Starting with the localization of Booster Set 5 (“Awakening of Twin Blades”), we’ll be getting a lot of fancy new cards. The Neo Nectar clan is introduced, and the Murakumo clan finally becomes usable. Royal Paladin, Oracle Think Tank, Dimension Police, Pale Moon, Nova Grapplers and Dark Irregulars all get a few new cards to play around with. But, the most noteworthy cards are among the few Kagero and Shadow Paladin units in the set. “Dragonic Overlord – The End” and “Phantom Blaster Overlord” (will be referred to by ‘DOTE’ and ‘PBO’, respectively) are the first two ‘Crossride’ units to enter the game. A ‘crossride’ is when a player rides any Grade 3 unit over any other Grade 3 unit. It’s a tactic that’s sometime used to reuse some effects (riding Garmore over Garmore lets you use the effects of both Garmores in a game), and allows you to activate some effects sooner (riding CEO Amaterasu over CEO Amaterasu adds an extra Soul that you could use to reach her Megablast sooner). However, DOTE and PBO are special in the regard that they have printed benefits whenever a specific Grade 3 unit is in the Soul. Dragonic Overlord – The End

[CONT](VC/RC): If have a non-«Kagero» vanguard or rear-guard, this unit gets [Power]-2000.

[CONT](VC): If you have a unit named “Dragonic Overlord” in your soul, this unit gets [Power]+2000.

[AUTO](VC): [Counter Blast (2) & Choose a “Dragonic Overlord The End” from your hand, and discard it.] When this unit’s attack hits, you may pay the cost. If you do, [Stand] this unit.

Phantom Blaster Overlord

[CONT] (VC/RC): If you have a non-«Shadow Paladin» Vanguard or rear-guard, this unit gets Power -2000.

[CONT] (VC): If you have a unit named “Phantom Blaster Dragon” in your soul, this unit gets Power +2000.

[AUTO] (VC): [Counter Blast (3) & Choose a Phantom Blaster Overlord from your hand, and discard it.] When this unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do, this unit gets Power +10000/Critical +1 until end of that turn.

A few things to note:

A [CONT] effect is always active, given that the effect doesn’t have any sort of self-limiting phrase on it. So, an effect like “[CONT] (VC/RC): When this unit is boosted by a ” «Nubatama»…” is always able to be activated, but can only be activated when you meet the conditions. The [CONT] effects of DOTE and PBO are always active. So, if an opponent has DOTE out, with a Dragonic Overlord in the Soul, and it becomes your turn, their DOTE will have 13k attack (unless they have out a non-Kagero unit, in which case it drops to 11k).

to be activated, but can only be activated when you meet the conditions. The [CONT] effects of DOTE and PBO are active. So, if an opponent has DOTE out, with a Dragonic Overlord in the Soul, and it becomes your turn, their DOTE will have 13k attack (unless they have out a non-Kagero unit, in which case it drops to 11k). The [AUTO] effects in which a card of the same name as the unit is discarded are unofficially (thanks, Moai!) referred to as Persona Blasts. Since they require you to have a specific Grade 3 in your hand, and since most of the effects require additional Counterblasts to activate, these effects tend to be incredibly powerful.

Of concern to many players was the effect of DOTE. The ability to CB2 and Stand the Vanguard once again in a turn, allowing a second Twin Drive!! , is overwhelming. The potential for 3 Vanguard attacks in a turn, with 6 total Drive Checks, is something to be feared. Especially once you consider that any Critical Triggers retain their effect until the end of the turn. It’s theoretically possible to dump 15 damage on a player in a single turn (if every drive check resulted in a Critical trigger) by just repeatedly attacking with DOTE. It was this sort of overwhelming power that prompted the release of Gold Paladins and supported the incredible power behind their many variations. PBO’s effect (Persona Blast, CB3, get Power +10k, Crit +1) is also quite powerful, but compared to a second Vanguard effect with another Twin Drive, it’s almost guaranteed that DOTE will overpower a PBO in any situation. Just recently, the Vanguard community got some big news. A new wave of Superior Rides have been announced for Booster Set 9. Incandescent Lion, Blond Ezel gets one. Beast Deity, Azure Dragon gets one. It appears that ‘Spectral Duke Dragon’, ‘Dragonic Kaiser, Vermillion’ and ‘Blue Storm Dragon, Maelstrom’ might get one as well. And they generally appear to be quite powerful in their own regards: Radiant Lion, Platinum Ezel (pending)

[ACT] (VC) Limit Break 5 ( This ability is active if you have five or more damage ): [Counter Blast (3)] Choose up to five of your <Gold Paladin> rear-guards, and those units get [Power] +5000 until end of turn.

