
With the release of Strongest! Team AL4, and the Fall State ARG Championship tournaments happening next week, for more information argcircuitseries.com, It would be a good idea to catch up a familiarize ourselves with the upcoming meta. We will be talking about what decks to watch out for and how these new cards have affected the tierlist. We will also be looking over what combos they take advantage of and potential counter play tech cards you could throw in to your deck to better combat them. One thing to remember is that even if your deck isn’t top tier, Vanguard is a game with variance built into it’s core game mechanics and even a low tier deck can edge out a victory against the top competitors.
Let’s start off with the two tier 1 decks that have annihilated the competition, taking most of the tops in each Bushiroad World Championships around the globe as well as ARGs since the start of the reboot: OTT-Gyze and Ange-Trois. Gyze is the ultimate defensive deck and pair it with OTT’s new scry abilities and draw power from cards like Imperial Daughter and CEO Amaterasu, the deck can keep it’s opponent with minimal resources and finish them off with Dragon Deity of Destruction, Gyze. When you’re playing against Ange-Trois, you pray that you win the die roll or that they can’t get their superior ride/stride combo with Spirited Star, Trois if not they can also aggressively push for game with Chouchou, Lucille plus Dreamer Dreamer, Kruk on a Chouchou Popular Favor, Tirua turns. If you think aggro is all they have going for them, you would be sorely mistaken. This deck is also a brick wall, it’s main grade 3 is Delight Genius, Ange who has the potential to plus you 4 cards to hand by herself, and cards like Luxury Wave, Elly, Attractive Glow, Sandy and Transcend Idol, Aqua make the deck impenetrable.
Now for the two decks that have made their presence know with just a few weeks of being out in Japan and taking several tournament tops already we have Dark Irregulars’ No Life King Loop and Shadow Paladin’s Luard. These decks were forces to be reckoned with back in the G-Era and now with their new support in Strongest! Team AL4 they are back to take their place b in tier 1. Luard was a always at least a tier 2 deck up until the end of G, being able to have essentially unlimited resources and also a good end game, it was the perfect tempo deck to control the game with. Cards like Dragsaver, Esras and Belial Owl would make sure they always had whatever they needed and always kept plusing and destructive finishers with the likes of Dragstrider, Luard and Dark Dragon, Phantom Blaster “Diablo”. Our next new deck that has popped up and the most dreaded as of late is the dread No Life King, Death Anchor OTK loop. This is the fastest deck out at the moment with it being able to perform the combo on your second turn on grade 3. No Life King, Death Anchor’s interaction with Enigmatic Assassin during the battle phase means that as long as you have three Assassins in your hand, field or soul and a No Life King both on vanguard and soul or hand, you can attack with your vanguard and 40,000 power Assassins and long as you have counter blast to pay. Not many decks can deal with those amount of not only vanguard attacks but big rearguards as well, and if they somehow managed to live you could always finish them off with One who Splits Darkness, Bledermaus‘ skill of attacking twice and shuffling all grade 0s from soul and field back into the deck.
When it comes to countering the decks there are a few Cray Elementals that can do the job. For Gyze decks that deny you resources, Heat Elemental, Bobo gives you every resource Gyze is trying to keep from you in one card. When it comes to Bermuda’s Ange-Trois and the No Life King loop cards like Light Elemental, Honoly and Shadow Elemental, Bikkun can help you survive and outright shutdown their power-plays. As far as Luard goes they have such a large toolbox that there isn’t any one card or cards that can outright counter them and that’s ultimately what makes it such a strong deck. As long as you can keep the tempo, stop the Luard player from getting to far ahead and play your cards accordingly you can beat it. Pale Moon and Murakumo where the other two clans to come out of AL4 but they really haven’t made an impact on the meta outside of the Pale Moon Nightmare Doll deck that is mid-tier at best due to Accel Gift and the new Nightmare Doll, Alice. To reiterate, with enough luck and a good pilot even the low tier decks can take on and give these top tier decks a run for their money, just keep playing, keep improving!