[JCG] Deck Check: World's End - Act II

[JCG] Deck Check: World's End - Act II

  Monday, March 17, 2014    byak

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I did say I was going back to Star-vader, "Omega" Glendios as a deck, especially considering I drafted a list before it gained a bunch of really good support. If you weren't entirely convinced with Glendios before, I think you'd be convinced now.

The main buff that Glendios received with its own support was a revision of its own grade 1 lineup. We went over them in our Monthly Bushiroad coverage last month, and it was clear that the support was much better than our old lineup of Opener of Dark Gates, Prison Gate Star-vader, Palladium, and Mana Shot Star-vader, Neon. Along with these changes, Link Joker also got their own Reverse unit, which is actually very useful considering the context. These two buffs slightly restructured the whole deck, so let's take a look at what we have now.

World's End - Act II
17 / 12 / 6 / 15

1 Star-vader, World Line Dragon
1 Star-vader, Nebula Captor [Draw]
1 Star-vader, Jailer Tail [Draw]
2 Star-vader, Scounting Ferris [Draw]
2 Star-vader, Meteor Liger [Critical]
3 Star-vader, Weiss Soldat [Critical]
3 Star-vader, Spark Doll [Critical]
4 Recollection Star-vader, Tellurium [Heal]

4 Taboo Star-vader, Rubidium
3 Star-vader, Ruin Magician
2 Engraving Star-vader, Praseodymium
2 Barrier Star-vader, Promethium
1 Prison Gate Star-vader, Palladium

4 Star-vader, Magnet Hollow
2 Star-vader, Colony Maker

4 Star-vader, "Omega" Glendios
4 Star-vader, "Reverse" Cradle
7 Reverse Units

Once again, any Reverse units work. There are extremely niche situations where one might be better than the other to ride, but if you're riding a Reverse unit, you're probably not in a good position.

For a quick recap, I'll go over Glendios and Star-vader, World Line Dragon again. Glendios' skills allows it to thrive in a deck full of Reverse units. Once per turn, when you call a Reverse unit, you can lock any rear-guard, without any counterblast cost. Additionally, all of your Reverse units are treated as Link Joker and gain +4000 power, making them hit for very good numbers. Glendios comes with a Limit Break and Ultimate Break as well. Its Limit Break can prevent your opponent from unlocking their units for a turn by paying a counterblast and discarding a Reverse unit. Its Ultimate Break wins you the game, as long as at the beginning of your turn, your opponent has five locked units. However, it's a very inconsistent Ultimate Break, since there's a lot of factors that can let your opponent play around it. It can still come into play sometimes, though.

World Line Dragon allows your deck to play very unnatural grade ratios while still being very consistent. At the beginning of your ride phases, if you have a Link Joker vanguard that isn't grade 3, you can discard a Reverse unit to look at the top five cards of your deck and add one Link Joker to your hand. This can be used while it's in the soul as well, so at the least you'll be able to use this guy three times to dig for your combo pieces.

The deck still holds the same game plan as it did before. Every single Reverse unit that you use breaks 21000 power extremely easily, making it difficult for your opponent to catch up. This time around we bumped our critical triggers all the way up to eight and knocked our draw triggers back down to four. This is because our grade 1's now generate ridiculous advantage, so we can keep up advantage while pressuring damage with criticals.

Star-vader, Ruin Magician is the main reason why we're able to do this. When Ruin Magician is called as a rear-guard, you can counterblast one to add Reverse units from your drop zone to your hand equal to the amount of Reverse rear-guards you control. Glendios obviously needs a lot of Reverse units to do what it needs to do, and this only helps fuel the fire. Usually you might have two or even three Reverse units out, turning Ruin Magician into a +2 or +3 in card advantage, which is pretty ridiculous considering it's a grade 1 and it only costs a single counterblast. Plus, with World Line Dragon, your drop zone will get filled with Reverse units pretty quickly, so you can get early advantage with this unit.

Don't be afraid to commit a lot of Reverse units for this card, even if Glendios can only be used once per turn. Despite putting unnecessary units on the board, you get your advantage back very heavily with Ruin Magician. It might even put you ahead as a result. Just don't waste this card, because it's what sustains you throughout the game.

