[Article] Seeds Sown for the Future: A guide on “Ranunculus” Part 1

March 11, 2017 Akagee Ahsha, Neo Nectar, Strategy

Hello readers, my name is Linky Ferrisclaw. As evidenced by the title, I have a rather wallet-destroying obsession with Neo Nectar, specifically the “Ranunculus” build, and I’m here to discuss the birth and evolution of the deck throughout the G series. I’m just a random lurker who doesn’t expect to make a blog anytime soon, so you might as well take these articles as my first and last contributions assuming I don’t get bored again.

Before I start, let me clarify something. First of all, I will not do an in-depth discussion on every card Ahsha could have used – especially in GBT08 and GBT10. I will only discuss cards important to the deck like her personal support and staples, regardless of their viability in the present.

Our story begins at the dawn of the G era – where spotted kitties, sailors, and too many dragons to count dominated the metagame. Much to the surprise (and amusement) of many players, Neo Nectar was announced as a main character Clan, being used by Tokoha Anjou. With these, came the reveal of these two cards:

Ranunculus Flower Maiden, Ahsha

[CONT](VC) Generation Break 2:All of your units get “[CONT](VC/RC):During your turn, if you have another unit with the same card name as this unit, this unit gets [Power]+5000.”.

[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (1)] During your turn, when your G unit Stride, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your rear-guards, search for up to one card with the same card name as that unit from your deck, call it to (RC), shuffle your deck, and the unit called with this effect gets [Power]+2000 until end of turn.

Valkyrie of Reclamation, Padmini

[AUTO]:[Choose a grade 3 card from your hand, and reveal it] When this unit is placed on (RC) from hand, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to one grade 3 card with “Ranunculus” in its card name, reveal it to your opponent, put it into your hand, shuffle your deck, choose a card from your hand, and discard it.

[CONT](Hand):While you are paying the cost for Stride, this card gets grade+2.

The first would be Ranunculus Flower Maiden, Ahsha. Being the core of a deck, a very simple card that does what she needs to do – act as a cloning engine for the deck. With this comes a very big problem, in that she’s utterly pathetic against control, in a metagame where Dragonic Overlord “The X” was dominating, while other clans had also started to get elements of control. With her is her caretaker, Padmini, the usual Stride Fodder that helps you not die and get Ahsha most of the time, alongside acting as a grade 3 in hand to be, well, Stride Fodder. Alongside the fact that Neo Nectar’s first wave of Booster Set support might as well not exist barring one card, who was utterly repulsive to even try to use back then, it’s no surprise the deck didn’t have any impact on the competitive metagame whatsoever.

Maiden of Gladiolus

[AUTO](RC) Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Counter Blast (1)] When this unit attacks a vanguard, if this unit is boosted, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your other rear-guards, search your deck for up to one card with the same name as that unit, call it to (RC), and shuffle your deck.

And then we have Maiden of Gladiolus, who didn’t help one bit. Being a battle phase clone would be nice… if Neo Nectar actually wanted to call over their own rears, or had something to take advantage of the calling aspect – even then, it would be preferred on a vanguard, since Gladiolus takes up a precious rear-guard circle that could have been filled out with more clones. Amber clones were usually useful as filler back then, but Gladiolus couldn’t even fulfill that purpose due to how outrageously bad she was. Her only uses were for cloning a grade 1 or a pathetic poke with a grade 2 – she wasn’t useful then, she still isn’t useful now even acknowledging the advent of Bloom. Step it up, Bushi.

On that topic, then came the first wave of Booster Set support – G-BT02, Soaring Ascent of Gale & Blossom. They even snatched the cover card, speaking of which…

Flower Princess of Spring’s Beginning, Primavera

[Stride] (Released when both players’ vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (3) & Choose five normal units from your drop zone, and put them on top of your deck in any order & Choose a card from your hand, and discard it] When this unit attacks a vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to two of your rear-guards, search your deck for up to two cards with the same card name as each of those units, call them to separate (RC), and shuffle your deck.

Flower Princess of Spring’s Beginning, Primavera – the ultimate disappointment at the time, a Generation Rare that was somehow worse than the glorified on-hit from the previous booster set. She was horribly overcosted, too slow, and had virtually no impact on games where she was used due to the lack of a mechanic that took advantage of cloning. However, on the virtue that the G zone was empty and that she was a recycle engine nonetheless, she was ran at 1 copy anyways.

Sacred Tree Dragon, Jingle Flower Dragon

[Stride] (Released when both players’ vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Choose a face down card named “Sacred Tree Dragon, Jingle Flower Dragon” from your G zone, and turn it face up] If the number of face up cards in your G zone is two or more, choose one of your units, and until end of turn, it gets “[CONT](VC/RC):During your turn, all of your units get [Power]+2000 for each unit you have with the same name as this unit.”.

Knight of Transcience, Maredream

[AUTO](RC) Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Counter Blast (1) & Soul Blast (1) & Put this unit on top of your deck] At the end of your turn, you may pay the cost. If you do, search your deck for up to two cards named “Knight of Transience, Marehope”, call them to separate (RC), and shuffle your deck.

