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Saikyo Cardfighter R

Peaceful Voice, Raindear   It's August! And until we get our bugs, ninjas and university lab test animals to tide us over we're continuing with fanservice.clan. New Raindear's first this week. When she's the Vanguard and you Drive Check a Grade 3, you can put a card in your hand into the soul, then bounce a rear-guard. Then if you have the original Velvet Voice Raindear in the soul or it was scored as Drive Check, you get another Drive Check until end of turn. When she's a Rear-guard and she's still standing, if you Drive Check a Raindear, once the battle ends, you CB2 and then she gets moved to VG circle, but then she loses a Drive Check for the turn.   Well, that's a lot going on, so first off her VG skill. Scoring a Grade 3 thanks to her new support which can be treated as G3s is easy enough I suppose. I'm not exactly fond of it however as it's essentially a very elaborate OTT or Genesis play. It's basically converting a Grade 3 into another card on a 1:1 basis, although the capacity to at least bounce a rear-guard for no Counterblast is nice.    What you probably want her for is her RG skill. You then score another Vanguard attack, albeit a pretty sucky one, but at least she gets to keep any trigger effects you apply to her by moving. The problem is the CB2 cost. That's a bit steep for giving up a RG attack and a -1 to field just to +1 Drive back, especially when the odds of even getting it off are too low.   The first skill probably isn't good enough to use over Striding assuming you want to take away more than the opponent can gain, and her RG skill is only good for extremely specific scenarios and is too low in chance to use practically. She's pretty meh even for something that lets a second VG attack happen.   2.5/5

Winston Fairwinds

[Peaceful Voice, Raindear] Oldguard is trying to come back with a vengeance. Raindear's extra drive check is cute, but not the main draw to this card because you might not get Velvet Voice on the Vanguard Circle, and if you didn't ride old Raindear, you gotta hope you drive check it. Raindear nets you an extra drive check if you check a Grade 3, and while you don't actually net an extra card because of the top effect's cost, you're of course trying to sack more triggers and proc other effects. The reride is nice, even if a bit weak: they still have to drop a card or two or take the damage.  Raindear gets Daikaiser levels of probability with her new support. With it being so high, investing into this strategy becomes actually reliable. Now, since you most likely won't be running Legion, you're gonna run out of triggers eventually. Still, it's worth trying to drive check into "Grade 3s" for Shyness Laguna, Lapia's effect: she can get you another superior call on your Olyvia turns to try and poke the opponent down. Decks like Raindear is exactly the reason Bushiroad doesn't allow players to choose who goes first: Raindear is capable of nasty rushdowns if you can get a triple drive and extra superior calls when the opponent is sitting at Grade 2. All in all, Raindear.dek is capable of laying down pressure the moment you ride to Grade 3, and should be played aggressively as possible. 3/5