Core Principles - Offence Strategies Part II - "Penetration"

Most games of Cardfight!! Vanguard end with the defeated either having messed up their guarding, or running out of cards to guard with due to the strength and quantity of the attacks coming against them - But not all. Since the early days of BT-02, games have been ended with the loser still holding a good amount of guard in hand, how?

Enter this guy:

Silent Tom was likely the founder of what can be called a penetration strategy; one that aims to finish off an opponent earlier than they expect. Originally he was paired with CEO Amaterasu to gain an effective triple drive, increasing the chances of Silent Tom attacking with the boost of a critical trigger and requiring either a perfect guard or 3 valuable grade 1 or 2 cards to guard against.

As the game evolved though, further penetration units have been created. BT-09 saw the release of "Blue Storm Supreme Dragon, Glory Maelstrom", a vanguard who was capable of preventing your opponent from calling grade 1 or higher units to the guard circle at all - or in short, no perfect guards! This effect has been printed on numerous vanguards over time and thrives as a finisher when backed up with a high power vanguard column.

Seen in example above, Dark Irregulars, among others are more than capable of creating a massive central column that becomes basically un-blockable; without doubt that's a skill that finishes games. The big problem with most of these "Glory" attacks though is that it is usually slow to set up and only truly effective once you have pushed your opponent to 5 damage unless you get lucky with critical triggers - for that reason the early game is key, just like a power deck.

Indeed a penetration deck operates largely like a power deck and the same principles apply - it values a large middle lane and an aggressive start - its main variation is how it closes out a game. Because you are aiming to bypass defenses in the late game, the need for early guard pressure goes away and you instead only care about getting damage through to set up your finishing blow; as such it can pay off to fill out your field with boosters quickly and units that gain power early are to be valued.

There is one clan out there though who's sole purpose is to obliterate their opponents defenses and takes the idea of a penetration deck in a different direction, indeed you can't talk about penetration as a strategy without mention of Nubatama.

Now since we likely don't read Japanese, what you have here are "Shura Stealth Dragon, Mantoracongo" and "Shura Stealth Dragon, Daranicongo" a pairing about to hit the UK in the February release of Vanguard G that epitomizes a penetration strategy in a whole new way.

Unique in Cardfight!! Vanguard, Nubatama specialize in finishing an opponent off in a manner that has no workaround. This legion pairing is able to save up copies of itself for a persona blast that reliably smashes it's opponents hand size down to less than four cards - while also removing their interception options. With just 2-3 cards left in hand and your centre lane requiring at least two of those to stop, you are guaranteed to land a final blow.

Nubatama in essence are all about depriving people of even the possibility of guarding the entirety your attacks by actively attacking their opponents hand in a variety of ways. The only requirement? Drawing into the right cards to pull it off. Unfortunately the clan currently lacks full support in both triggers and backup rear-guards but if you are interested in penetration decks it's certainly one to watch closely in the future since with the right support it has all the right potential to dominate.