Good news about the life of Vanguard in the 2013 era came in this morning straight from the official ENG Bushiroad facebook page. Indeed, Bushiroad announced their 2013 Vanguard release plans for their new sets, trial decks and extra boosters to the public. Their release plans are as follow:
[Jan 25, 2013]
Trial Deck Vol. 3: Golden Mechanical Soldier Trial Deck Vol. 4: Maiden Princess of the Cherry Blossoms
[Apr 2013] Trial Deck Vol. 7: Descendants of the Marine Emperor
[May 2013] Booster Pack Vol. 8: Blue Storm Armada
[Jun 2013] Booster Pack Vol. 9: Clash of the Knights & Dragons
[Jul 2013] Extra Booster Pack Vol. 6: Dazzling Divas
While it's true most of them don't have a specific date, it's still great to know when some of the sets will come out here. With that type of release order, you can expect a lot of overviews and blog entries from yours truly in the upcoming months (in summer especially) since I will obviously be playing and writing about Majesty Lord Blaster in February, Aqua Force in May and of course, the new Bermudas coming in July!
With the new Oracle Think Tank trial deck just around the corner (about time, Bushiroad!), let's look at the type of support the exclusive cards from the trial deck can offer to the already good Oracle Think Tank meta builds.
Goddess of Flower Divination, Sakuya
CONT (V): During your turn, if the number of cards in your hand is four or more, this unit gets +4000 Power.
AUTO : When this unit is placed on the vanguard circle, return all of your «Oracle Think Tank» rear-guards to your hand.
Well, now with Banquet of Divas out of the way, non-Bermuda Triangle players are probably looking forward to the new booster set ''Eclipse of Illusionary Shadows'' who will introduce a new clan in the English meta : Shadow Paladins. However, even if the name of the set doesn't really spell something outside of Shadow Paladin support, some other unrelated clans gets a fair amount of it in this booster set. Royal Paladin is one of those clans and even though they receive the least amount of support in this one, they're still units worth mentioning.
Bluegal
CONT (R): During your turn, this unit gets +1000 Power for each other ''Bluegal'' in your vanguard or rear-guard circle.
AUTO : When you ride another «Royal Paladin» unit, you may call this unit to the rear-guard circle.
We're finally the 10th! All that anticipation and pre-release hype can finally come to an end for us asparing Bermuda Triangle players as this is Banquet of Divas' release day! Hopefully, some of you guys had the chance to win or buy a lot of boxes to build a good/decent deck. As for me, despite me winning the so called ''Release'' Team Tournament at my locals and getting qualified for regionals, I sure didn't win anything Bermuda Triangle related with my 1st place placing (the prize was $20 store credit on singles for each teammate... sadface). However, I still managed to buy 6 extra boosters from the set and got pretty good pulls, if you ask me. This is what I got.
(1) Top Idol, Pacifica (SP)
(4) Top Idol, Pacifica
(2) Top Idol, Riviere
(4) Girls Rock Rio
(4) Bermuda Princess, Lena
(4) Pearl Sisters, Perle
(3) Pearl Sisters, Perla
(3) Mermaid Idol, Elly
Overall, I'm pretty happy with what I pulled as I can pretty much build any Bermuda Triangle deck I want aside from Riviere (which is fine with me, to be honest). I managed to trade off some junk my teammate had in his binder for the Mermaid Idol, Elly and the other Pearl Sisters, Perla I was missing. Right now, I'm currently running a Pacifica Recycle build (the build I posted in my Overview article) and I'm really liking it so far. Despite being a very consistent and powerful deck, I'll probably drop the Royal Palamedes build I made and focus on Bermuda & CoCo for the next upcoming months as I also want to play the Raindear and Lena variant and win some tournaments with them as well.
Bad quality picture featuring Pacfica Recycle!!
Oh, and if I remember correctly, here are the top 3 teams from the team tournament:
Bermuda Triangle's extra booster release date is approaching fast and to commemorate, this last entry post about this set will cover one of the most over-hyped and popular card in the Bermuda Triangle clan: Top Idol, Riviere!
