Set Review: G Booster Set 9 Divine Dragon Caper

Divine Dragon Caper's our first G NEXT Booster Set. It's a bit of a... double sided coin really. On one hand, the support for many decks came and a few others were revived, like Descendant, Maelstrom, Celestials, and Dudleys. On the other hand, many of the cards in this set were designed... pretty poorly to say the least.

Also, Kourin aka. Verz is gonna be writing a few of the reviews, so thanks to him.

First, I'd like to outline what decks got new support and debuted in this set:

• Vanquisher
• Thavas 
• Rescue
• Raging
• Luard
• Descendant
• Rising
• Zodiac Time Beasts
• Maelstrom
• Celestial
• Dudley
• Blue Wave
• Cray Elemental

Vanquisher

The GR, Vanquisher "VMAX" is a pretty okay card. A Vermillion skill and Dragruler skill all in one card? Sounds nice but that Thunderstrike 5 requirement is very tough. Vanquisher decks are in need of units that can bind during the early game. The support in this set for Vanquisher has been lackluster and the deck has becomes even more reliant going into Voltage turns to maximize VMAX.

G-Era Narukami already has a lot of great strides but they lack units that support their main niche. This is the main concern that G-Era Narukami (or Narukami in general) has. No matter how many great strides Narukami get, it’s worthless when the main deck can barely keep up.

Kourin’s Rating: 5/10.

VMAX is a decent stride, unfortunately everything else they got was a disappointment.

Thavas

Wailing Thavas is amazing. His GB3 makes your opponent retire one of their units for each rear-guard that attacked during this turn. With Tidal Assault, Magnum Assault, Adelaide, etc you can potentially boardwipe for no cost. Thavas GB2 gives him +5k for each rear-guard that attacked this turn and your opponent can’t guard with a Grade 1. Sounds great right? It gets even better; Thavas has neither heart restriction nor a requirement for Commander Thavas to get his effect unlike our other GR "VMAX". Every Aqua Force builds benefits from Thavas and now has another powerful finisher alongside Lambros.

Kourin’s Rating: 10/10.

Thavas versatility as a finisher or as a control card is amazing. It gives Aqua Force builds retire options, or in other cases just gives them outright a great finishing combo (Despina + Thavas with Maelstrom Heart). Thavas can also set-up a Lambros turn by baiting out those G-Guards. Overall, the  Lambros-Thavas duo is going to storm back Aqua Force into its former glory.

Rescue

Althiel is an okay card. A potential Rescue 3 is great but her being an AUTO ability instead of ACT hurts Althiel's playability in Nociel. While she’s good in Gavrail decks, it also weakens their multi-attack combos by running more crits than stands. Angel Feathers thrive on multiple weak pokes to out-advantage their opponents. Losing stand triggers in favor of crits might sour Althiel in the eyes of many Angel Feather players. BUT! With the power of Rescue during the main phase and stacking 2-3 crit is going to be one dangerous turn, which is quite easy to pull off. Especially with an 11-Crit, 1 Refros lineup.

Kourin’s Rating 6 /10.

Althiel doesn’t move the needle much. She’s Zachriel's replacement in Nociel just to get GB2. Gavrail decks are still behind Nociel since it lacks the offensive/defensive capabilities of Nociel but Althiel does become a potential finisher in Gavrail with the 3 Rescue checks in the main phase. Overall, Althiel focused deck will be far more aggressive in comparison to Nociel.

Raging

At first, Raging Rapt looks really mediocre, thanks to its cost, but after playtesting for some time Raging Rapt is very, very potent considering how easy it is to get your combo pieces. Rapt is a very good card, but it takes a very dedicated list to fully bring out its potential. Abyss, Claret, and Hexes are all great back-ups for RFD decks.

Kourin’s rating: 6.5/10.

Rapt is a good card, but it won’t let Revengers overtake Diablo as the meta SP deck. But who I am kidding? Pulling Rapt off is going to be very satisfying.

