Black Dragons -The True Darkness Dragons-

WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT GAITO'S BLACK DRAGONS! THEY ARE NOT WHAT STARTED THE ATTRIBUTE TO BEGIN WITH! WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE OLD ONES THAT BUSHI WANTS YOU TO FORGET!

    God that sound's like a Click-bait title, "BUSHIROAD DOESN'T WANT YOU PLAYING THIS DECK?!", but anyway. Black Dragons DID NOT START in D-SD03, much to everyones' surprise and shock, but actually started in TD06: Dark Pulse. Dark Pulse...was basically a terrible deck with basically three attributes clawing for space from Black Dragons, to Death Rulers, and Purgatory Knights all fighting to say "OH THIS IS MY DECK!", but enough about that.

     Black Dragons were an aggro focused deck based on monster destruction and burn through simple game play and field destruction. They did not as most instances try to attack the opponent but most of the time through the monsters through an ability known as "Spectral Strike". Spectral Strike has gotten upgrades throughout the years, but somehow not enough to be viable so I still have no idea how they expect us to do anything besides hit and pray. Spectral Strike for the first three two years was "When this card attacks and destroys an opponent's monster, deal ? damage", the damage was usually 1-2 but to balance it, their stats would be pretty garbage compared to other cards. They had okay recursion and the spell lineup of DDW Would help them immensely clawing through the battleground for two years, until they retconed them into a stall deck. I can understand why in terms of design, see for all of you "CASUALS" cards are usually made YEARS in advance so that they can be balance tested and calculated in terms of power scaling and usability. Meaning that before Buddyfight even was announced, the first 2 seasons were made of cards so that they didn't have any rush jobs or mistakes in printing (to a degree). This does cause a problem though which is that if the community has a problem with how the game is going, the company cannot fix it immediately and would take some time to show actual change in the game as a whole. This is one of the reasons why DDD did not have the best reception, since after the first release of Buddyfight, they went right into DDD development and just made a ton of new things. This is why we have Gao using Sun Dragons, Black Dragons being changed completely, and a lot of new decks hitting the scene because they were not in that original two year time period. There was also a ton of OTHER issues behind the scenes, but most is just speculative while only a few things have been discovered to have truly happened, but that's neither here nor there. We got the original design of Black Dragons and that's what I used as my first real deck into the game..plus they were pretty cheap all things considered. SO LET'S GO INTO THE MADNESS AND BECOME THE TRUE EDGELORDS!!

"B-But I am edgy..."

You're not edgy Gaito, you use a STALL DECK FOR GAO SAKES! A STALL DECK!!!! AN EDGY DECK IS MERCILESSLY KILLING YOUR OPPONENTS MONSTERS AND DESTROYING THEIR SOULS! YOU!!! STALLL TO WIN!!!!

YEAH THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT!!!


So let's begin

The Lineup

    The first card released for Black Dragons was actually in the Dragon VS Danger Booster as their Buddy Rare. Death Dragon, Deathgaze Dragon is a size 1 Black Dragon/Death/Deep with 6/1/1 for stats and a 1 gauge [Call Cost]. He has the ability of Spectral Strike where when he destroys a monster, he deals 2 damage to your opponent. Great when dealing with weak monsters and decent stat size 2`s, but the issue came around when your opponent does not play monsters onto the field. or their monsters have higher stats then usual, Deathgaze just doesn't cut it. You needed a balance of Spectral Strike damage and normal damage in order to balance from attacking monsters to attacking opponent's life, and this guy was not cutting it as much. Combined with the low defense and he was easily weak to any form of destruction or target, you had a monster that on paper was amazing, but in execution had a lot of flaws. I recommend other cards ahead of him. His forms made after do a lot of work also for less of a cost.


     Now this...This is a nicely designed Black Dragon (for it's time). Bloody Moon Dragon is a size 2 Black Dragon/Deep/Star? With a 7/2/1 Baseline, free to call and a Spectral Strike 1. Free, simple to use, great power for the time to clear monsters, great critical damage to hit into the opponent's face. JUST...GOOD! Vanilla beaters with high stats that deal damage in both scenarios, that is what Black Dragons are and my god they were a fun aggro burn deck. If you run a Season 1 only tourney, max this guy, this guy was buddy material for how versatile he can be. I cannot say much since it's so simple, but it is in that simplicity where it shines.

