Quintet Walls - Are They More than Perfect?

Quintet Walls - Are They More than Perfect?

  Saturday, December 14, 2013    byak

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With Booster Set 14 being released this week, we were officially introduced to a new kind of Sentinel: Quintet Walls. By now, we've grown so used to the original Perfect Guards that we can't live without them at this point. We were all used to throwing four copies into our deck because of how valuable they were, especially with the rise of Break Ride units. Now that Bushiroad has given us an alternative path for Sentinels, we need to ask ourselves: how effective are they?

To start, for those who don't know what Quintet Walls do, when they're placed from your hand to the guardian circle, you can counterblast 1 to look at the top 5 cards of your deck and call as many cards from those 5 to the guardian circle as possible. In short, it turns one card to guard with into five, and can usually make your guarding a lot easier. For reference: here are the first four Quintet Walls that appeared in Booster Set 14:

• Summoning Jewel Knight, Gloria [Royal Paladin]
• Sword Formation Liberator, Igraine [Gold Paladin]
• Goddess of the Shield, Aegis [Genesis]
• Silver Collar Snowstorm, Sasame [Murakumo]

I for one feel that Bushiroad is not done printing these guys, so expect more to show up in future sets.

Also, an important thing to note is that Gloria and Igraine carry their respective archetype names with them, so there's no worries about adding them to your favorite Jewel Knight or Liberator deck.

I personally haven't done any statistical analysis on the cards that you can get from a Quintet Wall, but we can generally assume that since the cards that do have shield power (grade 2's and lower) hold more presence in your deck than cards that don't (grade 3's), when you use a Quintet Wall, you will usually get at least 25000 worth of shield from it. This will bump your 11000 vanguard up to 36000, making even Break Ride turns easy to survive!

Now, these seem great and all, but there are some downsides to them. Obviously if you play a deck that lives off of constant counterblasting, it isn't guaranteed that you will always be able to pay for your Quintet Wall's cost. In addition to this, it is important to consider that a Quintet Wall digs through the top five cards of your deck. If your deck turbos through itself a lot already, it could potentially become dangerous for you to add Quintet Walls to it, as they would increase the chances of you decking out.

It's a good thing Bushiroad realized this, because for three out of the four decks that received a Quintet Wall, they also gained recycling support for their newest boss units. Royal Paladin, Gold Paladin, and Genesis gained new 6000 power grade 1's that can spin a Ashlei, Gancelot, or Regalia unit respectively from your drop zone to the deck to give a unit on the field with that name 5000 power during the turn. Here they are for reference:

• Security Jewel Knight, Arwen [Royal Paladin]
• Flying Sword Liberator, Gorlois [Gold Paladin]
• Ordain Owl [Genesis]

At first sight, these units might look ugly with their 6000 power, but they actually synergize very well with the Quintet Walls they were given, along with their actual decks. Security Jewel Knight, Arwen, for example, can easily be pulled out from the deck using Broken Heart Jewel Knight, Ashley "Reverse" and her Limit Break. Ordain Owl is also fairly strong considering how fast Genesis can burn through their deck to begin with. What is perhaps the best part about these grade 1's is that they can power up rear-guards. In a way, they resemble the 6000+5000 soulblast power boosters that were made for a plethora of bosses in Season 2, but they have a lot more potential.

These units, when combined with the new Quintet Walls, can ultimately setup for very powerful turns. If you happen to hit one of your grade 3's with a Quintet Wall, that's already a potential +5000 power during your next turn. You can also assume that future decks will be getting cards like these, as they seem like one of the new clones that Bushiroad is trying to push. Regardless, these cards are very powerful in the decks they were designed for. Honorable mention for Murakumo, but they're already tearing up the field with their three copies of Covert Demonic Dragon, Hyakki Vogue "Reverse".

Now, back to our initial question, what do we want more, Perfect Guards or Quintet Walls? Considering the current four Quintet Walls, I personally would include Gloria and Aegis in my Jewel Knight and Regalia decks, but I wouldn't include Ingraine or Sasame in my Liberator and Murakumo decks. The main deciding factors were the synergies between the Quintet Walls and their decks (Aegis has really cool applications with Apple Witch, Cider). However, I also believe that Quintet Walls can work in almost any deck, as long as you can afford their counterblasts. Both types of Sentinels can work easily well in most decks, but play styles are probably the most important deciding factors. Do you conserve your hand well enough to afford Perfect Guards? Do you conserve counterblast well enough to afford Quintet Walls?

