Awakening Saga - A Basic guide to get started

[kurotamashi]

Since the new meta is on it's way I feel like sharing some info that might help you ease in getting into the new meta. This is only what I learned through early testing and going through the cards - all of them. There are going to be many potential combos but I won't be getting into all of them, instead i'll shed some light on some basics to get started.

First thing lets get the pacing out of the way - it's fast. How or why is something I'll leave up to you to explore and learn via experience. I have added a deck of 100 cards at the end for anyone to get started, as for the Rulings you can check them by clicking this.
Now lets get into the juicy bits!


New valuable cards:

Fire:

Uberdragon Bajula, the 2nd
A more balanced variant of the infamous Bajula

Deep purple dragon
The bounce variant of Infinity 'Hidden Blade' dragon

Genji Double Cross Blastdragon
Speed Attacker with 7000 power (making him safe from Hanzou's ninja strike) and a blocker removal on attack makes him arguably one of the best early dragons

Bernard Tyson Blastdragon
Can break 3 shields while removing a creature from the opponent's field, has even more potential if it can untap after it's first attack on the same turn

Double revolver Dragon
Makes triggers which are creatures and ninja strikes useless, like Aqua Surfer and falconer for example.

Shadow sword 'Yagyuu' Dragon
Good support card in bolmeteus samurai deck, can potentially be a free summon

Abdullah Flame Dragon
Potentially a creature with Blizzards of spears effect on summon with only 1 more cost

Blazing Tiger, Crimson Lord
Creature variant of super burst shot, useful in the current meta as it helps against spam of weenie chains of water civ, mana rebursts of nature civ and the unchoosable untouchable psychic creature. 

Shobu Aini
Can bring any fire psychic creature with a cost of 7 or less from hsp zone to the battle zone by using his tap ability

Genji Double Cross (Psychic)
Easy to awaken and devastating once awakened. Mass blocker removal of opponent on attack and when being removed if top card of your deck is a fire bird it stays in the battle zone and you get a fire psychic creature of a cost 7 or less for free

Bolshack Dragon, Temporal Blaze (Psychic)
Easy to awaken against Assaults, hard against controls. Once awakened it can destroy 1 of your opponents creatures with a power of 6000 or less by sacrificing a shield and untaps the first time it's tapped

Storm Kaiser Double Cross (Psychic)
Can only be put into battle zone via Storm Hole or the ability of Hurricane Tops Double Cross, easy to awaken. Once awakened, it's a Quattro breaker and can potentially give you an additional turn on every attack


Light:

Amaterasu Seraphina, Light Weapon
Can cast any Light and/or Darkness spell with a total cost of 4 or less on summon. It benefits from being unrestricted unlike it's water counterpart. Some useful spells to use with Serephina include Infernal smash, Miraculous snare and Eternal spark

Asphal, Spirit Knight
When destroyed can put a Light or Darkness psychic creature with a cost of 5 or less from your hsp zone. Useful with Cheval Temporal Demon spirit

Sun's Creed, Spirit of Revelation
Useful to setup spark triggers and works as an Angel command evo bait

Banga, the Explorer
Potentially able to tap two of the opponents creatures on summon in fourth turn, good for assault decks

Guze North, Blue Moon Guardian
Decent cost to power ratio blocker and prevents bounce on all of your holy field creatures in the battle zone 

Dravita, Temporal Pressure Spirit (Psychic)
Can potentially clear the whole field with super spark and silver glory. Moderately easy to awaken and once awakened prevents the opponent from casting spells and can attack untap creatures.

Galaxy, Temporal Immortal (Psychic)
Easy to awaken (via Orochi, Heavy and Olzekia to name a few) and the best part is that the opponent won't likely try to remove it when it's in the non-awakened form.

Chakra, Temporal Thunder Dragon (Psychic)
Depending on the situation, can be easy or hard to awaken. In base form it's not really useful and but once awakened it removes attack prevention from all of your blockers in the battle zone 

Untouchable, Temporal Hero (Psychic)
This hero is simply a classic, it can fit into any deck, isn't hard to awaken and it's not choosable


Dark:

Ganveet Blaster
Unconditional removal of an opponent's creature while discarding 2 cards from the opponents hand. Quite an advantage for a spell that merely costs 7

Gravitz Zeta, Lord of Extinction
Forces the opponent to remove one of his creatures every time he summons the first creature in his turn.

