Deck Dissection: Takeoff, Blaukruger!

Hello guys, Homura here to bring you a blast from the past. Since the arrival of BT-06, it seems like besides the few main clans such as Royal Paladins and Kagero, most older builds of other clans have been neglected in favor of the newer cards. The same goes to Nova Grapplers, where the availability of Beast God, Azure Dragon made some older builds of NG irrelevant to the metagame anymore. What I'm trying to say here is even though the new cards are great, but we still can't forget the older builds, although not as good, but still decent.

Today, I'll be talking about an older build of Nova Grapplers, which is one of my friend's favorite build of all times - the Blau Series. No joke, even though the environment is roaming with Limit Breakers and Persona Blasters, he still manages to get a few Top 4 finishes in our local tourney with this build. Although I can't really recall how his build looks like, but this is my take of the deck:

Grade 0
Blaujunger x1 (FV)
Red Lightning x4 (Critical)
Fighting Battleship, Prometheus x3 (Critical)
The Gong x4 (Draw)
Three Minutes x1 (Draw)
Wall Boy x4 (Heal)

Grade 1
Blaupanzer x4
Twin Blader x3
Tough Boy x4
Dancing Wolf x2

Grade 2
Blaukruger x3
King of Swords x4
Eisenkugel x3
Magician Girl Kirara x2

Grade 3
Stern Blaukruger x4
Death Metal Droid x3

The Blau Series deck is slight different from Nova Grappler's traditional strategy, relentlessness. Instead, this deck focuses more in absolute beatdown, with units able to break the 20k and 21k magic line. Although you can't stand and attack again with your units, but now you can hit harder, which also justifies the purpose of reducing your opponent's hand cards to guard your attacks (sometimes your opponent might need to guard more compared to a Stand-oriented NG deck). Let's have a look on how this deck works:

Grade 0

Blaujunger is our designated starter of the deck. It can't be superior called, which means we can't gain a free unit on the field. However, it's skill mitigates this drawback. When you ride a Blaupanzer on top of Blaukruger, you get to search your deck for a Blaukruger and add it into your hand. In short, you spend a card to ride (-1), and you add one back to your hand (+1), so it's actually a -0, hence you don't lose anything, but you gain a ensured Ride to Grade 2.

The trigger lineup is geared towards a beatdown deck, with my personal favorite of 7 Criticals, 5 Draws, and 4 Heals. Red Lightning is at maximum because of his skill that allows you to regain 1 Counterblast, which can be crucial in times, especially when you want to use some of your units' skills.

Grade 1

The next evolution of the Blau series is Blaupanzer. Blaupanzer is a 6k unit, but can become 8k in Vanguard when you have Blaujunger in your Soul. Its second skill is the one that is crucial for your deck. When Blaupanzer comes into play as a Rear Guard, you may discard a G3 Nova Grappler from your hand. If you paid the cost, search your deck for a Stern Blaukruger and add it into your hand. This skill gives you triple advantage: deck thinning, ensured Ride to the perfection of the chain, and eliminating non-shield and non-trigger units from your deck.

3x Twin Blader and 4x Tough Boy is standard, while Dancing Wolf is the 'tech' card of the deck. Dancing Wolf is a 7k unit that is able to gain a +3k power boost when it Stands during the Battle Phase. Yes, you heard it right, THE BATTLE PHASE. How can we possible to do that? Well, the easiest is actually by hitting a Stand Trigger. But in this deck, we have no Stand Triggers, so how? No fear, I'll explain it later.

Grade 2
Blaukruger is the Grade 2 of the ride chain. When Blaukruger is in the Vanguard circle, and your Soul has Blaupanzer in it, Blaukruger becomes a 10k unit. Also, it has a skill that allows your to unflip one damage upon a successful hit to the Vanguard, which is useful when you have Kirara on the field (making Kirara's cost into only a cheap cost of CB1).

We can see the unusual exclusion of the Death Army duo in the deck (which are staple in most builds). This is because we need units that can hit harder, or can solo other units without the help of a booster. The 4x King of Swords is a good example. Another notable exclusion is Genocide Jack, because this deck won't have enough CB to constantly pay to unlock his restraint.

Next up we have the main G2 beater of the deck, Eisenkugel. Design wise, it's one of my favorite (I always liked mechas). Ability wise, it's not bad either. Eisenkugel is a 10k power Grade 2 with two skills, whereby one is a drawback and the other one an advantage. If your Vanguard is not Blaukruger or Stern Blaukruger, Eisenkugel gets a penalty of 5k power, rendering it into a weak 5k unit. This drawback makes us think properly when to deploy Eisenkugel onto the field. It's other skill gives Eisenkugel a +2k power when attacking, transforming it into a 12k monstrosity, and hitting 20k lines when boosted by Tough Boy.

Grade 3
Stern Blaukruger is the pinnacle of the ride chain. Stern becomes a 11k unit when you have Blaukruger in your Soul, which is good for both offense and defense. Stern also has an 'ultimate skill', which allows him to whack for twice in a row. When Stern's attack hits the Vanguard, you may pay the cost of CB2, and then discard 2 Nova Grappler cards from your hand. If you do, you may stand Stern and the unit behind it.

Remember Dancing Wolf? Yes, he's the best partner for Stern. Together with Stern, they form a 18k line, which is good enough to handle 13k Vanguards. If Stern's ultimate kicks in, you can stand the whole line, and hit even harder for 21k power, which screams death for anything other than Majesty Lord Blaster and the 13k Vanguards. The only downside is you lose Twin Drive. Well, I would say Stern's skill is good in forcing guards and to eliminate redundant cards from your hand, especially extra G3 which are useless in your hand.

The secondary beater  for G3 of this deck is Death Metal Droid. When this unit is available to NG players, this is really what they need to bring their power to the next level. Basically, DMD is a clone of Battlefield Storm, Sagramore, Plasma Bite Dragon and Knight of Conviction, Bors. By paying a CB of 1 when it attacks, it gets a +3k boost for that battle. This allows you to break 20k lines even for Rear Guards, which was not accessible previously.

In short, the Blau series is the ultimate embodiment of straightforward, no-brainer beatdown build of Nova Grapplers. Although Asura Kaiser and Azure Dragon has the advantage of creating multiple attacks, but those attacks are usually weaker than the initial ones. This deck provides explosive barrages of pounding and battering to your opponent's Vanguard, and aims to end the game as early as possible.

Well, what do you think of this deck? Still viable after the environment is dominated by Limit Breakers? For me, I personally think that every deck has a chance of winning regardless of how outdated it is. For an example, a Royal Paladin deck featuring only King of Knights, Alfred and Swordsman of Exploding Flames, Baromedes took the national championship earlier. Hence it shows that older decks are still competitive enough.

That's all for now, I'll see you again soon... Takeoff, Blaukruger!