Vanguard Clans and choosing

Hello again followers, its grant back with another saturly post of vanguard. I hope you liked my previous post because , believe me, things will only get better. Today, i will be talking about the current playable english clans. Now, whenever a new clan(s) appear, i will make a post covering it. Talking about clans reminds me a lot about old style yugioh decks. I miss some of those old days when id face cameron's blackwings with my lightsworn or machina gadgets. Even making decks back then was nice. It was fun. Anyway, on to the topic!

Currently there are 9 different clans:

Royal Paladins- Swarm. equivalent to blackwings. -$150-170
Kagero- Field control, Retires opponents rear guards. Kinda like soul taker or inzektor hornet. -$140
Oracle think tank-Focuses on hand advantage and drawing. The only deck i know that can legally stack cards. $200($250-300 once set 3 comes)
Nova grapplers- Beatdown with multiple attacks. Kinda has bad hands, though. -$130
Spike Brothers- Rush Beatdown, equivalent to gbs without chariot. -$110
Granblue- Toolbox the drop zone(graveyard). Takes a skilled pilot to run. $100
Gold Paladin- It swarms like royals but in a much faster way. They superior call the top card of the deck( trust me its an inconsistent way to set up the field.)- $150(Garmore based), $200(Spectral Duke based), $250(Ezel based)
Narukami- Kagero's twin and my favorite deck atm. Controls the field like kagero but in a different manner. Instead of retiring rear guards, they extend pressure so that the opponent will misplay. Also, takes a skilled pilot to run.- $190
Angel Feather- Toolbox the damage zone, and another skilled pilot deck. $200

With these clans in mind i must warn all of you that choosing isnt easy.  In case you already didnt know   , there is no "perfect" deck so choosing would probably depend on these 3 questions?

What is your playstyle?
How creative can you get?
What deck have you truly loved in the past that would make you run 1 of these decks(if you are from yugioh or magic)?

Now, you don't have to stick to these 9 decks, since there are 3 more viable clans being released 2 weeks from today.

Thats really it for today. I know i may have not been funny in this post but ill try to make a joke next time.
-
Grant a.k.a Blaster Dark a.k.a The Magnificent Shadow Dragon

Intro and my experience to Cardfight Vanguard

Hello, people of cameron’s blog, my name is Grant(the magnificent shadow dragon). You’ve probably heard of me through many of cam’s posts and you must know that i play cardfight vanguard. It is all true, although since the past week i have decided to play yugioh again(no matter what konami spews out of their king piccolo mouth). Without further ado, I will tell you about cardfight vanguard as well as clear up some rumors behind it .
Cardfight Vanguard is a super tcg(as some may say) due to the fact it combines many aspects from regular tcgs today(magic, yugioh, naruto, pokemon), yet it shows new aspects that i was unfamiliar with. First, is the aspect of
the drive and damage check. When i first heard of this, i thought it as whatever, but over time through those checks you can remember what is in your opponent’s hand(to calculate what they can guard with or whatnot). The second new factor would be there are no further use of other cards outside of units(no spells or traps). I found it awkward to transition from yugioh or magic to vanguard when all i saw was creatures. However, i then realized that every card represents defense and offense as they can either go to the field or be used as a shield. Finally, last but not least, the 3rd new interesting factor would be the triggers. Many YGO and MTG players have often used the sacky factor of the triggers to avoid playing the game, but through playing all 3 of those games ive seen some sort of sackiness within all 3( YGO: easy topdecks/loops/otks, MTG: mana screwed/miracle). People may think triggers are a random factor(like cameron stated in “The Random Factor”) in contrast, i see triggers as an avoidable random factor, since all you need to do is guard appropriately(Not going against cam, but just saying).
Now, the top 5 excuses why people say they wont get into vanguard( this is the clearing up rumors part):




5. “ It doesnt take skill”
Wrong, this game takes plenty of skill. You may not think of it as much but there are many skills to master in this game( guarding, placing proper RG columns, card counting, activating skills without wasting your counterblast/ soulblast, making proper use of your deck). Of course, those aforementioned skills come after you have played the game for a while, but there are people who do not last long because of whoknowswhat.




