Deck Dissection: Raizer, GO!

Hey guys, Homura is back with yet another old favorite to dissect and analyze. The new Extra Booster specially catered for Nova Grappler players, Infinite Phantom Legion will be released in another month's time. While most of us is waiting eagerly for the new cards in the set, namely the Death Army series, but at the same time, we shouldn't be neglecting what have the rest of the set offered us.

With useful reprints, especially the almighty null guard Twin Blader, basically you can build almost any variant of a NG deck just by buying the EB, barring the Blau series and Asura Kaiser-main builds. Definitely a worthy set to spam (yes, spam is the correct word). So, since the full spoiler isn't out yet, so I've decided to come up with a dissection of an old favorite of mine, the Raizer deck. And here's how my list looks like:

Grade 0
Battleraizer x4 (Stand) (FV)
Turboraizer x4 (Stand)
The Gong x4 (Draw)
Wall Boy x4 (Heal)

Grade 1
Raizer Custom x4
Tough Boy x4
Twin Blader x3
Screamin' and Dancin' Annoucner, Shout x3

Grade 2
High-Powered Raizer Custom x4
Magician Girl, Kirara x3
King of Sword x3
Genocide Jack x2

Grade 3
Perfect Raizer x4
Mr. Invincible x4

Basically as the namesake, this deck focuses on the setting up of a gigantic Perfect Raizer and proceed to bash face. This deck is similar to the Engiman Storm version of the Dimension Police clan, by putting more pressure to your opponent through the Vanguard, and continuous harassment from the Rear Guards.

Grade 0

Either one of the 2 G0 Raizers can be made as a starter Vanguard. I don't know what the new Raizer from EB05, Minimum Raizer can do, but for now I'll make do with these first. The trigger lineup focuses more on stand, as your Perfect Raizer will have an additional Critical once you have fully powered him up.

With Stands at your disposal, your attack pattern will always be R-R-V or R-V-R, so that you can threaten your opponent with Perfect Raizer's huge power and extra critical, or risk being attacked again if you hit your Stand Triggers.

Grade 1

Without any further consideration, 4x of Raizer Custom is an auto-include in the deck. If you managed to ride him 2nd turn using Battleraizer as a starter, you can immediately attack for 12k unboosted or 18k boosted with Battleraizer (Battleraizer must be behind him of course). This amount is already enough to force a 10k guard against most G1 vanguards.

Shout is our hand filter option here. you need to ensure that you have all the key cards needed to maximize Perfect Raizer's potential, and Shout is here to help you do that. Heck if there's an Aermo clone, I'll use that also! The rest is pretty much self explanatory.

Grade 2

Again, High-Powered Raizer Custom is the no-brainer include in the deck. Sharing the same skill with Raizer Custom, High-Powered can hit for 16k unboosted and 22k boosted (again if Battleraizer is behind him), more than enough to force guards or to harass your opponent.

King of Sword is standard, Kirara is to help you rack up your hand as anything with card drawing skills are quite rare in NG. As this deck doesn't use any CB at all for your main cards, that's why Kirara and Genocide Jack is inside. Jack can provide you with a little more firepower, and not forgetting to mention hitting 16 with a Stand Trigger sounds good also.

Grade 3

Enter the main card, Perfect Raizer at 4x, yet again. Perfect Raizer boasts 4 skills in one body, and very impressive stats. He's a 11k beater, and can pump himself +3k for each Raizer in your Soul. So how do you get your Raizers in? One is you ride all the way, or you swarm your field with Raizers prior riding Perfect Raizer. When there's no other Raizer on the field, Perfect gets -2k to his power, but this can be easily mitigated just by putting a Raizer down.

The main skill of Perfect Raizer is his +1 Critical skill. When you have 4 or more Raizers in your Soul, on your turn, Perfect Raizer gets an additional Critical. Add in the Raizer power bonunses and you have a devastating war machine slamming into the red zone. A pressure card, and definitely a game ender.

Mr. Invincible is our secondary Vanguard. His Soulcharge is mainly used to charge in Raizers into your Soul, and to provide unlimited fuel for Genocide Jack's Restraint, as well as Kirara's CB. Also, Invincible sports a pretty useful Megablast, which can be very game ending as well. Attacking for 5 times with maximum power is not something to laugh at, plus the Megablast can be activated by Rear Guard Mr. Invincibles. The only thing you need to wary about is his 10k power.

