[JCG] Deck Check: Eternal Abyss, Phantom Blaster!

[JCG] Deck Check: Eternal Abyss, Phantom Blaster!

  Saturday, July 05, 2014    byak

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Phantom Blaster Dragon is back once again, bearing the title of Revenger and having his own Legion Mate! People have been hyping him ever since his reveal a few months ago, but does his presentation meet up to the hype?

Extra Booster 11: Requiem at Dusk hit Japanese shelves very recently, along with the Genesis Extra Booster, Waltz of the Goddess. The cover card of Requiem at Dusk was what sparked its initial hype: Revenger, Phantom Blaster "Abyss" and his Mate, Blaster Dark Revenger "Abyss". Their skills remained for a considerable amount of time, but were eventually revealed.

From the anime, what could be concluded was that Phantom Blaster "Abyss" could retire three units and counterblast two to re-stand himself after an attack. This sounded very reasonable, considering how it matched up to its Seeker counterpart, Sing Saver Dragon. However, when the official scan was shown, it was found that the new king of Revengers could only use his skill during the turn you Legion with him, AND it could only be used once per turn. Not only that, but he could only retire Revenger units.

At this point, the unit seemed strictly worse than Sing Saver Dragon on many levels. While the once per turn clause would never really be an issue, considering you wouldn't always be able to retire three of your units twice in a turn, the fact that it could only be used during the turn you Legion hurt it a lot. In the case of a unit like Sing Saver Dragon, you had the option to use your Legion as soon as possible, and then when you saw that it was appropriate, you would go for the Superior Ride skill to attack again. Unfortunately with Phantom Blaster Dragon "Abyss", you had to hold off your Legion until the time was right.

Only being able to retire Revenger units for the cost was equally troublesome, considering the era that Vanguard is in. More and more cards are becoming generic, theoretically allowing them to be used in any clan. Unless tournament rules prevented you, you could actually get away with splashing four copies of Sing Saver Dragon in just about any deck, since none of his skills relied on you using Royal Paladins, outside of the fact that you needed a Blaster Blade Seeker.

Now Revengers might not be the easiest deck to mesh with other clans, but consider all of the regular Shadow Paladins that your options could extend to. Witch of Nostrum, Arianrhod for example was a clone of Lake Maiden, Lien, a unit that developed a very good reputation in the Seeker deck for making the cost of Legion almost non-existent. However, if you try to use Arianrhod with Phantom Blaster "Abyss", it'll end up clogging your field due to not being a Revenger. This issue becomes more prevalent when you pull out multiples of them, along with Black-winged Swordbreakers.

Even with all of these cons on the table, when it came to testing, Phantom Blaster "Abyss" was actually very solid. His mate, Blaster Dark Revenger "Abyss" was also very useful, as it was basically the same thing as Blaster Blade Seeker with a distinct difference. At the cost of a counterblast, instead of retiring a front row unit, you get to retire a back row unit, allowing you snipe off units that would otherwise be inaccessible!

In development of a proper Revenger list, I used a Revenger deck that recently did well at a team tournament as a reference point, and quickly understood the choices that the player had made. To put it simply, despite getting a Legion, Revengers as a deck still prefer to follow a older Break Ride playstyle.

Eternal Abyss a.k.a. Doge Control a.k.a. Judgment of Judgebau
18 / 13 / 11 / 8

2 Judgebau Revenger
4 Grim Revenger [Critical]
4 Revenger, Air Raid Dragon [Critical]
4 Freezing Revenger [Draw]
4 Healing Revenger [Heal]

4 Revenger of Darkness, Mac Lir
3 Self-control Revenger, Rakia
3 Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter
2 Black-winged Swordbreaker
1 Sharp Point Revenger, Shadow Lancer

4 Overcoming Revenger, Rukea
4 Wily Revenger, Mana
3 Blaster Dark Revenger "Abyss"

4 Revenger, Phantom Blaster "Abyss"
2 Illusionary Revenger, Mordred Phantom
2 Revenger, Dragruler Phantom

The funny thing about the new Revenger deck is that it's basically the same deck as old Revenger deck from Booster Set 15. The primary difference is that instead of using Revenger, Raging Form Dragon, we use Phantom Blaster "Abyss". A Break Ride deck might seem a bit odd in this era, so how does it work?

