Cardfight!! Vanguard - Dragonic Overlord "The X" UPDATE May16

Here's a quick update on the Overlord deck I own and for those that want to see what a list for "The X" may look like post Kai Legend deck release. I am still playing "The X" instead of "The Legend" after some testing simply because I feel it is a little stronger than "The Legend". "The Legend" still needs some more cards to have a fully fleshed out deck; hopefully we get the missing pieces in G-BT07; I'll explain why in my essay below =P

For those that don't know, I play the English format and we don't have 16 G-zones and G-guardians til we get FC16...

G4: 8

3 Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon, Dragonic Overlord "the Ace"

4 Transcendence Divine Dragon, Nouvelle Vague L'Express

1 Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon, Vortex Desire

G3: 8

4 Dragonic Overlord "The Ace"

3 Dragonic Overlord the End

1 Dragonic Overlord "The Legend"

G2: 11

4 Dragonic Burnout

4 Emperor Dragon Knight, Nehalem

3 Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame

G1: 13

4 Protect Orb Dragon

3 Lizard General Conroe

2 Calamity Tower Wyvern

3 Spear of the Flame Dragon, Tahr

2 Lava Flow Dragon

G0: 18

4 Blue Ray Dracokid (Critical)

3 Magnum Shot Dracokid (Critical) 

4 Gattling Claw Dragon (Draw)

1 Seal Dragon, Artipique (Draw)

4 Mother Orb Dragon (Heal)

1 Lizard Soldier, Conroe

1 Lizard Hero, Undeux (Starter)

If you don't know how "The X" deck works you might want to read up on my previous post but tldr;

"The X" 101

These are the effects your VG has access to:

[ACT](VC):Legion22000 "Dragonic Overlord the End" (If your opponent's vanguard is grade 3 or greater, this unit may return four cards from your drop zone into your deck once, search your deck for the specified card, and Legion)

[AUTO](VC):When this unit Legion, search your deck for up to one card with the same card name as a unit on your (VC), reveal it to your opponent, put it into your hand, and shuffle your deck.
[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a card named "Dragonic Overlord "The X"" from your hand, and discard it] At the end of the battle that this unit attacked, if the attack did not hit during that battle, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to two of your opponent's rear-guards, and retire them.
[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (2) & Choose a card named "Dragonic Overlord the End" from your hand, and discard it] When this unit's attack hits, you may pay the cost. If you do, [Stand] this unit.

1A - On G3 choose to Stride or Legion, generally you want to Stride first to unlock GB skills.

1B -  If you Legion'd, grab whatever Overlord you're missing and add to hand.

2 - Attack (rear guard usually) to proc the End's skill>Restand VG and attack again.

3 - You're turn again; Stride or Re-legion, play either Dragonic Burnout, Calamity Tower or Tahr to plus.

4 - Rinse and repeat steps.

Here on wards I'm just going to run through the deck list and point out changes made and why.

Grade 4

The Stride lineup has arguably changed the most, notably 5 cards replaced by Vortex and 4 Nouvelles. Vortex is very simple; on hit retire units equal to the number of Flame Dragons on your VG. He counts himself and the card/s he Strides over as separate units so if "The X" is in Legion, Vortex can retire 3 units. And Nouvelle is the new game pusher with a G1 glory skill.

Vortex is usually the first card you stride in to and then depending on game state you:

- Use the "The X" plays if you want to pull yourself ahead.

- Use "The Ace" if you're behind to apply pressure and potentially catch up by having 4 guaranteed drive checks to proc Heals and Draws.

- Use Nouvelle to push for game with his guard restriction/Trigger nullification.  

I am still playing 3 copies of "The Ace" in the case that I do get rushed extremely hard early game and I want the guaranteed extra drive checks on first stride; "The Ace" does not have a [1/Turn] restriction so you can pay his cost twice (Counter Blast 2 to flip "The Ace" face-up in G-zone) to unlock his GB2 skill. The extra copy of "The Ace" can be used as flip fodder for Vortex. 

Grade 3

Still playing 8 G3s the only difference is swapping out Blademaster for "The Legend". The idea is still the same, I play more "other" G3s to reduce the chance of having to ride the End (unless you are locked on grade 2). "The Legend" is also a decent ride if you don't get "The X" for some reason, you want possibly dig a PG with his on-ride skill or if you are extremely behind and you desperate need to hit those Heal Triggers; Ride him over "The X" (since he grabs you Flame Dragon card on ride, it's not a minus) to use his GB2 skill and get 6 drive checks. 

