Chaos Breaker Dragon: why we love him, hate him, and why he's so important to the Meta

Greetings Cardfighters! This week I wanted to talk about the Chaos Breaker Dragon Deck or CBD for short. It is extremely controlling and can be difficult at times to read your opponent and make the right plays. It combines the powerful Lock mechanic with retiring units and drawing cards making it one of the scariest decks to play against in this current Meta. Link Joker had two major flaws with their clan. One: You could rush them early and they would have a hard time coming back and Two: You could leave open rearguard circles and not let them lock those spots. CBD answers both of those problems. With many decks taking advantage of Generation Break, it makes units that don’t have that requirement “fast”, this also applies to CBD and with Charcoal you don’t have to worry about getting to four damage. With Chaos Universe you can force your opponents to play cards and force commitment on your terms. In the next few paragraphs I’m going to talk about why people love and hate this deck, and why it’s so important to the Meta of Vanguard. Let’s look at my teammate Hebi’s Deck:

G4:

1x Genesis Dragon, Amnesty Messiah

2x Nebula Dragon, Big Crunch Dragon

4x Death Star-vader, Chaos Universe

1x Genesis Dragon, Judgement Messiah

G3:

4x Star-vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon

2xStar-vader, Chaosbringer

2xStar-vader, Garnet Star Dragon

G2:

4x Companion Star Star-vader, Photon

Carbon makes the deck buttery smooth

4x Star-vader, Colony Maker

3x Disorder Star-vader, Iron

G1:

4x Flowers in Vacuum, Cosmo Wreath

3x Turmoil Star-vader, Zinc

3x Star-vader, Volt Line

2x Eclipse Star-vader, Charcoal

2x Destiny Dealer

G0:

1x Involution Star-vader, Carbon

4x Star-vader, Paradigm Shift Dragon

8x Star Vader Crits

4x Star Vader Heals

Why People Love CBD

I would say that majority of people who love CBD are people who play it. While I personally don’t play CBD I think it’s a fun deck to play against because it makes you think about the entire game. You know that come turn 4-5 your entire front row will be locked, so how do you deal with that situation? Do you rush early or do you hold your cards and weather the storm? It becomes much more tactical because you are forced to play their way. Another big reason why people love CBD is because it slowed the game down tremendously due to CBD’s ability to lock pre-GB and make early rush decks pay dearly, which means they need to think twice before flooding the field. It also has its own drawing engine which also retires allowing players to be aggressive and more critical triggers. 

Why People Hate CBD

Majority of these people are probably rearguard dependent players such as Nova Grappler, Aqua Force and Great Nature. They think that CBD muddles the game considerably and creates a game that is too slow and boring. CBD forces you to play their game and because they have such an efficient engine and is very consistent, it leaves very little room to counter play during the game and makes for very stale Vanguard play. People get upset that Link Joker as a whole makes it difficult to execute their plays to the full extent, CBD just takes it to another level. I play Messiahs and I can tell you that I’ve had my fair share of salty players and people who get frustrated because they “can’t do anything”.

Why CBD is important

The single most important reason is due to the slowing of the Meta. By reducing the pace of the game, it gives many other decks a chance to participate. With extremely fast decks like Regaile, games would be over within the first or second stride. How are decks with GB3 strides or GB2 bosses supposed to compete with that? The second reason why CBD existence is good for Vanguard is the closing of the Meta Triangle. Before CBD, rearguard dependent decks would run amuck and aside from The X, there wasn’t a really good competitive control deck. The CBD shift also causes a rise in Vanguard-centric decks because they can combat CBD better and also because there is less rush decks in tourneys. This creates a Meta Triangle where each deck has a weakness and advantage over the other two. People now have to seriously think about what decks to bring to tourneys because the counter-pick is very much alive. Either that or just play with whatever you feel comfortable with because there isn’t a right or wrong answer anymore. And that my friends is a sign of healthy Meta.

~kooj out