The Scarlet Witch mini guide

Okay, first up is your G0:

The lulu and 4 heal is the obvious given.

Now, since Coco inherently can and will draw more than many other styles of think tank, and do much more defensive plays early on, you dont need as much draw pressure. Instead you want to presure for game ending and hand depletion with criticals. For that reason you either do:

10 crit 2 draw

if you want to still have some drawing power through trigger checks, and also to throw people off a tiny bit when htey expect 12 crit standard, while also giving yourself a bit of defensive trigger checks.

otherwise use 12 critical to maximize offensive pressure and to get the most bang-for-your-buck

 Now g1 you have a lot more leeway. For starting I would use what I have considered the "learning" build, I have suggested this to a lotta people, and while it aint the best it has helped as a way to find your playstyle and too figure out what direction you want to go:

G1: 16
4 chocolat
4 gemini
3 Cocoa
3 Dark Cat
2 luck bird.

Now chocolat and Gemini you typically want to have as maximized because they are invaluable.

For the rest of choices:

Cocoa allows you to set up early game trigger hunting, which allows you to hurt them bad early when they are more often going to let attacks pass. While also searching missing grades

Dark cat allows you easier field filling, while also providing awesome boosts. It is used to avoid misgrading. But you have to play it right, you cant play it willy nilly or your opponent will benefit more. Both work with Sakuya

Luck bird is used to fix up soul, and allow free plusses, replacing Lulu after you get her to hand.

Other great choices:

Milk is great, I personally dont care for her, but she is good for more ofensive style play, only use at 2.

Omellete is fantastic for more offensive decks too she works for great replacements and front row users. She is not bad at all, while also giving you great booster.

Circle magus is for a utility build, you combine wiht other draw effects to avoid drawing triggers and reuse it with Sakuya.

Truth gazer is fine for soul fixing too, and perfectly fine.

Grade 2:

Now for the learning style I use here

g2:10
Mocha -4
Wiseman-3
Tom-3

Now Mocha is your lead offensive unit, I max her out almost always, she is a turn 2 11k usually, and helps to hit vanguards and hit rearguards.

Wiseman I honestly rarely use as a rearguard, it is best for turn 2 defensive ride, but if you do need a rear, 10k is never bad.

Tom is basically God, we all know that. You dont play him early, you want to hold him for when you know you can turn tides the best. Three lets you get him early, but not get him too early when he is dead ( such as turn 1-4)

Other great choices:

Maiden of Libra is a personal favorite of mine, she gives up some counterblasts, but acts as an immense pressure with the fact that she can plus, and she works great for rearguard killing. You use her mostly when you cant get a reride off to abuse coco again.

High Speed Brakki is a soul fixing offensive tech, used mostly for big offensive plays. It is not bad, bhowever if you have to ride it then you are severly hurt, because you need 2 OTT for lulu. Only run 2.

Glace is okay, she can hit 11k too, but is inconsistent because you wont always have 0 soul, mocha does it better.

Imperial daughter is also fantastic, but I would pair her with libra since you lose cards to abuse her effect. She is if you don’t like Brakki but still want pure puncing power in the deck.

 g3:

These are simple, the g3 line up is really steadfast

4 coco
3 sakuya

With this you do the Coco Combo on turn 3 to net the plusses from it.

Now you want to do one of two things in the next few turns:

Turn 4 ride coco again, counterblast 2 again, get 2 more cards.

Turn 5 ride sakuya (preferably having played Cocoa the turn before) and return everything to hand. Then call luck bird, soul blast 2 coco, draw 1.

That combo is +6 cards in a few turns.

Turn 4 Coco + psychic bird then calling luck bird also is an immediate soul fix+ draw.

In this deck reriding is key, Using coco many times is powerful, and use sakuya to fix up field and set up power plays.

An important note is that Sakuya is the best late game vanguard.

