Once again, Great Nature gets a bird G Unit that you don’t want to run into in a dark alley. Fighter’s Collection 2017 has been giving all clans a Generation Rare Stride with a GB8 skill that are intended to be used largely as finishers and I’d say ours definitely fits the bill (pardon the bird pun).

[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.

[ACT](VC) Generation Break 8:[Choose two cards from your hand, and discard them] Choose up to five of your rear-guards, until end of turn, they get [Power]+10000, and “[AUTO](RC):At the end of your turn, retire this unit.”, and if the number of cards in your hand is one or less, this unit gets [Power]+40000/[Critical]+1.

Right off the bat, we are better off than some other clans. As this is an ACT skill and not an AUTO on-attack skill like the Angel Feather G Unit, we can safely use this ability in our Main Phase to make full use of our Stand triggers if we choose to run them. Veera also gives his power boost to all Rear Guards, buffing the entire field where other GB8 units have only buffed the front row.

Even one buff from Veera makes for an intimidating Crayon Tiger target, but Sage Bigbelly alone can create a single better Crayon target. Why would you ever choose to use this card over Sage Bigbelly when you’re at GB8, you might ask? Put simply, this card is not limited to once per turn. Great Nature often plays with a large hand, tanking through strong hits with relative ease. Now, you can put that large hand to an offensive use as well as a defensive one. Discard two cards and your field gets +10k power. Still have two or more cards in hand? Do it again, as many times as you can or desire until you have one or less cards in hand. And once your hand is empty? That’s where an added bonus comes in. The VG itself buffs up by an impressive +40k power as well as gaining an additional critical.

I suppose Bushiroad decided, “+4000? No, no, no. That isn’t nearly enough. Add another zero.” An initial reaction I saw from some people to this card was that the +40k and +1 crit condition was too difficult to reach because of Great Nature’s large hand size but again, recall that its ability isn’t once per turn.

This may be Great Nature’s third situational Generation Rare, but the game ending potential it provides affords it an immediate 1-of slot in any Great Nature G Zone. Also, even if it was a vanilla Stride, it would still be worth playing just for those adorable Hammsukes in the background. I mean, come on. Just look at them.