Knight of Transcience, Marehope

[ACT](RC) Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Put this unit on top of your deck] Search your deck for up to one card named “Knight of Transience, Maredream”, call it to (RC), and shuffle your deck.

Jingle Flower Dragon, the first G Persona Blaster Neo Nectar had. He served as a free, if hard to set up finisher – emphasis on hard to set up, because (again) due to the metagame. He let you hit harder for essentially free, so there wasn’t any problem that NN didn’t already have. The Mare Knights on the other hand, basically ran through their own copies and your resources ridiculously fast, and were therefore ignored the instant new support came. By the end of G-BT02, NN was essentially just glorified vanilla beatdown with a mediocre mechanic (cloning) that didn’t even hit hard, or have anything to fight against control.

A few months later, when everyone had pretty much given up on the clan (myself included), G-BT04 came, bringing a surprise – a grade 4 Ahsha. Needless to say, since it was Neo Nectar, people pretty much ignored her existance in favor of the two other Stride Fusions – Chronodragon Nextage, and Altmile, until she was actually revealed:

Dream-spinning Ranunculus, Ahsha

[Stride] (Released when both players’ vanguards are grade 3 or greater!)-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.

[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:[Choose a face down card named “Dream-spinning Ranunculus, Ahsha” from your G zone, and turn it face up] Until end of turn, this unit gets “[ACT](VC)[1/Turn]:Choose one of your rear-guards, and if you have two or more rear-guards with the same card name as that unit, all of your units in the front row get [Power]+5000 until end of turn.”. Then, if the number of face up cards in your G zone is two or more, choose one of your rear-guards, search your deck for up to one card with the same card name as that unit, call it to (RC), shuffle your deck, and that unit gets [Power]+2000 until end of turn.

… Needless to say, she was met with exceeding amounts of approval. First, she was a main phase clone (that helped with the problem against control to a degree) that also gave the front row power for an easy condition – and both effects were separate. Dream-spinning Ahsha was then shoved into the G zone as a 4-of staple for all existing Neo Nectar decks, due to being completely generic. What’s more to say? She’s a Stride Fusion done right, and gets better with age.

She’s like Ram – that other maid people don’t care about.

Flower Chamber Maiden, Salianna

[AUTO] Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Counter Blaster (1) & Soul Blast (1)] When this card is placed on (RC), if you have a grade 3 or greater vanguard with “Ranunculus” in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose one of your other rear-guards, search your deck for up to one card with the same card name as that unit, call it to (RC), shuffle your deck, and this unit get [Power]+2000 until end of turn.

Early-flowering Maiden, Pia

[ACT](RC)[1/Turn] Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Choose two normal units from your drop zone, and put them on the top of your deck in any order] If you have a grade 3 or greater vanguard with “Ranunculus” in its card name, choose one of your units. If you do, choose up to four of your units with the same card name as that unit, and they get [Power]+3000 until end of turn. Shuffle your deck.

Flower Garden Maiden, Mylis

[AUTO](RC):[Put this unit into your soul] When your vanguard attacks, if you have a grade 3 or greater vanguard with “Ranunculus” in its card name, you may pay the cost. If you do, draw a card, choose one of your vanguards, and it gets [Power]+5000 until end of that battle.

With her finally came Ahsha’s personal support. Salianna being another main phase clone, simple but effective. Pia on the other hand, became the crutch that held the deck together during its G-BT04 days – it gave you a way to use the retires that destroyed your field and left Ahsha’s Stride Bonus useless as a way to fuel your own strategy, albeit rather masochistically – With more copies of Pia out, the more clones you could return, and the higher your rear-guards’ Power would get, at the cost of diluting your deck with normal units and having rather painful set-up time and circumstances (unless you were fighting a retire deck, in which it was a double-edged sword). Mylis was a nice addition by virtue of being a Heart Thump clone, and worked perfectly as a desperation clone target alongside the power bonuses that Multivitamin gave. Speaking of which…

Sacred Tree Dragon, Multivitamin Dragon

From the Fighter’s Collection set, he basically acted as the perfect first Stride for the clan during the time – He let you actually hit hard, was free, and worked with everything in the deck. Although there was an interesting element to him that would be utilized later on, which was an effect that triggered when a rear-guard was called to (RC), involving other copies of the called unit…

Of course, Bushiroad finally catching on to the Neo Nectar playerbase’s suffering, they also reprinted a sought-after staple card for the deck:

Maiden of Flower Screen

[ACT](RC)[1/Turn] Generation Break 1 (Active if you have one or more face up G units in total on your (VC) or G zone):[Choose a normal unit from your drop zone, and put it on the top of your deck] Choose one of your other units, this unit will be regarded as a unit with the same card name until end of turn. Shuffle your deck.

She acts as a copy of an existing rear-guard, alongside recycling a card – simple, but she was amazing for Neo Nectar during the time period wherein she was first released as a promo and soon after reprinted. Funnily enough, for being a rather sought-after and actually expensive (until the reprint anyways) card, she was invalidated almost immediately after. Thanks, Bushi.

Well, that’s it for now. Next time we’ll be tackling the meat of Neo Nectar’s G series support, which actually made it relevant – the keyword, Bloom.

P.S.

Don’t use this. Ever. Even for G-BT02 Ahsha.