Steiner, the Resurrecting Reaper
Useful to recycle creatures that cost 7000 or less, has a 8000 body himself and benefits from being a demon command

Gabriel, XENOM the Reaper King
Can be evolved on Demon and Angel commands. Provides decent graving for grave decks or decks which want cards in grave to use soul recall and retrieves an Angel or Demon command back from grave

Grateful Dead, Lord of Demons
Can be evolved on ANY command, on summon returns all creatures from your graveyard to your hand and on removal from battle zone allows you to put any psychic creature with a cost of 7 or less into the battle zone

Belbel, Reaper Doll
Costs only 3 and works as a reaper revival on death allowing you to put any non-evolution reaper from your graveyard into your battle zone

Escobalt Zeta, Annihilating Gunlord
Useful against creature spammers. Can be used in Grave decks with Guljeneraid so that destroying your creatures isn't as lethal to you as your opponents. His ability is helpful to put cards from graveyard back into your deck and against milling too

Hannibal Zeta, the Charismatic Annihilator
The ONLY creature to have Hell's soul recall ability, Hannibal is deadly specially in decks that plan on using it with Necrodragon end of the world. It can potentially wipeout opponent's battle zone by chaining his ability

Dias Zeta, Temportal Suppressor (Psychic)
The ONLY Creature with Annihilating Soul Recall (basically Soul recall but you can choose cards from opponents graveyard too), not hard to awaken by using his Ability with Olzekia in one turn and once awakened it's a monster.

Black Ganveet, Temporal Soldier (Psychic)
Destroys one of the opponents tapped creature on summon, it easy to awaken in discard heavy decks and once awakened has choice discard and removal on every attack


Water:

Hogan blaster
Great spell to bring a creature or cast a spell with high cost in the fifth turn. Benefits from being a shield trigger

Cyber G Hogan
Can potentially bring 2 creatures with him on summon including evolution creatures 

Fuuma Belarita 
The only chain creature trigger that can potentially bring another creature into battle zone on summon

Aqua Jester Loupe
Able to chain into low cost creatures, is a draw engine himself and an evolution bait for Liquid people

Crystal Super Paladin
On summon bounces one psychic creature of the opponent and on every attack sends all blockers in battle zone back to their owners hand

DeepSea Dober
Cheap command support. With the presence many of Angel, Demon, Cyber, Gaia and Flame commands, it's quite useful.

K Atlantis, Ocean Peak of Taiga
Can't be blocked and bounces all of the opponents creatures back to his hand on death. Great against darkness civilization choice removals like Olzekia


Nature:

Kankuro, Peerless Brute
This creature and come out of nowhere as a free summon against opponents who wake up their powerful psychic creatures. It's a powerful Quattro breaker which can be summoned early via dragon or giants support as well

Baban Ban Ban, Earth's Blessing
Ramps up mana faster than any other creature. Most commonly used in decks that plan on using creatures with mana reburst to spam creatures. Can be summoned via mana zone as well thanks to it's Mana Reburst 9 ability

Kankuro Blaster
Arguably the best spell for Assault decks. This spell can be a nightmare for the opponent if he's unprepared, it gives your creatures a power boost and an additional shield break buff that allows them to break a shield even if they're blocked and prevents your creatures to be chosen by most spell triggers

Eco Aini
A better alternative for accel compared to Bronze and Occhapi in dragon decks. Can provide upto 2 mana on summon, benefits from being a fire bird which has various synergies like with Uberdragon Fighbird

Grateful Life, the Earth Breaker
It can be evolved on ANY command creature, gives you an immediate advantage to put a psychic creature with a cost of 7 or less in battle zone on summon and on death allows you to put all cards from your graveyard into your mana zone

Mystery Hippo
Free summon from mana, has a good synergy with Baban Ban Ban decks

Nazuma Guma, Earth Unstoppable
It's costly and not for normal decks but in wild soul mana ramp decks this creature can be quite effective. Allows you to spam wild soul creatures as long as you them in hand. Pair the combo with Hustle castle and it can turn into a never ending spam

Leaf Storm Trap
Effective cheap trigger removal with accel

Green Baltic, Peerless Brute
Provides a free non-evolution nature creature summon from hand on death, a few noteworthy being Vilem Arc and Saigou Giant. Can be summoned early with the support of Kirino Giant and Cocco lupia