Having 4 cards is more common, and she hits much harder. Sakuya and Gemini hits MLB for magic numbers

In depth look on Genesis

When Vanguard was first announced to be coming to the states, I will admit, I was not too excited about it. My friends were importing the two Trial decks and trying them, and I did play a few games myself. It was fun, but didn’t suit my fancy, and the states were not getting them for a long time so why should I have been interested? After all I had my newly built Gladiator Beast deck in Yu-Gi-Oh, and my Blue Control deck for Magic, I didn’t have money or time for such an overly luck based game with so little strategy that was only an average game. My pessimism didn’t dissuade my friend, and of course I really couldn’t resist a challenge or a new game, so I looked at him, “What were they? Clans? Fine, what is the least manly, most emasculating clan in the game?” I told him flat out, wanting to make this something completely and hilariously casual, because I will admit I honestly didn’t expect much from this game at all. My friend didn’t miss a beat, he told me about Oracle Think Tank, showed me Goddess of Divination Sakuya (Ironically, despite being one of the cards to entice me, it took over a year to be released) which was downright girly, and then added in that the play-style of the deck was very based on mind games and control, I will admit it, he sold me then and there by calling me.

Sadly, Vanguard still wasn’t really coming to the states for another two months at least, and it took even longer for my local game stores to stock the cards. I had all but forgotten until I went to an anime convention, and someone was holding a teaching session for the game. With that session I had a chance to really play, and I caught on fast, I enjoyed it well enough, but still was not that into it. It was not until two weeks later when I won the first Vanguard Giveaway here on Alter Reality Games to get a free Kagero Trial Deck that I started to get more interested. I split it in half and played with my brother a lot, until we both were quite into the game. My brother just played simply, and while I still saw it really simple of a game I started to notice a lot of complexities in it, and started to get more and more into the game. Yet sadly, my LGS still didn’t have any vanguard, and either way I was pretty broke at the time.

I decided to get my fix with the anime, I had finished the series I was currently watching, it was break time from school, and I had nothing but free time. I admit, the anime was nothing spectacular, especially at the beginning, but the simple beginning that was the journey of a new player to become better was simply intriguing, especially compared to other card game shows that jump straight to the magical aspects of the show (Mind crush!) , and the characters were highly entertaining. Not only was it genuinely fun, but it taught the game phenomenally well, and displayed how the decks played very convincingly. As I got farther into the anime I got two of my best friends, and my team mates, into the anime, which drew them into the game too. Soon we had all been taken in by the strange allure of this game, and we started buying cards and planning all these different decks.

We each planned many decks, and I admit my team mates built multiple decks, but I could only find myself loving Oracle Think Tank. I played it nonstop, and I personally thought I was really good with it. It fit my very control oriented play-style perfectly, I loved the mind games it played about, and all the different tricks the deck had. Unlike most decks, Oracle Think Tank were incredibly detailed for how they played, they required you to play much differently than most other decks,  and with that deck you could not afford to make mistakes. It was all about attrition and small rewards.

Soon came regional season, and I honestly was not very confident. I thought I was good, but I saw how devastating the Paladins had been during the English tournaments, and how little Oracles had done (maybe 2 or 3 got top 8 in 4 or 5 tournaments), and I thought I was good, but not that good. None of that got me down though, here I was in Chicago, with my best friends and team mates, I was ecstatic. So I donned my Straw Hat (that I will admit, is just for a Monkey D Luffy Cosplay) as my own good luck charm, and it must have worked, because not only was I very popular from it, but as the tournament went on I somehow made it into the top 8 of the tournament.  I then promptly was destroyed by the one who won the tournament.

In the end I was totally satisfied, and became completely and utterly confident in my deck and skills, not that it stopped me from changing it up continuously to try and get better. Even more so I became absolutely certain that Oracles were the clan for me, and I was trying every kind I could, and even proxying up future cards to test with. I was consistently cheering for Misaki in the anime, who was my favorite character.  I had even become pretty well known and respected in the vanguard community, and did (and still do) deck doctor a lot of different Oracle decks here and there.

