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Dinos, Dirtbags and Discarding: G Technical Booster 1

3 under-supported clans, one booster to compensate. Saikyo analyses them all.

Since The RECKLESS RAMPAGE (which is apparently so amazing it needs to be typed in motherfucking capitals like BRIAN BLESSED) is just over the horizon I thought it would be best to churn this out so that people know what to expect when picking up support for a clan where Legion was the last time they got anything half-way decent. So with that said, this first Technical Booster is responsible for allowing Spike Brothers, Nubatama and Tachikaze to play with some Generation Break toys and new G-Units. But are they any good?

Please keep in mind that I have only very tentatively playtested some of these so take these with a massive pinch of salt. Also I was forced to sort of steal some older shit to incorporate so they didn’t completely fall on their ass, bear with me. So with that in mind, let’s go!

Spike Brothers

Okay, let’s review the Spike Brothers support here first. These guys incorporate Charge as their main keyword. When called by a card effect, a Charge unit goes in the charge state, which sends them back to the deck after attacking. Sounds nasty except Spike is all about chain attacks so not really. Examining the G Support individually, their Generation Break skills basically revolve around them calling more units, either from the field or the hand and them granting them a power boost. A select few even bind units that already attacked, and then call them back for MORE attacks and to spring Charge. One or two cards even power themselves up upon Charge, which means that this deck may even outpace Dragger/Ogle, but I haven’t extensively playtested either. Spikes also managed to get something that actually can deliver hard advantage to your door in the form of Cobalt Impulse, so yay hand fuel and problematic card killers.

Exceptional Expertise, Rising Nova is the Stride bearer of the deck and pretty much the backbone of the entire operation. So what would you use as the backup Grade 3 for him? It may be tempting to use Bulldozer Dobe or the R one, but a RG support G3 isn’t a tempting idea as a ride unless it’s Messiahs or something and almost every G-Unit fulfils name requirements. The best idea I saw was Bad End Dragger. It allows access to specific G-Units like Good End Dragger which would in turn searches Rising Nova with its own skill so no bad ride in the deck. Even if the Break Ride can’t activate, just being able to grab Rising Nova is good enough.

As far as G-Units go, we have Dhampir Lily, which can probably be ignored or just run at 1 copy. What you’re in it for is the RRR Miracle Ace and the GR Dirty Picaro. Assuming you want to use Dirty Picaro at all, you’re mostly going to start with Miracle Ace as the first Stride just so the GB3 can be quickly used. Fair enough, the prospect of 3 Drive Checks is enough to force a PG anyway. Especially if you run 12 Crit. Which you now can, and really should do: deck’s all about damage.

The entire deck is a balancing act: you need to have a good amount of units that can SPRING Charge as well as juggle units with Charge in the first place. As always, being GB1 reliant anything fast may be able to destroy it before it goes live, or anything where G3s don’t matter like G1 rush will pwn it, but since that’s the weakness of everything here, I’ll skip over it for now. All in all, solid.

Nubatama

Second on my list of coverage is Nubatama. Their keyword here is Afterimage: when a card returns from Bind Zone to the hand, the Afterimage unit also returns to the hand, but only if your hand is at six or less. Stealing Bermuda’s shtick of guard quality whilst attacking, are we? Effective enough I suppose, since there’s a decent amount here that can bind cards, so Afterimage isn’t hard to spring. The main problem here is the Afterimage cards themselves. I won’t mince words: quite a lot of them aren’t that amazing. Most of them compete for space, particularly in the Grade 1 department, which would not only have to max Stride fodder and the Perfect Guards (most likely the one that Countercharges given Nubatama’s Counterblast requirements) and Dreadmaster from BT01 is looking like a mainstay even here. The G2s wouldn’t be passed over in favour of early binds from Tamahagane for example either, so on the whole the best build would probably be looking to just utilise whatever hand destroying capabilities are there and just use bind to seal intercepting or hand for a last turn push, like old Nubatama.

