Deck Tech - Miracle Zeal

And here we are with the first of my deck techs. Taking one of my favorite decks first, Zeal. Zeal is an amazingly unique series, weakening your opponent's Vanguard for the rest of the turn everytime you ride up, or with the G3 Zeal's effect. It's definately a deck I intend to play when it comes to the english game with the release of BT08. Anyway, starting with the deck. The first thing you will notice is the 8 Stand Triggers in this deck may seem odd. However, the Stand Triggers allow you to abuse effects that rely on obviously, Standing. The biggest one being Miracle Beauty, which acts like a Stern Blaukruger when she's stood during the Battle Phase.

The whole idea behind the Stand Triggers is this: Once Zeal is setup, you will be able to have two continuous turns of your Opponent's Vanguard being weakened. During these two turns, you want to make as many attacks as possible. Ideally, you want around 16000 or more, and you want to make them in as much abundance as possible. Miracle Beauty solves both of these problems at once. Otherwise, the Trigger lineup is pretty plain and boring. Obviously, since this deck is dealing with a Riviere-esque Ride Chain, we want to be playing the heaviest line of Zeal as possible. 4 G1 Zeal is a given. 4 Null Guards as this deck doesn't have a crossride. You may notice my G1 lineup is a little squashed for room, which I had to trim out a few things later, most noticable in the G3 lineup, but this should almost be perfect.

Glory Maker is basicially a 10000 Booster for the Vanguard whilst you have limit break. Simple. It works well with Zeal, making him a 20000/21000 swinger, which is especially effective during the turns your opponent is weakened. Otherwise the consistent 21k swings are always nice. Laurel is 'that' card. When he works, it's amazing, when it doesn't, it's just dead. The ideal set-up is having him behind a Miracle Beauty. Of course, the issue is: You run 8 Stands. If Zeal is attacking first, the only rested RG will be your Booster. However, provided you don't get double stands, this is still an amazing play to swing for 21000, rest 2 Miracle Beauties, Laurel and the other booster, and stand the VG, and swing again, not only is it great in terms of card advantage, you can continue to minus your opponent pretty brutally, and Stands make this even nuttier. You can imagine the interactions.

And now, the Grade 2 Lineup. It is, unfortunately, suffering. Many of Dimension Police's best cards, Cosmo Beak, Mika and so on, require Counterblast as all the other Bosses don't. Zeal has no option to use these cards optimally, with no Damage unflipper, and hogging the Counterblasts for himself. This leaves us with very few options. Obviously, 4 of the Grade 2 Zeal. From there, we pretty much have zero options. I'm not joking. Twin Order is literally the next best thing and that's a 10000 Beater, but it's good here, I guess. Max those. And now, someone likely reading this is screaming at the screen telling me that Gunrock exists. Yes, I know that Gunrock exists. I'm purposefully not running it. Why? It's an 8000 that's only good at certain times. While I'm aware Grander is 8000, he can always swing first, make your Vanguard bigger and then Zeal can swing for 13000+8000/10000. It seems too good an asset to not take, allowing me to hit 23000 against crossride decks for almost no real tribulation is amazing. Even if they do swing at Grander, you can either let it die, or guard for it to keep your offensive swings up.

Overall the Grade 2s won't be putting in as much work as the G3s. Speaking of. Once again, 4 of the G3 Zeal. This is one of my favorite Grade 3 units in the game. Period. For those unaware, it is a ride chain boss, so static 11000 if the Grade 2 is in the soul, and LB4 and CB2, your Opponent's Vanguard loses 1000 Power for each DP RG you have, until the end of your turn, once per turn. This ability is exactly what it sounds like. If you have a full field, your opponent will need to be investing atleast 5000 more shield into every attack you do. Combined with the Stand Triggers, this makes this card particually dangerous. Even after Zeal has used both of the turns of minusing, he can still swing for a solid 21000 with Glory Maker, provided your opponent hasn't plain lost by then.

And the last unit of the deck. Miracle Beauty. I briefly went over her previously, acting like a Stern Blaukruger in a Rear Guard. She also makes it much easier to satisfy the condition of Laurel of resting 4 RGs, and allows a Stand Trigger to be much more potent. Of course, I'm not suggesting for each and every Zeal build, but this one in particular, this card is the second best in the deck, second only to the G3 Zeal.

And that is the deck. As for what the deck works well against, you will usually have a solid matchup against anything 10k or 11k. Even against Crossrides, you are in a advantagous position because it's easier to hit them for more cards, making it a good anti-meta choice. As for what the deck struggles against: In order to get the best use of Zeal, you need a full field. This means retiring seriously f***s up your mojo, and if you get hit by exculpate you may as well just scoop, seriously, so try your best to keep a full board. Always.

What Deck Is This? I'm sooooo Lost

Lady_Khajiit <3 wrote:

What Deck Is This? I'm sooooo Lost

this is a vanguard deck, vanguard as in cardfight vanguard, and it's posted in the vanguard section :P it's ok you're new

this a fun deck or competitve personally i find 6 critical 6 draw 4 heal is fine but if this works for you then great job.

This is a good Zeak build, easy to counter, like any deck, but it's a good build. Just guard during the early turns, so when the late game comes you have the room to take damage and conserve your hand.

zeal seems pretty interesting, i'm thinking of trying a zeal deck myself