Luard/Raven (deck recipe) [as of GBT12]

Luard is Shadow Paladin's competitive representative. There's a few builds floating around some more pure ritual, draw triggers etc and there's this one Luard /Raven, in our opinion the strongest version; previously wasn't seen much but is very popular now especially in Japan. The deck is built around Luard's looping units and the potential endless pluses with Curse Eye Raven.

The deck has a very high skill cap and if played properly often requires the player to carry the opponent (because time) and plan 2 or 3 turns ahead.

Recipe

* = not staple/replace with what you like

Grade 4: 16
2 Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Doomed
2 Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Dragon
2 Dragstrider, Luard
2 Dark Dragon, Phantom Blaster Dragon "Diablo" *
1 Draganger, Ogma
1 Dark Knight, Irgahn Vert
1 Air Element, Sebreeze
1 Witch Queen Iniquity, Jeliddo (G-guardian) *
1 Dragwiser, Bronach (G-guardian) *
3 Dark Dragon, Plotmaker Dragon (G-guardian)

Grade 3: 6
4 Dragheart, Luard
2 Sharp Fang Witch, Fodla

Grade 2: 13
4 Knight of Brawn, Grosne
4 Dragwizard, Naoise
3 Dragwizard, Liafail
2 Skull Witch, Nemain *

Grade 1: 14
3 Cherishing Knight, Branwen
4 Dragsaver, Esras (Sentinel)
3 Abyssal Owl
2 Black-winged Swordbreaker
1 Knight of Sagacity, Gonvar
1 Dragwizard, Semias *

Grade 0: 17
4 Belial Owl (Crit)
4 Howl Owl (Draw)
4 Cursed Eye Raven (Stand)
4 Witch of Heresy, Jeliddo (Heal)
1 Lingering Night Avenger, Conrad (Starter) *

Notes

Some card explanations

• We chose to play 6 grade 3s because the only grade you want to ride is Luard so we want to minimise chances of not riding him in the case of g-assist. Fodla is just so amazing in the deck that we want to play at least 2 to see her at a reasonable rate. Fodla is a minimum when she calls Belial Owls or Cursed Eye Ravens.If Fodla is in your hand search Luard with Abyssal Owl and discard her or worst case scenario discard Fodla with Conrad (starter), Nemain or Esras and then G-assist for Luard.
• We chose to play Grosne instead of Morfessa, the Grosne/Raven combo is a win-con/finisher on its own which in our opinion is way more useful than the utility Morfessa brings.
• 2 Nemains, she puts in a lot of work early game (+1, helps filter and set up ritual etc) especially against rush and scales fine later as free draws and more filtering.
• 1 Gonvar for stronger Dragstrider turns.
• 1 Semias for more potential pluses.
• 4 Cursed Eye Ravens, core component of the deck. Counts as 2 units basically, combos with pretty much all the grade 2s, potentially generate infinite pluses and returns to deck so you can create stacks by filtering.
• Conrad is the starter of choice simply to get rid of any unwanted cards and increase the chance to draw in to something we want mainly Luard.Creeping Dark Goat is also a decent alternative but the problem with that was because of our lowish grade 3 count it often whiffed which not only cost us 1 counter-blast which is super important when fighting for stride priority but we lose a card...

Playing the deck

• The early game
  Get stride priority and mitigating as much damage as possible. However, it's ok for your opponent to Sebreeze IF you're not going to take too much damage and your board will not be wiped/your opponent won't get too much advantage unless your opponent has zero distruption tools because Luard can always fall back on playing to deck out or similar to Fenrir/Wiseman hand size almost becomes irrelevant if you have the complete Grosne+Cursed Eye Raven combo.
• The mid game/first stride
  Stabilise, get cards with Aurageyser Doomed to set up for the next couple turns. This is what the staple combo looks like:
  1. Stride in to Aurageyser Doomed [-1].
  2. Luard stride ability, retire a unit [-1] and call Swordbreaker+Belial [+2], Swordbreaker ability, soul blast 1 and draw a card [+1].
  3. Use Cursed Eye Raven ability, shuffle back in deck [-1] and call 2 cards [+2].
  4. Aurageyser Doomed ability, retire 3 (prioritize retiring Belial Owls or units called by Raven) [-3], reveal/draw 2 cards [+2], Belial Owl's ability when retired [+1].
  5. Vanguard attack, drive check [+3] = +5 cards

The above is a basic look at the combo and can be extended with Cursed Eye Raven, Belial Owl, Liafail, Fodla, Nemain, Naoise, Semias and Esras. The easiest way to think of it is every time these units go off its a minimum +1. Done right you usually +10~ cards through the turn so you end with around 15~ cards in hand (usually at least 1 Esras).

• If you find yourself a situation (example against Crazy 8) where it's more important to rid your opponent's cards, go in to Ogma.
• Against decks that have large columns but less attacks (say 4~5) where you really only need 8~ cards in hand each turn prioritise getting Esras out of the deck so you can start looping Esras to hand. Luard's stride ability (call 2 Esras) on Aurageyser Doomed turn gets you 1 Esras to hand immediately.
• Here are your win-cons:
  Deck your opponent out
  Something that the Luard player base doesn't abuse enough. Use Luard's Ritual ability with Belial Owls, Cursed Eye Ravens and Esras to continuously recycle/loop the deck, you actually NEVER deck out if played correctly. Consider these when playing to this win-con:
  • What cards and when to start returning to deck because you may require certain cards for say GB8 later.
  • How much to return; food for thought, the maximum amount of cards that can return back to deck in 1 turn is around 12 cards (4 Belial Owl, 4 Cursed Raven, 2 Esras and 2 cards from Luard's Ritual ability).
  • Be prepared to stall the game out, don't do anything that will give your opponent a chance to make big plays, it may be just bashing with Vanguard without striding to reduce cards coming out of the deck or even not attacking so your opponent can't G-guard or get counter-blast.

Knight of Brawn, Grosne+Cursed Eye Raven loop
Basically a mini version of Fenrir's Wiseman+Tahro loop we don't get as many attacks but can hit just as hard and is generally easier to set up. Grosne gets power every time a grade 1 or less is placed on the field and Cursed Raven calls up to 2 units by returning itself to deck.

1. We typically play 2 Grosne in the front row.
2. Play and activate Cursed Eye Ravens in the back row one at a time, the Ravens and whatever grade 1 or less called are going to proc Grosne's ability.
3. Out of Ravens? Use Naoise, Fodla, Liafail, Nemain etc to filter and dig them out
4. Rinse and repeat.

Done right you can end up with a stacked deck usually Belials and Cursed Ravens while making 51k+ columns.

Dragstrider, Luard 
Basically smack your opponent with guard restriction til they don't have the appropriate resources to guard anymore...Use Gonvar to make Dragstrider turns even scarier.