How To Get Into Premium Granblue!

Hello everyone! Did you want to get into premium Granblue with your standard deck? Fear not because we will show you how to do it step by step and with all the information you need to start you off!

Contributors

This whole article had many contributors that put in a lot of work and effort into. Here’s who they are!

• CrieTEXe (Evan Alberto)
• OuterOrange
• xSilentxArtistx (Ian)
• Ahmes004
• Commander Jaime

You will notice that some of the sections have a different style of writing. The authenticity of each contributor was kept.

Main Strides

To get into premium we need to add cards to the deck and what better way to start things off that with the Stride Zone. If you didn’t know already Premium’s main perk is that it uses cards old and new. Premium’s identity stems from the Strides. Grade 4 units that you stride on top of your vanguard to gain abilities and powers! For a full explanation click this link How it Works.

The general concept of striding is, for the cost of card(s) that equal grade 3 or greater from your hand, you can choose a face-down stride unit in your G-zone and stride in on your Vanguard Circle. The stride unit gains the G3 Vanguard’s name and power. At the end of the turn the Stride Unit is returned to the G-zone face up and that copy cannot be used again. The G-zone can only contain a maximum of 16 G-units.

Strides are the main focus in premium since it is a way for each clan to truly maximize their talents and power. With Granblue we have powerful revival skills, deck filtration, and finishers with strides and since we thrive off our drop-zone we can abuse the discard costs to really benefit from it! Now let us see the units you want to really get your hands on to start playing premium. We will do quick card overviews and give you pieces of information that may be helpful for you!

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Note: All costs associated with the cards are based off the TCGplayer website. The dollar amount is per copy and can change overtime. You can support the blog by clicking this TCGplayer affiliated link too.

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These are your 2 main strides and the most important ones to really get when starting premium. No really, I am serious! Every other stride aside from these two are more choice strides and are not really mandatory.

Ghostie Great Emperor, Big Obadiah:

• Copies: 2 or 3
• Rating: 5/5
• Purpose: To thin the deck and make a full board. It is your main first stride.
• Cost: Around $10 USD per copy

Wight Legion Sailing Ship, Bad Bounty:

• Copies: 2 or 3
• Rating: 4/5
• Purpose: A finishing stride. This card is your 2nd stride and is generally your main aggression. This card doesn’t build any field.
• Cost: Around $5 USD per copy

These strides are most generic and cost efficient to have as your setup and endgame. Keep in mind the tempo that is in premium is very fast. Granblue can stall games but the fact that we also have an engine that can scale with the speed is fantastic. These 2 strides are permanent staples for the deck because they will scale so well with newer support in the future!

Secondary Strides

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These 2 strides are the ones you want to get next if you want to further upgrade your premium deck’s competitiveness and viability. Both serve the same purpose of being an offensive card in their own ways! They are not a high priority. If you need to take time to acquire them it won’t hurt your deck too much!

Zeroth Dragon of Distant Sea, Megiddo:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 4/5
• Purpose: An alternate game ender. This card requires ZERO board setup and only requires the cost of an Ultimate Stride to resolve
• Cost: Around $70 USD

Storm Element, Cycloned:

• Copies: 2-4
• Rating: 4/5
• Purpose: To be a flip target for cards like Obadiah that flip cards in the G-zone face-up. This will be elaborated on in deck building!
• Cost: Around $5 USD per copy

Other Stride Options?

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All these strides are optional ones and serve different roles. They are not mandatory and just enhance your experience in premium by giving you options. These strides are relatively cheap and are your last wants if you are on a budget.

