Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Cardfight!! Vanguard ZERO:
Clans

Royal Paladin
Royal Paladin (ロイヤルパラディン) is a clan from the nation of United Sanctuary, and one of the first two clans in the game. The clan is themed around knights, dragons, wizards, and animals, among others, with a focus around several folktales like Arthurian Legends. It is the first regular army of the holy nation.

Playstyle:
Royal Paladin is a clan that focuses around field presence, and has several effects that allow them to superior call units from the deck. as well as ways to power up the rear-guards or having the Vanguard gain additional power for having more rear-guards on the board.

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Oracle Think Tank
Oracle Think Tank (オラクルシンクタンク) is a clan from the nation of United Sanctuary, and one of the first four clans in the game. The clan is themed around a magical business conglomerate. Many of their services involve fortune telling, security, and magical studies.

Playstyle:
Oracle Think Tank, in the initial release of the game, is focused around several effects that allow you to draw cards, as well as being able to manipulate the top card of the deck, making it easier to hit triggers.

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Shadow Paladin
Shadow Paladin (シャドウパラディン) is a clan from the nation of United Sanctuary. The clan is themed around knights, dragons, wizards, and animals, among others, with a focus on sticking to the shadows and dark magicks. It is an irregular army within the holy nation, as there are hardly any records of the clan's existence.

Playstyle:
Being the dark counterpart to Royal Paladin, Shadow Paladin focuses on Superior Calling rear-guards from the deck, however instead of drawing strength from allies those rear-guards are used as sacrifices to gain strength. Shadow Paladin retires their own rear-guards to greatly increase their Vanguard's Power while also retiring the opponent's rear-guards to weaken their field, to that end they use rear-guards with low Power that can be called for low costs which can then be used as fodder, or generate resources to recover the losses from sacrificing their own allies.

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Angel Feather
Angel Feather (エンジェルフェザー) is a clan from the nation of United Sanctuary. Most of the clan's units are angels, hence the name. Their units are styled around doctors, nurses, hospitals, and anything that has to do with healing, rescuing, or hospitality.

Playstyle:
The clan's main focus is manipulating cards in the damage zone, either by calling cards from the damage zone, swapping cards between the hand and damage zone, or even outright healing. Since this often allows Angel Feather to remove face-down cards from the damage zone and exchange them for fresh face-up cards, Angel Feather can effectively Counter Charge large amounts of damage, allowing them to heavily utilize Counter Blast costs.

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Gold Paladin
Gold Paladin (ゴールドパラディン) is a clan from the nation of United Sanctuary. The clan is themed around knights wearing golden armor, as well as wearing armor based off of animals, most notably used by the Gold Paladin Corps. In the lore, the leader of this clan is Incandescent Lion, Blond Ezel, and are the holy nation's second regular army.

Playstyle:
The Gold Paladin's playstyle is a combination of its predecessors. Most units emphasizes multiple calls and empowerment from having allies, while few others retire their owner's rear-guards to activate their effects. Gold Paladin's superior calling abilities is limited to a few cards from the top of the deck, which is somewhat restricted compared to its predecessors who can search the entire deck, but in turn and can superior call during the Battle Phase to allow the player to do more attacks and often for lower costs.

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Kagero
Kagero (かげろう) is a clan from the nation of Dragon Empire, and one of the first two clans in the game. The clan is themed around fire-breathing dragons and dragon-mounted knights. It is the first regular army of the dragon nation.

Playstyle:
Kagero is a clan that focuses on gaining advantage by retiring their opponent's units, making it harder for their opponents to mount a proper offense. They are also the only clan currently that has the ability to negate the opponent's Intercept ability, allowing them to more aggressively deal damage to the opponent's Vanguard.

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Narukami
Narukami (なるかみ) is a clan from the nation of Dragon Empire. The clan's military prowess is second only to Kagero. Although many have crimson scales, their power comes from thunder and lightning.

Playstyle:
Much like its predecessor, Narukami's play style revolves around retiring the opponent's rear-guards. In contrast to Kagero however, Narukami's purpose for retiring is pure, extreme aggresion, as continously retiring the opponent's Interceptors allows them to continue attacking the opponent unopposed. Narukami also has some effects that outright negate an opponent rear-guard's intercept ability.

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Nova Grappler
Nova Grappler (ノヴァグラップラー) is a clan from the nation of Star Gate, and one of the first four clans in the game. The clan is themed around giant, human-piloted robots and aliens who fight competitively in matches similar to that of real-world mixed martial arts matches.

Playstyle:
Nova Grapplers, in the initial release of the game, are focused on multi attacking, utilizing several effects that allow them to restand their Rear Guards.

