"Cruel Seal Stride" - Cruel Dragon

Hello everyone, Ascriptmaster back with another deck profile. This week we are covering one of the first decks I profiled on the Team Fairy Tail blog, a deck focused on Cruel Dragon with Seal Dragon support for extra retiring. With the introduction of Stride and Generation Break, the deck has become much faster at retiring opposing units and disrupting their plays.

[AUTO](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):[Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your opponent's grade 2 or less rear-guards, and retire it.
[ACT](Hand):[Reveal this card, choose your grade 2 or greater «Kagerō» vanguard, and [Rest] it] During the main phase of that turn, if your opponent's rear-guard is put into the drop zone, ride this card as [Stand], choose your vanguard, and that unit gets [Power]-3000 until end of turn.
[CONT](VC/RC): Lord (If you have a unit without a same clan as this unit, this unit cannot attack)

Grade 0

Seal Dragon, Terrycloth
4 Seal Dragon, Biella
4 Lizard Soldier, Goraha
4 Gatling Claw Dragon
4 Seal Dragon, Shirting

Grade 1

4 Protect Orb Dragon
4 Seal Dragon Spirit, Malkibel
3 Seal Dragon, Kersey
3 Flame of Strength, Aetniki

Grade 2

4 Twilight Arrow Dragon
4 Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame
3 Seal Dragon, Corduroy

Grade 3

4 Cruel Dragon
2 Double Perish Dragon
2 Seal Dragon, Georgette

Generation Zone

4 Imperial Flame Dragon King, Route Flare Dragon
3 Divine Dragon Knight, Mahmoud
1 Miracle Element, Atmos

Thanks to all the Stride support and a Limit Break Enabler card, Cruel Dragon is bigger, faster, and stronger than ever before. When Malkibel hits the field, Cruel Dragon is free to unleash its powerful retiring skills from the instant you ride it. This makes it very advantageous to superior ride the card using its own skill, as you gain an early drive check and an early retire. However, be careful using this when going second, as it could allow your opponent to Stride first! Regardless, the ability to start clearing the field from early game is a massive boon. Aetniki's skill moves it to the Soul when a unit is retired by your card effects to turn two cards in your Damage Zone face-up, granting Cruel Dragon additional Counterblast and Soul for its skill.

In order to back up the destructive presence of Cruel Dragon, every Grade 2 in the deck has a skill relating to retiring units. Corduroy returns to the deck as a supporting card to retire important back row units and trigger Cruel Dragon's superior ride as necessary, and make it easier to activate Seal Dragon Terrycloth's skill as well. Twilight Arrow Dragon is a new Generation Break card that can retire Grade 2 or lower units when it attacks; while it cannot trigger Cruel Dragon's superior ride, it is incredibly useful since it only costs Counterblast 1 and acts well as a complement to Cruel Dragon. Finally, Dragonic Neoflame adds to the destruction by chaining to your other retiring skills to eliminate even more units.

The Grade 3 lineup for the deck has changed drastically due to how the deck structures. With Malkibel allowing earlier retiring with Cruel Dragon's skill, using Dauntless Drive Dragon to allow Cruel Dragon to retire two units in one turn is no longer as powerful as it once was, since you no longer have to wait until 4 damage to use Cruel Dragon. Instead, Double Perish Dragon acts as the main backup Vanguard, since it retires a Grade 1 unit on-ride, and also has a Generation Break that allows it to retire units (albeit more expensive than Cruel Dragon's). In addition, Seal Dragon, Georgette is used as a tech because its Lock Break skill can disrupt Link Jokers when needed, and it has a decent power-up skill to maintain an offensive presence.

The G Unit lineup for the deck is very standard for a Kagero deck. Route Flare Dragon is the ace G Unit, retiring entire columns when it appears on the field, but it needs a face-up unit in the G Zone to use the first time. As such, Mahmoud is usually the first go-to unit to Stride, since its appearance early-game will force the opponent to consider blocking the heavy attack while at low damage or lose one of their units. Atmos is usually played last as a finisher if needed, as its skill allows it to immediately rise to 36,000 unboosted, an almost guaranteed death sentence if the opponent does not have a Perfect Guard in their hand.

To be honest, there are still many changes I could have made to the deck by removing most of the Seal Dragons and replacing them with new cards, but I wanted to stay true to the original themes for the deck by including them, which still allows for the Superior Ride of Cruel Dragon early game consistently thanks to Terrycloth's skill. Removing Seal Dragons like Kersey and Corduroy opens up options for other destructive cards that are available to Kageros, such as Lava Flow Dragon to access Stride more consistently, Dragon Knight Sadegh to retire more units, or Dragon Knight Javad as a powerful attacker. There are many options available to players who want to use Cruel Dragon, so just mix and match to see what works for you.

