Week 3: Great Nature - What did the bull say to his son when he goes to work?

Excuse the bad joke, but I needed a title anyways.

BT-08 has been out for a few weeks now, and prices seems to have settled. So I came across this guy on sale for $5 (compared to the other aces, this is pretty cheap.):



Armed Instructor, Bison (hah, bad joke indeed.)
High Beast/10000/Grade 3/Great Nature

[AUTO](VC): Limit Break 4 (This ability is active if you have four or more damage): During your end phase, when one of your «Great Nature» rear-guards is put into the drop zone, choose up to two cards from your damage zone, and turn them face up. [ACT](VC):[Counter Blast(2)] Choose one of your «Great Nature» rear-guards, and that unit gets Power +4000 until end of turn, and at the beginning of the end phase of that turn, retire that unit.

Not bad. In addition to having Flask Marmoset's effect stapled onto this unit, his LB brings about some really awesome mid-game interactions. The issue with the current builds I'm using is that I tend to run out of counterblast despite all the cheap economical costs. So I decide to give this card a shot.

We start with Bison as a 4-of, end of story.

Bison's LB works great with the Hamsuke units. Even if you run out of CB, you can stack the effect accordingly:
1) Hamsuke explodes from too much doping (This is why doping is bad for you, kids.)/ Lion decides to eat him for lunch.
2) Activate Bison's LB 1st, unflip 2 damage.
3) Carry on with Hamsuke's effect

The advantage with Hamsuke is that you thin out your deck of a non-trigger unit and make your draws and drive checks more potent. 1 Card's not much, but when you eat 3, 4 or even 5, it adds up over time, especially when you eat 2 or more at once in a turn... I have to admit, Bison really encourages Doping en masse.

Right, with that thought... Let's dump in multiple copies of Hamsuke, even the Grade 3 (yes, even the Grade 3 because he's such a bad ass and 14k can even touch crossrides, and even then grade 3 drive checks are really bad for you...).

And then 4 Duckbills. Duckbill essentially replaces himself, as long as you eat your unit. And then 1 Ohm, who does the same thing and phases out of the way for you to drop other units. I was pondering if I could use Tic-Toc Flamingo, but Bison already fixes our CB problem, so yeah. 4 Silver Wolf and 2 Failure Scientist, Ponkichi (LB enabler) round out the Line up.

4 Hamsuke, 4 Compass Lion, and then we just need 3 Geograph Giant... Pretty standard, I suppose. If you could afford it, make it 4 Binoculars Tiger instead.

The high power given by Bison makes Stands and Critical triggers very potent. In addition, the high amount of draw given by the other units makes your draw triggers kinda redundant. In that case, a balance between Stands and Critical triggers make this an efficient beatdown deck.

The overall build: (/cue badass title screen)



1 Blackboard Ohm/Acorn Master
6 Stand
6 Critical
4 Heal

4 Silver Wolf
4 Pencil Squire, Hamsuke
4 Loop-the-Loop, Duckbill
2 Failure Scientist, Ponkichi

4 Compass Lion
4 Pencil Knight, Hamsuke
3 Geograph Giant

4 Armed Instructor, Bison
4 Pencil Hero, Hamsuke

I have to admit though, Great Nature's really straightforward with the build, most decks requiring the same same stuff, most of the time... On the other hand, each Ace brings something different to the table and lets you utilize different tactics with your units. In addition, it's really quite a inexpensive clan to use, so you could probably pick this up on the cheap.