A wild deck profile appears!

As a Vanguard player, I have several decks ranging from ridiculously casual (but hilarious) decks, to some much more competitive decks. For this profile, I’ll start with a slightly more competitive deck and an all-time favorite of mine: Victor!

But first, a little backstory.

When I first was dragged into started Vanguard, I was given a Nova Grappler deck by my brother. It was the old trial deck with Gold Rutile…and got it around the time of Break Rides. To be fair, we all started off pretty slow. I liked the playstyle of Nova Grapplers, but I could never really afford to build the complete deck…that is until the Stride Era came.

My brother, our friend, and I got several boxes of GBT-01 and split them amongst us, based on the clans we had. My only clan in that set in the time was Nova Grappler, but just from that box, we got almost everything needed for a complete Victor deck, short 1 copy of Exxtreme Battler and a PG. Ever since then, I worked with that deck and improved it over the years, even going as far as getting SP’s of most of what I could. And here is the results of my work.

I’ll start going through each grade, from 0-4, working up to the main stuff. If you just wanna see the list and not go through all the details, you can scroll towards the bottom and I’ll have the entire list there.

Grade 0’s

x1 Petit Ace (Starting Vanguard)

x4 Extreme Battler, Gunseal (Heal Trigger)

x4 Extreme Battler, Break-Pass (Critical Trigger)

x2 Red Lightning (Critical Trigger)

x4 Schnee Regen (Draw Trigger)

x2 Totem Brothers (Draw Trigger)

The first thing you may notice is that my starter is Petit Ace, as opposed to using Kabutron. In reality, it’s all preference; Kabutron allows you to get an extra attack in during the battle step, which is a fantastic bonus. Petit Ace on the other hand, allows you to set up your Rush before battle and increase your power to higher numbers. Also, in my early turns, I like to boost my vanguard for some extra power, especially in specific scenarios.

Gunseal as a heal gives you the option of an extra counter charge option when you use Gundreed. Also it’s the only skill Heal they have….and the shiniest.

Break-Pass is basically an obvious inclusion, 4 of a must, while Red Lightning is the only other option if you wanna use a second critical, because countercharging is good. While my variant has 6 Crit/6 Draw, some other decks use 4 Crit/8 Draw to get more hand quickly for a Favorite Champ finish.

As for what draws you use, you can use whatever as they all have no skill. But I prefer to have 4 Schnee Regen…as it is too awesome in appearance not to.

Grade 1’s

x4 Extreme Battler, Arashid (Stride Fodder)

x4 Lady Cyclone (PGG)

x3 Extreme Battler Malyaki

x3 Furious Puncher

This part I may change up a bit later on, will probably switch to 4 Malyaki and 2 Puncher, was just using that to test things out before. But anyways…

4 Arashid, pretty common staple, let’s me stride with just this, or even switch which Victor I have to ride.

Lady Cyclone is great for extra Countercharging (you may be seeing a pattern here), but the other option of Headstrong-Battle is viable too if you don’t have that issue. The reason I have Lady Cyclone is well…convenience mostly.

Malyaki is a must run in any Victor deck, as his ability stacks every time the unit in his column restands. It can cause some crazy power output with little to no effort.

Furious Puncher is my final inclusion, which is a space that can be swapped in various builds. I just prefer Puncher because he can either add more power to something else on the board or serve as a mini-Sever-Temper. Also, he works well in the Megacolony match-up, restanding a stunned rear-guard and triggering rush.

Grade 2’s

x4 Extreme Battler, Sever-Temper

x4 Extreme Battler, Arbarail

x3 Brutal Jack

I’m going to start with the obviously odd inclusion: Brutal Jack. 10k vanilla’s have been becoming a mainstay in many decks to date, as a way to counter rush. With Jack, i just take things up a notch, making it harder on them. A counterblast to release his restraint in the end is just a minor inconvenience when you have counterchargers for days. (I also would like to credit MachinaBlau on the Vanguard Subreddit for sharing the idea a while back. Kinda stuck with it since.)

My ideal grade 2 ride turn is to obviously ride Jack, release restraint, and swing boosted by Petit Ace, which with Jack’s skill, makes a 21k column right off the bat. Not something to mess with.

As for the other 2, they are very obvious choices for a Victor build. Sever-Temper is your main attacker, beefing up every attack and able to kill rear-guards if you drive check a grade 3 (although I tend to forget that skill exists…oops) while Arbarail is your option to get an extra restand.

Cool Hank used to fit into this deck too, but the reliance on a booster can be a bit of a pain, when you can just drop Arbarail and be done with it. Sure, Arbrail is only during the call turn, but it’s way more efficient. You really don’t need that many rear-guards to cause restands to occur anymore when your strides are usually good enough (but it’s still good to have a few).

Grade 3’s

x4 Exxcessive Battler, Victor

x4 Exxtreme Battler, Victor

Oh wow, all Victors, who didn’t see that coming? The only thing that can be seen as shocking is the fact that I use 8 Grade 3’s as opposed to 7 (which gives a 12th grade 2). Personally, I just rather not miss the chance to stride, so maxing my opportunities while keeping efficiency matters. Plus, I can drop an Exxcessive to a rear-guard and still get some rush options.

As for my ideal ride, Exxcessive has become the best option for me. Restanding an entire column for a soulblast is pretty valuable, especially considering how much I can counterblast. Exxtreme is still good too, but when push comes to shove, I would rather have the former option.