Ghosite Great King, Obadiah:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 2/5
• Purpose: An alternate stride when damage denied. This stride filter’s your deck and can call a unit while having no cost in terms of CB or SB.
• Cost: Around $0.20 USD

Tempest-Calling Pirate King, Goauche:

• Copies: 0 or 2
• Rating: 2/5
• Purpose: An alternate way to board build using the cards in your soul and drop-zone you made in the early game. Due to its high cost this stride rarely sees gameplay buy you can build your deck around soul-charging and drawing to maximize this card if you want to run it!
• Cost: Around $4 USD

Diabolist of Corpse, Negrosonger:

• Copies: 0 or 2
• Rating: 3/5
• Purpose: An alternate game ender. This stride singlehandedly increases your attacks by at least 1 while not requiring an existing board to exert the aggression it can create but at a higher cost.
• Cost: Around $2 USD

Unfading Ship, Immortal Galleon:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 4/5
• Purpose: An alternate game ender. This stride can instant generate an aggressive board for zero cost at GB8. However, this can is only useful if you use the Zarzan Engine as it can flip cards in your G-zone faster. In a starting deck its not that relevant as, due to the current state of premium, it’ll take too long to reach GB8 naturally and consistently.
• Cost: Around $15 USD

Pirate King of Roseate Twilight, Nightrose:

• Copies: 0 or 2
• Rating: 3/5
• Purpose: A stride that can fix game your game state. The main perk of this stride is that all the units called with its effect are forced to retire at the end of turn. Therefore, if you want your board to be empty due to the match-up this card can answer that need with ease while also getting an additional critical potentially!
• Cost: Around $5 USD

Progenitor Dragon of Deep Sea, Balanerena:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 2/5
• Purpose: An alternate end game. This card is probably the last card you want to get due to its cost. This card can clutch wins as the only want to stop attacks from the units attacking during your turn is with sentinels! But this card does not generate board and requires you to have an specific hand for its discard cost to retire guardians.
• Cost: Around $35 USD

G-Guardians

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G-Guardians are cards in the G-zone that can be called to the Guardian Circle by means of discarding a heal from your hand. These return to the G-zone faceup when they are retired from the guardian circle and once you have 4 face-up in the G-zone you can no longer call G-Guardians! These are defensive cards that EVERY premium deck needs as they do more than just block attacks.

Eclipse Dragonhulk, Deep Corpse Dragon:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 3/5
• Purpose: A way to mill your deck while being a 20k shield. This card has some uses since it just increases your drop zone count by 2 at the cost of the top 2 cards of your deck.
• Cost: Around $1 USD

Great Witch Doctor of Banquets, Negrolily:

• Copies: 1 or 2
• Rating: 4/5
• Purpose: A 25k shield while also opening up defensive combos with Ghostie Leader, Beatrice (more in the combo section). It does require a unit to be retired for it’s skill to fully resolve
• Cost: Around $10 USD

Diabolist of Tombs, Negromode:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 3/5
• Purpose: A shield that scales based on your drop zone count. Going as high as 30k in value. It does cost a soul which is an important resource.
• Cost: Around $3 USD

Diabolist of Solicitation, Negronora:

• Copies: 2
• Rating: 5/5
• Purpose: Being the biggest defensive card we can use. This guardian can also be a perfect guard as it places sentinel units onto the guardian circle, thus, triggering the sentinel ability. A mandatory in ALL Granblue Premium Decks.
• Cost: Around $2 USD

Air Element, Ractome:

• Copies: 0 or 1
• Rating: 4/5
• Purpose: To be a hand fix card. This card sacrifices shield value for a way to replace a card from your hand. Very important to have that option and it is a cray elemental (more in the gameplay section)
• Cost: Around $2 USD

Main Deck Tech Cards

A lot of G-Era cards can be teched in as a 1 of copy or as low amount depending on the deck build. However, there are some that are dominantly staple in many decks or are considered as such. Not all of these cards will exist in a single deck but these are the most common to be teched in! The following is slide show of some of the most commonly teched in cards! Please not this list is not all-inclusive and there is so much more!!

These cards have different and changing roles in each deck. How you use a certain card may not be the same as another players. But we will go over what each card is commonly used for. Barring the RRR rarity cards most of these cards are fairly cheap and below the $10 USD range. The most tech cards will go for is around $20 USD.

