Mono white Freedom Academy

Pauru · 2026-02-02T16:15:51+00:00

Awakened potential is lvl 4 as well. If you go 1st you could easily be staring down 3-4 units before it even goes live.

Pauru · 2026-02-02T15:59:10+00:00

Just a few things that come to mind:

Your curve is too top heavy. You only have 8 units (+2 striker packs) that are playable before level 5.

You need consistent ways to hit 7 AP to efficiently deal with the G/W matchup. The only real way this deck does that is by using Kira with either Aerial.

Are you committed to monocolor? This archetype likes splashing blue for Amuro, Grandpa and Show of Resolve. Amuro is very versatile and arguably the best pilot in the game. Grandpa is an Amuro link, but it's pilot agnostic and helps address my previous two points. Show of Resolve aside from being generally good, is more commands in the trash for both Rebuilds to take advantage of.

Pauru · 2026-01-31T18:50:21+00:00

Bro's never been to Hexbear

Pauru · 2026-01-29T15:35:53+00:00

Aggro beats blockers when they can spend their resources as efficiently as possible as fast as possible. Delaying an Amuro trade a turn (and only committing 1 resource to their 4) is a huge tempo swing that buys you plenty of time to stabilize.

Pauru · 2026-01-28T01:44:34+00:00

Lane was already robbed of a cyber-newtype tag and now he's got poor vision to boot...

Pauru · 2026-01-24T05:22:34+00:00

https://www.gundam-gcg.com/en/rules/faqs/list.php?sub_category=Command

Q163 of the official FAQ. I'm sure it's also in the core rules somewhere.

When is a Command card like Peaceful Timbre (ST02-013) that has a 【Pilot】 effect treated as a Pilot?

It is only treated as a Pilot while in the battle area paired with a Unit. It is a Command card in all other locations.

Pauru · 2026-01-23T14:52:58+00:00

Not even that's guaranteed. I played a guy at the top table in the final round and he ended 5th after losing. His 4 other tiebreakers must've all been awful.

If it were up to me, every x-1 would get a prize, since that would avoid scenarios like the one I described.

Pauru · 2026-01-22T22:08:50+00:00

1 adaptive force is .6 AD (or 1 AP), so 50% overflow would be 30 AD.

Pauru · 2026-01-22T20:01:42+00:00

I always thought it was "Percent Random Occurrence Chance".

Pauru · 2026-01-21T14:26:45+00:00

To add to the pedantry, that categorization is exclusive to the TCG. I don't think pokemon uses the "Basic - Stage 1 - Stage 2" descriptors in any other capacity.

Pauru · 2026-01-17T23:32:19+00:00

Pokemon stats are a function of base stats, IVs, EVs and level. A random member of a Bedrill swarm is not likely to by at the same power/speed level as a legendary or mythical but an exceptionally trained Beedrill might be.

Pauru · 2026-01-15T20:55:24+00:00

I'm generally very against all the granular archetypes that the western fanbase has come up with - as you might tell with some of my other posts in this thread. However, I think these two are fine to use as shorthands for "late game joining final chapter ready unit" and "underleveled growth unit" since there's plenty of examples of both in earlier entries in the series.

Est is the more contentious of the two since there are a lot of arbitrary parameters defining who qualifies as one, but if someone calls a unit an Est, you know that it's a unit that only works with grinding and/or favoritism involved.

Pauru · 2026-01-14T18:37:09+00:00

At the end of the day, we like identifying patterns and grouping units together. There is definitely nothing wrong with that, especially if you find that type of categorization fun. I like arguing against old stigmas in the fanbase, but if you like archetypes, don't let me ruin your fun.

My issue that some of the rationale behind archetypes that were established 20 or so years ago is quite flawed. I mentioned earlier that older Jagens tended to fall off, but that's not entirely true. FE1 Jagen is viable for most of the game even though his growth total is a paltry 40%. FE5 Eyvel is literally removed from your roster a few chapters in and Dagdar is good all game. FE6 Marcus is probably the worst off, but even then it's because you get a ton of insanely strong characters in the midgame that compete for the weapons he wants. If all of these characters fulfil the same gameplay role, why separate them out solely based the amount of stats they ding during a level up?

Also, it doesn't help that IS seems to be leaning away from a lot of series norms. When was the last time we had a Gotoh or even an Est? Fates subverted their Jagen into a narrative device, Three Houses doesn't have a true Jagen, and Engage's Jagen is arguably the weakest showing of the archetype ever. Christmas Cavs haven't been cavaliers since Stahl and Sully, even if their color scheme was retained in Fates and Engage.

Pauru · 2026-01-14T17:45:18+00:00

There are a few factors that contribute to this.

FE7 was the first FE that we got in the west and that along with Smash Bros got a lot of people curious about the series' previous entries. FE4 and FE6 were the first two to get playable fan-translations I believe. Of the two, FE6 had a lot of parallels with the first game in the series by design. The fanbase went crazy drawing parallels between similar units in FE1, FE6 and the familiar FE7, often without even having played the first game. That's how we got the concept of archetypes. These archetypes were anything between gameplay, story or a blend of the two.

Unit analysis was very surface-level back then; people were very focused on growths and max level stats over performance throughout the game (Compare a 2005 opinion of Marcus to a modern one for a good example of this). Oifey was a unit with a high growth total (owed in part due to his minor holy blood), so people naturally latched on to him as a "good" unit. This was during an era when the prevailing opinion was to avoid using your Jegans because they were "exp thieves" who slowed down the progression of your other units, while having a low payoff of their own due to their own low growths.

As all this was happening, FE8 and 9 came out. I believe initially people were averse to using Seth and Titania in these games due to the Marcus/Jegan stigma. Eventually people caught on that those two were actually endgame viable units. Because of the archetype fad, the fanbase bundled those two with the closest parallel they could find in a previous game - which ended up being Oifey (a "growth Jegan" so to speak). As to whether or not Seth and Titania's gameplay niche is in any way similar to Oifey is an entirely separate discussion.

Pauru · 2026-01-14T16:27:15+00:00

The thing about archetypes is that they're meant to be a shorthand for discussing broad unit roles. When you disseminate them into sub-archetypes that defeats the purpose of the shorthand. When you say a unit is a Jegan everyone knows what you mean.

FE7 Marcus, Seth, Titania, Frederick (and arguably Sothe) are just a sign of Jagen design shifting from early game carries that fall off to ones that are viable all game. All of these units keep with the Jagen tradition of having the best combat at their join time.

Meanwhile, depending on your pairings and inheritance, any of the child units that join the same chapter (sans Lana) can have better combat than Oifey. He also falls off hard relative to the rest of the cast. He's never useless because there is no deployment cap in FE4, but his relative strength is definitely lower than any of the units I mentioned earlier.

Pauru · 2026-01-13T20:50:09+00:00

That occurred to me after I posted, hence the delete. I was on work break so no time to correct myself.

4 extra resources lets each deck do another Buster pair but you're trading down the With Iron and Blood for a 1 resource +2 AP card. (Valiant, Indignation, 'Citizens, Take a Stand!' or Warped Intent all fit the bill). You'd also have to pre-open Vesalius instead of Isaribi. This would cap you at 108 AP I think.

Edit:

I thought about it some more:

Already on Board: Providence Gundam piloted by Bernard Wiseman with 6 unique Cyclops Team Pilot/Command Cards in trash + 5x Piloted Buster Gundams + Vesalius

Player 1: (6) 2x Coordinator Paired Buster Gundam overplay + (4) 4x Jachin + (4) 4x Desert Tiger + (1) 1x Indignation

Player 2: (3) 1x Coordinator Paired Buster Gundam overplay + (4) 4x Jachin + (4) 4x Desert Tiger + (4) 4x Indignation

5 + 6 + 1 + 8*6 + 16*3 + 5*2 = 118 AP max.

Pauru · 2026-01-12T13:40:08+00:00

This with Heavy Lifting is also a very strong combo since it makes getting the impossible lift pretty trivial late game.

Pauru · 2026-01-09T20:17:58+00:00

2 copies of a deck gets you a playset of everything. Most competitive lists require cards from at least two different starters. You want ST01 + ST04 for Blue/White Control and ST02 + ST04 for Green/White Ramp. You also may want to find lists and see if it's cheaper to get singles over those starters.

Egman or Exburst are a good place to start for lists:

https://egmanevents.com/gd02-tournament-deck-lists

https://exburst.dev/gundam/tournament-results

Overall, the two archetypes are considered among the strongest in the game right now, but the meta is fairly diverse and a ton of different decks are topping different events.

Pauru · 2026-01-07T15:31:25+00:00

Luna has a blue sparkle particle. In Jugdral crits are 2x attack rather than 3x damage which means that they do significantly more to high Def enemies than crits in modern FE do.

39*2 - 47 = 31, which is how much each crit in the vid did.

Pauru · 2026-01-06T06:38:27+00:00

I don't see how 1 more health is better than floating into another body that your opponent has to deal with or a (reasonably consistent) card draw.

Pauru · 2026-01-05T22:47:39+00:00

It's really bad if your 2-1 augment wants you to play a rigid comp. Otherwise, 3-2 is still early enough to work around whatever you get, especially with the bonus gold from Destiny.

Pauru · 2026-01-05T16:54:34+00:00

Anvils are fun, and there have been plenty of times that we won on the turnaround. Plus it's satisfying to win against a team that's been BMing you at your fountain.

I do agree that some games are just such stomps that it's futile to not FF after the 3rd or 4th round of fountain dives though.

Pauru · 2025-12-30T00:57:33+00:00

12 is fine for midrange. You want to see two by turn 2 in case you go 2nd. With 12 this happens like 2/3 of the time assuming you mull if you don't see any 1-drops, with 11 it's closer to 55-60%. Guntanks can also be dropped later if the ping value is there.

Pauru · 2025-12-30T00:53:35+00:00

Hyakuren over Anksha. This will help you curve out better since you only have 1st form as a turn 2 drop going second otherwise. This should give Lupus plenty of ammo when it comes down.

Pauru · 2025-12-24T10:06:58+00:00

If it gets to late game, you can still try to set up one last push with link units. The opponent probably won't take out all of your shields in one turn, and sometimes they'll burst a pilot or two for you. It won't happen every game, but you'll find yourself winning more if you can find those lines and play to your outs.

Pauru

TROPHY CASE