Article by: Zaee (Dmoc33)

Ripples Wiki page: Link

If you were to speak to anyone about the format leading up to the 2015 Cardfight!! Vanguard World Championship they would likely remember a deck that was an absolute menace to the game.

Ripples were so dominant, that to this day people still recoil when you simply mention them. Others completely hate the clan for the damage this deck and Lambros may have caused their local Meta game. Let’s face it even Bushiroad suffered some minor PTSD – their brand new game mechanic meant to be the flagship for the G series, became trivial and downright impossible to utilize due to the sheer threat this deck imposed to striding. So much so that Bushi put its key card Odysseus to 2, had Tidal Assault put on the watch list where it still stays to this day, created Sebreeze to directly counter Odysseus along with similar grade stall tactics AND refused to even give them one card of support in Aqua Force’s most recent set Divine Dragon Caper. They were the only major subclan of AqF not to see anything in that set.

Now I know what you might be thinking: “How can a deck that’s been so properly dealt with, that I haven’t even thought about in two years be relevant still?” The answer is, that you probably don’t remember just how oppressive they were. Ripples in their heyday could do it all. Early game, Stride, Grade Lock, generate card advantage, Superior Call, Superior Ride, deck filter, Legion, run Quintet Walls etc.

Hell, if it existed in Vanguard they could probably do it, and excel at it. In fact they existed at a time when Sin Buster and Sanctuary Guard Dragon (SGD for short) decks were considered extremely good, the latter at full strength and both were still relevant for quite some time after. So needless to say, the changes to the Fighter’s Rules​ happened and Odysseus is at two. The deck tried to stick around but only 2 Odysseus couldn’t make that deck work anymore and they slowly faded into obscurity.

They would surface every so often but only with a top here and there, nothing really significant. So why now? Why, when they haven’t gotten anything new directly, and when the game has sped up and seemingly left them behind? It’s because Ripples never became a bad deck, they just needed to adjust to their new limitations. Remember this was a deck that was considered better than full strength SGD, which later also saw hits in the Fighter’s rule. So if SGD is still topping it only makes sense that it’s possible for Ripples, given the right circumstances.

History and Metagame relevance

While SGD topped most of last year’s events around this time, Gear Chronicle was finally coming into its own. People learned the Melem – Tick Tock combo and the deck took the Vanguard world by storm. Possibly even becoming the most powerful deck the game has ever seen. All the while Granblue (Seven Seas at first and Nightrose decks later) steadily started silently topping until it also become a solid Meta mainstay along with GC and Angel Feather. This was a bad time for AqF. All three matchups were highly unfavorable plus you still had Chaos Breaker Dragon (CBD) and Messiah decks running around. Hope mostly seemed lost for us, AqF players, even more so after November, when Gear Chronicle, Granblue and Link Joker all seen more recent support to firmly place themselves atop of the Meta. Even the mighty SGD was being questioned as a top-tier deck around this time.

When Japan was first seeing the might of post-G-BT08 Nightrose, while Gears and Messiah Link Jokers were still running rampant and two unique decks emerged: Wiseman and Enigmatic Rush. And so, Japanese players did what they do best and innovated. They created a Rush deck that surpassed even Ripples: 7-Runner (Granblue grade-1 rush deck). It was perfect. It did what Ripples did, but their Drop Zone was a secondary hand and you couldn’t even use Sebreeze against them them. They later went on to win 2016 CFV World Championship and meet a similar fate to Ripples, however that door was already opened.

Due to the nature of the increasing strength of these Generation Break decks and the lack of ways to effectively win against the top 3 of Gear Chronicle (Chronojet Time Leap), Luard and Nightrose, people started becoming more creative. And thus people turned to Ripples again. Before, the build focused heavily on the Grade 2 turn with minimal G3s and often ran techs like Sea Turtle Soldier and Light Signals Penguin to conserve hand while mounting their offense. The new builds were more tailored to be able to hit Grade 2s with 10000 power and vanilla Generation Break decks.

Ajdustments and future of the deck

Important for the deck’s playstyle is making sure to properly ride the Ride chain (Alecs, Sotirio, Pavroth) and saving restanding units for the Stride turn(s). Adelaide can be played for that exact reason. Miltiadis became more important than ever, being one of two ways to find Odysseus, the other being Orest (outside of drawing Odysseus). This coupled with the our newest addition to our already supercharged G-Zone: Wailing Thavas, Ripples finally have all the makings to become relevant again.

Nowadays most builds sport 8 Grade 3s, no PGs and no Heal Triggers. The reason for this is the idea that the deck cannot really afford to expend these slots for cards that require additional cards to guard attacks with (ex. draw trigger only has 5000 shield, which normally means a second card needs to be used). With every damage being permanent the general rule of thumb is to guard with a 10k shield card whatever you can and to not guard attacks that cannot be guarded with 1 card. G-Guards require being on Grade 3 and since this is a Rush deck, heal triggers often won’t resolve, making them far less useful than additional critical triggers. The deck’s great Grade 2 game is not the only thing that can be relied on, riding to G3 to Stride and Legion can be a powerful play, much like the Ripples builds in the past could finish games. Since the aim is for pure aggression, the second our opponent flips their Vanguard, we can easily catch anyone who is unprepared and steal a game away.

With favored matchups against most of the top-tier decks, Royal Paladin rush decks excluded, it’s completly within the realm of possibility for this deck to make a resurgence over the summer. Personally, I believe that if more people tested the deck out, they would see how strong it still is and that it can be a powerful dark horse in tournaments. In fact – if you spot me at an event you can be sure to catch me playing this as it is quite a lot of fun to play and I do love my Aquas.

If you have any feedback or questions please feel free to comment below and look forward to my next article which will about when to use Lambros or Wailing.

Example decklist of modern Ripples:

Grade 0:

1x Starting Ripple, Alecs (starting vanguard)

4x Ripple of Demise, Orest

12x Any Critical Trigger (Supersonic Sailor is a good option)

Grade 1:

4x Silent Ripple, Sotirio

2x Flash Ripple, Odysseus

4x Dispatch Mission, Seagull Soldier

3x Mercenary Brave Shooter

Grade 2:

4x Rising Ripple, Pavroth

4x Tidal Assault

4x Battle Siren, Adelaide

Grade 3:

4x Thundering Ripple, Genovious

4x Rolling Ripple, Miltiades

G-zone (Grade 4):

4x Storm Dominator, Commander Thaves

4x Marine General of Heavenly Silk, Lambros

2x Storm of Lament, Wailing Thavas

1x Air Element, Sebreeze

2x Snow Element, Valancher

1x Rain Element, Madew

1x Marine General of Heavenly Silk, Aristotle

1x Snow Element, Blizza

Minor editting and proofreading by Ocean Dragon Lord.