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As usual, prompted by a reddit post, I find myself going into way more detail than necessary trying to answer simple questions.

Which brings us to the topic here.  How exactly do you go about building a deck?  As Cardfight!! Vanguard expands, new clans are released, and old clans gain new strategies.  Just recently, the Dark Irregulars, Oracle Think Tank, and Pale Moon clans all got a great boost to their arsenal, and the new Great Nature clan got an excellent start with a few tricks of their own.  A lot of these strategies are great, and players can be tempted to utilize as many of them as possible.  A simple example of why this approach doesn’t always work can be seen with OTT.  The cards released in Set 7 mainly support the ‘Soulless’ build, which is more or less brand new.  While the effects in there are powerful, they have absolutely no compatibility with the older, ‘Soulful’ build.  Whereas Soulless likes to empty the Soul, Soulful tends to fill up the soul, generally to at least 6 cards.  With other clans, this difference isn’t that apparent.  Take Gold Paladin, for instance.  ‘Incandescent Blond Lion, Ezel’ and ‘White Hare in the Moon’s Shadow, Pellinore’ are both Grade 3 units that are able to potentially skip a grade and Superior Ride.  For a player wanting to guarantee that sort of advantage, running both of them together in a deck sounds like an attractive idea.  However, the strategies involved behind doing so aren’t entirely compatible.  Ezel requires having a specific Vanguard and Rearguard configuration (Beaumaines as Vanguard, Gareth as Rearguard, Crimson Lion Cub Kyrph as a Rearguard [and generally, as your Starting Vanguard] ).  Pellinore requires having another unit superior-call it from the deck.  While there are plenty of units that are capable of doing so, they mostly can’t do so directly, and instead have to rely on blindly checking the top card(s) of the deck to see if they can pull it off.  The two strategies ‘can’ work together, but better results are typically found with different Grade 3 configurations.

There are many things to consider when trying to build a deck of your own, and it’s easy to lose sight of the ‘image’ of a deck along the way.  Heck, it’s even easier to not have any sort of ‘image’ at all.  Perhaps you just want to run a deck comprised of mainly Battle Sisters, and need to find a way to make it more competitive.  Or you just like the effect of ‘Dragonic Kaiser, Vermillion’, and want to put it to best use.  Maybe you just like a specific clan, and are having a hard time pinning down a specific strategy within that clan that strikes your fancy.  You could even have a current deck, but be unsatisfied with a lack of consistency in it, or not feel any specific strategy come to mind.  These are all points that should lead a player to consider tuning their existing deck, or just making a new one altogether.

Before we get to the conceptual part of the deck-building process, we first need to cover the basics:

  • Each Cardfight!! Vanguard Deck must contain exactly 50 cards.
  • Of those 50 cards, exactly 16 of those cards must be a Trigger unit (the bottom of the card is yellow, and a Trigger Icon is present at the top-right of the card.  All known Trigger Units are Grade 0 units)

From there, you’re ‘technically’ free to do whatever you want.  In the anime, Morikawa took that liberty to include as many Grade 3 units as he could put his hands on.  For anyone that’s watched the anime, they would know that his idea generally led to him getting easily defeated, as he typically lacked the cards necessary to ride to Grade 3, and his hand was generally comprised of nothing but shieldless Grade 3 units.  Having a solid mixture of Grade 1, 2, and 3 units can make the transition from Grade 0 to Grade 3 a smooth affair, while offering you offensive and defensive support from your Rearguard circles, and additional defensive support from your hand (including the Grade 0 trigger units).  This is typically achieved by maintaining a ‘ratio’ of each Grade.  Each clan and build has a slightly different ‘accepted ratio’, but these are always up to debate and more than accepting of alterations.  For a Nova Grappler build centered around Asura Kaiser, it wouldn’t be strange to see as many as 10 Grade 3 units in a deck.  For an Oracle Think Tank deck centered around the Tsukuyomi ride-chain, it would be strange to see any more than 8 Grade 3 units.  In general, decks tend to run 2 fewer Grade 2 units than Grade 1 units, so as to both offer their support in the backrow slots, while allowing themselves to become potential ride-chain candidates.  The Grade 2 units are also ride-chain candidates, but they also fulfill an offensive / defensive role on the front-lines that often has them in competition with the Grade 3 units of the deck.  If a certain deck build lacks powerful Grade 3 Rearguard units, then it generally makes up for it by increasing the number of Grade 2 units that it employs.  You might hear local players mention specific ratios that are tied with clans, or see a posting online that a clan should maintain a specific ratio.  Consider those to be ‘suggestions’, and think about them as you try new things.  Of course, you want to be better than random people on the internet, right?

