Is Narukami just that good?

I've been reading the Australia decklists for first and second place along with Mexico... I presume those were first off relatively small turnouts but WTF decklists....


(i) Australia
Champion: Lam Nguyen
Narukami (TBD/DKV Version)

Grade 3 (8):
3x Thunder Break Dragon
3x Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion
2x Dreadcharge Dragon

Grade 2 (10):
4x Thunderstorm Dragoon
2x Dragonic Deathscythe
2x Demonic Dragon Berserker
2x Brightlance Dragoon

Grade 1 (14):
3x Dragon Dancer, RaiRai
4x Red River Dragoon
4x Wyvern Guard, Guld
3x Photon Bomber Wyvern

Grade 0 (18):
4x Yellow Gem Carbuncle (Critical)
4x Demonic Dragon Nymph, Seiobo (Heal)
4x Lizard Soldier, Saishin (FV1)
4x Zephyr Kid, Hayate (Stand)
2x Old Dragon Mage (Draw)
2x Dragon Dancer Catharina (Stand)
1x Spark Kid Dragoon (FV2)

Total: 50 Cards

So WTF? I love Narukami but this is just wierd...

Grade 3 line-up is fine until instead of Breakthrough Dragon he decides to put in Dreadcharge Dragon... Dafuq??

The list seems fine until Brightlance Dragon but that can be overlooked as it's basically Thunderstorms 5-6...

Triple Rai Rai no comment...
6x Stand no comment...

4x Saishin...
1x Spark Kid... 
How the hell will you know which one you need? for the matchup? Obviously he is going to use Spark Kid for the Starting Vanguard... but Saishin is going to be mostly just useless chaff unless he is able to call it out when there is a target for it's skill consistently not to mention it's not going to be free. Just a more restrictive less good Kimnara at that point.

Then there is Mexico!!


(ii) Mexico
Champion: Alam Baruch
Narukami (TBD Version)

Grade 3 (5):
2x Thunder Break Dragon
1x Dragoni Kaiser Vermillion
2x Plasmabite Dragon

Grade 2 (12):
3x Dragonic Deathscythe
3x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Garuda
3x Hex Cannon Wyvern
3x Thunderstorm Dragon

Grade 1 (16):
2x Dragon Dancer, RaiRai
4x Wyvern Guard, Guld
4x Red River Dragoon
3x Desert Gunner, Raien
3x Photon Bomber Wyvern

Grade 1 (17):
1x Spark Kid Dragoon (FV)
4x Demonic Dragon Nymph, Seiobo (Heal)
4x Yellow Gem Carbuncle (Critical)
4x Old Dragon Mage (Draw)
4x Malevolent Djinn (Critical)

Total: 50 Cards

So hmm 5 Grade 3.. 1 Spark Kid... but in exchange he gets to run 2 Extra Grade 1 Rairai for his 2 count em 2 Thunderbreak Dragon... Fact remains he won... somehow he won I'll never understand this but one more list remains to validate this awkward situation of only the least orthodox Narukami builds winning and this one is for America!


(viii) USA (Seattle)
Champion: Poj Tony Sirisakdiwan
Narukami (Vermillion Version)

Grade 3 (7):
1x Riot General, Gyras
1x Thunder Break Dragon
1x Breakthrough Dragon
4x Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion

Grade 2 (12):
3x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Garuda
3x Dragonic Deathscythe
4x Thunderstorm Dragoon
2x Hex Cannon Wyvern

Grade 1 (14):
4x Red River Dragoon
2x Desert Gunner, Raien
2x Photon Bomber Wyvern
2x Rising Phoenix
4x Wyvern Guard, Guld

Grade 0 (17):
1x Spark Kid Dragoon (FV)
4x Old Dragon Mage (Draw)
4x Demonic Dragon Nymph, Seiobo (Heal)
4x Yellow Gem Carbuncle (Critical)
4x Malevolent Djinn (Critical)

First you may all notice that he runs 1 Thunder Break and 1 Gyras... You'd think that's wierd but then you look once more... at the 4 Vermillion... he has 2 separate Backup Vanguards both of which can actually help out in different situations. Along with 1 good Grade 3 Rearguard.

Grade 2 is quite standard

Grade 1 has 2 Rising Phoenix... I run 1 but have recently adopted Gyras and a second for testing purposes.

So basically two awkward Narukami builds outside of USA and 1 relatively standard build inside of USA... I'm starting to wonder are the players just on the level of consistent Final Turns or are they just in really small turnouts or relatively unskilled ones?

