Standard Budget Deck: Divine Gauge (Genesis)

   

There's more than one Genesis player here

Did you ever want to build a deck with reasonably affordable waifus tied to Greek and Norse mythology? Have you ever wanted to call down a board but were in fear over your opponent's control options against it? Have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, wouldn't it be cool if my board couldn't be touched whilst still allowing me to get the big swings and restands other popular decks have?" Well do I have the deck for you!

Premium Budget Deck: Geoma-Glass Cannon

Justice once again

 

So this can also be dubbed as a Crazy Diamond build but I prefer Geoma-Glass Cannon for the irony in addition to having a more straightforward naming process. This build is focused on using the Enigman ride chain, allowing you to skimp out on other units of that grade in order to run as many Grade 3s as possible. The original build used this in tandem with Daikaiser to abuse the break ride skill, and other variants since then focus on synergizing with units that benefit from running a lot of Grade 3s. In the modern day we now have Geomaglass who greatly lends itself to this strategy alongside new units from the V series with higher base stats that can be abused by the deck. 

Instead of the usual spotlight where I provide various options to run with a sample build alongside it, I'll be instead providing insight on my own take for a budget build, which you're welcome to change at your own discretion. 

Premium Budget Deck: (True) Ancient Dragons

This one's for you friend

Tachikaze, and more specifically Ancient Dragon was the first deck I had fully built in real life after reading Tachi's post and discussing ideas with him online. While I did move away from the clan after ADs fell out of relevancy, I would still play games casually with the deck and with V Series coming around I had always hoped a reboot would give the archetype another moment in the spotlight. And here we are, six years from that point, with new cards promoting the aggressive playstyle of the past. 

Standard Budget Deck: Dimension Police (Metalborg Mashup)

I dislike having to remember Legion

With Silverdust Blaze recently released it's a good time to talk about the new giant robots from this round of Dimension Police support. While the support in this set has been mixed, a good amount of options have been provided to the regular and budget playstyles. Bradblack is an outstanding addition to several variants within the clan due to it's ease of use. It being a RRR also means it can find its way into many budget builds and can give them a boost of power needed to make them more viable. With that in mind, one of these options is Metalborgs, which will be the focus of this post. 

Premium Budget Deck: Aqua Force (Ripple Cycloned)

Considering Cyclone was the cover card for Premium Collection 2020, it only seems fitting that we make some sort of post on it. We're gonna be nostalgia tripping tho. 

I'm sure some of you remember Odysseus, the broken rare that made Ripples top tier, allowing it to take the World Championship in 2015. But, as all good things must come to an end, Odysseus was soon thereafter semi-limited which crippled the deck severely, and it fell out of the meta pretty hard. 

The deck didn't age especially well, either. Bushi eventually gave Aqua players Odysseus back at 4 during V-Era. With the stride ruling change, the opponent can force the G2 game to end by simply riding up. In addition, using Odysseus after riding up to legion using Miltiades during the main phase is... mediocre. Compared to the powerhouse strides that we have nowadays, the Ripple legion is not a valid playstyle.

Don't get the wrong, though, Odysseus is still broken, providing you with an unparalleled G2 game. Calling big beatstick vanillas to rear with extra on-hit pressure from Pavroth is strong. The Cyclone package gives the deck actual scaling into late-game and access to a first stride Valeos that stops damage triggers. 

It's also worth noting that if you open your 1 Zazan and an Odysseus you do some cheeky stuff and probably autowin?

But let's get into it.