Standard Kagero: Blademaster-Waterfall



Ola friends, and welcome back to the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn to be a better cardfighter.

Today, we will be going over a Standard deck from VBT07, The Heroic Evolution. Dragonic Blademaster, and the build that is most stable, and how it has a good position within the meta to stand with the prominent decks of the meta.



While many players want to play their Overlord The End with Dragonic Overlord The Great, it is interestingly enough the Blademaster-Waterfall build that is showing more results due to its position in the metagame.

First, lets go over Dragonic Blademaster.

Dragonic Blademaster has two skills. The first requires the opponent field to be empty, but gives blademaster a critical and 5k power, bringing it to 28k power with a Force gift.

Blademasters second skill is where its main power lies. If you have both Wyvern Strike Doha and Wyvern Strike Garan, you can soul blast a G3 and discard 2 cards to retire the opponents field, while creating a Vision Token, a 13k power rear guard that twin drives.

This retiring of the entire field also activates Dragonic Blademaster's critical up skill, as well as instantly turning on Wyvern Strike Garan and Doha's skills.

Additionally, the discard 2 cards cost is instantly given back that turn with Twin Drive of the vision token. A deal that instantly pays back!

This gives Blademaster the ability to easily wipe the opponents field every turn after riding to Grade 3, a very kagero-like ability.

Wyvern Strike Doha works by giving Kagero an option to superior call units to their field, by superior calling Wyvern Strike Garans from your deck. Of note, this also makes using Blademaster's skill incredibly easy, as you only need to draw the Doha, which will instantly get you your Garan for using Blademasters skill.

Doha and Garan together actually fill a lot of Kagero's weaknesses as a deck, with Doha providing Superior call and Garan providing on hit pressure and card draw.

This is why you can sometimes see players playing Doha and Garan together even in overlord decks!

But why Waterfall?

The second main Grade 3 in the deck is Dragonic Waterfall, the VR from VBT01, being able to retire a Grade 2 or above on place, as well as soulblasting a grade 3 to gain a critical, 10k, and guard restrict.

Waterfall often functions as a finisher, and of note, both Blademaster and Waterfall can gain an extra critical on their attacks, giving your Vanguard extra pressure when attacking. This allows you to control the opponents damage very well, while forcing the opponent to have to hold back cards to guard your attacks.

While riding Waterfall first was often seen as a bad thing, Waterfalls on ride ability actually makes it very important. Retiring a grade 2 or more unit is certainly useful, but do remember it doesnt specify that it needs to be in the front row! This means that against Bermuda Triangle, you can snipe the opponent's Caro or Sonata in the backrow on the turn you ride to grade 3.



Position in the meta

Following the release of Gift II, as well as The Heroic Evolution, and leading into My Glorious Justice the majority share of the meta, as evidenced by tournament results consists of: Bermuda Triangle Melody, Messiah (And Deletor Messiah), and Beast Deities, followed closely by Overlord The End and Accel Clans.

With the release of My Glorious Justice, Dimension Police which shows great results start to enter the scene, followed by Granblue.

Meta Charts kindly provided by @Dexander_ . Do Check him out here!

Dragonic Blademaster is a deck that can respond well to any of these decks, mostly due to its ability to retire opponents rear guards, combined with the extra drive checks to stabilize and turn the game around.



In this meta, retire is incredibly valuable and important, as many of the decks mentioned above are very proactive, and want to be calling down units and attacking from the early game. Especially Bermuda Triangle. This sets them up to be easily countered by Kagero's ability to retire as many units as they have counterblast. Mukhtar, Waterfall, Berzerk Dragon, Bahr, Dragonic Burnout are all commonly used units in the early game, which is instantly followed by Dragonic Blademaster threatening a full field wipe every turn.

Additionally, there is minimal to no counterplay by denying damage against the retire, as some of the retire options of the deck such as Blademaster and Waterfall dont even use counterblast in the first place! Flame of Hope Aermo is also in Kagero, which allows the clan to easily access countercharge.

In terms of responding to the opponents rush, Blademaster is a deck that can respond very early to threats, and therefore either force the opponent into playing a slower game, or heavily punish the opponent if they do play out cards early.

This is combined with Blademaster-Waterfalls second upside: Natural Critical on Vanguard. Both Blademaster and Waterfall have an additional critical on vanguard, making them prime targets to be guarded, and effectively forcing the opponent to dedicate hand to guard their attacks the next turn from as low damage as 3! This allows you to easily control the amount of counterblast you give the opponent.

Blademaster gains his power and critical on the turn you reach g3, even without his field wipe ability. Combined with heavy retire, this allows you to start the pressure from as early as turn 5, while punishing opponents whom try to counterplay Kagero by not playing out rear guards. While not a must have, some games are swung in your favor by clearing the opponents field and gaining your extra crit in the early game.

Even if the opponent is at low damage from guarding early, No Guarding a blademaster early will set them at 3-4 damage due to the extra critical, meaning that on further turns, they have to guard your vanguards attacks with all that they have.