      Black Dragon, Maveltaker is the size 3 boss of the deck. For 3 gauge, you get a 7/2/8 body which isn't bad with Spectral Strike 1 and [Double Attack]. Not bad for the time he came out at like a 2-of but not really something you can easily get back once you invested. Black Dragons at the time had a size 1 and 2 drop zone recursion spell so the open center formation with 2 monsters was more preferred. Plus we wouldn't get a Boomerang "Clone" until the end of the Hundred Era, so no good size 0`s were here to help this guy if you wanted formation. Was okay as a two-of for its time, but a card later on in the year would outclass it in terms of usability and overall pressure, and take its spot in the Black Dragon Throne. So yeah, guy was okay, just not as much now.

     Now this is an item! See the spikes, See the actual "edge", this is what Black Dragon items should be. Not tattoos. Evil Death Scythe is a 4/2 for 1 gauge with built in Spectral Strike 1. Card Destruction was not as rampant as it is now, so he was pretty good as a mini Spectral Strike against small fry creatures while the bigger power cards like Bloody Moon or Deathgaze would kill bigger defense cards. This also has the actual BENEFIT of being 2 critical. Yes that is a benefit for OG Black Dragons, because they REALLY wanted you to just attack monsters, which we were okay with doing, but also there are times we need to slam into the opponent's face with mass prejudice. This was the staple item of Black Dragons for 2 years until they got replaced with their stall deck, but for the two years he was out, Evil Death Scythe was a "cut" above other items and now sits proud in the armory of weapons, to be remembered fondly for its contributions to the deck.
Also I just realized...this isn't even a Black Dragon attributed item...Well #($.

      Small little mention of Black Dragon Shield here because at the time, it was the superior one of the Dragon Shield Trio. Its ability was to reduce damage, and not nullify an attack. This helped with regarding mass burn damage, and as well to use as a shield like green. A very versatile tool that drew people to the deck, just mentioning it here cause while it is "Black Dragon Shield" it doesn't support the Black Dragon attribute.






 
     Devil Stigma, Devil Stigma. You were when first shown, ahead of your time. A Counter speed monster destruction for resources and life. A valuable asset to all DDW Decks and a viable card to use in that time period. However, this card is a bit controversial in it's overall recognition. Some will say this was the best card ever made while others find it an overrated piece of garbage. How can a card be so divisive without even being X Levels of cancer...
The wording
     Devil Stigma, as the forefather of counter monster destruction, was given a more particular wording then other cards that would come later. With the destruction being in the ability itself and not in the call cost, some ruling scenarios would actually give you a minus for using it if your opponent was smart. Later versions of this card was given different wording to use, as Counter Rulings have changed to match the card effects, but using this now...it depends. I used it in my builds and I found it an excellent combo piece, but to each their own. Use if you want. Modern Black Dragon decks have better cards and this guy isn't really needed.






OKAY SO WE GONNA BLOW THROUGH THE BT05 Stuff with the EASIEST FEW WORDS I CAN SAY ABOUT A CARD EVER MADE!

Relatively okay, but mostly seen as crap.

So you want me to not only get over the fact it is a size 1 with 3000 power and 0 crit, you think the spectral strike 2 is gonna cut it?! .


...NO! 




Honestly, it was okay. The ability to burn when the opponent nullifies is very good, and it was taken by OG Yamigedo so it was a good ability on execution. It isn't even OPT so it can do some good damage if your opponent doesn't prepare. Hell, the card even has the Vanity Destroyer effect of not being able to recover life by effects. DUDE! This card was really a nice card, why didn't most people use it?

[Cast Cost] [Pay 2 gauge and you deal 1 damage]

Oh. Yeah that was a big cost even then. It was a big investment and Black Dragons did not have an engine to get it running like most decks do nowadays for sets. If this was made today, it would be so good and cheap and actually amazing, but as it stands, it's okay. If your build could handle the steep gauge cost, run it in an older build.



    Okay so we got one last duo of cards to talk about from the first seasons pseudo "Climax Booster", Golden Buddy Pack Ver E, AKA Ratio Hell. The Japanese release seemingly had better pull rates on its higher rarity cards while in the US........getting one of the rare cards of the set was 1 in 4 boxes. But it was still okay for a little while on useful cards as we got these two beauties.


     Graveyard of Demonic Swords, Graybard is

Oh...you're having a moment. Yeah, this was 3 and a half years ago.
for everyone else, Graybard here was a titular size 3 in many builds of DDW back in the day because it was just a solid 2 of. No one cared about the 7/2/7 stats, what they cared about was the on call Pop a monster and burn for the size of the card destroyed. This was basically a spell on legs, call it to the field and watch a high power monster on your opponent's field basically die and get burned for 2 or 3. It was a good sideboard card and an excellent card to run in the deck of that time. He's been power-creeped out but man, this guy was so memorable back in the day. It's surprising to even write that he's bad now, because if you started from the beginning, this was nothing but good for a long while. Use only in season based decks, because the passage of time has hit him like a brick.  


