Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Time Mending Dragons! Gear Chronicle Deck Profile!



In the advent of a collapsing space-time, a great power shall soon emerge. And the bringers of this power are those that transcend time itself! It's time to take the future into our hands with the mighty Gear Chronicle clan! 






First off, a big thanks to Rider Kick for sending me this article to post. This was his article and he has given me permission to post it. 

Heralding the new age of Vanguard is the newest clan, Gear Chronicle. The new clan first appears in the "reboot" of the vanguard in both animated series and actual TCG appearing in the Vanguard G. The clan boasts an array of abilities such as sending back units to the bottom of the deck, raising defense while attacked, and restrict guarding from the hand.

Gear Chronicle is also quite a first for vanguard in a number of ways. First they are a main character clan that does not revolve around the traditional Paladin type, secondly they are associated with Dark Zone, but will get into this last part a bit later as they are, currently, a bit more unique for Dark Zone. Finally, this is the only clan that is fully playable with out any: Limit Break, Quintet Wall, Lord, Cross or Superior ride in the entire game.


So for this little article we'll be looking at some of the more unique and notable members of the clan as well as a deck. We will be using the Japanese cards of course as the American ones are not to released and will be using all confirmed cards, including those of the upcoming Soaring Beauty set in Japan.



So heading right into the review we have the grade 0's which are filled with the grunts and shock troopers of the clan which comprise primarily of steam punk armored humans. The zero's have notable triggers in lucky pot dracokid, which is a Margal clone and one of the few ways  for Gear Chronicle to actively gain soul. 

We also have Thrilled worker, a stand trigger, whom allows to boost and return itself to the deck and allows a stride unit to be turned back face down for use later. This can potentially be useful with Ragnaclock's ability, but only time will tell. 

As for the starters we have the generic top 5 grade 3 searcher in Timepiece Dracokid, and probably the more used Gunner Gear Dracokid. His ability lets you search your deck for any grade 3 after you have a face up stride(Generation break) your unit, a counter blast of 1, and putting him in the soul.

Grade ones like the zeroes are made up of mostly steam punk inspired humans or cyborgs, along with a dragon. Now Steam Breath Dragon is a very good card which two purposes. The first is filtering out your deck and grabbing a Chrono Jet Dragon when it comes into play on the rear guard for the price of discarding a card. The second ability is what makes this card a key component in the deck by discarding it to pay the cost to stride it's grade becomes a 3 paying the full cost. This allows you to stride a total of up too 11 times. 

The perfect guard comes in the form of Steam Maiden Alulim, whom  allows you to unflip a damage so long as there is another copy of her in the discard pile when played.

A new promo that  just dropped Mesuhede is a decent 7k that allows you to unflip damage for the cost of soul blasting 1 whenever you use gear chronicles' primary ability of returning rear guards to the bottom of the deck.

We round out the grade 1's with two units worth putting in any gear chronicle decks. We have first soldier Toge, whom when attacked becomes an 11k defender a first of his kind(Yes, it's a dude.)
This is really interesting because it forces a trigger for an unboosted vanguard all the way up to grade 3, and messes with columns that are trying to rush early game.

Finally we have steam Scalar Gigi, who is a Rising Phoenix clone. She is worth mentioning as extra draw is always a good thing, however like Rising Phoenix her cost is soul blast 2 and since right now outside of your grade 0's Gear Chronicle does not have a way to aggressively soul charge. Further more since this is a Dark Zone clan soul is important and is better used with other vanguard and rear guard abilities. 


Moving on to the grade 2's which give us pretty much the bread and butter of abilities for Gear chronicle we have 3 units in particular to talk about, some coming from the upcoming set Soar Beauty!

First off we have Steam Fighter Amber, when he (Again, it's a dude.) swings at the vanguard boosted so long as you have a face up stride in the G zone, you can CB 1 and send a rear guard 2 or less back to the bottom of the deck. He's pretty straight forward in what Gear Chronicle is sent to do. And on top of that he can get rid of troublesome boosters like Bruno, just for swinging at the vanguard.

For second spot we have a tie between Relic Master Dragon, who is a deathscythe clone. While CB2 seems high with a large amount of unflipping done by the lower grade units, it's not bad to have. Plus this triggers Mesuhede and allows you to really turn CB2 into CB1 SB1.

The other unit is is Glimmer Breath Dragon, whom, when he comes into play for CB and SB 1 So long as you have a Chrono Jet on the field and a GB of 1  lets you send a 2 or less back to the bottom and gain 2k.

Honestly it seems like Relic Master would be the better choice as it's a lot less requirements to go through for the ability and we have more ways of unflipping damage.

Finally we have Steam Maiden Ishin from the new set Soar Beauty.  Whenever anyone is sent to the deck on your opponents side as long as you can GB1 and CB1 she gains the silent tom ability when she swings. And since the 2 units mentioned  can return easily she's a welcome addition.