4. “There is no organized play”
This is a somewhat old excuse, since now WE HAVE ORGANIZED PLAY!!!! In fact, we have the first official vanguard tourney at the anaheim convention center on august 4th. After that there are regionals staring in september. However, what disturbs me the most is when some YGO players and MTG players say that. Uh, hello there was a time when your games didnt have organized play and yet people played those games anyways.




3. “ It’s a rip-off of YGO/MTG”
I laugh at this comment. Just because a game has some random game aspect from another game doesnt mean its a rip-off. If that’s the case then yugioh is a ripoff of magic:the gathering. But its not a rip off of Magic and neither vanguard is to yugioh/magic.




2. “ I don’t have enough money to play 2 card games”
I do understand we live in a shit of an economy and some of us are poor. If u wanted you can just buy a trial deck and limit yourself to that. You actually have a chance to win with a trial deck.




1. “This game won’t last”
This is probably the most irritating(and common) excuse ive heard. IT IS THIS TYPE OF BELIEF THAT KILLS UPCOMING TCGS. Believe me, nothing lasts forever(except family and friendship(dont confuse me with tea)). But even without that cardfight vanguard did take off ladies and gentlemen.




Cardfight Vanguard is a great TCG and if you have access to it, i definitely recommend you try it out. I’ve already stated that im going to play both vanguard and yugioh, so i can balance out 2 card games and so can you. This is just the start of my ongoing articles of vanguard. Next week, i will go over the different clans of vanguard in the english format..
Until next time, see yah!


-Grant a.k.a “Blaster Dark” a.k.a THE MAGNIFICENT SHADOW DRAGON 

Talking Yugioh #1

After a long and restful vacation I am finally back to writing on ze blog. Anyways I always like doing these kind of posts where I talk about what the team is doing, my thoughts on certain ideas and so forth. The problem was I never knew what to name these posts so I would name them something generic. I think I finally thought of an decent name and one that catches the essence of this post. Enough with all of this boring talk let's get to yugioh!

     Grant and I have been recently been staying up pretty late talking about his dark world turbo deck that he is trying to build. We were initially going to run triple sillva but after some testing we realized why no one does that: its horribly inconsistent. Even with the plentiful discard outlets it still wasn't up to par with the rest of the deck. Instead we cut sillva to one and added in some staples that we cut for the sillvas and the deck worked out like expected. We were proud of the deck. The deck doesn't really stray from the norm very much but the one sillva that acts like a tech card really does add a lot of power to the deck. The only traps that we have in the deck are 2 torrential and the solemn judgment. I will post up the deck list once we make sure the deck is perfected. BTW card destruction in dark worlds is like future fusion in dark world, you play it and you win. So far the only bad matchup is the mirror considering all of the discard outlets we use to our advantage they can use as well. Other than that the chaos dragon matchup is winnable about 70% of the the time. The decks best matchup is rabbit or hero, once u get grapha out you pretty much win.

     I was recently looking over the set the return of the duelist and the set is shaping up to be pretty decent. There's not a lot of love for competive play but that also means there are no insanely broken cards yet either. The cover card is fantastic in heroes and makes them very good and able to otk very easy. Gear gigant x is also extremely good in gadgets almost too good.  Soul drain is a card that I have waited for, for almost my entire competive yugioh career, and  that card hands down is my favorite card in the set. I can definatley see that card being used competitively. Other than those before mentioned cards nothing seems to be really good/broken. The spell book archetype is something I would be interested in for the sake of reliving my childhood when I used my horrible spellcaster deck. Its good to see spellcasters getting some support despite that support being mediocre at best. I just hope konmai doesn't print ridicousley overpowered cards for tcg exclusives, it would be nice to have a non game changing set for a change, but we all know that won't happen.

     I actually get a lot of questions from people at locals/readers of the blog asking me why I still care about a format that doesn't have anything else to offer. I honestly don't know why I still care about formats when they reach their end. Grant and I have always been like that while our other teammates are normal people and look onward to next format. In just am always eating sleeping and dreaming yugioh lol.

