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Awesome and Awful: G-Booster 8

Saikyo examines what everyone’s calling the worst G Booster ever.

A part of me wonders if I should even continue doing any of this given that the competitive scene may as well not exist given how shite it truly is and how my own pauper deck revolves around sealing off most of the stuff in here, but I can pretend that these cards are actually interesting. Pretending’s piss easy. If I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t disillusioned with the Vanguard community as a collective whole I’d never have the energy to type something every bloody week.

The clans getting support this set are Dark Irregulars, Granblue, Royal Paladin, Neo Nectar, Genesis, Link Joker, Pale Moon and Gold Paladin. I would accuse this set of spreading a lot of its new toys a bit too thin owing to everything minor except Genesis having gotten support last set, so all you can do is invent about one or two new toys with the rest being shit no-one will touch, least of all me. I’ve got no interest in any of this but I’ll certainly help people part with whatever should have gone into their food and rent and laundry, so without further ado let’s get it on.

Dark Irregulars: Now you know why Scharhrot didn’t get a Stride Fusion last set, because here he is: a slightly easier to use Gilles de Rais without the extra Critical. There isn’t really a whole lot for DI apart from that due to them blowing their load last set: Darkness-wise there’s the new Perfect Guard, Demented Executioner and Edge in the Darkness (CRAAAAAAAAWLING IN MY SOOOOOUL), and the rest of it such as the Nightmareland Support won’t fail to underwhelm. That’s it. There is pretty much nothing for you apart from that: no Amon support for example. Oh, there’s some manga cards that got printed this set but they don’t function like they do in the manga so you might as well not bother.

Get it for: Scharhot, Greedy Succubus, Edge in the Darkness, Demented Executioner.

Granblue: Nightrose support! They missed the exclusive Critical last time so here it is this set. Again, there isn’t really a whole lot for you. Seven Seas got support again but none of them are good enough to use over existing options to be honest. Gouache and Negrolily are pretty much what you’re buying the set for along with Rampage Shade, because everything else is just GB1 restricted crap, or Ghosties, which is not a thing. Well, the Ghostie Crit’s functional enough because Tommy’s staple at least. So all in all, pretty uninteresting to talk about and can be summarised as: grab G Units and Nightrose support. Everything else has as much value as the collective opinions on Touken Ranbu as a clan.

Get it for: Rampage Shade, Gouache, Negrolily.

Royal Paladin: Usual suspects here, all down to the Brave support, the token Jewel Knight, and the fact that Seekers once again didn’t get supported, the fucks. Sharon reprint worth mentioning. Worth mentioning once and swiftly moving on. Danius and Escort Eagle are your better pickups from the R and C box, they will in all likelihood replace anything otherwise usually vanilla like Shyngal and also because Resist is good. The cards that are more on the shiny side are Fides and Andragius. Neither are terribly important but options are options and at least making room for them is kinda sorta easy? The good news at any rate is that the tweaks will be pretty minor overall or can be ignored, apart from maybe the G Guardian just in case.

Get it for: Fides, Andragius.

Neo Nectar: Oh, they took this set to support an old deck, that’s nice. Bloom support as expected but now there’s also Arboros support. Remember that deck? I do, and I remember it being pretty underwhelming. It still is, actually: compared to Ahsha the columns aren’t as good and neither are the plusses particularly, but at least it’s not GB1 restricted, right? Little comfort. Anyway, Marjukka and Launy are so far the only Bloom units I’d want to run over the existing options right now, because as nice as on-hit skills are, I’d rather have the ridiculous power instead since I should be good for plusses, thanks. As always, grab your new G Guardian and the RRR G Unit and you can leave the rest, unless you want EVERY advantage you can squeeze out, like the new Crit Trigger.

Get it for: Verna, Ilmatar, Launy, Marjukka, Maiden of Zephyranthes.

Genesis: Oh here we go, some actually meaty shit. Getting to the Regalia support, it’s neat I guess but I still don’t like how it forces people to run mono-Regalia nor the dependency on the drop zone for soul, but if you absolutely must their new G Unit might be worth looking into. Not the others though, I prefer having CEO and Minerva as safer options. As for Fenrir, the new Keyword is Revelation: look at the top card, either leave it on top, or move it to soul and rest a rear-guard. That’s a nice strategy but really not the most devastating, at best it’ll at least assure you of one or more trigger which the opponent’s anticipating anyway. But as Fenrir has fuck all else, grab everything you can to support him, even if you’ve gotten his worst shit you’ll have a large bulk of it that’s good.

Get it for: Everything with Revelation on it, Hanasatsuki, new Fenrir, Thviti, Bahn, Regalias if you want.

Link Joker: Well, given that Lock is pretty much their exclusive thing, I don’t see how they can get a keyword, which is good because that gives them time to expand on their old strategy. Messiahs can now OMEGA Lock thanks to Flageolet Messiah. In fact their support seems to revolve around this, Omega Locking your own cards for bonuses. The G Guardian supports only Messiahs well as usual, which is a pity. The token Star-Vader support isn’t anything to write home about but at least Infinite Zero gets his time in the sun. 2 Deletors getting token support but that’s all Greion-based, but they work. Somewhat. All in all, you're only really wanting Flatulence Messiah for the Messiah deck, or if you intend to be troll-ey about the whole thing, a strange and dedicated Dark Zodiac build.

Get it for: Flageolet Messiah, anything that may vaguely help Messiahs.

Pale Moon: Well once you've blown your load of staple clone cards where the hell are you supposed to go from there? Well in this case, it would be a new G Unit and a G Guardian designed to help Magia builds and nothing else. All other support for everything else may as well be sitting in squalor. Only Carnivorous Megatrick Prana and Doting Harleqin Maja are worth picking up: the Nightmare Doll support may as well not exist for all the good it does for the main strategy and what's left over is just once manga-exclusive cards making their debut this set. The only remotely relevant normal unit I can think of is Red Star Dual horn if you want to expand on options in Magia a bit more. Otherwise the circus got seriously shafted this set.

Get it for: Prana, Maja.

Gold Paladin: But as bad as that is, that's nothing compared to the...well, nothing, Gold Paladin got this set. Having spent last set on all their staples and a GR G Unit, all they really could spare was a new finisher in the form of Glorious Reigning Dragon. Absolutely everything else is completely uninteresting: there's not even any archetype support and even the new Perfect Guard isn't something you'd actively want to run over the Countercharging one or even over a normal one, assuming Gurguit's GB2 is your aim.

Get it for: Glorious Reigning Dragon.

So that's it then. To summarise this entire booster, it sucks to be any clan that isn't Genesis. But on the plus side it means that some people who are on a budget could probably ignore this set for other things due to their status as optional extras. At least it means I can get a few laughs from watching all of you tear each other to pieces over the sparce shiny shit worth actually running while I sit back and plan for whenever the fuck we get new Kagero.

I’m taking requests for articles if there’s something about Vanguard you need to gripe about. Email ideas at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com. Or drop a message on my Twitter account!