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Death Garden Webs: Megacolony in Premium

It’s been a while but I’ve been knee-deep in testing and tournament-ing? Now that I’ve finally caught up with life, I have the opportunity to sit down and discuss with you all my thoughts on Megacolony in Premium Format. So grab a bite to eat and let’s get started!

There are two decks that have been seeing play in Premium when it comes to Megacolony. There is a Machining build which focuses on controlling the Vanguard and then there is the Death Garden Zoa OTK build which employs Ant Lion to get you a win via Zoa’s instant kill skill. For the purposes of this article, I’m going to be focusing on the latter. 

Before we jump into the deck, itself, let me explain to you the combo and why it all of the sudden is very viable. Before we got our Standard support for Megacolony, the Zoo nations suffered because they received a Zeroth Dragon that was quickly put at the lowest rank compared to the other Zeroth Dragons. Let’s take a look at this underdog, Zeroth Dragon of Death Garden, Zoa.

As you can see from the skill, Zoa gives you a unit with 99999 power that gets you an auto win if it deals damage to your opponent’s vanguard. While it certainly can be scary if the opponent is low on resources, it has a fatal flaw in that it’s begging to be Perfect Guarded. If only there was a card that existed which would stop your opponent from Perfect Guarding...

Well would you look at that?! I would dare to say we have ourselves a combo, everyone! So this pair has become the foundation of this Megacolony deck in Premium. You set up throughout the game, shutting down the opponent’s field to slow them down, and then you swing in with Ant Lion chosen by Zoa’s effect for the win (unless the opponent has enough to guard against 99999 attack, of course). We have one more addition to make this combo even sweeter in the form of Phantom Black

As you can see, this dude, when boosting a Zoa Ant Lion, makes it even more difficult for the opponent to guard the 99999 lethal that’s coming at them. The boost doesn’t add to the 99999 as it states the unit chosen by Zoa’s effect is 99999 attack continuously, but it’s value comes in its effect, not it’s power. This leaves the opponent only able to guard with Grade 0 units (and G Guardians). Unless they’ve been saving up the meanest of hands to guard for this, they won’t be able to handle it. I’ve been playtesting mostly against Nociel/Gyze, which is notorious for storing up God-sized hands, and even that deck can’t consistently have enough guard for this turn. 

So to recap a bit about the combo. You Stride into Zoa, choose an Ant Lion from hand to call and give the lethal 99999 skill and if you have the Phantom Black you use that as a booster and then...

...sorry for the trauma, back to the deck. The list I’ve been using is what seems to be the standard list that everyone is running for this build. I’m sure you can tech in some cards here and there but I wouldn’t fuss too much with it as the deck runs very consistently as it is. 

Grade 0:

1 Machining Worker Ant 4 Sharp Nail Scorpio (crit) 4 Shelter Beetle (crit) 4 Paralyze Madonna (PG/draw) 2 Machining Snow Wing (heal) 2 Medical Battler, Ranpli (heal)

Grade 1: 4 Phantom Black 4 Machining Hornet 3 New Face Mutant, Little Dorcas 2 Brillian Blister

Grade 2: 4 Machining Mantis 4 Bloody Hercules 4 Vulgar Blister Grade 3: 4 Evil Governor, Darkface Gredora 4 Death Warden Ant Lion

Grade 4: 1 Zeroth Dragon of Death Garden, Zoa 3 Poison Sickle Mutant Deity, Overwhelm 4 Lawless Mutant Deity, Obtirandus 2 Suppression Mutant Deity, Tyrantis 2 Mutant Deity Fortification, Grysfort (can also drop one of them for a Dizmel) 2 Feather Wall Mutant Deity, Morphesian 2 Seven Stars Mutant Deity, Relish Lady

And that’s the list. Most is pretty obvious, but to explain a couple of the odd inclusions....