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Dimension Police
Dimension Police (ディメンジョンポリス) is a clan from the nation of Star Gate. This clan is themed around an interdimensional police force, as well as the villains and monsters they protect the universes from.

Playstyle:
Dimension Police revolves around overwhelming the opponent with a powerful Vanguard that unlocks abilities when its Power reaches certain tresholds. The clan's rear-guards tend to be on the weaker side, instead they focus on empowering the Vanguard so that it can activate its effects and become more threatening.

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Dark Irregulars
Dark Irregulars (ダークイレギュラーズ) is a clan from the nation of Dark Zone. this clan is full of cryptids, demons, vampires, and other supernatural beings. There is no hierarchy, as the only way to have power in this clan is to gain it by murdering others, and being one of the strongest beings in the clan.

Playstyle:
Dark Irregulars draw power from their Soul. For that purpose they use cards that quickly Soul Charge a large amount of cards then unlock abilities from having a certain amount of Soul, or gain [Power] for each card in the Soul

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Pale Moon
Pale Moon (ペイルムーン) is a clan from the nation of Dark Zone. The clan is themed around a magical circus troupe that, behind the scenes, specializes in assassination.

Playstyle:
Pale Moon's main theme is "performing magic tricks" in the form of superior calling cards from the Soul. During the Battle Phase, the clan swap a rear-guard that already attacked with a card from the soul to do additional attacks.

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Spike Brothers
Spike Brothers (スパイクブラザーズ) is a clan from the nation of Dark Zone. It is themed after many brutish races such as Ogres, Demons, and Goblins competing against each other in an athletic sport known as "Gallows Ball", which takes after real-world sports such as American football and rugby. In Gallows Ball, however, cheating and fixed matches are prominent, and many weak players die often, as there are no rules against the use of weapons or modifications.

Playstyle:
Spike Brothers is a highly aggresive clan that "Tackles" the opponent with high powered rear-guards that return themselves to the deck after attacking, leaving that circle open for another unit to "Tag out" and continue attacking multiple times. The clan often sacrifices defensive potential for more aggresion.

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Granblue
Granblue (グランブルー) is a clan from the nation of Magallanica. The clan is themed around seafaring pirate crews consisting of macabre, undead characters such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons and gillman.

Playstyle:
Following it's theme of "undead pirates", Granblue draws strength from the Drop Zone. they specialize in superior calling units from the Drop Zone which allows them to arrange their field and bring back dead Interceptors, and some of their cards gain Power by having a certain amount of cards into the Drop Zone. In order to fill the Drop Zone with more cards to bring back, Granblue also uses effects that send cards directly from the deck to the Drop Zone.

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Bermuda △
Bermuda △ (バミューダ△) is a clan from the nation of Magallanica. This clan consists of mermaid pop idols.

Playstyle:
Bermuda Triangle's main focus revolves around "bouncing" the player's rear-guards back to their hands for multiple purposes: re-organizing the player's field layout, multi-attacking by calling units from the hand during the Battle Phase, triggering effects that activate when a card is bounced, or removing cards from the field that could be retired.

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Aqua Force
Aqua Force (アクアフォース) is a clan from the nation of Magallanica. This clan is based off of naval armed forces, and uses ranks in many of the card's titles.

Playstyle:
Aqua Force's main mechanic is activating powerful effects based on the number of attacks that occurred during the turn, allowing the player to both pressure the opponent with multiple attacks while gaining benefits from those extra attacks. For that purpose the clan uses several means of increasing the amount of attacks their rear-guards can make, such as exchanging the position of rear-guards during the Battle Phase. Their cards tend to gain [Power] when attacking in a specific order so that those attacks can overcome Damage Shields even when attacking unboosted.

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Neo Nectar
Neo Nectar (ネオネクタール) is a clan from the nation of Zoo. The clan is themed around a magical forest filled with magical creatures and beings, many being plant-based. The clan is responsible for most of Planet Cray's agriculture. Despite being a small clan in terms of size, Neo Nectar has high political prowess. The Great World Tree resides within its border.

Playstyle:
Neo Nectar's playstyle focuses on "growth", specifically calling units from the deck who share the same card name as units that are already on the field, as well as giving power boosts to units who share the same name.

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Great Nature
Great Nature (グレートネイチャー) is a clan from the nation of Zoo. It is themed around highly intelligent animals students attending and/or employed at the greatest institution in all of Planet Cray.

Playstyle:
Great Nature is focused around making their rear-guards more powerful and then gain advantage from it. The main mechanic they use is giving a rear-guard [Power]+4000 at the cost of retiring that rear-guard at the end of the turn, then stacking effects into that rear-guard that activate when it is retired to compensate for its loss. By stacking multiple Power gains and effects into the same rear-guard, the result is one very powerful rear-guard that then generates a large amount of resources for little cost investment when it is retired.