Well, as obvious as it seems, the deck is meant to transition from Revenger's Break Ride, Mordred Phantom into either Phantom Blaster "Abyss" or Dragruler Phantom. One thing that sets Phantom Blaster "Abyss" above Sing Saver Dragon is that he's not turning into a new copy of himself from your deck. This means that he retains all sorts of boosts and trigger effects, so if you Break Ride over Mordred Phantom, Phantom Blaster "Abyss" will have the +10000 power for both swings. If you pull a critical trigger on the first swing, you have the option of stacking all of the benefits onto your dragon.

Mordred also really helps pull the deck's field together, due to his Break Ride skill. As most of you know, when you ride over him, you can pay a counterblast to grab any grade 2 or less Shadow Paladin from the deck (it gets a +5000 boost as well!), along with giving your vanguard +10000 power. The unit that you pull out will probably become fodder for your Dragon, seeing as how hungry he is for your own field. Mordred brings utility to your strategy, since Revengers have a lot of different units for different situations, and he lets you pull out the right ones you need for the job.

Dragruler Phantom's not the worst boss unit, either. For a quick recap, he's a Break Ride for Mordred, and on top of that, his Limit Break allows him to deal damage to your opponent before you even attack. By counterblasting one and retiring two Revengers, you can deal one damage to your opponent (as long as they're not at five damage) and give Dragruler +10000 power for the turn. Dragruler really accelerates the state of the game, as it can ramp your opponent up to five damage really easily with the fodder that Shadow Paladin have access to you, making the end of the game nigh, especially given the power boosts you can apply to your field.

The ideal path with these three boss units is that Mordred gives you something to prepare for Dragruler Phantom, and when Dragruler Phantom hits the board, you get to ramp your opponent up to four or five damage effortlessly. Even if your opponent manages to defend that push, Phantom Blaster "Abyss" shows up right after to puts its Legion skill into action in a situation where your opponent has to guard or lose the game. Raging Form Dragon was once a part of this strategy, but now with Phantom Blaster "Abyss", you don't have to rely on having another copy from your hand to attack twice. The only downside is that in exchange, you need to have enough counterblast available. This is perhaps what will separate an experienced Revenger player to a new Revenger player.

Another bonus to using Phantom Blaster "Abyss" over Raging Form Dragon is actually because of its name. Being a Phantom allows you to use him with Revenger's strongest starting vanguard: Judgebau Revenger. This little doggy, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful starting vanguards in the game, and there's very good reasons why. If Judgebau boosts a Phantom unit and manages to hit, you can counterblast one and send him to the soul to pull any two grade 1 or lower Shadow Paladins from your deck of your choice. While Judgebau has to rely on a hit, as long as you're sitting on a grade 3, you'll be fulfilling the initial conditions. And in my opinion, I highly doubt that your opponent will always be able to guard an attack from your vanguard.

While riding over your starting vanguard gives a +1 in card advantage to your field, Judgebau goes one step beyond and turns his +1 into a +2 over time, while the units you call from him grant even more card advantage or damage pressure by just reaching the field. You can even pull out the other copy of Judgebau if you can afford the minor counterblast cost a second time.

So what targets do you have exactly? Most of the time when I use Judgebau, my primary targets include at least one copy of Black-winged Swordbreaker. Swordbreaker is essentially a clone of Listener of Truth, Dindrane: when it's called from the deck, you can soul blast a card to draw a card. Considering Revengers don't really feed from the soul and Phantom Blaster "Abyss" loves cards in the drop zone to initiate its Legion, this card is always great to grab.

The only two downsides to using Swordbreaker are that it's not a Revenger and it has 6000 power. While the 6000 power is worth dealing with for the card advantage it rewards, it not being a Revenger hurts a lot more than one would usually think. Not being a Revenger basically makes it impossible to get it off the field, since neither Dragruler nor Phantom Blaster "Abyss" can eat it up for their skills. You basically have to make your opponent want to get it off the field by moving it to the front row or positioning it in a way that your opponent will end up using a skill to retire it. There's definitely a lot of value in using Swordbreaker though. In conjunction with Judgebau, it's basically how you earn your card advantage before you Break Ride, allowing you to compete with the strong early game power of other Legion decks. You can also grab it with Mordred's Break Ride skill, which often isn't the worst of plays. Overall, the card is probably the only staple in Revengers that isn't a Revenger.

