Vanguard 101: Crossrides

Crossrides

"Swallow everything in your darkness, Abyssal Despair!!"
(Photo owned by James Gabriel C. Garrido. This Photo is not to be used or be posted elsewhere without the owner's permission.)

Grade 3 11k base attack vanguards have proven their supremacy and dominance over those which are inferior to them throughout the game. These  units can reach 16k-21k – or the so called magic numbers – power line, alone in their column without even being boosted (yet).  Despite the mediocrity in the skills of some, their high base attack power provides resiliency and fortitude for the player using them.

When Set 5 (BT05 - Awakening of TwinBlades) was released last February 2013, it introduced new grade 3 11k vanguards, two (2) of which were the very overhyped and long-awaited units to be first released in their English format, namely: Dragonic Overlord “The End” <Kagero> and Phantom Blaster Overlord <Shadow Paladin>. These new units came to be known as “Crossrides”, with the two being the very first of their kind. Succeeding sets then provided other clans their very own crossrides (and it would seem that Bushiroad is advertising this gimmick to form a metagame composed of crossrides). BT09 Clash of the Knights and Dragons then gave more crossride support for Aqua Force, Narukami, Gold Paladin, and Oracle Think Tank. Later sets (which are still in Japanese and have not been released in English yet) of BT12 – Binding Force of the Black Rings and BT13 – Catastrophic Outbreak brought more crossride support to already pre-existing clans.

So what are CROSSRIDES?

The very first attribute that crossrides have (that other grade 3 units don’t) is that they can have an active and continuous base attack power of 13,000, provided that a specific unit is found to be in the soul.  They are 11k vanguards that gain 2000 more attack power when the required certain unit is in the soul (e.g. “Phantom Blaster Overlord” can only achieve his +2000 power when “Phantom Blaster Dragon” is in the soul). This is the only prerequisite that these units need in order for them to achieve such power. Basically, without the required unit in the soul, they are just 11k vanguards but are still very bulky and are still very resilient ion nature.

 Having that huge base power of 13,000 is very hard for an opponent (whose not playing a crossride) to deal against. This skill enables the vanguard to surpass the ‘so-called magic numbers’ and extend up to 18k-23k power columns (without even being boosted yet), and force the opponent to guard with more units from his/her hand or from his/her front row rear-guards, ultimately draining and wasting all of his/her resources . And when there is a depletion of “resources” (units other than the Vanguard), there will be two (2) predicaments that any player will likely and unfortunately be facing: 1) Fewer number of units can used to guard against the opponent’s attacks, 2) Lesser number of units can be called to rear guards. No one ever wants to have themselves in either of these situations.

Why did crossrides exist?

To be honest I really don’t know, except the fact that they were the last and ultimate units of the main antagonist and the ‘second’ protagonist to be featured in the animated show of the card game. It would seem to be as an advertising strategy by Bushiroad to sell “very strong cards in the game” which would presumably make huge sales and has now lead to form the shape of the current metagame. Now, the meta is just composed of crossrides (especially in Japan wherein BT12 released several new crossride support to already pre-existing clans such as Palemoon and Dark Irregulars).

With the current sets bringing more Crossride units, the meta of the game is surely to be seen with more powerplays and the level of competition has been revved up to a higher level. Players will now have to adapt to this kind of play and will be forced to run crossride decks in order to cope up with the meta. In so far as the meta is to be concerned with these crossrides, it is predicted that this mechanic will surely prove to be a stepping stone to the future mechanics of the game, another seed which will soon give rise to new kinds of plays and power.

-kamiPrince39-