Premium Watch : Narukami Vanquisher

Yahallo lads and ladettes, its me its your best friend its CanYouSayG, and you’re reading the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better cardfighter.

Today, we will be going over Premium Standard Narukami: Dragonic Vanquisher. The Dragonic Vanquisher deck is quite the powerhouse in Standard right after the release of VEB12 Team Dragon’s Vanity, taking the deck to great heights in the meta game. Many players have picked up this deck to play, but today we will be discussing adapting this deck for Premium Standard play.

This deck is quite notable in being similar in play style to the Standard build, while utilizing G-Zone cards to move through the deck faster as well as access great finishers for the clan.

Most importantly, you can pick up almost all of the required pieces for this deck for very cheap, as not only are some of the main cards needed to adapt to premium previously reprinted, others were at lower rarity as well. Add on to this the limited amount of absolutely necessary strides, and you have a very cheap upgrade for adapting your deck from Standard to Premium! A perfect deck for players whom have never tried Premium Standard but have bought the Narukami deck in Standard.

Narukami in Premium Until Now

Previously, Narukami as a deck was very limited in play style, as the game pace favored longer lasting grind oriented matchups, where you would slowly build up the bind count, allowing VOLTAGE, VBUSTER and Closer Dragon to give a huge power boost to your three attacks per turn. This is combined with the defensive prowess of Impede Dragon, one of the most powerful G Guardians in the game, which had the ability to retire up to two of the opponents rear guards on their turn to form a deck that could outlast some of the rear guard oriented decks of the meta game as long as they could draw their G guardians.

In Premium Narukami, the main power cards that have lasted as core cards have been: VBUSTER for both offense and defense, Closer Dragon/VOLTAGE for the finish, and Impede Dragon to try to outlast the opponent’s assault.

Do note that all of these cards do not have heavy costs associated with them, with VBUSTER only requiring one soul to activate. VOLTAGE, Closer, and Impede require no costs for their activation, freeing up your cost to be used on other abilities.

Narukami, however, had glaring weaknesses in their speed, ability to multi-attack, and inability to draw into their Heal Triggers to access the all important Impede Dragon.

The Conquest stride from Premium Collection not opening new play style options, instead being a weaker VOLTAGE only kept Narukami behind in Premium Standard

With VBT05, Narukami got access to not only Accel 2, which helped fill the board, give extra attacks, maintain hand and help draw into your null guards and G Guardians, Narukami also received Chou-Ou, a multi-attacker at the cost of Counterblast. While the deck does not have large amounts of countercharge, it makes up for this in not requiring much counter blast use in the first place, allowing you to use Chouou freely.

What we got

With VEB12, and the release of the Dragonic Vanquisher deck and its support, Narukami found itself with access to far more card filtering in the form of both Jaggyshot Dragoon, which can use both its first skill to bind and draw, as well as its second skill to move to soul to continue drawing cards and searching for those Heal triggers to add to hand, as well as Voltic Shred Dragon, which draws a card and then binds.

Note that while in the standard deck, these are used as multi-attack enablers, but in the Premium Narukami build they have use as both enablers for multi-attack, as well as useful for drawing into key parts and filtering hand to find the heal triggers you need.

Chatura is a welcome addition to the deck by providing on hit pressure that provides card draw at all points in the game, as well as being the multi-attack package together with Bajan.

These new parts for Narukami have granted it Multi-Attack potential, as well as increased speed of moving through the deck by the way of Card draw and filtering, leading to faster access to heal triggers and most importantly Impede Dragon, potential to deal devastating bind and draw in the early game and on turns you ride up to g3, rounding off some of the Narukami deck’s existing weaknesses in premium.

With Voltage or Closer Dragon, the finishers of the deck, no longer do you need to think about having to close out the game somehow with only three attacks, now you can execute many attacks on the turn you have a high power boost to your front row.

In exchange, the drop zone bind potential is lowered, leading to potential issues with opponents that won’t play out rear guards, but the deck as a whole will rely less on Thunderstrike, with binding the opponents drop zone primarily for powering up VBUSTER and VOLTAGE to access their front row pump abilities.

While striding over your Vanquisher does remove the +10k to the frontrow ability granted when 3 or more cards are bind in a turn, you instead can access VBUSTER, whom even at first stride can provide a power boost to your attacking units to get them to hit with his first skill to bind and power up your field. Once you hit a higher thunder strike number you will be able to use VBUSTER GB3 ability to give a permanent 5k pump to the front row. VOLTAGE at GB3 will provide a power up much larger than Vanquisher ever could, reaching up to 20k power boost with ease.

