The Vanguard Vortex: The Maidens of Massive PAIN

With Fighters’ Collection 2015 Winter just behind us, Maidens have gotten a couple of support cards, and my god is it glorious. After the release of Rambling Rose, Neo Nectar is the only other clan that stands next to DOTE-X with a 100% Legion loop. This isn’t where we’ll stop, though. I’ll be posting a Maidens build, along with a personal twist on this archetype. Continue reading

The Vanguard Vortex: Sakuya’s 4Nemuel.dek

Nemuel_&_Vepar

Well, it’s not MY 4Nemuel.dek. It’s almost every single 4Nemuel.dek out there, maybe with one maindeck card change. I’ll be covering the maindeck lineup, with some thoughts on the Stride deck.

Grade 0
4x Duo Lovers Singer, Darling
4x Duo Grampus Turn, Shannon (Crit)
4x Duo Love Joker, Chulym (Crit)
4x Duo Pride Crown, Madeira (Crit)
4x Duo Tropical Healer, Medjerda (Heal)

Grade 1
4x Duo Petite Etoile, Peace
4x Duo Gorgeous Lady, Kazuha
4x PR♥ISM-Duo, Aria (Sentinel)
2x Duo Clear Parasol, Kura

Grade 2
4x Duo Beloved Child of the Sea Palace, Minamo
4x Duo Mini Heart, Rhone
4x Duo Lovely Devil, Vepar

Grade 3
4x Duo Lovely Angel, Nemuel

Grade 4
2x School Etoile, Olivia
1x Legendary PR♥ISM-Duo, Nectaria
2x Rain Elemental, Madew
3x Legend of the Glass Shoes, Amoris

Continue reading

The Vanguard Vortex: G-BT04 Updates!

Neo Nectar

Grade 0
Maiden of Physalis (FV)
8x Crit (4x Flower Garden Maiden, Mylis)
4x Draw

Grade 1
4x Maiden of Cherry Stone
4x Maiden of Passionflower
3x Valkyrie of Reclamation, Padmini
2x Early Flowering Maiden, Pia

Grade 2
4x Maiden of Cherry Bloom
3x Maiden of Flower Screen
4x Wisteria Knight

Grade 3
3x Ranunculus Flower Maiden, Ahsha
3x Maiden of Rambling Rose
2x Maiden of Trailing Rose

Grade 4
4x Jingle Flower Dragon
2x Dream-spinning Ranunculus, Ahsha
1x Flower Princess of Spring, Arborea
1x Flower Princess of Spring’s Beginning, Primavera

Possible Changes
-1 Cherry Bloom, +1 Pia
-1 Cherry Bloom, +1 Trailing Rose
-1 Cherry Bloom, +1 Ahsha

-2 Jingle Flower, +2 Ahsha


 

Gear Chronicle

Grade 0
Timepiece Dracokid (FV)
8x Crit (4x Heart Thump Worker)
4x Luckypot Dracokid

Grade 1
4x Steam Maiden, Arlim
4x Steam Breath Dragon
3x Summit Crest Gear Wolf
2x Steam Fighter, Ur-ningin

Grade 2
4x Steam Fighter, Kalibum
4x Steam Fighter, Amber
3x Upstream Dragon

Grade 3
4x Chronojet Dragon
4x Steam Fighter, Balih

Grade 4
4x Interdimensional Dragon, Ragnaclock Dragon
2x Chronodragon Nextage
1x Interdimensional Dragon, Lost Age Dragon
1x Interdimensional Dragon, Epoch-maker Dragon

Possible Changes
-2 Ragnaclock, +2 Nextage
-1 Epoch-maker, +1 Faterider/Upheaval Pegasus
-1 Lost Age, +1 Faterider/Upheaval Pegasus
-1 Kalibum, -1 Amber, -1 Upstream Dragon, +3 Glimmer Breath

CotD 3/13/2014

In retrospect, while Red suddenly has heal, the Kongou sisters aren’t that OP.

Refresh Point

Today we have most of the Kongoe-class battleships – but where’s the nameship!?

Kongoe-class Battleship No. 2, Hiei
KC/S25-083 RR CH
Red Levl 3 Cost 2 Trigger 1 Soul
Power 9500 Soul 2 <Ship Girl> <Battleship>
[Auto] When this card is placed from hand to the stage, you may choose 1 <Ship Girl> character in your waiting room and return it to your hand.
[Act] [Rest 2 of your other <Ship Girl> characters, put this card in the waiting room] Choose a 「Kongoe-class Battleship No. 2, Hiei Kai-Ni」 in your waiting room and put it in the slot this card was in, and it gains +1000 Power for the turn.