1. Mighty Rogue, Nightstorm: Attack extender and a main unit in battle phase calling. Although it is not a Grade 3 unit possessing a Gift it is still valuable.
2. Ghostie Leader, Beatrice: This unit can be the main vanguard ride but as a tech card it is generally used with Negrolily and Skeleton Cannoneer to retire an opponent’s unit during their battle phase.
3. Greed Shade: A card that can fix your hand and fuel your drop zone. A value card during both players turn.
4. Skeleton Cannoneer: A card that is a draw engine and can retire rear guards on your opponent’s side.
5. King Serpent: A card that gives Counterblast and Soul.
6. Stormride Ghost Ship: A generic attacking unit that doubles as a draw card.
7. Earth Elemental, Pokkur: Optional card that is mainly used to fight Link Joker
8. Dancing Cutlass (G): This card is often in tandem with its V-era counterpart so you have access to the draw engine AND CC engine in provides.
9. Witch Doctor of Powdered Bone, Negrobone (G): A card that can extend attacks. This card is not necessary as its only real target is Nightstorm but its a fun card to have in the deck.
10. Light Elemental, Honoly: A defensive card as this card restricts the amount of attacks your opponent can do. Very useful against deck that rely on multiple rearguard attacks to generate their aggression.
11. Ripple Banshee: A draw engine that uses soul.
12. Dolph the Ghostie: A sentinel that doubles as a secondary ride target as it lets you draw an extra card from deck to fix your hand.
13. Rain Element, Zarzan: This card is generally its own engine in a premium deck. As long as you have vanilla units and Cycloneds in the G-zone this card and its engine is live. Great way to generate aggression, board build, and overall accelerate your GB count as it flips Cycloneds as early as your turn 2.
14. Heat Elemental, Howam: A card that is generally targeted by Colombard (V-series) to prevent damage denying as this forces your opponent’s vanguard to attack yours.
15. Tempest Sphere: A card that can help grab vanilla units from the top 7 cards of your deck while flipping over a card in your G-zone to accelerate GB count.
16. Mick the Ghostie and Family: A card that is multi-use. Giving a unit plus 10k until the end of turn with the potential of going back into the deck this card has a lot of potential.
17. Rough Seas Banshee (G): A card that serves as a way to fuel the soul and to dig through your deck by drawing cards.
18. Chad the Ghostie: A card that enables striding. As it counts a Grade 3 in hand for the cost of striding this card can be useful.
19. Undying Departed, Grenache (G): A card that was once a mandatory staple in every Granblue deck is now optional. This card CCs at the end of turn. A real reliable way to always CC2 at the end of each turn this card is active.

Nightrose

Nightrose is the most common build in standard right now. Therefore, your deck may look something like this! If you run a different build we will touch on that later as well!

With Nightrose there are 2 routes that you can go towards:

• Nightrose with more of a purer build within Granblue
• Nightrose with the Zarzan engine

Nightrose Granblue Pure

Starting off, the purer form can look like the following:

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As you can see most of the Standard build is still intact. It also includes the new Beatrice support since it adds more power plays to the deck. Feel free to tweak ratios and try out different cards. This list is still currently in testing but can be a starting point.

Nightrose Pure with a Different Variant

The main deck can look vastly different from this but there is a general rule of thumb and that’s valuable cards are generally a 3-4 of in the deck. If you want it to have a consistent presence then 2 copies is generally okay and if its a tech card that you don’t mind losing to the damage zone or by other means then it can be a 1 of. Deck building is more of a trial and error process and everything is viable so long as you can make a place for it. A general premium Nightrose deck can look something like this:

It may look like a weird concoction of cards but this deck is fairly balanced and will go far if you as the player know what to do when you see certain cards at certain points in the game and what cards to filter out during your stride turn. The general strategy with Nightrose is to win on Bad Bounty which is generally the 2nd stride. The end game is similar to standard where you have 4 Undead Dragon attacks but the only difference is that you have a higher power ceiling AND you have 2 Vanguard attacks. It is faster to achieve this in premium because we have filtration cards!

Here is an example of a Nightrose Build in which a Zarzan Engine was used!

Cocytus

Cocytus is the next build in standard, but holds a little less popularity. Your standard deck will usually look something like this (provided by OuterOrange):

In order to go Cocytus in premium, you have to keep in mind that this is a more defensive option to start with (in comparison to Nightrose). Some of the pros and cons of Cocytus are:

Pros:

• Massive hand size early
• Going first is good
• Drop zone milling
• Cheap
• Pressure late game
• You can still do things even with one counterblast
• Drop zone set up

Cons:

• Only 3 swings
• Usually slower
• Deck out potential if you’re not careful

What is nice about Cocytus, and probably the main objective is survivability. Cocytus gives you time to set up and bring out your drop zone in order to kill your opponent, while also keeping your hand and being able to sustain against most other clans or nations.

