An Update on the ECG Metagame

An Update on the ECG Metagame

  Thursday, January 16, 2014    byak

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Before I begin, I want to apologize for the lack of articles lately. I've been losing time to midterm exams, semester projects and other things popping up recently. I finished the semester today, but on Friday I'm going to be flying out to Tennessee to play in the upcoming ARG Open for Yugioh (and possibly, Vanguard). I'll try to write up some articles that'll automatically upload over the weekend. For now, however, I want to go over the ECG metagame, mainly because of the recent Vanguard World Championships and the Vanguard $500 tournament happening at the ARG Open.

Let's start off with statistics from the recent World Championships to get an idea of what we'll be seeing this weekend. Cardfight Pro's article covering the World Championships tells us that the deck breakdown for the nine competitors for the English Card Game included a whopping seven Eradicators, one Kagero (sporting Dauntless Drive Dragon and Dragonic Overlord the End), and one Nova Grappler. Already we can tell what the crowd favorite is: Eradicators. They have been widely popular as a very strong deck ever since their tournament success in Japan, and now they're beginning to see a lot of play over here. Despite the Kagero player, Almeida Stewart, winning the whole thing, it's still very true that most of the contenders will be sporting Eradicator decks.

What makes Eradicators a force to be reckoned with, though? For reference, you can go back to my deck profile I posted a few weeks back for a sample list, but here I'm going to be a lot more concise. The combination of Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon and Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant matches the power of essentially any Break Ride and boss unit combination. Gauntlet Buster Dragon is a monster in the early game, gaining easy criticals off of retires from itself or Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Chou-ou can terrify your opponent and even end the game before they get to do anything. Gauntlet Buster Dragon can even hold your opponent at three damage if you constantly keep it at a critical of two or more, which then shuts them down from their Limit Break, which can be very effective versus the decks that rely on such.

While Gauntlet Buster Dragon has a very good early game, Dragonic Descendant has an even scarier late game. If Dragonic Descendant attacks as a vanguard and doesn't hit, you get to discard three Eradicators and counterblast 1 to stand Descendant and give it an extra critical. Players are already inclined to guard at four damage due to the nature of critical triggers, and this only makes it worse for them. Two swings from Dragonic Descendant can empty the hand of a player, and if they don't have the cards to keep them alive, they'll probably flat out lose if their damage is too high. The combination of these two bosses creates a paradox for your opponent, creating situations where they need to guard at all stages of the game.

Eradicators also have one of the most solid grade 2 lineups in the game right now. The combination of the aforementioned Chou-ou and Supreme Army Eradicator, Zuitan gives very good pressure and advantage while fueling even stronger cards like Gauntlet Buster and even Rising Phoenix. I also feel like Rising Phoenix is one of the better cards for the deck. Its cost of soulblasting two is almost non-existent and you have enough 11000+ attackers to turn it into a good column. Overall, Eradicators are perhaps the most consistent deck at carrying damage and controlling the field.

Let's not forget the lone Kagero deck, however. By now people are aware of the powerful combination of Dauntless Drive Dragon and Dragonic Overlord The End, and that combination alone has the power to win the game for you single-handedly. The amount of standing your vanguard has the ability to overwhelm your opponent due to the additional drive checks and additional power that your vanguard carries. Not only is this a big factor, but Kagero's use of the Seal Dragon engine is quite useful as well. Most Dauntless builds try to get as much advantage from Seal Dragon, Corduroy as possible due to its cheap retiring skill. Corduroy needs Seal Dragons in your damage zone to work, so a lot of Seal Dragon triggers are included, along with other solid cards such as Seal Dragon Rhinocross, Seal Dragon Kersey, and Seal Dragon, Hunger Hell Dragon.

Kagero also has a lot of good starting vanguards to choose from as well. Lizard Soldier, Conroe can get you a free Sentinel or any other solid grade 1, Red Pulse Dracokid can increase the chances of assembling combinations of grade 3's, and Seal Dragon, Terrycloth gives you a pseudo-Corduroy that you always start with. Needless to say this deck's consistency does well when matched up against Eradicator.

Another deck I expect to do well is Liberator. For more reference, you can look over my first article of Vanguard 101, where I go over the key components of Liberators. Liberator of the Round Table, Alfred, is a very powerful card when grouped up with all of your other Liberators. It can also grab you card advantage, but his Limit Break to give himself +10000 power makes him a dangerous threat when combined with critical triggers. Solitary Liberator, Gancelot is also a very powerful Break Ride that gives you very threatening burst turns, though he gets shut down by field control. Liberator of the Flute, Escrad is one of the best early game units this deck can use due to its cheap advantage and tendency to not guard early on. The only problem with Liberators is that it can't control the field, or gain advantage to equate to controlling the field, as well as Eradicators and Kagero can, so it falls flat in that category. It also doesn't carry damage as well, because Alfred primarily relies on critical triggers to be relevant, while the other two decks can put a lot of damage on their vanguards. Still, when everything goes right, this deck can pull off victories.

Honorable mentions go to Nova Grappler, Genesis, and Spike Brothers. Nova Grappler is a deck that's very consistent at doing what it needs to do due to their grade 3 combinations. Using Beast Deity, Ethics Buster with Ultra Beast Deity, Illuminal Dragon gives you consistent turns of five attacks while you get to use Illuminal more with the damage un-flippers that Nova Grappler has. However, criticals do a lot better than standing, which is why I don't expect much. Genesis have a lot of card advantage that can scale off of building up your soul, but they also have a tendency to flop and even deck out commonly. Lastly, Spike Brothers can hit hard when they pull everything together, but they're probably the more inconsistent of the top decks. The Bad End Dragger and Demonic Lord, Dudley Emperor combo has the power to end games, but Spike Brothers have terrible card advantage and have trouble coming back when the other deck gets ahead.

Those are my thoughts for the metagame right now. There are still a lot of contenders, but I felt like these were the most significant, due to the fact that they have Break Rides and their boss units fit the needs of boss units in this era. Decks without Break Rides feel very lacking right now, but some variants still have good chances of winning, it's just not as easy. As the game develops, more decks will get Break Rides, so I feel like the metagame will balance itself out in that fashion. But for now, these are my tournament favorites. As always, questions and comments go below, and thanks for reading.