Okay, now you are all wondering what my point is in this overly drawn out rambling, and it was a bit longer than I meant, but I wanted to make It as evident as I could how much I love Oracles, I have put more time into it than I probably do with school, it has my personal Avatar (Silent Tom all the way), and fits me incredibly perfectly. So when I found out that they are reskinning the clan, much like Gold Paladin for Royals, in the guise of Genesis…well I actually couldn’t be more excited. The art is fantastic and the effects are great. It is such an interesting clan, how could I be mad?

The one thing I have been noticing all over the internet though is that people are highly overestimating the clan, and giving it far too much credit with what we have seen revealed.  Now, don’t take this as I think they are weak, because I think they have an incredible amount of potential, and they will be a threat in the future. At the current time, with what we know of the clan, Genesis is a rather divided and lackluster clan, with big effects that don’t combine well, especially because it has no powerful plays early on, and very little plays outside the vanguard.

Genesis decided to focus on the soul charging aspect of Oracle Think Tank, and boy does it soul charge well. Out of 3 starting options, one can soul charge 3 cards when an attack it boosts hits. Out of 6 grade 1’s we have an on-hit Soul charge 3, and an on call soul charge 1. Out of 6 grade 2 units, we have 2 that have on-hit soul charges that are between 2 to 4 cards. The other starters are a draw effect when an attack hits that it boosted, and ride line thinning (when the grade 1 rides on it, search the grade 2 out). To fill out the grade 1 and 2’s we have pretty uniform cards; we have the 8k and 10k vanillas, the sentinel, grade 1 and 2 units that gain power if the vanguard has Limit Break 4, we have a grade 2 Maiden of Libra clone that draws one card on hit for counter blasting 2, and of course we have grade 1 and 2 ride lines.

A very solid support, except that is all it can do for its early grades, it sets up but cannot work off of it very efficiently. Not until the grade 3 units come into play, in which we get the star of the deck that everyone has been talking about, one of my personal favorites, and one of the most contradictory cards for the entire deck: Battle Deity of the Night, Artemis. This is the culmination of the ride chain, it has the usual effects, if grade 2 Artemis is in the soul (and let’s face it, in this clan it will be) you get +1000 making it an 11k base. Ride lines are nothing special though, let’s look at that effect:  [AUTO](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):[Soul Blast (3)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, draw two cards, choose a card from your hand, put it into your soul, and this unit gets [Power]+5000 until end of that battle.

Wow, that effect is insane. Not only is it basically guaranteed to be available (you should have 3 soul upon ride), in this clan fueling it is incredibly simple. It also has a resemblance to Tsukuyomi, in that it fixes itself by replacing one card into your soul (which can be the grade 2 if you are missing it). This effect is an inherent +1 that gives you insane strength with a possible 16k base unboosted (making magic 23k numbers against crossrides very easy), and fixes 1/3 of the cards to do it again on its own. That sounds wonderful, it allows you access to the offensive power that was sorely lacking in Think Tank, all while giving you insane thinning and draw powers that the clan had.

Except therein is the issue, Genesis is not built for a game around drawing cards as its aid. When you have a deck like Oracles who gain those small plusses and draw constantly, it is because you are playing a long haul, you are playing for attrition, you make small tradeoffs that lead to you having more advantage and your opponent losing their advantage, so that over time the gap becomes more evident, and you are in a stronger position. With a deck like Genesis though, you can’t play a long haul, on average you will have easily soul charged anywhere from 6-12 cards by turn 3, you can have thinned down the deck a few more via the ride line, and Artemis herself leads to 4 cards thinning (2 from her effect, 2 from twin drive). Unlike Tsukuyomi who would typically get off her effect only 2-3 times, and whose thinning led to the Stack which was typically an end game, Artemis is built to add in a constant stream of drawing advantage, but lacks the ability to work off of it. The drawing that usually can help lead to a long standoff becomes a huge liability that can lead to an imminent threat of decking out. Between the draw, the effect, and twin drive you are using up 5 cards a turn, which is 10% of the deck, but given that you start out with 6 cards and your Starting Vanguard your deck begins at 43, and you also will have at least 2 more draws by the time of grade 3, usually 2 drive checks, and a few damage checked, putting you at about 35 cards on average when you ride to grade 3 making the number more accurately about 14%, not factoring in soul charging/draw triggers/other thinning, which could make the numbers even closer to 16-20% of your deck being thinned a turn.