We run 2/2 of the heals to potentially get a Counter Charge or Soul Charge. We don’t run 4 of the old heal because if we use Relish Lady twice we will have heals left to guard with on their own and the extra 10k guard of the new heals can help in that scenario.  Brillian Blister stops those annoying restanding VG decks. Though it should be noted that it will not stop Stark as Stark doesn’t rest when it attacks.

Vulgar Blister helps to slow down the opponent. Combined with Gredora’s column null ability, Vulgar Blister just gives you more time to get your combo together and out advantage the opponent. 

With the ability for Gredora to steal Counter Charges from the opponent, we are usually in a position where we can spam Obtirandus and just shut down the opponent straight out. Her column nullification ability also helps keep Gyze decks at bay as they can’t call their Zeroth Dragons to the column that Gredora has selected. So this means if they are going into their Gyze turn you can shut them out of 2 Zeroth Dragons via Gredora’s skill. It should also be noted that if you Obtirandus them the previous turn they can’t call any Zeroth Dragons via Gyze’s effect. This deck is one of the only decks that can directly effect the Gyze turn, making it a contender in the competiive scene right now.  In the Gyze matchup (I’ve mostly been testing against Nociel/Gyze) I’ve noticed that nullifying a column with Gredora’s skill is especially good around the time that they’ve got 3 Zeroth Dragons in the bind zone. This makes it tough for them to plan when they are going to go into their Gyze turn. If they give you no damage then you can endure the Gyze turn and still get another turn to respond which will usually wind up fatal for the opponent. If they only give you one damage you can just use Gredora’s Counter Charge steal skill as much as possible and continually spam the column null ability while attacking the opponnet. Eventually, they will run out of resources. If they give you more than one damage then you are free to do whatever you’d like, including Obtirandus to shut down their entire turn. So this deck can really outperform Gyze decks no matter what the situation. I am eager to test against more OTT Gyze decks to see how that goes, but I expect similar results.  As I test more I will edit this post with updates of other matchups. But seeing as Gyze decks are dominant in Premium, I figured it would be good to get a handle on that matchup first. I’m looking to test against Ange, and Bermudas in general, next.  But that about sums up this deck and my thoughts on it. I really have been enjoying it so much, though I’m a bit biased, and I think it could really be the dark horse of the Premium format.  What experiences have you had in Premium and how do you think it compares to the competiive Standard scene? 

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Hacking into Megacolony

So as you all know I’ve been talking about my excitement surrounding Megacolony even though everyone has been saying how trash they are. I love rooting for an underdog so I’ve made it my mission to crack the Megacolony code...*insert hacker music here* 

Okay, enough of that. After endless research prior to the launch of the Destructive Roar and some light playtesting I have my first deck list that I feel works best. This list is subject to change but, as of now, it seems to be performing consistently and effectively. 

Grade 0: 17 1 Machining Worker Ant 4 Shelter Beetle (crit) 4 Sharp Nail Scorpio (crit) 4 Paralyze Madonna (draw/PG) 4 Medical Battler, Ranpli (heal) Grade 1: 12 4 Phantom Black 4 Machining Hornet 2 Small Captain, Butterfly Officer 2 Spiteful Hopper Grade 2: 11 4 Machining Mantis 4 Bloody Hercules 3 Burner Ant Grade 3: 10 4 Machining Spark Hercules 3 Machining Stag Beetle 3 Death Warden Ant Lion

Let’s start with Grade 0s. I decided to stick to the 8 crit/4 draw lineup because I felt that the deck needed pressure more than draws. This isn’t like OTT in any way. Just because they share the protect gift doesn’t mean you can wall up behind a massive hand. The reason OTT gets away with that is that they are also stacking triggers and setting up for the Deer combo which is their finisher. If you try to play the long game with Megacolony I think you are doing yourself a disservice. Most other decks, if given the chance to go late game, are way more impactful than Megacolony could ever hope to be. That extra push that crits give in any stage of the game is exactly what you need to set up your win condition which we will get to later.