No matter how awkward the builds though they still won and will be getting a free flight to Nationals...

Gold Paladin's Post BT07

With the release of Booster 7 in what 2 and a half weeks, Gold Paladin will gain a large boost in card pool which can possibly open up a few more interesting builds.

Currently the best builds for Gold Paladin according to the recent majors are Spectral Duke and Garmore-Ezel.

Spectral Duke Dragon is slightly more skill based and more often than not a bad player against a SDD build will lose far more often than against Garmore-Ezel. SDD also has an advantage against Garmore-Ezel in that those are 10k Vanguard decks against an 11k that can hit 20+ with Tron is just dangerous.

That's not what I'm talking about today though. Today we are talking about the changes the deck will probably go through for more consistency.

The Spectral Duke Dragon build can now run Lop Ear Shooter which would allow for even more free calls from the deck and considering how Counterblast light the deck is there is a ton of actual space for anything you want. The Dallas winning build actually ran 4 Providence Strategist much like Spike Brothers would run Field Driller simply because with a 8k behind it you get a 15k line which against a 10k Vanguard is enough to force 10k in shields and if they don't guard they give you free card advantage.

In the Fighter's Road Tournaments in one of the Junior Division Spectral Duke decks they ran 2 Lop Ear Shooter most likely because if it is randomly called or called via an effect you get a good bit of extra field presence allowing you to conserve hand cards and still play out more units.

Personally Spring Breeze Messenger fits Gold Paladin far better than Crimson Lion Cub, Kryph. It allows you to call an extra semi-targetted unit from the top 3 cards of your deck.

The reason these new amazing cards aren't being used too much right now is because Superior Riding to Ezel is too powerful to ignore and Spectral Duke Ride Chain can already call 2 free units in exchange for retiring one unit so it may simply be redundancy which can be helpful to get 3 replaceable units for the Final Turn.

These new cards are honestly yet to be truly tested and I believe they deserve that testing for what they can do in a turn with minimal luck.

BTW I'm working on Dark Irregulars and Alfred Paladins as I obtained 3 Alfred last weekend in random trades because people had far more Alfred than they wanted.

Right now the deck isn't finished but we will see how it looks later... For now I run Holy Disaster Dragons instead of Palamedes as I haven't pulled one yet. So far for Final Turn situations against 10k Vanguards. Holy Disaster Dragon is extremely scary to hit someone with from the rearguard.

Narukami Tourney Report 3

This weekend was pretty awesome...

I traded Spectral Duke, 2 Djinn the Lightning Flash, Garmore for 2 Alfred... then traded sleygal daggers for Goku's. Traded Blonde Ezel for a Alfred... Now all I need are some Palamedes and I can build Alfred-Palamedes...

Traded 2 Machina Fortress, Super Limiter Removal, and a Leviair for a stack of commons and rares and a Spectral Duke Dragon...

Round 1: Narukami (Me) vs Lohengrin Alfred (Awkward deck)
Game went really quickly as I got him to 3 damage and then used an unboosted Vermilion to attack for 13000 at all of his front row... he declares no guard... Double Crit for game...

Round 2: Narukami (Me) vs Lawkeeper Kagero
This one was pretty close the final turns were when I used Shiden to lock down a Nehalem and then played a Thunderstorm infront of it so I could force a 5k shield... all of that goes through and he is at 5 damage... he draws and uses Lawkeeper to get rid of my 5 rearguards... I guard everything perfectly as in just enough shield... Final Turn... returns everything but Shiden to the field leaving me with Thunderstorm, Breakthrough, Shiden with a backrow of nothing, red river, draw trigger... I call a 5k boost behind thunderstorm... swing in and he has 2 cards in hand by the final hit with a 5k intercept... he only has 2 Grade 3's so I get through for the last damage.

Round 3: Narukami (Me) vs Goku-Blade (Ernest)
My brother and I played for 1st... I miscalculated when to use Vermilion and used it far later than I should have and the advantage eventually was just too much to keep up with.

so 2-1 and second place to my brothers 3-0 first place finish... The table beside us had a grand total of 3 Final Turns in a row. We get our first epic Deckbox and he gets 3 packs of Set 3... Pulls Dark Irregular full guard, Grade 2 Tsukuyomi, and Crimson Beast Tamer...

All in all really good day considering... and if i'm lucky I may be able to sell all of my yugioh binder stuff for 400-500 dollars which would go towards Ravnica and BT03 and BT07 boxes.