This combination of heavily punishing opponents for playing cards from hand to field, as well as the ever looming threat of Waterfall being a giant attack they have to hold back cards for, results in the opponent having to slow down their turns in order to respond to you.



One of the highlights of the deck is the Vision Token, which grants you an additional two drive checks.

In Standard, triggers are very powerful. They were designed to be powerful and feel impactful on each game.

This, in turn, also means that the more drive checks you have, the more chances you have to open triggers, and the more chances you have to turn the game in your favor.

Filling your field without using much hand.

In order to survive the high powered attacks and multiple attacks that decks such as Ezel, Bermuda, Overlord, and Nova Grappler bring to the table, it is very important to be able to keep as much cards to guard with as possible.

While other decks often tend to have to call units from their hand in order to fill their field, Blademaster, on the turn you activate his effect, has three very efficient attacks off of only requiring one Wyvern Strike Doha.

Blademaster on V will be 18k 2 critical without force gift, while Wyvern Strike Doha will call a wyvern strike Garan to create a 17k column (22k with guard restrict after Blademasters skill). The other column is filled with the attacking vision token for twin drive.

While other clans would have to struggle to create a full field, you can do so very easily without using much hand, and not requiring many specific pieces to do so, allowing you to solidify your defenses to withstand a high powered attack the next turn.

Force Placement

Here, you can see my force placement when I rode Blademaster, with the first force onto vanguard, and then one force in the wyvern strike Doha + Garan column.

The first force onto the vanguard line is very kagero-like. It sets up the next turns Waterfall while allowing the next turn to place one more force to rear guard. Also, on the first ride, you either have rode Waterfall, which other than retiring a unit is vanilla, so you would want to have that extra power on your vanguard.

If you ride Shine Bardiche, which is already setting up your next turn by searching up a Blademaster, you still also want that extra power on your Vanguard, as Bardiche is only 18k power without the force.

Your last potential first ride to grade 3 is Blademaster himself, where you want power onto your vanguard as 18k power with a critical is easy to guard early, but with just one force, it goes up to 28k power, an incredibly difficult line to guard effectively with low hand.

The second force varies according to what unit you rode. If you rode Dragonic Blademaster, and have the Wyvern Strike Doha, you often either want to give the force to Vanguard, to further push in that critical pressure, or give it to the column you want to call Doha and Garan into.

This is because of the line that Doha and Garan create together. Keep in mind that together, they create a 22k power column that the opponent cannot call normal units to guard with. This results in the opponent having to guard over the required amount, simply because they cannot intercept or call smaller guard numbers .

This 22k power line is 15k to guard if the opponent is Protect/Accel, and 10k to guard if they are force. Both of these are one card to guard the attack.

However, if you give this column force, it becomes a 25k to guard (or 20k for force). Do note that although they only need 25k to guard, the opponent has no option except to guard over this amount because of the guard restrict . Triggers in standard only come in 15k and 20k shield values, so in order to guard with 25k shield, you need to guard with two 15k shields. Give it the power from one trigger, and its 35k shield, three triggers out of your opponents hand if they dont have a heal just to guard a single rear guard attack. When giving power from triggers, think about the power line you are making and how much the opponent will be guarding it for!



The on hit to draw effect is just extra icing on the cake, should the attack go through. Kagero usually struggles with drawing enough cards, and the opponent either has to let the Doha + Garan line through and give you extra draws, or guard hard in order to keep the blademaster player off of that extra advantage.

However, if you ride Dragonic Waterfall, you often want to give the force to Vanguard, in order to force the opponent to guard further when you deliver his attack.

Of note, some players may dedicate force gift to the Vision Token column, hoping the extra power will help it break through the opponents defense. While the logic is sound, this deck usually would prioritize other targets to give force to.

First, if you place it on the Vision Token column, the following turn if you are unable to ride Dragonic Blademaster again while keeping a Doha+Garan on the field, you have to call something from your hand to take advantage of that force gift.

Second, If you ride Dragonic Waterfall, each force you gave to vanguard brings you closer to victory. By giving force to rear guard, you slow down your Waterfalls effectiveness, and by doing so may have given the opponent that extra one or two card leeway to survive your attack.

Third, if you give the force gift to Doha + Garan column instead, the opponent must hold cards back to guard that column, and will be discarding them to guard that column instead, due to both guard restrict only allowing them to use high value shield against the attack, as well as the on hit draw pressure.

And finally, the Vision Token's effectiveness on its own. By having twin drive, each attack from the Vision Token is not as simple to guard, as the opponent must factor in the chance of opening a trigger. Even giving a 2 to pass on that attack is still 10k more shield required to guard the attack, effectively giving the Vision token "extra power" that you have to guard against, just like a Vanguard attack. Even if the opponent gets a damage trigger, they still have to guard with something against the vision token, as the vision token opening triggers can give it that extra bit of power to hit through a trigger.

It is not because the Vision Token getting force is bad, but rather the overall strategy of the deck as a whole that leads players to place force on the other columns.

Build for the deck

Glorious playmat as provided by ZeroDamageGaming



Here is the deckbuild I have used.

We play 4 of each Dragonic Blademaster as well as 4 Dragonic Waterfalll.