Grade 1s I’ve been going back and forth on but I like this lineup the best so far. The focus of this deck isn’t to spam the CB2 Skill of Machining Spark Hercules every turn. I think that’s a common trap that a lot of people playing Megacolony will fall into. Even I fell into it at first. It seems great to give your opponent’s field -5k till the end of their next turn while pumping your field up by 5k till the end of your turn, and trust me it IS great, but it’s not a winning strategy on its own. With a cost of CB2 and not the best CC units, focusing your entire deck around CB management for only a slight boost in power isn’t worth it. The key to the winning combo is Phantom Black and Death Warden Ant Lion. The pressure of Phantom Black is very scary for the opponent and since I want to guarantee I always have that combo available I decided that running 4 Phantom Black was best. I split my CC units into 2/2 because when played together on the same turn, they can get you 2 CB available (though the second won’t unflip until the end of your turn), but other than that they aren’t the best. One of them only activates when you have no face up cards in the damage zone and the other activates at the end of the turn. Machining Hornet is a no brainer as it gives you soul for either SB skills or can be called back out via Machining Stag Beetle and it gives you a free search for a Grade 3 if it hits while attacking or boosting. We love free.

Grade 2s I also played around with a bit but I’m enjoying the current list. Machining Mantis and Bloody Hercules are basically “must haves” in the deck, in my opinion, but the third slot is open. I started by using Nasty Smog but found him to be lackluster. After switching to Burner Ant I was really impressed. If the opponent early game calls grade 2 units to RG circles and doesn’t boost their VG you can slam down Burner Ant and move that Grade 2 behind the Vanguard where it will be dead for the rest of the game (for most clans). If you are thinking “but Nasty Smog has a no intercept skill which is so good” think about the times where the opponent has a grade 2 not boosted. If you activate Burner Ant you can bump it to the back row where it won’t be able to intercept anyway. Basically, Buner Ant makes the opponent want to play a full field which then makes your Machining Spark Hercules G3 Turn more impactful. Nasty Smog is annoying but hardly something the opponent can’t get around, and only preventing a (most of the time) 5k intercept isn’t that valuable when compared to how you can mess with the field setup with Burner Ant. 

Grade 3s are sort of straightforward. I’m running 4 Machining Spark Hercules because he’s the main VG and his second 1/turn skill is great to use every turn if you can because it gives him a huge power bump most of the time. And, of course, his CB2 skill is part of your winning combo. Machining Stag Beetle also works great as a first ride and gets amazing power for his skill while filling your field up without making you call from hand for free. Again...we love free. Finally, we have the second part of our winning combo, Death Warden Ant Lion who is verrry creepy when combined with a boosting Phantom Black. For a total cost of discarding 3 cards from your hand and SB 1 Grade 3, your going to be swinging at the opponent with a 36k column (before triggers) with an extra crit that can ONLY be guarded by grade 0s and no sentinels. That is on Dragonic Waterfall levels of scary and, though the cost is certainly heavier, I find myself winning every game through a mix of Machining Spark Hercules and this combo. This brings me back to why I play 8 crit. If they put a lot of effort into guarding the Death Warden Ant Lion/Phantom Black combo then they are usually wide open when you swing with VG and your other column which just gets even scarier if you are hitting crits more consistently. 

As I was looking at what Megacolony had available for CC resources I saw that Busiroad clearly didn’t design this clan to spam Machining Spark Hercules skill every turn, and while you can try to go that route, it certainly won’t be easy to pull off because the rest of your deck will only be in service of that skill. So instead I decided to save my Machining Spark Hercules turn for my finishing combo with Phantom Black and Death Warden Ant Lion and the rest of the game just try to keep the pressure up by using Machining Spark Hercules’ second 1/Turn skill and the other units’ skills. If I see an opening to use Machining Spark Hercules CB2 skill then, of course, I will take it even if I don’t have my finishing combo available, but I always am sure I have 2 CB open at all times so that I can go into that finishing skill if need be. I have plenty more testing to do yet and plenty of more clans to play against, so I’m sure this list will change over time, but for now, it’s exceeding my expectations with its performance. 