Top Idol, Riviere
CONT (V): If you have card named ''Super Idol, Riviere'' in your soul, this unit gets +1000 Power.
AUTO (V): [Counter Blast (2) & Choose a card named ''Top Idol Riviere'' from your hand, and discard it] When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to three of your «Bermuda Triangle» rear-guards, and those units get +3000 Power until end of turn.
When this card was first released in the japanese meta, it created a lot noise and hype around the community. One of the reason why was because, at that time, Riviere was the first one to introduce this particular type of Ride Chain in the game (Now, we already have Spectral Duke, Lox and Ergodiel). The other reason was because of her Persona Blast that resembles a lot like Soul Saver Dragon's famous and devastating effect Royal Paladins are known for. While it's true that her Ride Chain is good and generates a lot of advantage if pulled off, a lot of people's expectations were a bit too high when reading that card for the first time and ignored a lot of factors that made this card a little less devastating than she looked.
With the help of her unique Persona Blast and her conditional 11k defense, Riviere builds focuses on establishing solid columns as well as applying pressure early on to maintain a solid lead during the whole game. Indeed, by completing her entire Ride Chain and netting solid hand power advantage, Riviere becomes the best defensive vanguard in Bermuda Triangle due to her permanent 11k and the extra shield acquired when properly doing the Ride Chain. These two little pluses it gives you helps in maintaining a solid lead as it makes everything a little bit easier to guard. As for her Persona Blast, it is the main tool used to get that early lead & pressure game on. Swarming the field and pulling off Riviere's Persona Blast as soon as she appears on the vanguard Circle (if all the conditions are met) is key to get the early damage lead as it pretty much guarantees damage from the boosted rear-guards as well. Other than that, Riviere build is your typical and straightforward beatdown deck.
Example of Riviere Rush Build
As for her cons, Top Idol Riviere, herself, doesn't have a lot of them as the card is pretty good for what it is. However the lack of synergy with the whole clan is probably her biggest con as it hinders her capacity in being on par with the other main Grade 3 units from the clan. Because Bermuda Triangle is a clan that focuses more on getting raw advantage through soul and bounce mechanic rather than ruthless rushdown, Riviere, who is a rushdown oriented unit, seems kind of out of place in the clan. The fact that she relies on soul to be the most effective restricts key units such as Top Idol Flores, Turquoise Blue Tyrrhenia and Pearl Sisters, Perla from getting in the build and being useful without a drawback. With that said, aside from the occasional +1's she will be getting through her ride chain, the build doesn't gain much advantage and needs to rely more or less on triggers to get an edge against decks that gets a lot of it. In addition to that, again, because Bermuda Triangle is not an heavy hitter type of clan, they lack 9k and 10k boosters that would be great behind Riviere for her to reach the 20k or 21k magic numbers. The fact that she cannot properly threaten and can be guarded constantly by 15k shield late game is the main reason why she needs to make use of her Persona Blast during the early/mid game to establish the lead and the pressure game. Though, even with all those drawbacks, Riviere Rush builds can still be somewhat competitive and be able to win when taking the right type of guesses and pulling off well-timed Persona Blasts. Here's a match video demonstrating Riviere's potential and the effectiveness of her early pressure game against Pale Moon's Barking Manticore.
Credits to GreenRabbitim for the video
All in all, while the Riviere Rush build is pretty simple deck to play, it's ironically one of the hardest deck to win with consistently. The lack of synergy and support towards rushdown makes Riviere kind of subpar compared to the other Bermuda grade 3's. Though, if you are into straightfforward and simple rushdown builds, Riviere might be the right choice for you. Hopefully, the next batch of Bermuda Triangle's support will lean toward a more offensive approach to support Riviere's type of play.
And this conclusdes the Banquet of Divas Overview entry serie. Hopefully, those little articles came in handy and helped a few Bermuda Triangle plays in choosing what type of deck they want to play and how to play them!
