Cardfight Vanguard Deck Tech – Minerva
By Serena L.
Stand Up! Vanguard!
It’s Serena! And this time I brought you a blast from the past: it’s time for a deck tech on one of the Encounter decks and fan favorite unit, Minerva. Like the Chronojet Stride Deck we’ve talked about previously, Minerva and her support cards are from older versions of Vanguard that were all given Overdress facelifts for the standard format. This deck centers around the Clans of older Cardfight Vanguard formats, specifically around the Clan Genesis. Genesis is one of the Clans that formed Keter Sanctuary but many of the cards specifically look for things with just Genesis as it’s Clan, so I’ll be referring to those as ‘Genesis units’. You can play any Keter Sanctuary card in a Overdress Genesis based deck like this, but they might complicate things if they aren’t also a Genesis unit.
Starting off with our ride deck, I’m using the grade 0 Starting Magic, Starlily, who has a standard D format starter effect. There is one thing I should mention is there IS a Genesis starter you can use instead (Vivid Rabbit) that has the same effect as Starlily. There’s only one other card in the deck that might care about that, and the chances of it coming up are slim, but Vivid Rabbit is technically the optimal choice. I just personally like Starlily and her being the starter can trick your opponent into keeping a hand not as good for dealing with Minerva’s playstyle versus other Keter decks. On to our ACTUAL Genesis cards, our grade 1 is Witch of Frogs, Melissa. When Melissa is rode on by a card with it’s only Clan as Genesis, she lets us look at the top 5 cards of the deck and put 2 to soul, then shuffles. Also, when she’s put from soul to drop while you have a Minerva named Vanguard you can call her to backrow and SoulCharge 1. Similarly our grade 2, Witch of Ravens, Chamomile has the same effect when ridden on as Melissa, and a similar effect when put to drop from soul too. Instead of being locked to backrow and SC1 like Melissa, she CounterBlasts 1 to go to any of our rearguard circles. Lastly for the ride deck we have our main vanguard, Omniscience Regalia, Minerva, who has a whopping 3 effects. First, if we have a grade 3 ‘Regalia’ card in our soul, all of our front row gets +5k power, including Minerva herself. Second, once per turn we can SoulBlast 1 to look at the top card of our deck and either keep it on top or put it to soul. Lastly for the main attraction, once per turn, at the end of the battle she attacks if your opponent’s vanguard is grade 3 or greater you can CB1, SB3 and discard a Genesis card to restand Minerva with -1 drive. This seems like a high cost, but remember you get to call out Chamomile and Melissa putting you potentially at 5 or 6 attacks.
Next up we have our grade 1s, which are 3 more copies of Melissa, 3 Aegismare Dragon and 1 Elementaria Sacititude for our PGs, 4 Apple Witch, Cider, and 4 copies of Magic of Colored Flame, Rerelihm. Cider is a Genesis unit that gets 5k more shield if we have a Regalia grade 3 is soul and can return herself to hand after boosting while we have Minerva. Rerelihm, however, is not a Genesis unit, but she supports them! When Rerelihm is placed on rear outside of combat, if our vanguard is a Genesis we can CB1 and SB1 to draw a card, then reveal a card in hand and either call it if it’s the same grade or lower than our vanguard or discard it. Rerelihm also says at the end of the battle she boosted if our vanguard is Genesis, we put 2 rearguards in her column to soul (so herself and what she boosts) to put a Genesis unit from drop into our hand. (this would include Vivid Rabbit, the Genesis Clan starter, if you play that!)
Grade 2s, we similarly have 3 more copies of Chamomile here, and our only other grade 2 is 4 copies of Knight of Deity Decree, Thasus. Thasus says when she’s placed on rearguard circle, if our vanguard is a Genesis we can look at the top 3 of the deck and put one of those to soul and the others on the bottom. She also says at the end of the battle she attacks while we have Minerva as our Vanguard that we can SB1 and retire Thasus to choose a card from hand or drop and put it to soul, and if we put from hand to draw a card.
Finally for grade 3s, we have our 3 copies of Persona Rides for Minerva, plus Gratias Gradale, a Regalas Piece order that lets us activate Persona Ride on a turn we didn’t ride over our grade 3 vanguard. We also have 4 copies of the last Genesis unit in this deck, Regalia of Wisdom, Angelica. Angelica says at the end of the battle she attacks, if we have a Minerva vanguard (which we always will), we can SB1 to give Minerva +5k until the end of turn and we have the option to put Angelica to soul to CounterCharge 1.
Last up we have the trigger line up, which is 4 heals (Circuling Sorceress in this case), 3 of the effect draw Protection Magic, Prorobi, 8 criticals (White Fang Witch Disma and the effect crit Blade Feather Dragon), and our Overtrigger, Spiritual King of Aquatics, Idosfaro. This deck really wants to have the extra crit pressure, since nothing else in this deck has any, and Idosfaro gives both a crit and lets us recycle a card from our drop.
A few other options you can look into are Knight of Rendering Flash, Cairbre and Knight of Piercing, Cadwalla, both of which used to see a lot of play in the deck before we got Rerelihm and Thasus. You can also swap over to the ‘Red OT’, Spiritual King of Ignition, Valnout instead of the ‘Blue OT’ that is Idosfaro. You can also play the Keter OT if you want but it’s effect isn’t as strong as Red or Blue’s except in two specific decks.
All in all, Minerva is a fun, aggressive deck that sets up and burns through soul really well! As always, you can find the deck list on the Deck Log. I think that’s all for me today. Check back next time when we (finally) go over the last Nation we haven’t yet covered in Bradt Gate!
Serena, signing out!
Final Turn!