Now I suppose i should mention Steam Knight Purzu, for a SB2 you when you swing at the vanguard while he's on rear he's a Silent Tom. Without Soaring Beauty he would've made it into the deck, however like Gigi, with no aggressive way to soul charge in the clan yet the SB2 is too heavy a price to pay just for a rear guard swing.

Nearing the home stretch we have the Grade 3's. We have two interesting choices and our deck's Ace, Avatar, or Key card, depending on your personal preference.

First off we have a choice to make in our off grade 3's our choices are between Fate Wheel Dragon and Dimensional Ejector Colossus.

Fate Wheel initial ability is GB1 and CB1 and when it attacks it Silent Tom's the opponents hand. The secondary ability  lets you CB and SB 1 and you can send a grade 1 or less to the bottom of the deck again triggering Mesuhede so for soul blast 2 you get to unflip the damage and return a opponents booster back to the deck. He is a really good choice to use opposite Chrono Jet.

But with the upcoming release of Soaring Beauty we are given a new choice in the form of Dimensional Ejector Colossus who is honest a bit too good for his rarity sitting merely at a common. It's first ability is of course a GB1 cost, only this time you must put a grade 0 back from your field into your deck, and you may call a grade 3 from the deck to a rear guard and that unit gains an additional 5k. This is amazing on many different ends. First we get to recycle triggers back into the deck, secondly it calls to a rear guard, not an open rear guard. We could call Relic Master retire, activate Ejector, call another ejector over Relic and have it be a 16 on it's own.  And like Fate Wheel it's secondary ability is SB and CB 1 and send a g1 or less back into the deck on the opponents board. Which once again with Mesuhede means it's simply SB 2 once the damage is unflipped.

Given personal preference I would be taking Dimensional Ejector over Fate Wheel any day because it has just a bunch of versatility.

Onward to the new Avatar of the series, Chrono Jet Dragon. Naturally as the main characters key card he is very powerful and helps trigger effects or goes for game very quickly.

The first ability is GB2 and when he swings before boosted he's a 16 and your opponent can no longer guard with g1's or higher meaning they are going to need to empty their hand of all their triggers just to guard.

It's secondary ability is a mere CB1 and when he had been stride over return any rear guard to the bottom of the deck, so as i've said before, you got mesuhede this effect merely costs SB1.  Those two powers are really good and it's no wonder why he's the head of the clan, shutting down perfects and becoming 16 on it's own is a big deal. Not to mention he had several cards that work in concert with him once he hits the field. The secondary ability is equally as powerful as it's not a cost restrictive return. Though it would be best used on interceptors to ensure they'll have to guard with the hand once you do stride him.

Now the final turn(See what I did there?) Grade 4's the stride unit. The newest mechanic of vanguard on full display and boy does gear chronicle not disappoint in this area.

We first have Lost Age dragon who like all Stride units Triple Drive Check has an on vanguard hit ability of returning any rear guard back to the deck. Combining this with Chrono Jet means a potential lose of 2 units if the attack hits and at least a confirmed loss of 1 unit via Chrono.

We then have Ragnaclock which has the on attack ability of CB1 and persona flip in the G zone becomes silent tom, with the added bonus of an extra crit on swing of there are two or more stride units face up. He's actually servers a secondary purpose as your first unit you'll want to stride if you have Chrono Jet as the vanguard. You see once you use the ability and the turn ends you'll have two Strides face up activating Chrono Jet's primary skill  making the game go into a much harder push on the opponent with a constant 16k attack vanguard that only allows trigger guards.

Finally the true boss of the clan comes in the brilliant form of Chronos Command Dragon. This heavy hitter has an on hit ability allowing you to send the entire field save for vanguard, back to the bottom of the deck. This will most certainly pull either a quintet wall or a pg to prevent the serious field loss.

So there we have it thoughts and idea's for a Gear Chronicle deck below is a starting deck list which can be used as a skeleton to all those going to be using this clan when they hit the states in the next few months.

Flux Capacitor

0's = 17
1 Gunner Gear Draco Kid
4 Steam Fighter, Dadashig
4 Steam Fighter, Mashuda
4 Lucky Pot Draco Kid
4 Steam Maiden, Ululu

1's =13
4 Steam Breath Dragon
4 Steam Maiden, Alulim
3 Steam Soldier, Toge
2 Steam Fighter, Mesuhede

2's =12
4 Relic Master Dragon/ Glimmer Breath Dragon
4 Steam Fighter, Amber
4 Steam Maiden, Ishin

3's=8
4 Chrono Jet Dragon
4 Dimensional Ejector Colossus/ Fate Wheel Dragon

4's= 8
4 Interdimensional Dragon, RagnaClock Dragon
2 Interdimensional Dragon, Lost Age Dragon
2 Interdimensional Dragon, Chronos Command Dragon

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