Getting Started with Premium

Hello lads and lasses, its me its your best friend, CanYouSayG, and today, we will be talking about getting into Premium Standard. With all the hype thanks to the ARG Nationals last weekend, the whole world wants to jump into the format and make their impact, leave their name, and win the glory. But sometimes, it isnt so easy to make that journey, there's no clear guide of where to start and what to make your way towards.

Today, I will be going over several deck options for you; be you a player whom plays Standard, was an avid player in G-Era, or want to start from scratch to build up your Premium Standard Deck, how to transition your Standard build to PStan, what cards and what decks to focus on their update since G-Era (Unless your deck is Ange, in which case you're already dominating the format), and what decks are cheapest and easiest to build up from zero, highlighting the expensive cards and harder cards to find and what cards you should focus on finding first.

Some decks were not popular in G-Era and are a bit harder to put together, or have a large mix of cards from Standard and G Era and thus aren’t very entry-friendly. Also, due to the cost of having to buy a full set of Zeroths and Gyze itself, All gyze decks are not in the *Get Into P-Stan Easily* Category.

Transitioning from Standard

First is the transition from Standard, of which I have several reccomendations: Kagero, Ichiki-Tom, Spike Brothers. If you have any of these decks, it makes the transition, as the shape of a lot of these decks in PStan are very close to their Standard Decks with an added on G-Zone.

Kagero:

Kagero actually comes up on my reccomendation list twice, owing to its interesting position in the meta where there are two commonly played builds that are viable!

The first example I will highlight for people looking to move to Premium Standard is from last weekend's ARG Top 16

One of the first things you will notice about this deck is how similar it looks to the Standard Build of kagero, with very few changes. This means that for players with a full build of Kagero, buying some additional parts to have a second deck to play PStandard format and just adding in certain parts will be very cheap.

By using Force and higher base power on all of your units you can easily score high powered hits against many of the other decks, not to mention Overlord's ability to become 23k on a RG, a number that is considered massive for a Kagero RG with as little as SB1 cost.

One sneaky trick you can do to catch opponents off guard is to ride Waterfowl, retire one front row, and then stride into an Overlord stride, either OverPurge or OverAce, and activate their effects. Contrary to what many people believe, both of these overlord strides do not actually require any Overlord Heart card! You can activate all of their effects by using an Overlord G3 from hand. Use this in combination with Waterfowl to send a g3 to soul to threaten a 33k+Boost 2 Crit, while holding the option to go into a zingerburger, OverAce, or OverPurge if opp is at 4 damage.

One of the cards in the main deck is Lava Flow Dragon

Lava Flow Dragon is a grade 1 unit that functions as a G3 in hand when paying for Stride Cost. This means its incredibly easy to stride without having to discard your strongest units, namely Dragonic Overlord which is powerful on both VG and RG circles. Picking up 4 copies of your clans stride cost g1 will prove to be a great investment in the future, as most decks are playing as many as 3-4 of them, even if you dont play the corresponding G3 for their first search effect. Additionally they are commons and very cheap to find, as well as being reprinted a few times. Picking up a few sets may even be an option.

While the G-Zone may seem extremely pricey at first glance, not all of them are "must play" cards. This build plays 3 OverPurge, 4 Zeigenburg and 1 Drachma, all fairly pricey cards. You can actually get away with as few as 1-2 Overlord the Purge, 2 Zeigenburg, and no Drachma. A good card to play is Overlord the Ace, a promo card from the Kai Legend Deck keeping its price down. It's quite common to see 3 copies played to get a restand on 1st stride.

As for all the G-Guards, Denial Griffon is the most expensive part, with the other cards being very cheap 1-ofs. Denial Griffon might run you a pretty penny but it was reprinted recently as a winner promo, bringing down its price.

Ichiki-Tom:

While my personal opinion of ichiki-tom is "The Deck Everyone Thinks Is Dominating Premium Standard but is suffering a rather dire fight", the fact that it is one of the easiest decks to buy into when you already have a Standard OTT deck does not change. The most expensive part, Amaterasu G Guard can be played at only 1, and was reprinted recently as well. The main challenge is of course finding those Ichikishimas, but after that, most of the other strides RR and above all fall under the "optional" category.

