Narukami’s army of thunder dragons, demons, desert gunners, and random cute girls, has come to be one of the most played clans in the english meta. This is due to their main vanguard, and my personal favorite card, Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion. Narukami pivots around a psuedo-control based play style, which is essentially Kagero-lite. They can exclusively stop interceptors without retiring them, utilize an anti-meta starter which snipes other starters with ease, destroy units with its (much cooler) Berserk Dragon clone, Dragonic Deathscythe, and activate the potentially massively destructive Vermillion Thunderbolt!
The Vermillion Pain Train
Vermillion is an extremely powerful card when utilized to its maximum. The combination of an 11k power and the destructive force of his skill makes Vermillion one hell of a force to be reckoned with. Vermillion’s Thunderbolt is one of the most feared skills in our meta, and the deck’s main win condition, as it is a very consistent card advantage bomb when Vermillion is played at max card count. I have come to see that playing 4 Vermillions and Spark Kid Dragoon (yes, i have joined the dark side) makes the most consistent Vermillion Pain Train.
The Issues with Vermillion
Despite the game shifting nature of such an effect, there are multiple issues with utilizing Vermillion’s bomb, the foremost being timing. Turning Vermillion from a powerful card into your win condition takes precise skill and timing, as many people will waste the bomb at times when the opponent isn’t set up and can take the incoming damage. Vermillion’s best use as is a bluffed threat until the proper timing is achieved.
Narukami can have a difficult time setting up a proper field and falling behind on card and damage advantage is a big possibility without a consistent flow of triggers or units which you don’t mind guarding with. Because of this, riding vermillion can be your best defense, as many who see vermillion automatically fear losing multiple cards from the Thunderbolt. Because of this, Narukami’s main objective is to make your opponent misplay until you can turn the tide with Vermillion.
Because of this, Vermillion’s best use is to make the final push for game, most likely when you’re going to attempt to take the game that turn or next turn, by shifting the card and field advantage in your favor. A conservative player will normally succeed very often with this plan as Vermillion can easily make your opponent minus four cards with the use of a perfect shield and choosing to sacrifice both front rearguards (assuming they have both), or even more cards from hand if lacking a perfect shield. The results of such a crushing Vermillion Thunderbolt can reduce your opponent’s hand such that a well set up pair of rearguard rows can follow up and force your opponent to rely on the rest of their hand or, better yet, heal triggers to survive your assault. If you have the proper cards to survive an opponent’s following turn, you will probably achieve the sixth damage you need to win. This is the secret of Vermillion.
P.S. Be careful when you thunderbolt if the opponent has good boosters but a terrible front row, if their hand is fairly beefy it could easily contain units that your opponent wants to play to create fatter columns via having you retire their current front row. In scenarios like that, you shouldn't even need to thunderbolt. Sometimes there's no solution to this issue, but try your best to avoid it.
2nd In Command
The Kaiser’s right hand man is Thunder Break Dragon, who can work as a fairly effective secondary vanguard or, when paired with Dragon Dancer Rai Rai, can be a fairly powerful rearguard. His vanguard ability, adding 5k when attacking, is standard for applying pressure once limit break is reached, and when fighting a 10k opponent such as Ezel, can be a powerful option if you’ve utilized Vermillion and want to blow through your opponent’s hand with an easily obtained 20-25k attack power when boosted. Along with this, the soulblast ability of his... dancing anime girl worshipper? can turn a standard 16k attack into 21k, requiring at least a 15k block from any current vanguard, and can be a big advantage as few rearguards can obtain this magic number against 11k vanguards (outside of GP with sleygal dagger and the Garmore/Chargal combo).
The Thunder Dragon Army
Despite the power of the main vanguards, Narukami’s unit line up is a bit mediocre as we only have a single set and starter deck to work with. However, the deck’s power rests in its ability to support Vermillion.
Starters:Narukami has two starters, both of which can be fairly effective, and choosing one over the other is mostly just based on preference.
Spark Kid Dragoon is currently my choice for starting vanguard, as his ability was the last thing I could do to increase the chances of getting vermillion in hand by turn 3. Having 4 copies of Vermillion means it takes up 8.04% of the deck, therefore, since you probably have drawn or damage checked 8-10 cards (16-20%) after the draw phase of turn two (not including mulligan chances), you have a fairly high chance of encountering a copy of Vermillion. Spark Kid is basically an insurance policy if you don’t get Vermillion. Obviously, it has a huge potential to backfire in the form of no G3 when you go digging, but it’s fairly unlikely if you haven’t drawn one.
