[JCG] Breaking the Limits of Limit Break!
As the old Limit Break and Break Ride units that once stood at the top of the metagame get shifted out to make room for the new Legion metagame, Bushiroad decided to give them a sort of parting gift that can actually help them compete with the new mechanic. All eight of the clans that got support in the recent Booster Set all got 7000 power grade 1's with the following skill:
[CONT](RC):Your vanguard's Limit Break 4 is also active if the number of cards in your damage zone is three or less.
The major disparity between Legion bosses and Limit Break bosses is that the Legion bosses can start using their skills a lot earlier in the game, since they don't have to wait for four damage. Despite not being as bursty as a Break Ride, Legion skills could quickly become deadly if they were applied as early as possible, since they'd be able to create value almost every turn. These new clones take that infamous timer off of the old Limit Break units, letting their skills kick in as soon as these grade 1's hit the field!
One of the cool things about these clones is that they also belong to the old Limit Break and Break Ride decks within a clan. The best example for this is Jewel Knight, Sabalmy, who manages to bring more utility to its deck than almost every other Limit Break enabler. Since many Jewel Knights can pull out allies from the deck, Sabalmy becomes a prime target to help your bosses use their skills very early on. This is especially important, because Jewel Knight bosses focus on filling the field, which is a great asset to possess in the early game.
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Leading Jewel Knight, Salome is certainly not one of the greatest Jewel Knight bosses in existence, especially when considering the combination of Pure Heart Jewel Knight, Ashlei and Broken Heart Jewel Knight, Ashlei "Reverse", but Sabalmy brings one of her features back into the spotlight: her extra critical.
Salome can trade two counterblasts for any Jewel Knight from your deck, at any stage of the game. Her Limit Break would give her an additional +2000 power and an extra critical if you had four more Jewel Knight rear-guards, and while it's easy to piece together, it was still weak considering that it was a Limit Break. Now, in this day and age, Salome can call out a Sabalmy with her skill to give you direct access to the critical, letting you deal out huge, early damage!
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That's not to say that Ashlei and her Cross Ride form should be counted out, either. While Ashlei by herself isn't the most rewarding Break Ride, Ashlei "Reverse" has a lot of potential strength when you take the Limit Break restriction off of her skill. By counterblasting one and locking a Jewel Knight, you can retire either front row rear-guard on your opponent's side of the board and pull a new Jewel Knight out of your deck. Ashlei "Reverse" is also supported by Linking Jewel Knight, Tilda, who can bring Sabalmy out with a single counterblast, as well as Banding Jewel Knight, Miranda.
You could even go as far as to play Salome and Ashlei "Reverse", due to the lack of power coming from the original Ashlei. Either way, it's clear that Jewel Knight's problems are slightly fixed with the addition of Sabalmy, giving them a lot more speed to build their field while also possessing the ability to get rid of units on your opponent's side of the field! Other Jewel Knights that have potential with Sabalmy include Sprout Jewel Knight, Camille and Fearless Jewel Knight, Julia, and there are certainly plenty of other Limit Break Royal Paladins that can synergize with him!
Gold Paladin
Next on our list is Liberator, Bright Bicorn, a member of Gold Paladin. Seeing as how Gold Paladin made their debut in season two, it should be no surprise that they have quite the plethora of Limit Break bosses to use with Bicorn. While it's not as easy to find Bicorn in Gold Paladin, there's a lot of value in using Bicorn with cheap counterblast units like Liberator of Bonds, Gancelot Zenith and even some fringe units like Awakening Liberator, Freed.
The glaring flaw in Gold Paladin Limit Break units is that some of their more potent ones, such as Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred and Wolf Fang Liberator, Garmore cost three counterblasts to actually use, making Bicorn feel redundant. You have to be at three damage or higher to even pay the costs, so why include Bicorn if there's only a one damage difference?
Garmore, Gancelot Zenith, and Monarch Alfred are perhaps the best Limit Break units the Gold Paladins have, which actually leaves them a bit dry in terms of synergy with Bright Bicorn. At least for now, I can't see any decks with Bicorn going to the top.