Artemis hits hard, and hits strong, but she drains your deck, and her effect is an incredible double edged sword, it puts you into one of the scariest and most repeatable offensive powers, and it gives you a free plus constantly, however its effect is built to support a long game, while also putting you into a race against time by depleting your deck incredibly fast. Not only that, but it has no way to deal with this risk, unlike Oracles which had heal triggers that could recycle themselves into the deck, and a few units (such as Apollon, even if he wasn’t used much) that could return a unit to the deck. Nor does it have a way to add in a focus or power to what it is doing, unlike CEO Amaterasu, Battle Sister Cocoa, or even Goddess of the Full Moon, Tsukuyomi, to prepare for triggers and capitalize on the thinning. Artemis hits blindly and hard, but can hurt you just as quickly.

We get a change of pace and idea by getting a card that works for a much slower game, to act as a destructive and deadly force that sets up one or two big plays in the form of Eternal Goddess, Iwagahime. She comes in at a wonderful 11k, letting genesis have the great defensive numbers that eluded Oracles, and packs a very strong effect too “[ACT](VC) Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage):[Soul Blast (6)] Retire all rear-guards in your opponent's front row.” That is insane; we now get to delve out from the territory of hand advantage and sheer numbers into the field control that is typically reserved for cards from the Dragon Empire. It is a scary effect, that can be bolstered even further by her second effect that lets her soul blast 3 to gain +5000, combining both of those you can have a powerful push that obliterates all interceptors while letting your vanguard make a strong push forward with boosted attack.  This card honestly is the one I wouldn’t be surprised if it became the main card for the clan, however the downside is that it doesn’t work as well for consistent pressure as Artemis.  Almost every soul charge effect in the clan can instantly set up another use of Artemis, to lead to that constant offensive pressure, after one use of Iwagahime’s first effect you will usually find yourself slowed down on being able to boost her with her second effect, or attempt another use of her first effect, she requires more of a set up and will more often be a vanilla 11k than anything else, which is not as bad, since her effect will often need to only go off one time to completely change the course of the game. Yet she could still use something to give her a bit more help, work it all a bit better so that her push doesn’t require 9 cards to be soul blasted for peak efficiency, especially given that her and Artemis are not made to work well together.

That is where the genesis Ride Break comes into play, with one of the most beautiful cards in the entire game (whoever created this cards art definitely deserves a raise), Prophetic Queen Himiko. Like all ride breaks so far, she has the usual ability to give the vanguard +10k and +5k to two rearguards, then she gives your vanguard a nice secondary ability until the end of the turn,  "[AUTO](VC):[Soul Blast (3)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, draw a card.",  this ability is insanely helpful, especially for Iwagahime. With Artemis it is more of the same old same old, giving you that one extra card to work even better, and more easily set up; however with Iwagahime it gives her a lasting pressure. If you have the 9 soul to get off both of her effects, you no longer have to worry about using her second effect for +5000, you get a +10000 boost from the ride, going with that you can soul blast 6 to rid your opponent of possibly (and very likely) 10,000 shield and two attackers, putting the difference for this battle at 20,000 just for the vanguard, and another 10,000 difference for your rearguards. Topping it all off, if you have that last three counterblast, you have the ability to turn the attack that might be shrugged off with the thought “I can take some more damage” to one that the opponent feels a need to guard to prevent you from getting that free draw, especially since Iwagahime is much less likely to deck you out, and much more likely to play a game of attrition, and win if she can use her first effect multiple times.

