March 2024 Strategy Presentation

Cardfight Vanguard Dear Days

So with the last update happening a fair few months ago, we finally get an update announced for Dear Days, showing that we are getting an additional Special Set coming on 25th of April, encompassing all of Festival Booster 2023 and a part of Clash of the Heroes. Originally this is all we got with no news of what was actually making the cut into the set...

...but then they proceeded on to drop this teaser image during the usual Thursday stream, showing the ridelines that were going to be getting their support in the set, with the full set list being dropped a few hours later. I have set it up that if you click the image below, it will take you to the full set list that has been announced. Main bits that have been removed are most of the commons, the Mythiark and Gigant Arms support lines and Jovial Juggler. Personally I am not fond of how this has been handled, and it could have been done better. There is currently no confirmation whether this update will be paid content or free, but once I know I will make sure to pass it around.

Overall I am happy to see that Dear Days is still getting support, but not having had any content added for the past few months will have killed of a lot of people from actually playing the game. Now they have added this out of nowhere, I do want them to at least finish up adding the rest of the overDress era cards and wrap it up at the end with Triple Drive set giving us Leuhan and Zedlance, but we will have to wait and see.

DZ-BT02: Illusionless Strife

With the second set being close to wrapped up, Bushiroad decided to drop the bomb shell they had been hiding in the anime till this past week and revealed that the Seventh Fated One, “Fated One of Time, Liael=Amorta”, is going to be added in as the new ride line for Keter Sanctuary. being used by Hikari Myoudo from the future.

Bushiroad then proceeded to drop the DSR for the same set, and to no one's surprise it was also Hikari with “Fated One of Time, Liael=Amorta”, due to it being the big bombshell from the anime. Now whilst it does look good artwise, I do personally feel that this should have been Suo and "Fated One of Zero, Blangdmire" due to their importance in this season of the anime, as well as being the main cover of the box. Nevertheless I do see the one they chose cause the set to sell even more due to hype. We still do not currently know if SEC cards will also be in this set, but am expecting them to reveal all of them when we finally get the effect shown for “Fated One of Time, Liael=Amorta” which should be on the last day before the set list drops, 2nd of April 2024.

Bushiroad then rounded out the DZ-BT02 section by dropping the Promotional Video, showing off most of the missing art for the cards we have not seen. Have linked it below for easy access for those that want to watch it.

Festival Booster 2024

Samll section for Festival Booster, as they seem to be wanting to keep the contents under wraps, but they decided to reveal the high rarity cards of this set at the presentation - Special Energy Rare. They have added the main cast of DivineZ as special Energy Markers for a total of 7, all coming with amazing gold writing. As for this moment in time, we do not know about the pull rate on these, but am really hoping this is not the only time we see these, and they do become somewhat easy to collect, seeing as we need 10 of them for a deck.

DZ-BT03: Dimensional Transcendence

Bushiroad then proceeded to move onto DZ-BT03, and with that they revealed the encounter card that was going to be the main focus of the set. Now earlier on in the Strategy Presentation, we had seen Obari-sensei in the Weiss Schwarz section, due to his involvement with one of the sets, adding on that the set had Dimensional in the set name, most people were predicting the set to be announcing "Super Dimensional Robo, Daiyusha" and they were very much not disappointed.

The next slide then proceeded to announce the supporting encounter cards that would be added in alongside Daiyusha, and we gained confirmation for "Dimensional Robo, Goyusha", "Dimensional Robo, Daibattles", "Dimensional Robo, Daimariner", "Dimensional Robo, Dailander" and "Dimensional Robo, Daidragon". They did confirm that "Super Dimensional Robo, Daikaiser" and the other Obari-sensei Dimensional Robo cards would not be in this set, but would be looking at them for a later date, so we do know that they are on their way eventually.

DZ-LBT01: Lyrical Monasterio Stars

They then proceeded to wrap up the end of the products by showing off the cover art of LBT01, which is known to be a Cray Cross Epic unit with the name of "Sagitta" who is known to interact with both Michu and Noqno, so could be done in the similar style as both "Peak Personage Stealth Rogue, Shojodoji" and "Monster Creator, Arkhite". They also released a Japanese release date of the set being 5th of July, but there is currently no English release date as of the time of writing this.

But that was not all the news Bushiroad gave us regarding LBT01, as they also revealed that the 6 ridelines from "Lyrical Monasterio: Summertime Memories" would also be getting their dress up forms, with them being adapted into Star Maidens. Am really excited to see where they go with these Dress Ups, but do hope that they go the same route as the original ones in "Festival Booster 2023", as those were more interesting interactions between some of the forms, unlike the two we saw in "Lyrical Monasterio 4: Trick or Trick", where it was just cost alterations for using the other form.

Fighters Rule Update

As mentioned in the previous article, we knew there was going to be an update to the Fighter's Rules, and this was going to be an interesting one to see how they went with addressing the two Stride Decksets that were causing issues in the Japanese Meta. So let us go over the changes one by one and properly talk about them, as Japan gives us a full breakdown as to why they make these changes whenever they do a Fighter's Rules update.

So the first hit happened to "Demon Stealth Dragon, Shiranui "Oboro"" and it places a choice restrict between Oboro and "Dragon Deity King of Resurgence, Dragveda". Bushiroad's reasoning behind doing this is that having a first stride turn being able to result in 10 attacks total, including the two dominate attacks, is too strong in this format and needs removing. Whilst I do agree this is a good decision, it now does invalidate the product as being "out of the box and play" and feel that if this was going to be done, they could have hit other cards within the deck and lower the power level of this deck even further. 

The second adjustment in the Fighter's Rules is the other deck that most expected to get hit in the form of "Dragheart, Luard". In this part, we see another choice restrict coming down, this time between "Dragheart, Luard" and "Cellgaon". Bushiroad's reasoning behind this is due to the really good early game that "Cellgaon" provides for the deck, not only filtering for key cards but also building up the Ritual count nicely. On top of that, due to "Dragheart, Luard"'s Ritual skill, you can return Cellgaon back to deck to stride and then call it back out of deck with the "On Stride" skill to carry on filtering, which they deemed was too much. Whilst this is a very good hit, we have seen from the English side that the deck doesn't need "Cellgaon" to have a strong early and late game to push through, and I see Japanese lists changing ever so slightly to be somewhat similar to what we are currently seeing on the English side.

The final card adjustment we saw happen in the Fighter's Rules is that the Choice Restriction between "What Color is Your Wish, Valsheblan" and "Tranquil Affection, Elivira" is now removed. Bushiroad has deemed that this combination is no longer overpowered, and "Prismagica, Willista" usage rate has gone down enough to make this a non issue. Personally, I do agree with this change, as the DivineZ format has been doing a good job in increasing the defensive capabilities of decks to the point that this combination is not as bad.

But it wasnt just card restrictions that were added to the Fighter's Rules this update. They have decided to change the Stride rules for Standard as well, and now in order to prepare a G Zone in Standard, you now need all 4 units from the Stride Deckset. Whilst this is a good idea for the likes of Shiranui, which was causing issues due to running "World-shaper Stealth Rogue, Shojodoji" in the rideline for increasing deck consistency and having the deck gain a good early game, reducing the power level of decks that are not abusing it really hurts creativity. An example of this is if "Masked Magician, Harri" were to gain a Stride Deckset, due to "Silver Thorn Marionette, Lilian" being worded to make a good substitute for the Ride line as only looks for being rode upon by a Pale Moon unit.