Premium Watch: Narukami & Oracle Think Tank

Hello lads and lasses, it's me, your best friend; CanYouSayG, and you're reading the Zero Damage Gaming Blog, where you and I learn to be  better cardfighters!

Welcome back to another Premium Watch, where we talk about the latest and hottest new developments in Premium Standard. Today, we will be talking about the Premium Standard decks to come out of the two new trial decks: Ishida Naoki (Narukami) and Tokura Misaki (OTT).

Oracle Think Tank: Magus Ichiki-Tom

With the release of The Tokura Misaki trial deck, several new cards have already started to make an impact on Standard, with Hexagonal Magus, Rectangle Magus, and Cuore Magus being key parts in Tsang Chi Shing's Magus OTT deck that qualified him just last weekend to represent Hong Kong at this years World Tournament!

In Premium, it has started to bring about a similar impact, in fact, with a deck taking advantage of the new Magus cards to gain advantage on ride and easily call out a full field and apply aggressive pressure, using Ichi-Tom as the finisher.
While the deck's win condition is the same: Use Ichikishima with Silent Tom to create an attack the opponent cannot guard except with Protect Markers to deliver the final attack; this deck covers the weaknesses of previous iterations of the deck by: 1) Having much better Counter Charge options 2) Using CB earlier to get extra cards into the hand via cards such as Rectangle Magus and Stellar Magus.

 
Additionally, while previous Ichiki-Tom decks would only get one protect marker per re-ride, the deck playing both Hexagonal Magus and Imperial Daughter both allows you to get 1 card and 1 Protect every re-ride, making every turn a plus in advantage even if you go into a stride right after. 

While Oracle Think Tank may seem to be quite vulnerable to running out of CB to use, this is solved in the Magus deck with Cone Magus: Which can counter charge 2 cards for free, especially since you always know your top deck card!

 

Calling down a Rectangle Magus and Stellar Magus early almost guarantees you get extra cards in your hand, allowing you to run out attackers early while maintaining sufficient defence.

Imagine this: with only CB1, Ride Stellar Magus. Call Rectangle Magus, CB1 and SB1 to get one card in your hand. Call Cone Magus, declaring the top deck card to get that counter blast back. Call Cuore Magus to manipulate the top deck. Then attack with Stellar Magus. On hit, declare top card to get another card into your hand! When attacking with Rectangle Magus, use your starter Semilunar Magus to get 2 cards in your hand for giving up one card: your Starter. In this turn alone you got an additional 3 cards while attacking with 3 units!

 

 

Magus Engine Ichiki-Tom is the new vogue in town, mixing in the fast advantage gain and cost management of Magus with the deadly finisher that is Ichiki-Tom into a smooth and aggressive deck! Dont let that protect gift fool you!

 

Narukami: Bind-Control with Beatdown

 

Narukami, in Standard, is looking to be an interesting new style of deck. While all Accel decks up to this point have been aggression based, either with multiple attacks or extreme early game speed, Narukami is not. It’s a slow, retire based deck that chisels down the opponent by punishing them for calling rear guards and countering with minimal unit deployment from your end, using Accel circles for the +10k power, rather than an unending number of attacks, as it’s difficult to maintain your hand when you deploy out so many units.

Of course, cards such as Detonix Drill and Detonix Stinger help advantage a lot, all the while retiring the opponent units!

 

However, in Premium Standard, not only does Narukami have a wide variety of ways to bind and retire units, but also lots of ways to gain advantage and to gain hand while doing so. Narukami, once it gets rolling, has access to huge power on their rear guards. While previously limited by a maximum of 3 attacks unless you open a Stand Trigger, that’s no longer the case in Premium Standard, thanks to Accel circles! Take full advantage of the gigantic power gain from VOLTAGE and Closer Dragon with 4,5, or even 6 attacks!

 

Some of the key power cards in the Narukami Arsenal are the G-Guardian that can tear as many as two rear guards from the opponent’s field during the battle phase: Impede Dragon, an easily accessible Sentinel that draws you cards for next to no reason in Summon Lightning Dancing Princess, Anastasia. Additionally, their First Vanguard: Hardrod Dracokid is Counter Charge, a card binding engine, and extra retire on demand! Demonic Dragon Berserker, Chatura is still a mainstay of the deck, binding cards and drawing hand back. Not only does the 11k base power help against some of the non-V series main vanguard units, but also that extra bit of power helps to adjust power lines to smack those troublesome 13k base power Vanguards.

