EB03: Analysing the Spike Brothers Stand Trigger

Introduction
With the release of EB03 has come further support for many clans. Gold Paladin get the Spectral Duke Dragon ride chain, Royal Paladin get their Limit Break unit in Pendragon. Even Kagero and Shadow Paladin get some support as well. But what I will be focussing on is the Spike Brothers support, specifically the Stand Trigger, Kung Fu Kicker. With the whole point of Spike Brothers being rushing your opponent with multiple, hard-hitting attacks, a Stand trigger seems like a really good fit. But does testing agree or disagree with the Theoryfight? Let's find out.


Stand in Action
I have come across a lot of "potential plays" around forums and the Cardfight!! Vanguard wikia. While some statements such as "Stands are awesome, they let me Stand my boosters" or "Sky Diver will become so good" may hold some worth, it is best to take comments from people that haven't actually tested it with a grain of salt. Which is where I come in, reporting my findings after having tested in order to allow people to create their own opinions. 


The number one "play" that people have been boasting about is that the stand trigger allows them to "stand their boosters". If anyone is not familiar with Spike Brothers, the deck revolves around hitting for relatively high numbers (16k in the form of Juggernaut Maximum) with no boosters then returning them to the deck through their own effects. Other cards such as Dudley Dan and Demonic Lord, Dudley Emperor then call the units back, standing and ready for another attack with the still standing booster behind them. What these people want is to be able to attack with their initial unit, boosted, so the stand trigger then stands the booster behind the newly-called unit. The main problem I see with this logic, is that to be able to benefit from the stand trigger, you would need to commit beforehand by resting your booster and then hoping you get the stand trigger. Not only are the odds of that slim, but if you don't check one, the prior commitment to the Stand makes your second attack weaker and easier to guard, which is not what you want, since your opponent, unless at 5 damage, will generally take the first attack in hopes of getting a trigger to make the rest of the attacks easier to guard. You want your opponent to use up their hand to guard your relentless attacks, and committing to the stand trigger makes it so your opponent uses up less cards to guard your now weaker attacks.


Second play that people have been talking about involves Sky Diver. Sky Diver, for those who don't know adds itself to Soul when it hits and allows you to call something in its place in order to attack again. Generally, players will want to guard it's attack for the fear of calling a Juggernaut in its place, as Juggernaut can hit for 16k for the cost of a soulblast. The play is obvious, when you attack with the Sky Diver and your opponent guards it, you get a Stand trigger in your drive checks and you stand and add the power so it swings for 16k. Although not necessarily a bad play, it would only be useful in situational circumstances, ie. when your opponent is at 5 damage and has nothing to guard with. This is where Stands are best, as your opponent has already calculated that they need an X amount of shield to guard and then a Stand appears, messing everything up. Unfortunately this scenario is extremely situational, meaning that it rarely actually happens. Let's say your opponent is at anything but 5 damage and they decide to not guard the Sky Diver that just stood with the trigger. Then what? Unless you're calling a Juggernaut over it that can swing for 16k by itself, it's going to be an easy 5k block for your opponent. In my opinion, an 11k rearguard for an extra 5k shield is not worth it at all. A similar play has been suggested using Brave General, Zachary. This card, when it hits allows you to SB1 to draw a card and then Zachary returns to the deck. Naturally, people have stated that standing Zachary will give you another shot to get the effect off. Unfortunately, Zachary is 9k, meaning with the power of a Stand it reaches 14k which will still only require a 5k shield to block.


So let's say you're still not convinced and have been waiting for ages for Bushiroad to give your absolute favourite clan a Stand trigger and nothing some n00b blogger says will change your mind. Then the question becomes what trigger to take out? Critical triggers? Well you're supposed to be rushing your opponent to 6 damage with fast attacks, Criticals kind of help you in that matter so why would you take those out? Heal triggers? If you want to have no hope when you're at 5 damage and can't guard an attack, then sure. Draw triggers? They allow you to keep up in hand size and become easy perfect guard fodder or easy 5k shields to guard small attacks. Once again, all the other triggers give you an essentially free advantage in some way, be it an extra damage, extra card drawn, that a stand trigger does not.


Inner Conflict
Okay so standing the boosters doesn't appear to be very effective, what about standing the attacking rearguards? Well if we may recall, Spike Brothers involves attacking with cards such as Juggernaut Maximum or Highspeed Brakki that can tag back into the deck and then Dudley Emperor or Dudley Dan can call them back. The problem is, Dudley Emperor can call two units back, and ideally it would be two attacking units that would be called over attacking units that just tagged back into the deck. This means that during your drive checks, ideally everything should already be standing, making stand triggers completely pointless. It appears Demonic Lord, Dudley Emperor's own effect conflicts with the use of a stand trigger, which makes it even harder to justify making room for the stand.


Conclusion
To conclude, the stand trigger for Spike Brothers may not be as cracked up as people make it out to be. My testing, albeit somewhat limited, has proved to me at least that the stand trigger, while it sounds effective on paper, has not been testing nearly as well in reality. To me, it's hard to justify fitting them in due to it's necessary commitment to be useful, and otherwise lack of benefit compared to other triggers. These are simply my own findings and opinions, and I hope because of this, others are pushed to test it themselves and create their own opinions.


HerO


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