After a prolonged break, we’ve returned to provide our humble services yet again. Look forward to regular columns discussing everything from standard decks to our speculations about the upcoming series.

We have also implemented a host of new features to keep the overseas Weiss Schwarz community in the loop. More after the jump!

New features:

Release Schedule : A regularly updated timetable of series’ release dates and promotional cards. Now there’s no excuse for missing another issue of that certain magazine!

Gallery : A showcase of the cards from recent series. Expect us to have the scans for upcoming series a few days before the actual release date (maybe)!

A sample of what you can do or expect =D

Immersive community : This is a huge one.

Everyone who signs up is entitled to their own profile page. Nudge people with their @nametags, make friends, message your new-found friends, form a group with them – everything is now possible (doesn’t make sandwiches though).

Also, you can only comment on posts if you’re a member. This is just to avoid random spammers from pestering the site!

With the ‘Groups’ feature, it is possible to receive updates only from the people you care about. Cater your WTB/WTS threads to those who can appreciate it the most. Organize local events or online competitions here to gain more attention. Where else to start than from a site dedicated to Weiss Schwarz?

Forums: Our forums are not just a place for self-introductions. Using our additional  [ card] [ /card] and [ deck] [ /deck] BBCodes, you can now post complete deck recipes using our in-house deck builder! However, please do note that cards you can create tooltips for are limited to what we have in our gallery.

Be nice people, be nice =)

Use [ card ]XX/WXX-XXX[ /card] to display a single card. Please insert the collection ID of the card in full i.e. (series abbreviation) / (series number) – (card index)  (rarity).

Card images must be in Gallery though, so upload with the correct series Abbrevation/Number to post!!

The deck building feature works similarly :

[ deck ]

Characters [any line that starts without a number in front will be treated as a new category]

4 XX/W00-00X; if you place a semi-colon after the collection ID, the text after it will be treated as normal text on the same line.

Events

Climaxes

[ /deck ]

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Enjoy your stay here!

As expected of the series, the cards swing from the effectively brutal to the inane. Without any further ado, let’s torpedo jump into the review!

“As if a cat can do something like that!” – Sakamoto

NJ/WE11-01R  “単純な馬鹿”ゆっこ

0/0 500, 1 soul, -trigger, –trait

C: During your turn, all your other characters gain +500 power.

S: (2), Put this character to rest - Search your deck for 1 <Manga> or <Buddha Statue> trait character, show to opponent and add to your hand. Shuffle your deck.

On first glance this card gave me the “Meh… adding 500 power during my own turn, I might as well use the generic +500 power support” feeling. However, keeping in mind that Nichijou only have Yellow and Blue, this card might just be the key support of this colour. Having the ability to search your deck is an overwhelming advantage, as you not just look for a answer to any situation, you also get to verify the current status of your deck. Status like the number of climaxs, triggers, etc.

The downside of this card would be that currently there are not enough <Manga> or <Buddha Statue> trait characters for you to use this card to its highest potential, and this card has no trait. Thus you cannot loop search it out, though you could use “ふっかつのじゅもん” 麻衣‘s Concentrate ability to fetch one out.

NJ/WE11-02R  水上 麻衣

1/0 2500, 1 soul, -trigger, Glasses/Buddha Statue traits

C: When you have 長野原 みお on your stage, this character gain this ability

C: Assist – Characters in front of this character gain +500 power

NJ/WE11-03R 長野原 みお

1/0 4500, 1 soul, -trigger, Manga trait

C: When you have 相生 祐子 on your stage, this character gain +2000 power.

NJ/WE11-04R 相生 祐子

1/1 6000, 1 soul, -trigger, –trait

A: When this character reverse opponent’s character in battle and you have 水上 麻衣 on your stage, choose 1 of your other character, that character gain +1 soul.

A: Encore (Discard 1 character card from hand)

The Jet-Stream-Attack of this series. Having all 3 of them on stage does put some pressure on opponent.

長野原 みお will be a 1/0 6500 or 7000 beatstick in front of 水上 麻衣 support. A nice number for no cost.

水上 麻衣 will be able to provide the well needed boost to overpower a standard 1/1 7000, as well as the additional level to by-pass those pesky bombs (characters with “A: When this card is put into reverse by a character of the same level or lower, you may put that character into reverse” ability)

相生 祐子, a 1/1 6500 in front of 水上 麻衣 support and can allow you to generate a additional soul for extra damage or for damage control via side-attack. The Encore ability does help in maintaining the combo.