Now the reason why I think a deck focused on "The Legend" isn't good right now is because he actually does nothing outside of his on ride skill. Because of how strong the new Strides are, the deck is now a lot more stride focused and the general Stride formula Vortex>"The Ace">Nouvelle>Nouvelle usually wins you the game. If you can stride and you will want to stride every turn because the Strides put out so much pressure; retire units, re-stand or glory skill, take your pick...especially at 3-4 damage a Critical that hits can potentially end the game. So you won't actually have the chance to use "The Legend"s GB2 skill which means "The Legend" becomes a vanilla G3 after his initial ride. This is also the same with "The X" but consider these scenarios: 

What if you can't Stride?
You're in a grind game both players are on low damage. 
Your fighting for card advantage in order to gain some sort of lead over your opponent.

There are turns where you don't have the resources to Stride, perhaps you want to retire 2 units with "The Ace" or you want to gain some sort of guaranteed advantage over your opponent then the value of "The Ace"/the End goes up tremendously because of their versatility. Legion is almost a like a backup fail proof plan in the case striding is not an optimal choice, there's no cost because "The X" grabs you a card and he hits decent numbers. But more importantly your opponent can technically take any VG attacks (damage can be healed and turned in to resources) because there are no consequences (inb4 triple crit for game =P) none of your cards generate advantage for yourself. But your opponent MUST guard (potentially lose card advantage) whatever "The Ace"/the End attacks if they don't want you to plus (remember the cost to re-stand with the End is only 1 (twin drive - 1 = +1) vs. 3 (triple drive - 3 = 0) for "The Legend") which means they are always choosing between dropping cards or letting you get free cards (this is more easily achievable by attacking the rear guard). Either way you are getting a trade in your favor on top of the Calamity Tower+Dragonic Burnout+Tahr Legion loop with "The X".

Grade 2 and 1s

The guts of the deck have been made more streamline for striding and Legion looping. Lizard General, Conroe ties the line up neatly together to ensure the correct Overlord ride, counter charging when needed and a decent field control presence throughout the game with Dragonic Burnout and Neoflame:

1 - Discard an Overlord card with Conroe's [Auto] skill; this sets up for Burnout.

2 - Play Neoflame on the same column as the units you want to retire.

3 - Play Dragonic Burnout; return the Overlord discarded by Conroe's skill, soul blast 1 to retire a unit. Retire the unit on the same column as Neoflame to proc Neoflame's effect.

The result is counter blast 1 and soul blast 1 to retire 2 units.

The other two notable units are Nehalem and Tahr.

Nehalem replaces Burning Horn Dragon as a 11k attacker with the ability to gain 5000 power each time your G4 VG attacks which synergises nicely in Overlord decks since we do have trouble calling multiple units and hitting high numbers. Nehalem can hit very good numbers on "The Ace" turns and with trigger effects.

Instead of the Bellogs I chose to play 2 copies of the new G1 Tahr. At the cost of 1 counter blast and 1 soul blast he gives a unit 4000 power and the skill to look at top 5>search for G3 when the unit attacks. In essence he is offensive option to Bellog plus who doesn't like free cards for no reason at all.

Tahr has 3 utilities:

1 - You can use Tahr's effect to filter G3s in your deck before drive checking to increase the chance of getting triggers. You get to search twice if you give the effect to a re-standing unit.

2 -  Tahr can give 4000 power to any grade 1 or 0 (with no effect) to hit the magic 9000 and 11000 powers so any unit can force a 5k shield.

3 - He fills the void of a 3rd Calamity Tower; using the soul blast to help with Legion looping.

Overlords have always been super VG centric so its nice to have rear guards that actually support the VG now instead of just typically being bodies to dump triggers on.

Grade 0

I've made 3 changes to the G0 line:

First is a slight change to the trigger line up from 6 Critical, 6 Draw and 4 Heal to 7 Critical, 5 Draw and 4 Heal. 7 Critical and 5 Draw is a more standard line up for "The X" decks and I've fallen back to it again; the extra Critical does help because the deck in general is now more aggressive so you really want hit crits during the turns you re-stand and stride Nouvelle. That being said it's still a legion deck so Draws help speed things up; ideally you want to hit Draws early to filter through the deck and when you legion put back all the Critical and Heal triggers.

Second is the addition of the og Lizard Soldier, Conroe. He is restricted for a good reason; an extremely versatile card, drawing him basically means you have any G1 or 0 unit you want, that itself is enough reason to play it; combined with Draws, Tahr and Lizard General, Conroe this deck filters through the deck fast; his value will go up even more once we get G-Guardians.

And last is Lizard Hero, Undeux; he is the new starter on the block. Very simple skill; GB1 counter blast 1 search for an Overlord card. I prefer him over other starters right now because he can get me both copies of "The X"/the End when I legion; this sets up for a very strong legion plays or striding next turn as well as more deck filtering.

The deck doesn't function too differently only its now got more power plays and the power to end games much easier. At its core it is still a grind deck and very often you go through 4-5 stride turns; if you want a deck that could drag games on and battle hard for resource advantage and field control this is the deck.


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