Countering the Metagame: Standard Shadow Paladin Phantom Blaster Control

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Today, we will be going over a deck that has started to gain popularity in the Asian regions in the VBT06 Phantasmal Steed Restoration and VEB09 The Raging Tactics meta, due to its ability to control all of the top meta decks: Phantom Blaster Control.

Ryan Kai from Wirab Cardfight Consulting initially developed this deck, and a lot of the matchup advice comes from his vast experience topping multiple events in his country with this deck.

We will first be going over the deck list, some of the key cards that were included with VEB06 Phantasmal Steed Liberation. Then, we will cover the current meta picture and what makes Phantom Blaster Control such a good pick against them, and some key points for each of the matchups, and close with the key differences the deck has from the Mordred Phantom build.

Deck Build and Card Choices

Here is the example Deck list for Phantom Blaster Control.

Text Deck list for players looking for quick Wiki Reference:

G3:

4x Phantom Blaster Dragon

2x Gust Blaster Dragon

1x Danger Lunge Dragon

G2:

4x Darkness Maiden Macha

4x Barrier Troop Revenger, Dorint

1x Fallen Dive Eagle

G1

4x Black Sage Caron

4x Frontline Revenger, Claudas

4x Skull Witch Nemain

2x Black Wing Swordbreaker

2x Coolbau

1x Dead Armor Dragon

G0:

Fullbau (FV)

4x Grim Revenger (CRIT)

4x Dark Side Trumpeter (CRIT)

4x Dark Shield MacLir (DRAW/NULL)

4x Abyss Healer (HEAL)

This is the deck list that was used to top multiple VMC Qualifiers.



As you can see, this deck is based off the previously played Phantom Blaster + Gust Blaster Dragon shadow paladin deck from earlier this year, and still retains many of its parts. For players with the Phantom + Gust Blaster Dragon deck from earlier this year, and are looking to bring it to a future event, this is the deck list you want to reference.

This deck brings a high pressure and high power style, combined with a focus on card advantage grinding, damage controlling the opponent, and removal of the opponents board. Attacking the Vanguard mindlessly with everything you've got is not all of Vanguard, and this deck is one deck that excels at flexibility and controlling the game.

A lot of the Shadow Paladins core cards: Macha + Charon, Skull Witch Nemain + Black Wing Swordbreaker remain the same, but the additions are where the deck stands out, and what define the play style.

Our first core card is Phantom Blaster Dragon.

Phantom Blaster Dragon is a card that can counter blast, retire 3 rear guards to retire 3 of the opponents’ rear guards, and gain 15k power and 1 critical. This gives you the option to mass retire the opponents field while making the opponent have to guard your Vanguards attack from as little as 3 Damage. Once the main face of Shadow Paladin, this card is still good and impactful on the board and play, given the correct play style and deck.

Danger Lunge Dragon is a card that is commonly used in Mordred Phantom decks as the Finisher. On ride it can soul blast a card to retrieve a grade 2 from the drop zone, but if you have 3 or more Force Gifts, by soul blasting a grade 3 you can gain a Dragonic Waterfall effect of 10k power, Critical, and sentinel guard restrict.

In this deck, Danger Lunge can function as a finisher for the deck, but be careful of your timing of his attack, as without sentinel guard restrict on the Vanguard, the opponent may have time to build up high shield value to guard the Danger Lunge attack while using their sentinels to guard your Vanguard.

One of the key ways to play Danger Lunge on Rear guard is to lock the opponent at 3 Damage by using Gust Blaster or Phantom Blaster to increase Critical, and if you open a critical trigger to pass the power and critical to Danger Lunge, burning multiple cards out of the opponents hand with a 33k + Force, 3 Critical, Non Sentinel-able attack. This huge drop in advantage will be a key stepping stone in controlling the opponent, and if you played your control well early, maybe enough to outright win the game.

Our next key point in the deck build is Dorint and Claudas.

Dorint has the skill to, when placed, CB1 and Soul Blast 1 to gain 10k Power. Then, if you have a Claudas, draw 1.

Claudas has a skill to CB1 and soul in itself at the end of turn to draw 1, and if you then have a Dorint, to be refunded that counterblast.

Together, they make a 20k attacker that draws you a card, and at the end phase have a free soul in to draw 1 card, providing you with soul.

While it may feel outclassed by Macha - Charon as a "miracle twin" pair that gains you advantage when you draw them together, one of the strongest points to remember is while Charon needs to wait for Macha to be a miracle pair, you can call down Claudas first (for example with Macha, or to work with Coolbau), before calling out Dorint on a later on a different turn, convert to draw and gain power. While Macha-Charon may be played in the Mordred Phantom build (but some players often do not), the Phantom Blaster Deck is more than happy to play both pairs.

