The Poverty Garden

“Kept you waiting, huh?” Hello Cardfighters. Excuse me for my prolonged absence, as I mentioned in my previous post, a combination of “living life” and “my local Vanguard community being non-existent” has lead me into not playing/testing quite as much as I would have liked. However, the final semester of my English Studies term will start in a few days, and I really wanted to discuss one of my favorite decks in Overdress, a format that I have completely neglected for the past few months.  Now, I am not gonna keep it a secret that I am not a massive fan of Overdress. It is a very well designed format that has a few issues that spoil the amazing card design and game-flow, as well as wasting some of the best original designs ever added to the game. However, I made a deal with myself. I would attempt to buy the majority of the Dark States Overdress cards, both to support a game that I adore, as well as in a vain attempt to “be ready” for when our local game stores are open for tournaments once more, so that I may have a competitive, ready-to-play deck.  This lasted for one set. The price of the cards, especially Bruce and his Diabolos comrades, was, and still kinda is, fucking CRAZY. Playing the deck at full force means that you would be set back about 100+ euros, which is what decks cost at the middle of the V-series, and close to what they cost while G-units were still standard-legal.  THAT IS SOMETHING THAT WE SHALL (attempt to) CHANGE TODAY! I have tasked myself with building a competend Bruce/Dark States deck for under 35 euros, so that the rest of the Spike Brothers fans out there, just like myself, can play a deck that is very close to the original spirit of Spikes, while also being a deck that is quite competent and can steal games from decks such as Bastion, who are still a force to be reckoned with.  We begin our line up by discussing the first thing that every single Overdress deck needs, the ride deck.  Our ride deck of 4 cards cosists of the following cards: 

[AUTO](VC):At the start of your Ride Phase, you "Final Rush" until end of turn. [AUTO](VC):When this unit attacks, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [Soul Blast (5)], and [Stand] all of your front row rear-guards.

[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (VC), COST [put a rear-guard into your soul], and draw a card. [CONT](RC):If you are in "Final Rush", this unit gets [Power]+5000.

[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (VC), choose a card from your soul, call it to your back row center (RC), and Soul Charge (1). [CONT](RC):If you are in "Final Rush", this unit gets [Power]+5000.

[AUTO]:When this unit is rode upon, if you went second, draw a card. Let’s begin in order, by starting off with Matt.  Matt is the basic starter, who, for the time being, shares the same ability with the rest of the starters in the game. As such, there is not a lot to talk about. Things get interesting once Steve rolls out into the battlefield. He is our first ride, and he lets us start stacking our soul very early, and since this is a deck that wastes a LOT of soul this is very much appreciated.  Richard is a draw engine. While you do need to shove a rear-guard into soul, as per his cost, Steeve already calls Matt out from the soul, so it’s not really a cost that we are not equipped to pay.  Bruce is our main boss unit… is what i would say if this was a traditional Bruce list. Bruce is, in general, a very powerful unit. Probably the second best, next to Bastion. However, he is very much reliant on getting a Persona Ride off, in order to use his skill to the maximum extend. However, this mechanic will not be present in this particular build, which means that Bruce is a glorified Vanilla Unit. He still looks really cool though. (So that is the ride-line. An important thing to note is that this ride-line is made to fill our soul up, so while we supplement our deck with a lot of ways to soul-charge, this line is still important to mention:  First ride equals 1 card in the soul, as Matt leaves the soul and Steve soul-charges 1 card. The second ride, as we ride up to Richard equals 3 soul, as riding him means that now Matt, Steve, and the one card we soul with Steve are now in our soul. Riding Bruce means 4 soul.  Then, riding to our main boss unit, Unrivaled Bruce, gives us exactly 5 soul, which means that his skill is usable right away.) We now move towards the cards in our main deck, starting with Bruce’s new, shiny form, Diavolos, Unrivaled Bruce. 

[AUTO](VC):At the start of your ride phase, until end of turn, you "Final Rush". [AUTO](VC)1/Turn:At the end of the battle this unit attacked, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (5)], [Stand] all of your front row units, and this unit gets drive -2 until end of turn. Now THIS is a fucking BOSS UNIT. Let’s take him apart, bit by bit. The first auto ability is worded in a very awkward manner. Riding him implies that, since It is no longer the START of the ride phase, then you are not in final rush, and need to wait a turn. That is not true, the wording is just a tad bit awkward. The grade 3 Bruce already puts us, the players, in the “Final Rush” state, which is a fancy way of saying that some of our abilities that usually wouldn’t activate, now do. While this is something that most people most likely already knew, I felt like giving everyone a quick refresher, as this skill confused me to no end when I first read it.  Confusing conditions disguised as “skills” aside, the second skill fucking rules. The old Bruce re-stood the front row as well, however with the addition of a counter-blast, we also stand Bruce himself. The minus two drive is also not as big of a deal as one would expect, as all of the grade 4 units already check three times instead of two, meaning that we’re gonna have a very sizable hand by the end of our turn. The restanding skill is going to be abused even further with some powerful front row rear-guards that allow get a lot of power, so that the lack of the Persona ride Icon is mitigated by quite a bit.  Unrivaled Bruce is also the most demanding card in the deck, in terms of actual cost. At the time of writing, Bruce sits at a nice, comfortable 6 euros. While you don’t really need to purchase 4 copies of him, having maximum consistency is key, so having 4 copies is a quite the boon to your deck.  We have moved through a lot of the technical aspects of the deck, but now we can get into the nitty gritty and discuss some of the possible options that we can add. However, I’m gonna present this list as I am using it right now, of course cards can be changed accordingly.  We begin with all of the grade 3 cards I run, which are all very potent attackers. These are the cards we will be using:  Diabolos Striker, Bryan Pandemonium Tactics Upward Acrobat, Marjorie 

[ACT](RC)1/Turn:COST [Soul Blast (2)], until end of turn, all of your front row units get [Power]+5000, and if you are in "Final Rush", choose one of your vanguards, and it gets [Critical]+1.

Play this with COST [Counter Blast (1)]! Soul Charge (4). Then, if you are in "Final Rush", perform all of the following according to the number of cards in your soul. •6 or more - Draw a card. •8 or more - All of your front row units get [Power]+10000 until end of turn. •12 or more - Choose one of your vanguards, and it gets [Critical]+1 until end of turn.

[AUTO](RC)1/Turn:When this unit attacks, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [put one of your other rear-guards into your soul], draw a card, Soul Charge (1), and this unit gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn. This is the line-up we will be using. Let’s discuss ‘em one by one Bryan was made to have perfect synergy with our Unrivaled Bruce, and we can pay his cost very reliably. The 5k that he gives is present in the entire front row, which becomes way more potent when all of the units that get the buff will restand, whilst keeping said buff. The extra critical makes Bruce way more lethal as well.  Pandemonium Tactics is a mediocre card that works expertly well with out gameplan. As discussed previously, the first turn that we are on Bruce, we have, at the bare minimum, 5 cards in the soul. Charging 4 cards means that we will be able to resolve the two first skills of the card, one of which draws us a card, so that we dont lose advantage, and the second one being a pseudo-persona ride effect. This card is one of the reasons as to why we can reliably pay Bryan’s soul-blast 2 cost.  Marjorie also accomplishes all of the things that the two cards above her accomplish. She fills our hand and our soul, as well as making herself another very potent attacker. Do not be fooled by the rr rarity that is on her, she is still a card that is quite affordable.  Moving on to the grade 2 units that we will be using, we have 2 units that will both fullfill our game-plan, as well as allow us to have a cleaner way to pay our costs.  These two cards are:  Diabolos Striker, Lyle Electro Spartan 

[AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), COST [Counter Blast (1)], and this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn. Then, if you are in "Final Rush", Soul Charge (2), choose a card from your soul, and call it to an open (RC).

[AUTO]:When this unit is rode upon by "Master of Gravity, Baromagnes", COST [put a card from your hand into your soul], draw a card, and Soul Charge (1). [AUTO]:When this unit is placed on (RC), COST [Counter Blast (1)], and Soul Charge (2). Let’s discuss these two units. Lyle is, honestly, one of the best cards in the deck. Not only does he soul-charge twice, which is great for how much we use the soul, but he also allows us to find one of our powerful grade 3 units from the soul, if we so happen to have soul charged them with Pandemonium Tactics, or our next card, Electro Spartan. The Spartan isn’t all that special. As he is a part of the Baromagnes(aka best boy) ride-line, he has an adjacent effect that assists that particular strategy. However, he has a very handy on-call skill, that just allows us to turn any spare counter-blast we may have into two cards in the soul, which helps alleviate our costly combos.  Finally, let’s discuss the grade 1 line-up. Our grade 1 units have some big shoes to fill, as we are gonna need as many resources as we can muster. That’s why our grade 1 line-up consists of cards that give us more soul and more resources, so that we can comfortably pay the costs that our cards need, as well as give us some additional power and utility.  The grade 1 units that I am using are the following:  Evil Eye of Prohibition, Quen Lu Monitoring Gear Dober Recusal Hate Dragon/Psychic Prima, Miranda 

[ACT](RC):COST [Put this unit into your soul], choose one of your rear-guards, and it gets [Power]+2000 until end of turn. Then, if your soul has seven or more cards, your opponent cannot call grade 1 or greater cards from their hand to (GC) for the battle that that rear-guard attacks this turn.

[AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle this unit boosted, if you are in "Final Rush", COST [put this unit into your soul], choose one of your units, and it gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn.

[CONT]:Sentinel (You may only have up to four cards with "[CONT]:Sentinel" in a deck.) [AUTO]:When this unit is put on (GC), choose one of your units, and it cannot be hit until end of that battle. If your hand has two or more cards, choose a card from your hand, and discard it.

Hello Cardfighters,  Well, I’m back! Excuse me for my prolonged absence. I have been quite busy with both Teaching and real-life stuff, and as such I haven’t been able to focus my attention on Vanguard in general, only showing up to locals to play a few matches with Ahsha. However, now that it is the time for everyone to take a step back and relax, I have added a few decks to the List of possible candidates for my posts.  This is a deck that holds a very special place in my heart, as I think that it is an excellent deck to teach people the game with. It is also a deck that is exceedingly cheap, and a deck that, with a bit of luck can outright kill opponents, even while they are using some of the strongest decks in V-Premium. That deck is Kagero OTK.  Kagero OTK, or KagerOTK, if you will, is a deck that is considered to be an outlier among the other decks in the clan. The Kagero clan, in general, is based on attacking with the Vanguard multiple times, putting pressure on the opponent with attacks that are usually followed by drive checks or a large critical count per attack. However, this deck is quite different, focusing on putting pressure through the presence of multiple attacks, all of which force the opponent to guard with 2 or more cards at a time.  A short point of discussion. As you will very quickly see, this deck is insanely cheap, consisting of nothing but commons and rares, most of which can be picked up for under 10 cents per copy. However, the true cost of this deck comes from Archdragon. Winning Image, a Vanguard youtuber who gave me the inspiration to talk about and build this deck, mentioned that it would cost about 10 dollars. However, I was able to make the deck for less than 5 euros. Keep this in mind, as the price might not be the same for everyone. However, Archdragon is listed as costing 50 cents on TCGPlayer, so that is the price point we’re going with.

We are starting off with the Grade 3 line-up, which consists of 3 cards. 

Those cards are: 

Dual Axe Archdragon

Lava Blast Dragon

Exile Dragon

[ACT](VC):COST [Counter Blast (1) & Discard a card from your hand], retire all of the rear-guards in your opponent's back row, and until end of turn, when your opponent would call a card from hand to (GC), he or she must call two or more at the same time.

[AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle it attacked a vanguard, COST [put one "Dragon Knight, Fahim" and "Dragon Knight, Nasser" each on your (RC) to your soul], [Stand] this unit, and this unit gets [Power]+15000 until end of turn.

[ACT](VC/RC)1/Turn:COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)], choose one of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire it. [AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle it attacked a vanguard, if your opponent has no rear-guards in the same column as this unit, you may return this unit to your hand. We have 2 out of the 4 combo pieces layed out in the grade 3 spot, as well as an additional card that helps us with extra retire value and reusability. Let’s begin with Dual Axe Archdragon. Dual Axe Archdragon is the lifeblood of this deck. He is an extremely potent retire engine, turning any 1 card in your hand, alongside with a counterblast, into a skill that may allow you to not only retire up to 3 units, but also gets through the “can’t be chosen” types of skills. However, the Archdragon holds one more extremely powerful skill, which allows this deck to kill as early as turn 3. His skill forces your opponent to drop 2 or more cards from their hand into the guardian circle. This skill is amazing for a couple of reasons. First, it promotes the idea that your opponent shouldn’t guard your attacks, as, if you can complete the full rotation, your opponent would technically need to drop at least 4 or 6 cards to profitably block your attacks. Coupled with the rear-guard Lava Blast Dragon, they form an extremely deadly combo.  Lava blast dragon is the second piece to this three-piece puzzle, as he is the best card to use with Archdragon’s skill. By putting the 2 Dragon Knight units (that will be discussed later) into the soul, he allows himself to restand after his initial attack is over. Also, the additional 15k powerboost allows him to be extremely lethal, especially if your opponent isn’t holding a Perfect Guard.  Lastly, Exile Dragon is a recyclable retire engine. When he is called onto the board, he can use his skill to retire a rear-guard your opponent controls. Coupled with Archdragon’s mass-backrow retire skill, you can, more often than not, return him to your hand. The counterblast and Soulblast cost would be an issue, but this is a generally very cost-effective deck, as the majority of the cards in this deck have little to no cost.  While our grade 3 line-up holds a lot of individually powerful cards, our grade 2 line-up consists of a card needed for our combo, as well as some units that power themselves up and retire opposing units. Those units are:  Bellicosity Dragon Dragon Knight, Fahim Dragonic Burnout

[AUTO](VC/RC):When your opponent's rear-guard is retired during your turn, this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn.

[CONT](RC):During your turn, if you have a grade 3 rear-guard, this unit gets [Power]+10000.

[ACT](RC)1/Turn:COST [Counter Blast (1) & put a grade 2 or greater card from your drop zone on the bottom of your deck], choose one of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire it. The Grade 2 line-up is the clearest sign that our deck is a budget deck, consisting of mostly commons and rares. There really isn’t that much to say.  Fahim boosts himself up to a 20k attacker while you have a grade 3 rear guard on one of your circles, so he synergizes very well with Lava Blast Dragon.  Bellicosity Dragon, weird name aside, is a great card. We’re aiming to retire as much as possible, and retiring 4 units isn’t that difficult in this deck. Additionally, as a cute sidenote, this effect is also active on the Vanguard Circle, making turn 2 rushes very possible. Burnout is also quite interesting. The counter-blast is not a big deal, as only 2 other cards counter-blast in this deck. Additionally, recycling a grade 2 or 3 unit from the drop zone back into the deck, while having very fringe usages, can come up in the few cases that all of your copies of Fahim have already been used.  Our Grade 1 line-up is also quite basic, as we have quite a bit of utility, as well as some extra power on our units.  Our grade 1 line-up consists of these cards:  Dragon Knight, Nesser Dragon Knight, Waleed  Dragon Dancer, Josee Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara

[AUTO](RC):When placed, if your vanguard is grade 3 or greater, COST [Soul Blast (1)], look at seven cards from the top of your deck, call up to one grade 3 from among them to (RC), and shuffle your deck.

[AUTO](RC):When placed, if your opponent has three or less rear-guards, this unit and all of your units in the same column get [Power]+3000 until end of turn.

[CONT]:Sentinel (You may only have up to four cards with "[CONT]:Sentinel" in a deck.) [AUTO](GC):When placed, COST [discard a card from your hand], and one of your units cannot be hit until end of that battle. [AUTO](VC):When placed, draw a card, and discard a card from your hand.

[ACT](RC):COST [Counter Blast (1) & retire this unit], choose three of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire all of your opponent's other rear-guards. Following the same methodology from our previous choices, there are quite a few reasons why these units have been picked. Dragon Knight Nesser is here out of necessity to fullfill Lava Blast Dragon’s skill, but he also has a skill that is quite useful. Paying a single soul for the change to outright find your Lava Blast or Exile dragons is pretty good, as we usually have way more soul than we can spend.  Waleed is just a good power-up card, as he powers himself up, as well as the other unit that is present in his column. This is not only useful for rushing early, but also for hitting magic numbers and buffing up the Lava Blast Dragon that is ready to attack twice.  Josee is our stand-in for our Draw Perfect Guards, as the normal PGs in Kagero are still quite pricey. She is not a bad choice though, as this deck doesn’t have any other good ride target on grade 1. Filtering through your hand for your combo is also nice, and loading up the drop-zone for Burnout’s skill is also quite useful.  Kimnara is an interesting choice for a grade-1 unit that can retire. How this skill is usually going to be used is in conjunction with Archdragon’s skill, as you can use Kimnara to target all 3 units in your opponent’s back row, retire the two units in his front row, then use Archdragon’s skill, to have a field-nuke for the cost of 2 counter-blasts. 

Final Thoughts and Decklist

Hello Cardfighters. Well, I haven’t really updated this blog for a few days, and there is a very good reason for that. That being that Spike Brothers, even though they are a clan that is well known to any person that has even seen a glimpse of Vanguard’s expansive card collection, also happens to be a clan that is rarely played, and even more rarely experimented with.  But I love Spike Brothers, they are unquestionably my second favorite clan, and when looking through my collection, I found quite a few ways that this clan can be played on a tight budget. And I believe that if you have 10-15 euros burning your pocket, and you’re not patient enough to wait for the release of Dudleys, this is the most competent Spike Brothers deck that can quench your thirst for some multi-attack madness.  Before we get our head in the game, it is important to note that Spike Brothers is a clan that requires intimate knowledge of some important game mechanics. Some of your first games with this clan might seem a bit awkward, but dont be discouraged ! Get comfortable with the deck, learn all of it’s mechanics, and your victory will be nothing but a touchdown away.

Let’s begin, as we always do, with the grade 3 line-up. 

Our grade 3 line-up holds quite a few powerful cards, which are the following:

Spiking Cyclone

Bad End Drager

Front-Line Command, Sigiswald

Some additional options: 

Gunwild Wolf

Juggernaut Maximum 

[CONT](VC):During your turn, this unit gets [Power]+5000 for each Force marker on your circle. [AUTO](VC):When it attacks, COST [Counter Blast (1)], choose one of your rear-guards, and [Stand] it.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks, COST [Counter Blast (1) & put a rear-guard on the bottom of your deck], and this unit gets [Power]+5000/[Critical]+1 until end of that battle. [AUTO]:When rode upon, call this card to (RC), and retire all of your opponent's rear-guards in the column it was called to.

[AUTO](RC):At the beginning of your main phase, COST [put this unit into your soul & put a card from your drop zone on the bottom of your deck], draw a card, and Counter Charge (1).

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks, COST [Soul Blast (3) grade 3 & put any number of your rear-guards on the bottom of your deck in any order], and until end of that battle, when your opponent would call cards from his or her hand to (GC), he or she must call the same number of cards or more as the number of cards put into your deck for this cost at the same time.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, this unit gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn. [AUTO](RC):At the beginning of your main phase, COST [put this unit into your soul], search your deck for up to one "Juggernaut Maximum", call it to your (RC), and shuffle your deck. There are the only options I’m putting forward, but they are by far not the only aggressive athletes that can be used in your deck, however through testing I found that these grade 3 units work well in tandem, for these particular reasons. Spiking Cyclone is our boss unit, and he’s very strong and easy to use. He gives himself a nice power boost for every single force marker on your board, meaning that he gets stronger as you ride more copies of him, if there is a need to go into the late game. His skill is also quite powerful, as for a counter-blast he’s allowed to stand a rear-guard, increasing the number of attacks from 3 to 4. Bad End Dragger is Spiking Cyclone’s best friend, and the best possible candidate for his restanding skill. With the cost of a CB and tucking a unit on the bottom of the deck, he gives himself 5k and an extra critical, making him a 28k/2 crit attacker on a force 1 marker, or a 18k/3 crit attacker on force 2, which is going to be restanding with Cyclone. While the number might not seem impressive at first, abusing opponents at grade 2, but also being able to hit some very nice magic numbers even unboosted against grade 3. Bad End Dragger is, however, one of the pricier cards in the deck, coming up to about 4 euros for a playset. Sigiswald is a unique case of a card that is is more of an order card reminiscent of Order cards from the Overdress format, as he has no value for us in the offensive department. He can, however, put himself into the soul, counter-charge and give us a draw, effectively making him a plus 3 in card value. While these effect are delayed, we can cheat him out on the field easily with many of our cards. Gunwild Wolf is here because I adore his design, both visually and in his skill. In this deck, he can be run as a nice side-option if you don’t wish to run Spiking Cyclone. He has a very unique guard-restrict skill which we can pay the cost for quite easily, as shoving grade 3 units into the soul is not a tall order for our deck. He’s another really good option, but he does need an entire deck built around him and his costly skill. Juggernaut Maximum fits well with the Gunwild strategy, but also, he’s Juggernaut Maximum, dude. One of the most iconic and classic cards in the game, pure force and brutality perfectly infused in a single design, which was also the inspiration for the rest of the Spike Brothers clan. While he has fallen off in relevancy in the past few years, he’s always awesome to pick up and use again, even though for the purposes of this deck he’s just an okay replacement for Bad End Dragger. 

While our grade 3 line-up is quite bloated, we need some very strong grade 2 units to supplement our strong early game. 

The grade 2 units that will be discussed are the following: Adorbs-Perm, Rona Spike Bouncer Breach Spurt  Treasured, Black Panther Highspeed Brakki

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1)], search your deck for up to one grade 3, call it to (RC), and shuffle your deck. [CONT](RC):If you have a grade 3 unit in the same column as this unit, this unit gets "Boost".

[AUTO](RC):When placed, this unit gets [Power]+10000 until end of turn. [AUTO](RC):At the beginning of your main phase, COST [put this unit into your soul], search your deck for up to one "Highspeed, Brakki", call it to your (RC), and shuffle your deck.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)], look at the same number of cards from the top of your deck as your vanguard's grade, call up to one card from among them to (RC), and put the rest on the bottom of your deck in any order. [AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle that it attacked, COST [Counter Blast (1) & put this unit into your soul], and draw a card.