As grand as this combo seems, the weakness is fairly obvious. The power level of both 長野原 みお and 相生 祐子 are below the average 1/1 7000 benchmark on opponent’s turn, allowing oppponent to take advantage of that to mess around with your field. Once any one of them are out of commission, the potency of this combo will drop drastically.

NJ/WE11-05R  ハートフ゛レイク みお

2/1 8000, 1 soul, 1trigger, Manga trait

A: (1) When this character attacks and the climax “Mio’s Berserk” in the Climax zone, you may pay the cost. If you do, this character gains 1 of the following abilities this turn.

[- C: This character gains +6000 power and +1 soul.]

[- A: When this character reverse opponent's character in battle, choose 1 of opponent's cost 1 and below character and send it to his stock.]

*Mio’s Berserk is a “+1000, +1 soul, wind trigger” climax

Truly berserk to the core. This card screams destruction like Eva Unit 1′s awakening moment. Having a choice in ability selection offers a certian degree in flexibility. This card can easily rival a level 3 with 10000 base power, +X support and a +3000 counter card, by reaching a minimum of 15000 power without counting support. Not just that, the 2nd choice allow you to remove those annoying Back Stage supports by sending them to stock. To top it all up, the climax is a wind trigger which upon triggering, can bounce 1 of opponent’s character back to his hand.

Well, as fragile as all other climax combos, you will need to draw/hold on to the climax, which can be dreaded prior to deck refresh. Also, without the climax, this character is but a 8000 power, 500 short of a standard 2/1 8500 vanilla character. So maintaining this character on the field will be a big hurdle.

NJ/WE11-06R お調子者 ゆっこ

3/2 10000, 2 soul, 1trigger, –trait

A: When this character enters the stage from hand, place the top card of your clock into your waiting room.

A: (1) When the climax “NJ/WE11-18aC  時定高校の日常” in the Climax zone and this character is on the Front Stage, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of opponent’s character, send it back to his hand and all your character gain +2000 power this turn.

NJ/WE11-18aC *時定高校の日常 is ”+2000 power, +1 soul to 1 of your character and draw 1 card” climax

This card offers the only unconditional heal in this extra pack. The climax combo can provide a significant power boost to your characters for a final turn push. However, this ability is late in the game, not very practical to certian extend. Should this card have a level 2 change set, then I’m sure the combo will be much appreciated.

Other notable cards and combos:

NJ/WE11-07C  桜 井先生 + NJ/WE11-16C 高崎先生 combo:  高崎先生 2/1 8000, gains +1000 power for every other  桜井先生 on stage. Potential 10500 on side lanes and 11000 on middle lane.

NJ/WE11-08C “ふっかつのじゅもん”麻衣 - Another deck search card with restriction. The Concentrate ability speeds up deck running.

NJ/WE11-12C  憤慨 みお – 0/0 3500, character facing this character gains +1 soul.

NJ/WE11-15C   安 中 榛名 – 2/1 4500, Assist: characters in front of this character gain +1000 power. The Assist ability have no level restriction, which can be very helpful in maintaining the Trollangle combo and the berserk Mio.

Conclusion:

Nichijou is indeed fun to play. The amount of disruption it can do to opponent is wide spread. However this series lacks retrieval and legal targets for deck search seems minute to make a huge impact to the game.

Look forward to the follow up review by self-proclaimed Nichijou fanatic Ekuseru!

Winner of WGP2011 France, Steven Mao

Today, we are lucky to have the owner of the 2^nd placing Angel Beats! deck, Steven Mao to share with us his strategies to his deck! Read more about his deck strategies!

Many great decks were put to the test at WGP2011 and one of the most famous meta-game decks of that period of time was the infamous Angel Beats! Competitive build. At the end of the day, a grand total of 7 decks out of 53 decks were Angel Beats! and one of them made it to the top 3 of the tournament.

Picture of Steven at WS Finals in Japan

At the end of the day, Steven Mao, the owner of an Angel Beats! Deck made it to 2^nd place of the tournament! Being the first foreign player to gain such a high standing in a WS International Tournament is no mean feat!

Luckily for me, I was at the event, and also since I do know Steven personally, I got him to divulge some of his deck strategies to share with everyone!

Deck List

Deck Strategy

By Steven Mao

Angel Beats! is quite a versatile and effective series.

It is a set which offers  a lot of options and its ability to Encore all of its characters, coupled with many other types of support cards allow you to gain control starting from level 1, most of the time till the end of the game.

Mainly there are 2 strategies how you should play with this deck depending on factors, like what the opponent is playing.

Standard strategy:

Level 0 is not really spectacular in Angel Beats.
Just see that you can get 2-3 stock until you’re in Level 1 which is very important.