Unfortunately, this turns Glendios into a pretty counterblast heavy deck, considering you're paying one damage for each Ruin Magician and one damage every time you want to use Glendios' Limit Break. Fortunately, Bushiroad had us covered on this one as well. Engraving Star-vader, Praseodymium functions similarly to Ruin Magician, except for each Reverse unit you control, you get to un-flip one damage (and it doesn't cost a counterblast to use). This guarantees that we'll almost always have damage open for our units, and it still makes 21000 columns with your Reverse units, since they're at 15000.

I advise you to use Praseodymium sparingly. Space is tight, so I was only able to fit in two. You can always fit in more if you want, but with two copies, you might end up needing more counterblasts in the late game, so keep this in mind.

Since these grade 1's are so powerful, we're throwing two Star-vader, Colony Makers into the grade 2 lineup. It's also true that getting a grade 2 was the weak point of the deck as well, since there were originally only four copies of Star-vader, Magnet Hollow, so adding more certainly helps that. When Colony Maker is called and your opponent has a locked unit, you can counterblast one to pull a grade 1 Star-vader from your deck. The condition of having a locked unit is very easy to get around, because Glendios makes locking simple in this deck. As a result you can fetch Ruin Magician or Praseodymium, but it does cost a decent amount of damage to use. However, using Praseodymium to combo with this card will result in you probably having more free damage than you started with, so keep that in mind. Additionally, you can pull out the one copy of Prison Gate Star-vader, Palladium in case you want to keep a unit locked before your Limit Break is available.

To be honest, I really underestimated Taboo Star-vader, Rubidium when it was first shown. When you guard with Rubidium and you have Glendios as a vanguard, you can retire Rubidium to switch the attack to a Reverse rear-guard you control. Now this card is extremely useful, since it's basically a Sentinel that's not treated as a Sentinel, meaning you can use it and Prometheum in the same deck. What I wasn't aware of at first is that the Reverse unit doesn't have to be in the front row to take the hit. What turned me off from this card was the fact that your opponent could attack or retire your front row to go straight for your vanguard and make Rubidium useless. However, since you're calling a large amount of Reverse units, it's highly plausible to have one in the back row, and that one can soak the attack with help from Rubidium. This card is extremely powerful and makes Glendios that much tankier of a deck. Of course, we also play two copies of Prometheum to get extra Glendios out of our hand and simply just become more defensive.

Star-vader, "Reverse" Cradle is our last new unit for the deck, and while it isn't exactly powerful in what it does, it makes the deck a lot more flexible. Its skills aren't very useful, unfortunately. Its Limit Break is a copy of Glendios' locking skill, and it makes all of your Reverse units Link Joker as well. The cool part about it is searchable through both World Line Dragon and Magnet Hollow. While there are games where Glendios might not get to your hand, if you manage to ride a Magnet Hollow and hit, you can fetch "Reverse" Cradle as a safety net for next turn. The problem with riding any other Reverse unit is that their Lord skill had a high chance of kicking in and shutting your whole field down, which was definitely an awful experience. Now while this guy isn't exactly Glendios, he's still a grade 3 that's very safe to ride until you do get Glendios, which gives it some justification. Additionally, including him increases the chances of getting something decent off of World Line Dragon. Previously, you might only reveal Reverse units and triggers, but now, the chances are slightly more in your favor since you can now grab a "Reverse" Cradle.

This deck has remained ridiculous through testing, and I'm impressed with its success. Theoretically it should be very good versus the new Kagero deck featuring Dragonic Overlord "The Re-birth" since you can Ultimate Break them or just keep their field locked if they try to extend on you. I would say it still has a relatively tough time versus Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague, but most decks do anyway. Regardless, a buff is a buff, and now the deck applies more damage and retains more advantage than before. Some might argue that the deck has a tough time versus Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred and its unlocking Limit Break, but I'd say Glendios has a decent chance against it. Despite them shutting down your Locks, they need White Rainbow Liberator, Balan to do it repeatedly or else they'll lose all of their counterblast. And even without Lock, the deck has loads more defense along with 21000+ columns almost always, so it can certainly give Alfred a run for its money. The only problem with playing the deck in the actual card game is the price tag that Glendios carries. It's by far the rarest card in the set, and it carries a very high price, plus you need four copies of him. That's the only thing in my opinion keeping it from doing consistently well, and I wonder if it'll be the same way in the English game. Still, in a format where money doesn't matter, I consider Glendios to be one of the best decks by far. Thanks for reading, as always, and stick around for more Deck Checks for the Japanese metagame!