( ): [Counter Blast (3)] Choose up to five of your <Gold Paladin> rear-guards, and those units get [Power] +5000 until end of turn. [CONT] (VC): If you have a card named “Incandescent Lion, Blond Ezel” in your soul, this unit gets [Power] +2000.

[CONT] (VC/RC): Leader (If you have a unit with a different clan from this unit, this unit cannot attack.)

Super Beast Deity, Illuminal Dragon (pending)

AUTO (VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage): [Counterblast(3)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to 2 of your rear-guards with “Beast Deity” in their names, and [Stand] them.

(This ability is active if you have four or more damage): [Counterblast(3)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to 2 of your rear-guards with “Beast Deity” in their names, and [Stand] them. CONT (VC): If you have “Beast Deity, Azure Dragon” in your Soul, this unit gains [Power] +2000.

CONT (VC/RC): Leader (If you have a unit with a different clan from this unit, this unit cannot attack).

It’s hard to deny that these Crossride units are incredibly powerful. Not only do they have fantastic offensive capabilities, but they’re also blessed with 13k Power at all points in the game: even on the opponent’s turn. They’re more than capable as defensive units. Silent Tom, even with an 8k booster, would only require a single unit to block. An 18k Rearguard column (possible in every supported clan) would only require 10k shield to stop: a single non-draw trigger would do the trick.

Now, for the fun part: Learning how to stop these cards dead in their tracks.

Crossrides take, at minimum, 4 turns to complete. 3 turns to ride up to a Grade 3, and a fourth turn to Crossride.

Crossrides are dependent upon getting the correct Grade 3 into the Soul.

Their effects are all (pending) Vanguard only, save for the effects applied when they have non-same-clan units.

The effects of those units are typically Counterblast heavy (DOTE is technically an exception, but if they have 4 CB open, they’ll more than likely attempt to use it twice if possible)

DOTE and PBO require an additional copy of themselves in the hand to activate their effect.

Radiant Lion and Super Beast Deity require LB5 and LB4, respectively.

DOTE and PBO take Power -2000 when a non Kagero / Shadow Paladin unit are on their field, respectively.

Radiant Lion and Super Beast Deity are unable to attack when a non Gold Paladin / Nova Grappler unit are on their field, respectively.

Radiant Lion prefers to load up their field as fully as possible to make the most use of its LB effect.

Super Beast Deity can only Stand ‘Beast Deity’ units on the field with its LB effect, and the effect only triggers when it attacks a Vanguard.

Once you take all of these factors into play, it becomes much easier to begin formulating a winning strategy. Just by looking at the first point, you’ll immediately see that a crossride deck won’t even be at full power until at least 4 turns in. Less obvious is the fact that it won’t likely be at full power in exactly 4 turns. Poor starting hands and poor early-game draws can lead to grade-locks; a typical occurrence in Vanguard fights. Now, how likely is it that a Crossride deck won’t get a good hand?

First, we need to look at the general composition of a Crossride deck.

Of the utmost importance is the Grade 3 lineup. As you’d expect, the Crossride unit is there. Typically, they’re run in 4’s, as two of the three that are out (in Japan) (DOTE and PBO) have Persona Blast effects. For all of the Crossrides, there is an urgency to get the necessary Grade 3 unit into the Soul beforehand. So, 4 of those are also included. That’s already 8 Grade 3 units, perhaps lower for Ultimate Dimensional Robo, Radiant Lion, and/or Super Beast Deity. This doesn’t leave much room at all for additional Grade 3 units. Not to mention, with 8/50 cards in the deck being Grade 3 units, it becomes somewhat likely that a ride phase will be skipped here or there. After a Starting VG, 8 G3’s, and 16 triggers, that leaves exactly 25 out of 50 cards to fill out the Grade 1 and 2 lineups.

