[JCG] Breaking Down Deletors

[JCG] Breaking Down Deletors

  Thursday, September 11, 2014    byak

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The Deletors are almost upon us. Since their initial reveal last month, we've been able to learn more and more about them, including their unique mechanic: delete. Read on to find out more about them and our predictions on the impact that they will bring to the game!

As some of you might remember from our last article, Deletors are slated to be another branch of Link Joker, similar to Star-vaders. The two subdivisions are, as far as we know, unrelated, but they both feature an essence of control. Star-vaders have always been about manipulating rear-guards with their lock mechanic to restrict the amount of attacks per turn, but Deletors take things one step further and take on an alternative target: your opponent's vanguard.

Delete!

We first learned about what delete truly was when Daunting Deletor Woksis was featured as a card of the day. The odd characteristic about Woksis is that he's neither a Legion or a Limit Break unit, and his primary skill only costs three especial counterblasts to use, along with sliding a unit on your field into the soul. By paying this cost, Woksis gains +10000 power for the turn, and in addition, you get to delete your opponent's vanguard, rendering it powerless for a whole turn.

Deleting, as defined by Bushiroad, is signified by flipping your opponent's vanguard face-down. While a vanguard is deleted, its power is treated as zero and it loses all of its skill text. Similar to lock, deleting only lasts for a turn, but a turn is long enough, considering all of the value your opponent loses by not having access to their vanguard. However, if your opponent's vanguard is deleted, they can cancel out the delete by riding over it, and their previous vanguard would simply become a part of your soul. It's also been confirmed that Legion mates are retained face-down with your vanguard, but they also lose their power and skill text. Grade 3's also retain twin drive, in the case you don't have the second grade 3 to redeem your otherwise hindered turn.

The easiest comparison to make with Woksis is with Dimension Police's Galactic Beast, Zeal (which is funny to think about, considering they're both extraterrestrial in lore), except Woksis is leagues better for several obvious reasons. Even if your opponent has the additional grade 3 to ride over their deleted vanguard, Woksis has an additional skill whose roots derive from Murakumo's Dueling Dragon, ZANBAKU. If your opponent's vanguard is deleted, Woksis forces them to discard a single card if they want to ride over it, making it more pestering to deal with.

There's also an alternative to using Woksis, included in the Movie Booster. Juxtapose Deletor, Zwill is a Legion that actually deletes with a cheaper cost, with a few drawbacks included. When you Legion with his mate, you can counterblast two and discard to delete your opponent's vanguard. You get the same result that Woksis comes with, but even if you counterblast one less card, Zwill doesn't come with the additional skill that forces out a card like Woksis does. Zwill is also a one time skill, unless you ride another copy of him. With Zwill, however, you gain Legion and the ability to refill your deck with triggers, so it'd be logical to run both Woksis and Zwill, but Woksis is most likely going to be the primary source of deleting.

Regardless of which grade 3 you revolve your strategy around, the main point to focus on when using delete is the ability to reduce a vanguard's power to zero for the minimum of your turn. This opens potential to all sorts of pressure units, and along with them, stand triggers. Not only does it become extremely easy to make viable columns with delete, but Bushiroad thought ahead and gave Deletors access to units that Link Joker players have wanted for the longest time!

Greedy Deletor, Jewiru is officially the first Bellicosity Dragon clone for Link Joker, and he's making his debut in the upcoming Movie Booster. He might appear to be the average on-hit damage un-flipper, but he synergizes with the deck's playstyle more than other cards with the same skill text. As it would appear, another drawback to Woksis' deleting ability is the fact that its cost is extremely heavy. Three counterblasts basically say that, by itself, Woksis only has the capability of triggering himself once per game.

However, when you throw Jewiru into the equation, it becomes a lot easier to pull it off multiple times. While Jewiru is basically live at any point where you have flipped damage, he's even scarier during the turn your delete your opponent's vanguard, since their power goes down to 0! You need a minimum of a 6000 power booster for Jewiru to force out 20000 worth of guard, which is extremely easy to find. If you overlap this with the rest of your field already hitting extremely hard, it becomes very difficult for your opponent to withstand your attacks, thus increasing the chances of you getting value from Jewiru, translating into another turn of deleting.

Lock!

On the topic of on-hit units, Deletors also have access to two units that incorporate lock with your strategy through the application of pressure. Penetrate Deletor, Iggy certainly doesn't seem like much at first look. If he lands a hit on a vanguard while it's deleted, you can lock a front row unit for free. With a 10000 base and rear-guard only skill, he's really poor to mix in with your other grade 3's, but he's extremely rewarding to play on the field with Woksis. Even with such a weak base, it becomes irrelevant when you're attacking a deleted vanguard, due to the humongous power reduction. Being able to lock out your opponent's whole front row and delete their vanguard on top of that makes it nearly impossible for your opponent to fight back next turn.

Of course, he's also really useless when your opponent's vanguard isn't deleted. If you haven't won a few turns after you've brought Woksis onto the field, your Iggy is probably going to lose a whole lot of value as well. However, Iggy is what helps you seal the game along with Woksis, so if you draw into him, the post-delete stage of the game should be irrelevant.