However, I’ll ask you from picking the specific cards for the moment, as the cards that you choose have more importance than just their Grade.  You have to take into account the specific effects of each unit, and what roles a certain unit can play in your deck.  This is getting to the part where we start deciding on the ‘image’ of the deck.  Moreso than the ‘image of victory’ that the anime refers to, the image that I speak of here is the general strategy behind your deck.  Don’t fret, you don’t have to decide it just yet.  I will ask that you have at least some sort of idea regarding what you want to do, and have a specific clan (or mix of clans, if you prefer) in mind.  Perhaps a specific card that you want to include, or a general thought that you want to carry out (i.e. ‘I want every attack of mine to hit for 20k minimum’).  If you choose a specific unit that you want to include, make sure that you understand how that unit works.  So, if you have taken a liking to ‘Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier’, then you should know that as a Vanguard, it has a Limit Break ability that, upon a Counterblast 3, you can call a Grade 0, 1, 2, and 3 from your Soul to any Rearguard circle, open or otherwise, as well as the fact that for every unit that’s called to your Rearguard from your Soul, Luquier boosts its attack by 3k for the remainder of the turn.  Also, note that as a Rearguard, it’s just a standard 10k non-effect beater without the ability to intercept.  Luquier’s Vanguard effects make it a valuable part of Pale Moon, as many of their units abuse the Soul to pull off multiple attacks per turn and other forms of trickery.  Once you have these basic considerations in mind, we can start getting behind the theory of deck compositions.

A few key aspects toward building any deck are as follows:

