Standard Murakumo: Way of the HYU-GA.

Yahallo lads and ladettes, and welcome back to the CanYouSayBlog, where we learn how to be a better cardfighter.



Today, we will be going over one of the decks from VBT06 Phantasmal Steed Restoration: Murakumo.







With the latest set, Murakumo has completely changed its gimmick, dropping Dueling Dragon Zanbaku entirely for the new Samurai Cheiftan HYU-GA. While the previous playstyle would revolve around gaining accel circles, calling Arresters from deck, and beating down while building up field and interfering with the opponents plans by stopping re-ride, the current HYU-GA style still maintains the superior calling from deck and gaining accel circles, but replaces this with same name gimmicks, as well as access to a field wipe every turn with HYU-GA's second skill, which returns all the opponents rear guards back to deck.

HYU-GA has two skills. The first of which is to superior call a unit from your deck with the same grade as a unit on the opponents field, followed by turning all units on the field's name into HYU-GA.

His second skill is by soul blasting a Grade 3, return to the deck all of the opponents rear guards with another unit with the same name as it on the field. However, if you used this following his first skill, all units on the field will be HYU-GA, allowing you easy access to the soul blast skill to wipe the opponents field.

With the first skill, as it only turns units on the field when you superior call to HYU-GA, its important to place down from your hand what you want to change the name of before activating the skill. Also of note, units that superior call more units such as Spellhound, Hyakki Vogue or Bloody Mist will themselves have their name changed to HYU-GA, but not the unit that they superior call, which may put a damper on your plans.

With the nature of HYU-GA being only able to call units with the same grade as a unit on the opponents field, most of the game he will be either superior calling Grade 2 (if you go first and the opponent is grade 2), or a grade 3 (if the opponent doesn’t leave out grade 2s and Grade 1s for you. Therefore, against HYU-GA, some players will try to work around this by playing most of their turns entirely with grade 3 units. Unfortunately for them, Murakumo and HYU-GA as a deck has a large amount of utility in their grade 3 slots to get around this.

Here are some of the options for utility Grade 3s:

Shirayuki.

Shirayuki fills many of the roles this deck needs. Not only can it be used as shield via its skill, but you can also ride into Shirayuki first (if going first), then re-ride to HYU-GA, the next turn ready to boardwipe the opponents field. This also puts Shirayuki right into the drop zone, where it can be retrieved with Rainy Madam. On the final attack turn, you can also call out all the Shirayuki you have saved up to further reduce the opponent’s power.

Tangan Nyudo

Stealth Fiend Tangan Nyudo is a card that is extremely important to HYU-GA's playstyle. While its effect may seem restrictive, HYU-GA allows you to change the whole field into units with the same name, making his restriction trivial. Instead, Tangan Nyudo becomes a 12k power unit with boost, accel, and at the end of turn soul in to draw 1.

Seems decent. Going first if you have a HYU-GA, you can either ride the HYU-GA, call the Tangan Nyudo, change everyone to HYUGA and then soul in to draw at the end of your turn, or just ride into it and re-ride HYUGA next turn. Both are options. However, the real power of this unit is how it enables the deck to fight with only HYU-GA. If you dont have a grade 3 to re-ride, or after youve ride HYUGA once and dont have a second copy in your hand yet, Tangan Nyudo is the superior call target. At the end of turn, he will go into soul and draw you a card, increasing your hand, while placing a grade 3 into the soul, exact preparation for HYU-GA's second ability to boardwipe the opponent’s field.

Additionally, being able to be called to the front row and attack as well as the backrow and boost gives it a lot of flexbility with when you can call Tangan Nyudo.

Hyakki Vogue.

Hyakki Vogue is a 12k power grade 3 with Accel, as well as a skill on V and R to counterblast 1, discard 1 to superior call another Hyakki Vogue from your deck, and give all units with the same name as this unit 10k power.

If you use HYU-GA to change the name of all units on the field to Hyakki Vogue, this gives you the option to give your whole field 10k power.

While it is an option, many builds play only one copy to pump the field on the turn you want to go for the win, as one counterblast and 1 hand card in the early and midgame is very hard to afford.

Danzetsu Anarch

Danzetsu Anarch is yet another Grade 3 option for the deck. While it does not have Accel, it does have a very important skill: Cont: All rear guards with the same name as your vanguard gain 5k power.