While Shine Bardiche may seem like a good combination with Dragonic Blademaster thanks to being able to search out blademaster, its only played in 1 because it is weak to ride second. Going from Barciche to Dragonic Blademaster is very effective, but going from Blademaster to Bardiche is very much not.

You want to be doing impactful plays such as Waterfall with many force, or wiping the field with Blademaster on your second ride, not spending an entire turn searching up a Blademaster.

Once you ride your blademaster as your second g3, you can discard Bardiche to activate its skill, or call it as a rear guard on a Waterfall turn to be a powerful 18k attacker.

Our grade 2 lineup contains 4 Wyvern Strike Doha, 4 Berzerk Dragon, 2 Dragonic Burnout, and 2 Dragon Knight Mukhtar.



Dragon Knight Mukhtar vs Dragonic Burnout VS Dragon Knight Nehalem





Sorry, Who is this Mukhtar guy?



Dragon Knight Mukhtar is a new card from The Heroic Evolution, and has an activated ability to counterblast 2, soul blast 1 to retire two of the opponents rear guards and gain 5k power. While it may seem like a heavy cost for retire, Mukhtar and Burnout are mostly used either on the turn you ride to g2 or g3 to turn the tables, or on the Waterfall turn. Otherwise, most of your G2 other than Doha become discard fodder for Blademaster due to their low sheild value. As such, the grade 2 lineup is designed to be most useful on the first G3 ride turn.

In this slot, there are 4 candidates: Berzerk Dragon, Dragon Knight Nehalem, Dragon Knight Mukhtar, and Dragonic Burnout . Each has their upsides and down, so you may pick which ones you wish to play.

Dragon Knight Mukhtar may have a heavy cost, but it allows one of your cards to retire two of the opponents rear guards, giving it a high retire to cards used ratio. Additionally, its comparatively fast speed allows it to be effective against bermuda triangle, one of the big players of the format.

Dragonic Burnout is a pinpoint burn with the cost of returning a G2 or higher from your drop zone to your deck. As an activated skill, you can call down burnout and mukhtar early and attack with them before using their skill when the time calls for it, instead of having to hold back on them in your hand for their retire skill like Berzerk and Nehalem.

Dropping a G2 or greater is easy with Shine Bardiche Dragon, which sets up a burnout turn perfectly. By the time you ride a second G3 with Dragonic Waterfall, you will already have the ammo ready for burnout to do its work. Only one counterblast for a retire, and being able to re-use its ability turn after turn and snipe any unit anywhere on the board is very effective.

Dragon Knight Nehalem gains 5k power and can retire a backrow when placed. While it does require you to hold it in hand until there is something that need retiring, being able to snipe backrow units regardless of grade, making it good at retiring Colorful Pastorale Caros like Waterfall. The extra power will allow it to hit without boost or force gift, meaning you dont need to dedicate cards from your already meager defense just to make the attack go through.



Our grade 1 lineup consists of Wyvern Strike Garan, Flame of Hope Aermo, and Embodiment of Armor Bahr.



Embodiment of Armor Bahr VS Sabel Dragonewt

While Wyvern Strike Garan is essential for the deck to function by being called off of Wyvern Strike Doha, and Flame of Aermo functions as draw and counter charge options, Embodiment of Armor Bahr is the one card that may be on your to change list, with the other prime candidate being Sabel Dragonewt. Sabel Dragonewt has a rear guard skill similar to Aermo, which allows you to retire it to draw a card when an opponents rear guard is retired. Given the decks heavy retire amount, you may choose to include this card in order to draw through the cards of your deck faster and draw those Waterfalls, Wyvern Strike Dohas, and shield to guard with.

However, a Dragonic Blademaster turn allows you to drive check 4 cards and accumulate those grade 3s to re ride into, and the Dragonic blademaster turn usually not requiring any extra units on your field other than Doha and Garan (and Vision!), while your choice may differ, I've chosen to instead play Embodiment of Armor Bahr. Bahr allows you to have even more options to retire the opponents field earlier on in the game, giving you that extra retire option to activate blademaster's critical on the first g3 ride turn, and being able to provide an extra 13k power to Dragonic Waterfall on the turn you use it, while being more early game retire to combat the rush decks. The soul blast can be used to soul blast out your grade 2 ride when you go to g3, filling up the drop zone for Dragonic Burnout. Be sure to test out your other options for units to play in this slot!

Force II

Our last segment is about Force II. Force II is released with The Heroic Evolution, and many overlord and bermuda players are going to be ecstatic to play with their new toy.

Blademaster-Waterfall does not play force II, primarily because their vanguard already has the natural critical from its effect, either with Blademaster or Waterfall. Additionally, Blademaster turns give you 4 drive check opportunities to open a critical trigger.

For these main reasons, most games you would go with Force I in your games. But why not just keep a few force II lying around, in case you need them in that rare single game.

Thats all for today folks, thank you for joining us on our journey exploring the Blademaster-Waterfall deck. Do give it a try and learn it, as it is capable of fighting most other decks in the VEB07 and 08 metas!