Card Choices

VOLTAGE

VOLTAGE and Closer Dragon fill similar roles in being the finisher of the deck. As such, VOLTAGE can be played only as a 2-of and still work, allowing you to play other cards in the same slot. In games that you cannot use two or three G-Guardians to achieve GB8, Voltage becomes your main finisher.

As the opponent may try to counter play the thunder strike ability by not leaving cards on the field, Hardrod Dracokid is played in order to slowly increase the bind number in the main board. However, as this is a sub plan, not the main strategy, Hardrod is played in the main deck not as the starter.

Closer Dragon

Closer Dragon removes both players rear guards and then binds all of the opponents drop zone, but provides a massive power boost to all of your field. Be sure to factor in what you can and cannot call down from your hand to win the game before you stride it.

An important point to note is that Closer Dragon does count your own bind zone in its ability, meaning that any cards you bind via Voltaic Shred and Jaggy Shot also count towards this power boost.

VBUSTER

VBUSTER is the primary stride in the deck, both providing binding from field as well as a power boost to three of your units. This power boost allows for units such as Voltic Shred and Jaggy Shot Dragoon to hit the opponents vanguard, enabling multi-attacks. Additionally if you achieve the thunder strike, the permanent 5k boost to your front row is icing on the cake as it improves your multi attack even further, allowing cards such as Bajan to hit the vanguard when superior called onto a normal front row circle.

Do remember that while other G Units retire and then bind, therefore not fulfilling Rising Pheonix’s activation condition of a rear guard being bind, VBUSTER is one of the two only G Units that directly bind a rear guard. allowing for Rising Phoenix activation.

Triple Impede Dragon

Impede Dragon is the Persona G Guardian of Narukami, which retires and binds one of the opponents rear guards, but also has the potential to retire yet another unit if the opponent has two or more rear guards than you. While you cannot G-Guardian when you have four face up G Guardians in your G Zone, what you can do is call two simultaneously (even if you have three face up G Guardians) and activate both. Removing up to four of the opponents rear guards. This is the reason why three Impede Dragon is played, in addition to other options for G Guarding in the deck are very weak in comparison.

Deckbuild

Here is an example deck list for the deck that may suit your playstyle. Be sure to try it out and make changes to suit your own style better!

Heres a text version of the deck list:

Dragonic Vanquisher x 4

Jaggyshot Dragoon x 4

Demonic Dragon Berserker Chatura x 4

Fiendish Sword Eradicator, Cho-Ou x 4

Voltic Shred Dragon x 4

Desert Gunner Bajan x 4

Rising Phoenix x 4

Mighty Bolt Dragoon (GBT02) x 3

G0

Hardrod Dracokid x 2

Spark Kid Dragoon (FV)

6 Crit/6 Draw/4 Heal

Dragon Dancer, Paulina x 4

Yellow Gem Carbuncle x 2

Wyvern Guard, Guld x 4

Old Dragon Mage x 2

Worm Toxin Eradicator, Seiobo x 4

G Zone 16

Stride

Conquering Supreme Dragon, Closer Dragon x 1

Progenitor Dragon of Lightning Flame, Gilgal x 1

Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VBUSTER" x 4

Conquering Supreme Dragon, Dragonic Vanquisher "VOLTAGE" x 4

G Guardian

Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Impede Dragon x 3

Mystic Wisdom Creation, Brahma x 1

Sky Guardian Supreme Dragon, Bulwark Dragon x 1

Dark Element, Dizmel x 1

Option Parts

Here are some cards you may consider for your own build

Sweep Command Dragon

Eradicator Sweep Command Dragon is one of the Narukami cards from BT11, with a limit break of CB2 and SB2, when an opponent rear guard is retired, pay the cost to retire another front row unit and gain 5k and draw a card. This is a highly defensive skill, and as you suspected, the main use is to combo with Impede Dragon, retiring units from your opponents board and then using Sweep Command Dragon to retire other front row units, effectively shutting down a whole turn of attacks.

The downside to using Sweep Command Dragon would be having to re-ride into it, riding into it at g3 and having no effect on that turn, not having Imaginary Gift Accel, and finally its heavy cost. While the rest of the deck does not use up much cost, the cb2 and sb2 cost can be very prohibitive, and Sweep Command Dragon may dictate almost all of the cost usage in the deck.

While playing Sweep Command, be sure to consider playing the next card to accommodate this weakness.