Revenger, Dark Bond Trumpeter is also a card advantage engine. While it carries the name of Revenger, it's unfortunately not as valuable as Swordbreaker. When it hits the field, you can counterblast one to pull a grade 0 Revenger from your deck at rest. Unlike Swordbreaker, this skill can be used when you call it from your hand, making it a lot less dead in that case. On the other hand, its targets are usually not the greatest. Your only ideal options are the second Judgebau and every trigger in your deck. The reason to use Dark Bond is that it creates fodder without costing you more card advantage. While you might not always have the counterblast for her, the times you do will really pay off, making your skills very easy to use. In the case of this deck specifically, you also have access to Legion in order to restock your deck with triggers.

Another thing to consider is that Dark Bond only calls the unit in rest, which usually sucks since that one column won't have access to a booster for a turn. However, you're usually retiring that unit anyway, and the one turn stall isn't always relevant. Dark Bond might not have the combat stats to be a useful booster either, but thankfully we also have a pair of Revengers that can produce huge columns!

Self-control Revenger, Rakia and Overcoming Revenger, Rukea have been in the game since Booster Set 15, but I foolishly had not given them that much attention until now. As usual, they're a grade 1 / grade 2 pair with 7000 and 9000 power respectively, but they have the ability to power up during your turn. When you call a Shadow Paladin to the field, depending on the grade, Rakia and Rukea gain +3000 power for the rest of the turn. For Rakia, he only triggers if the unit called was a grade 0, but Rukea triggers when you call a grade 1 or less.

While they might seem like cheap May Rain Liberator, Bruno and Overcast Liberator, Geraint clones, the important factor about them is that they trigger even when a unit is called from your hand. Ideally they can create huge fields after you retire units for one of your grade 3 skills, since you're going to commit more from your hand anyway. They also synergize very well with the units that pull fodder from your deck, like Judgebau and Dark Bond. Along with that, they become a lot more relevant when you ramp your opponent to five damage with Dragruler Phantom, since their power cannot be ignored. They're very useful during the turn you use Judgebau as well, since you can pull a Swordbreaker and Dark Bond from your deck. Swordbreaker draws you another card and Dark Bond pulls out your second Judgebau from your deck. Your whole back row might be at rest at this point, but Rukea would theoretically be at 18000 power while Rakia would be at 10000 power.

Another unit that pulls out fodder with ease and helps pump up Rukea and Rakia is Wily Revenger, Mana, another unit coming from Booster Set 15. When Mana hits the field, without counterblasting you can pull any grade 1 Revenger from your deck to the same column as her. Unfortunately the unit gets shuffled back to the deck at the end of the turn, but when you're using Mana, odds are you only need that one unit for a turn. While you can't pull out Swordbreaker (Seriously, that would be insanely powerful, like holy cow), Dark Bond and even Rakia are decent targets, but any unit works as the one you bring out will more than likely be retired.

Mana basically allows Dragruler to only consume a single card, which helps you retain card advantage for the following turns, and is also a prime Mordred target. Pulling out Dark Bond also lets you extend your card advantage forward in the instance where you need more. Theoretically, going Mana into Dark Bond lets you pay the entire cost of Phantom Blaster "Abyss"!

Mana can also be very key for your early game, and is the reason why the deck can get away with only two copies of Mordred. Our last grade 1 support unit is Sharp Point Revenger, Shadow Lancer, and the reason only one copy is included is because its only ideal purpose is to be grabbed by Mana early on. When Shadow Lancer hits the field, you can discard any grade 3 to add a Mordred straight to your hand. While this skill is hardly useful after you reach your grade 3 stage, it allows you to turn any grade 3 into Mordred, granted you draw into Mana. I'd probably play more than one Shadow Lancer if it weren't for the large amount of good grade 1 Revengers, but even then, it doesn't do anything after the early game. Still, seeing Mordred a lot more often, even with two copies, can be pretty huge.

Overall, one of the best selling points of Revengers are their consistency. There are almost too many skills that pull out Revengers of your choice, letting you build your field the way you want it to. While the strategy worked decently with Raging Form Dragon, Phantom Blaster "Abyss" basically does the same thing but simply better. Obviously it's a bit slower than Legion strategies since Mordred needs to wait for four damage, but since you play four copies of Phantom Blaster "Abyss" you can adapt to a different play style on the fly and use him up early to pressure damage in a different way. Either way, this deck definitely takes advantage of Legion almost as well as other new decks, albeit in a slightly different fashion.

Revengers aren't the only deck to be supported in this Extra Booster, so stay tuned for next time, where we go over the other new archetype split over two clans: Witches!