[JCG] Putting Together the Pieces of Neon Messiah

[JCG] Putting Together the Pieces of Neon Messiah

  Tuesday, September 02, 2014    byak

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Bushiroad has been a lot more generous recently with their reveals for the upcoming Booster Set: Neon Messiah. If you're a Seeker or Liberator fan, come in to take a closer look!

From the last article for Neon Messiah, we established that Seekers, Liberators, Perdition, and Star-vaders are all getting support in the upcoming set. The units included are featured in the final episodes of the fourth season of Vanguard, along with the movie, set to be released in a couple of weeks.

The big, bad new boss for Seekers is none other than the original leader of the Royal Paladin: Alfred! Being a Seeker, Light Origin Seeker, Alfred XIV steps into the fray with some really big competition, but nonetheless, he checks out fairly well. Similar to his original form, King of Knights, Alfred, he can counterblast to pull a unit out from the deck. In the case of Alfred XIV, it's two counterblasts for any Seeker. Despite Seekers being recently brought into the scene, they already have a lot of good targets to choose from, giving you a lot of options.

The interesting feature of Alfred XIV is that he has two possible units to Mate with. While it's shown that he mates with Blaster Blade Seeker, he can also mate with the original Blaster Blade as well! While he's in Legion, Alfred XIV gains +1000 for each of your Seeker rear-guards, plus, if you have five rear-guards, he gains an extra critical! He might not be as flashy as Sing Saver Dragon, but his easy condition makes him an extremely heavy hitter in the early game.

Outside of him being the long lost Alfred, Alfred XIV doesn't look too appealing as a card. However, the extra critical must not be underestimated, especially if you consider how easy it is to gain. It might not be the easiest feat to build a whole field during the turn you ride Alfred, but when you do, you can outpace your opponent to the point where he can't even mount a comeback. Crossbow Seeker, Gildas can mesh well with the deck, since he brings cheaper field presence when you Legion, and you can even make use of Glynngal Seeker, since Alfred will keep Blaster Blade Seeker in your vanguard circle to make for easy damage recycling.

Similar to Sing Saver, it's hard to incorporate many units that need counterblasts to work well. Gildas is an exception in the case of Alfred XIV, since he accomplishes Alfred's job at a cheaper cost. Considering you play a version of Seeker that uses both Alfred XIV and Sing Saver Dragon, you'd probably be using Lake Maiden, Lien, Flail Seeker, Hassabado, Glynngal Seeker, and Good Faith Seeker, Cynric for grade 1's. For grade 2's, you'd be using Blaster Blade Seeker, Crossbow Seeker, Gildas, and Full Bloom Seeker, Cerdic. Power attackers are easy filler material that are practical in a lot of situations, so it fleshes out pretty well.

Like I mentioned earlier, Alfred XIV also has the ability to Legion with the original Blaster Blade, giving you a few more interesting options to work with. The card that caught my eye before the rest was Exculpate the Blaster, one of Aichi's ace units from the manga. Even though he was brought to the game quite a while ago, he's never seen any serious use due to his many restrictions. First of all, you can't ride Exculpate unless you have a grade 3 Royal Paladin, making him just as burdening as a grade 4 unit. Secondly, he can't attack unless you have Blaster Blade in your soul, making him useless during the games you fail to find him. You also can't use Exculpate as a rear-guard, but seeing as you wouldn't be using many copies of him to begin with, it's not too huge.

The reward to properly setting up Exculpate can be huge. By counterblasting three, Exculpate gains the ability to attack all of your opponent's rear-guards at once, effectively removing from the board since your opponent almost always won't be able to save them. When Exculpate attacks, you can also soul blast everything except Blaster Blade to give him +2000 for each card, making him hit extremely hard. Unfortunately, after this, you have to ride Blaster Blade from your soul, giving you a 9000 base to defend with during your next turn.

The reason I bring this card back from the status of unplayable is Alfred XIV's ability to bring Blaster Blade to your vanguard circle, effectively putting him in your soul for Exculpate without having to ride Blaster Blade himself. While it still might be the most practical strategy, it's also important to note that Alfred XIV also works with Wingal Brave, who can, surprise, add Exculpate to your hand. Exculpate is a bit counterblast heavy, so it can be difficult to manage everything, but I personally feel that the strategy has a lot of potential behind it.

Additionally, if you want to use the original Wingal or Alfred Early with Alfred XIV, go ahead, I guess.

Next up, we have yet another new Percival form for Liberators! It seems that Bluish Flame Liberator, Prominence Core was upgraded for the Movie Booster, and now we have Bluish Flame Liberator, Prominence Glare! Prominence Glare is not very far from different compared to his previous form, as they both share the same secondary skill, where you can counterblast one, retire a unit, and call one Liberator among the top four cards of your deck. Personally, I already believe that this makes Prominence Glare a superior pick to units like Bluish Flame Liberator, Percival and Liberator, Monarch Sanctuary Alfred, since that counterblast skill is the best skill that Liberators can utilize right now. Being to choose one of four adds a lot of consistency to Gold Paladin's sloppy recruitment mechanic, and being able to run up to eight cards that do it is a huge boon for the deck.

The difference between Prominence Glare and Prominence Core are their Legion skills. While Prominence Core gains an extra critical when he calls himself or his mate, Liberator of Oaths, Algovale, Prominence Glare can trigger when anything is called from the deck. By counterblasting one and discarding either himself or his previous form, Prominence Glare picks up a critical, and in addition to that, your opponent can't guard Prominence Glare's attack with grade 1 or higher cards for the rest of the turn.

Realistically, this skill won't be coming into play as often as other Legion units with a skill like this. Liberator of Destiny, Algovale, Prominence Glare's mate, sort of helps though, since he can soul blast when called from the deck to look at the top five cards of your deck for a Bluish Flame grade 3, which in turn can possibly set up the pseudo Persona Blast. It lets you make good use of otherwise dead grade 3's in your hand, and using it at least once can help seal the game.

The strategy doesn't change much from the initial Prominence Core lists. You're obviously going to replace Liberator of Royalty, Phallon (or other units if you weren't playing him to begin with) for four of the new Algovale, since he creates a lot of advantage when you manage to find him. Other than that, Liberators still struggle with un-flipping damage, since the Blaster Blade Liberator engine is really difficult to integrate with the new Bluish Flames. However, as long as you resource manage well enough, this should never be a problem.

Overall, Alfred XIV and Prominence Glare have lots of potential to see play and even drive success in the current metagame. Alfred XIV is probably the herald that signifies that Bushiroad will strike down Sing Saver Dragon for tournament play, since Seekers now have a new boss to fall back on without being outrageously overpowered. We still have Kagero and Link Joker aces to discover, along with the mystery of Star-vader, Blaster Joker, so stay tuned for more updates!