July 4th, 2015. The Nanba branch of Hobby Base Yellow Submarine hosted an 8-person bracket
Cipher tournament, as a buildup to its 16-person tournament on the 20th. Tournament winner Shibano played a Sword of Light deck, focusing on one of the more visible strategies of the Japanese
Warblade of Heroes format; "Marth beatdown," quickly building up a field of low cost attackers and driving the opponent to a critical point in orbs remaining, before finishing them off with the reversal skill of "Hero to His Country, Marth." Marth's skill gives all of his allied cards +30 attack to ensure that the minimum number of attacks needed to deal the final blow will hit. Along with Inigo Harem (sometimes called "Flying Inigo") and Lissa-NoNo drawbeat, Marth beatdown is one of the first deck archetypes to be formally recognized by the Japanese play community.
Shibano attributed his win to "Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki" whose support skill allows a card to be placed from the hand to the bond zone when Tiki is support checked. If her support skill activates early enough, it can allow for an abnormal disparity in the number of bonds controlled to arise, allowing for exponentially more units to be deployed each turn. The deck has an enormous advantage when going first, as that also allows for it to regularly maintain more bonds than the opponent already, and Tiki exacerbates this.
A Sword of Light deck also topped at Grand Panda Canyon's 16-person Swiss Draw shop tournament on the same day, but this one integrated multicolored support to make use of Tiki's higher-cost forms, and the Pegasus Knight support that has been
so overwhelmingly popular since the set's launch. Cordelia and Sumia together give the deck overwhelming offensive options, while leveling up Tiki from her cost 2 Mark of Naga stage to her cost 5 Sword of Light stage. Because the deck makes use of cards that cross color lines, its strategies are impossible for monocolor decks. This deck hues very close to Lyndis' deck from
Card Kingdom Akihabara's shop tournament just a three days prior, with one Gordin being swapped out for another copy of Linde. It is unlikely that this is the same player; Lyndis' deck is distinguished by her playset of cost 2 Tiki's alternate artwork.
Master's Guild also held an 8-person Swiss Draw shop tournament on the 4th, which accounts for the sole pure-Naga victory that is not an Inigo deck. While the Inigo Harem has flourished as one of the more difficult matchups of the format, Chrom has thus far languished in obscurity due to a combination of slow buildup, a lack of early or midgame options, and very little in terms of true acceleration when compared to the red and multicolor decks. Basic Chrom gains +10 power for every class changed unit in play, even during the opponent's turn, but this skill itself highlights the deck's core weakness--class changing takes too long. The majority of decks run a disproportionate number of cost 1 cards compared to their cost 2, 3, 4, and 5 cards, and getting enough bonds to pay the promotion costs of these high-level cards is exceptionally difficult because unlike Marth, Chrom has no way to do bond acceleration inside his own color. Moreover, in the time taken to set up class changed units it's easier to promote Chrom himself and lose his skill, and promoting contributes more base power than Chrom's ability will under most circumstances. For that very reason, the Chrom deck is an inversion of the Marth deck, running as many copies of promoted Chrom as possible rather than as few as possible.
"Protector of Ylisse, Chrom" still relies on class-changing, but has a more sensible once-per-turn skill rather than a weaker continuous one. When an ally class changes, that unit gets +20 attack and the number of orbs it breaks becomes 2 until the end of the turn, both making it easier to hit the opponent and helping to compensate for the later stage the deck functions at by dealing more damage at the endgame. Where the deck excels defensively is with "Red-eyed Bull, Sully" and "Blue-eyed Panther, Stahl" whose Aegis skills prevent all enemies with Bow, Tome, or Dragonstone from attacking, completely shutting down the opponent's ranged combat options. This punishes the opponent for trying to set up promoted ranged units like Gordin and Merric, and forces them to expose their main character onto the vanguard line to attack, rather than turtling in the rearguard.
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| Doga will choke this point! |
Finally, a multicolored Tiki deck made first at Card Land Kamata's 14-person Swiss Draw tournament on July 5th. Like Chrom above, Tiki is new territory for tournament play. The Manakete build was theorized as early as magazine previews for the game, where the cost 5 "Manakete Princess, Tiki" was repeatedly billed as a strong main character candidate, but until now the deck has been held back by the heavily Falchion-centric metagame.
Both Chrom and Marth have the Falchion skills that give them +20 attack while doing battle with Dragon affinity cards, and in a format where Sword of Light is one of the most played decks this has made things very hard on Tiki. By running a "Altea's Shield, Draug" who can redirect attacks away from Tiki and onto himself, the Kamata player was able to negate the benefits of these abilities. Draug's other ability gives him +20 when attacked by anything other than Tome affinity cards, giving him concrete staying power.
This gives Manakete Princess full reign to add extra bond cards each turn, allowing the free play of high cost units for more powerful fields, and in turn giving way to more balanced deckbuilding. In contrast to Chrom and Marth, because the Manakete strategy rewards the late-game plays more proportionally to the amount of setup those plays require, it cultivates a deck better distributed among different costs rather than being skewed to either low or high cost units.
Yellow Submarine (Nanba branch) shop tournament
First place: Shibano/シバノ
Deck name: Monodark/暗黒単
Cost 5: 2
x2 Hero to His Country, Marth
Cost 4: 16
x4 Sage of Gales, Merric
x4 Lodestar, Marth
x4 Crimson Reaper, Navarre
x4 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
Cost 3: 3
x3 Steel Swordsman, Ogma
Cost 2: 8
x4 Winds of Restoration, Caeda
x4 Princess of Altea, Elice
Cost 1: 21
x1 Crown-prince of Altea, Marth (Main character)
x4 Mage of Winds, Merric
x4 Talysian Mercenary, Ogma
x4 Crimson Fencer, Navarre
x4 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin
x4 Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki
Grand Panda Canyon shop tournament
Cost 5: 3
x1 Hero to His Country, Marth
x2 Manakete Princess, Tiki
Cost 4: 7
x4 Lodestar, Marth
x3 Angelic Advocate of Affection, Caeda
Cost 3: 12
x4 Pegasus Knight Paragon, Cordelia
x2 Archanean League Bowman, Gordin
x4 Gentle Flower of the Shepherds, Sumia
x2 Aura's Heiress, Linde
Cost 2: 9
x4 Sentimental Divine Dragon, Tiki
x2 Princess of Altea, Elice
x3 Wellspring of Youth, Nowi
Cost 1: 19
x1 Crown-Prince of Altea, Marth (Main Character)
x4 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x4 Maiden of Flower Fortunes, Sumia
x2 Ascetic Saint, Lena
x4 Crown-Princess of Talys, Caeda
x4 Liberation Army Archer, Gordin
Master's Guild shop tournament
Cost 4: 5
x4 Protector of Ylisse, Chrom
x1 Exalted Strategist, Robin
Cost 3: 11
x1 Princess of Ylisse, Lissa
x3 Blue-eyed Panther, Stahl
x1 Stoic Swordsman, Lon'qu
x3 Red-eyed Bull, Sully
x2 Warm-hearted Guard Captain, Frederick
x1 Duke of Rosanne, Virion
Cost 2: 2
x2 Sacred Descendant, Lucina
Cost 1: 32
x2 Crown-prince of Yllise, Chrom (Main character)
x3 Sprightly Cleric, Lissa
x2 Young Prodigy, Cordelia
x2 Maiden of Fortune Flowers, Sumia
x3 Gynophobic Swordsman, Lon'qu
x2 Childish Mage, Ricken
x2 Aristocratic Archer, Virion
x2 Brazen Scarlet Knight, Sully
x3 Podunk Hero, Vaike
x2 Intellectual Inquirer, Miriel
x2 Sharp-tongued Noblewoman, Maribelle
x3 Forgotten Knight, Kellam
x2 Amnesia-stricket Tactician, Robin (Female)
x2 Good-natured Azure Knight, Stahl
Card Land (Kamata branch) shop tournament
Cost 5: 4
x4 Manakete Princess, Tiki
Cost 3: 14
x3 Wellspring of Youth, Nowi
x3 Gentle Flower of the Shepherds, Sumia
x4 Altea's Shield, Draug
x3 Innocent Priestess, Maria
x1 Sweetest Assassin, Gaius
Cost 2: 13
x2 Sentimental Divine Dragon, Tiki
x3 Wyvern Rider in the Iron Mask, Gerome
x4 Fearless Mercenary, Gregor
x4 Wings of Restoration, Caeda
Cost 1: 19
x1 Princess of the Divine Dragon Tribe, Tiki (Main character)
x4 Tomboyish Manakete, Nowi
x4 Maiden of Fortune Flowers, Sumia
x3 Jet Black Ace, Gerome
x4 Protective Knight, Draug
x3 Young Princess of Macedon, Maria
This gives Manakete Princess full reign to add extra bond cards each turn, allowing the free play of high cost units for more powerful fields, and in turn giving way to more balanced deckbuilding. In contrast to Chrom and Marth, because the Manakete strategy rewards the late-game plays more proportionally to the amount of setup those plays require, it cultivates a deck better distributed among different costs rather than being skewed to either low or high cost units.
, and all of the promotional cards distributed prior to B02: Soulful Flames of Light and Dark. At this time only 122 cards are known to exist counting Robin, and the guide's tie-in promo appears to have a set number of P01-015PR. Hence the Official Guide will contain information on three other cards that have still not been revealed as of yet. 