Kongoe-class Battleship No. 2, Hiei Kai-Ni
KC/S25-081 RR+ CH
Red Level 3 Cost 3 Trigger 1 Soul
Power 9500 Soul 2 <Ship Girl> <Battleship>
[Cont] This card gains +X Power, where X is 1000 times the Level of the character…

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Super Quick Update: “eSports and Competitive Play”

Short and sweet update on my decisions to try and go back to older games, as well as entries to other options.

  • Black Ops 2: Everyone’s on Ghosts
  • Alliance of Valiant Arms: Everything is fucking OP, and the shop system has been butchered.
  • Blacklight Retribution: HRV a.k.a. legal wallhacking slows the game down to a crawl.
  • Quake Live: Time issues, and it’s hardly popular in North America.
  • Counter-Strike: Very very tempting, but the community is still split between three games, unlike StarCraft where the entire scene had pretty much transitioned into SC2 HotS. As an example, CEVO still hosts 1.6, Source, AND GO events.
  • COD4 Promod: NOBODY is playing this on leagues anymore. Hell, I don’t think it’s on ANY league.
  • KOFXIII: If I have the time, sure, as well as a regular sparring partner/s, but like I said in the main post, it’s fragmented as a community.
  • America’s Army Proving Grounds: I was pretty good at AA3, but I never saw any competition potential on it. Highly considering this route.
  • Tribes Ascend: I’m complete shit at this game
  • League of Legends: LOL FUCK MOBA SOLO Q IS HELL
  • Ghost Recon Online: Another good candidate that would actually be fun to play. My only issues with this game is my frame rates when playing it. Gotta upgrade my rig first.
  • Day of Defeat: WAIT, SERIOUSLY? This shit is still listed on NationalESL. Tempting but no.
  • TF2: Really, it’s more of the same “I have to find a team” deal.

That’s about it, really. While I have options, I’m just too reluctant to start again, considering my rig isn’t up to spec anymore.

eSports/Competitive Play and Why I Can’t Do It Right Now

I used to be a Promod player like you, then I took a shitty PC in the face.

I used to be a Promod player like you, then I took a shitty PC in the face.

tl;dr money

I used to be big on playing competitive FPS. I had experience playing PAM2 Rifles-Only CTF on Call of Duty 2, Promod and PAM4 on Call of Duty 4, Black Ops 2, and Alliance of Valiant Arms. I used to love playing to win, playing to help my team rise up the ranks, playing and actually having fun.

Now, that’s all changed. With the decline on eSports-friendly games and denial of private rentable servers, I just can’t take it seriously anymore, at least on the FPS side. So I looked for another way.

My search led me to fighting games. Sure, I was a big super-casual-nub whose only combos involved a jump-in kick to crouching kick to some special move, but I was willing to learn. In fact, I had bought a stick, and I had modded a few of its parts. Hell, I even put custom art on it. What’s my problem now? Time. While I could easily squeeze in an hour practice a day, five days a week, one online game per day, I just don’t feel motivated. My issue with the FGC is the general fragility of its games, and how splintered and fractured the communities are, because let’s face it, there are MULTIPLE FGs out there. Comparing it to RTS where StarCraft has a hold, or FPS where Counter-Strike is still here, or something bigger like the MOBA scene where LoL and Dota2 are both popular.

On a smaller scale, the only reason I can’t really play at these levels anymore is that I’m running on an aging system (well, let’s face it, it was aging 4 years ago). My frames per second are suboptimal, and anyone can tell you that frames is life in a shooter. On the other side, I just don’t have access to an online console. I have an Xbox but that requires a subscription that I can’t sustain. I don’t have a PS3, either.

They’re really just lame excuses, but at its core, being “hella poverty” is actually a predicament when you’re trying to be good at this. I doubt any skilled player can keep their consistency when they move from a 250FPS average rig to a 20FPS average. Still, I’m not giving up. I’m probably going to start going back to the games I had played competitively in, and maybe find new prospects. As of right now, AVA and Blacklight Retribution come to mind easily.

More New Vegas, More Loli Androids! [Part 1]

We’ve all had our Follower Trains before~

A lengthy discussion with cousins last Thanksgiving about Skyrim and New Vegas has pretty much reignited my interest in playing both, though Path of Exile has pretty much taken up my time until recently. Sadly, Skyrim on Legendary is severely unbalanced when paired with rebalance mods like SkyRE and ACE. I’m getting two-shotted by most enemies. One would think this is just the NPC de-leveling happening, but when even those bastards in Bleak Falls Barrow are kicking my ass, it’s the difficulty level. I might give it another try on Expert or, Madoka forbid, Adept, but Legendary + rebalance = no go. Continue reading