Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Dragonic Lawkeeper, Kagero: Deck Run Through

Dragonic Lawkeeper deviates just slightly from normal Kagero tactics. Where other Kagero decks play passively with defensive retires and destroying power columns, weakening attackers to turn power distribution in their favor, Lawkeeper decks are the attackers of a fight, using Kagero's retires to tear down the opponent's offensive, doubling up on power distribution in its favor.

On to the deck~

Grade 0
Lizard Soldier Conroe
X4 Dragon Monk Genjo
X4 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr
X4 Gatling Claw Dragon
X4 Blue Ray Dracokid

Grade 1
X2 Dragon Monk Gojo
X4 Embodiment of Armor Bahr
X4 Heatnail Salamander
X1 Lizard Soldier Raopia
X4 Wyvern Guard Barri

Grade 2
X3 Berserk Dragon
X4 Dragon Knight Nehalem
X3 Wyvern Strike Tejas

Grade 3
X4 Dauntless Drive Dragon
X2 Dragonic Lawkeeper
X2 Dual Axe Archdragon

Hey look, Conroe's here. I hope I won't have to explain that. Past that, 8 crit 4 draw for an aggressive set up.
q
Heatnail Salamander takes place as a utility Grade 1. Due to the nature of a Dragonic Lawkeeper deck, all your power is placed into the late game with Limit Break. Because of this and Kagero's lack of offensively orientated midgame units, one needs to use retire tactics to control and slow down the midgame, and greater open up a window for Lawkeeper to swoop in. This is where Heatnail comes in. Along with its great way to apply pressure to constantly poke at an opponent's hand, it's a great way to control power distribution across the board, creating leverage for you to pace the game in your favor and stave off the opponent's advances until you can set up Limit Break properly. Another member of the Grade 1 forces is Lizard Soldier Raopia, filling in more as a tech unit for Lawkeeper to face Cross-Rides, and a generally well valued unit for forward pushes. Long story short, it has very few bad points and only serves to pump Dragonic Lawkeeper up to 23K, punishing Cross-Rides and leaving far less demand on Bahrs who can better serve the Rear-Guard columns.

Berserk Dragon is one of Kagero's greatest utility units and very close to a staple for all builds and playstyles, just not for Lawkeeper. Despite its still extremely useful skill, its cost is just not something one can risk clashing with Lawkeeper too heavily. Despite that though, it, along with Heatnail Salamander, create an extremely useful barrier to deter many of the opponent's bigger plays throughout the midgame, creating more and more opportunities for your Limit Breaks to go off at their best times. Tejas plays back up in this defensive barrage on Rear-Guards, sniping out any troublesome boosters that create or could create powerful columns.

Kagero's Ride Break as of Booster Set 11, Dauntless Drive Dragon is the first ride of choice for the deck. While the rest of the deck works out its own shenanigans to create a buffer to safely get you to the late game without falling behind, Dauntless Drive Dragon's 11K defense allows to better hold off opponents. Along with this, its Ride Break allows other copies of itself or Lawkeeper to go off in huge and powerful strikes to finish off opponent's. But what really brings the deck together is Dragonic Lawkeeper. With Lawkeeper's skill, the opponent's field is bound for the turn. No intercepts, some units even lose power, and even killing off a unit if the opponent had a full attack force. Not to mention unlocking it's own and Archdragon's infinitely useful 13K attacker for you.

How the Deck Works: 

Dragonic Lawkeeper, with it's offensively orientated skill and Limit Break restriction, is a very powerful late game based deck and does performs extremely well for a deck designed for that part of the game.

A notable trait of power distribution is that the more and more late game based a deck is, generally the more power it has to sacrifice somewhere else-usually the midgame. Luckily, though, Lawkeeper is not one of these finishers. Kagero is a clan with enough utility Rear-Guards in order to keep even late game Dragonic Lawkeeper in the fight through the midgame, thanks to retiring skills killing off the opponent's power columns, and getting a relatively even chance to drag the opponent into their late game by the time Limit Break goes live.

And upon Limit Break, all hell breaks loose, and the deck's strengths really begin to shine. For a start, Dauntless Drive Dragon's Break Ride is absolutely no joke to mess with, punching for the ridiculous power range of nearly 65K shielding in the form of often 8 or even more cards all for the cost of 3 Kagero discards to restand your Vanguard. On top of this, however, Dragonic Lawkeeper's own Limit Break for the cost of only 1 Counter-Blast will proceed to banish the opponent's entire field, causing a chain reaction of all sorts of different effects on the game.

First and most obvious, no intercepts, locking away sometimes up to 10K shield from the opponent to use. Past that though, the opponent also will lose a unit every time a full field gets banished. Because Dragonic Lawkeeper will only return 4 bound units back, the opponent is thrusted in a lose lose situation between not attacking at full force but not suffering the minus, or having to constantly put up with said minus. On top of this, though, the opponent's lack of Rear-Guards activates a trio of power based skills for Lawkeeper to blast through with. First, his own power gives it a 13K Vanguard attack, unlocking a powerful power range against all other Vanguards. And with Raopia, this also means against Cross-Rides. Raopia actually doubles up on power distribution for your deck, being a better search target for Conroe than Bahr, and leaving X4 of them in your deck to draw through. Little tacts about probability, but sometimes one just has to comprehend and admire them. Finally, this also gives you access to what's essentially a Kagero flavored Palamedes. That's right, never again do you have to settle with your Paladin flavored Swordsman of Flames, instead you get an axe wielding archdragon who complements your Vanguards skills. Overall, as a late game deck, the deck's ability to maintain a more than optimal set up to stay in the fight through the midgame and wrap up with an amazing late game makes it a very powerful set up for any card fighter wielding Kagero's ability to tear down opponent's while seizing the game with their own powerful plays.

As an alternative for english players, one can use Goku in place of Dauntless to create another buffer to safely get you to the late game, where Lawkeeper can set out to take out the opponent.

1 comment: