Crossrides: Why Set 5 Broke The Game

There are, I've noticed, a lot of varying opinions regarding the above three cards. Some consider them the spawn of Satan, some think Barkgal should be unrestricted and these three banned outright instead, some consider them the worst thing to ever happen to Vanguard, some think these three are perfectly fine, etcetera etcetera.

These three cards, in order Dragonic Overlord The End, Phantom Blaster Overlord and Majesty Lord Blaster, are regardless the three single most infamous cards in Vanguard. They were the first cards to be able to achieve a Power above 11000 during both turns, giving them an unparalleled defensive advantage, along with each possessing another powerful skill, be it the Persona Blasts of PBO and DOTE, or MLB's more infamous second skill.

The reason I want to do some analysis of these three cards now is essentially a matter of time. Set 5, Awakening of Twin Blades, has been announced for an English release in February, meaning the English meta will be changing radically at that time. I can't make exact predictions as to how, but my general belief is that we will see a drastic decrease in certain decks which have excelled in Qualifiers thus far. The Spectral Duke Gold Paladin deck will suffer against the threat of Crossrides and Majesty and probably lose its current high ranking due to this, while I expect the Ezel-Garmore build to cling to power as it has maintained a strong position in Japan in Crossride meta. Narukami and Oracle Think Tank decks will likely fade out for the most part, though OTT may maintain a place with the Oracle Witch build, though Tsukuyomi will be out-tanked by the superior defensive capability of Crossrides. Other decks will likely fade back for a time, though new support in Blue Storm Armada will give Dimension Police and Neo Nectar in particular the ability to stand up to Crossrides (D-Police owning to their own, Great Daiyusha, plus Galactic Beast, Zeal, Neo Nectar due to the Arboros Dragon Ride Chain and its capability to easily surpass 20k marks on all three columns with Sephirot's Limit Break.)

Anyway, that aside, let's get into a discussion of the big three. This analysis is mainly derived from my own experience of Crossrides, but also my discussions on the subject with my friends, Nightmare and Valkaris, who any CFC players reading this will most likely know. Before I specifically target each of these three, I want to clear up one major issue because it is present with all three.

I've heard a lot of opinions regarding the 12k/13k capability of MLB and Crossrides, some holding it as the inferior reason for the dominance these Units possess compared to their own skills, others considering it the superior. In truth, while the skills of MLB and the Crossrides are undoubtedly part of their dominance, their ability to surpass 11k in both turns also plays a major part. It forces the opponent to set up 17k/18k columns or have their Rearguards be blocked by 5k Shields effortlessly. Needing 5k less Shield to guard columns an 11k would need 10k to guard is absurdly good. This, by the way, is also the reason for the Tsukuyomi deck's inferior matchup to Crossrides. Silent Tom, that deck's major winning image prior to Awakening of Twin Blades, can only reach 16k maximum, leaving it open to 5k guards which completely defeat its ability to prevent Grade 0 (ie, 10k Shield) guards.

Now, onto each of the three on their own:

ZETSUUUBBBOOO

Phantom Blaster Overlord

Abyss Dragon/Shadow Paladin/United Sanctuary

Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield

Continuous [V/R]: If you have a non-<Shadow Paladin> Vanguard or Rearguard, this Unit loses 2000 Power.

Continuous [V]: If you have a Unit named 'Phantom Blaster Dragon' in your Soul, this Unit gains 2000 Power.

Auto [V]: [Counterblast 3, discard a Unit named 'Phantom Blaster Overlord' from your hand] When this Unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If paid, this Unit gains 10000 Power and 1 Critical until end of that battle.

The first of the three superboss cards in Awakening of Twin Blades, Phantom Blaster Overlord possesses the usual two Crossride abilities, -2000 Power for a Unit not of the same Clan on your field (a step which ironically dissuades hybrid decks in the set which gave us the first viable hybrid. Well, sort of), and +2000 Power for the previous form in your Soul. Shadow Paladins alone among the Crossride Clans can actually 'cheat' at this with Nightmare Painter, which on call can send a Shadow Paladin from your hand to the Soul, allowing you to speed up getting a full-Power PBO by a turn by riding PBO, then using Painter to send PBD to the Soul. It also has its third, unique skill. On attack, by Counterblasting three cards and Persona Blasting, PBO activates its previous form's Damned Charging Lance for +10k and +1 Crit for that attack.