[AUTO](RC):When it attacks, COST [Soul Blast (1)], this unit may get [Power]+5000 or [Power]+15000 until end of that battle. If it got [Power]+15000, put this unit into your soul at the end of that battle.

[AUTO](RC):When it attacks a vanguard, COST [put a normal unit from your drop zone on the bottom of your deck], and until end of that battle, your opponent's units must intercept. At the end of that battle, put this unit into your soul, and draw a card. Our Grade 2 Line-up supplements our existing strategy, with a few extra cards for value or for extra power. Rona and Spike Bouncer help us build up our board without using up any cards from our hand, which is very important for Spike Brothers, as we do not have much direct draw power. Rona allows us to grab any of our combo piece Grade 3 units from our deck onto the board with only a single counter-blast, and while Spike Bouncer is a tad bit more costly, being able to grab anything out of the top 2 or 3 cards of the deck is amazingly valuable in the mid-late game. Highspeed Brakki and Treasured are very similar in many aspects. Both of them have an animalistic theme to them, and both of them are some peculiar deck choices, if you feel like the deck is missing a lot of firepower in the earlier stages of the game. Treasured is costly but also consistent, being able to get a boost of 5k or even 15k, at the cost of a soulblast. Putting him in the soul at the end of his battle isn’t that big of a deal, as we are going to be soul-blasting quite a bit. Brakki has more set numbers, being a grade 2 version of Juggernaut Maximum, and also an excellent card to use when you want to rush your opponent down.  At the end of this segment we have Breach Spurt, a card that against specific matchups can be quite powerful. Against certain decks that really like grade 2 units in the front row, Breach can force out awkward blocks from our opponent. But his true strength comes out when his attack is over, as he recycles a unit, goes into the soul to supplement more costs, and draws us a card. It’s amazing how a single card can support our deck in such a clean and neat fashion. 

While our Grade 2 line-up is powerful, we need to supplement our team with some powerful grade 1 units, so as to allow us to have a strong early game presence. 

Our Grade 1 line-up includes 3 very powerful units, those being: Ambush Dexter Offensive Punter Gyro Slinger

[AUTO](RC):When it boosts, COST [Soul Blast (1)], and this unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of that battle. At the end of that battle, draw a card, and put this unit on the bottom of your deck. [AUTO]:When rode upon, you may call this card to (RC).

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [put a card from your hand into your soul], look at the same number of cards from the top of your deck as your vanguard's grade, call up to one card from among them to (RC), put the rest on the bottom of your deck in any order, and the called unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn.

[AUTO](VC):When placed, COST [discard a card from your hand], and draw a card. [AUTO](RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1) & put a grade 2 or greater rear-guard into your soul], search your deck for up to two cards with the same grade as the card put into your soul for this cost, call them to (RC), and shuffle your deck. There are several reasons as to why we only need these grade 1 units. These options are some of the best because they fulfill all of the decks needs without being useless in any phase of the game. Offensive Punter is an excellent first ride, as when he’s being rode upon he can call himself out of the soul and into an R circle. This is excellent for both rushing the opponent if you’re riding into a grade 2 first, or just a great booster that draws you a card at the end of the battle that he boosted.  Gyro Singer is unique in the sense that he has different applications for different phases of the game. He is not an awful first ride, as he can force a card from your hand into the soul. Even if you dont get a unit that is ideal from the top of your deck, putting a card into the soul is an amazing skill in spike brothers, as we run through our soul very fast. In the later phases of the game, he can used as a way to create a column by only losing 1 card from your hand, and thinning the deck out is always nice.  Ambush Dexter is also an excellent first ride, as he allows us to cycle for our high impact cards when he is our first ride. Apart from that, his skill is also amazingly unique. He can put any grade 2 or higher unit from our R circle into the soul, and then call out 2 cards from our deck that have the same grade as that unit, effectively allowing us to either grab the grade 3 units we need for our Cyclone combo or allow us to create crazy boards and rush our opponent down on our grade 2 turn. Also if you are picking up Spike Brothers as a clan in general, Ambush Dexter is an excellent addition to any Spike deck, so he can be a long term investment.

Hello Cardfighters. So this post might be quite unique in the aspect that I don’t really have anything to really “teach” or that much to discuss either to be honest. The Seven Seas archetype has been a mainstay of the Granblue Clan, as a powerful sub-clan that initially dominated the G-era meta during late 2016 up until early-to-mid 2017, where it was hit and left to die as G was entering a new format.  People are only familiarized with them due to their very boysterous and loud presence in the G-meta game, but when the time came for them to be rebooted in the new V-series format, which, at the time, didn’t really have any truly cheap budget decks, their aggro playstyle was pushed to the limit in order to create a cheap deck that could steal games from the otherwise very slow and methodical meta of Nightrose and Scharhrot Vampir.  The formatting for this instalment is going to be quite unique as we are required, maybe, in a way, even FORCED to run every single card that includes “Seven Seas” in the card name. Therefore, there won’t be much in terms of options for tech choices, as about 90% of the deck is already decided for us. 

Let’s begin with our grade 3 line-up… which also just so happens to be the ONLY grade 3 unit that we are going to be playing in our deck, Lord of the Seven Seas, Nightmist.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any

Treasures

markers, and put a Treasures marker.

[CONT](VC):You get all of the effects below according to the number of your Treasures markers.

• 1 or more - All of your rear-guards with "

Seven Seas

" in their card names can attack and intercept from the back row.

• 3 or more - During your turn, all of your units with "Seven Seas" in their card names get [Power]+5000.

• 6 or more - This unit gets "[AUTO](VC):At the end of the battle it attacked, [Stand] all of your rear-guards with "Seven Seas" in their card names.".

To the majority of people that are having a full on Aneurysm reading this skill, I don’t blame you. The Treasure Markers are just that, markers that are placed on your circles, and that give off specific skills and unique abilities depending on the unit that is in top of them. Think of them as an indicator to know when your cards have their unique abilities and skills, instead of having to keep track of them yourself. Spoiler alert for every single card incoming, every single memeber of the Seven Seas archetype have the skill that allows you to obtain a treasure marker on one of your circles when they perform a successful attack.

Nightmist, apart from having really great artwork, is the main unit of our strategy, and the only real “payoff” for us actually obtaining these force markers. Do not be fooled by the shiny “protect” sumbol on the upper-leftmost corner, this is an insanely fast and loose Aggro deck, aiming to obtain 6 Treasure markers in order to perform 11 attacks in a single turn. This is perfectly reflected in Nightmist’s skill. The first skill allows for your backrow to attack your opponent’s units, just like a test-run version of Magnolia, as well as allowing them to intercept from the backrow, which seems very random but it will become obvious in a second. 

The second skill gives your entire board a very nice boost. With 6 Seven Seas units on your circles, it gives your board an overall surplus of 30k power, while also allowing your grade 1 units to hit force numbers, effectively allowing you to rush against all 3 gifts. 

The third skill is awesome, but really hard to pull off. If you have laid 6 successful attacks on your opponent and their units, Nightmist gets an effect that allows your ENTIRE board to restand, effectively giving you 5 bonus attacks.