All right! With less than 10 days away from the official English release of Banquet of Divas in North America, let's tackle on and review one of the strongest (if not the strongest) build this set has to offer by talking about it's boss: Velvet Voice, Raindear.
Velvet Voice, Raindear
AUTO (V): [Choose 1 of your «Bermuda Triangle» rear-guard and return it to your hand] When this unit Drive Checks a Grade 3 «Bermuda Triangle», you may pay the cost. If you do, select up to 1 «Bermuda Triangle» from your hand, and call it onto an open rear-guard circle.
Raindear is the typical Grade 3 Drive checker for Bermuda Triangle and, surprisingly, the unit that exploits the bouncing mechanic this clan is known for the best. Similarly to Nova Grappler's Asura Kaiser, when Raindear reveals a Grade 3 unit of the same clan as her during the Twin Drive!!, she can enable an extra attack by bouncing a rear-guard unit back to the hand and playing another one back on the field in Stand position. What's so good about it is the fact that, when used with on-bounce effect units such as Girls Rock, Rio and Rainbow Light, Carine, you get to activate their effect giving you a +1 in term of hand advantage. Therefore, Raindear not only turns all the grade 3 units in the deck into Stand triggers, but can also turn them into potential +1's with the right unit on the field (all that without any mention of getting triggers!) Of course, on paper, she's one of the better vanguards in Bermuda Triangle but realistically, a lot of luck has to be involved to get the most out of Raindear. A Raindear that does not reveal grade 3's during a game or bounces back units that gives no advantage whatsoever is possibly the worst vanguard in the Bermuda clan as she has frail defense (10k vanguard) and has no way to get to high magic numbers due to the clan's lack of 10k booster. If all goes according to plans, though, she can be a real threat. Here's a small example of a Raindear Aggro-Bounce build:
Example of Raindear Bounce Build
There's really not much to say about Raindear build as it's strategy is pretty straightforward : beat the opponent down while getting the best of both world (hand power and extra pressure) by getting ''double triggers''. It's a solid build that relies more or less on luck to get wins. If you're into aggro type of builds, definitely consider this deck as an option for a Bermuda Triangle deck. Here's a japanese match video showing Velvet Voice, Raindear's bounce mechanic against Megacolony's Master Fraud (there are actually people playing this deck, wow...!)
Credits goes to Bosuo1929 for the video
Notice: Little misplay @13:25 on the Raindear player's part. He attacked the rear-guard despite the fact that his opponent was at 5 damage and forgot to re-call Carine after Raindear's bounce for extra pressure.
The long awaited (not really) part 2 of Banquet of Divas Overview is here and this part will cover the Lena Bounce build!
Bermuda Princess, Lena
CONT (VC): During your turn, if you have 4 or more «Bermuda Triangle» rear-guards, this Unit gains +3000 Power.
AUTO: When this Unit is called to the vanguard Circle, send all of your «Bermuda Triangle» rear-guards back to your hand.