Kagero
Kagero's clone, Seal Dragon Spirit, Malkibel, fortunately carries the Seal Dragon name, as they were technically the only archetype for Kagero from the Limit Break era that got a mass amount of support.
So what units become more valuable with Malkibel? Kagero's strength primarily came from their Break Rides Dauntless Drive Dragon and Dragonic Overlord, so it doesn't really speed those sorts of strategies up that much, and the Seal Dragon bosses, Blockade Inferno and Georgette are a bit obsolete. Dragonic Overlord, the "Re-birth" is another option, but his skill is only really effective in the late game anyway.
The best options for Malkibel would probably be Dauntless Dominate Dragon "Reverse", Cruel Dragon, and Blast Bulk Dragon, but the reward from using these units with Malkibel is hardly worth it, unfortunately leaving Kagero's new tool a bit dry like Bicorn.
Tachikaze
Tachikaze was lucky enough to be a part of this Booster Set, scoring themselves a clone for themselves in the form of Ancient Dragon, Tyrannoblaze. While it might make your Ancient Dragon, Spinodriver a turn faster, the Legion bosses that Ancient Dragons just picked up are leagues better than the outdated Tachikaze bosses. You can't even use Destruction Dragon, Dark Rex with him, meaning there is little to no use for this guy.
At the very least, Ancient Dragon's small pool of grade 1's might give you some incentive to use this guy, if you're using Spinodriver. Other than that, there is and will probably never will be a reason to use Tyrannoblaze. At least he has cool art, right?
Narukami
Fortunately, things turn to the better from here! Narukami have a lot more potential with their enabler, Eradicator, Egg Helm Dracokid. Narukami, similarly to Gold Paladin, have a lot of options to choose for because of their season 2 debut, and their inclusion of Eradicators makes it a lot easier for them! You can even consider reverting to the old formula of four copies of Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon and four copies of Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant, as the build becomes a lot better since you can get the value from Gauntlet Buster Dragon much earlier than before!
Gauntlet Buster Dragon, like most bosses that could stack criticals, was hindered by the fact that you had to wait until you had four damage to use, and by then extra criticals are more often then not useless. If you use Egg Helm Dracokid, however, you can start your onslaught of criticals from the turn you ride Gauntlet Buster Dragon, making him much more of a threat than before.
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Dragonic Descendant also gains a bit of power with Egg Helm, since he's not entirely useless if you ride him first. While his skill scales with damage, things aren't always going to go the way you want, meaning you'll probably see Dragonic Descendant first a decent amount of times. Fortunately, since his Limit Break has no restriction, it's pretty much guaranteed that you're going to be landing hits with Dragonic Descendant every turn, since your opponent will most likely not want to deal with the self standing skill!
Unfortunately, most of the other Limit Breaks that can be used with Egg Helm Dracokid aren't as valuable in the early game as Dragonic Descendant and Gauntlet Buster. Speeding up your Break Ride can also be worth considering, especially considering the return you get from Eradicator, Ignition Dragon, for example.
Link Joker
Link Joker is an interesting case for Limit Break enablers. When Star-vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon terrorized the metagame, it was because of his synergy with Star-vader, Infinite Zero Dragon. With their new enabler, Eclipse Star-vader, Charcoal, you play less of a waiting game with Infinite Zero Dragon, plus Chaos Breaker Dragon is less of an issue to ride, since his skill kicks in instantly. With the addition of new units like Star-vader, Bolt Line and Flash Gun Star-vader, Osmium, Link Joker might have an alternative competitive route to Legion, since it's reasonable to believe that Chaos Breaker Dragon without a Limit Break restriction is still quite strong.
Star-vader, "Omega" Glendios might also have potential with Charcoal, if only so you don't have to wait to start Omega locking with his Limit Break. Unfortunately, Charcoal doesn't disable the Limit Break 5, but being able to extend locks earlier is a good buff to the deck.
An interesting boss that's been left out in the cold for a while is Star-vader, Freeze Ray Dragon. He was introduced in Booster Set 15, but quite quickly outshone by Glendios' strong support. Whenever you take damage while Freeze Ray is your vanguard, you can choose to lock any rear-guard your opponent controls. If you take the first hit every turn, you can easily lock away one of two of their front row rear-guards, effectively shutting off one attack per turn. Additionally, as his Limit Break, when you lock an opponent's unit, Freeze Ray Dragon gains +3000 power for the rest of the turn, meaning he reaches levels of 13000 or 16000 power during your opponent's turn, making up for his weak 10000 base.
