with it as well.

VS. Cat Butler Raizers,
      Success!! Catbutler is  a Grade 0 so you can take out one cat butler by taking an attack or two the deck leans heavily on cat butler and is much less of a threat without it. One less cat butler is huge.

VS. Link Joker,
     Against robin knight you get to ease out of 2 locks and against bravefang you get to dodge omega locks. With out mass locking power/ omega locking Link Joker will be a lot easier to fight.

That's the end of my little summary for Lizard Soldier, Saishin. I think he's extremely well positioned in the current meta and when generation break starters come out he's only going to get better. So you should definitely try him out.

Have you tried Saishin in your deck? Got questions about using him? Do you like this kind of article/would you like to see more like it? Please comment down below and let me know!

Also please follow me if you'd like to get notifications when I put out content, I guarantee one in-depth Budgetguard article and atleast one shorter article/tournament report each week.

Thanks for reading!

~Bambi

Cardfight Budgetguard 3: Brawler Legion Deck

Hey Cardfighters,

Welcome to the 3rd Budget deck profile featuring Narukami's Brawler Subclan. Most of the Brawler bosses won't fit into our budget so we are building our deck around budget crit master, Brawler, Wild Rush Dragon.



Wild Rush has 2 abilities. His non-Legion effect is when this unit's attack hits you may retire one of your rear-guards, if you do then your opponent must choose and retire one of his own rear-guards. This ability if useful if you are ahead as you can keep both players on a low card level. But if you are behind likely you are just going to end up more behind.

Wild Rush's second ability is if you are in legion and you drive check a copy of him or his mate you can give Counter Blast 1 to give your vanguard +10k and an extra critical. This ability can make your opponents over guard or lets you steal some victories.  (Cost = 1.40 and 0.6 for mate)

The support for him will be the "Trial deck" legion Brawler, Skybeat Dragon. When Skybeat Legions you can retire one of your opponents front row rearguards at no cost. He is good for slowing down a super aggressive opponent or giving you a little breathing room against clans like aqua force and nova grappler. (Cost = 0.9 and 0.7 for the mate)

Just the bosses and their mates brings us to 13.6.

Before we get into perfect guards I wanted to go into R cards that help the deck attain legion and be more consistent as well as the starter.

Ceremonial Bonfire Eradicator, Castor and Threatening Brawler, Kohmei both let you drop&draw when they are placed on the rear-guard given certain conditions. This helps fill the drop zone for legion. They are priced around 0.30 and we will run 6 because I want to run 4 Rising Phoenix (which has a common version so it won't count against our budget). Total Cost: 13.6 + 1.80  = 15.4

Lastly is Lizard Soldier Saishin, he is my starter of choice for this deck. Spark Kid Dragoon doesn't really add much to this deck and neither does the brawler draco kid. Saishin allows you to snipe your opponents starter as long as you hit their vanguard while he boosts and you have a counterblast available. I could go on and on about this guy but I will leave it for a separate article. Cost = 0.20

Total Cost: 15.6

Now for Perfect Guards and Quintet walls, Perfect guards are generallly bettter so let's see how much we can fit in. Wyvern Guard Guld comes in at $5 and the QW Hardship Brawler, Toshu is $1.20 so We should run a 2-2 split.

Final Cost: $28

Decklist:

Starter: Lizard Soldier, Saishin

8x crit
4x draw
4x heal

G1s:
4x Threatening Brawler, Kohmei
2x Ceremonial Bonfire Eradicator, Castor
4x Rising Phoenix
2x Wyvern Guard, Guld
2x Hardship Brawler, Toshu

G2:
3x Jaillock Brawler, Koutenka
4x Brawler, Skyhowl Dragon
4x Brawler, Wildfist Dragon

G3s:
4x Brawler, Skybeat Dragon
4x Brawler, Wild Rush Dragon

Deck Comments:
   I already discussed most of it above so the Koutenka's are 10k vanillas to help you guard early and be defensive. And the trigger line up is 8 crit 4 draw because I want to have good drop targets for my cyclers (Kohmei and Castor) and I think its important to build a little hand to take advantage of Wild Rush's non legion skill.

Match Ups: (VS. Deck Win-Loss)

VS. RPBA+Mordred 4-6
     Match up tips, Saishin will kill Judgebau everytime which makes this math up a whooole lot easier to deal with. If it doesn't then you should do a back and forth guard the vanguard fest. Your opponent will probably run out of cards first because they've had to guard saishin for longer than you've had to guard Judgebau. Other thansave your front row retires until after RPBA's restand because its likely that they will have a hard time replacing their units after guarding your attacks. Unless you're being rushed, ofcourse then use front row retires to mitigate damage. Once you can kill of Judgebau the match is slightly in their favor because it becomes about triggers and their restanding vanguard is gonna give them more triggers than Wild Rush will.

VS. Thing Saver+Sacred Wingal 5-5
     Match up tips,  Fairly standard as in any match up you will kill their starter with Saishin. While you might not think killing File affects the deck much it prevents them from easily getting 3 soul for a restand. (one would normally be your starter) Because of this they have to re-ride atleast once or use margal. You can take advantage of being able to slightly slow down their deck in this way by being aggresive. Ideally you aggresiveness will further prevent them from building soul for the restand or will force them into bad decisions just to get the restand off. Seems fairly even though slightly in their favor for being able to get more drive checks than you.

VS. Bluish Flames Core+Glare 6-4 
     Match up tips, Oddly enough this build for gold paladins doesn't have that much advantage except in superior calling Josephus. Try to be aggressive and retire their units whenever possible. Bluish Flames takes a little while to get set up so you can take advantage of that. By Guarding early on top of all of this it will force them into a corner in which their best options is probably a super powered Explosion Blue. Hopefully you can live that and then close out the game. 

Overall Performance:
      This deck did a lot better than I expected it too. Saishin by far is the MVP of the deck. If I had used another starter I don't think that I could have done this well. Saishin basically puts every match on even ground. Unfortunately Wild Rush Dragon doesn't really have the power to back up Saishin's early advantage which is why the games are mostly 50-50. If you play well there should be no bad match ups for you meaning that you're not just going to roll over and die to a specific opponent.

Tips for mastering the deck:

• Don't be afraid of re-riding between Wild Fist and Skybeat often. Rising Phoenix can help even out the advantage.
• ALWAYS USE SAISHIN. (This one isn't always true but thats part of learning the deck.)
• Learn how to use Wild Rush's non-legion skill to lower the amount of cards both players have. It can help even the playing field if you know that your opponents is better than you or you have a tough time with the matchup. 

Tips for adding money:

     You have two options with this. Either use a Shot Gun Blow Dragon build, or go with the Big Bang Brawlers. I think both options would work really well, but I have to lean towards big bang brawlers because the field destruction effect is so powerful and with all the cycling in the G1 lineup of this deck it should be no problem using the skill over and over. I think that Shot Gun Blow synergizes more with Saishin's ability to put you ahead early/even out the game by pressuring the opponent with extra criticals but the 2 CB cost will get in the way and so you might not want to legion on time because you don't have the CB which, for me, is not worth it.


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