Kagero is the first unit in the Dragon Empire military force, led by massive Flame Dragons that make their home in the nation of heat and flame. As one of the most powerful military forces in the world it employs both humans for their technological prowess and dragons for their might and... fire breathing capabilities. Kagero is played by a number of characters in the anime but primarily by Kai Toshiki.

Kagero is another Vanguard centric Force clan. You'll find yourself spending resources in order to power up your Vanguard or re-stand them to make multiple powerful attacks. Post EB-06 Kagero involves running multiple versions of Dragonic Overlord, with the goal to re-stand him as much as possible. ​ Kagero also has a large number of cards that can retire selected enemy units. This grants Kagero a large amount of control over the battlefield at any point. Retiring your opponent's key units can be a very easy way to secure victory! ​ Kagero as a deck is rather simple, with its goal being to control the board and smash in with high powered Vanguard attacks. The most powerful military on the planet Cray brings forth its mightiest warriors to battle!

Pros Definitive win condition

Re-standing Vanguard and Rearguards in a Force clan

Has a toolbox to pull from

Force clan numbers give natural advantage against Accel Cons One dimensional, has a similar game plan every game

Sub-par first Grade 3 ride compared to other clans

Very reliant on Vanguard to carry the game

Can be soft to protect clans

Dragonic Overlord Grade 3 4 Copies First ride Berserk Dragon Grade 2 4 Copies Ideal Grade 2 ride Dragon Full-armored Buster Grade 2 2 Copies Psuedo 9th and 10th copy of Overlord Follower, Reas Grade 1 3 Copies Pressure enabler on the Great turns Demonic Dragon Mage, Rakshasa Grade 0 3 Copies Dragonic Overlord the Great Grade 3 4 Copies 2nd Ride and finisher Dragonic Neoflame Grade 2 4 Copies Combo Enabler Flame of Hope, Aermo Grade 1 4 Copies Countercharger that draws a card Wyvern Guard, Barri Grade 0 4 Copies Red Gem Carbuncle Grade 0 1 Copy Dragonic Overlord the End Grade 3 2 Copies THE END Dragonic Burnout Grade 2 2 Copies Consistent retiring for low cost Sabel Dragonewt Grade 1 4 Copies Ideal Grade 1 Ride, draws a card Embodiment of Spear, Tahr Grade 0 4 Copies Dragon Monk, Genjo Grade 0 4 Copies

Lizard Runner, Undeux Grade 0 1 Copy

Dragonic Overlord Grade 3 4 Copies First ride Wyvern Strike Dekat Grade 2 4 Copies Combo Enabler Sable Dragonewt Grade 1 4 Copies Ideal Grade 1 Ride, draws a card Angry Horn Dragon Grade 0 4 Copies Dragonic Overlord the Emd Grade 3 4 Copies 2nd Ride and finisher Dragon Full-armored Buster Grade 2 4 Copies Psuedo 9th copy of Overlord Dragon Dancer, Jesee Grade 1 4 Copies Lets you run 12 critical Embodiment of Spear, Tahr Grade 0 4 Copies Berserk Dragon Grade 2 4 Copies Ideal Grade 2 ride Flame of Hope, Aermo Grade 1 4 Copies Countercharger that draws a card Calamity Tower Wyvern Grade 1 1 Copy Allows for big The End turns Demonic Dragon Mage, Rakshasa Grade 0 4 Copies

Dragon Monk, Genjo Grade 0 4 Copies Lizard Runner, Undeux Grade 0 1 Copy

Kagero's opening Grade 1 and 2 turns are solid, and while they don't match the blistering speed of Bermuda Triangle, the Kagero Grade 1 and 2 turns focus on generating card advantage with cards like Sable Dragonewt and Berserk Dragon. If you go second, your opponent has to make a tough decision between letting Dragonewt hit and you drawing a card or not having counterblast for their follow up turn. ​ Your ideal Grade 2 ride is either going to be Berserk Dragon or Dragon Full-Armored Buster. Berserk Dragon nets you a card and retires a unit, this is your ideal ride. The other ideal ride would be Full-Armored Buster, as he also retires a unit and checks the top 7 cards for an Overlord unit. ​ Because both of your ideal Grade 2 rides retire a unit, this forces decks that want to play the early game to play more cautiously as they don't want to throw away rearguards for free. ​ If your opening hand post mulligan contains any combination of these three cards as well as any Grade 3, you’ll be in great shape for the rest of the game! The deck has a lot of ways to recover resources and generate advantage. It’s also important to find Dragonic Overlord early as he is the deck’s ideal first Grade 3 ride.

