Standard VBT05 Budget Builds: Soul Saver-Palamedes

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Today, we are going over Budget Standard decks that will be upgraded with cards from VBT05 Aerial Steed Liberation.

Since each clans second wave of support, many clans have been getting alternate main units to build their decks around, such as Garmore in Gold Paladin, Blademaster in Kagero, Kujikiricongo in Nubatama, or Brandt and Messiah in Link Joker. While not every deck becomes competitive or top of the tournament scene, these decks become played and loved by players of all levels, bringing more variety to your vanguard fights, as every clan has far more than just one deck going for it.

While prices may vary from region to region, the concept behind keeping the deck price contained is to build the deck without VRs.

Our first deck is Soul-Saver Palamedes, a Royal Paladin Build.



The winning image of the deck is to ride Soul Saver Dragon, call Palamedes to rear guard, and use Soul Saver's Holy Charging Roar effect to pump up your whole field by 15k power each. This is combined with Palamedes making the soul easier to attain by giving a soul charge, as well as Palamedes' effect on rear guard to give itself another 25k power. Thats a grand total of 55k power in that column, even a 5k boost behind Palamedes makes a 73k power column!

But how is this different from the build before?

Soul Saver Palamedes is a deck that has been around since VBT03, but is also one of the decks that benefitted the most from Force II. As a deck that can consistently push out very high power numbers across all columns, Soul Saver functions as the Royal Paladin Finisher, and playing her with Palamedes accelerates the deck to be able to use her ability twice or more over the game.

However, the decks speed was limited previously by how fast you could push the opponent to high damage. Use Soul Saver too early, and they would no guard all the attacks and use their limited null guards to guard the last attacks. Additionally, each attack would only threaten one damage, or two if you opened a critical trigger, making the on hit pressure minimal.

Even if they were able to use SSD early, it would only push two damage, and the opponent would not need to dedicate many cards to guarding the attacks. With the release of Force II, the deck has gained the ability to combine these high powered attacks with extra critical, making each individual hit have more pressure to guard, as well as reducing the number of attacks you need to go through to set up the win with Soul Saver Dragon.

Additionally, the deck with the release of VBT03 has gotten Future Knight Llew, Royal Paladins third critical trigger, giving the deck an option to play 12 critical triggers instead of 8 critical and 4 draw null guards.

The combined might of Force 2, 12 Critical Triggers, and the high (but unsustainable) power output of Soul Saver Dragon make for a deck that can deliver in a lot of damage early before the opponent can stabilize and work towards their win condition.

In keeping with Royal Paladin, the deck still runs its 4 copies of High Dog Breeder Akane, speeding up your field by calling Pongals, getting that early damage in by making 21k power lines, and building up your soul to unleash with Soul Saver Dragon.

Lets go over some of the card choice options the deck received in VBT05 Aerial Steed Liberation.



Loading Angel







Loading Angel is one of the most key cards this deck received in VBT03. While previously the deck had some issues with G2 slots not being able to build up soul, minimal draw, as well as suboptimal use of counterblast, Reload Angel solves all these problems with his ability to at the end of turn go to soul, counterblast 1 to draw 2, either being able to set up a Soul Saver Dragon turn by building up soul and drawing into the dragon, or by going into the soul after attacking to force the opponent to attack the vanguard instead of trying to slow the game down by attacking rear guards.

Speeding up drawing into Soul Saver is what makes this one of the key new cards of the deck.

A fun fact about Reload Angel: As his skill only requires 5 units, including your vanguard, to activate, if you have a full field and 2 front row Reload Angel, after the first one has one to soul to draw 2, the second unit will still see 4 other units and count 5 units total, allowing you to soul charge it too and draw.

Pluck Enchanter





Pluck Enchanter is a card that seems like it would work best in other royal paladin builds based around Blaster Blade such as Alfred or Gancelot, given her ability to soul charge one when a blaster blade is placed onto V or R, followed by allowing you to countercharge if you have no counterblast left.

However, its important to note that Pluck Enchanter will soul charge for you, regardless of how many soul you already have.



Pluck Enchanter actually has a great use in the Soul Saver deck, however, by allowing more cards to soul charge.

The more cards you soul charge, the easier it is to use Soul Saver Dragon multiple times in a row without having to spend one turn without the huge power pump.



PureBright Unicorn







Pure Bright Unicorn is a Grade 1 unit with two skills: On placed, if you have 3 front row units, soul charge 1, and if you have 5 other units (a full field), this unit gains 5k power.

The lack of speed of soul charge and limitation on only one use of it while still requiring a hard requirement to activate either of its abilities means its difficult to play this card.

