Man there was a long gap between articles. I’ve been studying for midterms and cooling down by hanging with friends so I haven’t really taken the time to write. Let’s shake off the rust shall we?

So recently I was on the Nexus at Night episode about Narukami Listen Here. I didn’t really talk that much because the majority of the episode was on the history of the clan and I wasn’t around for it. We kinda brushed past the current G-era support, which I did play and know decently well, so I wanna take some time to talk about it now.

Let’s start off by saying the clan’s not in the best position right now. I don’t think Vanquisher is a terrible deck by any means, but it’s not exactly great either. Unfortunately retiring just isn’t really that impactful right now, as far as competitive play is concerned. The top two decks of the format, Gears and Granblue, just don’t care. Gears do all of their BS first stride, so by the time you get to their shit they’ve already generated their massive advantage. They probably kicked your ass left right and center while doing it too since the melem-ur watar-history maker loop is both offensive and defensive. Granblue plain doesn’t have a field to work with. There’s like Negrobone that sticks around, and a smart GB player won’t let you touch him until they can take the loss. You’re basically stuck relying on on-hits for advantage. Sure, you can luck out and catch them in a bad position, but if you miss your only drop binds you’re stuck playing catch up the rest of the game.

But that’s just the top tier meta. While those 2 decks are the biggest comparison points, because they’re the best atm, there are plenty of other decks out there. Compared to the rest of the masses Narukami’s deece. It’s not bad, you can probably top your locals with it, but it’s not really amazing either. In my opinion the thing that hampers Vanquisher is a weak first stride. In most situations you will probably be using Zorras as your first stride. It’s not because he’s an amazing card, it’s because he’s your only option 80% of the time. Voltechzapper, while an amazing card, does require your opponent to set themselves up for it. They gotta have basically a full field (I’d say at least 4 for a good Volt turn), you yourself need around 3 CBs, and you probably need a chainbolt too. Against decks that like to early game hard (like Blue Waves or Sanc Guard) this can be just peachy. But against slower decks that don’t commit much before stride (which is still a good chunk of decks) you’re better off using Zorras. Zorras’ main problem is on hit. If I’m going against the deck I’d just blow my guards early to cockblock him if I can. Stopping the TS momentum throws the deck off enough that they have to spend a turn playing catch up. With so many high tier decks being able to do ridiculous shit 2nd stride it can be extremely difficult to stay in the game. Another big problem is practically non-existent draw power. You’re relying pretty heavily on draw triggers to stay in the game. Chatura’s on hit is inconsistent, and things like Rising Phoenix and his TS2 clone can only stem the tide so much. Vanquisher just has an incredibly poor time trying to keep up. If you didn’t get at least TS4 within your first stride you’re probably in for some bad times.

Now that we’ve covered what I find to be a major problem of the deck let’s talk about some of the strengths of the deck. I think VOLTAGE and Conquest Dragon are two really great strides. Between the two of them you have 3 to 4 turns of consistent column pressure to bear down on your opponent with. Personally I prefer multiple attacks over big ones, but power columns can still get the job done. Against clans that play really RG heavy your retire-binds can snowball into TS 8+ which creates some pretty nutty VOLTAGE turns. Field wiping is a little more relevant mid-tier compared to the top. Things like Angel Feather or Nova Grapplers can be slowed down pretty quick by a good board wipe. The Paladins might be inconvenienced by it, I think it varies game to game. And really blowing up a full field is just really satisfying, to me anyways. Voltechzapper is great I love him.

Unfortunately despite those good qualities in the deck, I think Vanquisher and Narukami as a whole is in pretty bad shape. The recent support in G-BT09 was mostly really bad, to the point that I ended up selling the deck. Bad support isn’t the only reason I did this though. https://www.reddit.com/r/cardfightvanguard/comments/5huzjc/translation_weekly_vanguard_column_5_lightning/ This here is a link to a translated article about Thunderstrike and Bushiroad’s thinking behind it. To sum it up they wanted to make Not-Kagero the clan.

Narukami originally was a spinoff of Kagero. Vermillion, while executed differently, worked towards similar ends as Overlord. In the end you were attacking the front row, Overlord did it one by one while Vermillion did it all at once. The clans had similar aesthetics and were both played by Kai in the anime, comparisons between them were kinda inevitable. I think Break Ride era did establish a more unique identity for the clan, retiring for power instead of just setting your opponent back. But in Bushiroad’s minds this apparently wasn’t enough because they needed to make the difference even bigger by introducing binding. This has caused a really unhealthy split in how the clan functions. Eradicators and Brawlers basically cannot use the new TS support. They much prefer keeping within their own archetype. Kaisers have an easier time coping, since they aren’t a rich enough archetype to have a full deck. But still, 50% of the clan being unable to efficiently use the new support is pretty garbage. People still like these older archetypes after all. One of the big selling points about Vanguard is it’s legacy support. If you are loyal and hold onto a deck you will eventually see some support. But when the modern era cards are so different in principle from the older supports it makes it really difficult to stay the course (for the record I find that Pale Moon and Link Joker also suffer from this to a degree). Why should I hold onto Brawlers or Eradicators when all the strides are unusable? I can take things like Wailing Thavas or Lambros and shove them into any Aqua Force deck theoretically. But if I wanted to make use of VOLTAGE or VMAX in say Descendant I’d have a pretty hard fucking time with them. And then of course there’s Narukami’s G-guards. Both of them are Thunderstrike restricted. If you want to use even the basic 20k shield you HAVE to run some sort of bind unit, most likely Wildrun since he’s the most consistent and splashable IMO.

Personally I find Bulwark to be the epitome of everything wrong with Narukami at the moment. First off he’s thunderstrike 3 for his +10k. So immediately half the clan can’t even use it. Thunderstrike 1 already requires Brawlers and Erads to run sub optimal cards, how in the fuck are they supposed to get to 3? And then there’s his second skill. I despise this skill. Look I get it, we can’t be Kagero. Bushiroad will probably never give us a straight up Denial Griffin because we can’t be Kagero. But why is it so frikkin obtuse? It doesn’t retire-bind, it only works at the end of battle, and it must be front row at rest. There are so many goddamn restrictions it’s insane. The worst part is this isn’t hard to figure out. Narukami already has a promo card that would make a perfect G-guard.

Pretty much all they had to do was take this, remove the Erad restriction, add in a bind to the effect, and make it a G-guard. Was that too hard for you Bushiroad? It’s not a perfect effect by any means. It still doesn’t help in all the situations you would want a straight up Denial for (power columns), but it still has a strategic use. You can cut off future attacks and derail combos.

But I digress. The core of the issue here is Bushiroad very clearly has no idea what the hell it’s doing. Hell they said VMAX was: “an extraordinary unprecedented ability! The first is a great move that’s rare even within 《Narukami》, an ability that mows down several units in one battle.”

YES

THIS

IS

TRULY

AN

UNPRECEDENTED

ABILITY!!!!111ONEONEEXCLAIMATIONPOINT

Fucking hell Bushiroad. I hate to end this on a dour note but as long as they keep saying stupid shit like this I don’t think the clan can truly prosper. I really want Narukami to succeed. I think they’ve got a really neat aesthetic and attacking multiple targets is a really neat mechanic. I sincerely hope that Bushi can get it’s head out it’s ass and whatever new Vanquisher support is busted as hell. I do want to reiterate that while I think the clan is in an unhealthy place concept-wise, it is still fine in game play. They’re a solid mid-tier deck and if you aren’t that invested in topping all the time it’s a fun clan to play.

As always thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Comments and criticism is always welcome.