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David NavyCherub Lynn

Perfect Raizer   In Vanguard, there are some things that are easily identifiable as "win more" mechanics. Perfect Raizer is built on these. First of all, he gains 3000 power during your turn for each Raizer in your soul. If each of your rides was a Raizer, that's an easy 6000 power by itself, which honestly is enough - so-called "power breakers" like Garmore and Kiriel get essentially the same ability, but have to wait until late game to get it. But, it could be argued that the extra power doesn't matter before late game anyway because it is smarter not to guard the vanguard until you have to, right? Well, Perfect Raizer attempts to rectify this by giving your opponent a reason to want to guard him the whole game - that is, by adding a critical to his attack, another effect that is usually combined with either strict conditions or kept until late game with limit break, making it pointless. This has the prerequisite of you having at least four Raizers in your soul, which might seem like a strange cost, but it works in combination with another of his effects - when he enters the vanguard circle, you have to put all the Raizers you control into your soul.   Now, this is where Perfect Raizer's damning faults shine. No matter what, if you want that critical, you will have to minus yourself pretty hard. Under the best case scenario, you will have ridden two Raizer units, so that's two right there. If your starter was Battleraizer or his clone, you have a guaranteed third Raizer for Perfect to suck into his soul. So, on top of having two Raizers to ride, you will also need to have a third Raizer to call to a rearguard circle. Once you have this set up, your Perfect Raizer ride will -2 you, which is pretty harsh a cost just for a crit and some meaningless power. But the losses go beyond the hard minuses. Outside of the single Raizer you need to call, it is meaningless and in fact a bad move to call any other Raizer units until you ride to grade 3, because they will be sucked into your soul, minusing you in exchange for power that probably won't affect anything that happens. You also can't boost with your Battleraizer during these turns, because if you do he will get shuffled back into the deck and you will have to have yet another Raizer to put into your soul before riding Perfect (this is gotten around by the Hi-Powered Raizer twins). And, since you clearly want to get your Perfect his critical in as many games as possible, your deck will obviously be packed with as many Raizers as you can find, leaving you with more and more units you probably can't call until midgame. This gives you a pretty shitty early game with very few possible attacks unless you want to lose all of your cards. On top of that, losing even those two cards (or more, if you didn't ride a grade 1 Raizer properly) puts you in a really bad position for midgame, meaning your vanguard's pressure isn't even that scary because there probably isn't much else to guard. Oh, which reminds me - ignoring even your pressure, I hope you have yet another Raizer to play after riding Perfect, because he gets a permanent -2000 as long as you don't have another Raizer in play.   Perfect Raizer just demands too much from the player in terms of both hard advantage and pressure without giving back something worth it in return.   1/5

XrosHawk

Rating: 3.75   This week, we review cards from the new extra set: Comic Style Vol.1, and we start off with quite possibly one of my favorite cards (so yes, there will be bias here), Perfect Raizer. Perfect Raizer is a grade 3, 11,000-power base unit that is the boss card of the Raizer series, Nova Grapplers first archetype. He boasts an impressive defensive and an even greater offensive capability due to his main skill, gaining +3000 power for every Raizer in the soul. He also gets an extra critical for having four Raizers in the soul, creating pressure on your opponent to guard it, less accelerate into late game. But wait. How do we get Raizers in the soul in a clan that is almost devoid of soul charging? The solution is what is also Perfect Raizer’s greatest weakness. When ridden, he sucks up every other Raizer in the rearguard into the soul like a Vacuum. The vacuum is also not optional, so if you called too many Raizers into rearguard, you’ll be left with an (near) empty field and an equally empty hand. An additional downside to this vacuum is if you don’t have any other Raizer to call after it happens, Perfect Raizer loses 2000 power. This leaves you with a 9,000 power Vanguard during your opponent’s turn, which isn’t good defensively. However, Perfect Raizer does have the advantage of having no counterblast skills, so a Raizer player can make use of a few units from the Grappler arsenal. This includes ‘Magician Girl, Kirara’, which can help to minimize the loss from the Raizer vacuum. Perfect Raizer also has Mr. Invincible, the clan megablast, as the go-to alternate vanguard to pop more Raizers in the soul should you miss riding Perfect. Perfect Raizer is an incredible offensive power and is sure to be a Grappler favorite for players until and after Set 9.