In fact drawing both pairs together on an early turn is sure to be devastating for the opponent. Imagine Riding Macha, calling Charon to draw, Calling Claudas and then Dorint to draw again.

Claudas being able to escape into the soul is another important thing to keep in mind, especially when playing against decks with mass retire such as HYU-GA, Blademaster, and Gauntlet Buster. This ability to escape into the soul and maintain card advantage allows you to fight against these board-clearing abilities without losing too much advantage.

Do note that with Claudas, cb1 and soul in is the condition to activate the whole effect. You cannot choose to soul in only and counter charge without the draw.

Fallen Dive Eagle is a promotional card from shop tournaments promo packs. You may see them being traded around already.

A grade 2 with the skill that allows you to perfect guard any rear guard attack with its intercept, it seems mediocre at best, until you realize that the 5k power on it means it can be called out with Nemain.

While other decks require you to play multiple copies at the cost of severe ineffectiveness of the deck as a whole, Phantom Blaster control plays Coolbau, another key advantage gainer for the deck which allows players to play Fallen Dive Eagle at an effective single copy, as you do not need to rely on an endless supply of Eagles from the deck when you can just recycle and reuse the single copy.

While being able to stop a single high-powered rear guard attack may seem good, it also does seem like a lightning rod for retire effects. Say goodbye to your so-called effective guard at the low cost of CB1!

Or so you think. This lightning rod like effect that attracts players to retire it with an effect is exactly what you are looking for. In a control deck, you want the opponent to be feel forced to use up cost and then feel constrained to what cost they have, having victory slip further and further away from them as the turns without ways to draw extra cards add up. By the opponent using their counterblast to retire Fallen Dive Eagle, each one of those is a counterblast not being used for card draw, not being used for multiple attacks, and not being used to superior call out more units.

If played as a control deck, the opponent will be stuck at three damage without access to much counterblast due to your vanguard attacking at most turns with 2-3 or even 4 critical, and them having to guard all attacks.

Coolbau is one of the ways the deck shines.

By resting itself and another unit in the same column, you can retrieve a normal unit with 5k power from the drop zone to your hand. Most of the time it will be either a Grade 1 for 10k shield, or utility such as Fallen Dive Eagle, Dead Armor Dragon, or Black Winged Swordbreaker.

While for decks and the turns that you want to push damage, giving up one whole column of attacks (especially when you only have three attacks) for just one card is a costly affair, but this is not the case with Phantom Blaster Control. Instead of poking mindlessly at the opponent with the column giving damage, you can use the column to gain advantage every turn, or recur your utility units.

Combined with Gust Blaster Dragon or Phantom Blaster Dragon, those rested units are not put to waste, as they will be used to feed your main Vanguards abilities.

Some of the more common units to rest with Coolbau are: Black Winged Swordbreaker that was called off of Nemain, Claudas that you plan to send to soul, Fallen Dive Eagle that will intercept next turn (or be retired with effect), and Dead Armor Dragon that will be used to give guard restrict to your Vanguard attack.

Instead of attacking, they go hang with the cool doggo and do cool doggo things!

Deciding when you need the attack and when you would have Coolbau and his friends go fetch advantage a key point in mastering use of this card.

Dead Armor Dragon is a great utility card, but can fall flat in other builds in standard. When another of your unit attacks, by soul blasting one and retiring itself, two or more cards must be called to guard against that attack. By being 5k power, this gives it the ability to be recycled with Coolbau, as well as be searched from the deck with Nemain.

Because it retires itself, it also triggers Gust Blaster Dragon's ability to gain a critical. This creates a 18k power 2 Critical + Force attack every turn without the need for counterblast, great for locking out opponents at 3 damage when you still want to keep your options open. Recycle Dead Armor every turn and your opponent either has to gamble with the chance of your critical triggers coming out of your already thinned deck, or drop excessive cards turn after turn when starved for counterblast.

While not in any pack, Dead Armor Dragon is either a point trade promo in Japanese (points from playing in weekly shop tournaments), or as participation for Free Fight at BCS Regional events across the globe. Go and grind some Dead Armor Dragon if you scrubbed out of BCS early! It’s also a popular card pick in some top players builds of Luard in Premium!

Some of the other card options to consider playing are Cursed Lancer, from VBT02. Cursed Lancer gives you the option of high powered rear guard attacks on top of Dorint, as well as counter charge. One of the cooler plays to do is while on Gust Blaster Dragon, after retrieving something with Coolbau, step over the unit in the same column as the Coolbau to counter charge, gain 10k power, and give Gust Blaster a critical. This also increases the grade 2 count in your deck, something some players may feel more comfortable with given the decks ratios.