In terms of deliberate support, three Units from Awakening are clearly designed to work in tandem with PBO. Knight of the Void, Masquerade is a 9k Grade 2 which gains 3k when it attacks if your Vanguard is a 'Blaster' Unit (this usefully alleviates the issue of Shadow Paladins being forced to run Javelin @4). Apocalypse Bat is a 4k Grade 1 which when it boosts a 'Blaster' unit, can Soul Blast 1 to boost by an extra 6k for that battle. Finally is Phantom Bringer Demon, a 5k Grade 0 which can Counterblast 1 and retire 2 Shadow Paladin Rearguards to add a PBO from your deck to your hand. Of these three, Bringer Demon is generally trash which no-one runs. Apocalypse Bat also doesn't see much play due to a Charon being sufficient to push PBO to 21k, enough to roll over anything but MLB or another Crossride. Masquerade however is considering a near-staple by PBO decks due to his ability to roll over Crossrides when boosted by any Grade 1 the deck offers.

To sum up PBO, of the three superbosses in Awakening, it is easily the weakest. Its skill, while turning it into a massive beatstick, shares its previous form's vulnerability to Perfect Guards, and moreover, in a Counterblast-heavy Shadow Paladin deck, Counterblast 3 is a ridiculously high cost. Because the Persona Blast activates on declaration of the attack, you cannot use it to apply pressure in the same way you can use DOTE or MLB, allowing the opponent to more-or-less safely not guard PBO on any turn when it doesn't Persona Blast. Moreover, as a deck, Shadow Paladin actually isn't suited to a Crossride at all. They don't have the sort of options Kagero or Royal Paladin had at the time when these three cards were released (nor do they have such options now, to my constant irritation), leaving them at four Draw Triggers when PBO's competition is mostly likely running with six Draw, six Critical, four Heal, a combination generally seen as the optimal for this deck as it provides 5k Shields both to guard with using the Crossride's superior defense, and extra fodder to discard for Perfect Guards while maintaining the offensive threat of Critical Triggers. 

This is not to say, of course, that PBO isn't a threat. It is still a powerful card purely on the virtue of being a Crossride Unit. However in comparison to its peers, it lacks the offensive threat to apply pressure as DOTE and MLB can, and the options necessarily to fully make use of its superior defense. A PBO deck can still do nasty things by cycling through the deck with Nemains, which in tandem with PBO's 13k can defend against 17k or less columns on their own, but compared to the threat of DOTE in combination with Kagero's ability to snipe away major threats, and MLB's ridiculous consistency and potentially even larger offensive threat, PBO falls short. Of the three, it's the one I'd call closest to balanced, and that's largely because it was dumped into a Clan lacking the tools to properly make full use of it while being saddled with an inefficient, over-the-top rendition of Damned Charging Lance when that skill was already inefficient as it was. But even then, possessing the ability to become a 13k Unit makes PBO a serious threat to non-Crossride builds due to the sheer ability to tank behind that 13k and Nemain's ability to cycle away useless cards to acquire more guards. So ironically for a card so clearly geared towards being an offensive powerhouse, its greatest asset is a defensive body supplemented by a cheap cycle and draw Unit.

(I also despise PBO for moving away entirely from the Give your lives to the cursed dragon! ethos but more of that another time.)

BURN BABY BURN

Dragonic Overlord The End

Flame Dragon/Kagero/Dragon Empire

Grade 3/11000 Power/No Shield

Continuous [V/R]: If you have a non-<Kagero> Vanguard or Rearguard, this Unit loses 2000 Power.

Continuous [V]: If you have a Unit named 'Dragonic Overlord' in your Soul, this Unit gains 2000 Power.

Auto [V]: [Counterblast 2, discard a Unit named 'Dragonic Overlord The End' from your hand] When this Unit's attack hits, you may pay the cost. If paid, Stand this Unit.

Dragonic Overlord The End. Possibly the most divisive and infamous Unit in Vanguard. It's topped in Japan, edging out even Majesty for that spot at the top of the meta (though it and Majesty got dethroned in Fighter's Road by an anti-Crossride Alfred RP deck, as well as a Bermuda deck which got there because the guy using it was a hack and a cheater), and much debate has raged regarding just how powerful DOTE is. I've seen threads on Pojo asking simply 'Ban DOTE and bring Barcgal back?'.