Depending on if you go first or second, your turns are more secured. If you go first, you can use his milling skill in order to set up a drop zone and start applying pressure and increasing your hand size while also barely using your hand to create the drop zone. If you go second, you can instantly set up into your stride and then late game use the Bad Bounty stride in order to apply pressure. Cocytus gets a skill late game that allows for an additional critical and 20,000k power if you have 20 or more in drop.

With all that being said, your Necromancer premium list can look something like this (provided by OuterOrange):

Let’s discuss this list!

The first thing to note, you’ll notice in the list that there is still one Nightrose being run. Why is that? Well, there are plenty of ways to mill out specific cards. We can mill out Nightrose and then use Bad Bounty to ride her after Bad Bounty’s attack, making a lethal finish with multiple attacks come at our opponent. Running the Nightrose helps put in that aggressive feature that Necromancer is missing.

We also run 4 Dragon Undead, Skull Dragon. This is mainly for the Meggido, as Meggido is one of the many great finishers in the deck. It is also good to have all 4 in case you deal with decks that can mess up your drop zone or bind it!

Going on to some other cards in the deck list. The list focuses on utility and some staples, such as Greed Shade and Pirate Swordsman, Colombard. These are your main tools of milling aside from Necromancer and Strides. We also have Ripple Banshee for soul blasting and drawing. There is Dancing Cutlass for counter charging. Also, Tommy the Ghostie Brothers for grade 3 searching.

Another thing I want to discuss is Tempest Sphere:

Tempest Sphere is a card used to grab cards with no CONT, ACT, or AUTO abilities, or as some call it “vanilla” cards. No text, no skills. This card has a focus with Storm Element, Cyclone, where it makes any vanilla cards get 5k power for each face up Cyclone. That is why we have two of these Strides in our stride zone, but it also has another focus, which is turning on Generation Break, since the skill asks to flip a card in your G zone.

Why turn on Generation Break?

Generation Break gives you early access to cards who are locked behind “GB1″ ,”GB2”, etc.

For Granblue this is very important for Ghostie Great Emperor, Big Obadiah. The more G zone cards you have flipped, the more cards you can call out from drop. This makes Obadiah’s turn a lot more lethal and more of a tool box for you. You have more access to call cards out that can give you skills, but as when cards are called out Obadiah gives extra power to those units as well.

Another thing to note, you can pick heals with Tempest Sphere, which may be of use for G Guardians and being able to prepare for your opponents turn.

For more on Cocytus, feel free to check out the premium deck profile by OuterOrange:

Seven Seas

Can I turn my cheap budget V Era Seven Seas into a fun Premium deck? Yes, you can!

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Our main VG can still be Lord of the Seven Seas, Nightmist from V Era! The Treasure Markers can aid you in your plays. The magic number is 3 Treasure Markers. This number is easy to get can help you in the following ways:

• Can have attackers in the back row that have +5k as well.
• All of the Seven Seas units have that “on hit pressure” that makes an opponent 2nd guess their guarding plays.

Also, this variant had a major con of fetching its key pieces while building hand and field advantage. That’s why we saw Standard builds like this one, to be able to do well enough.

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A lot of draw triggers had to help make up for it. However, that’s all mitigated with Obadiah!

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Obadiah along with other cards can help get all of your Seven Seas key RGs! That includes:

• Slash Shade
• Nightspinel
• Nightcrow
• Raistutor
• etc.

Furthermore, depending on the matchup, Protect II can be used both offensively and defensively. Obadiah is able to bring your Raistutors for defense and during Bad Bounty turns you get an additional Protect II to help with power and enabling skills such as Slash Shade’s.

Here’s a list by xSilentxArtistx (Ian):

Our good amigo, xSilentxArtistx (Ian) is a big fan of the Seven Seas variant since Breakride Era! His mentality with Granblue is using the deck as a toolbox to handle your matchups as you play. The same philosophy is used in his recent Premium build shown.

Most of the time is to have Obadiah on 1st stride to really set up well and apply some pressure. Granblue has great defense because we can grab our Sentinels from drop zone with cards like Greed Shade and have access to the Protect marker.

Once you have all the “tools” that you need, you can go into your other strides to keep going for a longer game or go for final turn.

Theoretically, you can get 12+ attacks with Striding into Bad Bounty and reriding into Nightmist to have his skill active once more when you have 6 Treasure Markers. Also, other units like Nightstorm G and Colombard G/V can help extend attacks.

Some other key points:

• Cards like Tear, Dewey, and Grenache give flexibility on being able to CC
• Double Honoly can be crucial against certain matchups
  • Some clans can only retire one unit, so having 2 on board helps
  • Clans that cannot retire, then have to pay 2CB per attack on 5th battle or more
• Cards like Colombard G and Nightstorm are needed to further extend attacks
• Remember cards like the Obadiah stride can flip Cycloneds to be able to massively CC with Tear
• Balanerena and Cycloneds can be strides to go into when damage denied

Beatrice (Ghosties)

Standard Beatrice

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Pros: 

The deck doesn’t require a lot of resources to produce quality boards. Minimal requirements from hand to produce cards.

Most of the deck is very affordable, and a lot of the important cards are being reprinted in the clan selection. All the other cards for the deck are commons or rares, and the RR cards are fairly cheap. The only pricy card on the list is Columbard. Columbard can subsitute Nightmist. However, the consistency is hindered by 1 card.

Cons:

The deck needs the soul for Beatrice to use her skill. The best way the deck has to build so unfortunately is to re-ride Beatrice multiple times. Greed Shade allows you to recycle Beatrice if you need it. 

Ghostie Units To Point Out:

• Chappie the Ghostie – This deck finally enables us to use it offensively, as well as defensively due to Beatrice enabling all Ghosties the ability to intercept.
• Pat the Ghostie – Personal choice for me here, but being able to superior call a guardian from the drop zone is useful. Plus with Beatrice as well, Pat is now a 20k shield when the Vanguard attacks.

Transition to Premium with Beatrice

The MOST important cards in the clan are Skeleton Cannoneer and the G Guardian Negrolily. You can actually just switch over to Premium if you are able to acquire Skeleton Cannoneer and the G Zone with 2 copies of Negrolily, you can do a lot with the deck.

The G Zone looks really similar with how you can build the G Zone with any other grade 3 as the main card, so it really comes down to how much you are able to put into your G Zone. Of course the 2 important main G Units are Great Ghostie King Obadiah and Bad Bounty. If you decide to play the Cyclones, you give yourself access to Rain Elemental Tear and the Vanilla outline with Zarzan. The example list I am sharing includes the Cyclones and the Zarzan line. If you don’t need all these fancy cards, you can get away with running Nightrose as another G Unit and keep your list very similar to how your Standard line up is.

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Pros:

Beatrice in tandem with Negrolily enables you to make plays very similar to how the classic Nightrose was able to do with her GB2 skill, however with more efficiency and with less of a risk to decking out. Added benefit, Negrolily actually does way more in terms of shield value since you can use Lily to call a Beatrice to rear guard and call a Mick the Ghostie to give Beatrice a 10k buff for the turn as well as 2 extra intercepts with Beatrice’s CONT skill. You could even use the Beatrice call to bring up Skeleton Canonneer to just completely retire an important unit to stop any rearguard orientated combination. 

With Beatrice being a Soul Blast cost, you don’t need to worry too much about your Counter Blast consumption. 

Cons:

A lot of the best soul charging units, such as the original Rough Seas Banshee, could be difficult to acquire unless you have access to someone’s collection of classic cards. I’m sure you could find them online, but with how cheap commons can be and how crazy shipping can be, be sure that if you do order online that you pick up Rough Seas Banshee along with your expensive G Zone cards and your V Series Columbard. 

With Beatrice however, you miss out on the wonderful mid-battle attack combination with Nightrose, however, if you set up your drop zone well you can do that same combination you can pull off in Standard with a larger VG attack and a guaranteed superior call with Beatrice the turn you stride, granted that you can re-ride into her (which of course you should be able to set that up.)