Have you gotten a chance to play any of the new clans yet? If so, which is your favorite?

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Q4 Box Tourney Report : 1st Place Kagero

So today my local shop held a box tournament for Q4. I decided to go in with Kagero since, as I’ve mentioned on twitter, it’s been my favorite deck to play from the Q4 set. (I haven't’ had a chance to play Megacolony yet but they should arrive tomorrow). We had only 10 players, which is less than our usual weeklies but we still had a lot of great players who know their decks well so I knew the wins wouldn’t come easy. Out of the 10 players we had 3 OTT, 2 Novas, 2 Royals, 1 Spike Bros, 1 Tachikaze, and 1 Kagero. I was hoping for some Royal matchups but wasn’t so lucky. 

Round 1: Versus OTT. The matchup that I was dreading the most. I know the way to win is to try and push early as they have nothing they can do to defend early or respond to aggression early with. Managed to get a 2-0 win thanks to some early push + Overlord followed by Waterfall. 

Round 2: Versus Novas. I always hate this matchup because they can sometimes just pull out insane wins if you don’t hit defensive triggers and decide which turns you’re going to take your damage. Luckily I navigated the matchup well and saved my Gaias to combo with an unblockable Waterfall while he was at 3 damage for the win. Went 2-0. 

Round 3: Versus Spike Bros. I hadn’t played against this matchup yet but I’ve been watching plenty of videos online and noticed that one weak spot they have is if they have no RG to copy at the start of their turn. It then requires them to play from hand and deplete guardign resources for when I go into Waterfall. So I focused all of my efforts on removal for a win and also managed to get one easy with a double crit on my first drive check. Went 2-0.

Round 4 (finals): Versus Novas AGAIN. This deck was more focused on crits + Asura Kaiser, and I was on the ropes. Game 1 I managed to handle everything alright through a combination of field control and Waterfall. Game 2 I couldn’t draw into my removal or any Waterfall and got walloped by Maximum Raizer on an Accel Circle. Game 3 came down to the wire. I won by bringing out a Waterfall boosted with 3 Force Markers on it. Then I called another Waterfall to RG with a boosting crit trigger because I assumed if my opponent was able to guard Waterfall for a no pass and I hit triggers I could stack them on RG and push for game. Luckily he did just that and I hit two crits, stacked them all on RG and won the game because he couldn’t guard enough. Went 2-1. 

So my final record was 8-1 and I got my box of Q4 in which I pulled Dragonic Waterfall, an SVR Perfect Raizer, and CEO Amaterasu. So obviously I’m really happy with those pulls. 

Overall, I learned that Kagero definitely is a powerful deck if piloted correctly. It can be tempting to just spam every skill you have available, but managing resources and knowing your matchups is of the highest importance. Also, I’ve noticed a lot of lists running 6 draw/6 crit but I prefer 4 draw/8 crit. Those extra crits put much more pressure, especially when combined with your 4 copies of Gaias. The opponent doesn’t feel safe at 2 damage in some cases which is great for you. Also, the beauty of not needing CB open to use Waterfall is not lost on me. I’m excited to see how Kagero stacks up against the clans from Destructive Roar and I’ll be doing more testing of that this week as all of my friends’ cards come in. I’ll also be testing out Megacolony and working my hardest to make them as competitive as possible. But I’m very satisfied with Kagero as it is now and I can only imagine how impactful they will be once we get even more support in October. 

What clan are you most excited for from The Destructive Roar Extra booster?

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the impact of murakumo

If you have been paying attention to the latest releases from the AL4 set or if you’ve watched the latest episode of the Cardfight Vanguard animation then you will know that the talk of the town is the new Murakumo support. While Shadow Paladins are being brushed aside, the Murakumo mechanic of locking down the opponent’s vanguard has taken the spotlight. There is a three card combo in Murakumo that will leave your opponent unable to ride or stand their vanguard on their following turn and it comes to us from some old favorites, Zanbaku, Left Arrester, and Right Arrester. Here are all three skills:

(translation credits go to Black Musketeer, Drevlin)

Zanbaku is your main Grade 3 unit for Murakumo from what we’ve seen so far. When combined with the Grade 2 Left and Right Arresters we can see how the effects will leave your opponent without a turn of riding or attacking with vanguard. I don’t think that needs to be explained any further. What I want to dive into is how impactful of a combo is this and what clans are really hurt by it. 