In terms of what Ji Endo does, aside from the typical Crossride skills, its unique skill allows you to Persona Blast and Counterblast two when its attack hits to stand it. It's worth noting that unlike, say, Spectral Duke Dragon or Stern Blaukruger, Ji Endo doesn't have to attack the Vanguard specifically to get this skill, nor does it lose Twin Drive on the second attack. That's right, people. Snipe an Intercept, and get a second Twin Drive. This provides you with four Drive Checks in a turn. And what's amazing about this skill is that because it's timed after the attack hits, unless your opponent knows with certainty that you don't have a second The End in your hand, they will be lured into a state of paranoia when it attacks, often guarding simply to prevent the off-chance of you getting a second copy and proceeding to use the Persona Blast to wreck things up for them.

With regards to support, all three of The End's particular support Units are clones of the three supports I mentioned for PBO. Burning Horn Dragon is a Masquerade clone for 'Overlord' Units, the same with Flame of Promises, Aermo with regards to Apocalypse Bat, and Doom Bringer Gryphon is a Phantom Bringer Demon clone. Much the same as was discussed with PBO's supports applies, Bringer Gryphon is trash, Burning Horn is pretty much a staple, and Aermo does see use due to Conroe's ability to farm it out of the deck, as well as the potential presence of Flame Edge Dragon to increase the Soul. A typical DOTE deck will also likely tech in Berserk Dragon and Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara, which is where one of Ji Endo's major strengths compared to PBO becomes apparent, Kagero's ability to snipe things. With these two Units, the Ji Endo deck can effortlessly knock down columns capable of hitting over 18k and actually threatening Ji Endo. See a Charon, Marron or Gemini boosting a 10k? Snipe it with Kimnara. Masquerade, Tagitsuhime or Daidragon pressuring you in the front? Snipe it with Berserk Dragon. Kimnara also provides additional Soul for use with Aermo, making things even worse for your opponent. 

Another benefit to The End is Kagero itself. The Clan has access to the ability to run more or less any Trigger lineup you could want or need. 12 Draw can be run. 12 Crit can be run. 12 Stand can be run if you so wish. As a Clan, Kagero has many more options to use with its Crossride than Shadow Paladins do with PBO, putting the edge squarely with DOTE. My experience is generally that the favored Trigger build is six Draw, six Critical, four Heal, a balance of offense and defense. Using Gatling Claw Dragon as one of the Draw Triggers the deck employs is also likely, on the off chance it can be used to snipe away a Wingal Brave or other such threatening Unit while gaining more Soul for Flame of Promises' Soul Blast. With access to so much Retire, The End's strength is clear. The overwhelming pressure the mere threat of its Persona Blast creates pushes your opponent to guard its every strike lest you unleash the Persona and get two more Drive Checks, but with the retire capability provided by Kimnara, Berserk and Gatling, you're whittling away their field. Eventually, their capability to guard and attack will be worn down, allowing you to move in for the killing blow. In effect Ji Endo is a pressure deck much more dangerous, dare I say it, than even Aqua Force. This pressure is mixed with a tank of a Vanguard capable of shrugging off attacks with nothing but 5k Shields, basically allowing you to play the long game because chances are that you'll outlast the opponent.

All in all, DOTE has a reputation as a dangerous card for a reason. It just plain is one. In the hands of most players, it's a devastating force which can shrug off your attacks and then come back with potentially one of the most dangerous and powerful skills in the game. I have very rarely seen The End beaten by a non-Crossride/MLB deck, and even against other Crossrides, it clearly has an edge all to itself. With the perfect support to augment its defensive capability, while maintaining the offensive ability to truly pressure the opponent's resources in tandem with Kagero's retiring skills, The End certainly deserves its reputation as possibly the strongest card in the game, backed by a very adept and powerful deck. 

However, there is a third superboss. And this one, it is said, could possibly be even worse than Ji Endo.

KIBBBOOOUUU

Majesty Lord Blaster

Human/Royal Paladin/United Sanctuary

Grade 3/10000 Power/No Shield

Continuous [V]: If you have a Unit named 'Blaster Blade' and a Unit named 'Blaster Dark' in your Soul, this Unit gains 2000 Power and 1 Critical.

