Eradicators - Introduction

This post will be the first of a multi-part series on everyone's (and by "everyone's" I mean "my") favorite subclan, the Eradicators. I hope that these posts will be of some help to people interested in building Eradicators, and as always, I really appreciate any feedback.

Eradicators - Introduction

So like with my SoL post, I'll get started here by explaining what Eradicators actually are. The Eradicators are one of the two major sub-clans available to the Narukami clan, and the only one available in the English format at this time. They were introduced in Trial Deck 9, and received support in Booster Sets 10, 11, 12, and 14, as well as in Fighter's Collections 2013 and 2014.

Lore-wise, the Eradicators represent the best of the best of the Narukami clan, consisting of specially trained elite warriors picked from the ranks of the Narukami military. As members of a Narukami sub-clan, Eradicators are generally thunder dragons, although other races, such as humans and demons, are present among their ranks as well. The Eradicators were formed after Blaster Blade, Blaster Dark, and Dragonic Overlord were freed in the War of Liberation, and contributed significantly to the defense of the Dragon Empire during the Star-vader invasion of Cray. Unfortunately, the invasion weakened or killed many Eradicators, inspiring several members of Narukami to form a new elite troop, the Brawlers, afterwards. In the anime, Toshiki Kai uses an Eradicator deck early in Season 3, and Naoki Ishida uses various Eradicator decks throughout the entire season.

In the game, Eradicators generally focus on retiring rear guards, having access to many effects along the lines of either " choose one of your opponent's rear-guards in the front row and retire it" or "Your opponent chooses one of his or her rear-guards, and retires it." In addition, some Eradicators have skills that give you additional benefits for retiring your opponent's rear guards, allowing you to still generate significant advantage against decks that can easily replace or revive their retired rear guards (ex. Tachikaze, Granblue, or Silver Thorns). Aside from retiring, Eradicator decks are generally very vanguard-focused, allowing you to hit hard with your vanguard to finish the game quickly or drain your opponent's hand of cards that they could be using to refill their field.

Overall, the main reason I love this sub-clan is that it gives you a ton of options for both deck-building strategies and in-game tactics, allowing you to choose whether to focus on wiping your opponent's field or straight-up overpowering your opponent with a powerful vanguard, with certain builds even allowing you to do both.

Some people might wonder why I've decided to write a guide to Eradicators now, weeks after the release of Set 14, with the English release of Narukami's second sub-clan, the Brawlers, not too far off and the only apparent upcoming support for Eradicators being a single card in Set 17. Well, like I said, Eradicators are my favorite subclan. They offer tons of options, have a variety of unique effects, kick-ass art, and cool, albeit somewhat generic, back-stories. What's more, while Brawlers definitely appear poised to replace Eradicators, I still maintain that the new LB4 enabler being released in Set 17 will give Erads enough of a boost to still be relevant at local tournaments for a while. At the very least, they will likely be a good option for budget players looking to play Narukami in the future.

Anyway, that's all for now. For those of you who wanted to see more emphasis on the actual mechanics and cards of the Eradicators, stay tuned for the next part of this series: A Guide to Eradicators - Grade 3s.