If 10000 power grade 3's aren't quite your fancy, there's an alternative that's a bit easier to work with. Infatuation Deletor, Guwimu functions exactly like Iggy, except he kicks in when he boosts, as opposed to attacking, making him a lot easier to fit in a deck. He also comes with the average 7000 power for a grade 1, making him more useful at all stages of the game.

It's no question that Guwimu will be included in just about every Deletor deck, and while I can't say the same about Iggy, there's still an element of lock that Deletors bring to the battlefield. This prevents them from being a gimmicky one trick pony, even if all of your tricks are initiated from an initial delete. If anything, Iggy is easier to use than Guwimu in the case of playing stand triggers in your Deletor deck, which is logical since your vanguard allows your high pressure units to thrive more than just about any other deck in vanguard.

Your deck doesn't have to be restricted to pressure, however! If Guwimu and Iggy aren't good enough for you, Juxtapose Deletor, Gwill might be what you want. Gwill has the ability to lock while your opponent has a deleted vanguard, but instead of being a pressure skill, the skill kicks in when you call him. While he's a lot easier to activate than the other two, you also have to hold him before you get to your actual deleting, which can take away from his potential board value. This hardly makes any difference on how good he is, though. Also, as you may have guessed from his name, he's also Zwill's mate, making him a lot more important to include if you're focusing on Legion.

With Gwill on the table, it's basically set that Deletors have at least three options to lock rear-guards, which gives them enough potential to stand up to the Legion Link Joker builds that have been popping out of nowhere from recent releases. Deletors as a whole might not be able to lock as often as their Link Joker partners, but they have the ability to delete along with locking, which might even set them one step higher than their predecessors.

Draw!

Another boon that all of Link Joker gain from Deletors is a Luck Bird clone, after a whole two seasons! While Routing Deletor, Ganowek might not please the whole Link Joker crowd, as it doesn't carry the Star-vader name, he's certainly more than welcome in Deletors for many reasons! The first reason is that he exists to be a free card on the field, since he replaces the investment you make to commit him to the board at the cost of two of your soul, which no other Deletor utilizes anyway.

Another perk to running Ganowek is that even he, with his measly 5000 power, has enough strength to make an impact versus a deleted vanguard. He also acts as easy fodder for Woksis' cost, making it less of a minus to send him to the soul. Ganowek meshes in perfectly with the rest of the Deletors, and his low base power is easily mitigated by the nature of the deck, making him an excellent card to choose.

Another card that makes Ganowek shine is the starting vanguard that comes with the Trial Deck, Acquirer Deletor, Igor. He doesn't provide much, but when your delete your opponent's vanguard, Igor can send himself to the soul to draw you an extra card and un-flip a damage, which is really convenient to have. Igor, by himself, allows you to use Woksis at least twice in a game, since the first time you use his skill it effectively costs two counterblasts. He also replaces his investment with the extra draw, making him really easy to include and use.

You could also probably get away with running multiple copies of Igor, but it'd be difficult to incorporate. The reward is that you fill your soul up even more for Ganowek and make Woksis even more counterblast efficient. Of course, if the first delete doesn't go well, the whole strategy can blow up in your face, but if you resolve multiple Igors in the same game it's hard to fall behind in resources.

Deletors also have support that allows them to expand their field as a result of delete, as if locking wasn't enough! However, Clipping Deletor, Evo isn't as attractive as some of the other choices you have. He comes with an on-call skill that, with the cost of two counterblasts, brings a Deletor from your deck to the field if your opponent's vanguard is deleted. While it sounds appealing on first read, the counterblast cost is what really butchers it.

At the moment, delete is a very difficult mechanic to reach over the course of a game. Woksis provides an instant delete, but he comes with an extremely heavy cost to make it work. If you want to be able to use this skill multiple times in a game, you can't allocate your damage to other cards like Evo, even if he can bring your pressure units to the field. Unless deleting becomes a lot cheaper for whatever reason, including Evo becomes detrimental for most Deletor builds, unfortunately.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, this is all of the Deletor support we've been lucky enough to see so far. The full contents of the upcoming movie products will be spoiled very soon, and we're most likely going to get standard clones to fill up the rest of the deck with. Power attackers hold a lot of value with deleting, especially the grade 1 power attacker, because of how easy they can create damage pressure without boosters. We'll most likely pick up some more unique units for the deck on the way, so there might be additional focuses that can shape the playstyle of the deck as we go along.

As it stands right now, Deletors are among the top of the control decks in vanguard, due to how oppressive delete can be. Unlike lock, delete opens up a lot of potential for pressure units, since it becomes a lot easier to apply on-hit pressure against a 0 power vanguard. Because of this, I imagine some of the best Deletor builds focusing on stands, especially if they pick up a utility stand trigger like most decks in this era. For now, feel free to leave your questions and comments about Deletors down below, and stay tuned. We're planning on rolling out Booster Set 15 content alongside our Japanese content, so don't feel like we're neglecting the English game! As always, thanks for reading.