Also if you have the Messenger of God Tenshi (“神の使い”天使) in your hand and at the same time the bond Otonashi (鼓動の記憶 音無)you should try to get her back during your second turn( if everything is going according to plan).

In Level 1 it’s important to bring out Seeing off Everyone Kanade (皆を見送る役目 かなで) and the Messenger of God Tenshi  (“神の使い”天使). These are the core engine of the deck and also the reason it is so consistent.

After you play your first MoG Kanade and the deck check is a death character you should try to get a second out.

If you get one of the other Climax or Event Cards (13 targets in my deck) you should restrain from playing one more because it leads to massive disadvantage.

Another solution is to use Brainstorm from Operation Tornado (オペレーション・トルネード) or End of the Confrontation Kanade (対立の終わり かなで) to mill away the top deck card and get a new chance of fulfilling the condition to survive.

Those 3 MoG Tenshi are really important to this deck, because they tend to stay in the game until the end (at least 1). With a power of 9000 in your turn, you should be able to KnockOut all Level 1 Character cards and most Level 2 cards.

I also play 3 Power to Protect Climaxes to maximize the strength of MoG Tenshi, which can probably kill everything with that horrifying power.

Additionally there is Singing as I want to Sing Counter card (歌いたかった歌) which you can use starting Level 1 which is an enormous power boost.

As you see the domination on field advantage starts at Level 1.

In Level 2 there are only 3 different cards in the deck.

The most important one is the Change Kanade, Ordinary Girl Kanade (普通の女の子 かなで), which allows for 1 card to be healed from clock after paying its cost for change, which is really great to continue your advantage on the field and clock.

You’ll most likely not encounter situation where you have hand-size problems because of your overwhelming strength in Level 1, Door triggers, Kizuna Otonashi etc.

One of the single piece cards in the deck is the Irregular Entity of the World Otonashi (世界にまぎれたイレギュラー 音無)  which compensates your costs for letting cards go in memory. It also can loop the Ordinary Girl Kanade in special occasions (Once I’ve changed and healed 5-times in a game). Otonashi also can prepare you for the Level 3 game and is with his 8000 Power not a weak contender as well.

The last card is Strength of a Hundred Arms Shiina (百人力の手練 椎名) which has rescued some games for me which i would have lost otherwise. Her shuffle in ability is costly but at very unlucky situations (triggering 3 Climax in one turn), it really is a lifesaver. Single cards are really no real problem in AB!, because it has so many options to retrieve characters (Bonds of Many Lifes Otonashi (多生の絆 音無), Operation Tornado, SSS Gate Climax, Irregular Entity of the World Otonashi), which is consistent and really convenient as well.

And lastly for Level 3, there are 3 different cards.

4 copies of Words of Goodbye Kanade (別れの言葉 かなで) are really necessary and recommended. because there are a lot of situation where you deck out after you have attacked 3-times in Level 2. So you can’t change after deck-refreshing.

But with Ordinary Girl Kanade, it will cost you 1 hand card for its effect. You may first discard Words of Goodbye Kanade and then immediately change into her.

This is really a strong move when you are at Level 2 0 and you can immediately heal the taken penalty from shuffling.

Even if the above situation does not occur, it would also mean that the deck might greatly increase the probability of triggering Words of Goodbye Kanade during your attack. So you’d most likely to attack with Ordinary Girl Kanade and wait until you trigger one. Then you can pay the cost of discarding any card from hand and 1 Stock to get her changed, without having one Level 3 Kanade in the Waiting room beforehand.

With her climax combo you can also hurt the opponent a lot if he is already in a disadvantageous position or just to deal more damage by freeing the opponent’s front row.

I also added one more Yuzuru’s Heart Kanade (結弦の心臓 かなで)which only serves as one more clock healer in level 3 and sometimes to put annoying encore-characters from the opponent into Memory.

Lastly there is the most powerful late game card Passionate Girl Yui! (情熱少女 ユイ)

I think Yui is really underrated in how powerful she really is in Level 3. She gives 2 other character +1000 +1 Soul and you can use her [A] Effect to send back any character from the opponent in the front row, which can really end games in a glamorous manner.

Calculation is a very important aspect here. Attacking 3 times with 3/4 soul can be a game changing outcome.

Alternative Strategies:

You will use this very seldom but sometimes you are forced to.

In games where your field advantage can’t match up against the power of your opponents characters you should always be careful of your climax, that you don’t have them stuck in inconvenient places like stock/hand and too many in the Waiting room.

So Climax Managing is the first aspect of this deck, which you can easily achieve by using brainstorm abilities.

