Character Pack 01: Gakuto/Roa/Romin was released on September 19, 2020, introducing support for the decks of the mentioned anime characters, focused around the Warriors(and fairies?), Psychic and Fiend types. CP01 is the third set to be released for the Rush Duel Format, and the first one of the Character Pack series.
Greetings, Liri here writing the first (now second) entry for our ''Boku no Road'' blog. Here I'll showcase our take on the decks that are buildable from the CP01 set, and also considering certain techs and side options that go well with the decks, or even different routes that can be taken while building said decks.
For starters, we blast off into the enviroment of CP01 by introducing ourselves to the Warrior deck used by Gakuto Sougetsu, probably the deck that has the most buildable routes available, given
the somewhat schizophrenic nature of the support it received. What tie
them all together is that none is particularly remarkable. The list I'm
showcasing is the one that attempts to cover for Warrior's main
weakness. Be introduced to ''Piercing Warriors'':
''Piercing Warrors''
We can start off by naming the main features of this deck type that will remain promiment no matter which version of it you end up playing.
This deck's face is [Fiendish Commander Yameruler]. A DARK warrior with an amazing statline of 2500/2500 and the ability to prevent high level summonings. Individually it is a very strong card that has found its place on some deck lists since its debut on KP01, and in terms of the support it received, its cohesive and it Yameruler to switch into the offfensive, and thus compensate for its downsides.
Originally, the main downside of the card is having to giving up tempo and battling in exchange for its powerful ability. Said downside is compensated by the likes of ''Battle Commander, Nandes'' and ''Bandaged Bowing'', which allow Yameruler to use its ability and still be capable of making use of its solid 2500 ATK to contest board against your opponent's monsters.
Another card focused towards improving Yameruler is ''Forbidding Warrior''. A 1200 ATK, Level 4 Warrior that has the ability to prevent trap cards during the battle in which one of your Warriors attack by shuffling a 0 ATK monster from your GY into your deck. The most remarkable card of Rush Dueling is the nefarious Dark Liberation, which has dominated the enviroment for the 6 months that this format has existed. By using Forbidding Warrior, you can move around Dark Liberation and other similar battle traps and swing into the opposing board without fear of a counter.
Of course, Warriors have other ''okay'' tools, such as [Forbidding Immortal] and [Umekumi of the Fiendish Squad] which work with the intended playstyle of the deck. However, the essential weakness of the deck is the lack of offensive capabilities. Stat buffs and debuffs aren't plentiful, and even then, they're meant to aid in running over the biggest-statted monsters rather than in inflicting massive damage outputs like those of Spellcasters. As such, Warriors often run into the problem of not being able to make use of the tempo advantages they gain through Yameruler's control, and eventually lose the damage race to a single explosive turn. This is also present in the fact that they cannot quicly comeback from a beatdown, and in this build said problem is only accentuated by the fact that the Piercing Spells are very poor cards once you're behind in terms of tempo and board.
Generally speaking, Warriors are running smoothly when Yameruler is preventing your opponent's summons. The opposing answer to that comes down to setting 2 or 3 monsters in defense position to shield themselves from your attacks, and then counterattack with their own explosive comeback. Thus, ideally we should make use of that turn to push damage through their defenses. Between 2 copies of ''Piercing'' and 2 copies of ''Greater Piercing'' we have 4 cards that will allow us to inflict chip damage through the opposing defense, which should, more often than not, result in massive damage considering the lack of high DEF value among the low level monsters.
As for our own defense, we're running a 3-1 split of Essence of the Hermit and 1 Up. Essence of the Hermit works favorably to switch monsters to DEF, which will allow us to easily run over them next turn and potentially inflict substantial damage through a Piercing Spell, and also gives uf field presence in the form of a Lv1 vanilla monster, of which we run 6.
Notes
1.- Use [Forbidding Immortal] to switch an opposing monster to DEF in order for Kimeruler to be able to jump defenders and swing directly. Alternatively, it allows you to make use of your Piercing Spells to inflict damage over the opposing board while also removing threats.
2.- [Bandaged Bowing] might look like it only works with Yameruler, and while it is true, it can also be an effective card cycling if you can use it on a [Fiendish Commander, Kimeruler] and then untap it with [Battle Commander, Nandes].