     Eternal Silence, Orbit is basically Deathgaze on size 2. It was only SLIGHTLY BETTER because a size 2 with 8k that can deal 2 damage on monster pop is okay, plus the size 2 lineup back then was just Bloody Moon, Death Wizard (who is a Zlatarog clone)...and god what else did we use? El Huracan was okay but it was just sortof wishywashy when we had Bloody Moon. Grobius was garbage.....No one used Gafnar, god no. Dalleon was basically Gafner but only harder to call. .....Yeah the lineup was like 4 Bloody Moon, 4 Death Wizard...cause Black Dragons had gauge issues so Death Wizard was used a bit and....

I'm going off tangent. Okay card, if you going for PURE Spectral pressure, this over Bloody Moon, but if you have a microbe of cells in your brain...eh 2 of em. 


Well, that was easy to get through these guys. So it's time for Buddyfight 100 and the support for Black Dragons slowed down immensely. Mostly because Buddyfight has shifted into a brand new formula, 4 Main Booster sets with extra boosters around it to do some support for other decks and other worlds. So the support slows to a halt with 1 to 2 things per every few set, the first being...

     Violence Familiar is a Black Dragon Impact that you WILL use at the start of your battle phase (if you actually use this card). It increases all Spectral Strike damage by 1 for the turn. This has gotten better with time with cards like the new Bloodknife and Phantom Getter giving you better bonuses for using Spectral Strike. It has in a sense become a pseudo crit up because it can boost both of your monsters and Bloodknife, and with Bloodknife and a card we'll talk about later giving your entire field Spectral Strike, this can be a good two of if your deck has the room for it. Just depends on the climate since the condition is now easier to use. Cost is also cheap since Black Dragons have gauge options to spare....OH DOWNSIDES! Basically a waste cause Spectral Strike Black Dragons don't have any card effect destruction resistance, so if they pop the attacking monster, it's a waste of a card....Ya know honestly I cannot believe this has gotten better....I...I have no idea what else to say...Just next card before I scare myself

     Now this was a good card. Black Dragon, Befreien is a size 1 1/2/1 Black Dragon/Destruction/Hundred Demons that on attack pops an opponent's monster. Just POP, boom, destroy. Remember, this is before Card Destruction became so rampant and an ability like this was just big at the time, not uber broken but still powerful. Put this against a wall you did not like, you popped it. Was nice to have in the HD Build, and a good card in Black Dragons. Only issue is that his destruction is by effect and on attack, so you only could use him in certain situations. He isn't as good anymore but still okay.

This card sucks. Left's move on.

     Now this...is a good card. Deathgaze SD is a 6/1/1 for FREE (It says you need a Black Dragon Buddy but come on, that's not a condition). You get SS1 so you immediately invalidate Gracia and Cold Blade. AND When he destroys an opponent's monster, you send a gauge to drop. You do not CHOOSE the gauge, just one gets sent. Super versatile and it bonuses you for attacking the monsters with this guy and bringing out shields because no one likes losing gauge (back in the days, now its like gauge is basically the same price as breathing). A very good card in the spectral strike build as a 2-3 of due to the recursion in the deck and the pressure. He is a good boi. Good deathgaze.


Okay so Absolute Attack is absolutely decent. It's a free Counter Nullifier in a deck that needs to not be countered. It gets over cannot be nullified since you cant cast it in the first place. Its still a wash in terms of effect since nowadays its more just built in to the bloody cards. Again, only gotten better with time for Black Dragon Spectral Strike, but the bar was not there to begin with...guess you can use it....Look Spectral Strike Black Dragons are in a bad place, just....just don't even try.





Okay so we're at the end of the generation, before Black Dragons became about some emo prick then a lovable douche bag. Their entire playstyle changed overnight and now this is the final batch before the new stuff takes over. Did Bushiroad give Black Dragons in the final main booster amazing support to show their love for the playstyle, and to the fans who were dedicated for 2 years?


#*$% NO!! WE GET THESE PIECES OF GARBAGE!!