Hannya, the Great Enigma
Can be an effective battle zone wipeout against creature spammers. Use it to your advantage by using it with mana reburst creatures to lock your opponents creatures in mana zone while being able to summon your creatures via mana reburst easily

Koshirou, Temporal Ogre (Psychic)
Seems harmless in it's non-awakened form, is easy to awaken and once it awakens allows you to summon a creature from mana zone with a cost of 8 or less whenever it attacks. Some useful creatures include Cyber G Hogan and Balga Raiser


A few important things to note:

. The most powerful early removal is now Olzekia with the support of Ash Liger

. Fuuma Gorgonshack's slow down of Hyperspacial spells will be invaluable

. Magnum, All shot puppet's ability is applies on psychic creatures too which makes him more effective in the meta

. Falconer, Orochi and Hanzou are too good to not keep in any decks if you can make space for them

. Since Heavy Dragon God is restricted and Cyber Brain and Aquan are banned, darkness civilization will have to seek alternatives for draw power

. Milling is not as effective as it used to be thanks to the new soul recall mechanic that can put cards from your graveyard back into your deck

. The new freeze mechanic is significantly better than simple tapping as it doesn't let the opponent untap their frozen creature in the turn the follows the freeze (Example: First Attachment)

Attachments:

100 cards to know before getting into the meta.o8d (9.41 KB)

[nerafim]

First and foremost, good job putting time and effort into doing something for the game, thats always welcomed and appreciated even if its not too accurate, because at least it gets a discussion going, so don't let anything discourage you. I also tend to not care much these days about criticising and testing out claims people make, its all for the fun of the game, but since you are the one who asked me to give some tips I guess I will.

First of all it's a writing and format thing. You said it's a basic guide, but you also try to make calculations and inferences about the metagame and fancy moves, which in some ways are connected, but in many more are not (I'll get to it in a moment). You also spent half the article describing basic rulings and info, which you could have just linked to. Yes we know Psychics are here, but what does that mean for actual playing and strategy (deck building)?...Also a guide also implies you did enough research that you are operating with some hard basic facts and truths, that you can provide people with a consistent result, it's not just speculations on the meta and some basic card moves. So the simple advice here is make sure you label your articles properly and with a bit of clear goal and consistent topic and people won't feel like you didn't deliver on your promise. Don't let this bother you much, it's still better to try and do something than not at all.

As for the actual claims about the game, yes it's considerably faster than before, but NOT for offense, but for everything else instead. Which is the exact opposite of this being an offense meta for rushes and assaults to thrive in. The benefits defense and removals gain far outweigh those of offense in a very straightforward way, so that's why I didn't quite want this meta for the newbies out there to play in.

And some basic examples...


Personally i feel like Fire civilization finally got the buff it deserves with creatures like Bajula the 2nd, Deep purple dragon, Genji's, Bernard Tyson BlastDragon, Double revolver Dragon, Shadow sword 'Yagyuu' Dragon, Jet drill and more. Jet Drill is a really important asset in the early game as it stops the opponent from racking up mana with accel.

Fire did get a buff, most of those aren't the reason why (except for like 2) and those are most certainly not reasons why speed/offense gets strong (just in case you are implying that) and neither are any of the other mentions in the other Civs because they all cost too much so that's not offense. Genji is not that big of a power creep over what we can already do than most people think, and Jet Drill is half useless since it can be removed and there are plenty of controls that don't need mana.

Also, no quote, but like real quick...Psychics are universally good, so you could say that they help offense too, but the truth is that they do more against it than for it. Reason is because they are good power/creature bodies for real cheap with extra effects, so they act as great counter-attackers and deterents, but because their effects are also more geared towards combos or late game, it's better to wait with them, so yeah. Psychics Offense is actually only getting good next set block.


The small list of important things to note is a good collection of tactics and techniques for the new meta that's mostly accurate so good job there.

There's not much else to say because this was a short guide so yueah...but a worthwhile effort so good job.

[kurotamashi]

So what would you suggest I Label the post as? Nevermind, just checked that the title can't be changed

You're partly right, i'm not experienced enough to make any concise statements regarding the meta yet. All i did was go through every single card in the new meta and did some duels before saying what I did. Anyways I'll remove that part

As for the fire creatures buff part - I intentionally didn't add any psychic creatures aside from Zeta and Diabolis in the post. Reason being it's easier to get people in the comfort zone with regular cards rather than confusing them with psychic stuff.

