Monthly Bushiroad Issue 6, Part 2 - Alfred's Sanctuary

Monthly Bushiroad Issue 6, Part 2 - Alfred's Sanctuary

  Saturday, February 08, 2014    byak

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Time for part two of our coverage for Monthly Bushiroad. This time, with Liberators!

Now, this article won't just include the new Liberators that were featured in the magazine. It'll also feature some of the new Gold Paladins featured as card of the day, seeing as we haven't really covered them and they all end up working together. Let's start off Gold Paladins with the most hyped unit of them all, Alfred!

And by Alfred, I mean Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred. It's not a Cross Ride like how most units are these days, but it is in fact a very strong card. First off, it has a continuous skill that gives it +1000 power for each of your Gold Paladin rear-guards. Standard enough for a Gold Paladin boss. He also comes with a Limit Break, AND an Ultimate Break, similar to Star-vader, "Omega" Glendios. However, his Limit Break is probably the reason why you would be playing him. It comes with a hefty cost of three counterblasts and two soulblasts (also, it's once per turn!), but it lets you put all of your rear-guards and Locked units on top of your deck, and then you get to check the top five cards of your deck, calling all Liberators revealed. Wow.

The skill actually reminds me a lot of Wolf Fang Liberator, Garmore. They both end up filling the empty slots on your board, but Alfred does a whole lot more. First, Alfred has the potentially to completely shatter Link Joker's strategy. No Locks can hold Alfred down, and Link Joker will be merely burning their resources on nothing. Similar to Salvation Lion, Grand Ezel Scissors, you should theoretically have one of the easiest match-ups versus Link Joker.

Now this card is also leagues better than Garmore because of how it puts all of your units on top of your deck before you call. You know how Liberators have a really large amount of on-call skills? Well, they can all be effectively triggered by Alfred. For example, Fast Chase Liberator, Josephus usually was labeled as a card that you had to be lucky to trigger. Now with Alfred, however, this is not the case. Having Josephus on the field with Alfred guarantees you will get the draw off of it that turn. It's cool enough with Josephus, and also works with cards like Cloudy Sky Liberator, Geraint and May Rain Liberator, Bruno, giving you powerful columns.

Let's take a moment to look over White Rainbow Liberator, Balan. It's made similarly to Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint, though it's much more convenient. Balan comes with an auto skill where, whenever Blaster Blade Liberator is called to the field, you can un-flip one damage. Now, Dorint only un-flips if Blaster Dark Revenger is in the same column, but Balan doesn't care where Blaster Blade Liberator is called. This also means that if you have two Balans on the field, you're going to be un-flipping two damage when Blaster Blade Liberator is called, making his skill essentially free. Now, if we apply this unit with Alfred, we essentially have the ability to easily call Blaster Blade Liberator as long as we can use Alfred's Limit Break. As a result, if you have a Balan and a Blaster Blade Liberator on the field when you use Alfred, you'll be un-flipping one of the three damage you just paid. This grows larger if you have more Balans, OR if you have more Blaster Blade Liberators.

Not only does this give you sustainable counterblasts, but it also ties in very well with Alfred's Ultimate Break. Whenever Blaster Blade Liberator is called from your deck, Alfred gains +10000 and an extra critical during that turn. Now I would say this is going a bit over the top, but as most of us know we're not going to be sitting at five damage consistently, so I don't think this skill will be very prominent. However, it is a nice touch, and works very well with your Limit Break.

So, if you haven't guessed it yet, this wave of Gold Paladin is focused around supporting Blaster Blade Liberator and making it the best card it can be. Most of the rest of the units have a skill that involves our hero, but we need a starting point for all this, so what do we use?

Fortunately enough, Liberators got a new starting vanguard that can hopefully help us out here. Aspiring Liberator, Alm has the standard 5000 power, and if you have a grade 3 or greater Gold Paladin vanguard, you can send it into the soul to place a Blaster Blade Liberator in your deck on top of your deck. The problem with Alm is that it has to stick around for quite a while, but when it does you're decently rewarded. Alm basically guarantees you'll be getting a Blaster Blade Liberator off of Alfred's Limit Break, which enables all of your Balans and even Alfred's Ultimate Break. I honestly cannot think of any better card to use, except for Liberator, Cheer Up Trumpeteer. Though, if you want to get to Blaster Blade Liberator when the time is right, use Alm.