While there exists many variants and changes, the most common build is something similar to what follows

as you can see, its almost entirely the Standard build of Oracle Think Tank, with the addition of a G-Zone. While not entirely necessary due to the high amount of G3 in the deck as well as propensity to re-ride often for Protect Marker, some players like to play 4 copies of the stride cost, a choice that is entirely up to the player, as stride costs have only 5k shield, not as much as the 10k shield most newer g1 have.

The highest priority rare cards to get are: G-Guard Amaterasu, 4x Ichikishima, and it would be good to fill out the rest of the G-Zone with other functional and interesting R and RR.

Spike Force GB8:

Spike Brothers is a deck that I would highly reccomend for players making the transition from Standard to Premium. Spike Brothers is already one of the top decks in Standard with its high power and stability, but of note the Premium Spike Brothers build's entire main deck is near identical to its Standard counterpart. All of the core cards and engine cards are present, as well as playing a full 8 Force G3s, always being able to secure you gift onto RG.

This is LivingProof's Spike Brothers Force GB8 that won the ARG Nationals in America last weekend.

Note how the cards that are not played in the standard build are: The Stride Cost, and a common trigger: Mecha Instructor.

This, with an added on Stride deck, and you already have a complete deck!

The key strides for the deck are: Bullpower Agrias and Hellhard Eight.

Bullpower Agrias is a recent card from GBT13, and from a formerly unpopular clan, Spike Brothers, meaning it should be rather easy to find it to pick up on the cheap.

Force gives +10k to units on that circle during your turn, meaning that if you call or restand units on that circle, they also get +10k again, hitting hard. Combine this with Juggernaut Maximum to deliver 33k power attacks without boost. Next, by using Mecha Instructors ability or Bullpower Agrias to bind and call Juggernaut or HighSpeed Brakki back again, and you can deliver many high power attacks until you reach the touchdown.

Hellhard Eight and the accompanying G-Guardian support: Terrible Linus are of the backbone of the GB8 Play. Terrible Linus allows you to speed up your GB to hit that finisher GB8 turn faster, delivering the final blow to your opponent. In the Hellhard Eight turn, not only has the deck gotten Force to make more higher powered attacks by re-using the same rear guard circle multiple times in one turn, but also calling out Spike Bouncer allows you to call two units out, instead of just one. Use this to set up your field even better during your GB8 turn!

Early game deployment, high powered attacks, and multiple high powered attacks makes the Spike Brothers deck a prominent beatdown style deck in Premium Standard alongside Royal Paladin Blasters. Highly reccomended to players who already have a Spike Brothers standard deck, as its cheap to put together the parts to build the Premium Standard build.



For more detailed play, analysis, and insight to how to play the deck, check out the finals video below.

www.youtube.com

Transition from G-Standard Deck:

Overlord, Luard

This next section is for players whom played avidly during the end of G-Era and want to transition their deck into the modern PStandard picture.

Overlord.

BUT WAIT you might say, wasn’t overlord the recommended deck for players wanting to make the transition from Standard to Premium?

Thats right timmy, Overlord is such a recommended deck to get into premium with, it gets featured twice.

As noted earlier, Overlord has two different builds that are played in Premium: OverDestiny based, and Waterfowl+Force based. Players with a G-Era Overlord deck will find the transition to the Premium Standard build very easy: Barely more than one Trial Deck.

The Destiny centered deck's main changes were from your sub G3, TheLegend to the new Force Overlord. Not only are you happy to ride to the new Overlord, it also does great work on a RG circle. This build is quite happy to ride to Overlord first, hit in with a restand, and then re-ride to TheDestiny on your next turn to get a lot of advantage. Use Restanding Vanguard and massive retire capabilities as well as Berserk Dragon's imposing presence on the meta to swing the tempo to your advantage.

Instead of trying to score a win via Waterfowl, instead focus on trying to get multiple high powered V attacks in, and a larger number of drives to pull up critical triggers to get your victory!

While Kagero might not be the strongest deck in the format, it is definitely one of the decks that is easy to get into, easy to handle, and able to counter a fair few strategies, and constantly threaten very impactful G-Guardians to shut down certain attacks to control the opponents tempo.

My second recommendation to build for players who have the G-Era deck is Luard.

