

There have been some very interesting revelations in the world of Vanguard recently, now that we have a little more insight into Oracle Think Tank and Nova Grappler, and in turn, what to expect from Protect and Accel in general.



There have been some very interesting revelations in the world of Vanguard recently, now that we have a little more insight into Oracle Think Tank and Nova Grappler, and in turn, what to expect from Protect and Accel in general.





I've spoken about the Imaginary Gifts before and how they relate to deck building archetypes, and I explained why I thought Bushiroad considered Force to be the balanced Gift of the three. Force is the more stable one, arguably slower than Accel while not needing as much field investment as, and having more pressure and less defence than Protect. It's good for a midrange playstyle, as you can have pressure for combating the slower Protect clans, and stability for when you are trying to force Accel players into a longer game than they want.

However, now we really know why Bushiroad considers Force balanced. Not only is the power from the Force Gift stable, as I have described, but Force clans appear to have higher grade 3 base power to its counterparts, at least on average, reinforcing this balance between offence and defence. Every OTT and NG grade 3 so far is 12k, while all RP and Kagero grade 3s are 13k.









Not only that, but it is also possible that this trend in lower base power extends to all traditional frontrow units, as all of NG and OTT's grade 2s are only 9k power so far, which is 1k less than the majority of Force grade 2s. We know for certain that OTT and NG's grade 1s can be 8k , as we've seen examples from both, but it is very possible that only Force will have high powered grade 2s and grade 3s. Hopefully they will get a Gallatin clone, so they can have at least a vanilla 10k grade 2.

So we know Force has higher powered grade 3s, and possibly grade 2s as well. Accel are confirmed to have Front triggers, and it is heavily implied that Front triggers will be exclusive to them. Protect on the other hand, doesn't have any known exclusive feature. This intrigues me, and I find it hard to believe that there isn't more to Protect. If Protect clans are to get another exclusive feature, I think it's very likely to be something defencive, as that's what they are advertised to be.









We've seen quite a few Oracle Think Tank cards now, but we haven't seen any vanilla triggers yet. We've seen Miss Mist , the grade 0 Sentinel, but none with any expected shield. Aside from Sentinels, triggers have been the main means of guarding incoming attacks, and if Cardfight Vanguard's R&D department want to increase the defence of Protect further, without increasing passive base power, then increasing the average shield value of triggers may be the best way to go about it.

So my prediction is that Protect clans will have superior shield values on their triggers, or at least something about their triggers may be better in some way, as that is something we haven't seen much of from Oracle Think Tank. If Protect clans don't get anything else exclusive to them, then I think the Gift may have issues. Getting an extra Sentinel on ride is very valuable, but it doesn't scale as well as its counterparts over time, and there is less combo potential too.