3.- [Shield&Sword], [Block Attack], and [Hilt the Noble Arms Bearer] are all cards that are no doubt worth running in this deck, however, they don't offer substantial improvements to the lacking archetype and are instead more options to easily run over monsters, but other than [Block Attack], which has the benefit of synergizing with [Kimeruler], none of the other 2 are reliable answers to the enviroment.
Match-Ups
1.- Spellcasters: Poor (-)
The top dog in the Rush Duel Enviroment, Spellcasters. It is the most formidabble foe, and for Warriors in particular, it is a high mountain to climb. This deck in particular struggles against Spellcasters given the lack of a type-specific Spell/Trap removal card, which prove essential in potentially removing opposing [Dark Liberation] cards. If we fail to do so, our only remaining out is [Forbidding Warrior], which only offers protection from the aforementioned trap during one of our attacks. As you can probably tell, it's nigh impossible to confront the Mirror Force-like card. Not to mention, Spellcaster lists are explosive given the inclussion of [Rush Dragon Dragears] and [Royal Demon's Heavymetal] in their lineups, which boils down to you losing complete control of the duel if those monsters get their effects off properly.
2.- Dragons: Okay (+)
Though some fellow might disagree, Dragons are infinitally more manageable than Spellcasters. Dragons generally struggle against 2500 bodies since, at best, their strongest Dragon monster, Dragears, ties with them. Though they do have the tools to handle these situations, namely, Blue-Eyes if they manage to draw it, [Shocklead Dragon], which requires an essential amount of setup, and [Counteroffensive Dragonstrike]. Still, it is a much better matchup than we give it credit for.
3.- Fiends: Okay (-)
One of the newer deck-types to debut out of CP01. Contrary to Dragons, which require a fair amount of setup to get rid of your stronger threats, Fiends have the easiest out to your -Ruler monsters in what's potentially the strongest Lv6 Monster in the game as of now, [Royal Demon's Death Voice]. This absolute unit can easily punch over anything as long as it gets it requirement fulfileld, which is not a problem in any deck that incorporates [Gargoyle of the Palace] and [Royal Demon's Punk]. It is the main factor as for why Fiends have a very considerable edge in this matchup. However, given how most of the Royal Demon's Series' DEF values are at 0, if you can manage to get ahead, either by a Yameruler turn your opponent didn't have an answer to, or through smart usage of your [Essence of the Hermits], you can push a lot of damage and overturn the tables.
4.- Psychics: Okay
Psychics are a deck that needs more experimentation, but also, its a deck that has very little in the way of options. Either you go full Psychic with it, or you go down the Royal Demon's route and build a Hybrid. However, it is impossible to rate this matchup as anything over a ''Neutral Okay'' given how, if its the Hybrid Build, you're going to face the same issues as you'll face in the Fiend matchup, that is, Death Voice and Heavymetal. Alternatively, the pure build tends to run copies of [Lullabind], a Spell that will turn your Yameruler into face-down position, effectively turning off its effect and allowing the Psychic player to rampage through their explosive plays, effectively making you lose control of the match in one go. Even then, its still manageable. All the Psychic Bosses have very low stats, usually 0 DEF, so, on a good day, you can easily change them to DEF through your effects, and pack a good punch of Piercing or just run over their stuff easily.
Conclusion
Warriors are probably the worst deck of the 3 that were featured on CP01. They rely on the inherently not-great cards that are ''Piercing'' and ''Greater Piercing'' to inflict any substantial amount of damage, as they have no chance to do it by themselves. They can hit over a lot of stuff, as long as said stuff isn't a face-down [Wicked Shadow - Dark Rooker], but they're uncapable of turning around games on which they're already at the losing end. All of this is reflected on their poor matchup compatibility, which basically boils down to their vulnerability to huge pushes, their terrible capabilities at turning games around, and how every deck seems to have an answer to your best plays that doesn't require them too much of a setup.
It's fairly hard to pinpoint the reasons as for why this deck performs so negatively. The sinergy is there, the beatdown is there, but nothing the deck does seems to stick. It's definetely because the deck is centered around a single card, and, its secondary boss not only doesn't benefit from the sinergies made through the rest of the support, but also, has a completely different direction that the first one, which results in a deck that lacks impact and control, which was supposed to be the aim of the deck. Regardless, it is not as poor of a deck as it sounds, and can most definetely scrap some wins.
The deck is also potentially getting further development as long as Sougetsuin Gakuto is featured in more duels. Perhaps the next cards to support Warrior will bring something new to the table, and make this deck able to compete.