Auto [V]: [Send a Unit named 'Blaster Blade' and a Unit named 'Blaster Dark' from your Rearguard Circles to the Soul] When this Unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If paid, this Unit gains 10000 Power until end of that battle. 

Majesty Lord Blaster, Aichi's final ace in Season 1, wielding the combined power of Blaster Blade and Blaster Dark. An embodiment of hope, the lone light amidst the blackest darkness which refuses to die no matter how desperate things become. Also pretty much fully deserving the title of the single most broken card in all of Vanguard.

In terms of what he can do, Majesty breaks the Crossride formula entirely, most probably due to needing two Units instead of one to unleash his full power. While you have Blaster Blade and Blaster Dark in your Soul, Majesty gains 2000 Power and one Critical during both turns, and furthermore, when he attacks, you can move those two Units from your Rearguard into the Soul to have him gain 10000 Power for that attack. This gives MLB the ability to actually set up his own bonus, adding a level of consistency not present with PBO and DOTE. Indeed it could be argued that Majesty's true great power is consistency. As a deck, Royal Paladins have generally always had the capability to search out exactly what you need in a given situation and make use of it, with King of Knights, Alfred and Hi-Dog Breeder, Akane being stellar examples of this theme. Though Majesty with his skill active is 1000 Power weaker than Crossrides, he also gains an additional Critical for having Blade and Dark in your Soul, and this factor makes him possibly even more of a pressure card than DOTE. If DOTE attacks the opposing Vanguard while they're at three Damage, they may choose to gamble on you not Persona Blasting, reasoning that even with a Critical Trigger, The End can't finish them with that attack. Majesty with his skill active on the other hand can and will beat them with a Critical Trigger at that point, forcing guards to stop him from doing so. While 12k isn't as potent defensively as 13k, it still locks out the Tsukuyomi deck's Silent Tom plays and forces 17k columns, which makes it extremely hard for decks with several 8k Grade 2s.

In terms of support, Majesty can technically make use of Masquerade and Apocalypse Bat from Shadow Paladin, but comes with support of his own. Knight of Loyalty, Bedivere is a Royal Paladin clone of Masquerade, while Knight of Friendship, Kay is a 7k Grade 1 equivalent. Wingal Brave, the deck's starter Vanguard, can not only move to the Rearguard when ridden over by a Royal Paladin, but when it boosts a 'Blaster' Unit, it can move itself to Soul to search a Blaster from your deck and add it to your hand, pretty much setting the toolbox tone of this deck. And then there's Starcall Trumpeter, an 8k Grade 2 who can Counterblast two when she appears to Superior Call a Grade 2 or lower Blaster from your deck.

This deck can be defined as 'Toolbox, then break things'. With Brave and Starcall, you can snag out the Blasters you need to activate Majesty's skill, and Blade can searched by a teched Gancelot if you so wish. Once you have MLB as the Vanguard and Blade and Dark in the Rearguard at the ready, you can use MLB's skill and basically be set to break things. The consistency of a Majesty deck is ridiculous and devastating, creating a 12k Crit 2 Vanguard effortlessly even by Turn 3, and once that Vanguard is there, it's an uphill struggle for the opponent to overcome it. Royal Paladins have pretty much the same Trigger options as Kagero, minus perhaps the ability to run 12 Draw Triggers, and once more the six Draw, six Critical, four Heal lineup seems favored for offensive and defensive balance. Swordsman of the Explosive Flames, Palamedes can be teched in to make Rearguard columns as massive as Majesty himself, while Soul Saver Dragon is another alternate option due to both its ability to serve as a backup Vanguard, and Majesty's own ability to prep the Soul for a finishing strike with Holy Charging Roar. The only major Counterblasts a Majesty deck really uses are Blade's and Starcall's, leaving potential room for Pongal in a deck teching Soul Saver in order to further the toolbox and get Soul Saver for the finishing blow, as well as for Grade security purposes.