The other aspect to aim for is to thin out your deck by using Student Council President Kanade (生徒会長 かなで), Ordinary Girl Kanade and Guitar Performer Iwasawa (ギターパフォーマー 岩沢). The nice side effects of these cards are that they also get into Memory after using their effects, so they will increase your chances of canceling after a deck refresh.

Mostly you will front attack with those characters into stronger opponent characters. Your chance of cancelling therefore is increased by thinning out your deck and the fact that your opponent will attack an empty field.

Try to keep as many cards on the field and hand and leave Climax cards in the Waiting Room is the key to winning that game.

Also, prepare for level 3 by holding more healing characters in your hand. It will be really difficult for your opponent to win unless you’re unlucky.

Conclusion

With that said, it can be said that it is a very conclusive and direct approach into using the Angel Beats! deck! We would like to extend our congratulations to Steven for his placing in the tournament, as well as a very big hand for sharing with us his approach in using this deck!

Up next, I will be attempting to decipher the winning deck of WGP2011, the Shana deck「何でもできる!!! 」!

Like the anime, the cards are split into the 2 major factions. I’ll be reviewing them in their separate factions as well: the Galette Lion Army and the Biscotti Republic.

Galette Lion Army

The Center of the Battlefield! – Bodyguard and Center Support

DD/WE12-05R “獅子王　レオ” / “Lion King” Leo
Text:
【C】BODYGUARD (When the opponent declares an attack, if this card is in the middle border of your Center Stage, and is not in【Knockout】Mode, your opponent would Front Attack this card instead.)
【A】[ Put 1 card from your Hand into the Waiting Room] When you put this Character card onto the Stage from your Hand, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, select 1 「Magical Battleaxe Granvel」in your Waiting Room, and add it to your hand.

DD/WE12-13C 魔戦斧ｸﾞﾗﾝｳﾞｪｰﾙ /Magical Battle Axe Granvel
Text:
Select 1 of your character cards, until the end of your Opponent’s turn, it gains Power +2000.

DD/WE12-08C “ｼﾞｪﾉﾜｰｽﾞ”ﾍﾞｰﾙ / “Genoise” Vert
Text:
【C】Your other Character card in the middle border of your Center Stage gains Power +1000.

DD/WE12-11C お側役 ﾋﾞｵﾚ /Attendant Violet
Text:
【C】Your other Character card in the middle border of your Center Stage gains Power +2000.
【A】SHIFT Level 2 (During the start of your Main Phase, you may select 1 card in your hand, and this card in your Clock, and exchange them.)

Dog Days re-introduced a very old Level 3 ability: Bodyguard. For those who don’t actually know about this ability, Bodyguard is an effect that forces all your opponent’s Character to Front Attack the Bodyguard character, so long as that character stands in the middle of your Center Stage, and is not in Knockout yet. This is a “Lost Art”, with its appearance last seen in the Extra Booster D.C. D.C.II P.C..

Dog Days, more specifically the Galette faction, brings back this old ability with specific support to boot. It has 2 type of Character support that specifically boosts the power of the character standing in the middle. The Level 2 version adds a whooping 2000, with a Shift effect that allows you to reclaim the card if it falls into your clock. The star of the stage, “Lion King” Leo, has an in-built effect for the player to trade 1 hand away for Magical Battleaxe, Granvel, which can further add the power of Leo to even greater heights. This is easily the best Bodyguard combo in the whole of Weiss Schwarz, which actually focuses on being a Bodyguard, unlike the many Bodyguards of the past that has several non-related effects.

The Princess, Leader of the Army – Princess Leo cards.

DD/WE12-03R 正々堂々 ﾚｵ / Fair and Square Leo
Text:
【A】When your opponent puts a Character card from his Waiting Room to his hand, select 1 of your Character cards, during this turn, it gains Power +2000.
【S】[Put this card into 【Rest】mode] Select 1 of your Character cards with the <<Animal>> trait, during this card, it gains Power +1500.

DD/WE12-04R 戦無双 ﾚｵ / Peerless Warrior Leo
Text:
【A】[①] When this card attacks, and you have 「Lion King Flame Formation Great Explosion」in play, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, select 1 card in your Clock, add it to your hand, then put the top card of your Deck, into your Clock.
【A】ENCORE [Put 1 Character card from your Hand into the Waiting Room] (When this card is put into the Waiting Room from the Stage, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, put this card into its previous border in【Rest】Mode.)

DD/WE12-06C 単騎突入 ﾚｵ / Solo Invasion Leo
Text:
【C】If you have no other Character cards, this card gains Power +1500, and cannot be put into 【Knockout】mode by the【A】abilities of your Opponent’s Character cards.