(By the way. Aife sucks. Don't run her: Robot)

Luard

Dragdriver, Luard is decent, but in a clan where Phantom Blaster “Diablo”, Spectral Blaster “Diablo” and Aurageyser exist, it hard to fully incorporate Luard even in his own deck. In my honest opinion, the best Shadow Paladin that came out in this set is Dragwizard, Morfessa. Not only is she a great pressure card with her on-hit, she’s a 14k attacker that can hit even 13k defenses. Right now, Luard is still fresh and lacks the proper support which, in all honesty, just makes him a back-up to Diablo. A Luard deck lacks the strength and power of the established Diablo or even Revengers. 

Kourin’s rating: Luard: 5/10.

                           Morfessa: 9/10.

Morfessa is going to be a staple in a lot of Shadow Paladin decks. Diablo loves her by being able to replace those Macha, Revengers can even run 1-2 because of how insanely good her +5k is. Morfessa + any 7k booster will hit for 21k with an on-hit, that’s a 15k shield without using any CB.

Descendant

True Eradicator, Dragonic Descendant "Zillion" is good. Despite all the disappoint people have, Zillion is a decent card. It’s a great pressure card, especially when you have your opponent’s at 3+ dmg. But the rest of the eradicator support? Not so much. Just like Vanquisher, Bushi missed the memo that Narukami desperately needs a better main deck.

Kourin’s rating: 5.5/10.

Zillion is decent, the rest of the deck? Not so much. But 12-Crit Eradicators will be a thing again. Crit-Sacking your opponent into a "Zillion" turn is deadly.

Celestials

Anafiel is what Celestial needed. Her effect is pretty damn bonkers on how easy it is to manipulate damage zone *looks at Sariel*. Anafiel works well with the Legion, which is also Celestial's current best grade 3. Anafiel potential 12-15k power boost is strikingly similar to RP's Regalie. While not as easy to trigger as Regalie, being able to manipulate the damage zone to your perfection is the trick to mastering Celestial. Anafiel definitely gives life to Celestial.

Kourin’s rating:  6.5/10.

Anafiel helps Celestial catch up to Gavrail in terms of offensive firepower. While Nociel is still the clear-cut #1 AF deck, both Celestial and Gavrail/Althiel shouldn’t be overlooked. With Celestial having a big power stride in Anafiel while still having access to Refros, Celestial can and will hit those big numbers

Dudley

Dudley did good in this set. Caligula, which can be used as first stride, can enable Jessica's GB2. Another alternative strider, Ingram a gb restricted bruno clone and a stride fodder. This allows us to play a pure Dudley deck, as well as improve on Dudley hybrid decks.

Kourin's rating: 6.5/10

Jessica's 13k defense after 1st Stride is very, very huge. If Dudleys ever get their own set of triggers, their Quintet Wall is going to be massive for them.

Rising Nova

Okie Dokie. Robot takin' back the wheel for the rest of this post.

Now.

Remember how, a few blogs back, I said Spike Brothers have the best rushdown game? Well, it just got even better with this new set. They also got one of the most broken commons in the game at the moment. It's not enough to push them over the edge and make them hella meta(It's way to risky of a playstyle), but it sure as hell makes it much more viable.

The main card is Rising Supernova, who enables so much more combos. You might think that it isn't worth it because it can't be as effective early game, but that's where you're mistaken. In the right deck, you will be able to trigger Rising Supernova's skill first stride every single time. Rising Supernova's very, very deadly at essentially no cost.

Next up is the G-Guard, Juggie Maximum Maximum. At first look, he looks really, really pointless and bad but, taking a closer look, he gets +10,000 Shield, which is a must since Spike Brothers' defense is crap, and sends back a unit to deck to be reused and recalled with your toolbox.

Lethal Forward applies pressure and hits for 11k solo. Solid 2 to 3-of.

Serial Bomber and Outrage Lineback are our new G3 for Charge. Admittedly, they're not that great. Serial Bomber is useful for making your units in hand Charging, but there are plenty of other cards that can do that. Lineback hits for 21k with a 7k booster, but his skill is an on hit. You can use these if you find a use for them, but unfortunately I don't.

Mayhem Tiger. Is. Broken. He wins games. Soublast 1 to get rid of anything not called a G-guardian or Perfect Guard is soooo stupid. Slap a crit on this badboy or put your opponent to 5 damage and your opponent's gonna have to waste a precious guard or burn out his entire hand to guard him. It also helps that Spikes have a really easy time getting soul. If you can get Mayhem Tiger's charge off, I'd say he's a mandatory run in all Spikes builds now.