Next up we have Balan's partner, Red Rainbow Liberator, Balin. Balin is a 9000 grade 2 that gains +5000 power whenever Blaster Blade Liberator is called. He's pretty cute, and hopefully you don't mix his name up with his partner, but I personally think he's a bit superfluous. Compared to your other power attackers, this guy just isn't consistent enough. It can gain 5000 per call, but you're not always calling Blaster Blade Liberator. I'm not liking this guy on paper, but I'll still probably test him out.

Now on the other hand, Liberator, Star Rain Trumpeter is a very useful grade 2. Whenever she's called, you can shuffle a Blaster Blade Liberator from your soul or drop zone into your deck to call the top card of your deck. This is really good because it can prevent you from running out of Blaster Blade Liberators, and it can also refill your field when Alfred can't. It can also pull Blaster Blade Liberators from out of your soul, since the only other way to do that is with Alfred. I wouldn't max it, however, because it's not always going to be live, but it's a very nice touch. It's also important that Star Rain Trumpeter doesn't come with a counterblast cost or soulblast cost, you just have to be able to return a Blaster Blade Liberator, leaving your other resources open for Alfred.

That might be it for the new Blaster Blade support, but let's not forget the older ones that we have. More specifically, Barcgal Liberator. Barcgal Liberator was introduced in Booster Set 12, and came with a cost efficient skill that activated when it boosted Blaster Blade Liberator and the attack hit a vanguard. Just for hitting a vanguard, you got to check the top three cards of your deck and call a Liberator. I don't know how effective he'll be, but it's a lot easier to use Blaster Blade Liberator, so he has a lot of potential for now.

Now there are also a handful of other Gold Paladins that deserve to be looked over. First off, Blunt Attack Liberator, Gold Lancer serves as support for Solitary Liberator, Gancelot, similar to Brunt Revenger, Shadow Lancer and Eternal Bringer Griffin for Shadow Paladin and Kagero respectively. When it's called, you can discard a grade 3 Gold Paladin to add Solitary Liberator, Gancelot from your deck to your hand. What it essentially does is increase the chances of you riding your Break Ride before your main boss, which is cool for Gancelot and all, but this brings me to one of Alfred's downsides.

When you think about it, Alfred doesn't really synergize that well with either of Gold Paladin's Break Rides. Gancelot can be relatively useless due to the fact that you can return all of your units to the deck and call them again, removing their power boosts. Steel Spear Liberator, Bleobis is pretty redundant as well. Alfred is going to end up filling your field anyway, so what's the point?

This raises an important question: what grade 3 do we run alongside Alfred? There are a lot of good Liberator bosses that can pair with Alfred decently enough, like Liberator Garmore and even Liberator of the Round Table, Alfred, but they don't really add much. I'll have to do more thinking on that later.

Now, this set isn't exactly all about Alfred and Blaster Blade Liberator. Liberator, Holy Shine Dragon is another brand new boss unit that in contrast works very well with your Break Rides. When you ride him, you can counterblast a Liberator to call the top card of your deck, which is pretty simple enough. His Limit Break is a unique one though. During your end phase, if Holy Shine Dragon is your vanguard, you can ride a different grade 3 that's in your soul and return Holy Shine Dragon to your hand. Basically, he works really well with Break Rides, since you can ride Holy Shine Dragon over Bleobis or Gancelot, use their skills, and then return it to your hand to Break Ride next turn!

I personally believe he has the most potential with Gancelot. Holy Shine Dragon lets you power up your field with Gancelot endless, turning your late game into a very powerful rush. You also have Holy Shine Dragon's counterblast skill to fill your field with targets that gain power. Not only that, but we now have Gold Lancer to get to Gancelot faster than ever! Overall, this unit is very interesting and has a lot of future potential as well, especially if we get even more Gold Paladin Break Rides.

After all of this, I personally believe that Gold Paladin is going to become one of the best decks once again. Alfred's Limit Break synergizes extremely well with all of the new Blaster Blade Liberator support, creating a very terrifying late game. Holy Shine Dragon and Gancelot make a really good duo as well, so that's also something worth trying. Let us know what you think of the new Gold Paladins in the comments section below and stay tuned for the next part of our coverage, where we go over the new Kagero units!