こんにちは！

After posting my deck profile on the Zodiac Time Beasts, I went back to playtesting the deck with a different decklist, as well as received some advice from a kind redditor u/Taiuke. After adjusting my decklist multiple times, I’ve reached a pretty nice and consistent deck that I enjoy playing against with friends. For reference, I go against Scharhrot, Victor, Blasters, Messiahs and Kagero most of the time for my playtesting. I do hope to expand the scope in order to make my matchup knowledge better, but please make do with this for now.

Before we start, I’d like to advise you to read my deck profile to make sure you know what I’m talking about, as I will not be linking the card’s wiki page when explaining, mostly because I’m lazy.

Firstly, the most common win condition in ZTB is to stride into Chronovisor Heritage. This should be obvious to most players, seeing how devastating an extra turn can be to any opponent. In the most optimal case, I like to start the game with a heal trigger in my hand. This ensures I can at least G-Guard once the moment me and my opponent hit G3. I then either G2 stall to make sure I get first stride (Depending on if they have sebreeze).

SPLIT PEGASUS

First I stride into Split pegasus. Making use of Chronojet Z’s skill, I aim for a G2 and send it to the bottom of the deck. This is very important if you want to make full use of Split pegasus’ skill. If you are unable to send your opponent’s cards to the bottom of the deck, I would advise sending your own rearguards if you have any. Once you’ve nabbed a G3 with Chronojet’s skill, turn him into two G2s thanks to Split Pegasus’ skill. Call two cruising dragons and then proceed to go ham with their skills. This helps you rush into drawing your heal triggers, helping you G-Guard on the next turn. This is important for 2 reasons, keeping you alive and also helping you ramp into your Chronovisor turn on second stride, meaning an insta-win in most cases.

If you want to maximize your use of the Cruising dragons, you can make use of Hypnosis sheep to restand one of them and try to search for even more cards, especially if you’re missing that all-important heal trigger.

In the case that you do not have a grade 2 to target with Chronojet’s skill, your next best bet is to target a G1. Send it to the deck, call a G2 and then use Split pegasus to call out 2 Transit dragons. These will help you push your advantage even without the cruising dragons. If you have neither a G2 or G1 to target, you’re shit out of luck.

Note: Pay attention to how many counterblasts you have during this turn. You don’t want to overextend yourself leaving you in a bad position for the next turn.

On the defensive turn, use 2 heal triggers to G-Guard using Ilishu, setting you up for that sweet sweet Chronovisor Heritage stride. In 90% of the situations you encounter, you’ll either win with that extra turn, or push your opponent into such a bad situation that they are unable to come back during their next turn. (Unless they miraculously sack a heal trigger. You know who you are.)

AVENIR PHOENIX

Sometimes your opponent does not have a nice field and neither do you. This usually means that you’ve got to find another way to push your advantage. I’d advise to have around 3~4 damage when you start your turn if you intend to go into Avenir Phoenix. (Exercise common sense and leave yourself some space for decks where guarding is not an option.) First striding Avenir Phoenix may not be as optimal as you might like, but it still has its merits. As long as your opponent doesn’t luck out and pull a couple of triggers during your Avenir swing turn, you should be able to put quite a bit of pressure depending on what cards you reveal upon attacking. Being able to only call 2 cards on first stride, you need to choose wisely, either calling two attackers to the front row or setting up a full column. If you call two to the front, the most optimal option would be to call Spearhead unicorn or Metal party dragon, which can call even more units, helping you set up multi attacks which can chip away at your opponents hand, making it hard for them to set up on their offensive turn. You can always use Hypnosis sheep to increase the amount of extra attacks or you can use Cruising dragon to increase your hand size. Act according to the situation at hand and things should go fine.

After that, go back on the defensive and refer back to the Chronovisor ramp.

Be very careful not to over extend yourself during the Avenir phoenix turn. Spending too many resources or emptying your hand can lead to some serious consequences. You want to be able to guard the next turn as well as win during your Chronovisor turn. Either prepare your hands with cards that can help you countercharge or leave some damage open as your constituency plan.