A mini-highlight of Princess Leo. The first card, Fair and Square Leo, has the ability to boost a Character’s power by a decent amount of 2000 every time your opponent retrieves a character from the waiting room. This ability is very powerful against many higher decks, as they tend to rely on retrieving from the waiting room for increasing/ maintaining hand size. Its second ability gives a temporary 1500 boost to 1 of your Animal trait characters, which is quite useful in many situations where you need to defeat an opposing character, but lack that little amount of power. Depending on your opponent, it could be good to leave at least 1 of her in your Back Stage.

The second card is a personal favourite of mine, that is easily overlooked by many others. Peerless Warrior Leo features a rare instance of ability in the colour Green. It allows the player to retrieve a card from the clock, and later fill up the slot with the top card of your deck. Unlike simply exchanging cards between your clock and hand, this card allows you to gain 1 card in hand. Its climax, being a draw-1-card-add-2000-1-soul type of climax, allows one to effectively earn some hand cards, which is in fact very rare in colours like Green. And 1 point to note is that the ability allows the player to take any type of card from the clock. However, the choices are limited to the cards in your clock, and there’s always the risk of adding a climax from the top of your deck into your clock, reducing the number of damage cancels you have. Its power is also fairly low for a Level 1 character, but it does has an useful Drop-Character Encore that may help to keep it around for a while.

The third card is fairly simple. While it is alone on your Stage, it becomes a 4000 power attacker that cannot be taken down by opposing character’s auto ability, notably the 相打ちability (Suicide, Bomb, whatever you guys like to call it). It is a great starter for Level 0, and perhaps the best in the set itself.

The Prince of Galette – Gaul cards.

DD/WE12-02R ｶﾞﾚｯﾄ王子 ｶﾞｳ / Galette Prince Gaul
Text:
【A】When you play this card onto the Stage from your Hand, until the end of your Opponent’s turn, this card gains Power +1500.

DD/WE12-09C ｶﾞｳﾙ･ｶﾞﾚｯﾄ･ﾃﾞ･ﾛﾜ / Gaul Galette de Rois
Text:
【C】For each of your  other Character cards with the <<Animal>> trait, this card gains Power +500.

Gaul, the brother of Leomitchelli, is but a side character in the show itself, and overshadowed by many of the other characters. However, in this set, his cards are actually pretty decent. Galette Prince Gaul is both a good starter, and a good Level 0 beater. It has a Come-Into-Play effect that makes it 3500 until the end of the opponent’s turn. Unlike his sister, who is bigger when alone, he can co-exists with any support cards that you would want to put, effectively making it grow bigger than 4000. After its 3500 period it is pretty small, but many Level 0s don’t actually have the liberty to live through another level either.

The Level 1 Gaul is an excellent card. It can become a 0 cost 6500 attacker if you have a full field of Animal trait characters. And since every character in this set besides Cinque has the Animal trait, this is not a difficult feat. Compared to other similar version of the cards, however, it is slightly lacking as it sacrifices a Drop-Character Encore ability (or any alternate Encore ability, for the matter) for a mere 500 extra power, which reduces this card’s sustainability. Without a counter or 2, this card may still be defeated soon enough, with current Level 1 power levels well reaching above the realms of 7500 and above.

Biscotti Republic

DD/WE12-17R 召喚主　ミルヒ / Summoner Millhi
Text:
【C】All your other Character cards with the <<Animal>> or <<Hero>> trait gains Power +500.
【A】[①] When your other battling「Cinque Izumi」is put to【Knockout】mode, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, put that Character card into your Memory.
【S】[③ Put 1「Hero’s Arrival」from your Hand into the Waiting Room, Put this card into【Rest】Mode]  Select 1「Cinque Izumi」in your Waiting Room, and put it into the Stage in any Border.

DD/WE12-19R 領主の覚悟　ミルヒ/ Resolve of a Leader Millhi
Text:
【C】If you have 3 or more other Character cards with the <<Animal>> trait, this card gains the follow ability: 「【S】[③ Put this card into【Rest】Mode ] Select 1「Cinque Izumi」in your Memory, and put it into the Stage in any Border.
【C】ASSIST: Character cards in front of this card gains Power +1000.

DD/WE12-33C シンク・イズミ　/ Cinque Izumi
Text:
【A】    When this card is put into the Waiting Room from the Stage, put the top card of your Deck into your Clock.

It is not an understatement to say that this is the backbone combo of a Red deck in Dog Days. The key card in this combo, Summoner Millhi, acts as a global power booster for both the Animal and the Hero trait, the 2 key traits in Dog Days.

Its third effect allows the player to summon the monstrous Cinque Izumi at as early as Level 1, albeit the heavy cost. Cinque Izumi, with a power of 10000, is above average even during Level 2, and would more than likely to last through your whole Level 1. In the event that our Hero does lose in a battle, the player can escape from the painful side effect of putting the top card of the deck into the clock by using Millhi’s second effect, sending Cinque into the memory with a small cost.

Resolve of a Leader Millhi is a decent Level 2 support character, giving characters in front of it a 1000 power boost. Its other effect has a rather hefty requirement, requiring the player to have at least 3 other Characters with the Animal trait in play, but it allows the player to pull back a Cinque from the Memory, to fulfill his duty of a hero again.

Not forgetting the fact that the climax required in the initial Summon Combo is the sole Comeback (Gate) climax of the series, this combo is highly recommended for players who wish to join the battle on the side of the Biscotti Republic.

Backing the Hero – Hero Support

DD/WE12-23C ビスコッテイ領主　ミルヒ　/Leader of Biscotti Millhi
Text:
【C】ASSIST: Character cards in front of this card gains Power +500.
【A】「②」When you put this Character onto the Stage form your Hand, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, select 1 Character in your Waiting Room with the <<Hero>> Trait, and add it to your Hand.

DD/WE12-24C オンミツ部隊筆頭　ユキカゼ　Head of the Spy Squad Yukikaze
Text:
【A】When this card is put to【Knockout】mode, should the Battle Opponent of this card be Level 0 or below, you may put that card to 【Knockout】 mode as well.
【A】「①」During the start of your opponent’s Attack Phase, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, select 1 of your other Character card with the <<Hero>> Trait, during this turn, it gains Power +1500.

DD/WE12-25C ダレミミ隊長　エクレ　/Drooping Ears Captain Éclair
Text:
【A】When this Character attacks, select 1 of your other Character with the <<Hero>> Trait, during this turn, it gains Power +1000.
【S】「Send this Character Card from the Stage to the Waiting Room 」Select 1 of your Character with the <<Hero>> Trait, during this turn, it gains Power +2000.

As one would already have noticed, many cards in the Biscotti faction of Dog Days support the Hero trait. Leader of Biscotti Millhi, in addition to being the basic Assist character, has an additional Come-Into-Play ability that allows one to retrieve a Character with the Hero trait from the Waiting Room.

Head of the Spy Squad Yukikaze, while being a valuable Level 0 character with the 相打ちability (I don’t know what you guys like, nor what is official. I’m sticking with this), has an additional effect of a pseudo-counter for your Hero, adding a decent 1500 for the cost of 1. This ability may also prove to be useful in early game for paying out climaxes that you have triggered.

Drooping Ears Captain Éclair provides a power boost for the Hero, 1 way or the other. You may use it as an attacker alongside your Hero for a 1000 boost, or you may send it to your Waiting Room for a 2000 boost.

The Hero in Action! – The Hero Cards

DD/WE12-16R “勇者超特急”　シンク　/”Hero Super Express” Cinque
Text:
【A】「② Put the top card of your Deck into your Clock」When this card is Front Attacked, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, select 1 of your other Character with the <<Animal>> Trait, together with this card, and return them to your Hand.

DD/WE12-30C 召喚勇者　シンク /Summoned Hero Cinque
Text:
【A】When this card is Front Attacked, you may send the top card of your Deck into the Waiting Room. If that card is a Climax card, select the opposing Character, during this turn, that card gains Soul -1.

Let’s take a look at the other Hero cards available in the set. “Hero Super Express” Cinque is a rather peculiar card, allowing it and 1 other character with the Animal trait to escape from battle for quite a cost. During your Level 0 period, you may want to use its ability to clear out climaxes that you have triggered, adding clock to make your way to Level 1 faster, and to prevent advantage loss from your characters losing in battle. It is not really advisable to use the ability in later stages of the game as there are clearly better uses for the 2 cost for the ability. And the 1 clock penalty may prove to be fatal in your late Level 2 to Level 3.

The other card, being a Level 1 character with 5000 power, is somewhat slightly below average in terms of power level. Its ability is yet another strange one, reducing the opposing character’s soul by 1 if you send a climax card from the top of your deck into the waiting room. The effect, on the surface, looks useless. Seriously. It’s the same if you have just cancelled 1 damage from the opposing attack, and since this is before the actual trigger of the opposing character, its soul value may increase to above 1, and you would have lost a chance to cancel because you just send it to the waiting room.