Let's get right into it by talking about how my personal favorite unit of mine, Bermuda Princess, Lena, and her Re-ride Bounce build works. Similar to Soulless CoCo build in Oracle Think Tank, the Lena build focuses on riding the main vanguard of the deck (in this particular case, Lena) multiple times to net some advantage during the game while still applying decent amount of pressure with her conditional 13k power. Similar to the other bouncers from the clan, Lena's main targets when she is played are Girls Rock Rio and Rainbow Light, Carine for their on-bounce effects. That, however, means that we need to let these on-bounce effect units on the field at least a whole turn and make them susceptible from attacks or retiring effects before getting the advantage off Lena's effect the next ride phase. What's great about Lena though is the fact that her effect is an all-in-one bouncing effect. Which means that she can make Grade 0 units such as Bermuda Triangle Cadet, Caravel and Bermuda Triangle Cadet, Weddell work as 10k shields (assuming the free bounce from Weddell is not needed) and get massive advantage a single turn if multiple on-bounce effect units managed to stay alive for a turn, all while being able to re-arrange your field. Given these facts, the Lena oriented build can be considered as a pretty gimmicky deck that can be easily be countered if the opponent is aware of what Lena is able to do. Some might even say that this build is a sub par version of Soulless CoCo deck considering the fact that Goddess of Flower Divination, Sakuya serves the same purpose as Lena, that she has an overall better effect (+4000 boost instead of +3000) and that the deck as a whole gains a lot more (and guaranteed) advantage than Lena's. While it's to some extent true, Lena has still proven to be quite a solid and competitive deck, so to all Lena enthusiasts like myself, don't let those facts get you away from her and hope for better support in the future! Here's a small example of a Lena Bounce deck:
Example of Lena Bouce Build
Again, a lot of changes can be made depending on taste, but this is what a Lena build should look like in my honest opinion. Don't forget that in this particular build, the star herself is considered as a bouncer. In the build above, we have 9 bouncer (4x Lena, 4 Perla and 1x Weddell) and 6 on-bounce effect units (4x Rio and 2 Carmine). While it's true that the number of bouncers doesn't correspond to the numbers of on-bouncers, we have to consider that Lena's bounce is not a direct bounce (meaning you have to wait a turn every time), so I figured it was all right to add more bouncers than on-bouncers.
Finally, here's a good match video displaying Lena's build effectiveness during a game against Oracle Think Tank's Tsukuyomi.
All credits goes to Otsu for the video.
Stay tuned for my third entry about Bermuda Triangle's Velvet Voice, Raindear and her unique type of deck!
Been so long since I posted something on this blog. School and work has been eating my time so much these past few months, I haven't really been able to post something relevant or interesting. Now that I'm in a little slower period though, I'll be able to kick it back up with posts, so look forward to more Vanguard/FGC/Music posts from yours truly!
Digi Crates Records strikes again with their latest album called ''Tribute To Jun 3: Modal Eternal". As some of you might have already guessed it, this album commemorates the work of a hip-hop producer that has passed away but is still very close to our heart: Nujabes. Definitely give it a listen and support the album if you're fond of this type of music!
With the extra booster 2, ''Banquet of Divas'', coming less than a 2 weeks away in the English format, people that are interested in playing our loli mermaids are probably looking at the possibilities of builds available for them to play with. Fortunately for us, Banquet of Divas is a extra booster strictly reserved to the Bermuda Triangle clan and thus means that there are a lot of possibilities of competitive builds available for us to make!
As of right now, there are only a handful of Bermuda Triangle builds that are competitive: Pacifica Recycling, Lena Bounce, Raindear Bounce and to some extent, Riviere Rush. I'll be going through them one by one explaining what is the strategy behind each builds and how they are supposed to be played (without going too much into the details, though).
Alright, first let's talk about what most people consider the standard build for Bermuda Triangle: Pacifica Recycle.
Top Idol Pacifica
CONT (VC): During your turn, if the number of your rear-guards «Bermuda Triangle» rear-guards is four or more, this unit gets Power +3000
AUTO (VC): At the beginning of your main phase, Soul Charge (1), draw a card, choose one card from your hand, and put it on the bottom of your deck.
AUTO (VC/RC): [Soul Blast (8) & Counter Blast (5)] When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck up to three «Bermuda Triangle», call them to separate rear-guards circle, and shuffle your deck.
Top Idol, Pacifica is considered the standard build for Bermuda Triangle simply because she's the most consistent vanguard unit between all the other Grade 3's. Although she doesn't really utilize Bermuda's unique bounce mechanic, her ability to soul charge (1), draw and put something back into the deck (also known as recycling) makes her a really stable vanguard. She also has the ability to reach very high numbers with her +3000 power boost when the required field presence is there. With that said, it's no surprise that the Pacifica Recycling build is considered the standard build as, her alone, offers both hand control and raw power. The only real downside to Pacifica is the fact that she doesn't gain raw advantage by herself. Sure, she can recycle every turn and get rid of useless cards in your hand, but that recycling in itself is not a +1 as you don't get extra cards off of it. That weakness, however, can be covered by her other support available in this set. Units such as Top Idol Flores, Pearl Sisters Perla and Turquoise Blue Tyrrhenia can make good use of Pacifica's soul charge (1) to bounce units like Girls Rock Rio & Rainbow Light Carine back to the hand for raw advantage every time they hit. Overall, Pacifica is a really stable deck that relies on hand control and high field presence to achieve victory. Look below to see what a standard Pacifica deck would look like.
