Overview of the Cardfight Vanguard Rules Changes

By Serena L.

Stand Up! Vanguard!

Serena here! I was planning on finally writing about the last Nation I mentioned last time, but Bushiroad made some massive announcements for the Overdress/Standard/D format. I thought I should cover them, since they’re pretty impactful, not just to the Japanese side of things, but to the English side of the game as well.

The first thing I’d like to go over is the new rules for deciding who takes the first turn. Currently, the winner of the random method of choice (rolling dice, rock-paper-scissors, ect.) is the one who goes first. However, starting on January 19th 2024, both in English and Japanese, (which is going to be an important date overall for this article), the winner will now have the option of going first or second. Generally, going first is the proper play, but some strategies will actually prefer going second, so this is a welcome change!

Next up, we’re getting a new resource! It will be debuting in Japan on the 19th of January and the 19th of April on the English side of the game with the release of the new DZ Quick Start Deck Sets. Each of these Quick Start decks will include an Energy Generator. The Energy Generator is a Crest that can be included in all ride decks as a fifth card, called a ‘Ride Deck Crest’. Each deck may include one. The Energy Generator states when you ride as an Auto ability you can place it into your Crest Zone (a new game zone) and if you went second to EnergyCharge 3. You can have up to 10 Energy, and at the beginning of your Ride Phase, you EC3. The Energy Generator also has one more function. Once per turn as an Act skill, you can EnergyBlast 7 to draw a card! This will give the Generator utility for every deck, not just the new ones, but those new ones will have other ways to spend Energy, and some new generic cards that will be usable in other decks will too, like Light Elemental Popowa which lets you ride from ride deck with a cost of EB4 instead of discarding or EB2 when it’s placed on rear or guardian circle to gain 5k power/5k shield until the end of the turn!

Now, you might be wondering, where you’re gonna fit these generics into your existing decks? Well, Bushiroad is making that an easier choice now, too! What might be the biggest change they announced is the fact we’re getting 4 more slots in the main deck! That means while deck size is currently fixed at 46 cards in the main deck and 4 cards in the ride deck (not counting the Ride Deck Crest, which is currently just Energy Generator), we will now have 50 cards in the main deck AND 4 in the ride deck! Like the previous rule change I mentioned, this is also going into effect for both the Japanese and English sides of the game on January 19th. This will have some interesting side effects, helping free up space in decks that were previously very tight on room for tech options. However, it also means you’re less likely to hit triggers, since you’re now playing 34 normal units instead of 30.

Now for a couple of examples of things you can add. Starting with my Feltyrosa deck, I think I’d add a couple copies of Fulfill Sweets, Angelma or Hair-braiding Aspiration, Heilwig for more card draw until we get the Energy Generator in April, then I’ll likely swap over to rounding out my playset of Dedicated Serenade, Eleonore and either Join Grasp, Ernesta to get more powerful swings or Wraith Embrade, Betina for some extra soul. Another deck we can look at is Tamayura. Previously, I said we would have to remove one of our dolls to play the new grade 3 Tamayura. Now we can actually put that back in, and run full playsets of all the dolls! With our two remaining slots we can also put two copies of the original Tamayura back in so we have 6 potential Persona Rides in the deck! The last example is Minerva, and I think either Knight of Rendering Flash, Cairbre or Knight of Piercing, Cadwalla would be good choices to meet the new requirements.

All in all, I believe these are all very positive changes. I’m excited to see how else the game will evolve going forward into 2024 and the new Divinez era of the Standard format. We do know for sure that the six main Divinez decks will all have another unique mechanic coming up, similar to Pokemon’s VStar Powers or GX Attacks, but we’ll dive more into that when we learn more about it. I hope you find these changes to the game as exciting as I do.

Serena, signing out!
Final Turn!