Set Check! Booster Set 14: Brilliant Strike!

Set Check! Booster Set 14: Brilliant Strike!

  Sunday, December 15, 2013    Lequier

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Hello, and welcome to our first installment of Set Check! This series will mainly be a recap of what byak and I believe to be the most potent cards in the set of discussion, often around the release date of the booster so that people can start to experiment with the various meta game contenders early! We will discuss the top 3 decks that we find the best from the set in detail, giving acknowledgement to another 2 that we can believe will also make it.

Anyway, as most of you probably already know, Booster Set 14 - Brilliant Strike came out in Japan this passing Thursday. This means it's time to take a look at what cards this set has to offer us and, most importantly, the metagame...

1) Welcome back to the scene! Grand Ezel!

Yes, good old Ezel all the way from BT06 has climbed his way back into being a relevant deck yet again with the introduction of his new form: Salvation Lion, Grand Ezel Scissors! With the addition of his new form and new support, the Blond Lion is prepared to strike against the top decks in Cardfight!! Vanguard once again!

Grand Ezel's Scissors skill is pretty easy to understand. As a continuous ability, he gains 1000 Power for every Gold Paladin Rearguard during your turn just like the original did. However, his Limit Break 4 is far more deadly, especially considering what the metagame currently is right now. For 2 Counterblasts and 2 Soulblasts, Grand Ezel can unlock all of your Rearguards. At this point in time, you may be questioning as to why this is considered to be deadly or even "good" in some regards. It only does something against one deck, right? However, Link Joker is a deck that takes up a good majority of ALL tournament standings with their high power level being added from cards such as Star-Vader, Infinite Zero Dragon and Prison Gate Star-Vader, Palladium. Up until this point, it was incredibly difficult for Gold Paladin to find the right answer to these cards. Fear no more, Gold Paladin players! Your knight in shining red/platina armor is here!

Of course, his skill isn't just that. It would be difficult for a card to be good if all it did was counter one deck, especially in Vanguard. After you use his Limit Break and you have 5 Gold Paladin Rearguards, Grand Ezel also gains +10000/+1 Crit. This allows you to start piling the pressure onto your opponent quickly, attacking with a 26000 Power unboosted Vanguard with 2 Criticals. Boosted by most things, he gets up to a solid 31000-33000. That's going to be a lot of guard. But wait, there's even more! At the end of the turn you use his skill, you may also unflip one of your damage and then Soulcharge 1. Immediately after Ezel successfully resolves a 5 Rearguard Limit Break, he fuels his own cost and begins to charge up for another.

However, as mentioned before, Ezel's support is also one of the reasons why he's good. Today we'll just look at one of the main reasons as to why he's really jumping up: Twin Holy Beast, White Lion! When he enters the Rearguard Circle, if you have an Ezel Vanguard, you can Counterblast 1 to place the top card of your Deck into the Damage Zone and then Soulcharge 1. As a result of this, the card allows you to start using Ezel's Limit Break insanely fast to pile on all of the damage that you possibly can. With a Vanguard that can be as big as Ezel with 2 Crits and 12 Critical Triggers, this deck can easily start to push your opponent's buttons very early on in the game while you hold all of the key cards that you need to beating them with only a couple of turns. I believe this deck will really do something soon, as it's match-up against a lot of the metagame is incredibly powerful whilst maintaining a boss who can easily rush for game without even breaking a sweat.



2) Rise of the Regalia!
Another powerful unit introduced in Booster Set 14 - Brilliant Strike is actually for the Genesis clan, a deck often neglected before this set: Regalia of Omniscience, Minerva! With this powerful Crossride Unit of Genesis' 3rd break ride introduced in their new Trial Deck, Regalia of Wisdom Angelica, Genesis can finally start getting back into the game with some incredibly potent new stuff!

Minerva has the standard Crossride clause, getting +2000 Power at all times for having Angelica in the soul before her. Her Limit Break, however, is a rising trend in Vanguards as of late for a clan that desperately needed it and it's incredibly cost efficient at that. For a Counterblast, 3 Soulblasts and 3 cards being sent from your hand to the Drop Zone, she can restand at the end of a battle in which she attacked with an additional 5000 Power. This really helps Genesis, as they always had trouble closing the game out before they decked themselves. But of course, that's not all there is to the new things that Genesis got.

Probably one of the most relevant cards that the deck got was a new clone called Ordain Owl. By returning a Unit named "Regalia" from your Drop Zone to the bottom of your Deck, you can target your "Regalia" Vanguard and give it an additional 5000 Power. This is a really good buff and is honestly not hard to achieve, with the mass soulcharging and soulblasting that Genesis tend to do. Ordain Owl has become a very strong unit for the deck to take advantage of, often being able to give your Minerva an additional +10000 Power off of the Break Ride turn by simply returning Grade 3s to the bottom of your Deck that were ended up being used as Sentinel Fodder or even Soulblasted for Angelica's Break Ride cost.