Example of Standard Pacifica build
Like stated in the notes above, there are a lot of interchangeable things and a lot of room for tweaking in Pacifica builds. Indeed, while this build above is solid, some might want to change some few things here and there depending on their liking and still come up with something as solid. At the end of the day, if you are not into gimmicky decks and want something basic and consistent, Pacifica build is probably what you're looking for in Bermuda Triangle. Protip: A good trick to build a good Bermuda Triangle deck is to count how many bouncers and on-bounce effect units you have and try to make equal in term of numbers. In this particular build, there are 6 on-bounce units (4x Rio, 2x Carine) as well as 6 bouncers (2x Carine, 3x Perla and 1x Weddell).
Credits to Tenma5ds for the video.
Stay tuned for the second part of the Banquet of Divas Builds where I will be covering Lena Bounce and Raindear Bounce Builds.
Geez, it's been so long since I posted something on this blog. Just came back from Montreal Annual Tournament 9 and I'm happy to say that it was a great tournament and a great experience. Montreal defended it's city from Americans and Ontario players in Super Street Fighter 4, Skullgirls and King of Fighters XIII! I'm glad I was one of those Montreal defenders as I took the 1st place (first time ever!) in the Skullgirls tournament!
Here are the results: 1. Kazuhiro (Parasoul) 2. Ironstein (Peacock/Double) 3. Brice (Cerebella) 4. Lollimar (Cerebella/Double) 5. VinceX (Ms. Fortune, Cerebella) 5. Serious Joker (Valentine) 7. JimmyBones (Painwheel/Parasoul) 7. Der Q (Cerebella)
Since the tournament was sponsored by Autumn Games, I will be receiving a custom Skullgirls arcade stick from them in the mail soon! So, many thanks and a big shoutout to them! Will post the footage from the tournament once it's uploaded on TorontoTopTiers' YouTube channel and post pictures of the stick once I get it.
Monday Tournament @ GameKeeper (14 players) Battle Log - 1st Round vs. Kagero (Blazing Flare) 2-1 - 2nd Round vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Lohengrin) 2-0 - 3rd Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 2-1 - 4th Round vs. Spike Brothers (Siegfried) 2-0
Results: 1st - Judes R. (Royal Paladin) 2nd - Luis C. (Kagero) 3rd - Aram D. (Royal Paladin) 4th - Jonathan M (Spike Brothers)
Saturday Tournament @ BD Cosmos (8 players) Battle Log - 1st Round vs Royal Paladin (SSD/Alfred) 2-1 - 2nd Round vs. Angel Feathers (Kiriel) 2-0 - 3rd Round vs. Granblue (Deadly Swordmaster) 2-1
Results: 1st - Judes R. (Royal Paladin) 2nd - Tobias S. (Granblue) 3rd - ??? (Royal Paladin)
Sunday Tournament @ Cote Vertu - Carta Magica (24 players) Battle Log - 1st Round vs Royal Paladin (SSD) 2-0 - 2nd Round vs. Nova Grappler (Asura Kaiser) 2-1 - 3rd Round vs. Spike Brothers (Siegfried) 2-0 - 4th Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 1-2
Results: 1st - Gabriel (Oracle Think Tank) 2nd - Kevin M. (Kagero) 3rd - Judes R. (Royal Paladin)
Pretty good tournament week for me in term of rankings. I was 1 damage away from winning the Sunday tournament, but my opponent pulled a heal triggers as his 6th damage and managed to kill me next turn. It really sucks losing that way, but with my luck it always happens when I'm playing against OTT and I'm about to close the match with SSD's final turn Soul Blast. Since my team placed pretty high, we still managed to get the equivalent of a booster box (15 packs each for me and Kevin + a little more) and I got some really nice pulls for my Angel Feather deck (2 Kiriels, G1 Nociel and an G3 Egodiel) so I'm pretty happy about that. My goal was to at least place 1st in a tournament with Royal Paladin before switching to an Angel Feather deck and I'm pretty relieved that I did.