Stealth Dragon, Shiranui’s your bread and butter here. Upon Stride he’ll force the opponent to discard a card as well as bind a rear-guard. But in case you can’t grab him, the better backup G3 would be again, something from an older set that is ideally not limited to Generation Break. Either Shura Stealth Dragon Kujikiricongo or Kabukicongo since they would at least diversify the G-Zone a little more for you should you want to. I don’t recommend it since there’s only one way to juggle the two Grade 3s and it’s focused on Shiranui: you want them for not being a Generation Break. As long as you run Kuroko as the starter and run a decent amount of Tamahagane and Dreadmaster (I even like Hagakure just to troll attacking things) then Early and Mid Game shouldn’t be a problem, so I’m all for running anything that doesn’t play by an opponent’s rules of needing to be on G3.

G-Unit-wise, the R one (Zaramerakan) is basically ignorable because you won’t be focusing on Afterimage, so it’s the RRR Atagolord and the GR Tsukumorakan. Atagolord is hard to pull off, but is still the one you’ll rely on the most, so it’s a 4 copy-off. Tsukumorakan is only for very specific matchups such as Oracle Think Tank, so luckily you’ll only need 1 for it to work. So in summary, you’ll need Gedatsurakan from Fighter’s Collection to polish the whole thing off to make it work.

In summary, Afterimage sounds like a good idea, but it’ll get shat on by anything that’s fast since most are GB1 restricted and you’ll have little offensive pressure. In its most optimal build, it needs to have a fast game, all game, but at least this deck comes with 2 Critical Triggers so all you need is to grab the third set from BT13. It’s a fun deck, but is a bit lacking in punch.

Tachikaze

Here’s the third clan of the set, Tachikaze. Their keyword is Engorge: when a unit with Engorge attacks, you retire at least one of your rear-guards, and then the unit enters the Engorge state until end of turn, which unlocks their other skill which only works when engorged.  This might sound a bit inefficient, and to be honest, a lot of it is: there’s only one card that isn’t Gaiaemperor that actually gets the card advantage you lost back, and that’s Tank Mammoth. The good news is that Engorge is actually worth building an entire deck around, so as long as you run plenty of cards that wash in transaction when you can’t ride the ideal Grade 3, then you should be more or less golden. Main problem here is of course juggling the Engorge units and the stuff that compliment Engorgers, since most of the eat targets in here get resources back like Counterblast or grant power but do little to keep cards. So you may need to steal some old crowd cards like Skyptero just to keep things balanced

Gaiaemperor is the main Grade 3 of the deck and to be honest, the deck doesn’t so half as well without him around. He’s going to be the only way your Engorge units can eat without losing any physical cards. Luckily, you’ll be running a decent amount of Engorge units, so actually, the R Grade 3 Tyrannobrute is actually worth considering. Tachikaze do suffer from a lack of viable 11k options here since most of them tend to be Ancient Dragons and thus need Ancient Dragon support to function, so there you have it.

The main G-Units you want are Hammer Gewalt, Gluttony Dogma and Twin Tempest. Gewalt is not too important given he’s a -1 and is actually surprisingly easy to avoid: the opponent just needs to use both front row to intercept the first attack (I’m assuming you’ll eat a rested column for best results here). Gluttony Dogma is the shit: with the right support this motherfucker reinforces hand and keeps offense up, especially with Gaiaemperor, so he’s a 4 of, definitely. Twin Tempest is a bit iffy given Dogma can seal games, but at least it means you’ll only need 2 at most and the rest can be generic cards.

I do wish that Bushi would give us more wash transaction cards than just the Mammoth, but all in all the deck is functional enough. Do remember to dig up some Skypteros and playtest Blightops: I loved Blightops back in BT03 Tachikaze and with so many units that can spring him it’s not a bad idea.

*Sigh* Poor, poor Afterimage. It is suffering.

Tell me I’m mad or a douchebag for using 12 Critical Spike Brothers at saikyocardfighter@outlook.com