User blog:RaijinSenshi19/Buddyfight X Article - The Dragon Force to Suit Your Needs

'((IMPORTANT NOTICE: The article is not yet finished. It will be as soon as I get back to it later this weekend.))'



During the second half of Triple D, there was a huge upset in terms of the yearly gimmick suddenly changing entirely, something that is pretty much unheard of in the realm of card games. What happened, you may ask? Well, the focus and main selling point of Triple D was the introduction of Impact Monsters. Souped-up monsters that could be played like impacts, not only acting as a better balancing and finishing factor than the regular impacts in the past, but also providing the game with a new breath of fresh air and allowing deck builders and hardcore players alike to adopt a new card type to their deck and create entirely new strategies around (More than what your usual card does).

A new card type that hardly had 6 months to settle into the game, until the show decided to show us the TRUE focus of this year, and thus shift away from Impact Monsters entirely: Indestructible items, all baring the name "Dragon Force", belonging to the three variations of Dragon World in its entirety.

Hello ladies and gentlemen, Buddyfighters of all ages and worlds. I am RaijinSenshi, also known as CobaltClaw, and today I am going to talk to you about the blessings from Balle Soleil, and different ways to use the many varrying forms bestowed upon this game.

The Fragments of the Sun Deity
As you might already know, the Dragon Force items are all incredibly destructible items that really pushes the limit for how broken a card can truly be in this game. Dragon World having the most prominent example by giving their Dragon Force a support card that worked around their only solid counter at the time. However, while these items are powerful, they are by no means an "Easy Mode" switch that instantly shifts the fight into your favor.

To fully utilize the power beyond these cards, your deck needs to not only be able to bring out these items, but also support their use and work together with them. Which kinda goes without saying, doesn't it?

To make things even simplier/limited, each of the Dragon Force cards require you to use the titular Buddy Monsters of the three main dragon users during Triple D, making it so the items can't just be thrown into any deck that exists. You are required to use Abygale, Bal Dragon, and Jackknife in other words. And going in even further than that; Each Dragon Force, while they have rather generic abilities that can be used with most decks focusing on these three dragons, you want to fully optimize and make use of these abilities to get more value out of them.

Let's start by introducing all the eleven different fragments of the sun deity in their entirety.
 * Dragon Force (Dragon World)
 * The first form of the Dragon Force of Anger remains one of my favorites out of all the different Dragon Force cards currently in the game. It has a really simple ability which lets it [Stand] each time it links with any other Sun Dragon. An ability that basically gives your field an additional 5000+power and 2+Critical on each attack. On top of having the godly aura of self-defense, making it impossible to remove, it can even attack during your Final Phase, letting you use it with Impact Monsters too. All around just a very usable card, with the powers of Fist of the North Star embodying it.




 * Dragon Force "Straight Punch"
 * The burning red aura of the Dragon Force takes on a darker shade of crimson as it continues to take it's victims' blood and absorb it as fuel, giving it newfound powers of destruction. "Straight Punch" also activates from linking with Sun Dragons, but its ability is far more straight forward; It incinerates the opposing monsters and then uses their chared remains to deal damage to the opponent. Limited use, but a playstyle we can acknowledge.




 * Burning Dragon Force
 * Sacrificing the immunity abilities to be able to equip a Dragon Force without having to lower your life? Seems like a good deal, if the item can pull it's weight. Burning does that moderately well, by letting your monsters attack again after the item link attacks. The use is more limited and you are weak to removal, but even this card is with it's uses. but chances are you are rather going for any of the other forms.




 * Dragon Force, "Style of Impact"
 * After deepening the bond with Bal Dragon, even allowing you to use his Balle Soleil form to release the item, the Dragon Force evolves into the Style of Impact. This form is surprisingly destructive, despite how little it actually does. It has the ability to [Stand] itself when you go into Final Phase and then boost its critical by +1, making it effectively have a Double Attack for 7 damage total. It is also a very flexible item in terms of where to use it, because it can be called upon by using either a Bal Dragon OR Balle Soleil, making it a really good item to run in a lot of decks, even if it doesn't do much.


 * Dragon Force, "Style of Partner"
 * The last form of this Dragon Force is called Style of Partner, and it has the same ability as Sun Fist, Bal Knuckle, except souped up and with the Dragon Force immunities. It's not really that good an ability unless you happen to go up against someone using cards and abilities that hinder you from using your item attacks. But thise abilities are limited and few. Style of Partner saddly falls short of doing anything special or useful.


 * Dragon Force (Darkness Dragon World)
 * The first form of the Dragon Force of Sadness and all its subsequent forms have a stigma among most players as being "the weakest" out of all the Dragon Forces. This is factually incorrect. This Dragon Force just doesn't instantly push your win condition like the ones from Dragon World and Star Dragon World. But what this item does is actually applying an obscene amount of pressure on the board, a wallbreaker that cant be removed, with the ability of Penetrate, that also slowly chips away at the opponent while increasing your own survivability and sets up for your bigger abilities. And the ability can activate multiple times if the opponent decides to block. If given the chance, this card will destroy you if you are not careful.


 * Twilight Dragon Force
 * Sacrificing the immunity abilities to be able to equip a Dragon Force without having to lower your life? And the Dragon Force in question is able to destroy any Size 2 or lower monster, for free, as long as you destroy the opponent's deck? Now that sounds really good. Especially considering that you have a couple of defensive spells that do that for you, effectively making one of your defensive spells count as two. Abygale is key to the use of this one.


 * Dragon Force, "Style of Retaliation"
 * After deepening the bond with Abygale, the Dragon Force evolves into the Style of Retaliation. This form does exactly what the name suggests: It's a comeback option, letting you retaliate against your opponent, while destroy both a monster and their deck. Giving the option of revival to any deck is a practice one shall be very careful with, because it can lead to some really annoying fights. Anyone who fought against Burn Nova Raging Spirits during Hundred can tell you that. An explosive mix of defense and offense makes Style of Retaliation into a really good card.


 * Dragon Force (Star Dragon World)
 * The first form of the Dragon Force of Joy is ustwhat you would expect from a Star Dragon World ace card: Insanely powerful at face-value, and annoying to fight against in practice. The Dragon Force gains the ability to Quadruple Attack with a 6000 power base, making it an effective field clearer, and with the critical boosting abilities the world has, it can make it into a pure win condition just by itself. And even without crit-boosting, it can chip away a ton of health from the opponent spread over four-seperate attacks. The deadliest ice card in the game, clearly. No debating.


 * Snowy Dragon Force
 * Sacrificng the immunity abilities to be able to equip a Dragon Force without having to lower your life? While giving you a pointless ability that is honestly better performed by at least ten other cards in the same world? boosting the soul of a Neodragon when it destroys something or deals damage? This is not useless, but it's impact is far too small to even consider running. Sure, you might create a monster wall easier, but that is easily stopped by using a single defensive spell if anything.


 * Dragon Force, "Style of Justice"
 * After deepening the bond with Jackknife, the Dragon Force evolves into the Style of Justice. A card that doesn't really boost your own abilties, but rather completely neuter the opponent's abilities instead. And this giant blade of ice doesn't even have a life condition, letting you effectively sit on this one item from the first turn, making the entire fight pretty one-sided in a lot of situations. A Dragon Force that completely freezes your opponent in place, only letting them stick to the most vanilla of vanilla strategies. It's honestly evil.

Optimizing Your Tools of Destruction
Article to be concluded...