HOW I MAKE DECKS RELEVANT....By Dreaming

Hello fellow mortals. 
I welcome you to the first Blog of "How to make **Your Deck** Relevant", A blog series where I discuss various buddyfight decks old and new (more preferably older) and see how they were made of originally, how the deck worked, where the deck lost its footing (if it had one) and throw out some fun fan made idea`s and cards that would make the deck "Relevant". In this case, "Relevant" does not mean competitive viable, a deck has to really have the cards built in to make them competitive which in this series wouldn't be made. Let me run over a very very basic form of the Blog here with the archetype "Alexander"

Witty Liner on the archetype 
     This is not even as fun as breaking the actual archetype rules, this is just...standard. It is not even Ganzack levels of bare-bones archetype because he at least got an evil rival. So Dragon Knight/Hero Alex is a Size 2 from the first ever booster, Dragon Chief with a 4/3/5 stat line. You easily notice that the statline is very odd. Putting so much into the defense which at the time, 5000 was still a good defense on a size 2 as well as the 3 crit, but 4000 power? This is in the first booster, so as the opposite of Armordragons, they decided to reverse the stat lines of some cards, so his common brother, Leonidas..is a 1/2/5. Yeah the stats are bad. Thankfully cause Dragon Knights only had 6 cards in BT01, he still had some use as a nice free beater, unless the deck builder had some taste and went with Masakado for an additional gauge. Heck, this guys stats clash with the Armodragon Size 2 with 4000 power, as at that time, a critical was equal to 3000 power. (Ahhh, old Buddyfight Math, where have you gone?) and so this somehow had an additional 1000 power for defense, and yet it somehow still sucks. Do not run him now, do not even run him in some form of BT01 only tourney. It is..it is bad. SO HE GOT AN EVOLVED FORM!

Twin Horned King of Knights, Alexander is from the most sought out set in history..mostly because it has one of the few copies of the Legend World flag in existence, DARKNESS FABLE! It was a fun set with bringing DDW and Legend into playability, more DDW then Legend but I digress, King Alex is a 5/2/6 Size 2 with 1 Gauge. He gains [Double Attack] when you have two "Alexander" in drop. First of all, BT05 was just around the corner, and with it, Hyperion. BT04 was so laughable with Dragon Knight support that the only card it actually ran was Napoleon, and even then it was a bit costly for the time. The trio of cards did not budge the deck as it was and people knew to just wait for BT05.



Why they clearly sucked 
     Listen, Alexander kinda falls into that very odd place of archetypes that were started from EB01 to BT05 that I will like to name "Evolution Archetypes", evolution's based solely on filling the archetype requirements. So even by Bushiroad`s standards, this should have not been an archetype but by rulings is. However this does not mean that an Evolution Archetype is doomed to fail. The first true blog, is also an Evolution Archetype that got support and its own boss monster. So their is a way to get Alexander a way to have a deck. With its very low amount of actual image to make a full deck, anything Bushiroad makes with the Alexander name now could be a fun idea, and could go a ton of different routes.
The Dragon Route
     An easy way of looking at King Alexander is that he is a drop zone based Dragon Knight with a condition of needing copies of his name in drop. So a needed card for a "Dragon World" focused Alexander Deck is a resource gainer. Dragon Knights already have multiple resource engines to them in order to mill as well as to gain hand as opposed to how it was back in the day. As the item side of Alexander is filled up by DK`s amazing weapons, a monster with the Alexander name would be more appropriate. For a standard Dragon World deck, I would create.

As Alexander is more leaning on the drop zone variant of the attribute, it`s evolved form would follow suit. Putting in a locked resource for balance when adding to the mill gives the card a much needed balance as opposed to other Dragon World cards. Dragon Knights also can gain life and gauge by breathing so a small boost instead of a massive boost is the more preferred way of a balanced card. Alexander gaining Triple Attack in order to pressure enemies and hit low bodies does give Alexander a much more recent amount of pressure without going too overboard on overall damage. The cannot be destroyed by card effects is something most boss monsters would like to have and thankfully would match the decks end game of milling the Alexander name. Having him, OG, and Twin Alex in Drop allows for many of DK`s premiere cards to take effect, like the new Death Grip Clone immediately online.
So, Episode 0.
     I want to thank you all for reading this bite-sized view of what the blog will be doing. I will update on my own time, or when I just need to let my idea`s flow and I want to get them seen. The first episode if you will of the blog is already 3/4`s of the way done, meaning that it will be released possibly in the next few days. I would like to add more input from other people in the Creativity section when I can, so if you also are on the TCG Buzz Discord, come check out the Fan Card Section and send in your ideas. It was an honor to make this, and I hope you all enjoy the series. Now if you will excuse me, time to finish episode 1!