Changes to my Narukami build...
-2 Djinn of the Lightning Flash
-2 Lightning of Hope, Helena
+1 Rising Phoenix
+1 Red River Dragoon
+2 Breakthrough Dragon

I need to work on my sheer skill level... The deck is meant to be able to actually declare a Final Turn but it takes so much skill sometimes.

Narukami Tourney Report #2

I once again headed to Quest Comics on a saturday morning for Cardfight! Vanguard.

Pre-Tournament: I made some small talk and tried to get a few trades in. set up a trade to give 2 Ezel's and some random Gold Paladin stuff to someone for 45 dollars (A minus in value to me but I got those Ezel's and the Gold Paladin stuff for basically free as we traded a few cards for a PGless Gold Paladin deck.)

Tournament: Round 1 I am paired with someone I used to know from my last local (If anyone remembers my other blog and that Mirror Force, Divine Wrath play.) He's running a Netdecked Spike Bros. build (The Dudley version) I'm running Vermillion Control. The game starts out terribly in his favor and because this is one and done if you don't do research earlier then you will probably lose... He wound up winning with the Dudley effect... I just drive checked too many cards that couldn't block and didn't get to use Saishin due to going second. If I had 5k more shield I could have won the next turn but ah well.

Round 2 They pair me with my brother who I traveled to the tourney with. We both lost me to Dudley being hard to beat if you don't already know how and he lost to Angel Feather because he was helping the guy play correctly and helped him make more advantageous moves. He was running Goku Kagero with only 2 Barri and only 3 Goku. I had a really narrow match with him but after counting his checks I sealed the game by Crossriding to Thunder Break Dragon and barely making him unable to guard the last swings.

Final Round I am paired with the Angel Feather from before and I know he's a new player so I give 0 fucks. The game basically ends with Vermillion Thunderbolt followed with a heal trigger to put me at 3 damage. Finished the game out 3-6.

I make second behind the Dudley deck (The pilot wasn't too good but the deck itself doesn't care who the pilot is if the opponent doesn't know how to deal with the deck). So better than last time which is good.

Dark Irregular's BT03

So far in my testing I've had moderate success with my proxied out deck against my brothers Tsukuyomi Proxied out deck neither of us have enough knowledge of the decks to truly test them. I tested it against his Kagero and did well most games but I'm slowly figuring out the playstyle of Dark Irregular pre BT07... Stil Vampir Megablast should only be used when you can put a Grade 0 as the Vanguard otherwise just stick to Amon swings until your opponent runs out of guards...

The deck right now only can run 4 Critical Triggers and 8 Stand Triggers. It also doesn't soul charge as well as it can in BT07... Alluring Succubus is your best Grade 1 Ride in the deck as it lets you Soul Charge for it and Vermillion when ridden putting you at 3 Soul on turn 1... then you'd ride to Succubus of Decadence right? I personally don't but if you do and call a single Rear Guard you'll trigger both the Grade 1 and 2 Amon upon riding to 3... Grade 1 Amon boosting Grade 3 Amon is the best line avaliable aside from Doreen abuse. Which isn't too broken until we get Dark Lord of Abyss then it becomes stupid opening up gigantic swings of damage.

Another thing I noticed is that if you soul charge your Full Guards you may have trouble throughout the game. I currently use 3 Full Guards but 4 seems to be the optimal number for this deck.

Anyway I won't be able to go to Locals tomorrow because I'm moving into my Dorm so next week if my brother isn't doing anything I may be able to go to locals.

First Real Local Tourney Report

So I finally got to go to locals. It was fun but eh my record wasn't very good. Bad draws coupled with an incompleat deck playing against a complete Spike Brothers and getting sacked by an Aleph deck (I had nothing to guard with kept checking Grade 3's... only run 7 of em). The tourney format this time was 1 Round Match Swiss... I went 2-2 in our four round tournament and got 4th (out of 9 people with a unfinished deck is pretty nice).


Round 1: Narukami (Me) vs. Lohengrin Royal Paladin
I basically kept his hand count low by swinging in with big hits on his 10k Lohengrin. Eventually I got him to 4 damage with 3 cards in hand... I draw for my turn and declared "Final Turn", "Limit Break" I took all of his front row on at once... first check nothing... second check Critical Trigger for game.
1-0

Round 2: Narukami (Me) vs. Dudley Emperor Brothers
I had some bad luck coupled with Morikawa draws so by time I finally got to Grade 3 I had taken 5 damage didn't help that my grade 3 was a 10k Thunder Break... he never got Dudley but his swings were just too big every turn and I succumbed.
1-1

