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Wow-zers and Wank: G-Booster 4

The one where Saikyo wonders if he should take up Neo Nectar…not.

I was looking forward to this one. Not that it has anything I want, but it’s nice to see. The Kagero-free drought marches on and so I am resigned to once again scouting out my future competition by taking a quick sneak preview of the next set gracing our stores this October. Apparently this is the last G Set for Season 1 before we move on, to pastures new. Such as giving the rest of the under-supported stuff their G deck at long fucking last.

So, with that in mind, the clans getting supported this time are Gear Chronicle (of course) Royal Paladin, Neo Nectar, Angel Feather, Genesis, Shadow Paladin and Megacolony. Because Cray Elementals can for the most part go to hell. So, time to tackle the overall expected decks and see whether it’s actually worth anyone’s time.

Gear Chronicle: Hello Gear Chronicle, nice to see you again. What’s that? More Chronojet support? So you get an exclusive countercharger and a new Grade 3 that can turn into Chronojet so you have basically no fail-con ride at all ever? Well, that’s neat I suppose, considering almost everything in here seems pretty token as it is; there’s nothing else here you’d use over what they already have. Even the new RR Upstream Dragon; I don’t think you need it in every build. No, you’re getting it because you want Nextage. Which is certainly not a bad card; a decent finisher was what Gear Chronicle was sorely missing. All in all, this set finally turned Gear Chronicle away from being a worse Kagero…into an only slightly worse Kagero. We did the re-standing shit first, buster, you’re just getting in on our noise.

Get it for: Chronodragon Nextage, Steam Fighter Balih, Steam Ul-nigin, Upstream Dragon, that other Critical if you really must.

Royal Paladin: They actually took time to address a lot of their problems this set: Boosters are a bit more appreciated than attackers due to scarcity. That’s why we got Techgal and Jumpgal: cards that can Swiss-army as both! You have a bit of Jewel Knight support in the form of another Critical, one new Sanctuary Guard card, but obviously G Royals steal the show. Pir’s here for the column forming of course, but new Altmile’s what you’re getting the set for. I’m sort of lukewarm to it but since a good finisher isn’t exactly their strong suit anyway you may as well get him for the options it brings. All in all, the token support can be largely ignored unless you’re overcome with nostalgia but the G Royal Support should be worth getting, if nothing else.

Get it for: Aerial Divine Knight Altmile, Knight of Reform Pir, Techgal, Jumpgal, Straight Jewel Knight Bartram, Sanctuary Archer.

Neo Nectar: Fun fact: I’ve gotten G Booster 2 as prizes for the last four tournaments at locals. Three of them I pulled Jingle Flower Dragon. No, I’m not fucking building it. I know I have Primavera but still, NO. Anyway, there isn’t anything to deal with rear-guard fuck-uppers since this set gave them nothing with Resist: they just chose to exploit the perfect field still further. Pia to shuffle copies to the deck and power up, a Maiden of Flower Screen reprint, Ahsha’s special Critical, Salianna…and the rest can probably be ignored. There’s also a Legion Revival for Maiden of Trailing Rose but I don’t really like it much, since it’s a bit slow and unwieldy. New Ahsha’s what you want the set for. As always, functional enough but still susceptible to a good hard dicking from a board-wiper.

Get it for: Dream Spinning Rananculus Ahsha, Maiden of Flower Screen, Flower Garden Maiden Mylis, Flower Cluster Maiden Salianna, Early Flowering Maiden Pia.

Angel Feather: I was sort of hoping these would continue their hand-swap strategy and turn it into something similar to OTT. But I guess I can’t expect too much from a minor clan, because the route they seem to have taken this time is “do every conceivable thing with the damage zone, but don’t make up your mind”. If you want to call rear-guards from damage, we have Gavrail and Harut. If you want column formers, Nurse of Broken Heart with Gavrail. Damage swapping…Okay, nothing swaps as such in this set but we have Counterblast undoing so you can combine it with the old swappers…? Raziel springs to mind. Raphael’s the main G-Unit you’ll get, along with token stuff like Dream Light Unicorn. All in all, it’s competent but it seems a bit underwhelming compared to the other stuff we have here. Oh yeah, Celestial support in here too. Ignore that, they sucked from the start and these don’t help enough. Also, new Metatron which sort of sucks too. I found the best version of G Angel Feather is the one that spams swapping for enormous columns using old stuff like the Pegasus cards from G Booster 6, so only get the stuff here if you bought Breaker of Limits.

Get it for: Holy Seraphs Raziel and Raphael, Dreamlight Unicorn, Nurse of Broken Heart, Black Shiver Gvraill, Black Slice Harut, Black Record Israfil.

Genesis: Good to see they started to do a bit more with their soul now, rather than just use it as an elaborate means to the end everyone else figured out how to get to more efficiently. Now, we get the G Support focusing on calling the Soulblasted stuff to the field. Fenrir and Fetter of Leather Leyding, obviously supposed to be combined with Doom Brace from Fighter’s Collection. As far as end results go we have Vanargandr, which is a good bluff-factor but not a tremendous finisher, I must say. Still, giving more emphasis on Stride gives it more punch than the existing Genesis decks already. Unless you want to upgrade Regalia, because you can totally do that this set. Nothing to elevate them to noteworthy standards but it’s nice to have. Genesis Witch support exists here too but again, token stuff for a deck that wasn’t that great anyway.

Get it for: Mythic Beast Fenrir, Mythical Destroyer Beast Vanargandr, Goddess of Decline Hel, Unappeasable Biter Gleipnir.

Shadow Paladin: My guess: G Booster 6 is giving us stuff for Blaster Dark’s faction. Witch support exists but until we have a better finisher they’re only for the specialist buyers. G Shadows actually got a spike in good useable things here, with Dark Quartz and Darkpride Dragon together with Grosne, allowing G Shadows to do a decent column game and fixes a decent amount of its issues, namely you didn’t do a whole lot with the field. Aurageyser Doomed is what you really want though, but given his stupid restraints you shouldn’t need to worry about getting any more than 2 at most. Luckily since there’s few good cards in here it’s piss easy to decide what to get. All in all, the set made them a bit more CB friendly but it’s nothing field bombing in excess can’t solve.

Get it for: Aurageyser Doomed, Dark Pride and Dark Quartz Dragon, Taboo Demonic Mage Kafir.

Megacolony: Surprisingly, I think that for once the archetype support beats out the G Megacolony in this set. Of course they still have the staples for every Megacolony build like the Perfect Guards and the G-Units, but all in all I’m just more fascinated by the Machinings. G Megacolony went for the delayed, but cheaper stunning route but to be frank, their only method to paralyze the Vanguard is Stun Beetle, and he needs to hit. Which is unfortunate given he’s a GB2 and thus doesn’t work as a first Stride, so it’s PG city for him. So all in all while the deck can certainly pull a Link Joker for a turn or if you’re lucky two, Machinings are just easier to spam, and it’s not as though the stuff in their archetype sucks enough to be a deal breaker, especially now they have new triggers for more consistency. G Megacolony can probably make RG dependant decks like Neo Nectar very sad but aggressive crap or decks where the RGs don’t stay still like Gear Chronicle should manage.

Get it for: all the Machinings, Stun Beetle, Rebellion Mutant Star Shield, whatever G Support for Megacolony exists if you really want to.

So in summary, the Big 4 of the set, Gears, Neos, Shadows and Royals are expected to make up the bulk of the new age and are going to be the easiest to shift. The rest are just for people who don’t like the meta. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go bug my acquaintances for a drive to Manchester. Repeatedly. Maybe I can pimp myself out or something.

Try to impress upon me the importance of being so average at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com