     On one final note the poll asking about the card fight vanguard article every Saturday is over and the yes answer won by a landslide so expect a vanguard article written by Grant tomorrow and I will hopefully have my ban list wish list up no later than Sunday night.

Thanks for reading this poorly organized post!

-Cameron

Not able to post for a week

So I'm on vacation and the hotel I'm at has WiFi, but unfortunatley my netbook crashed so I am unable to use it. I am typing this on my phone(which the smaller size keyboard is less than optimal to type long posts on). So I'm sorry but until I get home no blogging for me! I hope you understand!
-Cameron

Chaos Hero decklist

EDIT: Thanks to LFN for pointing out that I did not have any tourguide lol( when I played the deck at my locals I did not have access to tour guide at that time so I played without them and forgot to add them in when I got home!)

So here is the deck I have been playing most of the format. I recently took out the maxx C's and a breaker for thrasher and a 2 mst's. For the most part it combines the anti meta aspect of heros with the more aggressive aspect of the chaos engine. I choose to only play 3 traps in order to try to stop the aggressive pushes that my opponents make. The one thing that I absolutely love about this deck is the fact that it really doesn't have to commit anything to the field to win. There are times were I summon doom cal and pass and other times when I special thrasher summon startos search ailus exceed into armor ninja play miracle summon a hero fusion(if I have the requirements which I usually do) and go for a agressive push.

Thrasher opens up so many plays to the deck and since there are some really solid rank 4's to summon he just gets more utility every time a new rank 4 is released.

Tragodia is really the only card that needs explaining. Trag is one of my favorite cards in the deck because of the utility he brings to the table. he can be used defensively to block attacks when he has enough attack, he can be used offensively by stealing the opponents  monster using him to make a rank 4 then summoning another beater to attack with. It is plays like those that make the deck so good.

There are games where i have won with the hero engine and times when I have won with just the chaos engine. The only matchup that I truly struggle with is of course chaos dragons. Chaos Dragons are able to do everything this deck can just better. A good side deck can mitigate this for the most part but you still only have a 50/50 chance which imo are not good odds. Other than that the deck performs well against inzketors because of how little it can commit to the field but still backs itself up with gorz and trag. Rabbit is definitely the best matchup(as is the case with normal heros). Overall the deck is very strong and seems to be able to handle this sacktastic format.

Before I go I have a question to ask all of my readers. Would you like to read a cardfight vanguard article every Saturday? The article would be written by Grant(one of my team members) and the articles would discuss decks, strategies, and the meta. Don't worry the blog would still remain a yugioh blog at large(I'm not going anywhere!) and cardfight vanguard would only be featured on Saturday. Leave your thoughts in the comments below and I have a poll near the top of the blog asking this same question so make sure to vote! Thanks for reading!
-Cameron

New Look to the blog!

So that depressing rainfall template finally got to me lol. I like the simpleness of this template a lot better. Tell me if you like or don't like. On a final note I took down that subscribe by email option as that was getting zero use and I updated my blog header and my list of decks I have played/ am currently playing. Hopefully you like the new updates.
-Cameron

Wind Ups win NAWCQ(recap of NAWCQ)

The results are in! The battle lines were drawn and Wind Ups won the war. Tyler Tabman took the gold. In all seriousness it wasn't really out of the realm of possibility for wind ups to do good infact I figured that they would at least have some tops, however I didn't expect them to win..... but we have seen this entire scenario before. People side for the major contenders(in this case rabbit, dragons, and inzektors) and either completely forget about other non major contenders ot give them a token concession and maybe fit a card that is specific for them or try to fit a card that is widely good against all decks but not focussing on just wind ups.

     Wind ups were clearly left unchecked here. This has happened before, when dark worlds got no spots in the top cut at YCS atlanta because people over sided for them then won YCS long beach because people undersided for them. This is pretty much the same situation just on a much more prestigious scale. Wind ups are good everybody knows that its just that chaos dragons, inzektors, and rabbit were nerfed because of the heavy siding doen against them. I have to hand it to Tyler he made a great meta call realizing that wind ups are still a fantastic deck capable of fighting with the grown ups just kind of forgotten about.