Note that this is not an on attack skill, nor does it have a cost, meaning that unlike Meormaru, your attack pattern is not restricted for that turn, and you can save soul for Shirayuki. While the power gain does not affect your vanguard and is only 5k power, being costless also gives it a role in competition with Hyakki Vogue, as costless power pump is far more useful in the earlier turns when you are building your field and pushing for damage. However, Hyakki Vogue does have the accel gift, allowing more utility for when you ride into it first.

While Meormaru is a Grade 2, and therefore not searchable if the opponent does not call any grade 2 units out, Danzetsu Anarch will always be call-able off of HYU-GA, given the opponent has ride up to grade 3.

Grade 2 lineups are where various players of the deck diverge and show their deck building.

As HYU-GA allows direct searching out of specific units, players tend to be able to play one-of cards for that extra utility, which can be seen in several winning decklists.



Jakotsu Girl

One of the most commonly played cards is Jakotsu Girl, the grade 2 support for Shirayuki. This can not only help search out Shirayuki and supply the soul for her, but also help push damage. As Jakotsu Girls skill activates when the attack does not hit, many times players may choose to no guard the attack, even if its only 5k or 10k shield to guard, allowing you to use her to sneak in extra damage early. A must play if you are playing Shirayuki.

Meomaru.

Meormaru is a unit with the skill to soul blast 1 to give all units with the same name as this unit 5k power. This gives you an on demand 5k pump to your whole field if you are using HYU-GA, and this power can stack the more Meormaru you have out on the field. This driving power is one of the necessary components in the deck, but some players choose to play the grade 3 Danzetsu Anarch instead. Both do similar things but can and do co-exist in the same field well.

Spellhound.

Spellhound is a grade 2 unit that allows you to soul blast 2 to superior call out a spellhound from deck, and change its power to the same as your vanguard.

While more card advantage on board is appreciated, the cost of soul blast 2 gets in the way of using Shirayuki and Meormaru, so spellhound becomes more considered the less your build gravitates away from Shirayuki.

12k power vanillas and 3k 2 Critical Vanillas.

These are personal choices for the deck. 12k Vanillas help you against Accel and Protect clans, while giving you the edge at the grade 2 turn by forcing them to call down units to boost their vanguard to hit you.

Keep in mind that any unit called to the field is a card out of their hand and is going to be sent back to deck in two turns time by HYU-GA.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, 3k power but 2 critical Vanilla units are also an option Given the decks options for power pumping via Danzetsu Anarch, Meormaru, and accel circles, its fairly easy to bring its power up to 13k or even 23k power.

Another common card you can see being used is FUSHIMI. While the attacking backrow ability may not be as useful when you are returning the opponents field to the deck every turn, the gaining 5k power is very relevant. On an accel 2 circle and a single Danzetsu Anarch/Meormaru, it becomes a 24k power column which can hit through a trigger against force clans.

Lastly we come to our grade 1 options. Most of the decks play the same Grade 1 lineup, for good reason.

First up is Rainy Madam. Shirayuki support that can be called out of the deck and pull back up a shirayuki from the drop zone, all while supplying soul for shirayukis skill.

Next up is Million Rat. Million Rats utility is not lost on the deck, being able to field multiple units as well as call them to front row to serve as disposable attackers against retire heavy clans, dont underestimate how much work a single card can do. Its been a staple Murakumo card since VBT02!

The last piece of the puzzle is Sukerock.

Sukerock is a card that came out back in VBT04, with the skill that after a unit on an accel circle attacked, counterblast one to swap the position of this unit and the unit that attacked. While Murakumo's number of attacks would usually be limited to to the number of front row circles it has, Sukerock gives you another option, to use your counterblast as multiple attacks, which is part of the finishing turn.

Final Attack Ride Hyu hyu hyu hyu-ga





This is an example of the winning image of the deck. Be sure to use Danzetsu Anarch and Shirayuki to drive the power difference even further, making it harder and harder for the opponent to guard your onslaught

Example decklist 1) Vanguard Master Cup 2019 Autumn Winner

Example Decklist 2: Without Meomaru

Playing the deck:

The first order is to get HYU-GA. One of the weaknessses of the deck is its reliance on Hyu-Ga to get the deck rolling, so you will have to mulligan prioritizing Hyu-Ga. While its effect that requires a grade 3 in soul may come across as requring another ride, in actuality because of Tangan Nyudo, you can actually forgoe this and just fight and use Tangan Nyudo to get your grade 3 bullets into soul.

The deck plays a advantage based beatdown, hitting the opponent while controlling their field and slowly set up your winning image. Calling out Tangan Nyudos, Jakotsu Girls, and Rainy Madams to maintain card and hand advantage while beating down is essential.