Sound awesome, right? In the 25-30 games I have played to playtest for this very blog, I have managed to resolve this final skill on about 5 or 6 of them, either because at that point of the match I had either won the game or lost the game. It pops up SO LATE into the game that you might as well have already won, but when you do get to pull it off, it feels amazing … just don’t expect it to come up that often.

Nightmist is a hilariously bloated card, clearly being designed to fix holes that existed with this strategy before he even got printed. Nightmist is also the most expensive part of the deck, as a playset will set you back about 5-10 euros. 

Moving forward to the grade 2 line-up, the units in this segment arent nearly as complicated or long-winded as Nightmist, as the grade 2 line up does an excellent job of adding some much needed consistency and raw power. 

Our Grade 2 line-up consists of three units, Nightspinel, Negrolazy and Slash Shade. 

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1) & put two cards from the top of your deck into the drop zone], and call up to one card with "Seven Seas" in its card name not named "Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel" from your drop zone to (RC).

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [CONT](RC):During your turn, if there is a marker on this unit's circle, this unit gets [Power]+15000.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, you may call a grade 0 from your drop zone to (RC).

  There really isn’t a lot to say, Cardfighters, these are the two types of skills that were really needed for some added consistency and power. Nightspinel not only fulfills the role of the “waifu" card in this archetype, she’s also a very nice way of setting your drop zone up for certain ressurection effects, but she is a single card that can provide more board advantage in a deck that calls a lot of its hand onto the board. Also, she’s very cute, which is also a plus. And in the category of “not so cute, but much more playable” comes Slash Shade, a card with a very simple, yet powerful effect. He can make himself a 24k attacker by just existing on a circle with a marker on it, key word being ANY marker. A protect II gift, which manifests itself as a marker on a circle also works with this skill, so a protect II market makes Slash Shade, even while unboosted, a 29k attacker. Couple that with Nightmist’s second skill, 3-4 of your circles are most likely going to be attacking from the backrow for 29k-34k.  Slash Shade is, in a complete turn of events, the true boss monster for the Seven Seas, as he is by himself an attacker that requires a 20k or more shield from your opponent per attack, making him the unofficial win condition for this deck.  Negrolazy seems like an odd addition, as getting a trigger back onto your board seems rather useless. It is. However, Negrolazy has great synergy with a grade 0 unit that we will be discussing in a little bit.  While the grade 2 line-up is quite great for what it does, the most important aspect to any Blitz/Aggro strategy lies within the Grade 1 line-up, as it needs to provide some sort of value/recursion to offset the early hand loss. The grade 1 units that we will be using are the following: Witch Doctor of the Seven Seas, Raistutor Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow Skeleton Sea Navigator Witch Doctor of Powdered Bone, Negrobone

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [CONT](RC):If there is a marker on this unit's circle, this unit gets "Intercept".

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [ACT](Drop zone):If you have a vanguard with "Seven Seas" in its card name, COST [Soul Blast (1) & retire a rear-guard not named "Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow"], and call this card to (RC).

[ACT](RC):COST [[Rest] two rear-guards], and put five cards from the top of your deck into your drop zone.

[ACT](Drop zone):COST [Discard a card from your hand & put this card on the bottom of your deck], and call a grade 1 from your drop zone to (RC). If your drop zone has ten or more cards, you may call any grade instead. As you can see, all of the cards in our grade 1 line-up offer some form of utility, and it is as basic as it is good. Raistutor gives herself the ability to intercept, which works really well in conjunction with the Nightmist’s skill, as well as letting herself become a 20k backrow interceptor if there is a protect II marker on her circle. Nightcrow works really well while he is in the drop zone, as he can turn any unit on our board into a copy of himself for a soulblast. Also blasting the cards from our soul means more options in our drop zone, so he’s a fun addition that works well with the rest of the archetype. Skeleton Sea Navigator is our mill engine. Granblue decks love to put cards from the top of their deck in the drop zone to fulfill certain conditions or allow for more options. Since we cannot afford to put many cards that mill our own deck, as space is very tight, the Navigator allows up to mill ourselves for no cost at all. Negrobone is a powerful payoff for milling ourselves. Reviving a grade 1 unit isn’t awful since they provide us with value or more Seven Seas units for attacks, but his ability to be able to revive a unit regardless of grade means that we have another way to get our Slash Shades back onto the board. So these are our options for the grade 1 units, but don’t touch that dial, we have a consistency boosting grade 0 unit that helps us find the right Seven Seas units at the right time. (I’m too lazy to make a grade 0 introductory section for a single card)

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [ACT](RC):COST [Bind this unit & put two cards from the top of your deck into the drop zone], and return a card with "Seven Seas" in its card name not named "Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner" from your drop zone to your hand. He mills our deck, he reccurs cards, he gets revived from Negrolazy, he mops the floor, Nightrunner does it all. He is an excellent addition for our deck as he does pretty much everything that our deck wants to do, with an added layer of consistency. 

Decklist and Final Thoughts.

Hello Cardfighters, So, I haven’t even completed a total of 3 posts before I got my very first request ! A person from my Vanguard playgroup overheard me mention this blog in passing to one of my friends, and so asked me if he could see my approach to a very cheap and strong Tachikaze deck. This, for those who are not in the know, is already a challenge, as Tachikaze is based on certain interactions with it’s own units, and on much more rare occassions, very strong, individual cards. So, I thought I would discuss one of the very first decks I build by myself, Tachikaze Goodstuff, an Accel deck that aims to hit hard and hit fast. 

Let’s begin with the grade 3 units, as understanding our win conditions is the key to success with learning and handling Tachikaze properly. 

We shall begin first with a list of our main grade 3 units, which in this case are varying rations of 4 different units, these being:

Light Battle Dragon, Gigannoblazer

Sundering Dragon, Terror Therizeeno

Fiery Light Dragon, Opticalcerato

Savage Mercenary 

[CONT](VC):During your turn, if three or more new equip gauges were put for your units this turn, all of your front row units get [Power]+5000. [ACT](VC)1/Turn:COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)], draw two cards, and call two cards from your hand to (RC). Put up to one card from the top of your deck face down as an equip gauge for each of those units. (Put without looking at the front of those cards）

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks a vanguard, COST [retire another rear-guard], draw a card, if a unit with equip gauge was retired for this cost, choose one of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire it.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, or when it attacks a vanguard, you may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards.