The alternative to Spark Kid is Lizard Soldier Saishin, the anti- meta starter which can be fairly effective option when going first. Saishin can snipe any grade 0 with a cb, allowing you to take on any clan’s starter which calls out of the soul. Taking out Kyrph, Mecha Trainer, or Conroe (just to name a few) can make the game much easier to handle, removing the opponents opportunity to gain the upper hand from halting superior rides to searching out a perfect shield for late game that block your Thunderbolt.
Control vs. Pseudo-Control:
Narukami’s control units are few and far between, with many having fairly gimmicky effects. The fairly standard ones include Thunder Break Dragon, Dragonic Deathscythe, and Saishin, and their inclusion in a deck comes highly recommended. The other “control” based units are harder to justify being in a decklist. The Desert Gunner duo are the main pseudo-control cards. The grade one is commonly run in decks as a rare check to 10k interceptors, or a sometimes needed 7k booster with the decks multiple 9k grade twos. The grade two Desert Gunner is almost useless in my opinion unless you want to go super gimmick-control, which I almost did for shits&giggles back when the deck came out.
The Main Boosting Power:
The Narukami 10k booster, Photon Bomber Wyvern, is one of the easiest to utilize in the current Limit Break meta game, requiring your opponent to have taken at least 3 damage before its effect activates, which many foolish people will willingly take in an attempt to utilize limit break abilities asap, making mid game pressure from your Vanguard much easier to achieve. I tend to play at least 3 Photon Bomber’s if not 4, due to its usefulness as a booster for Vanguard and any 10k rearguard.
Decks the stock more than two copies of Thunder Break can easily include at least two copies of Dragon Dancer Rai Rai. As I stated previously, 21k columns can really come in handy late game after a Thunderbolt, or just during any final push for game.
The random Rising Phoenix is another card which sees some use. Utilizing the normally stagnant soul of Narukami decks, Phoenix allows you to soulblast two when called for a draw. Essentially a one-for-one in the worst situation, or more if you draw a trigger, which can be frustrating but needed to survive the late game attack power coming from Limit Break vanguards. However, its minuscule 5k power makes it difficult to effectively boost anything thats not Vermillion or a +2k grade three. Including this card is another instance of player’s preference as its pros and cons balance out its usefulness.
As a final note: Many people enjoy playing the fairly odd builds of Narukami. Indra and Gyras have their uses in their own build, but in the competitive world I have some advice: Fork over the money for Vermillion and don’t waste your time. The man is the main reason the deck sees competitive play on the level of Kagero instead of pulling numbers like Granblue.
Standard Vermillion Decklist:
G0: 17
Starter: Your Preference
8 Critical Triggers
4 Draw Triggers
4 Heal Triggers
G1: 14
4x Red River Dragoon - 8k booster
4x Wyvern Guard Guld - Perfect Guard
4x Photon Bomber Wyvern - 10k vanguard booster, lack of better G1s to put in
2x Desert Gunner, Raien - Lack of better G1s to put in
G2: 11
4x Thunderstorm Dragoon - 10k vanilla
3x Demonic Dragon Berserker, Garuda - Damage unflip a thunderbolt to happen twice a game
2x Dragonic Deathscythe - The berserk dragon, lack of other G2s to run and can get in there
2x Hex Cannon Wyvern - Odd choice I know, but it's better than more 9k G2s
G3: 8
4x Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion - Win condition of the deck, max chances of drawing it
2x Thunder Break Dragon - The alternate vanguard if Vermillion is not drawn
2x Breakthrough Dragon - Hits 20k rearguard columns with Red River Dragoon
-If you want, you can add 2 Thunder Breaks over the 2 Breakthroughs and then replace Raiens with Dragon Dancer, Rai Rai.
Personally, I believe the 2-3 builds I’ve looked at that made the top 2 in the english meta were garbage, but as Vanguard comes to rise, the number of lucky players that make top marks will drop. If you think I’m just being salty, go watch the Australian Narukami/OTT match for 1st/2nd and you’ll see what I mean... it was really horrible.
Remember, always Manguard.
-Z
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