[ECG] Deck Check: Liberating the Lock - Monarch Sanctuary Alfred

[ECG] Deck Check: Liberating the Lock - Monarch Sanctuary Alfred

  Tuesday, September 16, 2014    byak

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Now that English players have gotten their hands on the new Booster Set 15, they have started to look into putting together decks with their new cards. One popular upcoming strategy features Alfred's new form, making Liberators stronger than ever before!

The last time we took a look at Liberators were when they received Liberator of Bonds, Gancelot Zenith, a Cross Break Ride of the original Solitary Liberator, Gancelot. Gancelot Zenith managed to support the Liberator deck by offering consistent power as opposed to consistent board presence. Zenith's attack would swap one of your rear-guards with a fresh one off the top of the deck, and the new unit would gain +10000 power for a turn, resulting in a fifth, powerful attack each turn. Combined with Cross Ride defense, this skill drove Gancelot Zenith to be a powerful unit for the Liberator army, but was he really enough?

The problem that held Gancelot Zenith back was, ironically, a problem that Liberators shouldn't normally have. Gancelot Zenith is good at applying damage pressure, but when he faces field control he actually struggles, since he doesn't actually create solid advantage. Both Gancelots relied heavily on your board being decently filled, and in a format where field control is one of the most popular strategies, Gancelot Zenith was overshadowed.

But fear not, Liberator fans! Booster Set 15 has just the right boss to give you a better impact on the metagame. Liberator of the Round Table, Alfred wasn't exactly the most game changing boss, but now Alfred is back with a lot more power than before! Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred tackles all of the criteria for the Liberator deck by generating advantage and creating power at the same time, while also having a special advantage against the popular Link Joker decks!

Monarch Sanctuary Alfred's Limit Break is his main feature, and it certainly does a lot. By counterblasting three and soul blasting two, you can place all of your rear-guards and locked units on the field on top of your deck. After that, you get to call up to five Liberators among the top five cards of your deck.

In addition to his Limit Break, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred also comes with a nifty Ultimate Break as well. If you manage to call Blaster Blade Liberator off the top of your deck while you're at five damage, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred gains +10000 power and an extra critical for a turn, adding icing to the top of the cake.

Monarch Sanctuary Alred's Limit Break effectively dictates the strategy you're going to want to follow when using him, and it also comes with a special duality. With an empty field, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred can use his skill to simply call the top five Liberators of your deck, giving you a straight +5 in card advantage. On the other hand, if your field is full, you can use the Limit Break to take advantage of units that trigger when called from the top of the deck. If you have a May Rain Liberator, Bruno or an Overcast Liberator, Geraint on your field among other Liberators, you can give them power boosts around +12000 or +9000, thanks to Monarch Sanctuary Alfred!

Shuffling your locked units back also effectively does wonders vs Link Joker, especially versus the upcoming Star-vader, "Omega" Glendios. As long as you can pay the cost, your opponent will be hesitant to commit to a heavy locking turn, since you can cancel it out thanks to Monarch Sanctuary Alfred.

Another interesting focal point is the aforementioned Ultimate Break. Despite the existence of Sentinels, +10000 power and an extra critical is nothing to laugh at, meaning you're going to want to incorporate Blaster Blade Liberator heavily in your build. This is hardly detrimental because Blaster Blade Liberator managed to pick up some very useful support for himself as well!

You might have a couple of questions regarding how the deck is going to play out. How can you abuse a triple counterblast skill, not to mention the two soul you need to pay each time? How does Blaster Blade Liberator generate value if he's a mediocre unit by himself? How does this deck compete versus field control consistently?

Liberating the Lock!
17 / 15 / 11 / 7

1 Yearning Liberator, Arum
4 Strike Liberator [Critical]
4 Liberator of Hope, Epona [Critical]
4 Armed Liberator, Gwydion [Draw]
4 Nappgal Liberator [Heal]

4 Halo Liberator, Mark
4 White Rainbow Liberator, Balan
4 Physical Force Liberator, Zorron
3 May Rain Liberator, Bruno

4 Blaster Blade Liberator
4 Overcast Liberator, Geraint
3 Liberator, Star Rain Trumpeter

4 Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred
3 Liberator of the Round Table, Alfred

Blaster Blade's New Friends!

The first thing to note is the newest starting vanguard for Liberators: Yearning Liberator, Arum. Liberators have had a reputation of not having an ideal starting vanguard for the longest time, and finally, they get what could be one of the most flexible starting vanguards they could get. Arum doesn't kick in until you reach grade 3, but when you do, you have the option of sending him to the soul to place a Blaster Blade Liberator on top of your deck. He doesn't really generate any advantage, but he certainly helps Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, due to the Ultimate Break.

Even if you didn't want to play Arum, there's hardly any other options to choose from. As long as your deck plays Blaster Blade Liberator, chances are Arum will be the unit of choice. There are many other reasons why fetching Blaster Blade Liberator is important, and we'll get to those soon.

The grade 1 line-up probably got the biggest renovation compared to older Liberator decks, and for good reason. White Rainbow Liberator, Balan comes from Booster Set 15 as an instant inclusion in the deck due to the heavy utility he brings. While Balan is on the field as a rear-guard, whenever you manage to call Blaster Blade Liberator to the field through any means, you can un-flip one of your damage. He's effectively Barrier Trooper Revenger, Dorint for your Blaster Blade Liberator, except better for so many reasons. He doesn't have to be in the same column as Blaster Blade Liberator, for one, meaning multiple Balans can end up triggering at the same time if you have them.

You also have to consider the nature of Gold and Shadow Paladins when comparing Balan and Dorint. In the case of Gold Paladins, and in our case, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, there are a lot of ways to let Blaster Blade Liberator hit the board, making the damage recycling easy to reach. If you have multiple Balans or Blaster Blade Liberators on the field, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred's skill can effectively cost no counterblasts once all of your skills resolve, and Blaster Blade Liberator's counterblast cost can also be non-existent if you have multiple Balans on the field, but in the case of Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, you need to declare the order of what's called in order to reap the benefits. Needless to say, Balan's the MVP for the new Alfred builds.

Now that it's clear where you get all of the damage un-flipping from, but where does the soul come from? Alfred's soul blast cost is also pretty significant, despite no other Liberators requiring soul blasts to use. Considering you ride normally and use your starting vanguard's skill, you'll only have three soul to use. If you ride another grade 3 before Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, you'll have four soul, but you'll still want to use his skill more than twice in a game.

This is where the new Physical Force Liberator, Zorron comes into play. When Zorron is called from the deck, you can slide him into the soul to check the top three cards and call a Liberator from them. In addition to normally being called from the deck, he can also be triggered from the field if you use Alfred's skill, so he's rarely dead. Zorron offers a few things to the rest of the deck, with the primary feature being the one extra soul. He gives an extra +3000 to both Bruno and Geraint during the turn you use him, and he can also dig for either Balan or Blaster Blade Liberator to allow you to un-flip more damage. Four copies of Zorron is also needed so you can easily tie everything together.

Powering Up!

Three copies of May Rain Liberator, Bruno tops off the grade 1 lineup. If there was room to play four Bruno, I'd probably play them in a heartbeat, but unfortunately, there's only room for three. We even go past the standard number of 14 grade 1's to include another copy of Zorron, so even including three Bruno is a stretch. Regardless, he's very strong in Alfred's deck. Since you choose the order of the units called via Monarch Sanctuary Alfred's Limit Break, you can call your Brunos and Geraints first, meaning they soak up the power from the other units being called.

The first copy you call will gain a total of +12000 from the other units while the second copy gains +9000 and so on. Throwing Zorron into the equation adds +3000 to each one as well, resulting in potentially powering your whole board up to ridiculous levels.