And there you go, my take on one of my favorite NG deck. Truthfully speaking I really like NG's overall design (Mechas), but sad to say I've focused too much in Dragon Empire, hence my inability to continue my Nova decks (I used to have a Gold Rutile deck before). Well, this aside, hopefully everybody can try this out and if you can make is better, please do share with me!

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!

Deck Dissection: Dragon Kaiser

When BT-06 came out, besides the Narukami Thunder Dragons, one particular dragon caught my eye:

Yes, behold Beast God, Azure Dragon from Nova Grappler. This is the ace card of the new 'Beast God' archetype given to NG in this newest set. It perfectly embodies the aspect of 'Relentless' of NG with its powerful Persona Blast that allows your units to attack again at a very cheap cost. Together with its 11k base power, he's quite a defensive beast also. You might wonder how to fit him into the deck? Now, here's a sample decklist:

Grade 0
Beast God White Tiger x1
Red Lightning x4 (Critical Trigger)
Battleship Prometheus x3 (Critical Trigger)
The Gong x3 (Draw Trigger)
Three Minutes x2 (Draw Trigger)
Wall Boy x4 (Heal Trigger)

Grade 1
Tough Boy x4
Death Army Guy x4
Twin Blader x3
Screamin' and Dancin' Announcer Shout x3

Grade 2
King of Sword x4
Death Army Lady x3
Beast God Black Tortoise x2
Magician Girl Kirara x2

Grade 3
Beast God Azure Dragon x4
Asura Kaiser x4

Dissection of the deck:
Grade 0
With a steady power of 5k, a free ride and a good ability for Beast God units, Beast God White Tiger takes the starter spot. Although some might use the Blau series until G2, but I find it hard to apply in this deck. The same goes to Battleraizer. The triggers that I choose to use are quite standard these days. Recently somehow I find out that 6 Draws is quite risky. Yes you can draw more, but the return value is not that good when your Draw Trigger doesn't hit another card with a SLD value. Hence, I prefer to have more 10k SLDs. But it's really a personal choice.

Grade 1
4 8k boosts, quite standard. Death Army Guys for the synergy with the deck, Shout for early-mid game hand filtering (frankly speaking, if NG has an Aermo clone, I'll be using it instead), and my standard configuration of 3 null guards. Just make sure you know when to use Shout's ability so that you won't be lacking in power when you need it, and park your boosters in the correct spots.

Grade 2
Again, 4 King of Swords, staple 10k beater in all decks. Death Army Ladies for the synergy with Asura Kaiser. The 2 Black Tortoise is there as a failsafe as well as a pseudo-threat. Like the Murakumo card Stealth Dragon Cursed Breath, Black Tortoise serves as a tutor for your Azure Dragon. If they let you hit, you profit since you might have a chance to get ammo for the upcoming Persona Blast. If they don't, you just successfully forced them to dump some shields before taking the Vanguard's attack. Magician Girl Kirara is there to help you boost up your hand size.

Grade 3
4 Asura Kaiser and 4 Azure Dragon. Staple. Either one of them can be the main star of the deck. If you can't ride one, ride the other one. Asura Kaiser makes all your G3s into Stand Triggers, while Azure Dragon uses his own relfection as a double Stand Trigger. Both have 11k base power, good as an attacker as well as a defender.

My way of playing will be Ride Asura Kaiser first to utilize its ability. Then once you have exhausted its ammo, bring forward Azure Dragon. At this point, you can call out the Asura Kaisers in your hand as attackers. With three 11k units parking in the front row, it'll be a tough nut to crack. Then, the moment you can do Azure Dragon's Persona Blast, don't hesistate. It gives your the option to attack 2 more times or to have another full-power attack by standing up an entire column. Flexibility check.

In conclusion, I think Dragon Kaiser will have a chance to fight besides depending on Stern Blaukruger. The playing style of these 2 decks are quite different, so we can't actually say which is better. It all comes to personal taste in the end. However, I think this deck has potential when played by a good NG player. That's all for now, Homura signing off for today!