I'm still going to enter the next few tournaments as Royal Paladins since my Angel Feather deck is still under construction, but as soon as it is done, I'll try placing with them!
Battle Log - 1st Round vs. Nova Grappler (Asura Kaiser) 0-2 - 2nd Round vs. Spike Brothers (Siegfried) 2-1 - 3rd Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 2-1 - 4th Round vs. Royal Paladin 2-0 (forfeit)
Results: 1st - Kevin M. (Kagero) 2nd - Alex A. (Kagero) 3rd - Jo A. (Kagero) 4th - Aram D. (Royal Paladin) 5th - Judes. R (Royal Paladin) 6th -Joao M. (Spike Brothers) 7th - Sebastien L. (Nova Grappler) 8th - Alexandre SL. (Oracle Think Tank)
Saturday Tournament @ BD Cosmos (7 players)
Battle Log - 1st Round got a bye - 2nd Round vs. Kagero (D.Overlord) 1-2 - 3rd Round vs. Nova Grappler (Asura Kaiser) 2-0
Forgot to post last week's tournament results. Only went to Monday's tournament this time because I was late for the Saturday one.
Monday Tournament @ GameKeeper (14 players) Battle Log - 1st Round vs. Kagero (D.Overlord) 2-0 - 2nd Round vs. Spike Brothers (Siegfried) 2-1 - 3rd Round vs. Royal Paladin (Alfred/SSD) 0-2
Top 5 Results:
1st - Joao M. (Spike Brothers) 2nd - Daniel L. (Royal Paladin) 3rd - Aram D. (Royal Paladin) 4th - Sasha DC. (Oracle Think Tank) 5th - Judes R. (Royal Paladin)
Will try my hardest to at least place first with Royal Paladins once before I completely switch to Angel Feathers. Again, one of my crew member placed 1st, so congrats to him for winning the whole thing!
I'll be posting about something a little bit different than usual today. Thanks to a friend of mine, I discovered a new album by Digi Crates Record called Beat Fighter v.1. What's cool about it is that they collaborated with Team Spooky, one of the biggest streamer in the Fighting game community!
The album's tracks can be heard in a sample version for free, but to fully enjoy the album you can either buy each songs for $0.99 or buy the full thing for $10.00. If you're into hip hop and jazz instrumental like some of the Nujabes stuff, it's definitely something to look into!
After a long period of waiting and numerous cuts on my fingers, I finally managed to fully modify the Qanba Q4 I said I was going to customize when I started this blog!
Very happy with the results and I will be bringing this stick to the Evolution Championship Series 2012 this year! Again, big props and love for Jaime Herrara for the sick artwork!
Pretty lax tournament week for me this week. Thursday tournaments seem to never happen because of the lack of people showing up and the Saturday tournament got canceled because of YGO and Magic pre-release events happening at the same time. Monday Tournament @ GameKeeper (12 players) Battle Log - 1st Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 2-0 - 2nd Round vs. Spike Brothers (Siegfried) 2-1 - 3rd Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 1-2
Results: 1st - Sam Rubens S. (Oracle Think Tank) 2nd - Judes R. (Royal Paladin) 3rd - Alex V. (Spike Brothers)
Was round was away to finally get first place, but bad shuffling killed my chances in the final round against my friend - oh well. Still happy that our crew had a good showing at the tournament.
Haven't post something in a while (almost a week!), but that's only because nothing much has been going on lately. I started beading again after telling myself that I couldn't just let all those spare Perler beads in my room go to waste so I decided to take some of my friend's commission request.
This is my latest creation: Magneto bead sprite from Card Sagas Wars. Took me around 3-4 hours and required 1919 beads (11 different colors). I had my doubts when doing it, but I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the final result!
