[GB03] Aras, Guardian of the Divine Winds

News
September 14th's English reveal is a Volnar ★★★★ Aras, Guardian of the Divine Winds!

It was unclear if the English reveals would be showing any cards that had not already been revealed by Japanese sources, but with this we know that they are. When the English reveals are previously shown cards, we'll cover them on our Japanese reveal article, but in cases like this where its a brand-new card, we'll discuss them in a separate article instead.

Based on the current patterns, we'll be going through the Volnar ★★★★s over the next few days. With Dark Knight Gododdin already revealed, and both Fell Dragon Priest Zoa & Shiori Laudia Reincarnated fairly likely to be ★★★★, we will probably only have 1, if any, new card reveals among them. After that, we'll see if they intend to move on to Volnar ★★★s, or a different faction's cards.

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Analysis

Aras, Guardian of the Divine Winds is a very versatile, with useful functions within Genesis Summoning builds and outside of that. First we'll talk about it while ignoring its Damage Reversal ability as it might take more specific builds to utilize. We have a Double Attacking Defender (making it effectively a 6/5/2) with the very powerful ability to be immune to effect damage. This statline puts it out of range of most Rulers, forcing unit attacks, making it a prime target for Intercept granting events like Battle of the First Breach and Split-Second Counter Strike. Its low ATK reduces how powerful this can be, but it remains an essential interaction to keep in mind. The effect damage immunity also means that Aras is a natural counter to one of GB03's strongest new cards, Lucifer the Lightbringer.

Being a Level 3 Warrior makes it fantastic for level climbing to your Superior Units, as older Level 1 Genesis Summoners like Golden Ringdancer Paula will be able to use it as material. And within standard Genesis Summoning builds you have the opportunity to use its Damage Reversal to pull out Wescalot Imperial Legionary, making it even easier to level climb, ensuring you have the readied resource to pay for Paula.

Lastly, we come to making use of its Damage Reversal. In standard Genesis Summoning builds it probably won't get so much usage as the number of natural Warriors is low, but especially thanks to this ability still activating when normal summoned, we can also put this card in a more Warrior centric build. Prime targets for this ability include Chimerala, Dragon Blood Princess, Anubis Look-alike, Dark Knight Zahar, Dragon Knight Seiger, Mr. Obsolete, and the previously mentioned Wescalot Imperial Legionary. The 5 HP Warriors, Yomajin Expeditionary Force and Yomajin Survival Squad, often used in Genesis builds revolving around Front-line Mage Archietta, would also make good targets.

Due to his ability to pull out Chimerala, Dragon Blood Princess and his similar self-protection ability to Goldenscale Swordsman, Aras could help flesh out the deck type revolving around Martial Skill events, which have several nice combat trick cards that can give extra value on effect damage immune units.

Another option is playing Aras alongside Dark Knight Gododdin, where Aras is able to pull out any Dark Knights stuck in the damage zone. Gododdin's Deathtouch has good synergy with the Intercept granting events we discussed earlier, so that shared synergy could make the two a very good combination.

All in all, Aras, Guardian of the Divine Winds is a potent and versatile ★★★★, useful for both the existing Genesis Summoning archetype, while potentially being the extra push some smaller archetypes needed to become relevant!