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Saikyo Cardfighter R

Dueling Dragon King, ZANGEKI   Continuing on with the whole Technical Booster thing, here is an archetype that absolutely no-one liked. ZANGEKI here needs to have ZANBAKU (who rather stupidly didn't get reprinted this set to even try and convince anyone to try this out) in his soul to use the first skill: at the start of the opponent's main phase, you Counterblast one and choose your opponent's Vanguard, and if it attacks, unless they discard a card from the hand, they lose 2 of their Drive Checks. On RG circle, he can Counterblast 1 and sacrifice himself to take 2 ZANBAKU from the deck, move one to the soul and call the other. Bounce the called ZANBAKU to hand at the end of the turn.   This had all the potential to be good. The real problem lies in the fact his support cards are absolute wank. And because he has almost nothing to do with the main gimmick of Murakumo as a whole, the generic support he can combine with just makes the whole deck sad and pathetic. The only sort of saving grace is that if you stride into G4 Shirayuki this is at least easy to set up for the opponent's turn.   Trying to return to its Nubatama roots is not worth the extra potential for taking away cards with more attacks nor the loss of awesome bosses like Homura Raider. Yasuie or GTFO.   2/5

Winston Fairwinds

Dueling Dragon, ZANGEKI I love this unit. Does it mean it's good? Not on the level that Yasuie is. Looking at the broader picture, Duelingdragon.dek does have backrow attack shenanigans like Yasuie.dek does, but it takes more counterblasts to do so using the Dueling Dragon support. You still could run Yashabayashi though, for when you stride into G4 Yasuie. That's a lot of waiting though, so you might as well bite the billet and run either one of the on-hit Grade 2 counterchargers. ZANGEKI is more of an annoyance than a winning condition. It's not hard to set him up at all, but most of Murakumo's countercharge engine is either attached to Yasuie or on-hit effects, so you're not going to be using ZANGEKI every time your opponent takes a turn. But let's not dismiss the fact that when you do use ZANGEKI's effect, your opponent essentially *has* to discard a card. Getting 1 drive while on a Stride, or no drives while on a Grade 3 or less Vanguard will set back the opponent too much. This is especially true if the opponent is going into a restanding Stride (The Ace, Victoplasma, etc.) that lose drive checks from their own effects. Discarding does affect their guarding potential, so even if they can keep up in offense, their defense will be lacking, especially since Duelingdragon.dek will throw up 4+ attacks when you go on the offensive. Might as well bring this negative up: if you find yourself sitting on ZANBAKU instead of ZANGEKI, you're basically gonna be vanilla outside of, say, two matchups (Seven Seas and Dankface/Cyclomatooth). I hope people gave up on Legend/Dauntless... Anyways, I could wrap this up with "play Nubatama if you want to make your opponent discard cards," but ZANGEKI can be fun, and his support isn't straight-up garbage. Just know he's not the pinnacle of Murakumo.  3/5