  • Starting Vanguard: Just about every clan has a few of these to choose from. Your choice of starting Vanguard not only paves the way for your deck to roll through your opponent, but gives your opponent a decent idea of what’s in store for them. As far as Pale Moon goes, you have three options (as of the release of Set 7): “Girl Who Crossed the Gap”, “Hades Ringmaster”, and “Innocent Magician”. Since Pale Moon’s unique clan ability involves calling cards from the Soul, I’d choose GWCtG, simply because it allows flexibility with many of the common strategies in the deck. Innocent Magician is a safe option that helps to secure a safe start in the case that you’re not immediately able to ride up to Grade 3, or if you can’t find your ideal Grade 3 unit to eventually ride. Hades Ringmaster is a free Soulcharge, but many Pale Moon cards tend to do that on their own, so it’s not a completely unique niche that needs to be filled.
  • Trigger Distribution: This is one of the more influential categories behind any deck structure. Nearly 1/4th of the cards in your deck are these trigger units, and the probabilities you lay out for yourself pretty much lead you into a specific play style. 4 Heal Triggers should generally be included in every deck, as it allows you a chance to recover from an opponent’s trigger. From there, how many Critical / Draw / Stand triggers you decide to include help shape the deck image. A deck that doesn’t use any Draw triggers (or Heal triggers, as is rarely done) is typically viewed as a heavily offensive one, with the general viewpoint that “I can win with the few cards I have, as they are more than strong enough to win with.” Of course, such a deck needs the power to support that image. The inclusion of Critical and Stand triggers helps to ensure that the player can end a battle in fewer turns than their opponent can. On the other hand, a deck that mostly uses defensive triggers like Heal and Draw is one that supports careful, calculated play, at the cost of overall power. A more offensive opponent might be able to deal more damage in a single strike, but a defensive player can reduce the overall number of successful hits, and still maintain a frontline that is threatening enough to eventually end a game.
  • Columns: Ever hear the phrase “you can’t choose your friends”? Well, in Vanguard, your ‘friends’ are the Rearguard units that stand beside you. And in direct contradiction to that phrase, you are more than capable of choosing which ones you want to include in your deck, and which ones you want to call to the field. I mean, you’re probably not going to want to call a trigger unit to the field if you can avoid it, right? Your Vanguard alone is usually only capable of one attack in a turn. But, with your Rearguard, you’re able to pull off at least two more attacks. Having a useful Rearguard is generally the deciding factor when it comes to winning a game. In many Oracle Think Tank decks, a column of ‘Silent Tom’ and ‘Oracle Guardian, Gemini’ brings a terrifying presence to the battlefield, even with a meager 16k attack. With Angel Feather, a column of ‘Million Ray Pegasus’ and ‘Thousand Ray Pegasus’ is one that can potentially overwhelm a defender with incredible attack power, even though it only starts at 19k. In many decks, like Gold Paladin, a column with a Grade 3 10k unit (that boosts +2k when boosted by the same clan) and an 8k booster is a solid 20k column that reliably chips away at an opponent’s defense, while making the opponent decide whether to attack a unit that is incapable of defense. Having your clans Superior Intercept on the field can help to draw a lot of attention away from your Vanguard, at the cost of a lower offensive presence. Whether you choose your ideal columns for their utility, their sheer power, or a mixture of the two, it’s an aspect of your deck that you need to consider. How well does that idea work with your trigger distribution? Does your intended Vanguard help to support those columns in any way? If an Angel Feather player wanted to run the ‘pony stacks’ (MRP + TRP), but didn’t have a way of reliably moving damage counters around, then they should either consider running a different column, or choose a Vanguard that helps to move damage counters around. Elsewise, they’d just be a lackluster 19k column. And of course, as a Vanguard deck includes 34 non-trigger units, you have many choices as to what type of columns you want to include. But, for every new idea you include, you need to ensure that it works well with the other columns and with your Vanguard.
  • Vanguard Ride-Chain: When you see a Grade 1, 2, or 3 unit in your hand, one of the first distinctions you should be able to make is this: “Is this card better as a Vanguard, or as a Rearguard?” Some cards are naturally better as Vanguard units than as Rearguard units, and vice-versa. In many cases, this is even supported by the card effects themselves. If a card has Vanguard-only effects, then you’re probably going to want it as a Vanguard. So, using that card as a Rearguard is ‘wasting its potential’ (in a way). So, when you’re choosing cards, you want to think of your ideal ride chain (or as many ‘good’ rides as possible). Some decks make this process incredibly simple. In a Spectral-Duke build (or any of the various offshoots of it), the generally-preferred ride chain is just all of the Vortimer Cards up to Spectral Duke, with ancillary superior rides to Ezel or Pellinore thrown in as a bonus. With clans like Pale Moon, there are a few more options. Some variants want to ensure that ‘Crimson Beast Tamer’ gets into the Soul. While riding it is always an option, there are other cards that can help / make certain that CBT ends up in the Soul. But, the path to Grade 3, and where that path ends, helps to complete the image of the deck.
  • Grade 3 Vanguard: At some point in the game, you’re going to sit on your Grade 3 Vanguard for the remainder of the game. What unit will that be? There are a few deciding factors, both offensively, defensively, and strategically. A strange defensive trait of a Grade 3 Vanguard is the attack power of the Vanguard. A Vanguard with 11k attack will make it much easier to defend against a 15k or 20k attack, and outright stop a 10k attack. The offensive power of a Vanguard is just the converse of the defensive. And as for the strategic element of your Vanguard choice, you have to consider what effects your Vanguard is capable of. Does your Vanguard help to fulfill conditions that your Rearguard needs to become more useful? For instance, many Spike Brothers units have the ability to return themselves to the deck after Soulblasting 1. If you include a lot of those units in a deck, do you have some way of filling up those empty Rearguard slots? Here, having ‘Demonic Lord, Dudley Emperor’ or ‘General Seifried’ are both wise choices that sync well with those Rearguard units, as they are both able to superior-call units mid-battle, after their old Rearguards sent themselves back to the deck. Of course, you also need to consider your trigger distribution some, as your Vanguard will be the unit that will hopefully Drive Check them.

And once you have a deck together, test it like crazy. Force yourself into bad hands, and see how you recover. See how you play when you have the cards perfectly lined up for you. Consider the options available to you at any given point in a game, and the options that you want to be available to you. Once you find some area of your deck that might need improvement, ask yourself whether it’s really a problem involving luck, or a problem involving the cards you chose. If an Angel Feather player finds themselves unable to use effects that require damage getting moved around, then they need to consider if they’re using too many cards with those effects, or not enough of the cards that do the damage-moving, or even just using too many cards revolving around that strategy in general. If you find yourself damage-checking Critical triggers more often than your defensive triggers, you need to consider whether or not you’ve included enough defensive triggers, or whether you should increase the defense that your hand and your Rearguard units can provide for you, or if you should ignore it in favor of having the increased chance to have more-damaging offensive strikes.

Moreso than through deck-building, you’ll find your real ‘image’ as you playtest a deck. If necessary, you can proxy cards as replacements, and see whether or not you like using them. Once you find something that you like, go back through that ‘checklist’ of mine again, and see whether or not the deck that you’ve made meets your idea of the standards that I’ve tried to reflect in that list. If you’re happy, then start playing with it.