All in all? Majesty Lord Blaster was seen as the first hope of a viable hybrid deck when it first appeared, and... ehhh. It can't really be said it succeeded as that. Majesty decks tend to only run three to four Blaster Dark and then the rest of the deck is Royal Paladins. If the intention was to make a Royal-Shadow hybrid, then perhaps the smarter move would not have been to give Royals their own Masquerade, but I digress. Majesty is a toolbox, plain and simple. It's a ridiculously efficient toolbox which results in a monster of a Vanguard and enormous pressure. And once you have that Vanguard, you will more than likely wear down your opponent's defenses with Majesty's raw power, putting them firmly on the back foot until you finally end the game. Only extreme Triggersack or a fellow superboss can really counter Majesty once it gets going, I find, and the most tried and tested way to deal with it is an early rush to try and push up the MLB player's Damage to the point even Majesty's defensive capabilities aren't quite enough. Majesty's skill to move Blade and Dark to Soul is a -2 in card advantage terms, strictly speaking, but the added defensive capability tends to make up for it. With all this in mind, I'm still not entirely sure why The End is able to overcome Majesty to become the stronger deck by tournament standards, whether it's a question of skill or not.

That said, one edge Majesty does have is column strength. While The End can be massive on his own, Majesty can make all three columns hit over 21k easily with combinations of Palamedes, Bedivere and Toypugal, while sniping more dangerous opposing Rearguards with Blaster Blade's Counterblast if needs be. With this toolbox consistency, power output and capability to remove threatening opposing Units, Majesty, while it may not be as deadly overall as Ji Endo, is definitely a real threat at the very least. Many decks simply can't stand against a full power Majesty Lord Blaster without extreme luck, due to how overwhelming the deck is. 

To conclude, these three cards signaled the end of and the beginning of an era in more ways than one when they first appeared. It was the end of Season One and the dawn of Season Two, the end of the Royal Paladins, Shadow Paladins and Kagero and the beginning of Gold Paladins and Narukami. But it was also the end of an age of Tsukuyomi and Kagero, and the beginning of a new age where 11k wasn't necessarily enough anymore. Since that time, the Crossrides and Majesty have maintained a place at the very top of Vanguard's Japanese metagame, and while challenges have come in the form of Gold Paladins and a remarkable anti-Crossride Royal Paladin deck, the superboss Units have kept their throne for the most.

There are a lot of suggestions out there as to how to resolve this problem. Some argue that there is no problem and that these units are perfectly fine. This is an argument I strongly disagree with. Crossrides were released before the game could deal with them. The game can deal with them to a degree more now than it could when Set 5 was first released, but these three (along with Great Daiyusha) still hold an inherent and dangerous advantage over practically all of their competition. Their 13k defensive ability combined with in particular the skills of DOTE and MLB create an overwhelming force which wears away the opposing defenses with ease, while holding off attack more-or-less just as easily much of the time. 

Others have suggested making these Units the first subjects of a Vanguard banlist. While I understand the rationale to it, and can agree, I also think it's the wrong way to go about it. Starting a banlist is a way to deal with the problem, but more preferable alternatives exist which don't involve blacklisting cards because of bad design. I look to the Pokemon TCG and regard a potential method there for fixing flaws in design, namely Errata. 

The biggest problem of Crossrides is their permanent 13k, while arguably Majesty's greatest edge is his permanent Critical 2. To resolve this, all I feel you would really need to do is errata their skills in the following manner:

Continuous [V]: If you have a Unit named '?' in your Soul, this Unit gains 2000 Power during your turn.

Continuous [V]: If you have a Unit named 'Blaster Blade' and/or a Unit named 'Blaster Dark' in your Soul, this Unit gains 1000 Power.

Continuous [V]: If you have a Unit named 'Blaster Blade' and a Unit named 'Blaster Dark' in your Soul, this Unit gains 2000 Power during your turn.

Auto [V]: [Send a Unit named 'Blaster Blade' and a Unit named 'Blaster Dark' from your Rearguard Circles to the Soul] When this Unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If paid, this Unit gains 10000 Power and 1 Critical until end of that battle.

These erratas reduce the Crossrides and Majesty to 11ks during your opponent's turn, while maintaining the same offensive force and removing the overwhelming pressure aspect of Majesty's extra Critical by allowing him to have it only when he uses his skill to move Blade and Dark into the Soul. With the superboss Units so nerfed, their threat level would likely decrease enough to allow more varied decks to step up, diversifying the meta. Still, in the end, it's up to Bushiroad what they decide to do about these Units, I can ultimately only make a suggestion and hope it's what they decide is best.

All in all, with that done, this post is over. I hope you found my analysis of these Units useful, and that I was able to present them in a more objective light as to why they are as effective as they are.