One-of cards can be difficult to keep track of if you are inexperienced, so the deck does require a bit of practice and memorization of patterns to do well with the deck.

In a brief summary: 

Beatrice IMHO is a much stronger card in Premium than it is in Standard. While Nightrose’s Standard combination in Premium is just as deadly, Beatrice makes offers more defensive capabilities and ways to disrupt combinations that Nightrose pulls off as well. Being able to buff your Vanguard or retire a unit during your opponent’s battle phase is a fair trade-off. While the Nightrose combo with Bad Bounty provides more power, Beatrice offers more shield value while giving us an alternative battle phase. If you are thinking of transitioning from Standard to Premium from scratch, I personally believe starting off with the Clan Selection cards, you don’t need a crazy big investment to start playing Premium.

Gameplay With Nightrose

When it comes to gameplay it really depends on your build! but I will go over the general things you should look out for and some tips!

Early Game:

This section is from Grade 0 to Grade 3. Aside from getting each grade to ride up you want to get a starting hand that consists of your main G3 boss and Colombard V:

This kind of starting hand means that you have a solid early game. If the opponent gives you a damage for your Colombard you have options to call out amazing units like Ghostship and Zarzan on your Turn 2!

Regardless of the build you do want Colombard so you can begin a board setup that either creates aggression or fills your dropzone whether it be an immediate effect like milling or an investment like calling Ghostship to get aggression and a draw but having him retire so he can be a viable target for the stride phase.

NOTE: In a majority of Granblue decks the Grade 1 turn is the most linear. A majority of the clan’s grade 1 units are mainly effective during that Grade 2 turn onwards when there are certain cards in the dropzone!

Grade 3:

If you have to give up the first stride you have to have a fairly solid game state to really leverage some aggression. There are few options for decks to be defensive without striding since a majority of our draw engines are locked behind our strides. Try to get draw engine, like Ghostship, and have at least 3 attacks during this turn. This means you are generating decent hand while forcing at least 2 cards from your opponents hand.

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In this example, I will go up to 9 cards in hand at the end of turn while using effective no cost. Calling the King Serpent refunds the cost I use from Nightrose and Beatrice to generate the board!

NOTE: You can stall the game by staying on Grade 2 and hopefully this will allow you to get first stride. Being able to get your defensive pieces is so important when a lot of decks in Vanguard usually have a very strong and oppressive first stride. If you can’t try to stay at 3 or less damage entering your Grade 3 turn!

First Stride Phase Example:

Your Stride Phase can vary widely but its always good to keep in mind that in most deck types, unless you are going for a long game, you have only 2 stride turns to actually win the game. Therefore, you have to choose what you mill wisely on your first Stride which is usually Big Obadiah.

Here is an example of a bare bones first stride. If you can only call 2 units your main targets are Ghostship, or any draw card, and Nightstorm since he is an attack extender. This field allows you draw 2 cards and attack 4 times for essentially CB2 for the entire turn. The other cards you mill are either resource management cards like cards that counter-charge and cards that can setup your next stride turn or fix your hand. It really depends on what you have in play at the time you first stride!

Generally on your first stride you want to be able to call 4 units. Therefore, sometimes you may have to give up first stride if you have a heal in hand so you can Generation Guard for that extra faceup card in the G-zone before you stride! When you are able to call 4 units it becomes so much more in depth!

NOTE: Being able to first stride with 4 calls usually means you give up the first stride OR you have the Zarzan Engine OR Tempest Spheres in your deck to get that early game G-count going. Consider this when making your decks!

Here is an example of a stride turn where we can call 4 units. You have a lot more options when it comes to field combinations and with the right usage of cards in can be a really beneficial turn! This turn is more of a board-control/defense building turn

So in this case off Obadiah I call Nightstorm, 2 Cannoneers, and 1 Tear. All applicable units are Hollowed! Cannoneers gave me 2 additional cards to my hand while shooting 2 rear guards my opponents has. Since we have are able to call 4 units Tear should be able to give me 2 CB back for SB2 and Nightstorm will be an attack extender for the battle phase.

