Cards of the Week! 7th Edition.

New Card

Not a wizard, unfortunately.

Masked Magician, Harri

[Auto] [VC] [GB2] When this unit attacks a vanguard, choose a card from your soul, call it, and that unit and this unit gain [power] +3000 until end of  turn.

[Magia] [Auto] [VC] [CB1] [Magia] When your G-unit [Stride], you may pay the cost. If you do, [SC1], choose up to 1 card from your soul. call it to [RC], that unit gains [power] +5000 until end of turn, and at the end of that turn, put the unit called with this skill into your soul

This card is clearly meant to be a combo card, but in all honesty this card just isn't good. It's probably got the worse On-stride skill out of all RRR Break-Strides, and it's GB2 Skill isn't much better. To be honest. I expected more from Pale Moon. I know what shenanigans this clan is capable of, so it;s quite disappointing to see a card which contributes nearly nothing to the overall game.

Verdict: Pretty mediocre.

Old Card

Purple Trapezist

[Auto] [Choose another of your <Palemoon> rearguards, and put it into your soul.] When this unit is placed on [RC], you may pay the cost. If you do, choose a <Palemoon> other than a card named "Purple Trapezist" from your soul, and call it to [RG]

As vanguard becomes older, some older cards become outdated, useless. Others only get better over time. I'd argue that Purple Trapezist is the latter.

While Trapezist is strictly worse then her Silver Thorn cousin, Zelma, that does not mean she isn't one of the best card generic pale-moon have in my opinion.

She is the cornerstone of generic Pale-Moons soul manipulation. But she is not perfect, and it is from no fault of her own. Generic Pale Moon has very few ways to efficiently soulcharge, which severely limits what Purple Trapezist can target during the early game. Hopefully this will be fixed in the upcoming Trial deck and GBT-05.

Verdict: Has a lot of potential that unfortunately hasn't been tapped.

Cards of the week! 6th Edition

New Card:

Blue Storm Dragon, Maelstrom

Glory, Glory Glory Mael-stronk!

[Auto] [VC] [LB4] [CB1] When an "Aqua Force" rides this unit, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your vanguard, and until end of turn it gets [Power] +10000 & [Auto] [VC] [Wave 4th time or more] When this unit attacks a vanguard, draw a card, choose one of your opponent's rearguards, retire this, and until end of battle, your opponent cannot normal call grade 0's from hand to [GC]

[Auto] [VC] [Wave 3rd time or More] When this unit's attack hits a vanguard, search your deck for a card with "Maelstrom" in it's name, add it to your hand, and shuffle your deck.

When this card was announced, the Vanguard Wiki was saltier then the dead sea, but was it justified? 

First of, the actual Break-Ride skill. It's not actually overpowered. It makes Glory Easier, yes, it also can be cross-ridden, but Cross Ride defense barely matters anymore.

The other skill is what makes this card: A way to pressure and possibly get advantage in Maelstrom pre-stride without needing any type of enabler? Yes please!

In theory, this BR can also work in Ripple, so there's that.

Verdict: Stronk? Yes, Broken? No.


Old Card:

Blue Storm Soldier, Rascal Sweeper

Maelstrom's right hand man, if he(?) ever
had one.

[Auto] [RC] When this unit attacks, if you have a vanguard with "Maelstrom" in it's card name, this unit gains [Power] +2000

[Auto] [RC] [Wave 1 only] At the end of the battle that this unit attacked a vanguard, if you have a vanguard with "Maelstrom" in it's card name, choose one of your rearguards in the same column as this unit, and exchange positions with the unit.

Maelstrom's Miranda clone, Rascal Sweeper is combination of two good Aqua Force cards: Storm Rider, Basil (But free) and Gregorious, Blue Storm's 12k attacker.

This makes Rascal Sweeper very flexible, and having several of him in your hand or on the field means that he isn't dead on draw.

Verdict: Strong and Flexible

Cards of the week! 5th Edition

New Card

One Who Rules the Storm, Commander Thavas

The waves created by my storms shall be
ceaseless

[Stride]

[Act] [VC] Choose a face down card named "One Who Rules the Storm, Commander Thavas" from your G-Zone, and turn it face up.] Choose up toone of your rearguards, until end of turn it gets [power] +5k and "[Cont] [RC] This unit can attack from the back row" And until end of turn, this unit gets "[Auto] [VC] [GB3] [Wave 4] When your unit attacks a vanguard, choose 3 of your opponent's rearguards. Your opponent chooses 1 from among them, and retires it.

The G-Rare of the Aqua Force clan booster. While many are disappointed in this card, I am not. This is exactly the card Aqua Force needed: A card that allows us to get 4 attacks with any three cards. We can turn grade 0's like Petros into Stacia at will, We can make Tidal Assault hit like Magnum Assault. We can put two Melanias into the same column and have them both attack. The flexibility that this card allows is simply outstanding just by it's initial ability alone.

It's GB3 is very strong with Thavas, but isn't that useful in other Aqua Force decks.

Verdict: An Outstanding Support Card

Old Card

One Who Surpasses the Storm, Thavas

Must. Have. This. SP. So. Good!

[Auto] [VC] [GB2] [Wave 4 or more] When this unit attacks a vanguard, this unit gains [Critical] +1 and your opponent cannot normal call grade 0's from hand to [GC] until end of that battle.

[Auto] When your G-Unit [Stride], choose your vanguard, and until end of turn it gets "[Auto] [VC] [Wave 4] When your unit attacks a vanguard, choose 3 of your opponent's rearguards. Your opponent chooses 1 from among them, and retires it.

The Namesake of this very blog, Thavas is one of my favourite, if not the favourite Aqua Force boss.

His GB2 Was decent, but with his very own Heart Thump Worker clone, Petros, he can hit 23k boosted. Because of his Tom skill, this number makes it near impossible to no pass without P-guarding it, and with G-units providing high power vanguard columns, this gives Aqua Force a secondary win con outside of Lambros.

Even when you stride over him, Thavas puts in work. His On-Stride skill retires an opponent's rearguard at the fourth attack, and while you won't have full control of what is retired, the grind this card helps accelerate softens up your opponent for either Lambros or Thavas' GB2 skill.

 This is ignoring the fact that Aristoteles, Tidal Bore and Commander Thavas work with this skill very well.

Verdict: A strong card with very strong synergies.