Dragonic Overlord is your ideal first ride target. With the ability to reach an unboosted 33,000 power with a Force marker, your opponent will have a hard time guarding if you went first. Make sure to restand wisely, don't just ditch cards no matter the situation for the effect. While Dragonic Overlord may be the ideal first ride, The Great is still perfectly fine if you have a Neoflame in the drop zone. Getting to second ride with The Great is hand is your goal. With the ability to restand not only himself, but also Dragonic Neoflame, Dragonic Overlord the Great enables a five attack turn. This is a first for any Force clan in the game. Because this card is so powerful, you will want to be digging for it the entire game. Using Aermo and Dragonewt to draw cards on retire can sometimes get you there. For Kagero decks focusing on Dragonic Overlord The End, you will want to ride him second and start applying a lot of re-stand pressure. With the ability to re-stand three times with your vanguard in one turn, opponents will definitely be put into an interesting situation. At this point in the game, most opponents will not have the guard to stop all of these attacks. Ideally, The End runs a lot of critical triggers to push the advantage and to guarantee all of his re-stand conditions. This forces your opponent to have to gamble on a no guard most of the time. Typically, this is your “make it or break it” turn because after using The End, your defenses will be low due to the discard cost. Force marker placement changes from the days of Dragonic Waterfall when you play The Great. Generally you'll want to have your Force markers on a rear guard circle to enable a large Neoflame attack. This can change game by game, so pay attention to your opponent's hand and early drive checks. Your goal is to take as many cards out of your opponent's hand each time Neoflame attacks, and requiring 20,000 shield or more per attack is the perfect way to do that. In The End, you will always put Force Markers on your vanguard. Of course Force II will make you distribute the force markers to your rear guards, but if you pick Force I, you will stack everything to your vanguard.

mid game

In Kagero your win condition is incredibly simple. You re-stand Dragonic Overlord The Great or The End until your opponent is at six damage. The sequencing of your attacks matters, so make sure to make full use of your re-standing vanguard's capabilities. Additionally, understanding Dragonic Neoflame's ability and timing it properly is key to powerful turns. Keeping track of your opponent's drive checks and guard value will be key in determining when you should take the opportunity to add an extra critical to your vanguard. Micromanaging your important rear guards such as Dragonewt and Aermo is crucial to exerting maximum pressure on your turn, while having guard value for the next. One strategy you can use is to use them to boost two columns, then using the last column to attack an opponent's rearguard. If they don't guard then you can activate their abilities and draw cards to guard with the following turn. When piloting Kagero, it's very important to make sure your numbers always force a card out of your opponent's hand. It may seem small, but the number of cards you've removed from your opponent's hand totals up very quickly. This level of pressure can result in your opponent being short shield on their most important turns! Knowing when to turn up the heat is key to playing Kagero. The majority of decks have caught up to Kagero’s power, therefore overextending too soon will put you in a bad situation, but if you take advantage of your windows of opportunity, Kagero will be a hard deck for your opponent to defeat.