[CONT]:You cannot normal ride this card. [CONT](RC):If you have no units with equip gauge in the same column as this unit, this unit cannot attack. So, wow, right off the bat, there is a lot to unpack, so let us take it step by step, first by explaining the notion of what “goodstuff” means. “Goodstuff”, used in the context of card games, is a strategy or type of playstyle that doesn’t adhere to the usual norms of having a normal win condition and trying to fullfill that condition every game. It practically means that we are a Jack-of-all-trades, but a master of none.  Taking a look at our grade 3 line-up, this notion becomes all the more noticeable, as we dont really follow a coherent gameplan, rather we decide to play as many tools as possible in order to have the best chance of winning. Reading through these cards, we can already gleam at least three characteristics that set Tachikaze apart from all of the other clans in the game, with those key-words being: Equip gauge, which means placing the top card of your deck under one of your units as a “marker” or “indicator” that can be used in conjunction with various effects Retire, meaning getting rid of one of ours or one of our opponent’s rear-guard units. Excuse me for making such a long-winded introduction to what someone would innitially think is a fairly simple and easy to play deck, but understanding these concepts, as easy as they are for some, is an integral part of understanding the clan as a whole. That is very obvious with our main boss unit, Gigannoblazer. Gigannoblazer encapsulates the essence of Tachikaze perfectly. Not only does he possess a very strong advantage skill that helps facilitate very aggressive plays, but he also allows the Cardfighter that is using him to give a healthy 5k boost in the front row, allowing for magic numbers and choke-points to be hit in a much easier fashion. This is highlighted further by Terror Therizeeno, a strong back-up ride target, as well as a potent rear-guard unit. His skill might seem odd initially, but there is a lot of synergistic potential with his retiring skill, as he allows for dead columns that have already performed their attack to provide some value for you, both in forms of a draw and retiring a pesky unit your opponent may have.  Opticerato is also fairly basic and simple. He’s a good call target that also functions well with the rest of the deck while attacking. A very simple and strong card, running a few copies wouldn’t hurt any Tachikaze deck. Savage Mercenary is an odd one. With a whopping 27k power, higher than any grade 3 in the game, you would think that his restrictive skill would stop him from being a gread addition, however, that is simply not the case. With a stupidly easy condition to fulfill, Mercenary becomes a very strong unit that cannot be blocked easily. Having a few copies in your deck as a simple and strong finisher is a must, as this card can easily steal wins from our opponents. All of these cards, while very strong, are also incredibly cost effective. If you were to buy a play-set of each card, meaning 4 copies of each individual grade 3, it would hardly set you back about 6 euros, which is a laughably low cost for such high impact units. 

Moving on to the Grade 2 Units, we find ourselves in a very odd and unique predicament.

The grade 2 line-up for Tachikaze is, for a lack of a better term, completely pre-determined. This is not, however, a bad thing. It just means that the choices that we do have are both so powerful and inexpensive that they would usually find their home in the full competitive versions of these decks. The downside, though, is that the creative aspect gets a tiny bit stiffled, which is a small price to pay for such power-houses.

The grade 2 line-up is split amongst 4 very high impact units, those being:

Clearout Dragon, Sweeperacrocanto

Ravenous Dragon, Megarex

Turbo Smilodon

Regiment Dragon, Regiodon

[AUTO](RC)1/Turn:When it attacks a vanguard, put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for this unit. [CONT](RC):This unit gets [Power]+5000 for each of this unit's equip gauges, and if it has three or more equip gauges, it cannot be chosen by your opponent's card's abilities.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks a vanguard, COST [retire another rear-guard], and draw a card. If this unit is on (RC), COST [Counter Blast (1)], put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for this unit, and it gets [Power]+5000 until end of that battle for each gauge equipped to this unit.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, or when it attacks a vanguard, you may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks, you may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards. [AUTO]:When retired from (RC) by your card's ability, call up to one card from this unit's equip gauge to (RC). You may put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for that unit. This ability may only be used by a card with the same card name once a turn. There is a lot to unpack here. Simply put, both Sweeper and Megarex are insane cards, maybe unfair in the general landscape of budget deck-building. Sweeper gives himself an equip gauge on attack, and he gets 5k power and a removal dodge ability… on BOTH players’ turns. Meaning that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, on the first turn that sweeper is played, he is going to be a 19k-24k attacker that keeps his high numbers and is resistant to pretty much all forms of removal, apart from some unique cases. There was a point that this card was so good people were considering it as a possible candidate for a BAN. Couple that with its laughably low price point, at 50 cents each, and it’s no wonder why people still use this card in every possible build of Tachikaze, no exceptions. Megarex is a completely different beast entirely. His power-up skill is a bit more restrictive, but it follows the exact same path as sweeper, simply less efficient, while also being more susceptible to removal. He more than makes up for it, however, with his retire and draw skill, which is completely free and works perfectly with the rest of the clan. Another thing to note is that he is insanely cheap, an entire playset of him going for about 1 euro and 20 cents. There is not a lot to be said about Turbo Smilodon, he’s a grade 2 version of Opticalcerato, a card we briefly discussed in the grade 3 section. Smilodon is, also, quite an expensive card. In the time of me writing this, we still dont know what the reprint price for him is from the new Revival Collection set, so for now he is sitting at a comfortable 1 euro and 50 cents per copy. If he’s not readily available, then running the grade 3 Optic is suggested as a replacement. Regiodon is also quite simple. A lot of skills in Tachikaze require the retiring of a rear-guard to be activated, and Regiodon is an excellent card, working as not only fodder for the rest of the team, but also as a multi-attack engine, if placed on an Accel marker. A lot of utility as well as a little bit of extra oomph for your combo turn.

The grade 2 line-up was a million times better than anticipated, but with that, it is now time to move along to the grade 1 line-up. The grade 1 line-up, to a certain extend, has also been solved, however a bit more of a creative spin can be put in it if any Cardfighter feels like experimenting.

There are several key budget units to consider right off the bat, those units being: 

Fierce Claw Dragon, Laceraterex

Full Speed Dragon, Bluesprint

Angry Roar Dragon, Roarbaryo 

Sonic Noa 

[AUTO](RC):When placed from hand, put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for this unit. [AUTO]:When it is retired from (RC), COST [Soul Blast (1)], and return up to one gauge equipped to this unit to your hand.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When it attacks, you may put one card from the top of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your rear-guards. [AUTO]:When retired from (RC) by your card's ability, call up to one of this unit's equip gauges to (RC). You may put one card from the top of your deck face down as an equip gauge for that unit. This ability may only be used by a card with the same card name once a turn.

[AUTO](RC):When placed, COST [Soul Blast (1)], put the top card of your deck face down as an equip gauge for one of your other rear-guards, and that unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn for each of its equip gauges.

[AUTO](RC):When it boosts a rear-guard, put the top card of your deck face down as an

equip gauge

for the boosted unit.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack or the attack that it boosted hits a vanguard, COST [retire one other rear-guard], and draw a card.

The grade 1 line-up, just like the grade 2 line-up, is also quite excellent. We have more and more cards that fulfill our win-condition and allow us to have options no matter what the current board-state is. 

An overwhelming amount of utility and value comes from both Bluesprint and Laceraterex, 2 cards that don’t only gauge themselves but also allow us to get even more value from our retires, both from a card-advantage, in the case of Laceraterex, and a potent multi-attack engine, in the case of Bluesprint. 

Roarbaryo, however, is just pure damage output. With the cost of just one soul he can make a unit not only get an equip gauge for future usage, but also gives a boost that can range from just 5k, to 25k in the case of Sweeper. Overall a very simple and strong card. The 3 cards discussed above will not set you back more than 2 euros for a playset of all of them.

Sonic noa is a special case. He is a bit pricier and harder to come by compared to the previous cards that we discussed, but his effect more than makes up for it. Sonic Noa is our decks’ WHOLE game-plan, condenced into one card. Equip gauges, self-retire, card draw, he does it all and he does it very well. A playset of him will set you back about 2 euros but he’s getting reprinted in the next revival collection, so picking him up won’t be a difficult task in the coming weeks.

Example decklist 

This particular list is not only very cheap and strong, but it’s also an excellent investment for future Tachikaze builds, if you wish to stick with this particular clan.

GRADE 3

4x Gigannoblazer

2x Terror Therizeeno

2x Opticalcerato

1x Savage Mercenary

GRADE 2

4x Sweeper

3x Megarex

3x Turbo Smilodon

2x Regiodon

GRADE 1

4x Roarbaryo

4x Sonic Noa

2x Bluesprint

2x Laceraterex 

GRADE 0

x1 Starting Vanguard 

x4 Draw Perfect Guards

x4 Heals

x8 Front Triggers

(Please keep in mind that these lists are made with the Budget Constraints first, as well as what is the most optimal ratio of cards depeding on their availability in Greece. All of these prices and lists are subject to change, but keeping the price low is the number 1 priority.) 