     Jinxed Landfall, Curse Count is a 5/1/1 for 1 gauge. His Spectral Strike is the first unique Spectral Strike yet, as it is 1 usually, but when you have four or more DIFFERENT Black Dragon MONSTERS in your drop zone, he becomes Spectral Strike 4. Seems easy, seems SUPER cheap, seems amazing, but you need to realize how big this restriction is in order to actually understand the LEVEL of garbage here. You need not only 4 Black Dragon Monsters, BUT THEY ALL NEED TO BE DIFFERENT! This isn't like New Black Dragons where theirs hand traps and various forms and spells and stuff. This is "You run 4 of the good ones and a small amount of the garbage" Ones. Let me count all the Amazing Spectral Strike cards
Bloody Moon
Deathgaze SD
Graybard
Befrien (You were using it, do not lie to me)
Orbit
Death Wizard

I just listed a few but you need MOST OF THOSE IN DROP! Which is so late into the game where it does not matter! AND THEIRS NO DROP ZONE ACCEL FROM TRIPLE D TO BACK THESE GUYS UP!

Just do not use this guy...please...please don't.

One of the worst cards ever made.







So we have 0 amazing cards for Spectral Strike and it's being revealed at this point about Impact Monsters. We got one set left and it's about these "INVERSE" Omni Lords. It has all worlds but let's be honest. Black Dragons were a gimmick of their time and

...Whats that? I Forgot someone? It isn't listed here on the Spectral Strike list?

.............Oh yeah...Him......PUT HIM ON SCREEN BOYS!


     Void Omni Wicked Lord, Negulbalz is a Size 2 6/2/3 Black Dragon/Deep/Destruction Attribute with a one gauge [Call Cost]. He has the Omni Lord Keyword (And lore that will never be referenced again) and he has the ability to burn your opponent when an opponent's monster is destroyed equal to their size.
SO THIS WAS AMAZING AND COOL AND A GREAT SEND OFF! It not only had a cheap call cost, filled a good hole in the Black Dragon Line-up, was a free burn for dealing with bigger threats, had good stats to deal with the big guys at the time, but his burn was just unreal. He did more damage then most Spectral Strike either by attacking or through the burn. We had Death Grip and a new reusable destruction spell to use to proc his guy on yours and your opponent's turn. His burn was also not OPT so it can be used to just burn life, plus it counted multiple destruction so that was nice. Overall an amazing card for the Black Dragon deck, and a great sendoff to the deck before Bushi stomped on our dreams.


And that was the end of the original Black Dragons, a rough batch of cards who had power issues all over the place, and cards that cannot keep up with the times or even had a chance. Probably why they switched Black Dragons over to the new stall variety to give them a new taste of life, but it left people who bought into the deck a void in their heart and just cards to leave in the bulk box. Bushi wouldn't try to bring the deck back, instead just giving it a spiritual successor in EDD, but still was a big blow to see the deck go. So much of a blow in fact, that their was ONLY 2 SUPPORT CARDS IN TRIPLE D. (I actually forgot about 1...Probably because it was crap.)

     Blade of Lament, Sadgrieve is basically Deathgaze as an item. That is all you need to know. We get a better item next year, and if you wanted to go PURE Spectral Strike, you had Evil Death Scythe to think about, which not only was cheaper, but had 2 Crit. THEN Their was the biggest competition of Gale Scythe, the item for Mill Black Dragons which was the same cost, but a 6/3 item. So yeah, I say if you go for Triple D Era SS Black Dragons Build, look to see if your build would prefer this, or Gale Scythe, or Death Scythe. Because it doesn't matter next year.

So onto the real support. 

     Armorknight Deathgaze is a size 1 6/1/1 Black Dragon/Armorknight Dual Card. This was I think the second set to introduce Dual Cards so this was with the Danger stuff to show off the capabilities of Dual Cards. He is a simple boring Spectral Strike, nothing to see.....


What do you mean that's the wrong ability? .....This card was mistranslated for 3 weeks and no one caught it?!

WHATS THE ACTUAL ABILITY?!?!



......OHHHH YESSSSSSSSSSSS

     

       Armorknight Deathgaze is a size 1 6/1/1 Black Dragon/Armorknight Dual Card. He is the start of a new generation of Spectral Strike because I think the card designer realized how terrible it was the first time. The new Spectral Strike is "When your opponent's monster is destroyed by an attack, deal one damage to your opponent.". So basically anytime your opponent's monster is destroyed by an attack, Spectral Strike 1. It burns so much faster then the OG Deathgaze and will stack for multiple destruction, so restanding helps and stacking it with multiple Deathgazes just burns more. Its a necessity in the deck because its just a free floating burn damage waiting to happen. This was the cornerstone for all Spectral support going forward...all...4 of it I think, and for good reason since it is a modern version of Spectral Strike with a much bigger threat to your opponent.