Original sprite by Abysswolf. Speed Beading video coming soon.
Great news! I learned this week that there is actually three local Vanguard tournaments in my area per week in different places. Unless I feel very lazy, I'll probably be able to go to each of them every week, so instead of posting long (and tedious) battle logs & thoughts about the tournaments, I'll just post results and score for each of them.
Monday Tournament @ GameKeeper (12 players) Battle Log - 1st Round vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Lohengrin) 0-2 - 2nd Round vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Charger) 2-0 - 3rd Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 2-0
Results: 1st - Aram D. (Royal Paladin) 2nd - Judes R. (Royal Paladin) 3rd - Jonathan M. (Spike Brothers)
What is written in bold in the results is how I placed. Unfortunately, not enough people showed up at the Thursday tournament this week so there are no results for that this week.
So, Angel Feather's second, and I think last (hopefully not), RRR card got revealed yesterday and believe it or not, it's a Grade 1 unit. It's pretty rare to see a Grade 1 unit offered that kind of rarity - the last one being Heatsnail Salamander in Japanese's BT04. In Angel Feather's case, their new RRR Grade 1 unit is called Defender of Love, Nociel.
Auto: [Choose an <Angel Feather> from your hand, send it to your Damage Zone] When this unit is placed on the Guardian Circle, if you have an <Angel Feather> vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose a card from your Damage Zone, and add it to your hand.
With this card revealed, we can clearly see how Angel Feathers will be a defensive clan and how they will be able to manipulate their damage zone. Defender of Love, Nociel is exceptionally good because, unlike her other incarnations which I will talk about later, her effect activates when you guard with her. By guarding an attack, you can dump what you don't need in your hand in the damage zone un-flipped and pick up something else you need from that said damage zone whether it's un-flipped or not. For example, you can go pick up 10k guard or a Null guard to guard the upcoming attacks, a Grade 3/2/1 unit that you're missing for your next Ride phase or simply go look for a unit that benefits from having an un-flipped counter for it's effect. With this card in this clan, the way we will use our counters and which card we flip face-down will be extremely important because we will want to get the most out of Nociel's effect (Which, in Defender of Love's case, is guarding an attack, dumping a useless card in your hand, take something you need from the damage zone and flipping a counter back up). So, in the end, when using counter blasts with other cards, we'll have to basically flip the cards we think we'll need later on in the game. It's definitely a card with a lot of utility and I can see this card be played a lot in upcoming Angel Feather decks.
Her two other incarnations are a Grade 0 and a Grade 2 unit. The Grade 0 being called Happy Bell, Nociel and the Grade 2 being Love Machine Gun, Nociel.
Continuous 【R】: If you have an <Angel Feather> vanguard, this unit has the following ability, "Activate [R]: [Move this unit to Soul, choose an <Angel Feather> from your hand, send it to your Damage Zone] Choose a card from your Damage Zone and add it to your hand."
As you can see, they all kind of have the same effect - the only difference being the timing of each. Happy Bell, Nociel goes to the soul from an activation effect when she's in a Rearguard slot. That alone would not be very good and justify her place in a deck. However, her being a Stand trigger gives her a bit more utility as not only this clan relies on un-flipping damage, they also already have a unit (Armaros) that benefits from Stand triggers because of their effect that only activates when their attack lands. The fact that she goes into the soul also benefits Angel Feathers as some unit work with souls.
Auto: [Choose a <Angel Feather> from your hand, send it to your Damage Zone] When this unit is placed on a Rear Guard Circle, if you have an <Angel Feather> vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose a card from your Damage Zone, and add it to your hand.
As for Love Machine Gun, Nociel, it's kind of like the opposite of her Grade 1 counterpart. While Defender of Love can go look for something in the damage during your opponent's turn, LMG, Nociel can go look for something in the damage zone during your turn. That said, you can pick up units to apply more pressure like a booster or a beatstick while dumping something you don't need in your hand.