Smashboxer Dragon

Smashboxer Dragon is a Grade 1 that, when your Vanguard is a Dragonic Vanquisher and your opponent has 3 or more bind cards, at the end of battle you can send it to soul to Countercharge 1 and draw 1, maintaining your card advantage and adding to your hand while returning you more cost to be used, especially for the likes of Sweep Command Dragon.

You can also stride into VBUSTER and VOLTAGE to achieve the condition of having a Vanquisher Vanguard.

The drawback to using this card is its delay in speed, as it is locked behind thunder strike 3, depending on how the opponent plays their hand and game, you may have nothing to bind and thus not be able to use Smashboxer as freely as you wish.

Voltage MAX

The stride Dragonic Vanquisher VMAX is a GR from GBT09, with the ability to attack additional units for each face up Vanquisher in your GZone. Its second skill allows you to CB2 to deal one damage if you have thunder strike 5 as well as the opponent having no units at the end of the battle. Great for getting the opponent to perfect guard multiple units when you attack. However, the current deck does not bind as many cards from the drop zone as desired, as most bind is from the field, and thus achieving 5 bind zone by second stride is often difficult, especially if your attacks that turn are not increasing that bind number.

Additionally, the attack multiple units skill has partially be taken over by Gilgar, which comes with the ability to make your subsequent strides costless.

Conquest Fullgurate

Conquest Fullgurate allows you to bind multiple opponents rear guards based on how many face up Gone you have and give power to your units based on how many cards are in the bind zone, however, as VBUSTER will allow you to bind units on the opponents board, and VOLTAGE provides a far larger power boost in the later game, all while powering up multi attack units that are called during the battle phase, Conquest is not played. Taking out two VOLTAGE and replacing them with Conquest may be an option you take for your own deck.

Drachma

Drachma is the ZR of Dragon Empire, with the ability to retire the opponents vanguard itself. In the Narukami deck, however, its value as a finisher is limited. As the decks speed is not very fast, it can allow the opponent to have plenty of time to build up their hand in anticipation of Drachma, as well as the first stride not applying very much pressure on the opponents hand to the point that they cannot recover from a skill that knocks three hand.







Dragonic Descendant Sigma

Our final option part is Dragonic Descendant Sigma. Sigma will primarily be played for the rear guard skill, that when the attack does not hit, by cb1 and discarding one, you can restand Sigma once.

This skill is particularly potent as it fills a similar role to ChouOu. On turns that it gains much power via Closer or VOLTAGE, you can get two attacks out of a single circle. Previously, before Narukami had access to multiple attacks or event accel circles, this multi attack option was crucial to the gameplan, but with Vanquisher having access to Jaggyshot Chathura combos as well as ChouOu, its necessity has gone down, but has continued to stay an option.

Game Plan

The Vanquisher deck in Premium is not a fast deck. Given the decks main advantage gain being retire based, focus your efforts on countering the opponents plays by controlling damage and binding cards in the early game.

Once you get to stride, unlike certain fast decks, you cannot expect to win consistently on first stride. Instead, focus on using the first stride to gather resources and set up Impede Dragon, both by clearing your own field of units as well as using as few cards in hand to deploy out a field. Jaggyshot Dragoon and Voltic Shred Dragon are both key parts in being able to dig into your defensive cards, heal triggers and perfect guards. Chathura being called off of a Jaggyshot or Voltic Shred is a powerful play, but one that limits your further multi attack options for future turns. Be sure to try to get the Chathura to hit in order to draw extra cards.

Be confident in taking attacks slow, as you want to control the game tempo and slowly bring the game towards your finisher turn.

Calling Rising Phoenix or Not Calling

One of the key plays in the deck is to not always calling out Rising Phoenix at the earliest opportunity. This is due to enabling multi attacks when they are in the drop zone via Jaggy shot or Chathura, as well as enabling Impede Dragon to retire an additional unit when you have very few rear guards.

This potential has to be weighed against providing a booster to your units and thus enabling them to hit and perform multi attacks, as on stride turns you would not get the 10k power boost to your front row, only getting power if your stride specifically provides it.



Conclusion

Today we went over a Premium Standard narukami build that is based around the new cards from VEB12 Team Dragon Vanity. Both easy and cheap to build and similar in play to the standard build of Dragonic Vanquisher, this is one of the easier decks to pick up for players looking for an easy entry into playing Premium Standard with their friends.

Three of the core components for the deck upgrade: Mighty Bolt Dragoon, Impede Dragon as well as Dragonic Vanquisher VBUSTER were both reprinted recently in the revival collection set, making them far easier to obtain, as well as available in full art.

Be sure to give the deck a try and perhaps you will find yourself enjoying this playstyle for Narukami