Card of the Day 7/29/13 - Demon Marquis, Amon "Reverse"

lore added, i'll grab ark's translation whenever it's up

ark's translation added

Six soul was already a standard for Irregulars before factoring in a crossride, and we can safely assume that you're at seven through normal play, which means that you're looking at a self-fueling 20000 / Critical 2 line prior to boosting that can selectively add its key unit to the soul with the Hell's series. What I find interesting about Amon Reverse is that, because he's counterblast-free, he can work as a partner to Amon or Stil Vampir. He's the unit that each wanted to work with instead of what they had to in BT03. Amon has an obvious advantage here, but it's a nice update regardless.

Amon Reverse gets you a stable 13000 defense with a vanguard line always breaking 26000 with an extra crit for a very limited cost due to the Irregulars' power building offsetting the loss of a booster (if you're up to the task of managing a 13 card soul you can pretty much forget the vanguard booster entirely) which is a big upgrade over...well, Tetsu's other teammates. PBO and ZA BURADDO had to CB3 to get similar numbers and critical going, PBO was severely held back by having no room for that counterblast cost and Blood was held back by ultimate break, and as these were counterblast costs you couldn't repeat them where Amon Reverse gets to pull this off every single turn. The only things comparable are Great Daiyusha and Majesty Lord Blaster, but there's a case to be made that both of those are actually harder to set up compared to Amon's "ride things, call things and get to 4 damage." There's never a minus actually dictated at you as there was with those units, since the lock opens at the end of the turn. So this is arguably the best version of a DCL, even better than Labrador, but it also falls prey to the typical fact that it's going off at 4 damage when the opponent is in perfect defense territory and it's functionally guarded the same way as everything else (including Garmore and Alfred Liberator, although unlike those units, Amon Reverse can take revenge on opponents that pull crits when everyone's at 3 damage.) So the main advantage is that, again, it's free. You sit there and DCL at no cost again and again.

And it's being held back by the typical Irregulars problem of inconsistency and no draw power. The same issues as always. Now considering that this card has its crit built in, you could try running 12 draw...

By comparison, Luquier Reverse gets a straight plus for functionally no cost because the unit you call gets an entire shield's worth of power, but it takes more setup because IIRC the Silver Thorn's soulcharging engine is based entirely around on-hit or teching Dancing Princess at the moment. But Pale Moon has always been more consistent in setting its game up, so by comparison Luquier is the "long play" and gets you more for what you're paying for when you can already set up a 21-22k line with Bicorn and/or synergizing the Beast Tamers well, which is enough to handle most of the non-Reverse game. Those on-hit skills are also pressure units against the right opponents, so Luquier will be taking more cards from the opponent to make her center lane matter where Amon Reverse may not always be doing that.

And then there's Vowing Saber.

In all seriousness, Saber Dragon Reverse sticks out to me because he's the only Reverse card that currently requires you to be using a subgroup as well. The others only lock units of the same clan, but Saber specifically requires Eradicators. His retire skill is great, inverting Luquier's situation since he demands that you field dedicate to minus the opponent instead of field dedicating to plus yourself, but it runs into the same power trap that Ezel and Alfred did; anything 26k with no extra critical or above is defended in exactly the same way, perfect defense at 4 damage or no guard at 3 damage. Raw power only goes so far before it plateaus out in usefulness, having to fill the field to do anything that turn is more of a restriction than we first estimated, and while retiring 2 rearguards is great it's also the opponent's choice, which we didn't know at first. The card is great, but putting it alongside the other Reverse units gives some better perspective considering that Luquier Reverse and Amon Reverse go in anything and Saber actually has a multitude of competition for Eradicator G3 space and some of that competition comes from the card he's a crossride of.

All of the Reverse units are spectacular cards, but to me it looks like Luqier's actually gotten the best deal so far. On the other hand, she's also the hardest to build for and play well, while Amon is a little easier because of how many staple cards the Irregulars have and how the House of Amon writes itself, and Vowing is...netdecked. Netdecked everywhere. I think I have the "standard" Descendant list memorized after doing all those tournament writeups.