#deck thoughts

Firstly! The big new card from Set 12 outside of Accord himself, Grandeur Edge!

[CONT](Hand):When a grade 3 card would be revealed from your hand for the cost of your card's ability, this card may be regarded as revealing two cards. [CONT](RC/GC):If you have a vanguard with "Bastion" in its card name, this unit gets [Power]+10000/[Shield]+10000. (Active on opponent's turn too)

This card is one of the best things that Bastion's ever gotten, and it shouldn't be too hard to see why! By counting as 2 g3s, if you choose to use the Bastion ride-line, you dont need to keep as many g3s in hand in order to pay their costs! Also gaining +10k power as well as shield with a Bastion VG? It's Kokabiel and Pride Protection Dragon but way better because you can use it as a body on the board as well!

Now onto a pair of cards where one shines way more than the other, but the latter is still important! Sapient Owl and Rondahlia!

[CONT](RC/Hand/Trigger Zone):During your turn, if you have a vanguard with "Bastion" in its card name, this card gets grade+2/[Power]+2000. [AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), if you have a vanguard with "Bastion" in its card name, COST [put a grade 3 or greater card from drop into soul], choose one of your vanguards, and it gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn. If a card with "Bastion" in its card name was put for this cost, and you did not Counter Charge this turn, Counter Charge (1).

This card single handedly plungles Bastion into Promo Hell, but for those who truly want to make Accord shine, the price is worth it! This card supplies early aggression, easy boosting, soul fuel and counter-charging! And even if you can't put a Bastion into soul with its effect, theres one other card that feels Great to target with Owl who also segues well into the Choices section of the article: Brave On Sky-Trimmer, Rondahlia!

An English version of a card?? Revolutionary!!

Jokes aside, its synergy with Owl should be quite obvious, by dropping Rondahlia for a ride-up, you can send it to soul with Owl and give a backrow Grandeur boost for a Massive Alden Swing, or any other massive swing if you like!

This synergy is also why we dont run Dark Strain, alongside the fact it works better in the long term, where you might want to Persona Ride on Accord before you ride to Prime next turn but you only have a single rear to give boost to? If you used Rondahlia the turn before, it feels so nice to get to use her second skill!

Now onto a more avant-garde choice, the Blaster Rideline

Anybody who's played Bastion even during OverDress's infancy will know what it feels like to call a trigger off of Fort's skill, and that's what we're aiming to prevent! It also helps to avoid calling a top-deck Prime (thats happened to me more than you would think) and losing a copy of our Kill Button. Yes it needs counter-blast to work, but with the speed the meta is at right now, you'll likely be eating an early damage, especially if you're going 2nd which this rideline really shines in the case of!

Those are the big power-cards, with units other than that feeling fairly obvious in use (Sajess to get over defensives, Alden for Draw, Prime as Kill Button, Surrogate to search Prime and a Rear) with Form Up being a flex-spot but also nice to help force extra guard on a accord swing boosted by Owl

Overall this deck is extremely strong, it can light people up without even needing to rely on Prime, but if they can get to Prime with a Rondahlia moving to soul? You better pray that you've worn them down with a rush enough that you kill on next turn if you even get one!

I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what next week's deck is going to be! It has something in common with 2 other decks I've shown off, but it isn't a Masques deck, I wonder if anyone's willing to try guess!

As always thanks for reading! If you have any suggestions, questions or just wanna chat about vg, message me or reply to this post!

Until next time!

Starting this lower section off with talking about Ala Dargente (or however you spell it) as she is the most important card in the deck outside of richter himself!

Immediately, her ability to power up for each Avant swing means that she's going to get massive on a full-power Richter turn! By combining a persona ride, richter's skill and deathwinds together, Ala can end up reaching 55k before triggers or boosts! Her ability to search deck or drop for strategy cards is amazing too! It'll keep you in the game as long as you need to be in terms of offensive capabilities!

Outside of Ala, the other card I mentioned also segues nicely into one of the main creative choices I made with this deck, Req Gewehner!

Req's power might not go up as high as Ala's, but it goes up a lot easier and will go up to its maximum no matter what from turn 3 onward! Combine him with a boost from a card like Asagi (13k if you set a strategy that turn), then persona and deathwinds? You're hitting the opponent with 53k! No matter what triggers they play that's a 3 card guard!

My choice of Req also means that i dont run the cycler, Habitable Zone. While that card is great for discard fodder which helps keep the deck alive, not only is it expensive and i own this deck IRL, but its functionality is limited without reducing copies of stuff like Asagi or the set-orders to make room for Refablishment Dock (a set order that makes your g2s boost).

Aside from that, front's help your power go even higher and act as even greater shield! What's not to like about that?

That's all on my Richter deck! With Ala releasing just a few days ago in EN, I hope to pick up some copies and make this deck as good as it can be IRL!

Now to go into an explanation of the key cards, any rogue choices, and overall thoughts! Starting with the name-dropped card, Ruin Collector!

[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), you may Soul Charge (1). CONT:When this unit would be put into soul for the cost of the ability of your vanguard with "Ominagruzio" in its card name, it may be regarded as putting two units.

Immediately a very simple but effective skill! This card is what you want to be boosting Ominagruzio with so you can save your other rearguards to put triggers on since you'll have 3 checks with the restand.