First of all, let’s address this heavy cost. To pull off the entire combo you need Zanbaku as Vanguard and Left Arrester on a RG circle. Then you need 3 counterblasts open and you need to have a unit in soul. Additionally, you have to have a card in hand to soul charge. So the cost essentially is CB 3, SB 1, SC1 (from hand). Hefty Hefty Hefty. Sure it is an impactful combo but is it worth all of that cost? 

Let’s go through each clan and see how powerful it is.

OTT: Arguably hurt the most by Murakumo. They need to ride every turn to generate protect gifts otherwise, they don’t do much. Their finisher being Deer who requires 2 Grade 3s in the soul to work is really tough to pull off when the opponent can stop you from riding. In this case, however, Zanbaku without the Skill of Right Arrester can accomplish this. The stun isn’t as necessary to shut down OTT. Of course, it’s nice if you can, but if you don’t have the CB available you can still really hurt OTT with just one open CB and a SB. 

Novas: I think Accel clans generally hurt the least from this skill. Given the fact that they have an extra RG circle that has power and they don’t really ride a grade 3 every turn like Protect and Force clans like to, I think the skill is less powerful against them. But of the Accel clans, I do think Novas hurt the most from this skill as their restandings often come from the Vanguard attacking (Raizer/Kaiser).

Kagero: Definitely hurts them because they want to ride for Waterfall turns and without having a standing Overlord to attack with they suffer. Again, however, I see Zanbaku’s skill as the one which really shuts down the pressure of Kagero more than Right Arrester.

Royal Paladin: Again, not being able to ride is rough on Royals as they want to generate Force gifts, so shutting down the ride is impactful. However, Soul Saver can still go off and help pump up your RGs to put on pressure even if it can’t attack. I also am still not sure what to expect for the Kagero/Royal set in October, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they got some sort of card that helped them endure Murakumo a bit more. 

Megacolony: Not being able to ride hurts as they can’t generate a Protect gift, but even if the Vanguard isn’t standing it can still do its 1/Turn skill and put some pressure on Murakumo from RG, and then leave Murakumo at -5000 for their next turn which will require them to replay their whole field if they want to put pressure onto the Megacolony player. I think Megacolony is probably one of the more resilient clans when it comes to Murakumo’s stun. 

Tachikaze: Again, as an accel clan I think they aren’t hurt as much, because they can still run combos with RG units and with an extra circle for attacking, the Vanguard stun isn’t as impactful as against other clans.

Spike Brothers: We know spikes get RGs huge independent of the Vanguard attacking. Seifried’s 1/Turn skill works even if you aren’t standing so I think they still can pull off shenanigans with their RG units even if their VG can’t attack.

Aqua Force: Probably the least affected by this skill. If you are running Maelstrom and you have a bunch of RG that can attack and the Murakumo player lets any 3rd/4th/+ battles hit, you get a restand on your Vanguard which essentially defeats the stun. (of course you would have to discard 2 cards to do this which would leave you with the same hand size as if you didn’t get a drive check, but that’s well worth it to essentially have made the opponent waste so many resources for nothing). 

Granblue: Another clan that I don’t think cares all that much about this skill. They can still spam calls from the drop, have huge columns with Skull Dragon, and put pressure on the Murakumo player. Again, keep in mind how many resources the Murakumo player has to invest in this combo. If they can’t hold off the pressure after doing everything they had to do to pull off the combo, then the combo sort of fails to impress. 

