Monthly Bushiroad Issue 13 - Star-vaders and Perdition

Monthly Bushiroad Issue 13 - Star-vaders and Perdition

  Tuesday, September 09, 2014    byak

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Bushiroad has started to show even more pieces of their upcoming Movie Booster in the recent Monthly Bushiroad. Read more to find about the new additions to Link Joker and Kagero!

The Overlord Returns (Again)!

Monthly Bushiroad has come and gone, but with it, it brought the newest addition to the Perdition deck. Seeing as we can't really get a season without Dragonic Overlord, he ended up joining the Perdition forces in the form of Perdition Imperial Dragon, Dragonic Overlord the Great, and he even hits harder than ever. His Legion skill triggers after you attack a rear-guard. At the cost of a single counterblast and two cards from your hand, you can stand The Great right after for another attack, giving you easy access to four drive checks.

As he integrates himself with the rest of the Perdition deck, it's important to note his synergy with their original boss, Perdition Dragon, Vortex Dragonewt, which bares resemblance to the old combination of Eradicator, Gauntlet Buster Dragon and Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant. The strategy to follow with this new Perdition combination is to burn as much damage through with Dragonewt as possible, and as a finisher, you take advantage of The Great's four drive checks to force damage through!

Additionally, there's synergy to be found with Dauntless Drive Dragon. While The Great doesn't work with the Dragonic Overlord Break Ride (due to the fact that they both need to trigger on the first rear-guard attack), it's very possible to fit Dauntless in with The Great, since their skills don't cancel each other. The Break Ride turn basically translates to discarding a total of five cards from your hand, but your vanguard gets two attacks on the vanguard, an attack on a rear-guard, and a grand total of six drive checks. It you manage to bring this into the late game, it can even decide the result of it.

The Great also manages to bring with him a very useful mate. Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame gains a auto skill during the turn you call him, and when a rear-guard on your opponent's side of the field is sent to the drop zone, you can counterblast one to retire the unit behind it.

As it would seem, Perdition Dragon, Menace Laser Dragon does the same thing without any forms of restriction, but playing Neoflame is better than playing both Neoflame and Menace Laser, giving you more flexibility for your grade 2 lineup. Additionally, The Great comes with another skill where if he hits, he can retire a rear-guard copy of himself or a Neoflame in order to retire any rear-guard, so Neoflame makes it a lot easier to simplify the field.

Bushiroad was also kind enough to pack The Great with his own starting vanguard to go with him. Perdition Dragon, Petal Flare Dracokid is one of the starting vanguards who passes a skill to your vanguard for the turn, and the skill in particular can be useful often. When you slide Petal Flare Dracokid into your soul, for the rest of the turn, whenever your vanguard lands a hit, you can retire the unit behind the unit you just hit. Assuming both of The Great's attacks manage to land, you're looking at a total of two retires for one card. Granted, they might end up guarding the attack on the vanguard, but usually they won't protect their rear-guard, guaranteeing you're going to at least wipe out a whole column with the combination.

Despite looking so appealing, Petal Flare Dracokid has competition to work with. A lot of Kagero players are comfortable with just running Red Pulse Dracokid, due to the importance of their grade 3's, and since Petal Flare Dracokid has a similar case of not guaranteeing advantage, Red Pulse Dracokid will most likely remain as the starting vanguard of choice.

It's not too much of a big deal, however. I imagine that the Perdition variants that are backed with The Great will be high contenders coming into the Neon Messiah metagame. The Great is probably one of the best bosses Kagero has ever gotten, considering how it's Legion based so its skill can kick in whenever you want. The advantage you gain from the skill is insane as well, especially considering the cheap cost to use. With all of these factors combined, it's no question that Kagero will once again return to one of the top seats of the Vanguard competitive scene.

Star-vader's Final Dance

You thought we had enough Link Joker bosses already? Well, think again! Neon Messiah brings the conclusion of the second wave of Star-vaders. Not only is the Blaster Joker set of units included, but Star-vaders have one final trump card for their invasion, and it certainly packs a punch!

Star-vader, Venom Dancer might seem a bit odd upon reading it for the first time, but it's quite the powerful Legion boss. His only form of lock is a simple counterblast one to lock a back row unit, which is hardly significant, but after he makes a Legion attack, Venom Dancer can counterblast one to stand as many of your rear-guards as possible, equal to the amount of locked cards are on your opponent's side of the field.

The apparent problem with Venom Dancer is that he can't lock enough for his primary skill to actually be valuable. Of course, that downside is manageable when you use him in conjunction with another Legion boss like Star-vader, Dark Zodiac, who can preserve his lock over two turns, or just a Break Ride unit like Star-vader, Infinite Zero Dragon, who locks two units during the turn you ride Venom Dancer, thus generating value.

Venom Dancer synergizes with the whole suite of new Star-vaders, which gives his skill even more value. You can use him with his mate, Star-vader, Sword Viper as a rear-guard. If Venom Dancer lands a hit on the vanguard while your vanguard is in Legion, AND your opponent has a locked card, you can lock another unit without further costs. You can also use units like Flash Gun Star-vader, Osmium and Star-vader, Bolt Line, whose pressure can be applied twice. Additionally, if Osmium or Bolt Line get to trigger their skills, your opponent has more locked units to deal with for your next turn, extending the power of Venom Dancer beyond a one turn burst.

 The factor that sets Venom Dancer above the rest of the Link Joker Legion bosses is that he efficiently combines their signature control strategy with power, allowing your deck to do more than stun the field. Venom Dancer is a great addition to the archetype, but he's certainly not the last.

Blaster Joker Unveiled?!

Some light was recently shed upon the Blaster Joker mystery that has been sitting around for a while, coming from a Bushiroad live stream. It was confirmed that Star-vader, Blaster Joker is actually a grade 3, and a Legion boss. He mates with Companion Star Star-vader, Photon, but nothing else is known.

The upside to Blaster Joker being a grade 3 is that it makes more sense to use one of his supporting units, Silence Star-vader, Dilaton. As we remember, when Dilaton is called and your opponent has a locked unit, you can add a Blaster Joker to your hand. Basically you want to use any other Legion boss that has easy access to locking the board with Blaster Joker, and when you ride them first, you use Dilaton's skill to fetch Blaster Joker into your hand for the late game.

Assuming all of his support is R or higher rarity, we can conclude that all of Blaster Joker's support is already on the table. The only thing we're waiting for now is Blaster Joker himself, and we'll definitely find out what he does this week, considering the pre-release for Neon Messiah is on Saturday.

That's about it for this issue of Monthly Bushiroad! However, we're still planning an article for the Deletors, seeing as we've seen more and more of their support in the Movie Booster and their own Trial Deck recently, so stay tuned for that. As always, leave your comments questions down below, and thanks for reading!