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: 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. 

Premium Budget Fight: Spike Brothers (Bad End)

Congrats Chiefs

So with the Superbowl being a recent event, I thought it'd be appropriate to talk about Spike Brothers. In both Standard and Premium Spikes are a pretty solid clan that sets up rear guards to threaten the opponent each turn. Recent sets have also given the deck the ability to complement their aggressive playstyle with draw power and nice tech options as well. V-EB09 has graced us with the return of Bad End Dragger, and with everything Spikes already have alongside with being pretty budget in general, we can revisit a popular premium variation that use him alongside his stride Good End Dragger for a strong aggro turn.

Deck Spotlight: Budget Brave (Royal Paladin)

So after me asking on the Budgetfight discord what my next post should be, mah boi Phantast said he wanted an updated Brave list on the blog. So, with the help of Phantast, Bluish, and Verz , we worked out a final list and a post. Now, I present to you budget Brave in 2k17!

Glancing at the market, Brave at first seems like a money deck due to the expensive Royals stuff. Blasters and Sanc Guard have caused some of the generic stuff to be stupidly expensive, and hard to get for budget players. Thankfully, a lot of the Brave-specific support was practically untouched by this market inflation, and is easy for players to get. In addition to being way cheaper than most Royals decks, it's strong. Sure, it's overshadowed by Sanc Guard and Blasters, but it can still be a tough deck to beat.

Deck Spotlight: Triochou (Bermuda Triangle)

Best Onee-san figure

...God it's been 3 entire months since I wrote something here. Handling a job, two blogs, moderating
on discord, and playtesting all of my decks ended up being a lot for me to handle.

But I'm here now, so that's what counts.

In terms of new sets, we've just left Bermuda month and now have our annual Bermuda set, Prismatic Divas! All the stuff in the set, bar SPs, Ange, and Lapria, are all really, really cheap now so if you want to get anything out of the set I highly recommend you do now. $4 Kukuris are just... wew.

But the hottest new thing out of Bermuda month is Bermuda's first Trial Deck, introducing the new Bermuda archetype: Chouchou(pronounced Shushu, just as a side note. It's French).

The new archetype involves sending your own rearguards to the bottom of the deck to gain benefits. Unfortunately the benefits aren't too great at the moment and the deck is riddled with resource problems, but it's still a very fun deck that can be built on a pretty low budget. The main deck is entirely commons and Trial Deck cards, after all.

Budget Deck: Shadow Paladin (Raging)

You Mad?

With Divine Dragon Caper we got Reprints. And among those reprints was Raging Form Dragon. Who is now $3-4.

Yep. Today's post is Ragings. I can finally call Raging a budget deck.

Raging Form is a really powerful deck,  one of the meta Shadow Paladin decks actually (although they are getting beaten out by Diablo at the moment). They're really powerful and really fun. He even got some support in the last booster set.

Before we start, I should talk about Rapt. A bunch of people were disappointed with it. A bunch. And it wasn't hard to see why, with a huge cost of Retire 2 and Discard 2 Abyss Dragon Grade 3s. But! I found that it was actually really easy to get three or even four attacks with Rapt given the right build.  And three to four vanguard attacks usually ends games, if I remember correctly. Rapt is a solid card.  And he's $6-7. Cheap. Effective. Deadly. Perfect

Update Deck: Kagero (Blademaster)

Draconic Blademaster
"Tight In"

Ey, Tachimas here. Finally got around to writing this thing.

So.

Remember way back in the day when I wrote that Blademaster post? Yeah, me neither. Blademaster rose in price in the past few sets due to the amazing support it has gotten, and to be completely fair, he's now extremely viable in the metagame and very fun. However, Blademaster didn't rise in price that much, it's only about...... $7.

Welpies.

I mean, $7 a piece should be able to be considered budget technically, but that varies on the person. Anyways, a Blademaster deck built to be budget should cost only about... well, $40(Robot: Not) or so I guess. That's preety damned budget in my standards. That being said, I'll write a "casual-meant extremely cheap cheesy budget deck that costs $10 to make" cheapo Sutherland deck post soon either ways.

Update Deck: Claret

Weakness is a sin

So. Claret's got some new toys.

The support that Claret has gotten from GBT-06 is good. Really good. Claret finally gets a Glimmer Breath clone, along with a great new starter and dedicated unflipper. Shadows in general even have a great new Effect Stand Trigger. And hey, it's cheap as hell. 

I've found that a Claret deck can get HUGE amounts of card advantage and deck cycling when built right, even without Aurageyser. This helps make a budget Claret deck actually quite viable. Of course we'll be sacrificing a bit aggressive power, but the deck functions perfectly fine. Crit pressure with Claret and PBDiablo will make up for it.

Anyways, let's get on with the blog!

Tips: Blaster Engine

Llew and Friends are finally back with

even more blaster support!

With the release of GBT-06 Royal Paladin decks got a HUGE boost of power with the new Favored Pupil of Light and Dark, Llew. It tutors any Grade 2 Blaster at the cost of itself during the battle phase. It is just plain awesome. And guess what? There isn't that little Generation Break restriction on it. Think of it like a Knight of Twin Sword, but with loads more utility.

The only problem about Llew? Blaster Blade is about $15-20 (Lucky you if you held on to your copies all these years.) But fear not! Your wallets will be safe, my fellow Royal Paladin players, and you will not be denied your new support. We have another, more budget-friendly option.