Dimension Police: Gets their Daiyusha turns shut down so I’d say it’s rather impactful. As Dimension Police are a Vanguard-focused clan, shutting down their Vanguard seems to be really powerful against them.

So we see around 2-3 clans that are really impacted by the Murakumo stun, but most of the clans can still work around it and a couple of them are hardly affected. So when thinking about Murakumo we have to start looking at whether that combo focus is the way to play the deck. Sure it’s good against some matchups but it’s bad against others and only mediocre against most. I actually see more value in simply using Zanbaku’s skill and preventing a ride every turn than I do in trying to get Right Arrester to go off as much as possible. Of course, this is a very preliminary analysis, as we have barely seen any of the Murakumo clan. If there are a ton of other units that help manage Murakumo’s resources, then we may be talking very differently about their impact on the meta, but as it stands (pun intended), I’m left thinking that it’s a fine combo but far from broken. Will I still build the deck? More than likely. I can’t resist a control deck.

What do you all think about the Murakumo stun combo? Do you find it broken? Mediocre? Overhyped? Leave your answer in the comments below. 

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welcome to the webs

Hey, vanguards vanguardians vanguardists people,

Welcome to my blog. I am going to be sharing my thoughts on the Cardfight Vanguard TCG in (primarily) standard format. A little bit about my history with TCGs...

I remember picking up a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards when I was 10 and I knew that this was going to be the biggest addiction something that I enjoyed for my entire life. I quickly jumped from Magic to Pokemon and spent most of my youth playing it (proudly placing top 40 at a super trainer showdown with a mono water deck from the Misty Gym Heroes set). After the craze of Pokemon ended for me I shifted to Yu-Gi-Oh! where I was firmly cemented throughout high school. After a short hiatus from TCGs, I picked up Cardfight Vanguard when it launched. My first ever deck that I purchased was the OTT trial deck and then I swiftly followed that up by making a janky Granblue deck with the limited cards that were available to me at the time. 

As I began to explore Vanguard more and more I found that I really enjoyed the way that each clan had a distinct style of play or mechanic that made it unique. I also am a sucker for some good art, and in that I find Vanguard to be unparalleled (I’m aware art is subjective so don’t come for me Magic players). As I began to explore what sort of playstyle I enjoyed, I landed, unsurprisingly, in the control-oriented decks. Being a player who always enjoyed control style play it wasn’t much of a surprise to me, however, it took some time in Vanguard for real “control” play to emerge to my liking. 

As we are in the early stages of the Vanguard reboot I’m thankful that the game is seeing some reconstructing. I won’t go into why I’m so happy for the reboot in this post, but just know that I’m VERY pro-Standard format. As a control-oriented player, I have really responded to Kagero so far. I find the combination of field control, guard restrict, and general pressure to be a spicy collaboration and it isn’t surprising to me at all that Kagero seems to be one of the dominant decks so far in the format. Of course, the argument can be made that OTT is supreme, but for me, it has a glaring flaw in its weak early game and I’m convinced that as we see more clans revealed OTT will begin to decline in popularity, whereas I see Kagero as staying at or near the top for a long time.

As we approach the release of the Destructive Roar extra booster I am particularly excited for Megacolony as it really feels like the first fully control-based deck in the Standard format. I’m not sure it will have as great an impact as Kagero (as a matter of fact, I’m almost positive it won’t) but that won’t take away from the fun of playing it for me. Looking ahead, I see some potential in Murakumo as a really enjoyable control clan (though we have only barely begun to see what it does) and so it’s looking for now like I will have Kagero as my Force clan, Megacolony as my Protect clan, and Murakumo as my Accel clan. 

So that’s where I am at with Cardfight Vanguard in its current state. I will be sharing all sorts of things on this page including, but not limited to, deck profiles, card analyses, tournament reports, and random musings on the game. I am also going to try to end every post with a question to you all in hopes of “engaging my audience”. Today’s question is:

What clan gets you most excited to play Cardfight Vanguard?

For me, it has been Kagero so far in Standard format but in Premium format I really enjoyed Link Joker.