The reason I bring this card up now is because it's possible to reach high defensive numbers before you reach four damage, thanks to Charcoal. In the early game, where damage is easier to deal with, you can take the first attack every turn and bump Freeze Ray up to 13000+ for the next attack, making it much easier to stop the attack and move onto your turn. Freeze Ray also works well with Link Joker's damage inducers, Imaginary Orthros and Negligible Hydra, providing easy and cheap locks to synergize with all of their new support.
Granblue
Oddly enough, I believe that Granblue gain the biggest boost of all in this set, and it's evident from recent tournament results that other people believe the same thing. Brutal Shade doesn't appear to be anything special, but he's actually the unit that Granblue has wanted all along. You can use him with Lord of the Seven Seas, Nightmist to Superior Ride into an early Break Ride with Drift Ice Swordsman, Nightsnow, but if you want to get true value, the unit to look at is actually Ice Prison Hades Emperor, Cocytus "Reverse".
Cocytus "Reverse" was originally written off as worse than Nightmist, since his skill would kick in too late, but in theory, if you can use Cocytus "Reverse" as soon as you ride him, he becomes a huge boon. Assuming you've done anything to put cards in your drop zone, you can use Cocytus "Reverse" to fill your field in a whole turn, at the cost of nine to twelve cards from your deck. Even if you start off with a small drop zone, your costs will gradually give you more and more options as your field is flooded with new units.
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And this is where Legion comes in to sustain your deck. Several lists running Cocytus "Reverse" and Witch Doctor of the Dead Sea, Negrobolt have been seeing major success recently in Japanese tournaments. Cocytus gives you extreme value in the early game, letting you conserve your hand while you turn your drop zone into your field extremely early, and then Negrobolt keeps your deck full of triggers in the late game, pressuring damage with his fourth attack coming from his own skill. The deck actually works very well with all of the new Granblue support, giving them more benefits from interacting with the drop zone while also gaining more options that can fill it.
I still believe that Nightmist and Nightsnow is another interesting approach to follow, but not using a Legion prevents you from stocking your deck back up, as well as preventing you from using Pirate Belle, Pinot Blanc, which is a godsend to Granblue players. Unlike all of the other clans, I think the absolute best way to play Granblue right now is with Brutal Shade, since Cocytus "Reverse" can match his power level up to the rest of the new Legion bosses.
Aqua Force
Last, but certainly not least, is the enabler for Aqua Force: Shortfin Mako Soldier of the Blue Storm Armada. He fits in quite well with the rest of the new Blue Storm deck, and works quite well with both Blue Storm Dragon, Maelstrom and Blue Storm Karma Dragon, Maelstrom "Reverse". For a while I believed that using both the Maelstroms with damage inducers was one of the best way to play the deck, since you'd gain their unbelievable amounts of pressure as early as three damage.
Basically, Shortfin Mako Soldier is a strictly better version of both Reliable Strategic Commander and Veteran Strategic Commander, since he can work at two damage and below, plus he works as long as he stays on the field. While it's not a huge boost, it's a solid boost to the Limit Break oriented Blue Storm builds, which definitely have the potential to compete with the Legion focused builds. I personally believe that Shortfin Mako Soldier might actually push the Limit Break Blue Storms ahead of the Legion Blue Storms, but time will tell for that one.
Conclusion
And that's all of the Limit Break enablers for this set! Despite their initial hype, it would seem that they're only good in about half of the decks that got them, and it's hard for them to pick up strength, since the likelihood of new Limit Break units being printed is fairly low. However, they certainly open doors for innovation in Vanguard. Some of the ideas that I might have written off as poor might actually be a lot better at second glance. There are also a lot of combinations that I haven't thought of that can still be utilized, even to succession. We won't be finding out straight away though, we'll have to wait for creative minds to bring their secret creations to the tournament field.
As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below, and thanks for reading.
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