



Written and Edited By:

Sarah Michelle, Chad Leiske, and China Ross

Techniques and Strategies to help best Bermuda Triangle.





Welcome to the first entry in an article series we're titling "Counters and Weaknesses!" My name is Sarah Michelle and I'll be writing this series for Team Vision. Counters and Weaknesses will take a look at prevalent decks in the English Cardfight! Vanguard meta-game and work to understand the weaknesses that can be exploited in them. Team Vision believes that understanding, play-testing and theory crafting about decks is just as important as actual play practice.





A few disclaimers before we get into the article. This article was constructed using both theory-crafted strategies and anecdotal experiences. But, as with any card game, variance will heavily alter your play experience.





V-EB05: Primary Melody





Bermuda Triangle, one of the most popular clans in Cardfight! Vanguard has taken the English meta-game over completely. Because the clan generally receives support once a year, Bushiroad uses Bermuda Triangle sets to push the boundary of what cards can do. In V-series alone, we've received powerful Grade 4 cards that can grant you all the imaginary gift marker effects! In Premium, cards like Transcend Idol, Aqua exist. Can you imagine a perfect guard that you can run six copies of in Standard?!





Strengths

This set focuses on a new mechanic known as “Melody”, allowing Grade 3 units to gain additional effects that stack repeatedly. Sonata can get another unit from the deck, Canon provides soul for future plays, Serena can add resources when hand count is low, Fina provides additional shield by giving units intercept, and Caro gives power and the ability to boost as a grade 3.





The most powerful units to look out for are Sonata, Caro and Fina. Each of these units alters the Bermuda player's ability to play the game and enables incredibly high power attacks as early as their first Grade 3 ride!





However, a deck with that many Grade 3 units has one pretty glaring weakness.





Weaknesses





Since Melody promotes a higher than average number of Grade 3 units in deck, Bermuda Triangle players will often have lower than normal shield value in their hand during the early game. Opposing players can try to capitalize on this low shield value and inflict damage during that window of time. Ideally, you'd want to push Melody up to three, sometimes even four damage before their first Grade 3 ride! What this does is create an insane amount of pressure when you attack with your Vanguard, as one critical trigger will end the game!





Try building columns that hit important magic numbers, all while taking into account the potential damage trigger check. Being able to keep the pressure up even through a defensive trigger will be crucial to pushing Bermuda up to high damage.





Counters





Looking to disrupt the board state more forcefully? Playing clans like Kagero, Narukami, and Shadow Paladin that can easily retire units is a surefire way to put a kink in any Bermuda build's plans.





The new EB-06 and soon to be released EB-07 support enables Kagero to have both selective retiring abilities and multi-attacking with Dragonic Overlord the Great and Dragonic Overlord the End. With the combined ability to retire and multi-attack, Kagero is one of the best clans to tackle Bermuda Triangle with.





Shadow Paladin is a clan that can mass retire rearguards. While it may not get to select which rear guards to retire, eventually with enough activations of Phantom Blaster Dragon any board can be empty. With the ability to draw a large amount of cards and thin the deck reliably, Shadow Paladins are a great foil to the rear guard centric strategy Bermuda Triangle has. Once you've forced them to replace all their rear guards, you'll be able to swing for multiple criticals with either Phantom Blaster Dragon or Gust Blaster Dragon!





While currently a lesser played clan, Narukami has excellent ways to attack the Melody strategy of Bermuda Triangle. Narukami specializes in binding front row rearguards, allowing them to gain advantage while the other player loses their attackers and potential interceptors. While the other clans mentioned in the article retire, Narukami binds, which renders cards like Stezza (who recycles Grade 3 units for Bermuda Triangle) without any targets. With the ability to swap the front and back row units, Narukami players always have access to the Bermuda Triangle player's most crucial Grade 3 unit, Caro. Once you bind that card, their column numbers drop significantly!





Conclusion





While beating Bermuda Triangle isn't easy, picking the proper deck and making optimal plays when forced to make important decisions can increase your win percentage greatly. Because even Bermuda Triangle has fundamental weaknesses that it cannot escape from, and now that you've read this article you should be armed with the knowledge to exploit them!





I hope this helped you gain insight on the Melody match up, and how to navigate it. We've got more to come so make sure to follow our social media to know when the next article goes live!





Follow us on our social media and join our community discord:

Facebook

Twitte r