late game

Bermuda Triangle Matchup Difficulty: Hard As the strongest deck in the format, Bermuda Triangle represents the most difficult match up for Kagero. Bermuda has an incredibly powerful early game, you need to avoid being set to three damage before their first Grade 3 ride. Once their numbers get past 61,000, it's going to be impossible to guard. Using Dragonic Burnout to snipe Caro is a requirement to survive their Grade 3 pushes. Do not expose Dragonic Burnout to being attacked by the Bermuda Triangle player. Tucking him behind the vanguard may end up being the safest place for him if you only have one copy. Bermuda Triangle does not have a lot of guard value to throw around, setting them to three damage early is an easy way to take a lot of weight off your shoulders. Neoflame, and the Great attacking for 30k+ is difficult even for Bermuda Triangle to handle. The End will also be attacking for 30k+, but it will be the vanguard attacking three times. This is still extremely potent and it will be difficult to guard especially since he can easily hit high numbers with Force I and will always be hitting for lethal with Force II Dimension Police Matchup Difficulty: Hard ​Dimension Police is another vanguard centric Force clan. An early powered up Dailiner will put you on the backburner with his ability to gain power and critical. He will also search for Grade 3 unit. Be sure to pay attention to what is added to hand because it will give you a preview of what's coming next. Keep in mind that Great Daiyusha is widely run in the deck, so the threat of a re-standing vanguard is always eminent. Kagero's re-stand is more consistent overall since the skills will always be active on vanguard circle. Your objective should be to keep up their pace and to overwhelm them with your strong vanguard attacks and retire their key rear guard pieces. Dimension Police is faster than Kagero, but this only means you need to play more reactive and counter their strategies. Look for aggressive opportunities because they do not like to take what they dish out. Gear Chronicle Matchup Difficulty: Easy Gear Chronicle is a Force deck that requires a significant amount of setup before it can steamroll you. Kagero is just too fast and can retire their key advantage pieces before they become a problem. Kagero's numbers and quick re-restanding capability will destroy the Gear Chronicle player's hand before they can even start striding. On your 2nd Grade 3 re-ride you'll be attacking five times with The Great and Dragonic Neoflame or you will have three vanguard attacks with The End. Genesis Matchup Difficulty: Easy Gensis has the ability to give their entire front row power and other trigger effects. With the high amount of Grade 2 cards you play, you may not have the guard value to block every attack. Guarding early can be a way to save yourself from having to guard every attack on their large turns. The Great or The End alone will tilt this match up in your favor once he hits the board. Like with Bermuda Triangle your goal is to dig to The Great or The End as fast as possible. Overall, Kagero is the faster and more consistent deck. Kagero Matchup Difficulty: Hard This matchup is extremely hard and usually favors the person who goes first. The Great is the strongest card in this match up, like every other matchup. The match will be a “push and pull” and will come down to who places force markers better, can re-ride more optimally, and variance like triggers. The best way to be successful in the “mirror” is to keep as many cards in hand while still applying pressure. G1s do not have to be called and can be used as guard. Only call them if you need to filter and know you can retire something. Link Joker Matchup Difficulty: Moderate There are three versions of Link Joker, but the matchup that will be the most difficult is Messiah. The deck unfortunately, does everything a little bit better than Kagero does. Messiah has a consistent search engine, can fill a board easily, strong retire units, multi-attacks, and draws a lot of cards once second Grade 3 ride is achieved. Your best bet of beating this deck is the strong inherent pressure that all of your Dragonic Overlords have. You must play the stronger early game because Messiah is weakest until its second G3 ride. If you abuse the early game, their resources start to falter. At high damage