Guest article by Atlas Novack of Nexus Corps (check out their Youtube Channel here)

Rush Decks and the 10K Conundrum

There’s a paradigm shift happening in Vanguard right now. With Gear Chronicle being such a dominant presence in the metagame, a new deck has come out of the woodwork that has taken the game by storm- Granblue Grade 1 rush.

To those who were around during last year’s world championships might remember Ripple rush, an Aqua Force deck that utilized Flash Ripple, Odysseus to ride the intended grade 2, while simultaneously building a field, because good ol’ Ody let you call the thing you rode over out of soul.

“Lol striding what’s that?”

What this meant for his opponents was that they couldn’t stride or legion, because he stayed on grade 2. That meant that most stride decks couldn’t function, as their generation break skills could never activate, leaving the decks vanilla and mostly destitute. This was a wake-up call to Bushiroad, who printed some cards to combat this.

“Refreshing like a spring breeze.”

This, combined with a limiting of Odysseus to 2, caused Ripples to fall off the map. But rush decks are never kept down for long. Cut to recent times, and GBT-08: Absolute Judgment allowed Granblue to construct a rush deck mostly utilizing grade 1’s. Grade 1’s that come back.

“hey there motherfucker ‘member me?”

Rush decks have been around since the beginning of the game, but this is a different beast. Most rush decks are typically defeated by attacking their rear guards, as the lack of twin/triple drive prevents them from replacing resources as quickly as they can draw cards. The way granblue works in recalling stuff from the drop zone, however, means that killing their rear guards doesn’t mean bupkus. Also, you can’t even sibreeze or twitterrun, because they never ride to grade 2. And they can hit you for numbers (14 or 16k columns.) So what’s a stride deck to do?

“Wait what do you mean I can’t sebreeze them? How am I supposed to do anything?”

Well, if you’re a gear chronicle player (which ironically is the clan that caused this deck to exist in the first place) you can run your only way of putting stuff back in deck that doesn’t require generation break

Or you can do what every other neglected clan is doing, and bring 10k vanillas back into the mix. 10k vanillas have an interesting situation in vanguard: they’re used until something better comes along, like that ugly girl you date the first week of freshman year of college because you’re still a virgin… Sorry, got off track.

With 10k vanillas, now it’s easier to make a defensive trigger work against the (7)C’s, as 14k isn’t touchin’ that 15k buff body of yours.

“Change!, Getter 2”

This, along with certain decks, has made previously g-break exclusive decks turn slightly more early game focused. For examples I’ll use two of my favorites- Pale Moon and Great Nature.

In Pale Moon, I have recently re-added Barking Cerberus, the original 10k vanilla back into the deck. Now, why would I want to do that when there are great cards out there like Crescent Moon Juggler, Card Dealer Jacqueline, Darkside Princess, Daydream Tone Arny, and so many other cards with effects that he may very well be pushing out?

“my friends call me scruffles”

Because not only does tuff puppy over here help against aggressive early games, he also:

-Makes a 16k column with egg juggler, who I love to spam

-Is a 21k column when called in front of a 7k on the lunatec turns (26k if cutie paratrooper called him)

-Is an 11k on the first mephisto turn

Cerberus just works in a deck like pale moon where 3 of the strides give your columns little buffs. Speaking, of little buffs, let’s look at Cerberus’ Great Nature counterpart, Compass Lion.

“those other guys are nothing without me”

Compass lion is an 11k Grade 2 has a skill that at the end phase, you have to retire a rear guard. Usually you want to kill a rear guard that was doomed to die anyway from doping. This pairs him well with coiling duckbill and Mikesaburo the TA, because you can kill off something, and get your search/draws, all without GB to boot. Now you may be thinking, “but why not use binoculus tiger? He actually dopes stuff.” Well strawman, it’s because of that fat 11k body.

That’s just a couple examples. But it’s definitely something to think about next time you fan out your deck for restructuring. So go dig those trial deck 10k vanillas out of your common box, and take a good hard look at ‘em. They could save your butt one day.