Luard received a huge boost at the end of G-Era in GBT14, but due to how popular Gear Chronicle and their obnoxious Heteroround Dragon and how its one of the cards that shuts down their OTK, Luard never took off in popularity. However, with GC being shut down by some of the faster members of the meta such as Spike Brothers, Royal Paladin, Kagero, and how readily they play high power triggers over effect triggers, one of the only clans holding back Luard is no longer present. Combine this with Esras being easily retrieved and how these three beatdown force clans have no answer to Null guards other than hitting again, it puts them in a fairly disadvantageous position.

with the Shadow Paladin Trial Deck introducing Blaster Dark and Blaster Javelin to the party, the Luard deck has an increased capability to either play very defensively or very aggressively in early game while moving through your deck faster, increasing overall stability, followed up but either a devastating ogma, a very defensive Aurageyser Damned, or a mix of retire and deploy in Dragabyss. Dragabyss and Draghearts free stride skill make it great for either using up your hand early to be aggressive or to throw it all to guard. If you ride up first, you can G-Guard into a a Dragabyss GB3 powering up your field, and follow up with delivering 6 high powered attacks massive in size, aiming to OTK your opponent. This high amount of flexibility as well as access to some high power triggers and the other triggers being high in card power gives the deck a lot of flexibility and high skill cap, allowing it to dominate the format until this point thanks to GC more or less being knocked off the radar.

Well known Shadow Paladin Player Ryan Kai's build post VTD02

I highly reccomend this deck as once you've picked up the full build from the G-Era (most of which sans Esras and Belial Owl are in GBT14) and to upgrade the deck from there. Once you have 4 Dragabyss, pick up one Ogma and an Auradoomed/Aurageyser set. Ultima may seem tempting with Luard's access to it, but don’t jump in too fast to buy one, Most of time a well timed Dragabyss+Dagza combo will end the opponent just as well, so pick it up when youve finished other parts of the deck. Another recommendation for people is to play Phantom Blaster Diablo, a card that can counter Gyze play or unexpectedly end a match if the opponent forgets its existence.

Building from Scratch:

Blaster, Shadow paladin Blaster.

The next section is for players who want to build something more complex than simply a standard deck tacked on with a G-Zone. The following three decks are a good mixture of V-Series cards and older G-Era cards, but also fairly easy to put together as they were fairly popular decks before which makes the parts easier to find on the market.

Royal Paladin Blasters:

Royal Paladin is one of the beatdown decks of the format. The core strategy can be broken down into 4 easy steps: 1) TACHIAGARE BOKU NO BUNSHIN BLASTER BLADE 2) IMAGINARY GIFT FORCE 3) CALL FLOGAL 4) GETTO CRITICAL TRIGGER.

The two things you need to get started with your Royal paladin premium deck are: VTD01 Sendou Aichi, and LD03 The Blaster. These will contain most of the core triggers you will be using, your main G3 Alfred Early, 4 copies of your Sub G3 until you choose to replace it(if at all) Blade Blade Exceed, 4 Blaster Blade, and a lot of other cards to play in your deck. Additionally, you get Great Flash Isolde, a G-Guardian, as well as Religious Soul Saver, Myriad Soul Saver, and Alfred Holy Saver, all powerful and useful strides.

First on your pirority list should be the cards that fit in all of the three builds, regardless of which direction you head.

Gancelot Peace Saver. Gancelot is your go-to stride for first stride, giving you extra advantage, more cost to use, and after its done its work it protects blaster blade from Heterorounds and Denial Griffons. While a GR may be a bit tricky to find at the start, I highly recommend picking up at least one while you work towards finding your second copy. A lot of games can be ended on Gancelot first stride, and your second stride will often be Alfred Holy Saver if you can afford it.

An assortment of R and C cards: Sicilius, Great Little Sage Maron,

Floral Paladin Flogal, Blaster Friend Barcgal, Favored Pupil of Light and Dark Llew.

These common and R cards are the backbone of the blaster system. While easy to use it is hard to master, but the whole royal paladin blaster deck revolves around these cards. Compared to other R and C cards, they might be a bit pricier, but Flogal and Llew have each gotten reprints, so try asking around especially from experienced players, who may have a few extra copies lying around. Floral Paladin Flogal is the most important card to get.

The next most important card to get is Little Great Sage Marron. He is a R from GBT11, and a G-Guardian, which means you only need 1-2 copies of him on top of him being extremely cheap, but he is by far one of the strongest G-Guards available to Blasters.