With this out of the way, I'd also like to talk about potential decks that should receive Quintet Walls. There are a few picks out there that would absolutely love them and they'd become a lot more powerful.

The first and perhaps most important is Oracle Think Tank's Tsukuyomi deck. You know, that old deck that used Goddess of the Full Moon, Tsukuyomi's ride chain to essentially stack your deck and rush towards it to know the order of every card in your deck, resulting in a lot of double trigger instances. What if they got a Quintet Wall? As Tsukuyomi stands right now, it can't get to its stack fast enough and it just gets plowed over by Break Ride decks. If Oracle Think Tank got a Quintet Wall, they could use them to dig to your stack extremely fast. Each Quintet Wall would dig five cards in, and before you know it, you'd be there. Though, once you reach your stack, Quintet Walls become pretty bad, as your deck count is already running really low and you don't want to get rid of the triggers you know are in there. Regardless, they'd be a great boost to the classic strategy.

A very interesting idea that I've seen functions similarly to what I just described, but it's a hybrid between two clans: Oracle Think Tank and Genesis. Here is a link to the decklist, and they deserve all the credit for this idea. You need to be a member of Neo Ark Cradle to view the topic, so if you're not, I'll include the decklist below:

I swear it's legit this time.

G0 (17)
1 Godhawk, Ichibyoshi
4 Witch of Large Pots, Laurier
4 Battle Maiden, Kukurihime
4 Cyber Tiger
4 Lemon Witch, Limonccino

G1 (15)
4 Godess of the Crescent Moon, Tsukuyomi
4 Witch of Frogs, Melissa
4 Goddess of the Shield, Aegis (OP pls nerf)
3 Battle Maiden, Tatsutahime

G2 (10)
4 Goddess of the Half Moon, Tsukuyomi
4 Witch of Ravens, Chamomile
2 Battle Maiden, Sahohime

G3 (8)
4 Battle Deity of the Night, Artemis
4 Battle Maiden, Mizuha

So long as I don't screw up basic counting, I can pretty much make it to stackland every single game thanks to the spiffy new Quintet Wall and any SC3 hit. Mizuha is a pretty neat addition from the trial deck. She allows for the passive aggressive "you aren't limit breaking" option and generally more powerful finishers when I'd rather not shave further cards out of the deck.

The deck basically takes on the strategy of building a stack, but uses Genesis in order to reach the stack, because they have Artemis, a boss that digs through your deck every turn, along with a couple soulcharging units and of course, a Quintet Wall. The Quintet Wall is what in my opinion sells the deck, outside of not being able to use your Oracle Think Tank units as guardians. I personally have not tried the idea, but it seems extremely fun.

I also believe that Spike Brothers have the potential to benefit greatly from a Quintet Wall. There are no special combos for it, but Spike Brothers have already had trouble maintaining hand advantage. They want to end the game early, so you don't have to worry about milling yourself out, but it's usually difficult to give up the hand advantage to afford your Perfect Guards. They also have Mecha Trainer to add it to your hand, which is always good.

Dark Irregulars are in the same boat in terms of poor advantage, but you have to be careful with this one. Dark Irregulars soulcharge a decent amount of cards every game, and a Quintet Wall would increase your chances of decking out. Though, if Dark Irregulars got a card similar to Apple Witch, Cider and also got a Quintet Wall with that, they'd gain new power potential similar to how Genesis use their Quintet Wall. Reijy might even become a better deck!

Regardless of what decks they're better in, I simply hope that every clan receives a Quintet Wall. Giving players more freedom in their deck building is a good thing and I'm sure there are people who can find even more cool uses for them in this game. We still don't know Bushiroad's plan with Sentinels, but we can stick around and find out. What if they introduced a third kind of Sentinel? What if certain clans got a type of Sentinels, while others didn't? For now, only time will tell. Feel free to leave a comment down below on your opinion on Quintet Walls, and thanks for reading.