After resolving Tear I decided to use Jessie to retire my 2 Cannoneers and have Jessie as an attacker. This way Jessie can CC during the battle phase and if I so chose, I can target Cannoneer with Nightstorm to draw another card! This turn will still be 4 attacks but they are more relevant numbers, my hand size will blow up to 12 cards if I call a draw engine with Nightstorm and I will have CB available for my defensive turn against my opponent and my next stride turn!

There is so much depth to this single stride turn because it sets up your plays 3 turns in advance. This only the surface of what Granblue can do!

Final Stride Phase Example:

The kill turn for this clan can take many forms but I will go over the basics and how it generally flows! For the most part, it will always be on Bad Bounty and how you build your board and segue into the final product depends on game state. It will generally always end up with multiple Undead Dragon Attacks and 2 Vanguard Attacks.

NOTE: You generally board build with Negrobone V so keep a minimum hand for the discard cost!

This is generally how a kill turn should look like. No cards in hand, available CB, minimal cards in soul. This kill turn can be so much cleaner and more efficient but for the sake of this example we will go basic!

NOTE: All powers shown are base power without triggers. If you check them, apply them accordingly and the dropzone count is hovering at around 28 to 30 cards.

Generally attack patterns do matter but usually when the Vanguard attacks it is un-boosted so that your 2nd Vanguard attack is always bigger! The vanillas are 18k base because be flipped up 2 Cycloneds! Apply any triggers you get from drive check to wherever you see fit!

After re-riding into Nightorse and resolving Bad Bounty your board just gets bigger! From here you generally attack with the Undead Dragons then the Nightrose Vanguard!

Here is an example of the powers you may achieve with these 2 Undead Dragon attacks!

On the Nightrose Vanguard attack you use Nightrose’s skill to revive an Undead + Beatrice column then with Beatrice revive an Undead to the opposite frontrow rearguard circle. This maximizes soul by dumping another card out to increase dropzone count while also reviving your Undead Dragons! Apply trigger effects to units of your choosing if you hit any your Drive Checks!

The final 2 attacks are of course the Undead Dragons and here are example power levels they reach!

This entire kill turn only costed 2 CB and 1 Soul and this is the BASE FORM. If you weave into it attack extenders and such you see just how much depth a Granblue Deck can achieve! How you design your deck affects your winning turn in terms of its flexibility and viability. This clan is the master of resource management and abuse.

Important Combos and Interactions

The Pseudo Denial Griffin Play With Beatrice:

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When Your Opponent Attacks:

1. G Guard into Negrolily
   1. CB1 & Retire one of your RGs -> Choose Beatrice to call as the Ghostie normal unit and Negrolily gains +10k shield
2. Since Beatrice is placed onto RC her skill activates
   1. SB1 -> Revive Skeleton Cannoneer and Hollow it
   2. CB1 -> Cannoneer retire ANY opponent’s RG and draw a new card

It’s also worth noting that you can do this again with a 2nd Negrolily too, just be mindful of your CB.

There are many more interactions with Beatrice since she can revive units during your opponents turn! Have a look at the cards in the clan and see what you can find as well!

Superior Perfect Guard:

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It’s important to bring this staple interaction! Granblue is the only clan than can perfect guard from the dropzone! Simply target a Sentinel card from your dropzone with Negronora and you can use its skill. This is because the 2 cards are being placed onto the guardian circle, therefore, their skills can resolve!

Hollow Mechanic:

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This mechanic has been around since the G-era of Granblue! It is just important to read your cards and see the value of hollowing units. There are card where, in the way they are written, can have subtle changes to their outcome which you can then abuse.

For example, with Cannoneer if he is hollowed you can retire 1 units and draw a card. But what if you don’t want to draw a card due to low deck count but need to retire a rearguard your opponent has? Simple you can just not declare hollow and retire it. The retire cost isn’t tied to the Hollow mechanic!

With Mick the Ghostie he can be retired at any point of the turn and if he is Hollowed and placed from drop he will go back into the deck. Therefore, you can retire him during even main phase to ensure you have enough cards in your deck!

These small wordings on some units can change how you use their Hollow!