There are still uses for this card, however. This card is one card that you will use the ability but pray not to trigger the effect. By sending a non-climax away, you can move your climaxes in deck 1 card closer to the top, and have a better chance to cancel whatever comes your way. And in the event that you have only 1 card left in your deck, and you’re sure it’s a climax, this effect may also come into handy, as it sends the card directly into the Waiting Room, allowing you to perform the deck refresh with the climax inside, as compared to a last card cancel. Nevertheless, this card is highly situational, and if you do use it, don’t curse and swear when you send away a climax in front of a 5 soul attack.

The Leader of the Country – Writer’s Pick on Top Card.

DD/WE12-22R ミルヒオーレ・フィリアンノ・ビスコッティ/ Millhiore Firianno Biscotti
Text:
【A】When you play this card onto the Stage from your Hand, you may put the top card of your Clock into your Waiting Room.
【A】「②」When this card’s battling opposing Character is put into【Knockout】mode, you may pay the cost to activate this ability. Should you do so, deal 1 damage to your opponent. (Damage cancel may happen)

Hands down, this is easily the best card in the whole Dog Days set. Let’s take a closer look at what it actually does. The first of its effects is a typical Level 3 effect that you see everywhere, simply allowing you to prolong your death 1 damage longer. Its second effect isn’t that abnormal either, with the simple effect of dealing 1 extra damage for a cost if you defeat an opposing character.

Now, what’s so good about this card, having 2 very normal effects? For starters, it combines both healing yourself and damaging others in 1 single card. Hardly any Level 3s have this effect combination, with the exception of Trouble Girl Haruhi from the Haruhi Series, and Under One Roof Mikoto & Kuroko, from the To Aru series.

Let’s do a somewhat quick comparison with these 2 cards of similar effects. Trouble Girl Haruhi is able to deal 1 damage to the opponent as long as it attacks with Some Day in the Rain in play. It reduces the requirement of first defeating a character in order to deal the damage, and also saves cost as the effect costs nothing. However, you would need to play the Climax in order for this to happen, which easily means you would have to hold the climax since Level 2 or even earlier. If not, you would have to pray that you draw 1.

The more independent and powerful version, Under One Roof Mikoto & Kuroko, is able to gain the ability to deal 1 damage if it defeats a character, and a bonus of 2000 power, with a small cost of 1 stock and 1 hand. Millhiore, on the other hand, does not gain any additional power, and requires a cost of 2. One good thing about it, however, is that it only pays after you reverse a character, allowing you to use that 1 stock you’ve gained in its attack as part of its cost. And personally, I would prefer not to reduce my hand size, even during Level 3. But do notice 1 thing that both predecessors have that MIllihiore doesn’t: the ability to Change it out at an earlier Level.

This card, in Neo-Standard play, would not see much of the light as the supports are decent at most, and it is rather hard to reach above certain power barriers that is expected of the Level 3 environment now. However, it has not 1, but 2 of the most supported traits in the whole of Weiss Schwarz itself: the Animal trait and the Music trait. Combining cards in The Idolm@sters with this card can easily raise its power level, and to achieve its job of defeating the opponent even more efficiently. There are also many support for the Animal trait, dating as far back as the first series of the game, and also many cards that can search this card out from either the Deck or the Waiting room for both the Animal and Music trait.

Of course, it isn’t the best of cards. There are many that can do the same job, and even better. However, it is still a good card that is highly usable and versatile in many situations.

OVERALL REVIEW

Dog Days is a pretty friendly Extra Booster. By having only 2 colours, it allows people to form decks from the set at greater ease. The cards in the set, however, are not really suited for the higher level of playing, Neo-Standard wise. The cards are all fairly decent, with a few excellent cards, but would suffer a lot from fighting the few mainstream series. Lack of card pool is what all Extra Booster only series have, so there isn’t much that can be done for that. This set does have a fair amount of roleplay, and nothing could be better if people who like this series simply take a step back and enjoy the fun that Dog Days can bring them.

First off i would like to wish everyone a happy new year 2012! Starting this coming February, WS@NK-DS will be restarting it’s posts!

Totally unrelated pic but it’s a Happy New Year pic! And it’s Kantoku.

Read more to find out what new exciting content we will be bringing you!

First of all, to bring forth good news, i would prefer to announce the opposite first. =(

In light of the birth of many awesome WS translation sites out there like Heart of the Cards, Little Akiba and WS Wikia, we would be halting our translation projects till further notice. This does not mean we won’t ever get to do them, but i would recommend anyone who want to be really current to hit on those above websites to check the translation sites. The decision to do so is also due to…

our transition from a translation/content site to a PURELY WS CONTENT BASED website!

