Vanguard Random: Limit Break Enabler Decks

Hey Cardfighters,

After testing some Limit Break Enabler decks for the past couple weeks I wanted to discuss a bit about LBE decks and why I think that most of them are not viable in Legion format. I'm going to go over a list of problems that they have and these are things that you should really look into solving if you plan on playing a LBE deck during Legion format. (I think that things will be different when stride comes out as you can use stride to cover Limit Break decks lack of abilities during the mid game. But even then I'm not sure.)

1. The are just too inconsistent/slow.
        This is a huge issue and is combined with the fact that they are generally slower because many LBE decks do not have a way to search out their LBE which means that those games where you don't draw it or are forced to ride is will set you really really far behind. Good examples of decks that avoid this problem are Jewel Knights, Sanctuary Guard Dragon. These decks can easily tutor for the limit break enabler which lets them consistently compete with legion decks in terms of speed.
   
   
2. They aren't powerful enough.
        This is the second problem with LBE they don't hit the same numbers as Legions do. If we look at how much each is when they are boosted. LB will hit around 16k where as Legions will hit around 26k. This means that a legion deck will force your opponent to guard for 10k more guard every turn when compared with a LB deck. To compete on this front you need to be able to add that kind of power to your attacks consistently. Decks that do this well are Sanctuary guard dragon (+9k if you have 3 grade 1s puts it in legion power range), Star-Vader, Nebula Lord Dragon, (+3k to your front row per unit your opponent has locked can make up for the 10k guard for not being in legion). Any deck can compensate slightly by using 10k boosters or 8k vanillas if applicable to make a 21k vanguard column. But this solution still puts you under 5k guard a turn  and you can't always rely on having the 10k booster either.
   
3.  The don't do enough.
        While it might sound similar to not being powerful enough, what I mean this time is that they don't get enough mileage from their counterblasts. Most limit breaks come from an era where 2 Counter Blasts is worth approximately 1 card. (Signified by iconic cards like Berserk Dragon and Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu) However in the era of Legions Counter Blasts have been redefined to having a 1:1 value with cards, which you can see in cards like (Blaster Blade Seeker and Perdition Dragon, Menace Laser Dragon). To solve this issue is really up to the boss unit you have or how much unflipping power you have in the deck. Boss units which can keep up are Chaos Breaker Dragon (The combo of his limit break soul blasting and non-limit break locking abilities is enough to put him on par with legion levels of doing stuff), and Cocytus Reverse (He can revive a card from the drop zone by putting the top 3 cards of your deck into the drop zone essentially giving you a card for free.) 

Those are the 3 main aspects of a deck that I think cause LBE decks to be sub-par in comparison to Legion decks. In my opinion if you can cover 2 aspects of the 3 in your deck then I think you can make a successful LBE deck. The best example of this is the Sanctuary Guard Dragon deck because the boss unit by itself can cover 2 of the conditions (1 and 2). This means that you can try to flesh out the rest of the deck with cards to cover the 3rd option or focus on working around Sanctuary Guard Dragon itself. As a side note a good way to correct the 2nd issue of power is to use a Legion unit as your secondary grade 3 and switch to it for the late game.

What do you think about LBE decks? Do you think I'm wrong? Please comment below and help me help you.

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Thanks for reading,

~Bambi

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

Vanguard Random: Net-Decking

Hey Cardfighters,

Lately with all the buzz about net-decking I wanted to give my two cents on the topic.

Starting off, what is net-decking? 

Net-decking is the practice of copying a winning/popular decklist from online tournament results.

I personally see nothing wrong with this practice, but I believe there are two sides to it and the more negative one attracts a lot of the stigma associated with Net-Decking.

Here are some attributes of what I refer to as unhealthy and healthy net-decking. (Not all of these will apply at one time and some may be a little ambiguous)

Unhealthy Net-Decking

• Primary objective is winning
• Seeing a winning deck, copying the decklist and then changing cards in it because you think they are bad. 
• Complaining when losing, because "I have the best deck I shouldn't lose"

Healthy Net-Decking

• Primary objective is learning and improvement of ones skills (deck building or playing)
• Trying to understand why a person chose the cards they did.

From these points I think you can see that I believe net-decking should be used for improving you own abilities rather than for the sake of winning. For example take my blog. I'm not suggesting that my decks will win you every single game in fact I give you some quick testing results showing that isn't the case. What I want to give you, my readers, is a cheap deck that you can learn how to use, understand and improve when you want to add more money into it.

What are your opinions on net-decking? Do you think its good, bad or somewhere in the middle? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading,

~Bambi

Youtube Channel: Vanguard Central

Hey Cardfighters,

My team and I just started up a channel for Cardfight Vanguard on YouTube!

The name of the channel is "Vanguard Central"

There isn't much up right now but expect a constant stream of videos (atleast weekly) so please check us out.

As for me I will be putting up deck profiles of my Budgetfight Decks on the channel to supplement the articles. I may even show you all my personal favorite tricks for the deck!

Thanks for your support,

Bambi