Final Price: ~19 Euros

Closing thoughts and Special thanks

Hello Cardfighters, I wanted to begin this budget deck series with a deck that is very near and dear to my heart, as it is a deck that is a part of my favorite clan, Neo Nectar, but that is also a deck that can be created with less than 20 euros, or even less depending on how cheap you can find the main boss units of this deck.  Maiden of Stand Peony is a deck that rewards aggressive plays and board advantage, and as such, even though it’s a very cheap deck, it’s a deck that can steal wins even from the strongest decks in the current meta landscape. 

We will begin by discussing the Grade 3 line-up, as well as what choices one can make to make their deck a tad bit more personalized.

This is our main boss unit, Maiden of Stand Peony, and she has the following skill: [AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, call up to one Plant token to (RC). If this unit is on (VC), call up to two Plant tokens instead of one. (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) [AUTO](VC):When it attacks, COST [Counter Blast (1) & retire four rear-guards], call four plant tokens to your (RC), and if your opponent's vanguard is grade 3 or greater, this unit and all of your token units get [Power]+10000 until end of turn. Maiden of Stand Peony is a deck that produces board advantage through tokens, while also being a multi-attack engine that gives power to herself and all of her token friends while your opponent’s vanguard is grade 3 or greater. That restriction, however, doesn’t mean that she’s completely useless as a first ride, as putting a force 1 marker on your leftmost or rightmost R circle means that that particular column will hit for 20k, twice, in the worst case scenario.  Maiden of Stand Peony is the main moving piece of this deck, so playing 4 copies of her in your deck is paramount to your deck’s success. Right now, Maiden of Stand Peony will set you back at about 6 euros for a playset. Now, a cardfighter that is familiarized with Peony’s mechanics might choose to just play just 4 copies of her for the entire grade 3 line-up. However, other players might choose to run some back-up grade 3′s for extra power, so these next few choices are for them.

Maiden of Iceberg is a very cheap and strong back-up grade 3 unit, and she has the following skill: [AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)], call up to two plant tokens to (RC), and this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn for each of your plant tokens. (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) More tokens and more power, that is the name of the game in this deck, and Maiden of Iceberg is an excellent candidate for this deck. First and foremost, she is an amazing unit to use in conjunction with force 2, as she is always going to be getting at least 15k-20k power with her own skill, making her especially potent in matchups where getting your opponent’s damage count very high is vital to finish the game off.  Maiden of Iceberg is also exceedingly cheap, as she’s only gonna set you back 0.80 cents for an entire playset.  These 2 grade 3 units might be enough for most cardfighters to build a solid base for the grade 3 line-up, however I’m going to mention a few more cheap options for the players that wanna go a bit beyond. While these options are a great addition to the deck, they usually fall under the category of tech choices, rather than staple cards that you need to play.  The 2 grade 3 units in this category are the following: 

Maiden of the Trailing rose, who has the following effect:  [AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, call up to one plant token to (RC). If this unit is on (VC), call up to two plant tokens instead of one. (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) [ACT](VC)1/Turn:COST [Soul Blast (1)], and three of your plant tokens get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.

And last but certainly not least, Maiden of Protea, who has this very unique following effect:

[ACT](RC):COST [Retire this unit], and

call

up to three plant tokens to (RC).

(Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost)

Maiden of Trailing Rose is the first of the Neo Nectar clan, and it shows. Not only is she a powerful Vanguard unit that generates tokens on both the v and the r circles, but her secondary skill allows her to power-up three of your plant tokens, adding a very nice 15k of total power to your board for a single soul blast. 

Maiden of Trailing Rose is an excellent addition for the Cardfighters that feel like they want another boss unit in their deck. If that is the case, Maiden of Trailing Rose is an excellent addition, as it works very well as a first ride target, allowing for magic numbers to be hit from all columns. If you want her to be a part of your deck, she is going to set you back at about 3.25-4.00 euros.

Maiden of Protea is an odd-ball in this line-up. While she was initially noted for her very cute design, she is one of the few Neo Nectar units that saw almost no expermentation. That is because of her unique design. With the advent of Order Cards in the new Vanguard format, Overdress, cards that get used just once for a great effect aren’t that weird, at least not anymore. Maiden of Protea is a unit that doubles as an order, that allows you to get a board full of tokens for no cost whatsoever, apart from retiring herself. 

Maiden of Protea is a very unique addition to the deck’s lineup, and I implore the Cardfighters that will experiment with this deck to try her out. Being an over-looked common card, she wont set you back more than 0.40 cents, at most. 

There are many many more points to be made about the grade 3 line-up, but if your budget allows you to add more expensive cards, replace Maiden of Iceberg and Maiden of Protea with any number of Cornflower Flower Maiden, Ines and Arboros Dragon, Sephirot. These cards are more expensive but they are also the next step to building the competitive version of this deck. 

The grade 2 line-up is also interesting, being a mix of massive power increases, as well as a lot of utility for those who find that they do not have enough value generation in their deck.

We are going to begin with a few choices that turn your token units into cards in your hand, allowing you to survive into the late game and outvalue your opponent in both hand and board advantage. We have three main candidates for this list, as the space for the grade 2 slots is quite tight. 

Those three card-draw connaisseurs are the following: 

Spiritual Tree Sage, Irminsul, a card with the following effect:  [AUTO](RC):When placed, if you have two or more grade 0 rear-guards, COST [Counter Blast (1)], draw a card, and all of your units in the same column as this unit get [Power]+5000 until end of turn. Simply put, Irminsul is excellent. He is a card that has a very easy time fullfilling his condition, and an even easier time giving a column a total of 10k power, as well as a draw, all for the cost of a counter-blast. Irminsul is great for grade 2 rushing, pushing the power level of boards, turning your generations into advantage, as well as allowing for a single column to demand a 20k shield block out of your opponent. In my opinion, Irminsul is a must and should be run at 3-4 copies, which are gonna set you back at less than 1 euro.  Our second candidate, the stunning and beautiful Maiden of Nepenthes, and she has the following effect:

(excuse me for the japanese text, the effect is translated properly.) [ACT](VC/RC)1/Turn:COST [Retire a plant token], draw a card, and until end of turn, this unit gets "Boost", and [Power]+5000. [AUTO](RC):When it boosts a grade 3 rear-guard, you may have the boosted unit get [Critical]+1 until end of that battle. If you do, at the end of that battle, put this unit into your soul. Maiden of Nepenthes follows the exact notion of what this deck can do when faced with a slower, card advantage-based value deck, something along the lines of Megacolony or Oracle Think Tank. This maiden is unique, as she literally turns a token into a card in your hand, but she doesn’t reduce the overall power that is present on the board, effectively giving you advantage for no cost whatsoever. The secondary skill is a bit tougher to use effectively in this deck, but if you’re willing to stick with Neo Nectar in the long run, she has also seen play in Ahsha, which is the most popular Neo Nectar build, as of now. A full playset of her is gonna cost you about 2 euros, and I think that she’s a great card to run at 2 or 3 copies.  The last card in this section that requires a bit of our attention is Maiden of fall Vine, a very unique card which has the following effect: 