Airforce Eliza and Fullspeed Specter work very, very well with the new Rising Supernova. Airforce Eliza is your Charge enabler and Fullspeed Specter hits 21k in the backrow during a Rising Supernova turn.

Kourin's doing it, so I might as well.

Robot Victoria Chang's Rating: 8.5/10.

Solid, solid support that, along side the old Rising support from the Technical Booster, will give Spikes even better finishing turns and aggressive plays.

Zodiac Time Beasts

ZTBs really didn't get much this set. Apart from Lugal-ure and Split Pegasus, Gears didn't really get much significant cards. Zodiacs are still focused on power boosts, but they are getting slowly better at doing their vanilla power boosts.

Better than... Touken Ranbu at least...

Anyhow, talking about specifics. Lugal-ure is pretty good, letting you Time Leap him(her?) when you check a Grade 3 ZTB for the cost of soulblast one. It's a great card and lets you hit pretty solid numbers and extra attacks in a deck that's a bit lacking.

Split Pegasus is probably the best toolboxer ever. Once he gets better targets, he's gonna be one hella godly card.

Last card that needs mentioning is Hypno Sheep. While it is a -2, used properly it can end games. With the aggro that ZTB already has, a well timed Sheep can close out games. It's a more costly Flogal, but since it works for every ZTB, I recommend it quite a bit.

Robot Victoria Chang's Rating: 8/10.

We got good stuff for ZTB. Not a lot of it, but good stuff. It's still not superior to standard Time Leap at the moment, but this set sure helps them be able to stand on their own as a strong build.

Maelstrom

Maelstrom got one card. One. Card. And it's not even remotely strong or does anything to make Maelstrom a stronger deck.

Disaster Maelstrom. All that effort and a stride turn only to... search a G3? Really? That's... not a lot. In Break Ride Maelstrom decks it lets you get to Glory Maelstrom faster, but with all the ways we already have of searching out Maelstroms, I doubt we needed another one.

Robot Victoria Chang's Rating: 4.5/10.

Disaster Maelstrom doesn't make anything that Maelstrom has better or fix any of their major mistakes.

Blue Wave

Blue Wave support this set is... wonky? Like, its good, but it's sorta hard to fit it into current builds of  Blue Wave.

First issue is Lucianos. Lucianos is really good. 11k restander that can be reused every turn as long as you can pay the especial counterblast. But... his skill is a Wave 2 only. And sometimes that really, really hurts your ability to do combos. Regardless, I'd still run it as a G2 alongside Magnum/Tidal and Foivos.

The rest is just really odd power-boosters like Cimon and Damia. And then there's a worse Stacia clone.

Now, onto the actual good stuff.

First off is Iason, our new Blue Wave stride break(albeit a simple stride break). He's a nice ride target that, when striding into the new Artiom, can work pretty well. Simply put, riding Iason then striding into Artiom lets you have the stride bonus of Iason, then lets you fix your heart into Anger-boil. It's pretty nice, and Iason's a pretty worthy backup to Anger-boil. Iason also lets you get Tetra-boil's Wave 4 off without using CB on your rearguard skills.

Robot Victoria Chang's Rating: 7/10.

Nice addition to the Blue Wave line, but it will take some work fitting it into your older builds.

Cray Elementals

The Cray Elemental of this set is Honoly who, for one Counterblast on-call(which can be worked around in a few simple ways), forces both players to pay one CB if they want to attack more than 4 times per turn. This is really good in the multi-attack focused meta at the moment and can see some use if you can use it right.

Robot Victoria Chang's Rating: 6.5/10

It'll be a bit difficult for you to put it into your deck, but if your deck has issues against multi-attacking go ahead and use Honoly to fight back.

Verdict: This is a decent set. If you are a Luard player, this box is a guaranteed buy because of Luard and Morfessa's insane prices, as well as them being sold out in almost all of the online stores. Everyone else? Its a gamble. Many of the cards are barely $15 so its more recommended to buy singles, if you aren't a Luard player.

Anyhow, see you in the next one!

-Robot and Kourin