Thankfully there's room in the grade 2 lineup to max out on Geraint, giving you a total of seven of these "power attackers". At the least, you only really need at least two of them on the field, but you need to be careful and protect your Geraints, since they're more vulnerable than your Brunos.

Geraint and Bruno become even more powerful once you reach five damage, since your opponent will begin to deal with the huge center column as a result of your Ultimate Break, and passing criticals to your rear-guards when they break 26000 power is threatening enough to end the game.





Surviving the Early Game!

A noticeable flaw in Monarch Sanctuary Alfred is that, like most of the Liberator bosses, his skills don't kick in until late in the game, where board creation loses a lot of value. Thankfully in the case of Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, he's good no matter what your board is looking like at the time, but there is still a need for some sort of advantage in the early game. Liberator, Star Rain Trumpeter caps off our grade 2 line-up, and she's more oriented to the early game.

When you call Star Rain Trumpeter to the field, you can return a Blaster Blade Liberator from either your soul or drop zone to the deck to call the top card of your deck to an open rear-guard circle, no other strings attached. The interesting thing about Trumpeter she has the ability to return Blaster Blade Liberators from your soul, which, without any other soul blasts, is the land of no return for your Blaster Blade. Putting him back in the deck not only puts a new unit on your board, but also increases the chances of you finding one later into the game, which shouldn't be ignored. The only time Trumpeter loses value is when your field is full, but outside of those cases, Trumpeter is almost always good to play.

Last, but certainly not least, we partner up our Monarch Sanctuary Alfred with three copies of the original Liberator of the Round Table, Alfred. This is a bit of a controversial pick since the old Alfred doesn't really offer anything exciting to the deck. People would rather run Silver Fang Liberator, Garmore or Liberator of Bonds, Gancelot Zenith, but I prefer the old Alfred because he gives you something to do in the early game.

While the old Alfred's Limit Break lets him grow huge based on the amount of Liberators on the field, it's important to also note his counterblast skill, which calls the top card from your deck. Calling the top card of your deck isn't really anything special, but being able to do it before Limit Break can potentially save you. Keep in mind you can get a return for the damage you invest in with Balan, and you can even combo the old Alfred with Arum if you have Balans on the field already to start developing your field.

Alfred's Limit Break also kicks in at certain points, giving him a 21000 un-boosted base to attack with, which is surprisingly huge towards the end of the game. He may be no Gancelot Zenith or Garmore, but he doesn't have to be, since Monarch Sanctuary Alfred is what you should be using at that stage of the game.

General Strategy

As this deck is unable to fit in power attackers or Liberator of the Flute, Escrad, this deck's early game is very difficult to crawl out of. Your only points of redemption come from the old Alfred and Star Rain Trumpeter, and hopefully they can be enough to prepare yourself for Monarch Sanctuary Alfred. Once you reach Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, you want to be careful of when you use his Limit Break, because if you can't get the Balan value to return your investment, you'll be stuck for the rest of the game without any kind of power spikes.

Riding multiple Monarch Sanctuary Alfreds is a good alternative method to build up soul, but should only be used as a last resort. It's hard to miss Zorron, but it does happen in some cases and you'll be stuck with one soul, despite having all of the Balans in the world. Once you have the ideal setup, you want to be using your Limit Breaks as often as possible to capitalize off of the power coming from Geraint and Bruno.

When you're playing against retire based and lock based decks, you want to value your Limit Break more than ever. Instead of looking for Geraint and Bruno value, you'll want to set up your field so you can use your Limit Break as many times as possible, since your Geraints and Brunos will most likely be detained anyway.

Conclusion

Despite the deck not getting as much attention as the other big contenders of Booster Set 15, Liberators are definitely at their strongest right now. Monarch Sanctuary Alfred provides one of the strongest late games Gold Paladin has ever had, thanks to Bruno and Geraint. They might not have a 100% chance versus Glendios as a deck, but they probably have the best chance compared to any other good deck right now. Stay tuned for more coverage on Booster Set 15 and the recent release of Neon Messiah, and as always, thanks for reading.