Another card that you can consider playing is Ensnaring Mage Conohr, from VBT04, whom gives you an option of soul blasting 1 to move a rear guard to guardian circle when he himself is called as guardian. This increases your guard effectiveness of each individual cards, while working well with Nemain and the many grade 1s on your field.

Current Clan Distribution Picture, and what makes Phantom Blaster Control Effective Against the Popular Decks.

In the VBT06 Phantasmal Steed Restoration and VEB09 Raging Tactics tournament environment, there are many powerful and popular decks to account for and strategize against.



This is the total clan distribution from LaboVan Cup, held in the VBT06 environment. From here we can see the most popular decks are: Palemoon, Mordred, Murakumo, Dimension Police, Bermuda Triangle, and Royal Paladin, with Messiah, Kagero, Gauntlet Buster chasing close behind.



This is the total clan distribution for GiFT VGCS 05, held at the release of VBT06, a reflection of the earlier days of the format.



This is the total clan distribution from Japan's Vanguard Master Cup Finals, held in the VEB09 environment. Here we can see Murakumo, Palemoon and Dimension Police maintain their top slots as popular decks, while Tachikaze comes in as very popular. Mordred and Gauntlet Buster remain mainstays of the format, with Spike Brothers coming in with a bang.

These are the major decks that you want to be preparing to fight, and Phantom Blaster Control is a deck that functions well against the majority of them.





Murakumo: Murakumo is due to be very popular following their win at Vanguard Master Cup Japan, combined with its relatively low cost to build, as well as flexible play style that suits a wide variety of players. Murakumo may be able to threaten board wiping every turn while building up their own, but as a deck they are vulnerable to mass rear guard retire. As the deck only can superior call one or two units per turn, all at the cost of counterblast, they are, as their predecessor Zanbaku was, vulnerable to mass retire. While the ability to superior call does allow them to shrug off one or two pinpoint retires, mass retire can be very hard to come back from. Phantom Blaster Dragon can fill this role in keeping the opponent from assembling their parts over their turns, while applying critical pressure to force guard early.



While Mordred Phantom may be vulnerable to the HYU-GA boardwipe, cards such as Gust Blaster Dragon and Claudas can turn your field into hand, mitigating the board wipe's impact.

Another important aspect of HYU-GA in playing around it is its reliance on counterblast to make HYU-GA's board wipe live as well as its reliance on one counterblast a turn without reliable counter charge. This means you can aim to counterblast starve the deck, which will also shut off their board wipe.







Palemoon: Luquier deck players come in two flavors’: players who use Luquier on first ride and combine it with Doriane off the bat, and players whom use Luquier on first ride, leave their rear guards out, use Doriane the next turn to maximize card advantage, and then go for a third ride Luquier.

If against the first type of player, the Luquier deck will burn through their counterblast and launch a full offensive on the first ride, allowing you to pick and choose what attacks to take and how much counterblast to get, leaving them starved for counterblast. If you were an accel deck with no options to gain critical, this wouldn’t matter, but you are not. While you cannot disadvantage the opponent, they have worked themselves into a corner, having spent counterblast assembling the pieces needed to draw 2 and add a grade 3 from soul to hand, as well as superior call out the parts from soul. They may be able to re-ride next turn, but their board is empty and without Luquier to fill it again, it is difficult to launch and maintain the offensive.

In this situation, as Luquier deck at 2-3 damage used up will be stuck against a Gust Blaster whom sits at 2-3 critical every turn, not being able to no guard the attack and also not being able to no guard, as it would mean losing.

While you will run out of Counterblast for Gust Blaster if you are not careful, Nemain and Coolbau can constantly provide you fodder to retire cards to give Gust Blaster the critical needed to grind out the opponent. One of the key plays is to use Dead Armor Dragon to give your Gust Blaster guard restrict every turn, forcing the opponent to drop many hand cards to guard your attack. Then, the next turn, bring it back from the drop zone with Coolbau, and do it again.

While some players may choose to play the Luquier -> Doriane -> Luquier play over 3 turns, this is also vulnerable to mass field retire. Throw 6 rear guards to feed Phantom Blaster Dragon and burn their entire field, leaving them with no rear guards and no way to build up a field again. This will force the opponent into using a first ride less effective Doriane, which will let them fall into your control by looping with Gust Blaster.





