So here I am, El Melvino talking about my favourite clan. I will be discussing the different types of Kagero, as well as what they each can do, and what they lack. I also want to address some things that I believe can help out the clan, especially since there is a debate on specific cards and how useful they are.

First, I’m going to address some different play styles that can be done with specific sub-clans since these will come up in this blog and might be confusing to some of you or why I might not address other types of play styles.

Overlord

There are two basic ways to play this deck. There is hand-trap where you control your opponent’s every move, and there is beat down, where you focus on committing to the early game and playing evenly with the opponent. I would say that a mix of the two is fine, but it is currently more effective to play the early game than to try the more control variant (depending on your local meta, of course). There are probably more ways to play this deck, but I only want to touch upon the main two. (This is my main deck and I still bring the deck to tournaments because I believe in clan loyalty and will play him even if he’s not good. As you can guess, I don’t band waggon.)

Blademaster

Mass retiring and beatdown. I can’t think of any other way to play this deck. It is quite straightforward really other than, wait for it… Hand Trap! Although to a slightly lesser extent than Overlord. The only thing it can’t do is re-stand, which Overlord can. I really hope Blademaster gets some major power boosts in GBT11 (just not re-standing please, I don’t want another Overlord-like Kagero deck) since he seriously needs/deserves it.

Seal Dragons

Major mass retiring. There are two ways to play this deck. There is the gimmick style, where you try to place a minimum of two grade 2s on your opponent’s board so that you can go critical. I don’t like this version since, in my opinion, it doesn’t represent the true power of Seal Dragons as it cannot be justifiably done in a tournament setting (your opponent can choose an existing rear guard circle with a unit on it, making this inconsistent). The other way is to grind out your opponents grade 2s. This means that you retire your opponent’s grade 2 units, then retire them again until they don’t drop anymore grade 2s that turn. You also can target their grade 1s as well, which is wonderful. This way you not only remove useful units from their deck but increase your opponent’s chances of drawing triggers. This will essentially lower their formation in the long term, as they will run out of grade 2s to make proper columns with. I have won many games with this version since the opponent has barely any comeback ability once you start grinding out their deck. In a rearguard dependent meta, this can hurt a lot of decks (except Granblue for the most part). (As you can tell, I love Seal Dragons. As for Granblue, reasons for this being a so-so matchup is by milling them faster, you could have them deck out faster, however, that also means you risk the chance that they have more resources to beat the ever living shiet out of you. )

The Pros:

Very effective retiring power. Obviously stronger with certain sub-clans than with others. Take Seal Dragons for example. They have arguably the strongest retiring engine in of all of Kagero thanks to Seal Dragon, Barathea. By soul blasting 1 Seal Dragon, you can force your opponent to choose between calling a grade 2 from hand, or by letting you draw a card. This card is either a 1-for-1 draw engine or allows you to start up your strategy to retire your opponent’s units and mill their deck. (I know the card doesn’t retire, but obviously, the grade 4 Seal Dragon or Grade 3 Blockade Inferno can easily make some crazy retires and this card helps initiate the combo, making it indispensable to the sub-clan.)

Another card that we have that really helps the clan in a generic sense is Lizard Soldier, Conroe. This card is seriously MVP. The number of times this card basically allowed me to set up my board or hand in order to counter my opponent is too numerous to count. Need a G-Guardian? Add a heal. Need stride fodder? Add it. Need a perfect guard? Add it. You get the idea. This card can help all three sub-clans although I would argue that Seal Dragons don’t need this as much in the main deck or as a forerunner since they need the “Seal Dragon” name more than anything and they have their own useful forerunner. Of course, it isn’t a bad idea, but the occasional non-Seal Dragon damage could really come back and bite the deck. As for Blademaster, you can run this if you wanted to, tech it, whatever. It’s just an overall strong card. You could even play this at 4, although I firmly believe that is overkill. Two at best. (Unless you’re making Kagero grade 1 rush???)