they must guard more, evening out their draws and with no units on board their multi attack turns are not as threatening. Two other versions of Link Joker shouldn’t be much of a problem for Kagero, but Deletors will prove to be more difficult than Brandt overall. Deletors will be hitting hard against Kagero due to having the “delete” mechanic and can also retire/bind Kagero’s units as well. Deletors also have a re-stand mechanic with Given and critical pressure with Greidhol. Despite these Kagero still has an advantage because it can retire more, have more consistent re-stand plays for far less cost, and it can search for it’s G3 re-ride targets to get itself out of delete. The filtering will also help Kagero defend against the turns where their vanguard is deleted while also helping dig for more ride targets. Kagero should be overall faster than Deletors, but in the event that you cannot re-ride, the match will be very difficult to recover from. Brandt is an interesting matchup, but if you control your damage and prioritize powerful rear guard columns, the matchup should be much easier. The “safe zone” is at around 4 damage maximum so you can take the free heal trigger damage at least once. Neoflame and The Great re-standing should be too overwhelming for Brandt that you should win steadily. Brandt does not exert that much pressure besides reversing your triggers. Neo Nectar Matchup Difficulty: Moderate Neo Nectar is a clan that draws a lot and calls a board for little to no cost. Kagero can’t keep Neo Nectar down in terms of retiring their board because it comes back faster than it can be retired due to Cecilia. The best way to defeat Neo Nectar is to snipe very few key units, such as Exploding Tomato, and to relentlessly attack their vanguard. Ideally, Kagero will want to end the game as fast as possible because Neo Nectar’s high powered attacks will become overwhelming. You should look to guard attacks early, rush, and use your filtering G1 cards to draw more guard against the eventual high powered attacks. The re-stand plays of The Great will quickly dwindle their hand size and they can only draw four sentinels. Dragonic Overlord and The Great will exert so much constant pressure that Neo Nectar won’t have much to consistently guard with. You will likely treat this matchup like Bermuda Triangle except this will be far easier since the high powered attacks don’t come as quickly nor as high. In this matchup you will mostly be attacking their vanguard while sniping intercepts when you are starting your high pressure attacks. Shadow Paladin Matchup Difficulty: Easy Shadow Paladin cannot keep up with Kagero any longer. Kagero has too many retire pieces that can get rid of their key field generating units like Nemain. This causes Shadow Paladin to call more and rely on the units in their hand to create more draw power for them, resulting in a Counter Blast issue for them. The cost for their deadly vanguards become higher because free resources are being generated, therefore putting them at a resource disadvantage overall. They have to kill their own units to gain abilities, while you also retire their units with ease. Shadow Paladin do not have the setup, hand, or boardstate to keep up with Kagero’s constant pressure and retire. Shadow Paladins are forced to overextend to have a chance at beating Kagero since they cannot methodically build sacrificial units to constantly apply pressure. They will likely become desperate and attempt to “one-shot” you with Phantom Blaster Dragon, where a simple sentinel will put a stop to that. It is easily filtered out and after that play, Shadows will have no resources to effectively defend themselves. Spike Brothers Matchup Difficulty: Easy Spike Brothers call out many cards from the deck to filter into triggers and attack with high columns. Kagero puts a stop to their strategy extremely fast. Kagero’s constant retire and re-stand pressure takes out key pieces and dwindles their hand. Since Spike Brothers do not have a draw engine at all, they cannot guard the oppressive attacks both of the Overlords generate, resulting in Kagero being able to do whatever they want throughout the game. As of right now Kagero does not have anything to be afraid of in this matchup because Spike Brothers simply do not have enough support to keep up in any means against this juggernaut of a deck.