Tachikaze: Anger Blader deck is the new player on the block, showing a whopping 17% participation rate in the Vanguard Master Cup. Tachikaze can boast high powered multiple attacks that put Mordred Phantom to shame, but its key weakness is how it has to spend time to build up the require equip gauge. While the equip gauge has become faster, it still requires more than just a turn to get those gauge onto your rear guards. Phantom Blaster Dragon once again easily counters this, as unlike other decks, Tachikaze has almost no superior calling to fill their field faster than you can burn it, preventing them from reaching the required critical mass of Equip Gauge to become truly threatening

Dimension Police: Dailiner has been a huge boon to the deck, giving it search and beautiful setup for Great Daiyusha. The deck has shown flexibility and consistency in topping since its release. When fighting Dimension police its important to watch two things: Counterblast, and access to card advantage. While Dimension Police does have easy access to power, and criticals, they do not have much superior call, relying on Dailiner to get them cards and Great Daiyushas superior ride skill to drive check more card advantage. Additionally, all of their call is from their hand, so any cards placed on the field for retire are cards out of their hand, not being used for guard.

Dailiner's skill leads perfectly into Great Daiyusha's skill, but to do both in a single turn, you require two counterblast. By Counterblast starving the opponent, and only giving one counterblast a turn, they cannot use Dailiners skill to gain the required power to superior ride and superior ride the same turn, cutting them off from their best source of card advantage.

Most veteran players, in this situation, would swap to riding to Daizaurus, which gives much power for no cost. However, in doing so, they lock themselves out from using Great Daiyusha for that turn, as well as losing the shield value on all the grade 3 units sitting in their hand.

Even against a Great Daiyusha turn, while the Vanguard attack may be difficult to guard, having Fallen Dive Eagle out to help you allows you to block one of their four high powered attacks that turn, easing the pressing placed on your hand that attack.

Narukami: Gauntlet Buster is a difficult deck to face for many accel clans, given its multiple critical and high power. Narukami as a decks weakness stems from their reliance on needing to bind to activate many key effects such as Rising Pheonix, as well as requiring counterblast to bind effectively. Players have started to reduce the number of Dragonic Deathscythe in their decks, as well as Elena hardly being played for countercharge, instead prioritizing the far more meta relevant Bolt Capture Dragon. Given the decks difficulty gaining card advantage, many players would rather use their soul for Desert Gunner Doran to mitigate this weakness of the deck.

This gives decks that can counterblast control a much better time, as even if they can use Deathscythe to bind a frontrow, Gauntlet Buster and Chou-Ou's effect to drag up the backrow remains locked behind well controlled counterblast.

Mordred Phantom: Mordred Phantom stands out as one of the more tricky matchups. Phantom Blaster Dragon's effectiveness is capped very much by the opponent having access to just as much superior call as you do, as well as just as many options to be retired as fodder as you do. This makes Phantom Blaster a very weak card against Mordred Phantom decks.

Mordred Phantom decks tend to play with this flow in mind: fill field early with Nemain and launch an offensive, pushing damage with a full field of quantity over quality. Over turns, use Masquerade and Swordbreakers to draw into Blaster Darks and Mordred Phantom, keeping them in hand until the turn you wish to use them together. Ride Mordred, call out multiple blaster darks and stack force gift, and use multiple attacks to drive the opponent to high damage, forcing their hand to drop, as well as potentially ending the game. Should this not be enough, use Danger Lunge Dragon on a circle that has many force thanks to blaster dark, and win off of Danger Lunge.

This reliance on Counterblast and needing to keep key components in hand is the key weakness to Mordred Phantom build, followed by ineffective use of Nemain. Nemain is a very integral part of Shadow Paladin decks in all formats, but Mordred Phantom, a deck without much retiring of its own units, will primarily use it to fill field with less than effective units, or swordbreakers to draw cards.

While it is possible to rush in early, getting pressure onto the Mordred Phantom deck and forcing them to use counterblast to dig for their parts, this often leaves them with many counterblast to do everything they can imagine in later turns. Shadow Paladin is a deck that takes great advantage of their counterblast. Instead, try to focus on decreasing the opponents hand while maintaining your own over turns via critical up effects and your attack patterns. Additionally, on the huge swing turn with Blaster Dark, and the Danger Lunge Dragon finisher, both are hindered by Fallen Dive Eagle, which can shut down a whole attack, including Danger Lunge's. Giving Mordred Phantom deck's lack of retire and lack of pinpoint removal, Fallen Dive Eagle is easy to not only bring onto board but also recur and use over multiple turns.

Mordred Phantom and Phantom Blaster Control: Key Differences.