Great Sage Bairon

Great Sage Bairon is a rear guard oriented grade 3 which allows you to, if you have more damage than the opponent, soul blast 1 to discard 1 and draw 2, giving you more card advantage and draw to harden your defense.

As the soul saver deck can build up a lot of soul very quickly, Bairon may easily be played in the deck to give it the much needed advantage gain it lacks.

However, this time I have chosen not to play Bairon at all. the first issue is the activation condition: Having more damage than the opponent. Royal paladin decks are very efficient at early aggression, meaning often times it will be the opponent fighting to stabilize against you, not the other way around, making Bairon not a great option in the Soul Saver deck.

Secondly, the deck often times goes with Force 2 over Force 1, meaning that playing Bairon over Palamedes will not give you the much needed power to push the opponent to defeat, but also the opponent will tend to be at higher damage than you, also shutting down Bairons ability.

While the draw power, especially in a 12 critical deck such as Soul Saver Palamedes, is very welcome, Bairon may not be your best response to this decks weakness.

Use of G1 Null guards over Iseult for 12 Critical

Previously, all decks only had the option to go up to 8 critical triggers in their deck, limiting deckbuilding. However, with the addition of new grade 1 null guards, as well as the 3rd critical trigger to clans, more options exist to go into 12 Critical 4 heal decks.

The lack of draw trigger null guards does put a damper on your late game prowess, but if your deck is fast enough, you can easily seal the win before the late game arrives.

Options for Knight Squire Allen and Little Sage Maron

Knight Squire Allen and Little Sage Marron are both cards that have been around for Royal Paladin since VBT01 and the Trial Deck, giving you access to conditional draw by use of Counterblast.

Not only do they help your deck out in the early game by pushing for damage with their high power columns, but they also give you the much needed draw to get your key unit: Soul Saver Dragon. While other decks can be somewhat comfortable without riding their main unit, in a deck such as Soul Saver Dragon that is trying to use high power early to win the game before the opponent stabilizes, drawing into your soul saver is extremely important, another reason why the early game draw assistance that Maron and Allen can provide is very important.

Maron and Allen both work well with Pluck Enchanter, as you can call blaster blade, counterblast to draw the card, and then countercharge right back up with Pluck Enchanter. Dont forget your extra soul charge!

Option for Bedivere+Kay



Bedivere and Kay are two units that came out in VBT03, and are a core part of the Royal Paladin rush. Some players even play them in premium standard for the free draw and high power column they create.

In the soul saver dragon deck, prior to VBT05, the pair were very much played, not only to give early game pressure but to also use Kays counterblast ability to fill up the field. While the Grade 1 and 2 lineups can become quite packed with options, never forget that these two paired together are very much an option for your deck.

Putting all of these together, here are two potential builds for Soul Saver Palamedes that I've put together for you.

Example decklist 1



4 Soul Saver Dragon

4 Swordsman of Exploding Flame Palamdes

4 Blaster Blade

4 High Dog Breeder Akane

4 Reload Angel

3 Pongal

4 Unbreakable Knight Ealina (Null Guard)

3 Knight Squire Allen

3 Pluck Enchanter

4 Future Knight Llew

4 Flogal

4 Bringer of Hope Epona

4 Yggdrasil Maiden Elaine

FV Barcgal

Example decklist 2

4 Soul Saver Dragon

4 Swordsman of Exploding Flame Palamdes

4 Knight of Loyalty Bedivere

4 High Dog Breeder Akane

4 Reload Angel

3 Pongal

4 Unbreakable Knight Ealina (Null Guard)

2 Knight Squire Allen

4 Knight of Friendship Kay

4 Future Knight Llew

4 Flogal

4 Bringer of Hope Epona

4 Yggdrasil Maiden Elaine

FV Barcgal

You can see I have cut down Pongal to 3. While its soul charge is very welcome, being able to be searched out by Akane, and a card that usually wont be called from the hand otherwise, for both builds I have cut down to 3.



While Excalupate the Blaster is still regarded as one of the single best cards in standard, with the ability to instantly wipe the opponents field while getting a restand with critical, the first build with blaster blade does not play him. Excalupate the Blaster, while a very powerful and impactful card, does not work well with Force 2, as the attacks are too easily guarded thus do not make up for the two hand cards to soul as well as one more grade 3 next turn to ride up to g3 again.

While Force 1 makes attacks harder to guard, Force 2 makes attacks easier to guard while more punishing when no guarded. In restanding and multiple attacks, its often times better to stack force 1 on that multi attacking circle to overwhelm defenses, especially if no additional power is involved.

This is the first of two budget deck options that we will be going over for VBT05 Aerial Steed Liberation. If you are interested in building one of these two builds, be sure to pick up the key parts early!

Join us back tomorrow when we go over the Narukami budget build: Thunderbreak Dragon + Detonics Stinger