Note how some decks play the G1 null guard from the trial deck. This is because Marron can search out a Null guard from deck, and you can discard a card to perfect guard an otherwise unblockable attack(Antlion+ZoaONE PUNCH)! Not only this, but by searching out a G1 10k defense unit, you can get 30k defense to guard with.

Sicilius is the stride fodder of the deck, due to the amount of space that you can free up in G1 slots, its important to run stride fodders in your deck. As stated before, stride fodder are always a good thing to have a few extra of around, especially since they are so cheap to pick up.

There are, in general, three builds that are currently played for Blasters: Twinsword+Llew, Tarna, and Blaster Javelin Larousse, all of which will require different cards to pick up for your deck, mostly at C, R, and RR.

The Tarna build emphasises calling multiple Tarna in one turn, giving you multiple Force gift to stack around your field in one turn. For this, you should pick up 4 Tarna.



The Twinsword+Llew build forgoes getting multiple force markers at once, instead focusing more on using a single force marker to maximum capacity by superior calling and restanding units in the same circle. Instead of getting 4 force, use one force 4 times. For this build, you will need to buy 3 Knight of Twin Sword, a card that was printed in a trial deck and got a reprint as well. They should be quite easy to find.

The third type is using Blaster Javelin Larousse, whom is a G2 with the ability to superior call out High Beast units from the deck if your vanguard is Alfred. This allows you to fetch up Flogals to restand your Blaster Blade (usually 20-30k without triggers), as well as searching up Packgal to counter charge and open up two CB for Flogals to be used. This build will focus much more on the turn you ride to g3, and aim to win with higher stability of winning combo. For this build, you will need to find Blaster Javelin Larousse and Packgal, cards that are available in GCMB01 Vanguard vs Deletor.

Just like picking your starter pokemon, all of these (at least at this point in time) are good choices to make. Just pick the one that suits you best!







Shadow Paladin Blasters (Dictator-Hellheim)



But wait I thought you just talked about blasters.

Thats right Timmy, Blasters isnt just one deck, its two whole decks! One in Shadow Paladin, and one in Royal Paladin!

The basis of this deck is the VTD04 Trial Deck for Suzugamori Ren.

This is a deck that works primarily off of combining force with multiple attacks, using Claret Hellheim, Macha, and Kahedin's on hit ability to superior call out more units onto the force circle you get from riding g3.

Use Khaedin and Hoel to pump up your rear guards as well as delivering high powered hits while controlling your own cost. A lot of Shadow paladin cards are very demanding for cost such as soul and counterblast.

One common combo for the deck, especially against Protect clans, is to get a force onto a RG circle, then use Claret Hellheim to deliver multiple attacks. When he himself attacks, or the opponent uses a G-Guard or null guard to attack, you can call another full row onto the force circle, meaning that unless the opponent is ready to deal with that many attacks, they wont be able to easily use G-Guard or Perfect guard against you, perfect if you are already on the aggressive pace. Particularly against protect clans, they wont be able to use their gift, or else youll just get another attack to swing at them with +10k power(or more).

The main reason we use Dragsaver Esras as our null guard is so it can be readily called out by Hellheim and other skills. Esras not only goes back to your hand, its also just as good on the field as in your deck, as being retired or stepping over it sends it to your drop zone to re-use, as well as sending copies back to the deck to call out with Hellheim.

This is another example of a similar build, this time dropping Blaster Dark Diablo, Hoel and Khaedin, and instead focusing on Force as well as Blaster Rapier (Old) to deploy. By playing Blaster Dagger (V Series. The image is decieving), you can convert the units you call out into advantage by retiring your opponents rear guards from early in the game. If Blaster Raiper hits V, counterblast 1 to call another g1 on top of her such as blaster dagger, which with force can hit the opponent again.

This is a deck that can easily have a lot of common parts with the standard blaster deck, and therefore ideal for players who intend to build both.

While Esras may be hard to find and a bit expensive, it is a card that goes into every shadow paladin deck, as well as having been reprinted recently, driving down the price a little. They are easily worth the price.

Priority cards to find are: Dragabyss Luard, Claret Sword Helheim, Curse Eye Raven, and Dragsaver Esras.

Thats all for today, I hope this article has given some help to people who are looking to get into Premium Standard.