Aqua Force Matchup Difficulty: Moderate Aqua Force relies on multi-attacks to pressure the opponent into not being able to guard later. Being a force clan, Kagero already has an immediate advantage being at a 1k higher base power. This forces Aqua Force to call out more cards from hand in order to hit the higher base power that Kagero has. Of course this matchup is hard if Aqua Force goes first, but overall Kagero should not have a problem in this matchup. Kagero has a stronger re-stand turn with The Great and The End hits extremely hard before Aqua Force is ready to respond. Kagero will also retire all of Aqua Force’s key cards. Aqua Force cannot play safely against Kagero because they will lose out on so much pressure in the early game. Kagero only needs to retire Tidal Assault and Algos because those are the main early game re-standers and pressure cards. With Blue Wings added to the mix, heal triggers stand their rear guards so this will pose a problem if the deck high rolls. To go along with this, do not be afraid to guard with your G1s because you cannot retire on your opponent’s turn. Keep yourself at reasonable damage and it will relieve a lot of pressure in later turns. Without those, Aqua Force begins to die in pressure. Kagero typically hits higher numbers than Aqua Force, but with Glory Maelstrom, Aqua Force is a deck that deserves respect. Accel II also fixed a lot of the draw issues the deck had. Either version of the deck is strong because they now hit good numbers later in the game and have strong re-standing rear guards. This matchup will mostly be dictated by the early game and who manages to guard more effectively, but Kagero will have the inherent advantage due to being a force deck that retires. This normally would be an easy matchup, but with current Kagero Narukami provides a unique problem. With The Great being so reliant on Neoflame for insane pressure and if it gets retired it’s usually not a problem because it can be revived by re-riding The Great. The main issue here is that Narukami binds units, not retires. This means that Neoflames cannot be recycled. It is not extremely detrimental, this just means that you either need to work around it and only call out Neoflame when you’re able to replace it or when you’re going for a power play and you need it on rear guard. This is a big advantage for Narukami and the fact that Detonix can re-stand faster than The Great, but it’s for a higher cost most of the time. Both Overlords can re-stand for typically lesser cost. Kagero can retire Narukami’s units and they are not easily replaced. Kagero has a strong draw engine making it easier to find guard pieces and since Kagero is a Force clan, it has a higher base power for more defensive potential. Also keep in mind that The Great can re-stand itself without Neoflame so if worse comes to worst, you can rely on that. Kagero overall is still more oppressive and faster than Narukami. Narukami only has a few headaches. A well timed Great or End turn should close out the game faster than you think. Gold Paladin Matchup Difficulty: Moderate The epitome of high roll. Gold Paladin’s strength lays in their superior ride mechanic. Going first puts Gold Paladin in a huge advantage since Ezel and Raven Haired Ezel will be attacking at G3 while you are still on G1. Raven hair also gains a critical and restricts sentinel use. This alone makes the match up difficult because there is a lot of pressure plus accel circles and a lot to guard. Even still, Kagero has their ability to retire the rear guards to dampen the pressure. Gold Paladins are forced to go “all in” to abuse their G3 superior ride turns. Guard with your G1s as your survival and keeping yourself at lower damage early relieves pressure later in the game. Kagero will retire the rear guards and go into Dragonic Overlord which will be hard for Gold Paladins to stop because they will likely have called many cards to pressure you out for the win. Once on The Great, you should win because Gold Paladin will not have the resources to survive those attacks for long. If Kagero goes first, this matchup becomes easier, but the same events will happen but instead of G1, you will be on G2 when Gold Paladin reaches G3. Great Nature Matchup Difficulty: Easy Great Nature relies heavily on what is milled for cost and can pick up key cards from the drop zone back to their hand. Kagero will not have a problem against this deck because it can retire all of Great Nature’s important pieces and being a Force clan, Kagero can guard against the attacks that Great Nature provides easily. The cards that Great Nature have in hand to guard with will likely not be enough to outlast the pressure that both Overlords can exert. With having to balance calling cards to apply pressure and guarding The Great’s oppressive attacks, it is hard for Great Nature to keep up. Be wary of Leopald because he can gain many criticals and attack for very high power. Remember to use your G1s to filter dig into the deck and find sentinels for this turn. There aren’t many things to worry about, but be sure to retire Binoculous Tiger and Geograph Giant when you’re able to. They can