[ECG] Deck Check: Revenger's Raging Form

[ECG] Deck Check: Revenger's Raging Form

  Monday, February 24, 2014    byak

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Welcome back to Deck Check, cardfighters! Booster Set 12 was released yesterday, and today I wanted to do a Deck Check on one of the more popular decks coming into the metagame: Revengers!

Revengers had technically made their debut back with the release of the new Trial Decks, along with Link Joker, but they weren't really ready for the competitive scene. Booster Set 12 had everything they needed for the competitive scene, and in this article, we will go over what might be one of the best competitive Vanguard decks for a while!

Revenger's Raging Form
18 / 14 / 10 / 8

1 Creeping Dark Goat
1 Frontline Revenger, Claudus
4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon [Critical]
4 Grim Revenger [Critical]
4 Freezing Revenger [Draw]
4 Healing Revenger [Heal]

4 Revenger of Darkness, Mac Lir
4 Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint
4 Transient Revenger, Masquerade
2 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter

4 Blaster Dark Revenger
4 Nullity Revenger, Masquerade
2 Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu

4 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom
4 Revenger, Raging Form Dragon

Meet your new Blaster Dark, everyone! Blaster Dark Revenger was released in the prior Trial Deck, but wasn't very useful until he gained a few specific support cards. He functions exactly like Blaster Blade Liberator: when he's placed on the field, you can counterblast two to retire a front row rear-guard. It's a simple, but fairly costly skill, but it's his support that makes him one of the most important cards in the deck. Though, his retiring effect can be useful at times, especially versus decks that have high pressure rear-guards.

Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint is what makes Blaster Dark Revenger truly shine. Dorint comes with a skill that activates when Blaster Dark Revenger is called in the same column as it. When it is called, you can un-flip one damage. Despite how simple this skill is, it comes with a lot of applications. The most obvious application is reducing the cost of Blaster Dark Revenger's skill by one, because you can use Blaster Dark Revenger's skill, then Dorints. The free damage un-flip works very well with the other counterblast units of the deck, so always consider the plays you can make with Dorint. Dorint also has a 7000 body by himself, so he makes some pretty reliable columns at the same time, including 16000 with Blaster Dark Revenger.

An important fact to remember for Dorint is how skills can be resolved in Vanguard. If two skills have the same timing, when you resolve them, you get to choose the order of how they resolve. For example, when Blaster Dark Revenger appears in front of Dorint, you can either un-flip the damage before Blaster Dark Revenger activates, or un-flip the damage afterwards. The value in this is that if you only have one face-up damage, you can un-flip another damage then pay Blaster Dark Revenger's cost afterwards. On the other hand, if you only have two damage to begin with, if they're both face-up, you can resolve Blaster Dark Revenger first. Then, Dorint can use his skill to save you a face-up damage. This is important, because Revengers can actually do a lot when it comes to counterblasts!

Blaster Dark Revenger also has its own tutor, which can be very convenient. Frontline Revenger, Claudus is a grade 0 Revenger with Forerunner. If you have a grade 3 Shadow Paladin, you can counterblast one and slide Claudus into the soul to grab a Blaster Dark Revenger from your deck and call it. You can't really get the value before your grade 3 comes out, so it might get popped by another unit, but it makes Blaster Dark Revenger much more consistent than it is. You can even get the counterblast you paid back if you put the new Blaster Dark Revenger in the same column as a Dorint, allowing you to conserve your damage! Claudus is also tutorable by a handful of other Revengers, but we'll go over those later. What's important is that Claudus helps define the deck as one that revolves around Blaster Dark Revenger.

Now let's go over the grade 3's of our deck. Our boss of the deck is Revenger, Raging Form Dragon, and he definitely packs a punch. His Limit Break comes into play after he attacks. If you retire three of your Revengers, you can Superior Ride another Raging Form from your hand and give it +10000 power. Raging Form also gets to attack again, so the card resembles Dragonic Overlord the End quite a bit, except for the important fact that Raging Form doesn't have to hit. The cool thing about Raging Form Dragon is that he doesn't cost any counterblast to use either, but you do need to give up a decent amount of units. The cost of retiring units isn't that bad though, because if you're using Raging Form Dragon you're usually trying to win that turn anyway.

Typically your Raging Form Dragon turn should go like this: Attack with one column, then attack with Raging Form. After you attack with Raging Form, retire its booster, along with the column that attacked, swing again, then attack with your last column. One of the downsides to Raging Form is that it can't carry any trigger effects with itself, because you Superior Ride another copy right after it attacks, meaning it would lose any extra power that it gets from an attack. If you attack in this pattern, however, you have a column that can freely receive all of the trigger boosts and make use of them.

Now, to combo with Raging Form, we have Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom. Mordred serves as the Break Ride for the deck, and he tends to add a lot of consistency. When you Break Ride over him, you can counterblast one to call any grade 2 or lower Revenger from your deck, which gets +5000 power, and give Mordred +10000 power. Evidently you don't get that much advantage from Mordred, seeing as you're spending a card to Break Ride and only getting one card in return, but the advantage to Mordred is that you have freedom in what you call with him. Usually you'll end up calling a Blaster Dark Revenger in front of Dorint to get the flipped damage back, but you could grab things like power attackers, and even Dorints to combo with the Blaster Dark Revenger in your hand. Mordred also raises the power of your Raging Form Dragon turns. Not only does Raging Form gain an extra +10000 power on his first swing, but one of your columns potentially breaks 21000 with ease, making it that more harder to hold out during that turn.

And now here's a good time to go over our starting vanguard, Creeping Dark Goat. Creeping Dark Goat serves as a simple grade 3 searcher for Shadow Paladins, but it's extremely necessary for the deck. You want to prioritize getting to Mordred as fast as you can, as well as getting multiple copies of Raging Form in your hand, which are things that Dark Goat can accomplish. Unfortunately he's not a Revenger, so you can't retire him for Raging Form Dragon's skill, but you're usually using him up anyway so that doesn't matter that much. The only practical downside to Goat is that he's a promo, so he might be hard to find. If this is the case, then I recommend just playing two Claudus.

But wait, why are we using Creeping Dark Goat if we already have Claudus? It's something that Vanguard players don't do often, but running more grade 0's actually benefits this deck because of Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter. When Dark Bond Trumpeter is called, you can counterblast one to call any grade 0 Revenger at rest. Its primary use is to provide fodder for Raging Form Dragon, but being able to grab Claudus with it is amazing. If you have a Dorint on the field as well, Dark Bond translates to counterblast one to get Blaster Dark Revenger from your deck, because Dorint refunds Claudus' cost. Dark Bond may also be the ideal target to grab with Mordred at times, seeing as it can easily fill your field in that fashion.

The rest of the deck is just staples and power attackers. Dark Cloak Revenger, Tartu, is a clone of Darkness Maiden, Macha, except with 1000 more power and it only grabs Revengers, but as a result it makes Dorint much more consistent. I've played this deck a lot more than any other deck recently, and I'd say that it's a lot more consistent than it looks on paper. It also requires a lot more thought to play than most decks, and it plays on a higher pace than them. I definitely recommend trying or picking them up, especially because they'll carry on to be a good investment once Booster Set 15 comes out. But for now, this is how I'd play Revengers. Feel free to make your own changes, and leave a comment down below if you have questions. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more Deck Checks from Booster Set 12!