Its' soulcharging also works incredibly well with one of the other new cards, Misery Wing Dragon!

CONT:During your turn, this unit gets [Power]+5000 for each type of trigger icon in your bind zone. [AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), if there are two or more types of trigger icons in your bind zone, COST [Soul Blast (2)], and draw a card.

Misery Wing is your main beat-stick outside of Ominagruzio Masques! With its ability pumping it up by 5 for every bound trigger type, it'll be a 30k stick on your first persona turn which is more threatening than initially thought considering shield will also be sliced off!

Its ability to soul-blast 2 and draw also synergises very well with the rest of the deck and helps alleviate some of its Masques-Itis decently well simply by having an on command draw provided you can pay the cost.

Now onto the slightly more individualised picks and numbers, namely: the Masque and Searcher ratios, and the inclusion of Almethys!

[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC) or put on (GC), COST [put a total of two cards from soul or drop that were in the ride deck into ride deck face up], and perform either of the following according to the circle this unit is on. •(RC) - Counter Charge (1). •(GC) - This unit gets [Shield]+15000 until end of that battle.

Almethys provides a Lot of sorely needed defensive utility in the deck, alongside further repurposing the commonly soul-blasted ride deck cards for costs like Misery Wing and Gungnram.

For its cost though, you want to return the g0+1, 1+2 or 0+2 leaving the ride deck Ominagruzio dropped to be removed for your first Masques turn.

Next moving onto ratios! I've found that the numbers of 3-4 work quite well but can just as easily be switched around. A hidden strength that Omina possesses against decks like Bastion is that it has zero trouble putting down an early offense that can then capitalise on shield drops. But of course you have to be careful in matchups like ghandeva (although its semi-miraging can help monograde its board too which is also useful)

And lastly, Gungnram is just a nice piece of potential advantage that could maybe turn its draw into a ruin collector, another base Ominagruzio, or Misery Wing when you need it alongside how it can move ride-deck cards from soul to drop for Almethys!

And that's all! Overall i think the deck has landed nicely in the middle of its two extreme reactions. It can't break the game with its effects, but it isnt awful because of its piece reliance either. As with any deck in this series, it's definitely something to watch out for and play around properly!

Next week's deck is something I have sooome ideas on, but we'll have to see! Depending on next week's episode and preview, I could change my plans! And even then all of that is subject to whether anyone wants to leave any suggestions or engagement (like @chronojumperintraining thanks so much for your question on the Mag Masques post!)

Okay so! Each card in this deck is pretty important, and while some ratios are flexible (for example, how many Eternity's, Eclipsed and Hollowing's you want, or your ratio of Masque to Masque searcher) there are a few non negotiables outside of the obvious 4 Orfist Masques

We'll start with one of Orfists' newest mates, Polraxis Dragon!

Now Polraxis was already amazing for Regis because of his skills: 1. If you have an Orfist VG, Sb1, choose an order with a different name from those in your order zone in your drop, and set it. 2. When this unit is retired from RG OR discarded from hand during your battle phase, draw 1.

However he Truly shines in Masques because Orfist Masques requires you to call on top of existing units! He's also one of the main reasons you dont actually end up feeling the order ditch alongside Masques 1st main skill (the removal one).

Now onto what is, in my opinion, the backbone of the deck, Cardinal Principle, Oppart!

Oppart is the glue that holds this deck together and really lets it do what it wants, especially in the hands of someone efficient at managing their resources! Firstly, Oppart synergises beautifully with Mors and Polraxis because he CB1s to ditch an order from deck if you have an Orfist VG, and his other skill is just Nuvorea! When called over, call a shadow army token!

He and Polraxis are your obvious targets for Orfist Masques, call over 1 of each while dropping 2 orders, you now have 3 tokens, 1 extra draw and an extra drive check! He truly helps push games and make your turns before your kill (though in my opinion, as soon as you masque, every turn is a kill turn) truly meaningful.

Now since Oppart is a bit of a controversial pick, i'll talk about some more of those! Namely Combine Rusher, Fronts, Main-decking Regis and not running Grunder.

Combine Rusher is Excellent, he's a recurring beater in the late game which is what truly matters, having a 15k vg with cubisia is nice, but its only one guaranteed damage if that, Combine adds up to a lot more

Fronts instead of draws just maximise the decks win-con of Massive Tokens whilst also providing critical shield! With the advent of Omanigruzio (which I might talk about in another post) extra shield is incredibly important!

Grunder, my beloved, has just never worked for me! His top 7 check has (almost) always whiffed and his retrieval skill takes orders out of where you want them for polraxis, regis and mors! And speaking of Regis, if you're able to ride from Mors to Regis and have a hydragrum in drop? That is at Least 2 orders set again to say nothing of a polraxis or one in hand. That highroll is far too tempting for me, and in a deck that wants to highroll anyway, why not raise the ceiling?

That's all my thoughts! I hope that this can show people that we can only truly judge a deck when it's out in the wild and performing, and even then to never count it out! (Source: Orfist REGIS making it to 2ND in last years worlds iirc) and no matter what, to play what you want even if it suffers from Masques-Itis (necessitating potential bricks to access extreme power).

If this can reach Anyone in the community, feel free to let me know if you want me to talk about a particular deck! Even if its one ive never used, I'd love to give newer stuff a shot! Just in D Standard though!