Dragonic Overlord The X

Hey everyone Natsu of Team Fairy Tail FINALLY back with another article.  Since we've last updated A LOT of new cards have come out and the meta has changed drastically so today we're going to take a look at one of the top two decks in today's meta and my version of the build Dragonic Overlord The X.

Grade 0
Dragon Knight, Sadegh x1
Gattling Claw Dragon x4 (Draw)
Embodiment of Spear, Tahr x4 (Critical)
Blue Ray Dracokid x4 (Critical)
Perdition Dancer, Agafia x4 (Heal)

So for the starter I chose to run Sadegh over the very popular Red Pulse in order to increase the amount of retires in the deck. The deck has 22 retire cards not counting Sadegh so getting his effect off isn't particularly hard, although Red Pulse is by no means a bad choice if you chose to run this deck.  The rest of the lineup is pretty standard with the 8 critical and 4 draw to help you get copies of Overlords with draw power while at the same time providing you a way to get rid of starters early game.

Grade 1
Protect Orb Dragon x4 (Perfect Guard)
Demonic Dragon Mage Kimnara x4
Dragon Monk, Gojo x4
Lizard Soldier Grom x3

For our grade 1s we run 4 of the new perfect guard which allows you to unflip a counterblast provided you have a copy in your drop zone.  This can come in handy very easily as this deck can eat up a lot of your counterblasts.  Next we run Kimnara who in my personal opinion is the BEST grade 1 in Kagero who can counterblast 1 and move himself to the soul to retire an opposing grade 1.  This can get rid of any annoying boosters and also gives you fuel for your soul since this deck also can find itself using up the soul quite a bit.  We also run 4 of Gojo who can rest himself to allow you to drop 1 card and draw a new one, he's great early game to help you filter out extra Gatling Claw Dragons as well as help you reach legion as quickly as possible. He also has use late game since he can help you filter out dead copies of The End as well as since your opponent isn't very likely to allow your Vanguard to hit late game unless that hit will kill them.  Lastly we run 3 Grom who on call soul blasts 2 to unflip 2; although he's only a 5k unit you can usually just stick him behind a Burning Horn or your vanguard to compensate and the ability to make The End ready to use again is WELL worth it.

Grade 2
Burning Horn Dragon x3
Dragonic Burnout x3
Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame x3

For our grade 2s we run 3 of each Burning Horn, Burnout and Neoflame.  Burnout is a 12k attacker when your Vanguard is an Overlord so he can help compensate for Grom and can hit any uncrossridden Vanguard on his own.  Burnout let's you put any of your Overlords on the bottom of your deck and then soulblasts one to retire any opposing rearguard front or backrow, which combos really well with Dragonic Neoflame who on the turn he's called allows you to counterblast one to retire an opposing unit in the same column as him.  This 2 cards combined with Sadegh can easily crack a strong field.

Grade 3
Dragonic Overlord The X x4
Dragonic Overlord The End x3
Perdition Emperor Dragon, Dragonic Overlord the Great x2

For our grade 3s we run 4 of The X who legions with The End for a massive 2200k base on your turn.  Also when you legion you can search either a copy of The End of The X to your hand allowing you access to the persona blast of your choosing.  The X when he DOESN'T hit can counterblast 1 and persona blast to kill two of your opponents rearguards.  This creates a lose lose situation as The End on hit counterblasts 2 and persona blasts to restand.  For this build I only run 3 copies of The End as I feel 4 is too cloggy and it's VERY rare to get his effect off more than twice in a game and even then getting it off twice in a game isn't something that happens all too often.  I then chose to run 2 copies of Overlord The Great as he can help give end game pressure for when you've run out of copies of The X by having a constant re-standing Vanguard.

G Units
Divine Dragon Knight, Mahmoud x4
Imperial Flame Dragon King, Route Flare Dragon x4

For the G Units I run 4 of both Kagero G Units.  While the G Assist can help out you usually don't need to go into either of these units as if you can ride The X then you should be riding it.  Although I've honestly NEVER used them EVER, but they can work for decent pressure if you have to ride The End.

Overall the new Kagero cards are GREAT as they create a way to constantly cripple fields while at the same time pressuring the opponents Vanguard, creating the lose lose situation and then having a vanguard that restands every turn, although one could just chose not to play rear guards this strategy is usually rather lackluster since the opponent then only gets 1 attack allowing the Kagero player to only guard with 2-3 cards while the opponent will be using 4-6 each turn.