Jet drill can be useful for early game, it was just something cheap and handy that I found.

The reason why I didn't link the rulings simply was because I wanted the post to be kind of a basic all-in-one for the new meta. Now whether that was a good call or not is something i'd know with feedback. So far i showed it to four people and they didn't say anything like they'd be better off if the rulings were linked or removed

If you know some cards that would be worth mentioning in the first section feel free to share, i'll consider adding them. 

[nerafim]

Apr 9, 2016 22:45:45 GMT kurotamashi said:

Anyways I'll remove that part

As for the fire creatures buff part - I intentionally didn't add any psychic creatures aside from Zeta and Diabolis in the post. Reason being it's easier to get people in the comfort zone with regular cards rather than confusing them with psychic stuff.

Jet drill can be useful for early game, it was just something cheap and handy that I found.

The reason why I didn't link the rulings simply was because I wanted the post to be kind of a basic all-in-one for the new meta. Now whether that was a good call or not is something i'd know with feedback. So far i showed it to four people and they didn't say anything like they'd be better off if the rulings were linked or removed

If you know some cards that would be worth mentioning in the first section feel free to share, i'll consider adding them. 

I don't notice that you removed anything, but you don't have to (also makes this discussion look weird), just keep stuff in.

I didn't mean Fire Psychics, just that the best Fire cards this block are in the low cost and medium range, not so much the big guys. Jet Drill is good though and one of the reasons Fire is better but it is not meta defining is what I meant. But for a "list of cards", if I am going to go into it I may as well do it myself, but it can get stuffy and I got other stuff to do.

As for the rulings and such, to be really clear, that was just a general writing advice. Yeah readers usually don't care or notice these things either way, but it is usually considered poor form to just copy paste something or it doesn't really feel like its you who is helping, y'know? (well unless the readers are just super lazy)

I am not saying it's wrong to post basic info or rules, it's actually important for a help article, but it has to feel organic. You got to add something more on top of that, like what it means to the player and for fun moves and such, what he can do with that (the meta part of your article?, otherwise you are not really "guiding" the reader, now are you? ;p...Honestly even just rewording the basic rulings is usually enough, but I guess you sort of did that well at least...I personally was just interested in getting something more after refreshing the basics, so that's why I drew your attention to it.

[kurotamashi]

Speaking of list of cards, I have been testing various decks with various cards/combos and I've sort of found some cards to be quite useful - so I look forward to editing the valuable cards section. During my testing i found that some of the cards I listed aren't THAT valuable. In nature and water i'll be adding more cards and in Fire i'll be removing some and adding some. This time I plan to add psychics too since I've been asked quite a lot to recommend psychics for the new meta.

Coming to the organic and what players can do with part, I already stated in the start that I won't be getting into potential combos, there are simply too many. I suppose I can add little details (like i did with Jet drill) along the cards which players might benefit from but then again that's at the cost of extending the post. Guess i'll have to remove the rulings and simply add a link to shorten it, might make the post more palatable after extending the cards section.

[mmpizza]

the article looks allot better now

[Light]

Yes, its very well written and covers most of the good stuff.

[nitrox]

Just a noob suggestion, I think it'd look nicer if you bold the colored card names.

[Steel]

Nice Guide.. Will be making Ban Ban Ban and Ogre deck soon.. It's looking nice and thanks to this I found Deep sea for my Cheval deck..

Suggestion :- Mention Rainbow stuff too.. Cheval,ashligher and many more creatures need to be :')

[kurotamashi]

May 2, 2016 16:18:41 GMT Steel said:

Nice Guide.. Will be making Ban Ban Ban and Ogre deck soon.. It's looking nice and thanks to this I found Deep sea for my Cheval deck..

Suggestion :- Mention Rainbow stuff too.. Cheval,ashligher and many more creatures need to be :')

Yeah i'll be adding multi's later on there are plenty of em, been short listing em for a while. Currently I'm testing them out to see there usefulness in the meta. Once i'm done they'll be added.

nitrox: I chose not use use bold because it feels like the text is screaming, had to use it for darkness to differentiate it.