Of course, the main deck players will be considering playing over this is Mordred Phantom. Mordred Phantom is hip, new, with a fresh new playstyle and stunning artwork, but also a devastating force in the metagame. Key components of the deck such as Nemain, Swordbreaker, Macha, Charon, and MacLir are already expensive cards, so buying parts for Phantom Blaster Control would also be buying parts for Mordred Phantom.

Mordred Phantom is not a weak deck by any means, but the play style, aim, matchups all differ, due to how the decks are played.

Of course, the main difference setting the decks apart is going to be the cost of building the deck. For players with an existing Gust Blaster deck, updating to Mordred Phantom build is going to involve buying 8 more VRs and an assortment of RRRs, while changing to Phantom Blaster Control involves picking up one RRR, two play sets of less played RRs, and a few promotional cards.

Mordred Phantom is one of the most expensive decks of all time to build in Japan, and all signs point towards it being so in the western countries as well.

Another of Mordred Phantom's decks key points is reliance on Blaster Dark. A lot of the game plan revolves around doing the maximum output of two blaster darks with multiple force markers, but not every game you are going to have two blaster darks sitting in hand, and the turn that you need them is going to be much earlier against some of the more aggressive decks in the format. While two blaster darks called in a single turn doing 5 total attacks of high power is very devastating, only one blaster dark doing a total of 4 attacks is a fair lot less impactful.

The next key difference is how there is only one way the games will go in Mordred Phantom decks. Fill field early, Assemble components, Set up the execution, deliver multiple attacks; finish with Danger Lunge as needed.

This results in all Mordred Phantom decks being only able to attack Vanguard multiple times, giving the opponent a full control over what they will guard, and how much damage they take. Giving the opponent free reign over how much damage they take can set Mordred Phantom up for failure against decks that want a lot of counterblast, such as Luquier, Gauntlet Buster, Murakumo, Mordred Phantom itself, and Dimension Police, the major players of the format.

Deck space is another aspect of the Mordred Phantom deck. Due to the large amount of cards dedicated to achieving the Mordred Phantom game plan, the deck is indeed incredibly consistent in assembling the parts needed to win.

This is at the cost of flexibility in deck building, and dearth of options in games. Mordred Phantom, Masquerade, the Grade 1 Masquerade, and Blaster Dark all must be played as four-of's, and that is just the start. Phantom Blaster control can take advantage of looser deckbuilding to pack option cards such as Cursed Lancer, Coolbau, Fallen Dive Eagle, and Dead Armor Dragon to take advantage of this and be given more options to tackle a wider variety of challenges placed forth by the current diverse meta.

Another of the differences of the deck has from Mordred Phantom is how it uses Danger Lunge Dragon

While the Mordred Phantom build often uses Danger Lunge as a first ride to retrieve a Blaster Dark you ride, or try to re-use Masquerade to search for Mordred Phantom or Blaster Blade, this build can take slightly better advantage of the retrieval skill, due to the timing of when you use the card retrieved. While Blaster Dark will stay in your hand until the mordred phantom turn, and Masquerade will try to convert itself into a Blaster Dark (again which will stay in your hand), or Mordred Phantom (which you will ride next turn), the card retrieved is often not used for a whole turn. Aside from setting up the next turn, it does effectively nothing to the board.

A card that this sort of play can be compared to is Shine Bardiche Dragon from Kagero (Blademaster searcher), which has dropped in popularity due to it only being effective as a first ride to set up your next turn, and even as a first ride sometimes not impactful enough on the board to stabilize you. (Shine Bardiche does also have the weakness of not being useful at all after first ride, while Danger Lunge then becomes your Finisher if you draw it later)

However, in the Phantom Blaster Control deck, as you are playing Two "Miracle Twin" Pairs, you can retrieve half of either side you are missing, in order to start gaining advantage.

Conclusion

Today, we have gone over the alternate build for Shadow Paladin in Phantasmal Steed Restoration: Phantom Blaster Control, and how its unique tech choices and flexibility position it to take down some of the prominent decks of the metagame.

The choice between Mordred Phantom and Phantom Blaster Control is up to you, the Shadow Paladin player. With the release of VBT06 Phantasmal Steed Restoration, will you pick the aggressive and proactive Mordred Phantom and steamroll your opponents with power, or will you pick the more flexible and reactive Phantom Blaster Control, strangling your foe's slowly to death as you sit behind more options than an open Facebook poll?

This deck playstyle to counter the current meta was initially developed by Ryan Kai of Wirab Cardfight Consulting whom topped multiple events with it. You can try messaging him with your more detailed questions on Youtube, Facebook, or Instagram if youre keen to find out more about the deck.