Not to mention the striding arsenal. We have mentioned the impact of Impede Dragon, but what about V-BUSTER, a card that not only easily nets you 2 cards for Thunderstrike while retiring an opponent’s unit, but powers up your field and gains 10k extra, Drive and Crit, forcing the opponent to perfect guard your vanguard attack.

VOLTAGE may seem subpar as a first stride, but its main use lies in its Thunderstrike skill, which powers up your whole front row based on the number of bound cards the opponent has, which is going to be a lot. Since front row includes your Accel circles, that’s a lot of very high powered attacks coming at you.

One of the greatest weapons in the Accel matchup is Conquest Dragon. This old stride is a retire, followed by a power boost for each empty front row circle the opponent has. While this is usually capped at 10k for all your front row, against Accel this can mean 15k, 20k, 25k, or even more!

Closer Dragon is a big impact finisher if you have multiple Accel Circles already, but it’s often good to remember that, as a Dragon Empire clan, the deck's ultimate stride is Drachma, which will immediately end any player who doesn’t have enough hand after your relentless assault.

Just watch out if you’re playing against a Protect Clan, since if they select a protect marker as their "card to ride", they keep the protect gift in their hand while riding another unit from soul!

But what about some of our newer toys from the Trial Deck Ishida Naoki and VBT03 Miyaji High School CF Club?

Great Composure Dragon is actually one of the most impactful cards to come from the new trial deck!

Its skill to gain +3k for each open R in your opponents front row at the start of each battle phase may not seem that game breaking, but it has an incredibly neat role in the deck: Forcing the opponent to call units from their hand! When you ride Great Composure Dragon, every turn, the opponent has to choose between using cards from their hand to fill up their front row. Even if they do so, that’s them spending cards from their hand or cost from skills to do so, giving you more units to retire on your next turn! If they dont call out units, its even easier to keep yourself alive by using the extra defensive power that Great Composure gives you. While going first and riding a Detonix Drill Dragon may seem flashy and powerful, restanding and getting extra advantage while wiping out the opponent units, so is riding up to Great Composure and forcing the opponent to feed your Thunderstrike skills even faster. 

Recklessness Dragon is a card from the Trial Deck, which allows you to CB1 to bind a unit from the opponent’s front row, an effective CB1 for 1 card trade.

Dragonic Deathscythe is an interesting pick for some people. At SB2 for a retire and power, the cost may seem light, but your deck may have to conserve its soul blast cost for use with V-BUSTER. Paying that two soul might be a bit costly especially with no way of maintaining the cost. An option for another G2 to play is Circular Blade of Strong Lightning, Grizel, which gives you extra power all the same, while easily racking up thunderstrike and bind count, but you may want some extra retire in your deck too.

 
One of my favorite cards in the Narukami V-Series is Storm Bring Dragon. This unit has a continuous effect that seals the intercept of any units in the same column, as well as forcing them to attack your Vanguard. This might seem odd, but the trick is to put it behind your V against Gyze decks, forcing the Gyze player to attack your Vanguard instead of sitting around damage denying and attacking rear guards. Neat tech!

 
For Rising Phoenix, here’s a trick to remember: since V-BUSTER directly binds opponent’s rear guards from the field instead of retiring them first, you can soul blast out a Rising Phoenix, have V-BUSTER bind the unit, then revive Rising Pheonix! Its a hidden synergy with the older cards! Perfect for a card that its meant to gain you extra advantage by reviving from the drop zone.

 

 

You may notice Dragonic Descendant Sigma here. Imagine this: Powering up your Dragonic Descendant Sigma on an accel circle, then power it up further with VOLTAGE! Use his massive attack power to instantly destroy any opponent that has to guard both attacks!

 

That brings us to the end of today’s Premium Watch. I hope that this article has given you new insights and ideas to the world of Premium Standard, the format where you can build and play the deck you love!

 

Information about the author:
CanYouSayG/Dr Sei-Ji A. Keong is an avid Cardfight Vanguard blogger whom has played in Europe, Japan, and East Asia, bringing you new and enjoyable insights to the world of Vanguard for both the card game, competitive environment, and the community. He plays Neo Nectar and Royal Paladin.