As far as the triggers go, I can pretty much guarantee that DOTE builds will run a ridiculous amount of Critical triggers. Other than that, I could generalize and say that the distributions will be fairly offensive, but it’s really up to the player behind the deck. I could see a Radiant Lion build with heavy Draw being successful.

Since a majority of the effects are reliant on having lots of CB prepared, you can expect for a lot of damage-unflipping units to be around. For DOTE, it’ll be ‘Bellicosity Dragon’ (upon landing an attack, unflip 1). For PBO, it’s ‘Cursed Lancer’ (upon landing an attack, unflip 1). For Radiant Lion, it’s ‘Mage of Calamity, Tripp’ (upon landing an attack, unflip 1). And for Super Beast Deity… they’ve got a crapton of options. ‘Super Electromagnetic Lifeform, Storm’, ‘Hungry Dumpty’, ‘Claydoll Mechanic’, ‘Toolkit Boy’… it’s generally not worth trying to stop Nova Grapplers from unflipping damage. Of course, I’m not telling you to just give up. Just warning you that they have plenty ways of unflipping damage.

Their Grade 1 units will likely be Perfect Shields, 8k boosts, and any other booster that can either empower the Vanguard further (something like Little Battler, Tron) or use a CB-light effect (Demonic Dragon Mage, Kinmara comes to mind).

Their Grade 2 units will more than likely be up in the air, but expect powerful beat-stick units in offensively-minded variants.

All in all, they look more or less like a typical deck. You can’t really expect them to get a bad starting hand anymore than you could expect of yourself. But, there is one thing to keep in mind about the state of an opponent’s hand: They want to get two different Grade 3s in their hand as quickly as possible. For every other deck, they only want one. If your opening hand is a trigger, a G1, a G2, and two G3s, you’ll likely get rid of the trigger and a G3. But, if you were running a Crossride deck, you’d probably want to keep everything but the trigger, depending on what the two G3s are. You know what that means, right? They’ll have a much weaker early-game. Since they’re trying to piece together a fairly large puzzle, you’re given a better chance to take the early-game advantage.

While you’re trying to take that advantage, you need to be wary of when they’ll be able to complete their Crossride. Note the cards that they Drive Check and the cards that they play. Depending on the deck, you might be able to leave an opponent just under the requirements to use their CB, or you might be able to negate part of the effect. For the Super Beast Deity effect, you can kill off every Beast Deity RG that gets on the field. For Ezel, you can just leave them at 4 damage and continually sack their RG units.

DOTE and PBO are a bit harder to deal with, as you can’t remove the extra copy of their card for the Persona Blast, and it’s not too hard to keep 3-4 CB open for them. Just keep blocking / destroying their damage unflippers, and perhaps even focus their stronger RG units to force them to play less useful ones. Keep a Perfect Shield handy for PBO, as it stops him dead in his tracks. DOTE proves to be more difficult to deal with, as a Perfect Shield can only prevent a single attack. If you use a Perfect Shield, and they are able to Persona Blast, they can do so, and keep the effects of the last triggers, as well as the effects of the new triggers. So, if you know that they’re able to Persona Blast, I’d save the Perfect Shield for their second attack (or third, if you know that they can do it twice). But, depending on how the game is played, you might not even be able to survive the first attack…

You need to play defensively against a deck like DOTE. Don’t let yourself take early, easily-avoidable damage. That’s actually more of general game-advice, but don’t go gunning for an early Megablast while they’re still fiddling with getting their Crossride up. If you can reasonably stop an attack with the cards in your hand, then do so immediately. Unless you absolutely need an extra Counterblast that next turn, don’t let yourself take that unnecessary damage. It’s a lot easier to protect yourself at 4 damage than it is at 5 damage, and it gets even easier with less damage.

Specific decks and cards might actually work better against these strategies. Chief Nurse Shamsiel, from Angel Feather, is actually able to outdo the Crossride units at the ‘having tons of attack during the opponent’s turn’ deal A single trigger on a damage check bumps her up to 17k. Draw-heavy decks can offer up plenty of extra shield to block attacks with and extra power to fill your RG with. Crit-heavy decks with 18k RG columns can end a game before the Crossrides even become relevant.

There’s no reason to be afraid. Yeah, Crossrides are incredibly powerful. But only when they work right. You have to know how to play around their strategies, make them useless, and end them before they become useful.