While they are slow to assemble, having a Danzetsu Anarch increases the power output of all your columns by a large jump, allowing you to push for much more damage, or get the opponent to discard shield value.

This balanced of attack as well as defense, as well as access to whatever parts you desire is the backbone of the deck.

In the current meta, having access to removal in the form of sending back to deck with HYU-GA is extremely valuable. This gives you a great matchup against several players in the VBT06 meta, which will suffer against your fast set up as well as removal. Here we will cover some of the matchups.

Gancelot: Gancelot is a deck that works best by grinding for a few turns with Blaster Blade. Unfortunately, this is not easily achieved without using many hand cards due to the field being wiped every turn. If they play Force 2, Shirayuki can come in play and be very impactful, often shutting down most of their attacks with one or two more cards alongside her.

Messiah: Messiah is a popular clan with multiple attacks, searching, high power, and flexiblity, but is slow, allowing you to catch up and set up your removal on time. Messiah, while it does have a lot of searching and calling as lock, will typically spend a lot of its resources to do so, as well as having to draw said cards to start. While an occasional retire is easily shrugged off, One or two board wipes will usually put messiah behind to the point of no return.

Tsukuyomi: Off of virtue of being an accel deck, you already have the advantage in this matchup. This combined with your removal gives you a very favored matchup, as tsukuyomi must dedicate cards from their hand every turn to build their field.

Gold Paladin: Damage control them enough so you don’t die if they start very fast, then just board wipe them once and they may never recover.

Narukami: Narukami is one of the more difficult matchups of the deck, as the HYU-GA deck is not only an accel deck, but also one that wants one counterblast every turn to use. Taking a gauntlet buster attack to the face means eating 3-4 damage right off the bat, something you cannot afford when you are even at 2 damage!

While they can try to control your damage with Gauntlet buster, it also involves not attacking with anything else, which can give you the opportunity to turn things around. Not playing out rear guards also means they wont suffer much against the board wipe, but they still need to play out hand in order to push damage and win.

One of the fun things about the send to deck removal is that it works around Rising Pheonix!

Against Narukami, I often try to keep early damage at 1, and when Gauntlet Buster hits the field, to no guard the 3 critical attacks to instantly go to 4-5 damage. This gives me the counterblast I need for the whole game, as well as tempts the opponent to play out rear guards to push for game, setting them up for an impactful board wipe. This tactic also gives you one more chance to no guard the gauntlet buster attack, saving you one more null guard in hand. It may be risky but it can win you the game outright.

Palemoon: The Palemoon matchup is incredibly difficult, as not only do all their rear guards go back to soul, leaving them safe from the send to deck removal, but they can easily out advantage you if you are not careful, as Palemoon has multiple ways to achieving multi attacks and card advantage that outclasses murakumo's measly one or two per turn. Additionally, as HYU-GA can only win by attacking vanguard, not having many options to gain critical to control damage and lock the opponent out of using Luqier's skill, the palemoon player can easily work around the decks attack pattern and take exactly how much damage they want.

As several units such as Luqier, Silver Thorn Marionette Lilian, and Silver Thorn Rising Dragon each gain 10k power with conditions, it becomes hard to use Shirayuki to shut down their attacks.

The trick to beating palemoon is to use Meormaru and Danzetsu Anarch to consistently give power to your whole board, making sure that while the opponent may have a lot of cards, they have to spend all of them to guard.

Dark Irregulars: Similarly to against Tsukuyomi, by virtue of having multiple attacks and being able to fill up your own board, all while boardwiping the opponent every turn is enough to win.

One of Dark Irregular's win conditions: Master of Fifth Element, needs time to bet set up, giving you time to also gather Shirayukis into your hand. Use multiple shirayuki at once to knock the opponents power to negative, so even with multiple attacks they are not able to touch you.

Shadow Paladin Mordred: Mordred Phantom may seem like one of the most difficult matchups, until your deck strikes at their weakness: Ineffective retire. Mordred phantom is a very part reliant and proactive deck, requiring you to assemble the blaster darks required to push hard as well as dig into the Danger Lunge Dragon to finish the opponent. While by no means a slouch in the aggression and filling field early department, nor in its searching thanks to Masquerade, Mordred Phantom builds do lack the effective ability to retire the opponents field. This may not be as relevant a weakness in the current metagame as decks such as Palemoon are abundant, but it also means that Murakumo has the chance to build their field slowly over several turns, snowballing uninterrupted.

The current metagame is consistent of primarily these decks, so learn the matchup against these decks first!



May HYU-GA guide your way to victory.