This would simply mean our articles will be purely based on WS as a game, the cards itself, game strategy, and the sorts!

We will be covering the following, to say the least-

- Booster Title set reviews
- Trial Deck reviews
- Extra Booster set reviews
- Championship Decks explanation
- Vintage set reviews (Old sets)
- Big scale event coverages (WGP, BCF, if applicable)
- Deck Strategies and playing technique discussions
- Floor Ruling and Comprehensive rule discussions
- Restrict list discussions
- PR cards/Tournament PR/Item release Schedules

And more!

This is obviously a lot of work, so i am glad to say i have a team of fresh new writers for the blog! They are~

- Myself (webmaster and chief editor/author)
- bj0rn (Graphics/design and author)
- EkuseruHKC (coder/programmer and author)
- Victor/Chitosev (Rules expert [trolling] and author)
- Zen (author)

As we would like to start off with a bang, we are now preparing a new visual experience as well for readers out there! The above list is but a short sampling of what we will be writing on this blog so do look forward to these fresh new content!

WS@NK-DS Relaunch date is tentatively set around the early February period so do look out for it!

See you then!

Also, do look out for the new TCG website at http://thecardgeeks.com !

Amongst the most prominent decks, Little Busters! and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi has always been a hot favourite amongst players due to their versitility and consistancy. Both titles have been dominantly outclassing other titles in the preliminaries and have a high percentile in the finalists list. Amongst the top 6 of WGP are 1 of Little Busters! as well as The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. It was viewed by some as the Golden Age of Neo-Standard

Last night however, Neo-standard powerhouses Little Busters! and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi have both received banned cards in their listings, effectively reducing their power maybe by 50%.

This restriction has sent shockwaves to the people affected and has probably ended the Golden Age of Neo-standard in just a few short minutes. Read more to find out.

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First up on the banlist was not a surprise. Rest!, or 休憩！is now totally restricted from all deck builds including Neo-standard.

Loosely translated by myself

Seeing this card run in 4s in every Meta Standard deck and every Neo-Standard Little Busters! deck, this card has seen tremendous amount of play over the past year.

The reason for this ban is pretty simple. It’s pretty much a god draw, maybe equivalent to YuGiOh’s Raigeki at times of need. The ability to heal not one, but two cards from your Clock, at your choice, is pretty much broken, especially for it’s 1 Cost. To top it off, it puts itself to Memory to avoid players from using it again. It was meant to be a set-back, but in the current meta where Memory plays an important role, it is not much of a draw back anymore.

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Next is The World Has Lost it’s Colour, or 色褪せた世界. This card is now restricted from inclusion into Neo-standard and Title decks only.

Again, loosely translated by me

As one of the best cards in the set, it gives the player tremendous amount of advantage for the cost of 1 Level 1 or above card. The card allows players to re-summon a Level 0 Brigade Leader character card onto the stage and on top of that, retrieve 2 character cards from his Waiting Room. That’s practically a 2 for 3 event card at 1 cost.

Frankly, whenever the player needs to use this, it is at 0 lost. Firstly, when the player is required to use the card, he can either prepare for his next level, or try to get a better field immediately. Not being able to kill the opponent is not the matter here anymore as, whatever the level 1 can’t beat, the level 0 won’t be able to as well. Near the end game, players can not only tribute away their high level level 3 cards to loop heals, it is also able to bring back another card to recycle (level 0). Pretty much the gelling card of the deck.

The reason for not totally restricting it would be due to the overwhelming (dis)advantage of the requirement to resummon a level 0 Brigade Leader on the stage. In the case of a Standard deck, the deck would be required to either run more Brigade Leader level 0s or to simply play all of them to meet the requirement of the Event card.

Corrected, the player does not need to play a level 0 Brigade Leader on the stage as a cost. However, the event card’s potential will need to be realized by inserting more level 0 Brigade Leader, thus discouraging stronger deck builds.

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Being a player who started out with LB, and also a heavy LB player, this blow is pretty significant to me personally. However, a personal thought would be that this will allow players to use new decks instead and not returning to the old titles, simply because of it’s raw power.

And besides to be fair, yes these cards are pretty imbalanced!

Good job Bushiroad!

Be back probably after the 2nd week of December with Evangelion booster booster translations too!

Well, due to erm, pretty unforeseen circumstances, the translations for the new trial decks (at least 2 of them)…. are already done! Again, do follow the rules as per normal with regards to translation use.

Click on below link to access

Card images according to my own preference =X

More updates and card preview pic will be uploaded as soon as possible!