Ildonna's new toys [JPN]

of course, as I'm writing this, a lot of these fancy new cards haven't come out yet--but they looks so fun, I can't help but do some personal brainstorming. no playtesting yet, but you can bet I'll be doing a lot of it as soon as possible.

anyways, to the meat of it:

Grade 0's
-Spinbau Revenger
-8 Crit
-4 Draw
-4 Heal

Grade 1's
-4 Garurubau
-4 Black Sage Charon
-4 perfect guards
-2 Buranbau revenger

Grade 2's
-4 Cursed Lancer
-3 Coilbau Revenger Sharkbau Revenger
-2 Darkness Maiden, macha
-2 Skull Witch Nemain

Grade 3's
-4 Illusion Revenger, Mordred Phantom
-3 Origin Mage Ildonna
-1 Dark Mage, Badhabh Caar

Winning Image:
early game rushdown, lategame tank, drawdrawdraw.

it seems like a pretty straightforward deck to me. Spinbau makes a decent starting vanguard, since most of the G3's in the deck are limit breakers, and you can probably get the draw off if your opponent isn't blocking much until late game.
Garurubaus are great for early rushdown make 18K collumns with rearguard Mordreds and Coilbau when ildonna starts doing his thing. Staple full set of 8K boosters and perfect guards. two copies of Buranbau because i'd only maybe want to draw one of them in most circumstances, and in the worst case scenario I can just dig one out with Mordred's break-ride ability. it's a great vanguard booster when its power bonus goes off, because it makes Mordred and Ildonna 23K attackers without any other bonuses, which puts decent pressure on Hamburger-Time.

Coilbau makes a decent attacker when Illdona starts sacrificing rearguards to draw, but since it's not that great until that point, i'm only packing 3 of them into the deck. if both fields are full before you use your limit break, your opponent would have to intercept with both rearguards in order to stop Coilbau from getting its bonus. I would try not to throw more than one of them down on the field at a time. you're inevitably going to be retiring one of your columns if things are going according to plan, which means you'd be retiring a Coilbau that didn't get its power bonus when it attacked if you had more than one of them on the field. holding onto them to replace/block as necessary allows you to avoid wasting them.
while the above commentary about Coilbau is still true, the fact that Sharkbau attacks for 11K as long as the vanguard has a LB4 ability, and that all of my grade 3's that i would be riding have LB4 abilities makes Sharkbau a more consistent choice that can swing for 18K if boosted by Garurubau even before and after Ildonna does his thing.

Cursed Lancer is there to try to keep your counterblasts fresh so that you can use your tech options of Neamain, Macha, and Mordred and either A) pressure your opponent to block it heavily or B) flip your damage back up for more fun.
only two machas and two nemains because I'd not want to counterblast TOO much in early game, but they can be called out with Mordred if I absolutely need them and have the resources to use them. being able to CB2 for +2 and CB1 for +1 field advantage is nice, especially if cursed lancer gets a hit in not long afterwards.

Mordred is a fantastic addition to the shadow paladins, and the fact that he can toolbox out anything your field is lacking from the deck is fantastic. unfortunately, if early translations are correct, you HAVE to counterblast 1 to get the power boost to whichever card rode him. this isn't that big of a deal--you can afford to CB 1 and still be able to use Ildonna's limit break. Using some of our other toolbox options might get in the way of that if you're overzealous.
I chose to run three Ildonna's because I wanted the odds of getting Mordred first to be slightly higher. I'm not entirely committed to Badhabh Caar taking up that last slot--there are a few other options. I'm generally fond of Caar because of his ability to refill the field for Ildonna.

Tweaks I'd consider:
- 6Crit/6Draw. it might not be as offensive as 8/4, but a little bit more drawing power can get you that fat hand you like. it would lose a little bit of consistency, so it's a gambler's option.
-4 Ildonna, just go all out for getting the big guy out.
-Dark Metal Dragon/Dark Dictator for the last slot. neither of them really interfere with the deck's winning image, and both of them are viable alternative rides if for some reason ildonna doesn't show up by late game. both of them are just vanilla 10K as rearguards, so their only use is as retire-fodder for Ildonna's ability.

I'd switch out the Babd for DD really, since the late gane/finisher, or chance to actually Break Ride into DD could end the game if your opponent didnt expect it, honesty, this seems consistent enough, but a finisher without depending on a break ride would probably go over that random plus babd gives. Im assuming coilbau is there mostly to combat the burger meta? Because if not, I'd still go for +1 Macha, since, unless you plan to use it to fill the space given by Ildona, you wont be getting her early enough to rush properly, and by late game, pre-ildona, your rg should be decent enough to not warrant macha.

yeah, I generally try to build for a hamburger-time meta. my local group is a bunch of poor twenty-somethings who're gradually trying to put those decks together, and while plain shadow-paladins generally get the job done, I'd like to embrace the new options and be prepared for the possibilities of them catching up, or for myself participating in higher-level competitive play.

Yeah, honestly, my only suggestion is -1 Nemain, +1 Macha, since only two copies of her won't do any good if you intend to consistently get her early-mid game, either that, or replace with Blaster Dark Spirit for some cheap Mordred toolboxing +1 so your CB isn't so much in demand, but that gives up some early-mid game rushing

now that sharkbau revenger has been revealed, it's an easy choice to replace the Coilbaus with Sharkbau.
Sharkbau being an 11K attacker as long as i'm at grade 3 in this build is just indisputably more consistant, which leaves Coilbau as a beater for Raging Form Dragon (on turns you get the persona-ride thingy) or PBD (if you aren't going with a Hamburger-Time build, for whatever reason)

which is a shame, because I LOVE Coilbau's art. In any case, I'm sure SP will get more unit-retiring cards in the long run, so Coilbau won't be such a poor choice for TOO long.