This new line of unit definitely adds a unique vibe to Angel Feathers and the game in general as this kind of strategy is pretty new to the game. What I'm really hoping for is to see a Lozenge Magus incarnation for Angel Feathers to add up on the fact that this clan is all about medics & healing!
For those who don't know, it has been exactly a week since Skullgirls released on Playstation Network & Xbox Live and I have to admit, I've had a lot of fun with the game thus far even though my opinions about the game before the release were somewhat negatives. Indeed, before the game came out, I didn't like the characters that much and I didn't like how the game played/felt. After trying it though, I fell in love with some characters that I never thought I'd like and started to enjoy the flow of the game once I got used to it. I guess the lesson of the day is: ''Never judge a fighting game by the pre-release gameplay videos/trailers...?''
Anyways, if you're into fighting games or you just like Darkstalker-like characters, I'd recommend buying this game as it's really cheap ($15 on PSN/XBL) and it really feels like a complete fighting game. It's also very important to support because unlike other popular fighting games on the market, the game was made by a member (Mike ''Mike Z'' Zaimont) of our own Fighting Game Community who listened carefully to his community & to the hardcore fighting game fans. If the game does well, I believe it will open doors to the creation of other solid fighting games!
Just came back from my local store's Vanguard tournament and I am happy to say that I reached my goal for this week. Placed higher than 6th place this time.. Yup, I actually got 2nd place which is way better in general and also for myself (did not leave the tournament super salty)!
Battle Log & Thoughts First Round: vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Lohengrin) First round was against the guy who places 1st almost every time. First match of the set was pretty convincing for him mainly because of the heal triggers he pulled. Every time, I managed to somewhat take a lead in damage, he pulled a heal trigger and heal himself while I never drive check'd critical triggers to even it out. He eventually took a lead and finished me off. As for the second match, it was very close. At the end, he misplayed by riding Lohengrin over his SSD for no reason which allowed me to block and live for another turn. Unfortunately, he had all the necessary resources to block that extra lucky turn I had and finished me off with a clutch Blaster Blade (who retired the Galatin I needed to be able to resist one more turn) for the win. 0-2
Second Round: vs Royal Paladin(SSD/Gigantic Charger) Another mirror match but this time, way easier for me since she played Gigantic Charger as a backup Grade 3 and who, in my opinion, is a pretty bad card. Anyway, first match was pretty one sided as she had a horrible hand and missed a ride. Was able to pull off the Barcgal+Llew+SSD combo before her, took an early lead and rush her down. Pulled out a critical trigger for the win. 2nd match was pretty on her part because she played so many of her cards wrong. Close to the end of the match, almost none of her attacks were a threat: she had a Gigantic Charger (R) in front with Barcgal boosting him which makes a horrible number for an attack (13k), SSD as Vanguard with only Flogal boosting her and finally, another SSD in Rearguard with no one behind her. Pretty bad field and unit placement gave me an easy win. 2-0
Final Round: vs Oracle Think Tank (CEO) This guy pretty much gave the wins away to me by not attacking the first turn to avoid the infamous SSD combo. It would be a legit strategy if Royal Paladin's strategy wasn't about rushing and if they had no other Grade 3 to work with. By not attacking first turn, I always had an early lead and this is what you want to avoid when playing Paladins. First match, he didn't even get CEO and was obliged to use Apolon as his Vanguard and even if he didn't give me the counters to soul charge early with Barcgal/Llew/Flogal, I still managed to pull SSD's roar with Margal and Pongal soul charging Alfred during the game. First round was pretty convincing. Second round was a little closer, though. He got CEO as his Vanguard, but the fact that he still didn't attack me first turn gave me an slight advantage. Not only that, his field was far from being the best with two Apolon (with no boosters) as his Rearguards. He managed to stall enough to use CEO's Megablast, but it was not really a game changer as my field and hand were just better. 2-0
So yeah, pretty happy with my placement. Next time, I will try to aim for 1st place. Even though I placed high, I still want to try a Lohengrin/SSD build because I still feel Alfred does not support SSD well. Hopefully, I'll get the cards before next week!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