The top 16 was as follows:
9 Dino Rabbit
5 Wind ups
1 Anti monster
1 Chaos Dragon

Clearly this shows that chaos dragon were in the sights of everyone as it occupied a paltry one spot. This should not be surprising though considering that chaos dragons have just won the two most recent YCS's(philly and toulouse) clearly stating that they were a threat heading into NAWCQ. Dino Rabbit continues to be good but that should be old news to every person playing this game. Apparently wind ups did trend pretty high considering they did occupy the 2nd most spots and also restates what I said in the last 2 paragraphs. The ani monster deck is whatever as there is laways that one rouge deck that sneaks in there. Also on a side note the lone chaos dragon deck is being piloted by Jarel Winston for anyone who cares. On side note #2 no inzektors? Konami never posted the top 32 parings so i can't be sure if inzektors topped( I would think they would) but it does seem weird that inzektors wouldn't at least have a single spot. Their field clearing abilities are legendary lol.

The top 8 is as follows:
3 Dino rabbit
3 Wind up
1 Chaos Dragon
1 Anti monster

So 2/3 of the dino rabbit decks were ousted and now wind up and dino rabbit were neck and neck. The Chaos Dragon continues to prevail and hangs in there. The anti monster also stays in. The same 4 decks that were represented in the top 16 are also still all represented in the top 8. At this point I was thinking that it really is still anyones game.

The top 4 is as follows
1 Chaos Dragon
1 dino rabbit
2 wind up

So konami never actually posted the last deck that comprised the top 4. They never actually even posted the top 4, I was able to get the known decklists by looking at feature matches. I will assume though that the last spot is dino rabbit but I cannot be for certain.

The finals
wind up mirror match!
The last duel was quite good with Tyler Tabman eventually winning against Robert Lewis, but take into account this was Robert lewis's first ever WCQ so not bad at all for a first timer actually not bad at all even for a pro. The first game was over in a flash as Tabman pulled off the loop that magically makes your opponents hand vanish into thin air and then reappear in their graveyard! What I found interesting is that Lewis mained maxx C which has seen alot less play as the format moves along. Maybe he made a good meta call and predicted that other people would play wind up because they knew that wind up hate was relatively low and he could hate on wind ups therefore giving him a edge. Or maybe he thought it was a good card. Lets go with the latter.
In game 2 Lewis was able to loop 3 cards out of Tabman's opening hand which gave him a massive advantage. Lewis fought back with mirror force and snowman eater, but lewis dre into a instant fusion allowing him to bring out a scrap dragon and finish the job.
In game 3 Tabman was able to get all 3 zenmaity on the board and quickly wrap up the NAWCQ.

     Congratulations to Tyler Tabman and everyone who is going to tokyo for worlds the official list is:

For the all-ages World Championship:
Tyler Tabman, 17, from Overland Park, Kansas
Robert Lewis Jr., 25, from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky
Jarel Winston, 21, from New York, New  York
Kevin Rubio, 19, from Pennsauken, New Jersey
Adrian Shakir, 22, from Colorado Springs, Colorado
Michael Steinman, 18, from Burlington, Iowa

And for the Dragon Duel World Championship
Tyler Nilson, 12, from North Port, Florida
Zachary Leverette, 13, from Winston, Georgia

Courtesy of konami
There really isn't any well known pros save for Jarel Winston, and Tyler Tabman has been performing very well in the past few events and I have seen his name a few times(I could be overlooking a big name that I don't know or some other "pros" could have been in the top 32). Also Robert Lewis was the runner up and this was his first WCQ! I am looking forward to worlds and hopefully these North American reps see victory!

Overall this seems like a decent NAWCQ. We have some relatively well known names mixed in with a lot of fresh faces. Wind ups winning isn't a WTF win, it is in the realm of possiblity though I do wish konami posted the top 32 parings so I could see if some well known faces topped and what other decks topped as well, but konami will be konami. Thanks for reading and good luck to everyone who was successful today.
-Cameron