Another card I want to discuss because it gets mixed reviews based upon player preference is Spherical Lord Dragon. I’m going to say it, this card is awesome. I can hear it now, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I’m absolutely insane. Two whole counter blasts! That is too costly! I took that into consideration. However, let’s look on the bright side. You ride it on the Vanguard circle, pay the cost, and then you have a free Overlord Vanguard of your choosing. If you’re playing the beat down version of this, it can really help since Overlord has trouble committing to the board without putting himself in a dangerous situation of being unable to guard efficiently. This card circumvents this issue by giving you the Overlord of your choice and also allowing you to have a rear-guard at 11k that gains power each time the Overlord grade 4 Vanguard swings. Basically, another Emperor Dragon Knight, Nehalem, although perhaps a tad bit weaker in the sense that you absolutely need an Overlord Vanguard. However, that does not make this a bad card, just makes its utility specific to a specific type of deck. I must address that in the beat down version, being at three damage before grade 3 can be a normal occurrence meaning that you have that extra counterblast for Denial Griffin if needed. In case you only have two damage, and you have that Spicy Conroe, and you know Spherical Lord is going on the Vanguard circle, prepare the Conroe to retire for countercharge. I get that you can still try to argue that the new Conroe would just let you search for the Overlord of choice, but sometimes, that extra rearguard in the front row is worth just much more than the delicate usage of counterblasts.

The Cons:

We lack defence. Yes, you heard me right. Denial is great and all, but that chicken can only take us so far. Defeat Flare tends to be difficult to use as it requires Vanguard to Vanguard interaction (so hot) in order for it to be used, as well as two Flame Dragons, a counterblast, and an Overlord Vanguard. Talk about them restrictions. And what do you get? Well, you do get a back row retire, which is great when it happens. But that is just it, it’s great in theory, not so much in practice. The utility of this card is defeated by the lack of shield it produces. If it gave us even +5k shield for successfully retiring or something of the sort, then I could justify this card. But as it is, the resources you have to commit just to get rid of your opponents resources is hard for the overall game for Overlord. Don’t forget that the base attack usually for the Vanguard’s attack during the opponent’s turn is 26k and the shield you get to your Vanguard is a total of 15k, which equates to a total of 26k… Oh. That sucks. There goes a 10k as well if I want to make it two to pass. Yikes. Plus, with how late in the game we have to be for this card to be useful, it would probably do better in a Meta that is much much slower than what we have now. What we really need is a way to add power to the Vanguard on the opponents turn (we have Veira, but that is super niche considering how unusable stands are in Kagero, specifically Overlord and Seal Dragons, though it might work in Blademaster), through perhaps a G-Guardian that gained +10k shield? That would be basic, but super effective (Pokemon puns). If we had rearguards that gave power to the Vanguard for each card retired (like a Nurse clone) it would make Defeat Flare worth it. Or at least justifiable depending on how many cards you retire with Big G-Daddy or other cards that turn. Some of these simple things would boost the overall consistency of all three decks, though not as much Seal Dragons, except for the +10k shield, which is really good for all.

Draw power. Outside of draw triggers, we have a card that soul blasts 2 to draw 1. It’s good, but not good enough since we do have cards that need soul… Outside of that, we have the Legend, which Bae nets you a Flame Dragon card from the top 5 cards of your deck, as long as it does not whiff. Arguably, Seal Dragons have the best draw engine out of the three considering they have Barathea, which I mentioned earlier. And although it does not net you +1, it does let you go +0, which is +1 to the board. This is much appreciated in Kagero considering our aggressive retire abilities, but a general lack of board presence to hand ratio. Apart from that, there really isn’t much that gives us resources. We are basically Shadow Paladin, except not. It’s more like Shadow Paladin is us, but we don’t plus or break even often, while they do (looking at you Luard + Carnivore/Luard + Aurageyser)

Early game in Overlord, as well as sustainability during mid-game. We have some early game in Overlord, but not a lot making him quite lacklustre at the moment. Burning Horn helps, but it’s a Vanilla until grade 3. As for the other two, they have decent early game to straight-up powerful early game (Seal Dragons!), but lack sustainability by mid and late game… As you can see, each has their issues and what really doesn’t help is that each sub-clan has different issues, which no single card could fix (would be nice though).

Final Thoughts

Sadly, in this Meta, these decks lack certain things that make them contenders with other decks. This is not to say that you should not play them if you understand it the best out of the other decks that you may play. I always suggest playing the deck you know best. It just means that you have to work harder than a lot of decks out there to profit in similar ways or to be able to win as consistently as they do (not mentioning names). I hope you liked my first ever blog and next time, I shall discuss the deck known as Amon as it’s a deck that I really love and think it really needs to gain some much-needed spotlight. Anyways, thanks for reading and don’t forget to state your own opinions on these decks, as well as what you think would make them better. There is never just one right answer so type away!