press Great Nature’s advantage, so focus on retiring certain key pieces and attack the vanguard relentlessly. Murakumo Matchup Difficulty: Moderate This matchup is fairly interesting for Kagero. Murakumo’s winning strategy is stalling you for a turn using their “full lock” with ZANBAKU, Right Arrester, and Left Arrester. This will stall you out a turn and they will likely look to Shirayuki or ZANGEKI to end the game. Shirayuki can also be used as a defensive unit because it can debuff three front row units by 10k. The full lock proves difficult for Kagero because a lot of pressure is stalled and Murakumo can stop riding all together. This is a deck that you either must pace out properly or rush them into a situation where they must lock you earlier than they want, to stabilize. If you pace them out you can stall until you ride into The Great and then start to play normally, but if you rush them, they are forced to lock and you can ride into The Great later and play more freely. Typically the rush tactic is easier and there is little to nothing to fear after that lock turn. Pacing out can be risky because you allow Murakumo to gain more resources, but both strategies should be weighed purely based on what you have in hand and what you are capable of handling. Narukami Matchup Difficulty: Moderate This normally would be an easy matchup, but with current Kagero Narukami provides a unique problem. With The Great being so reliant on Neoflame for insane pressure and if it gets retired it’s usually not a problem because it can be revived by re-riding The Great. The main issue here is that Narukami binds units, not retires. This means that Neoflames cannot be recycled. It is not extremely detrimental, this just means that you either need to work around it and only call out Neoflame when you’re able to replace it or when you’re going for a power play and you need it on rear guard. This is a big advantage for Narukami and the fact that Detonix can re-stand faster than The Great, but it’s for a higher cost most of the time. Both Overlords can re-stand for typically lesser cost. Kagero can retire Narukami’s units and they are not easily replaced. Kagero has a strong draw engine making it easier to find guard pieces and since Kagero is a Force clan, it has a higher base power for more defensive potential. Also keep in mind that The Great can re-stand itself without Neoflame so if worse comes to worst, you can rely on that. Kagero overall is still more oppressive and faster than Narukami. Narukami only has a few headaches. A well timed Great turn should close out the game faster than you think. Nova Grappler Matchup Difficulty: Hard Nova Grappler is a lot like Aqua Force where they use multi-attacks to win. Nova Grappler can get more advantage by calling less and getting attacks during the main phase. Kagero can still retire key pieces and re-stand for high power, causing the low hand advantage Nova Grappler to lose quickly. They have to replace their units for pressure and guard the re-stand attacks. Nova Grappler only has an edge because they can get attacks before the battle phase. They can more easily assess how much they want to overextend to attack you. Azure Dragon gives Novas a small draw engine along with Scarlet Bird. Illuminal Dragon gives an extra attack if it’s on vanguard circle. It will also give power to itself if another unit hits. Tortoise gives extra attacks during the main phase and can re-stand if he doesn’t hit. Kick Kick also gives an additional attack and Glatz Dragon gives you consistent multi attacks on its own. Nova Grappler can easily rip through your hand, but being a Force clan you have more breathing room for defense. Using your G1s to guard will be vital and you can easily rely on your re-stand plays to win you the game once you can ride The Great or The End on your second G3 ride. It may be enough pressure overall for Nova Grappler to keep up. Pale Moon Matchup Difficulty: Easy Pale Moon requires key pieces to effectively pressure out during their multi-attack turns. They are extremely rear guard and Counter Blast reliant. Kagero can retire key pieces, punishing rush, and they can rush effectively as well against Pale Moon. Since Pale Moon does not have a draw engine, it is easy for both Overlords to exert their will over Pale Moon. Right now Pale Moon lacks the defensive and offensive capabilities to pressure Kagero. Despite this, Golden Beast Tamer and Nightmare Doll Alice are still strong cards when they work together. Be sure to retire Alice when you can. Kagero has many options to draw and protect itself against whatever Pale Moon can throw your way. Tachikaze Matchup Difficulty: Easy Tachikaze is simply too slow to keep up or pressure Kagero. Kagero will retire their key pieces and they will lose their equip gauge, losing their chance to active abilities. Tachikaze will be playing vanilla vanguard against the oppressive Kagero because Tachikaze will almost never get a chance to use their skills. Kagero will easily run over Tachikaze with retire abilities and strong re-stand plays. There is too much pressure exerted for Tachikaze to even compete in this matchup.

