Blasters & the Beasts (deck recipe) [update1 as of GBT12]

Blasters are one of two competitive archetypes for Royals right now. This version of the deck plays more mid-range and tries to use the "Blaster" cards to generate a consistent advantage eventually building up to a lead/snowball effect.

Recipe

* = not staple/replace with what you like

Grade 4: 16
1 Holy Dragon, Myriad Soul Saver
2 Holy Divine Knight, Gancelot Peace Saver
2 Divine Knight King,  Alfred Holy Saver
2 Aerial Divine Knight, Altmile
1 Blazing Sword, Fides *
1 Golden Knight of Gleaming Fang, Garmore *
1 Divine Knight of Condensed Light, Olbius Avalon
1 Air Elemental, Sebreeze *
2 Holy Beast, Divine Maskkgal (G-Guardian)
1 Great Flash, Iseult (G-Guardian)
1 Little Great Sage, Marron (G-Guardian)
1 Dark Element, Dizmel (G-Guardian) *

Grade 3: 6
4 Blaster Blade Exceed
2 New Style Blaster, Llew

Grade 2: 13
4 Blaster Blade
1 Blaster Blade Spirit
1 Swordsman of Light, Blaster Javelin Larousse *
4 Favored Pupil of Light and Dark, Llew
1 Starlight Violinist *
2 Star Hope Trumpeter *

Grade 1: 14
4 Laurel Knight, Sicilus
3 Maiden of Divine Spring, Lien (Sentinel)
1 Walgal (Sentinel)
4 Blaster-friend, Barcgal
1 Swordsman of Light, Laura *
1 Earth Element, Connell *

Grade 0: 17
4 Floral Paladin (Crit)
4 Arongal (Crit)
4 Margal (Draw)
4 Healing Pegasus (Heal)
1 Wingal Brave (Starter)

Notes

Quick card run down

• Instead of a second pair of Alfred Savers I decided to go with Aerial Altmile, Fides and Garmore, these 3 are set up/replenish cards.
  • Aerial is a +2 if you go in to Violinist.
  • Fides immediately sets up Gancelot resist or calls a grade 2 on first stride for you to combo right away.
  • Garmore recycles a card, usually Blaster Blade or Llew and the reason for all the high beasts.
• Walgal (vanilla PG) is for Great Sage, Marron.
• There's 1 Blaster Javelin for the Alfred Saver wombo combo turn will explain below. Normally it'd be another Blaster Blade Spirit, Javelin has the Blaster name anyway.
• 1 Connell searchable via Trumpeter mainly to annoy Heteroround =)
• 4 draws because one of the win-cons for this deck is GB8 turbo a very common 3rd stride considering that between turn 1 and 3rd stride we can easily dig through 25+ cards. Margals are preferred, his ability is very handy to help cards hit magic numbers.

Playing the deck

• You want to rush while fighting for stride priority. The aim is to finish on first or second stride, third is probably the absolute latest as IMO playing this deck past that point is counter intuitive to the deck's strengths, just think about it for a minute:
  • The deck's bread and butter is Pupil, Llew in to Blaster Blade and Blaster Blade+Floral Flogal which is a -1. Can the deck generate enough advantage to keep up with the multiple -1s over the course of a longer game?
  • We have limited Blaster Blades; if we're unlucky ride, draw and/or damage one that's potentially 1-3 out of the deck, Pupil, Llew, Alfred Saver, Exceed's stride ability etc values' drop considerably if we don't have targets.
  • The deck's effectiveness is also limited by counter-blast so we will eventually reach a point where we either cannot get any more or opponent can just play around it.
  • If we stride Gancelot followed by Alfred Saver with optimal plays we can easily go through 35~ cards already. We'll deck out...
    • TLDR; the deck doesn't have enough range to play long games.
    • Most decks have 1 distinct power spike; for GB decks its the moment they stride as they're no longer GB locked but Blasters actually have 2:

• First power spike - Grade 2:
  • A higher grade 2 count helps with our early game aggression; rush and fighting for stride priority.
  • The typical grade 2 game consists of using some variation of Blaster Blade, Pupil, Llew, Barcgal or Flogal and basically bashing your opponent.
  • If you have Violinist the primary search target is Pupil, Llew because he refills the soul that Violinist uses.
    NOTE You can't make these plays aimlessly or just to "rush", your opponent can counter by attacking your rear-guards to deny counter-blast and force you to minus.
  • The player to ride grade 2 second gets the advantage of Sebreeze pressure (read FAQ for more info for stride priority) however if you do ride grade 2 first a field like this is potentially 6 damage.

                    So weigh out the pros and cons before committing to a play.

• Second power spike - First 2 strides:
  • Gancelot Saver - quad drive
  • Myriad Saver - field power buff.
  • Most decks hover around 5-7 cards before first stride, with that in mind these strides can potentially end the game if your opponent is on 3~ damage.Consider a field similar to the above and we are on Myriad Saver. Lets say our opponent has a 6 card hand, we can make:
    1. Pupil, Llew (19k) attacks vanguard  > Llew brings out Blaster Blade.
    2. Myriad Saver attacks vanguard > dump all triggers on Blaster Blade (17k~).
    3. Violinist boosted by Flogal (22k) attacks vanguard.
    4. Blaster Blade (17k~) attacks vanguard > Flogal re-stands Blaster Blade.
    5. Blaster Blade (17k~) attacks vanguard again.

• A typical hand is probably:
  • 1~2 stride fodder; probably won't be guarding with these.
  • 1~ sentinel; a PG is 2 cards, hefty cost this early in the game, if they don't guard you can crit sack =P
  • 1~3 rear guard units
  • 1~3 triggers
  • If your opponent doesn't have a heal trigger to G-Guard and we can make 21k columns they will require 2 or more cards to guard each attack (10+5, 10+10 etc.). Guarding 21k three times is basically their entire hand gone.

• Here's a sample Alfred Saver+Javelin combo:

1. You're on Alfred Saver and have 3 counter-blast after paying the cost for Alfred Saver's ability.
2. Pupil, Llew boosted by Barcgal (19k) attacks vanguard > counter-blast 1 goes in soul and brings out Blaster Javelin > Blaster Javelin's ability triggers, put 2 cards from hand to soul and call 2 High Beasts, in this case Flogals.
3. Blaster Javelin (12k) attacks.
4. Alfred Saver attacks > triple drive, give triggers to Blaster Blade.
5. Blaster Blade boosted by Flogal attacks > twin drive, triggers to Blaster Blade again > Flogal's go off, counter-blast to re-stand Blaster Blade.
6. Blaster Blade attacks > second Flogal goes off, counter-blast to re-stand Blaster Blade again.
7. Blaster Blade attacks 1 more time.

• Typical grade 4 game is:
  Gancelot Saver/Myriad Saver > Alfred Saver/Aerial, Altmile > G-guard in between > Olbius Avalon/Myriad Saver/Garmore