[AUTO](RC):When placed from hand to the (RC) with a plant token, draw a card, and this unit get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.  Talk about a unique effect ! Maiden of fall vine is one of those few cases where game mechanics and card interaction is specifically stated on the card text, so some new players may be initially confused. She needs to be called on an R circle that already has a pre-existing plant token unit on it, in which case she will inherit the power of said token, as well as replenish a card in your hand. You might notice a lot of similarities with Maiden of Nepenthes, and you would be 100% correct, however, Fall Vine is usually more favored as she is less restrictive and more cost-effective, allowing for a wider range of plays and combos to be made with her. Maiden of fall vine is a card that is integral to our strategy, therefore it needs to be a 4-of in our deck. She is also going to set you back about 3-4 euros, although she can be found for much cheaper online.  These grade 2 units are very powerful, and should be present in any token-based deck so that they may turn the board advantage that is provided by most Neo Nectar units into hand advantage. However, we have a few more miscallenious grade 2 units that need a quick look-over, those being:  Bad Boy, Walgackey, a grade 2 unit that has a very familiar effect, which reads: 

[ACT](RC):COST [Retire this unit], and call up to two plant tokens to (RC). (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) Maiden of Protea’s son has turned out to be quite the bad apple, but he can still be very useful in our deck. Retiring himself for 2 token units basically fullfills the entire condition of Irminsul, sets us up for Maiden of Fall Vine, and also further assists with Maiden of Nepenthes. A card with a simple effect that complements our entire deck. Walgackey is a flex slot, meaning that he’s not necessary, but he is a very cheap card, which is only gonna set you back about 0.40 cents for a playset,  However, grade 2 units can also bring the pain with very high numbers, which is the unique case of Lily of the Valley Musketeer, Kaivant, who has the following effect:

[AUTO](RC):When placed, this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of turn for each of your grade 0 rear-guards. Apart from being near and dear to my heart, as he is a part of my favorite deck ever, the Musketeers, Kaivan is just an all-around excellent attacker for the Neo Nectar clan. Just like Maiden of Iceberg, Kaivant gets a nice 5k boost for each of your token units. In many board states kaivant gets a massive 20k attack boost just by being called from your hand. Kaivant is also only 20 cents, so an entire playset will not cost you more than 1 euro.  For the non budget options, as well as a few more unique card choices the cards I would recommend are the following: Pansy Musketeer, Sylvia, Osmanthus Maiden, Anelma, Maiden of Fine Ale

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, you may call a plant token to (RC). (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost)

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)], draw a card, and call up to one Plant token to (RC). (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) [CONT](RC):If you have a rear-guard on your (RC) with the same card name as your grade 3 or greater vanguard, all of your units get "Boost".

[ACT](RC):COST [Counter Blast (1) & Retire this unit], look at three cards from the top of your deck, call up to two cards from among them to (RC), and put the rest on the bottom of your deck in any order. All of these choices bring some unique elements to this deck. Sylvia is an unconditional token summon, which is excellent for rushing and value plays, while Anelma requires both a counter blast and a soul blast to give you a card that both gives you a token and a card in your hand, both of which are excellent effects. Maiden of Fine Ale is an option that a few select lists run, as it turns herself into one of your high-value and low cost units, as well as thinning out the deck a tiny bit.  The grade 2 units are an integral part of every single Neo Nectar deck, as the majority of grade 2 Neo Nectar units are amazing cards both in conjuction with other cards and just by themselves. 

Moving forward, we have some very nice options for our grade 1 units, as the Neo Nectar grade 1 units are known for being power-houses in the early phases of the game.

We begin our grade 1 escapades with the most vital units of the deck, which are going to be 2 very high power grade 1 units that will give us value, and close out the game for us, those being Maiden of Flower Carpet and Maiden of Dream Shower. 

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, you may call a Plant token to (RC). (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) [AUTO](Drop Zone):At the end of your turn, COST [retire two Plant tokens], and return this card to your hand. This ability may only be used by a card with the same card name once a turn.

[AUTO](RC):When placed, if your vanguard is grade 3 or greater, COST [Counter Blast (1)], and all of your token units on (RC) get [Power]+10000 until end of turn.  Wow. Where to begin with both of these units? They are both quite excellent at what they do, but let’s begin with the more unique out of the pair, Maiden of Flower carpet. Flower Carpet is, by far, the best grade 1 Neo Nectar unit, as the token generation works on both V and R circles, it is unconditional with no cost, and she recycles herself by retiring 2 token units, effectively turning 2 useless units, that have little to no usage on your opponent’s turn into a 10k shield blocker, that can also be used for even more value next turn. She is a tiny bit pricier than the rest of the cards at about 4 euros for a playset, but it is well worth it for such an effect.  Maiden of Dream Shower is a win condition, plain and simple. Her effect has a few caveats, requiring both a counter blast and your vanguard being a grade 3 unit. However, the power she provides is game-winning. She is a card that, in many cases, with provide a whopping 40k power on your board, and paired with multiple copies she mades even your weak initial attacks before Peony’s skill quite deadly. She pairs fabulously with force 2, and in many circumstances she can blow your opponent out of the game. A glass cannon, to be sure, but a cannon nontheless. She is also exceedingly cheap, a common that is 10 cents per copy.  Our Grade 1 line-up continues to impress with our next few entries, as we take a look at 3 more token generators, as well as a very unique board buff. Our token generators are: Fruits Basket Elf, Maiden of Sweet Berry, and blowball squire.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, call up to one Plant token to (RC), and if your vanguard is grade 3 or greater, Soul Charge (1). [CONT](RC):During your turn, if your vanguard is grade 3 or greater, this unit gets [Power]+5000.

[AUTO](RC):When placed, if you have no plant tokens, call up to two plant tokens to (RC). (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost)

[ACT](RC):COST [Soul Blast (1) & retire this unit], call up to two plant tokens to (RC), and if your vanguard is grade 3 or greater, those plant tokens get [Power]+5000 until end of turn. (Plant tokens are grade 0/[Power]5000/[Critical]1 and have boost) There is not a lot to be said here, Cardfighters. What you see is what you get, cheap, strong, easy to use token generation, with some different varieties of spice. Blowball is a very unique sort of token generation, being insanely strong but only really being “active” on the first few turns of the game. Maiden of sweet berry is an excellent booster and a soul charge engine. Fruits basket is 2 tokens, as well as a nice power boost for said tokens. All of these cards have merit, however In the example list that is going to be provided, Fruits Basket Elf is the card that I have decided to run. All of these cards are excellent for what they do, and they are gonna set you back at about the same price, 20 cents for a copy. 

General overview of the deck, example decklist.

I truly do believe that Maiden of Stand Peony is one of the strongest Budget decks that you can make for a very low price. We haven’t even scratched the surface of what you can do with this deck, and I have neglected to mention quite a few options for all of the grades, as the ones that I mention are both a combination of being very cheap and very affordable.

I will showcase the list that I am currently using, which cost me less than 20 euros. 

Grade 3 

4x Maiden of Stand Peony

2x Maiden of Protea

Grade 2

4x Maiden of Fall Vine 

4x Spiritual Tree Sage, Irminsul

2x Lily of the Valley Musketeer, Kaivant

2x Maiden of Nepenthes 

3x Bad Boy, Walgackey 

Grade 1

4x Maiden of Dream Shower

4x Fruits Basket Elf

4x Maiden of Flower Carpet

Grade 0

1 Starter

8 Critical Triggers

4 Heal Triggers

4 Draw Triggers (Perfect guards)

This is a very basic list that is easy to pick up, easy to play and very very fun. Not to mention that once you learn how to use the deck effectively, you can steal wins off of very powerful decks.

Closing thoughts and special thanks.