Angel Feather Matchup Difficulty: Moderate Angel Feather is an annoying matchup for Kagero. The pressure that Kagero applies with their re-stands is lightened by Metatron easily healing damage. Zarachiel also proves to be annoying because she can build Protect markers to guard against The End, The Great, Neoflame and Dragonic Overlord. Despite these headaches, Kagero is too consistent and applies so much pressure that over time, Angel Feather will run out of defensive options. There’s only so much they can do against a deck that gets constant re-stand plays and in the end, each Protect marker is still taking one card out of their hand. Angel Feather will just run out of steam. Mobile Hospital is their biggest threat because it restricts your ability to guard with sentinels from hand. Play conservatively keeping a larger than normal amount of guard in your hand to be able to stop Hospital. Rush Angel Feather as much as possible so they are forced to guard more later and it’ll make their Metatron heals less optimal. Overall Angel Feather is still the king at stall and survival, but Kagero will burn through their defenses with time. Dark Irregulars Matchup Difficulty: Easy Dark Irregulars build up for extremely powerful vanguard attacks. Unfortunately for them, the deck is way too slow to keep up with Kagero. Kagero will retire the units called and will attack the vanguard relentlessly. The high numbers will pressure out Dark Irregulars extremely fast and DI does not have the cards or hand to guard these attacks. The fact that the deck cannot re-ride reliably is a huge detriment against Kagero. Kagero will exert too much pressure for DI to handle and DI usually won’t be able to reach their power spike to defeat Kagero. As of now there isn’t enough support for DI to keep up at all. Granblue Matchup Difficulty: Moderate ​Granblue is formidable foe against Kagero. The deck can now accelerate into their win conditions by milling many cards. Cocyteus is the boss unit of this deck that allows you to gain power, a critical, and a free board. Despite its strong offense, they cannot consistently re-ride to gain protect markers and the deck does not have a draw engine to defend itself against Kagero’s re-stand plays. Basskirk is still a strong card that applies a lot of pressure, but there’s only so much it can do against a Kagero deck that can re-stand all the time and give itself critical pressure. Granblue is now a little faster than Kagero, but if they do not get the correct mill pieces, the deck tends to be slower and underwhelming. Even if they hit all the pieces to mill extremely fast, their low card count in hand should be their main weakness. Kagero can still apply enough pressure to win the game. Granblue simply does not have enough defensive options when Kagero finally can start to get to strong G3 turns, but in return Granblue will likely have a strong offense. It will be a game of who can apply pressure earlier and who can attack with more power faster. Megacolony Matchup Difficulty: Easy Megacolony builds up to a win condition where the opponent cannot guard against Ant Lion—the only problem here is that takes too long to effectively work against Kagero. Kagero will retire Megacolony’s rear guards so they cannot apply pressure and Kagero’s re-stand plays will be too much for Megacolony since the deck does not have a draw engine. Kagero can rush against Megacolony and despite the deck being able to search out G3s, the lack of hand advantage weakens their defensive capabilities for their Protect markers against Kagero. This is another example of a deck being too slow to keep up with Kagero and not having the support to pressure Kagero as well. Nubatama Matchup Difficulty: Moderate Nubatama is an interesting matchup for Kagero. It’s a deck that stops intercepting with Void Master, can make you discard with Kujikiricongo, and can generate its own sentinel with Magatsu Storm. It can also bounce their cards back to their hand to help guard against Kagero’s high pressure re-stand plays. This mitigates their lack of draw power along with the typical eight draw the deck plays. It has a lot of defensive options with some offensive ones that hit for 23k which is really strong against Force decks. It can also multi-attack using Magatsu Storm. Overall, the matchup is surprisingly more difficult than expected, but Kagero has all the tools to be successful in this matchup. Kagero can’t retire key pieces as easily with Nubatama bouncing cards, but the rush and pressure Kagero exerts is stronger than anything Nubatama can provide. Nubatama is far more piece reliant than Kagero so when they guard your multi-attacks, they lose their field presence along with it. Also if Nubatama decides to leaves cards on the board for Magatsu Storm, you only need to make sure they don’t have two units so it can’t activate its sentinel ability. Other than that, there isn’t much to be worried about in this matchup and Kagero will overwhelm Nubatama with moderate ease. Oracle Think Tank Matchup Difficulty: Moderate OTT is one of the harder protect matchups for Kagero. It can scry for early crits and it has a strong draw engine. This critical pressure can put Kagero at a disadvantage, but overall it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Kagero can rush and retire OTT’s units they call out to gain advantage. This is important because for OTT to consistently use their scrying abilities they must call out units that will inevitably get retired. They also must call out cards to constantly hit and pressure Kagero. Kagero will retire the board and re-stand to make sure that OTT cannot stabilize in this matchup. OTT can only get one protect marker per turn and it will be used every turn whether it’s guarding Dragonic Overlord, The End, The Great, or Neoflame. The five attacks the Great generates will quickly dismantle the hand advantage that OTT gains very early on. The pressure that The End will also apply so much pressure that it could be potentially game ending. The End will give up consistency in the mid or end game for having a stronger early game. The End will leave you more vulnerable than The Great, but The End could give you that extra edge to defeat OTT that much earlier before they can even prepare for your multi-attacks. The re-stands and early retire is too much for OTT to handle overall. OTT can press its advantage by rushing Kagero with early critical trigger checks, but it only leaves OTT more vulnerable later as well. If Kagero goes first in this matchup OTT has a far more difficult time and literally will never stabilize without the help of constant heal and draw triggers. If OTT goes first, they have one extra turn to try and stabilize the gamestate to their favor, but even then it’s extremely hard for them to do that effectively with The Great or The End lurking around the corner getting ready for next turn.