Overall, you can expect to see Genesis starting to do some things now that they've got their spiffy new Brilliant Strike support in conjunction with their support from Trial Deck 13: Successor of the Sacred Regalia.With the amount of soulcharging they can do and then the finishing turn, the deck has finally gotten some of the power that it truly wanted.

3) Yet another old challenger! Eradicators!

Yes, it's that time again. Bushiroad has decided to produce some more support for the once kings of the metagame, Eradicators! This time, it's in the form of Eradicator, Tempest Bolt Dragon as a new boss. Tempest Bolt's one of quite a few rare Vanguards nowadays, having a non-Limit Break passive skill and boy is it a good one! For every open Rearguard Circle on both fighter's side of the field, Tempest Bolt Dragon gains +2000 Power during your turn! This allows you to start pushing lots of pressure on your opponent if they decided to hold back on putting down Rearguards earlier, as 4-5 open Rearguard Slots means 8000-10000 Power! Early on this can be an incredibly hard ability to counteract because you will not have the advantage at your disposal to just throw away guarding it. So you devote to the board, right? That'll stop him from gaining power! However, maybe that's not a good idea, as we get onto his Limit Break...

Tempest Bolt Dragon's Limit Break allows you to counterblast 3 units with Eradicator in their card name to retire EVERY Rearguard on both sides of the field. Take that, Armor Break Dragon! Obviously the cost is pretty big, as you would expect a board wipe to be. But as soon as the Limit Break resolves, the game is sure to swing in Eradicator's favour. As the board gets wiped, Tempest Bolt is immediately put up to 31000 Power as there are no longer Rearguards present on the board. The turn that Tempest Bolt uses his Limit Break will often be the deciding turn, as a lot of decks won't have the advantage to guard him and make a push the next turn!

One thing that I really like about Brilliant Strike is that it adds a lot of powerful Rearguards into the mix, making decks more of a contribution between Rearguards and Vanguards than previously just Vanguards in most cases. This is especially present with Eradicator, Lorentz Force Dragon! When you ride a Grade 3 Eradicator and Lorentz Force Dragon is on the board, you can Counterblast 1 in order to let your opponent retire one of their Rearguards. It's their choice, but in conjunction with Tempest Bolt it can begin to start freeing up some of their Rearguard Circles when you continuously ride a Grade 3 and whittle down their board little by little. As well as that, Lorentz Force Dragon currently works with currently every Eradicator boss to date, par Descendant. Ride Gauntlet Buster? Counterblast 1, retire one of their rearguards and then give Buster +3000 Power and a Critical until the end of the turn! Sweep Command? Trigger his ability straight away, retiring even more rearguards and gaining more advantage without having to slide one of your Rearguards into the soul! As a whole, the support that Eradicator got in this set as a whole makes all of them seem better in comparison. It's not often that cards are released that make ALL variants of it seem better!

This gets better when you realize that Lorentz Force Dragon has a Grade 1 variant of himself with slightly different specifications, known as Certain Kill Eradicator, Ouie. With the ability to play 8 of these guys in your Deck, you can start ravaging your opponent's field before Limit Break and make it even harder for most of your opponent's to defend against your final assault!

This deck will be able to do something with the release of Tempest Bolt Dragon, Lorentz Force Dragon and Ouei. The amount of board control it does is unparalleled to most decks, giving it a massive edge in early game pressure (that it once lacked) against most decks now!

Special Mentions

Liberator of Bonds, Gancelot Zenith - The crossbreak ride for Solitary Liberator, Gancelot. His Limit Break allows you to Counterblast a Liberator when he attacks and return a  Grade 2 or lower Gold Paladin from Deck to the bottom of your Deck to Superior Call the top card of your Deck and give that unit Power+10000 until end of turn. It's a pretty good aggression tool, allowing you to swing with a Unit boosted before putting that Unit back and getting a new one to fill it's place. The deck could also be pretty meta-worthy, as it can easily include one of the best answer cards in the game without any conflict occurring. However, let's leave the details for this deck in particular for another day...

Dauntless Dominate Dragon "Reverse" - Another crossbreak ride in Brilliant Strike, this time for the infamous Dauntless Drive Dragon. His skill allows you to Counterblast 1 and lock a Kagero in order to give it a skill until the end of the turn. This skill is that, whenever it checks a Grade 1 or higher Kagero, it can retire one of your opponent's Grade 1 or lower Rearguards and then gain 3000 Power! This works incredibly hand in hand with it's break ride, as the break ride allows it to attack your opponent twice! This allows for it to devastate your opponent's booster line-up while gradually getting bigger...  This could certainly be a meta deck in the foreseeable future, which would mean 2 different Kagero decks are tier!

That's all for deck check this time around guys, hope you enjoyed and make sure to come back for the next instalment in February where we go over Booster Set 15 - Infinite Rebirth! If you have different opinions on what you think'll be meta worthy soon, why not let us know? Just hit us up in the comments, we'll be glad to hear it!