The State of Premium

Hello lads and lasses, it's me its your best friend, CanYouSayG, and today, were going to be talking about Premium Standard.

To be honest, I didn't expect standard to completely dwarf the following for Premium so fast! Premium is deep, has a lot of complex gameplay, and controlling the opponent and your own damage, soul, hand, field, drop zone, and many, many other factors play into your game. A lot of people call premium "broken" or "dominated by ott so its not fun", but this isnt the situation at all.

This article is going to be broken up into 5 parts:

Introduction and Existing decks from G-Era Clans that got upgraded in VBT01 Clans that got upgraded in VEB01 Clans that got upgraded in VEB02 A look to the future of VBT02 and Beyond

If you play any of the clans, or are looking into building, jump straight to that clan and have a look at how your clan developed with new support! Each part has been broken down into approximately 10 minutes of reading time total.

If youre kind of new to Premium Standard, or you want to jump in but dont really know what is and isnt being played, what you should and shouldnt build, this is the article for you! PStandard season is coming up soon with the Autumn Circuit and its road to worlds, so this is the time to get in the know of what each clan wants to do in PStandard!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be going over the various decks that are currently in PStandard, how each clan so far has evolved with the addition of new cards, as well as providing a few example decklists for certain decks. I will also try to highlight certain weaknesses of each deck and some of the tricks you might have to play around.

Not all the decks are top meta, and not all the decks have a lot of example decklists rolling around, but feel free to message me on Twitter/FB and I'd be glad to share the concepts and some of the card choices for individual decks.

We will start with a Tier List of the top few Commonly played decks in PStandard as of VEB02.

A (Counters are not commonly played):

Bermuda Triangle Trois-Ange, Shadow Paladin Luard,



B:

Gear Chronicle ZTB, Dimension Robo LaurelOnePunch, Dark Irregulars DemagogueAssasinOTK/Shaharot Guard Restrict, Oracle Think Tank Ichikishima+SilentTom Guard restrict, Megacolony Machining ZoaOnePunch, Royal Paladin Blaster, Granblue Hollow

C:

Kagero Overlord, Tachikaze REX, NovaGrappler Victor/Asura

Keep in mind that Tier lists are not absolute, and may certainly vary from region to region based on deck/counter prevalence, and are more of guidelines of what to expect to come up against, not what you should play. Good examples of decks that would otherwise be higher if counters were not so prevalent would be Dark Irregulars OTK, and Oracle Think Tank. My honest opinion is while there is the so called tierlist, experience with a lower tier will always win out against higher tier decks. Take the deck you enjoy playing most.

If your favourite deck isnt here in the tier list, its because its not one of the top 10 most commonly played PStandard builds worldwide at the moment. Perhaps if you win a regional or three, its popularity will pick up!

We will start with the four decks that have been consistently topping PStandard events that persisted from G-Era with no new cards: Gear Chronicle ZTB, Dark Irregulars Shaharot/DemagogueOTK, Shadow Paladin Luard, and Bermuda Triangle Ange

Most of these decks have not changed since the end of G-Era, but make no mistake, they are very much powerhouses in the format.



Shadow Paladin

Luard and Gear Chronicle may have similar amounts of card advantage via stride bonus and powerful strides, but the Luard deck has access to two backbreakers on first stride for non-Stride centric decks: Ogma and Dragabyss. Both of these cards generate enough advantage to completely shut out aggressive decks such as Nova grappler, Royal Paladin, and early game resource starved decks such as Oracle Think Tank and Overlord. This gives them the time to set up a powerful, nigh unstoppable OTk with Dragabyss GB3 or finish with Phantom Blaster Diablo. Esras, unlike the other nulls that return to hand, is much more accessible thanks to being able to searched out from the deck and easily returned from drop zone, with no maximum limit on number of times it can be used like Arka and CB cost attached to ChouChou Tino.

One of its bad matchups: Gear Chronicle, has fallen out of dominant popularity due to its weaker Pre-GB game, but Luard has early game advantage and options of either going aggressive or playing damage denial.

It still remains, however, weak to Ange decks.

Luard is slated to have a massive boost when the Suzugamori Ren Trial deck hits, playing mainly: Blaster Dark and Blaster Javelin, as well as taking in the new 20k defense Heal Triggers and 10k power Draws. Luard already has pretty decent CB management by way of recycling their FV, so using Blaster dark when it is called out via Cursed Eye Raven to retire is very handy, as well as loading up the drop zone with G1 while getting a twin drive to threaten the opponent early. Blaster Javelin is not only a g1 10k shield, which is very handy with the G-Guards Bronach and Jellido, but also a very effective draw source as you can easily call them out from the deck!