GEARNEXT

Gearnext is an extremely solid card, providing 2 vanguard attacks for relatively no cost on top of retaining a twin drive, Gearnext can clean up some games if Heritage isn’t the wisest choice. One thing to take note of is the fact that Chronojet Z requires Soulblasts for his on stride skill as well as Gearnext. Keep an eye on your resources. You can make use of Transit dragon or Heart thump worker to refill your soul so as to make sure you don’t get stuck in a situation where you cannot soulblast to activate your skills.

When you go into Gearnext, your aim is to pressure your opponent, forcing them into a bad hand situation. The most optimal scenario is landing a crit trigger on your triple drive. If you do, put your critical on your rear guard and the power on your Vanguard. This is done so as to force your opponent to waste more cards to guard against you. If you put your critical on Gearnext, they can simply drop a PG and be done with it. Instead, boost Gearnext’s power so that they either take the hit and risk yet another trigger during your twin drive, or they burn a PG/G-Guard. After that, your Rear will swing with an extra crit, forcing them to burn even more cards than before to guard for that attack as well. If you can make use of hypnosis sheep, you’ll most definitely get your money’s worth. I recommend striding into Split pegasus before you stride into Gearnext so as to provide that 2000 boost to the front row, which means you’ll be hitting magic numbers a lot easier, increasing the mounting pressure against your opponent.

CHRONOVISOR HERITAGE

You stride into this and you win.

DUST

Dust is your all-in card, which means that you should only ever go into it if you’re sure that you can win that turn. Dust’s inflicted damage still allows the opponent to have a damage check which is a big shame but shouldn’t make too big a difference. His main strength comes from limiting your opponents to using PGs or lose. The main way of abusing this in ZTB is to use the Spearhead unicorn and Hypnosis sheep engine, creating multi attacks that will more or less make sure your opponent loses. If you don’t win on your Dust turn, you’re doing something wrong.

Now that we’ve gotten the generic G4 combos, let’s go into more detail about how your G2s, G1s and G0s work together.

DRAGON COMBO

A lot of the time, these 2 make a good column, swinging at a potential 27000 power while they both bind at the end of the attack. This clears out a column for you to use Metal party dragon’s skill, calling Merry block dragon once more with another G3 (Preferably Obstinancy ox) which means you can have another huge swing. Pair this with an Avenir phoenix turn and the attacks will keep coming.

Merry block can also be paired with either Igigi or Manish to similar effect. Have Merry block boost metal party, send both of them to bind, and call merry block by himself behind Igigi. This gives Igigi a bonus 10000 if you haven’t already used his skill, or clears up another column alongside Manish. Either way you’re swinging hard multiple times.

Revolver Dracokid is really great, providing much more utility now than expected. While being able to serve as stride fodder, you can call him to the rear in the early game, dropping a G3 for Chronojet Z. This means you already have a G3 stride fodder to use via Chronojet Z’s stride skill while also gaining a G1 booster, netting you a plus 1. He’s also extremely useful in case you draw into the wrong G3.

G-GUARDING

To make good use of Ilishu’s skill, you can bind Chronomedical hamster the moment you drop him to G-Guard, meaning you get 2 cards sent to bind right before you activate Ilishu’s skill, making it much easier to hit the requirement of having 5 cards in the bind zone. This is more of common sense than a combo but I thought it would be good to mention it.

SHEEPS ARE SCARY

Hypnosis sheep is a really nifty card which helps you with multi attacking alongside netting you some advantage if used in the right situations. Do take note however that his skill only activates on call. Calling him via Avenir phoenix, Spearhead unicorn and the like are NOT valid. Utilising him alongside Cruising dragon can help net you extra cards by reusing his on attack ability, helping you get those precious Heal triggers that I mentioned earlier. Spearhead unicorn keeps calling units to field each time it attacks, and Hypnosis Sheep gets it back on it’s feet to keep the pain train going.

Once again, we’ve reached the end of my combo guide which should more or less give you an idea of how to pilot this deck properly as well as tell you what to watch for if you’re playing against ZTBs at your locals. Tell me what you think down below and I’ll try to record some videos of me piloting the ZTB deck to hopefully give you an even better understanding of how this deck ticks.

Signing out, Asano.