Arsenal Blades - Equip Spell-Based Archetype

[AniGa]

UPDATE 1

- Changed "Once per turn:" clauses on many effects to "You can only use this effect of "[Name]" once per turn."

- Made a number of monsters Level 3

- Added Arsenal Bladecaller Semachen

- Changed Arsenal Blademaster Glanisa

- Changed Arsenal Blade - Agon

- Capitalization and punctuation fixes

 

UPDATE 2

- Changed Arsenal Bladecaller Semachen

- Changed Arsenal Blademaster Glanisa

- Typo fixes

 

UPDATE 3

- Changed Arsenal Bladecaller Semachen

- Changed Arsenal Blademaster Glanisa

- Changed Arsenal Blader Dimica

- Changed Arsenal Blade - Agon

- Consolidated the option to avoid paying activation costs for almost all cards into the Field Spell Cards

- Typo fixes

- Added artworks for all cards

(Part Cardfight Vanguard, part self-made... and I think two are screencaps from FFXV?)

 

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Hiya.

 

So, I got a bit annoyed that archetypes and decks based around Equip Spell Cards almost universally suck or just don't exist.

I think you can do much more cool stuff with Equip Spell Cards than Konami ever allowed us to so far.

 

Sooo... here we are.

 

The archetype's effects are designed so that most of them also work for generic Equip Spell Cards, meaning you have an ocean of viable tech choices available and the archetype isn't quite as narrow as it would otherwise be.

 

 

Archetype Overview

 

Main Deck Monsters

- Named "Arsenal Blader [Name]" (Effect references: "Arsenal Blade" monsters / cards)

- Level 3 and 4, Warrior-Type, DARK, middling ATK and low DEF

- Share this effect: "You can only control 1 "Arsenal Blader [Name]". When this card is Summoned: You can equip 1 appropriate Equip Spell Card from your hand or Deck to this card."

- Have one unique effect with this activation cost and restriction: "[...] send 1 Equip Spell Card equipped to this card to the GY, unless you control an "Arsenal Keyspell" Field Spell Card [...] You can only use this effect of "Arsenal Blader [Name]" once per turn."

- The unique effects all have one identical twin among the Equip Spell Cards

 

Equip Spell Cards

- Named "Arsenal Blade - [Name]" (Effect references: "Arsenal Blade" Equip Spell Cards / cards)

- Share these effects: "Equip only to an "Arsenal Blade" monster. You can only control 1 "Arsenal Blade - [Name]". If this card is sent to the GY or banished: Shuffle it into the Deck instead. These effect cannot be negated. The equipped monster gains 500 ATK."

- Have one unique effect with this activation cost and restriction: "[...] send 1 Equip Spell Card from your hand or your side of the field to the GY, unless you control an "Arsenal Keyspell" Field Spell Card [...] You can only use this effect of "Arsenal Blade - [Name]" once per turn."

- The unique effects all have one identical twin among the Main Deck Monsters

 

Field Spell Cards

- Named "Arsenal Keyspell - [Name]" (Effect references: "Arsenal Keyspell" cards)

(There is also one consistency support Quick Spell Card that is also an "Arsenal Keyspell" card)

- Share this activation cost: "Send 1 Equip Spell Card from your hand or your side of the field to the GY to activate this card."

- Share these effects: "When this card is sent to the GY or banished: Shuffle it into the Deck instead. This effect cannot be negated. [...] Once per turn: You can equip 1 appropriate Equip Spell Card from your Deck or GY to a monster you control."

- Have one unique continuous / automatic effect

 

Counter Trap Cards

- Named "Arsenal Hex - [Name]"

- Share this activation cost: "[...] Send 1 Equip Spell Card from your hand or your side of the field to the GY [...]"

- Share this effect: "You can activate this card from your hand if you control an "Arsenal Keyspell" Field Spell Card, or by sending 2 Equip Spell Cards from your hand or your side of the field to the GY instead of 1."

 

Extra Deck Monsters

- Arsenal Bladecaller Semachen provides additional protection, complementing Arsenal Keyspell - Glasolum, as well as swarming; acts as an accelerator

- Arsenal Blademaster Glanisa allows activating and firing off the effects of multiple Equip Spell Cards in one go, provides battle-focused field clearing and has very high OTK potential with the right Equip Spell Card(s); acts as the boss monster

 

 

The Cards

 

[spoilersMain Deck Monster Cards]

 

[spoilersEquip Spell Cards]

 

[spoilersField Spell Cards (& Support Quick Spell Card)]

 

[spoilersCounter Trap Cards]

 

[spoilersExtra Deck]

 

 

 

To-Do-List

- Glanisa Turbo OTK* might be too powerful, probably needs a nerf Fixed

- Unless I am mistaken, I just noticed a really dumb loop with Arsenal Blade - Vafir (use its effect, send itself to the Deck, Special Summon "Arsenal Blade" monster, it equips Arsenal Blade - Vafir from the Deck to itself, repeat); will fix this later Fixed

- Add artworks Fixed

- Add Card Analyses & Combos section to OP

 

Opinions, thoughts, questions and feedback are very appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

 

Greets,

AG

[RockerXD]

Hard to the review cards on an individual basis. A quick list of some potential combos should help out with this, makes it easier to understand how some loops/interactions with this deck can work. 

 

However, a few cards stand out

 

Dimica and Agon - I'm not exactly sure what you mean here probably could be worded cleaner. I'm reading it as a pumping effect, while keeping the effects of equip spell cards if they are sent as costs? Just need some clarification

 

It also feels like these cards are very bricky. It doesn't really add to the searching or swarming effects like others do, nor does it have destruction effects like Expera or Disrumir. Where does these cards fall into the actual win condition for the deck exactly. 

