Tuesday, September 4, 2012

After the Storm: Cardfight!! Vanguard EN Post-WCQ Analysis

Hey guys, Homura is back after quite a few days of absence due to work and health problems. WCQs for Europe and Canada have already kicked off last week, and we can see from the statistics that Gold Paladins are dominating the metagame. Actually, I would say that this scenario was actually a carbon copy of the previous Japanese WCQs and Championship Finals. During that time, Royal Paladins was so famous and widely used that they almost have Top 8 appearances in every single tournament, and also one-two finishes during the Finals.

But why we don't see other clans topping? What was the reason of their absence? In my opinion, the reason why the traditional clans don't have any high place finishes was due to the fact that they lack a very crucial thing - Limit Break. Well, isn't Kagero and Royal Paladins got their LB unit already? How come they still can't top? Which brings me to my second point - Support.

As we can see, Gold Paladins got tons of support during the first 3 months of their debut in English, together with 2 possible deck types which was equally strong (not to forget featuring Limit Breakers also). What about Kagero and Royal Paladins? Compared with Gold Paladins, these two supposed-to-be the main clans of the game kind of fell short in terms of support given to them.

Let's look at Kagero. At the moment, the only deck that was actually viable for Kagero players was the Goku-Blade build. I know that Lawkeeper exists, but comapring both of them, I would say Goku-Blade fares better against the majority. And moving onward to Royal Paladin. RP is worse, with only one possible competitive deck ready at their disposal - Barome-Saviour. Truthfully speaking, Pendragon was a flop, it never seen play in JP tourneys, and I doubt it'll be seeing major play in EN tourneys.

So all and all, I think that GP will still be the deck to beat in this WCQ season. One weakness of the EN environment was that the sets were not parallel, meaning that they will not have what we JP players already had. If you all did your research, you should be able to see that regardless how strong GP was, Kagero and RP still dominates the metagame, as we have access to Majesty Lord Blaster and Dragonic Overlord The End.

This article was not written to show off the privileges that we JP players have, but to show you what defines a metagame as a whole. As what we can see from the statistics, sheer numbers can actually define a metagame. Imagine if 80% of the people were using Kagero and we'll be able to see Kagero topping everything. It's just as simple as that.

5 comments:

  1. I totally agree with the current meta being Gold Paladins , even though the main ones are supposed to b e Kagero and Royal Paladins , it's just that Gold Paladins got their support way too fast , not to mention next month is already BT07 with MORE supports . Though around here Spike Brothers has been owning badly . I'd say they got a good chance too . Kagero and Royal should have places too . I for one , Play as a Kagero user . I want to try my best with Kagero.

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    1. It is not surprising and pretty disappointing too. With GP having some much support within such a short, when compared with the other clans, in the VGE context that is, it would seem that Bushiroad might even be trying to get GP into the top rounds as a marketing strategy.

      I was hoping that under-developed clans like Tachikaze might even be able to show some flair, but alas, the truth of the matter is that there are some clans which are more popular than others. Sad, sad, sad...

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  2. Just wondering, what happened to shadow paladins? It seems that they suddenly died out or something. I haven't seen them in any of my local tourneys for a long time. Aren't shadow paladins supposed to be on par with kagero and mlb?

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    1. Well , this is the EN WCQ , Shadow Paladins isn't even out for EN Vanguard . As for Japanese , I noticed that too , I'm guessing people are moving on from them or just bored of em .

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  3. what's the best kagero build for English format now that BT07 is out?

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