     So Black Dragons were on their THIRD Playstyle, and with a new booster set focusing on DDW coming out soon for X. I guess the new Bushiroad developer decided "Hey, let's try and revive the old Black Dragon Deck". An admirable cause but the space needed to reboot them from the brink is near impossible, but he at least tried.

      Black Poison Dragon, Bloodknife is 7/0 Item for 1 gauge and actually IS A BLACK DRAGON WEAPON! Took these guys 4 years to get one. That is sad. So it gives all Black Dragon Monsters on your field +2000 power to hit over new defenses, which is nice, and it gives the Deathgaze Spectral Strike to your entire field, which again, is nice. Not meta or overpowered but nice that the item just buffs your field doubling the Spectral Damage. Its better then Death Scythe because it gives Spectral Strike and buffs, and in a sense better then Sadgrieve because its damage is from multiple sources and not just from his attack. I would run this at 4 but it's up to your discretion.



 

     Phantom Getter is NOT a Black Dragon [Set] (For no bloody reason), but a free [Set] that when your opponent is dealt damage via spectral strike, you choose a card at random and discard it and you draw a card. This is only OPT though. Sadly cannot be done on your opponent's turn, which would be so gooood, but this is still search able by Zillowzest, and I WAS gonna go on this long thing about being able to splash in other Black Dragon cards that rely on sets, BUT SINCE THOSE NEED A BLACK DRAGON SET WHICH
THIS
ISN'T
Run at like 3 copies and have a fun time milling their hand.

THE FINAL CARD IS A RETRAIN OF NEGULBALZ HERE WE GO FINAL CARD LET ME JUST FINISH THIS ALREADY GOD!

 

     Tenacious Omni Lord, Negulbalz is a size 2 Black Dragon/Deep/Destruction just as he was before but now with 1 less crit but an even more dangerous ability. When a monster OR item on your opponent's field is destroyed in anyway, you mill their deck equal to the number of critical on the destroyed card, and burn them for each card sent. Basically its a buff to dealing more damage to weaker monsters, not being able to hit size 0`s for 1-2 damage, and size 1`s from 1-4 damage depending on the card. Size 2`s have their range of like 1-God Knows how much, but it does not count original critical, so if your opponent is playing Duel Golems let's say and your opponent has like a 7 crit Dra-gollum without effect destruction, get yourself a grill cause BOI ITS GONNA BURN! He also gains Double Attack so he can destroy more monsters on the same turn. Defense is going to be an issue since 3K is easy to hit over, but with Poison Knife, he gains Spectral Strike 1 INCLUDING THE BURN and 8K hits over most things. A great upgrade to the old Negulbalz, IF ONLY HE WASN'T IN ONE OF THE WORST PRINTED SETS TO MANKIND!

WE ARE FINALLY DONE!!!!!

     Dear god that was too many. I am sticking to archetypes and not attributes, because I am not looking through 12 cards like this again...jesus this took so long. I think I need an easy target next time...Cobalt. Doing Cobalt, its like 5 cards. I can do that easily. Just wow I wanted this done so badly and when I thought I only had a few, a couple more took it's place. Like dude...this is annoying. I want to know the word count but I have no idea of checking.

     Oh...You're waiting for me to make up some cards? ...Honestly I think I agree with Bushiroad and let these guys stay dead. They didn't become the main play style for some reason, whether it is lack of innovative ideas, needing to balance around certain cards or just it was pushed out too fast and the developer wanted to push it under the rug, Black Dragon Spectral Strike stands as one of only a few attributes of Buddyfight to plain die and be replaced with something else, since I don't know any other attribute just cut life support to its main mechanic and start a different one from scratch, or at least to this severity. If you want to play a successor to Black Dragons, it seems like EDD is your call. If you like being super aggressive, then you have plenty of decks to do it nowadays. I just recommend to do another deck then try to bring back the past, ESPECIALLY BUYING NEGULBALZ, god no that set was god awful.

     I want to thank everyone for waiting so long for this project, reading all of it would explain why it took so long. It took about a month to do and proves that I probably should stick to smaller things. Thank you again for reading and look forward to the next one. If you want more reading goodness, a friend of mine "Thenightshadow" has updated his Buddyfight Blog with some of his words on the new updates to the irregular list, which is a good read and helps explain some of the decisions made by bushiroad regarding the Banlist. So check him out!

https://climaxphase.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/topical-thursday-future-card-buddyfights-irregular-list/

                   So please you guys, PLEASE HAVE A NICEST DAY!!!!