On my grade 3 ride turn (when going first), I also have an added trick to it as well if I have a Break-Pass. As soon as you go to grade 3, call the Break-Pass and use Petit to rest it, giving Petit an added 3k. Then when you attack and all skills resolve, you have a 24k attack coming your opponent’s way. If your opponent’s on a 9k, that’s 30k shield or PG to no pass before even striding. A lot of my early attacks are less focused on calling a board unless needed, and more focused on a monster column to force early damage and put the opponent with their back to the wall for when I start striding

speaking of which, finally….

Grade 4’s

(not pictured, Air Element, Sebreeze and Air Element, Ractome)

x2 Meteokaiser, Victor

x4 Meteokaiser, Victoplasma

x1 Meteokaiser, Tribrut

x1 Fang Dragon King Fist, Driger

x2 Favorite Champ, Victor

x1 Righteous Superhuman, Blue Prison

x1 Meteokaiser, Unior

x2 Meteokaiser, Gundreed

x1 Air Element, Sebreeze

x1 Air Element, Ractome

There’s a lot to cover here, but to start, Sebreeze is pretty much a given in any deck that is focused on Generation Break. With the countercharge options at your disposal, using him isn’t that big a deal if required in this deck.

Meteokaiser, Victor serves as the best first stride option we have. At worst, it’s just a copy of Vic-Ten with a Persona Flip. At best, he finishes games on first stride. He sets up for GB2 so you can immediately use Sever-Temper with little to no effort and does some extra restanding if you have GB3, but honestly…you only really run him because he’s a free persona flip. The second we get something that does a little more for the same cost, he can see himself being replaced sadly.

Victoplasma has an always will be a beast, but only has gotten sillier as time has passed. When against control match-ups, this guy is your go-to as he is the least board reliant stride you have. Restanding is also very very very good. But the silliest thing you can do is if you are backed into a corner early with 4-5 damage, you can flip twice to get to GB3 on first stride, and with your G-Guardians, you can basically recover all those counterblasts for the next turn (if you can last of course). That combo is not recommended unless you are truly desperate though.

Tribrut is a tech option that I prefer to have. Sure, it doesn’t flip anything, but it’s a smart and efficient way to deal with pesky rear-guards from very defensive clans. Now with options as Petit Ace and Furious Puncher, you can combo off before even committing to battle so you don’t have to worry about a Cannoneer ruining your day too soon, or a Nurse of Broken Heart adding power before you go for a restanding attack. Also, as said with Victoplasma, the countercharge engine basically fixes all the damage you did with this guy’s turn.

Driger is a GB8 finish that rarely seems to go off so far, so is still very optional. Right now, I like keeping him in there for the potential end game shenanigans.

Now for the main event, The Favorite Champ, Victor! The true end game of most Victor decks to date, the second he drops the board, your opponent is more than likely doomed. You don’t even need to restand himself twice, as long as you restand your board again after his 2nd attack, it should be enough. Now the question is, if you win as soon as he drops, why run 2? Because miscalculations. If you are against a control deck, there may be a situation where you think you have it in the bag, but you really don’t. If your opponent has a trick up their sleeve, you can hold off that first wave and say, “My bad,” and soon as your turn comes again, go for broke. Remember, you don’t have to activate Victor’s skill until after the battle is over. If you have no board after the battle, using the skill would be a waste.

G-Guardians are all pretty self explanatory. Blue Prison serves as your only easy shield +, while Unior can countercharge or soul charge while adding shield. Ractome is a very good hand filter so you can drop a draw trigger to get something better. Finally, Gundreed serves as a major countercharge engine while on the defensive. It is especially useful against clans like Aqua Force, who rely on pokes sometimes. If you are really risky, stack two of them after a Victoplasma double flip to reach GB8, although I have never tested this yet. If you do….lemme know how that works haha.

All in all, a pretty basic G-Zone. Although, if you feel you won’t need Driger or the 2nd Champ, you can easily use 2 more MK Victors to replace them.

Tying it all together…

Now for the complete (and slightly abridged) decklist:

x1 Petit Ace (SVG)

x4 Gunseal (Heal Trigger)

x4 Break-Pass (Victor Crit)

x2 Red Lightning (Crit)

x6 Draw Triggers (Prefer x4 Schnee Regen in there)

x4 Arashid (Stride Fodder)

x4 Lady Cyclone (PGG)

x3 Malyaki (Will probably switch to 4)

x3 Furious Puncher (Will probably switch to 2)

x4 Sever-Temper

x4 Arbarail

x3 Brutal Jack

x4 Exxtreme Battler, Victor

x4 Exxcessive Battler, Victor

x2 Meteokaiser, Victor

x4 Victoplasma

x2 Favorite Champ, Victor

x1 Tribrut

x1 Driger

x1 Air Element, Sebreeze

x2 Meteokaiser, Gundreed

x1 Blue Prison

x1 Unior

x1 Air Element, Ractome

The deck itself is still one of my favorites to date, and extremely deadly. I hope soon to see more Nova Grapplers drop so I can only improve on this deck as the years come (or struggle and fail miserably, also a possibility).

Is there any card that you are surprised to see included/not included? Any strategies you do differently? Also, for future deck profiles, would you liked to see more of my serious builds, or would you like to see some of my fun builds? Feel free to share your comments and suggestions! Until then, see you next time!

-Dax