Round 3: Narukami (Me) vs. Cocytus Granblue
Basically once again with big swings he had to guard more than he wanted. Eventually with a Grade 3 Cocytus in hand he Superior Rides to Deadly Swordmaster after minusing to get out the Nightmare... Putting his hand lower... He swung and me being at 2 damage let it through. He gets a Critical... I'm at 4 with Vermilion on field. He decided not to attack my rearguard with his rearguard and just passed the turn. I attacked and he survived at 5 damage. He got a heal back up to 4. I swing in with everything to lower his hand because I know he has a Gust Jin. He decides not to use it but still makes it through without damage just barely. He swings in and deals 1 Damage I get a Heal Trigger back to 4... He has 3 cards in hand and I have 5 unflipped damage. I draw and do not declare Final Turn though I already know it is he can't block my rearguard hits though he is at 4... I call Dragonic Deathscythe to retire a random rearguard. Then I use Vermillion Thunderbolt and attack his whole front row. He guards for the Vanguard I check a Draw Trigger and a blank. Power to Deathscythe. Which is now big enough with a boost to force a 15k shield he takes it and the Djinn's attack which would require a 10k and thats game.
2-1

Round 4: Narukami (Me) vs. Aleph Kagero
He pulls off the Superior Ride and along with that constantly is able to use kimnara on my backrow so eventually I had a Djinn and 2 Vermillion on field as I kept checking Grade 3's... I was doing well but eventually he was able to use Aleph to get 3 free damage unflipped for Dragonic Overlord and that was the end of that. I blocked it and tried to block the Aleph but he got Double Crit... and that was game.
2-2

All in all not a bad day.

My brother went 3-1 also losing to Spike Brothers with his Goku-Blade (Only has 2 Goku right now though).

I bought some packs of BT03 and pulled Grade 3 Amon and some rares... yadda yadda... my brother traded our Angel Feather money cards for 2 Ezel 1 Garmore 2 Vivianne and pretty much an entire Gold Paladin deck technically we got the worse end of the deal but got some free sleeves to help out along with some more Tradebait or enough cards to run Gold Paladin again.

I traded 2 Shock Ruler and 1 T.G. Hyper Librarian for 1 Spectral Duke Dragon 1 Wyvern Guard Guld and 1 Master Beetle which was fair.

I traded some Granblue stuff for a bunch of Dark Irregular rares and commons (Worth it)

Then got my Prize Packs 1 BT03 and 1 Cardfight Pack Vol. 2 and 1 Promotional DVD with the first 4 episodes subbed. My Brother got the same and the first manga chapters instead of the DVD. I pulled Knowledge Drunkard.

I then bought a box of BT03...
Of note I pulled:
1 Nightmare Doll, Alice RRR
1 Hades Hypnotist RR
2 Toypugal R
1 March Rabbit of Nightmareland RR
1 Edel Rose RR
1 Goddess of the Full Moon, Tsukuyomi RRR
1 Crimson Beast Tamer RR
1 Doreen the Thruster RR
1 Stil Vampir RRR

So I made a bit more than my money back mostly because of Tsukuyomi and 2 two full Guards... I paid 70 and just those 3 cards are about 70+ throwing in Doreen and Stil Vampir and Alice Nearly made 100 in card value. Sad thing is i'm using the Full Guard, Stil Vampir, Doreen, Amon...

If Ernest feels like posting his experience at the local he may as I don't even know how his games went. I'll be able to bring a new tourney report every 2 weeks or so maybe sooner. I'll post my Narukami build tomorrow probably.

Ultimate Justice Sword!!!!

Honestly this post was made simply because I saw the new episode of Vanguard... Which I believe was the best episode of all time simply because a non-main character performed the first Superior Crossride and had the theme song play just for him when he got hype.

"FINAL TURN!!!!" Proceeding to create a 26k Beater with Critical 2... Boost it to 32000... Swing over Ren get guarded and Draw Trigger!!! For Good Game! He had the damn theme song play throughout the entire summon and attack sequences up until the match was officially over perfectly timed.

It was a freaking combining mech full of Super Sentai I love it love it love it.

On the upswing... Dimensional Police with Ultimate Dimensional Robo, Great Daiyusha!!! is so cool that if I ever build it and go to a tournament I will bring a boombox and once I perform the Crossride and declare Final Turn I will then hit the Turbo Bass and play Vanguard!! by JAM Project while repeating every single thing Kenji Mitsusada said throughout the FINAL TURN while standing up and yelling it. (This would be every round.)

BTW who is Daigo?