That sounds wonderful right? There can’t be much more to her, besides that effect that all other ride breaks have where they get +2000 when they attack, right? Well, not exactly. If you kept up with Oracles, you would know they loved to give their clones slight changes and be a bit special, well Genesis is no exception with its ride break. When Himiko attacks it gets +1000, and it soul charges one card, which may not sound too special, but can change a lot, and makes her even more valuable. Normally when you would ride your grade 3 you have 3 soul, 0-2, however the ride break adds a 4^th, and her effect adds a fifth. For Artemis that means that you can soul blast 3 for her effect, not have to get rid of the Grade 2 Artemis at all, and the card you put in soul will conveniently put you right back to 3 soul without any other effects having to be used. Then for Iwagahime, that sets you up to only be 1 soul away from being able to use her first effect, and only 4 away from being able to use her first effect and then soul blast 3 to draw a card, which is as easy as one on-hit soul charge 3 effect and one on-call soul charge 1 effect. This small change makes the card absolutely cohesive for the clan, and adds some needed consistency to both of the main vanguards, while being a great addition in general.

Now while the two main Vanguards are incredibly powerful, and the ride break works to fix their weaknesses very efficiently, the deck still suffers from an incredible lack of pressuring support in the rearguards. With Oracles we had multiple cards that would set you up to draw a card if they could hit (apollon, Blue Scale Deer, and Libra to name a few), we had many cards that were particularly strong when they were called to manipulate the soul and give some pressure (such as Cocoa, Dark Cat, Little Witch Lulu, Luck Bird) , and we had the ultimate pressure in the form of Silent Tom. Genesis however have little to work with outside their vanguard to apply much pressure or worry, there is a single on-hit draw, which is the only immediate threat to the opponent, and on-hit counterblasts to soul charge, which are great set ups, but late game are underwhelming. Not only that, but because of the lack of recycling heal trigger, and the lack of damage unflipper currently genesis can and will burn through their counterblasts fast, and when that is done they will be left slowed down, and most with vanilla units, only two or three of which make good offensive rearguards, and in general pale to many other clans.

The deck will be able to set up explosive plays between the ability for Artemis to constantly hit high and feed the hand and Iwagahime’s constant advantage creation, Genesis is very frightening already, and many of the units are jaw-dropping powerhouses, all while taking some of the best clones from multiple clans, yet even with all that Genesis are very strict in linear with their possibilities currently, more so than Oracles ever where, and they are giving up the incredible variety of options that Oracles had from the get go. This is not to say they are not a great clan, I personally think given time they will rise to become much more powerful, but currently the praise singing Genesis to high heaven based on how overwhelming the three boss cards are is ignoring the negative aspects of the clan, and how it still has not found a footing.

In the end though, Genesis will prove itself to be just as interesting as Oracles to watch,  it is obvious that Bushiroad is dipping its feet in the water first, after consistently having trouble to balance Oracles (as shown by the fact that each new deck type was nearly incompatible with the last) it is obvious that Bushiroad does not want to make the same mistakes as it did with Oracle Think Tank, and it does want to give a more cemented idea for how Genesis works, instead of jumping around with different ideas then ditching them soon after like its predecessors did.

They are obviously not going to repeat the same mistake they made with Silent Tom, and obviously want to phase that effect out of existence, and I believe they have the same with for all effects that look at the top card and put it to the top or bottom, but many other aspects of Oracles will work perfectly well for Genesis. I personally believe we will see a recycling heal trigger soon, to attempt to alleviate some of the trigger loss, and clones of Blue Scale Deer and Luck Bird to let rearguards use the soul more would not surprise me in the least. I can only hope we get some more grade 3’s that make good rearguards, such as apollon, to act in a good compliment to the powerful vanguards. A way to unflip damage would not be unsurprising either, or a more consistent way to do small soul charges, such as a Red Eye clone would also be great and likely additions to the clan. I also could see them adding in some way to add some cards back to the deck, especially if the deck thinning is too prevalent and destructive to the player with more than just Artemis builds.

No matter what though, Genesis is a clan that should definitely be watched out for, it is taking over for one of the most devastating clans to have been made, and we know that it will get consistent support since Misaki is a main character. It remains to be seen if as many risks will be taken for this clan as were taken for Oracle Think Tank, or if Bushiroad will attempt to be as safe as possible following how many times Oracles got near a deadly line for power creeping, and how many ideas from Oracles had to be abandoned after one set. Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain, watch out for Genesis, because you can be sure you will see a lot of it.