Example of Luard Deck build PreVBT02

Gear Chronicle ZTB:

The bane of any other GB based deck, as well as anything that thinks it has the time to wait.

The advantage once you get to GB game as well as early, mid, and lategame stability is nothing to scoff at. Although weak to Oracle Think Tank's Silent Tom, GC does not actually have an unfavored matchup against the deck. Oracle Think tank takes time to set up and put you to that 5th damage setting up their kill, but by that point, you may have already hit the opponent with a Chronovisor Heritage, taking an extra turn and using multiple attacks to tear through their hand, denying oracle. Also, the prescence of Split Pegasus's +1k pump from the G Zone allows you to use Hypnos Sheep and/or Unicorn to conduct multiple attacks, easily hitting that G3 12k mark.

Chronovisor Heritage is just as devastating as it was before. Just because you can survive it a bit earlier does not make the deck any less obnoxious for getting a whole extra turn!

Weaknesses: Ange, Shaharot, Granblue, ZoaOnePunch (GGuards not big enough)

Ange:

With the new Stride ruling, one Ange build has taken a sharp jump in popularity: Trois-Ange. By using Trois to superior ride up to G3 when the opponent is at g1, you can stride and overwhelm the opponent with advantage and multiple attacks and GB effects while the opponent sits at G2. Note the new Stride Rule allows you to Re-Ride to from Trois to ange, get your 2 advantage, followed by striding and getting another 2 advantage.

This is the same deck that has access to Shandie, allowing G2 games where you dont superior ride to go perfectly fine, as you are getting as many as 2-3 extra cards when most opponents would struggle to get 1 or 2.

Bermudas large hand and multiple attacks as well as seemingly unending ability to search and draw set it as easily one of the most powerful "slow"/GB reliant decks of the format, easily taking down other decks with newer toys. In my own opinion, I believe Trois-Ange is the current single best deck of the format, having answers and speed to beat many other decks, but it is not the dominant deck, as the deck can just as easily be beaten by many decks out there.

for example decklist, I highly reccomend Kevin Ajolt Nyugen's deck profile for Ange-Trois. follow the link for it.

www.youtube.com

Dark Irregulars:

Dark Irregulars until this point have been either of two builds: The Shaharot and Gastille build that aims to deliver unblockable attacks with the combination of Balaam and Baleful Repressor, and the hybrid with demagogue assassin build.

However, alongside Ichikishima Tom combo in Oracle Think Tank, certain clans ability to block the combo with Protect Gift has severely cut short these methods of winning by introducing very widely played counters.

Bcause of this, the more prevalent build at the moment is the Demagogue Assasin hybrid, a deck that can threaten both ways of victory at the cost of not being as streamlined or as good at filtering the deck to mostly triggers.

Multiple attacks in one turn, the ability to threaten an OTK while setting up unblockable attacks allows for this deck to be just as relevant to the meta, if just a bit unpopular at the moment.

While the Dark Irregulars clan may not be the most popular now, it does still have a solid place in the meta of premium, as well as a lot of newer cards from VBT02 allow for increased combo potential in the deck, from Demon Eater giving the demagogue assasin two more high powered attacks in a turn to Blood Sacrifice giving the deck more direct access to Weretiger Yaeger for draw. Perhaps a build centered around Bladewing Sullivan, Demon Eater, and Gastille to turbo and multi attack every turn while blocking off comboes with Protect Marker will be the future, or maybe NoLifeKing Death Anchor and Demon Eater centric Demagogue Assasin will be the way forwards, only time can tell.

Two Examples of Dark Irregular Decks.

Thats all for Part 1/5.





Join us again later tonight when we go over a few decks that got changes in VBT01, and how they have come into the meta!

Shameless Plug:

GiFT Vanguard Championship (3v3)

GiFT Vanguard Championship will be held on 16th of September 2018.

3v3 Standard

Entry cost is RM110 per team of 3, but each player will get original gift counters, winners will get our tournament exclusive playmat, and many, many more giveaway and promo cards!

Take part in our side events, lucky draws and enjoy a day of Vanguard!

We will be holding a staff challenge for premium, as well as a King Of the Hill Challenge for Premium format as well. Dont worry, we have many premium decks for you to borrow if you dont have one for yourself!