 

Now for the field spells

 

Glasolum - pretty good, the protection is pretty valuable for setting up to stop some plays your opponent may have

Promachum - burn effect sounds pretty worthless, it doesn't really do anything unless you're already set up

 

Traps 

Bladeshoot - why play this over say, ghost ogre?

Bladestorm - pretty strong, might be actually on the pretty insane side since we're talking mass non-targetted, non-destruction removal. Might need some adjustments

 

Now, one thing this archetype has is wording bloat, why not add the "unless you control <field spell>" effect onto the field spells themselves, and you can remove all of that from your monsters and spells. And you got a few grammar errors like "These effect" should be "This effect", I would double check these later.

[AniGa]

Hard to the review cards on an individual basis. A quick list of some potential combos should help out with this, makes it easier to understand how some loops/interactions with this deck can work. 

 

However, a few cards stand out

 

Dimica and Agon - I'm not exactly sure what you mean here probably could be worded cleaner. I'm reading it as a pumping effect, while keeping the effects of equip spell cards if they are sent as costs? Just need some clarification

 

It also feels like these cards are very bricky. It doesn't really add to the searching or swarming effects like others do, nor does it have destruction effects like Expera or Disrumir. Where does these cards fall into the actual win condition for the deck exactly. 

 

Now for the field spells

 

Glasolum - pretty good, the protection is pretty valuable for setting up to stop some plays your opponent may have

Promachum - burn effect sounds pretty worthless, it doesn't really do anything unless you're already set up

 

Traps 

Bladeshoot - why play this over say, ghost ogre?

Bladestorm - pretty strong, might be actually on the pretty insane side since we're talking mass non-targetted, non-destruction removal. Might need some adjustments

 

Now, one thing this archetype has is wording bloat, why not add the "unless you control <field spell>" effect onto the field spells themselves, and you can remove all of that from your monsters and spells. And you got a few grammar errors like "These effect" should be "This effect", I would double check these later.

 

Dimica and Agon - the reason for them having that bit of text is simple: All other effects among these cards don't see too many downsides from dumping themselves / the only equip they have on them at the moment. So I made it so that goes for this kind of effect too, by allowing Dimica to dump her only equip or Agon to dump itself and still have the equipped monster / Dimica benefit from Agon / from its equip until the Damage Step (= the relevant timeframe) is over.

Plus, Agon is specifically good with Glanisa. With even just the minimum three equips on her, and even if they're all "Arsenal Blade" ones, meaning she has 3100 ATK - if Agon is one of them, this allows her to run over anything with 6198 ATK or less.

Dimica, on the other hand, is just there as a one- or at most two-of to be able to beat over some bothersome beefy monsters you can't get rid of with your removal at the moment, but really need to; this is also why she has the highest ATK of all the Main Deck monsters - with just one Agon, Dimica can run over literally anything, no matter how much ATK it has, because with her own and Agon's effects combined, she gains the full ATK of the monster she attacks.

 

Bricky - see, that's the thing though. "Arsenal Blade" monsters fetch themselves any equip from the Deck, "Arsenal Blade" equips always go back to the Deck anyway, and there's also multiple other effects which search or directly equip them, and you can't control more than one or activate the effect of more than one of any given "Arsenal Blade" equip at any given time or on any given turn respectively - they're designed so you don't have to draw them.

Hence: They're not bricky because you really only need exactly one of each "Arsenal Blade" equip in the entire Deck since you can have any one of these seven cards at any time you Summon any "Arsenal Blade" monster, and also because they can always be thrown back into the Deck to activate some other card's effect if you happen to not need them right now.

 

Promachum - it's meant as an OTK finisher that you probably run at 1, in large part thanks to Omnicurra. You can have Glasolum up, attack like mad, then play Promachum and get the burn during the End Phase. Also think in combination with Glanisa; she attacks a whole bunch of times and you may have more monsters out as well, so even if the opponent blocked some of your attacks with monsters, you can play Promachum after the Battle Phase and get its burn to finish the limping opponent off.

And thanks to Omnicurra you have easy access to Promachum (and Glasolum for that matter) at any time, meaning you really only need one Promachum in the entire Deck.

Hell, you can even set Omnicurra, let your opponent run into your "Arsenal Blade" monsters and then activate Omnicurra to play Promachum after the opponent's Battle Phase and burn them during their End Phase.

So yeah, meant as a finisher, run at 1 and easily fetchable with Omnicurra whenever you need it, to squeeze in ~1500-2500 more damage if you're otherwise choking on closing off the kill.

(You could also do cheeky things and bait the opponent to try and waste removal on some of your cards, then activate your face-down Omnicurra and replace the harmless Promachum with a Glasolum from the Deck, I suppose.)

 

Bladeshoot - well, Ghost Ogre  is neither omni-negation nor removal. Bladeshoot is omni-negation with built-in non-destruction-removal that becomes a handtrap in return for prior setup or increased cost.

 

Bladestorm - I mean, at the end of the day it's a non-destruction handtrap Mirror Force with an archetypal activation cost, and it's only a handtrap with prior setup or increased cost, and requires your opponent attacking into an "Arsenal Blade" monster to work. Is it that overpowered? Hmm... will give that some thought.

 

"These" vs "this" - really, did I misuse that? Gotta check for typos then; I intended to use "these effects" to refer to multiple previous sentences, and "this effect" for just the one previous sentence. Will double-check that.

 

Wording bloat - yes, I'll try and condense some stuff. As should be clear from the OP, I am very much still actively updating these!

 

Combos and loops - yes! When I find the time, I will add a section to the OP which contains a bunch of good combos, with descriptions and step-by-steps and all that!

 

Thanks for the feedback! : )

 

 

Greets,

AG

 

 

EDIT:

There we go, updated - took some of your thoughts into account! : )