There are so many more small combos and interactions in this clan and the fun part is learning about them through trial and error! However, these 3 are some of the more important ones!

Ahmes004’s Personal Experience From Standard To Premium

“So, when I re-started Granblue Premium after the second rotation announcement, I was at a loss. The last time I had played “premium” was with G Era Nightrose back in 2019. I had knowledge of Nightrose plays from then, but I still had a whole year of consolidation, given Premium Collection 2020 and Vbt09 had released.

So, I decided to start small. I started looking for core tech pieces from the past to throw into my deck. Iconic units that I ended up reusing included Nightstorm, King Serpent, OG Rough Seas Banshee, and Grenache. I also rebuilt my G-zone, I was excited how well the new addition of Bad Bounty worked in tandem with the V-series Nightrose-sama.

Then recently, Granblue received a new phenomenal tech piece, Beatrice. So it was another card that affected my build. She could not only extend attacks, but also re-create the Nightrose-Cannoneer play that was “lost” since I swapped out G Nightrose-sama for her V version. After its release here in Japan, I sought to buy up a few copies (at the expense of my wallet, it costs more in Singapore) and learned the plays that she introduced to improve my deck.

I guess what has helped is that some of the plays that I had come to love from V-Nightrose in Standard are still valid in Premium. Using cards like V Negrobone to summon a strong unit at the cost of 1 discard did help me fill the board during the main phase, so that I could use my strides and other pieces for either aggressive or defensive plays. In addition, I could also use V Tommy to search out and discard cards like Nightstorm, Skull Dragon, and Beatrice as early as Turn 1, something the previous G Era Tommy couldn’t.

While I’m still learning how to play Granblue Premium, or more specifically Nightrose Premium (I’m a Nightrose fan), I can say that this deck in particular is very diverse and that no 2 ways to play are the same.” -Written by Ahmes004

CrieTEXe’s One-Trick Personal Experience

“I started playing Granblue when the first G-era trial deck for Nightrose release in 2016 and ever since then I have not stopped playing. I have moved through every clan but this is the only one that is as sturdy as it is flimsy when it comes to its nature. After 5 years I can still say that I have not learned everything that this clan can offer and that is so exciting.

When clan is so volatile that a single card can change every deck and playstyle it always becomes a new puzzle to solve every release. Sure you can say this for every clan but the fact that 60% of decks can change because of a common or a new interaction with an old card is insane. Just take the Beatrice Pseudo Denial Griffin combo that was made the moment Beatrice was revealed! Take for example, Nightstorm and how his simple skill of a battle phase revival can extend to 2 attacks if you call Zarzan or a Colombard after.

Any card or deck type can be the best if you put in the time and work. This is the only clan that rewards that kind of mentality as being able to use the dropzone means you can make use of ANY card as long as there is a purpose for them. Being able to say that “this one-of card has so much impact to the game, it’s insane” is really something to behold. I mean take a look at G-era Grenache. He was a must 1 of staple until 2020. It was a staple for 4 years and even now still has a spot in most decks!

Being a one-trick for this clan is the best decision I have made. The amount of time I spend theory crafting and testing all bore fruit in one way or another. Having a clan that is not overpowering but is still relevant in every meta is just reliable. Having a clan that can reward you just as much as it punishes you for mishandling it in games is enlightening.

Even with the new reboot coming and the D-era nation cards that will inevitably be assimilated into Granblue decks, Granblue will still have the most freedom when it comes to its cards. This clan is the master of manipulation of self resources and opponent mentality. I just hope people will be rewarded in the time they invest in the clan I love” -Written by CrieTEXe

Credit To Amigos & Amigas

Lastly, I want to give credit where credit is due!

Main contributors:

• CrieTEXe (Evan Alberto)
• OuterOrange
• xSilentxArtistx (Ian)
• Ahmes004
• Commander Jaime

Special thanks to Axis Vanguard for their input and Zeow for creating the amazing thumbnail!

Special thanks to Solemn Vanguard & tyfyghtr Vanguard for their videos on transitioning to Premium.

Solemn Vanguard’s video:

tyfyghtr Vanguard’s video:

Commander Jaime’s video: