I Never Liked Gold Paladins: A Look at Set 9 and Gerard

Hello everyone, and welcome back! Gold Paladins have recently won the Worlds Champion and have dominated most of the time. This clan is known for it's consistency and one of the beginning power of the Limit Breaks. They are powerful but I never came to liking them in any of the builds I made. Their power is further increased with set 9 and one of the new promo cards, Knight of the Afterglow, Gerard.

When Golds was first released I tried them out like anyone else who liked the previous paladins. The play style however did not seem quite similar and pretty distinct from what the previous paladins were. The Royal and Shadow Paladins have their ways of getting what they want onto the field and highly focuses on building a consistent field and maintaining it so that you are always hitting at the highest power. Golds however focuses more on the vanguard power pressure and did not always needed a power field. They are also more inclined to the ability to call units from the top number of cards rather than searching from the deck. Their vanguard also has the ability to gain high amount of power and could plow through a great amount of shields if you are not prepared.

Gold Paladins then grew more and came pretty unique mechanics that works well with their abilities. The Spectral Duke Dragon, although the cost is pretty high, allows your vanguard to attack again. Pellinore, the card which is now pretty staple in Gold Paladin decks for his superior ride and not needing any open damage for his Limit Break makes him a great early advantage and also late game vanguard. They stayed to the powerful vanguards and not too focused on powerful rears. However, their rears are mostly pressure units, which has the ability to call more units if the condition is met. These units easily gives more advantage to the Gold Paladins be it in form of field or hand power.

Although powerful, these distinct features Gold Paladins  have over Royal and Shadow Paladins made me walk away from them. I did not have much hype for set 6 and the favorite card from the set for me is Gyras, the megablast for Narukami. I did not really like Narukami too, Dragonic Empire was never really my thing and I did not like the high cost for Vermillion. However, that changed a bit when Dungaree got released but, that's for another post.

With the release of set 9 and Gerard, the Gold Paladins  have yet again increased their consistency in pressure units and calling cards from their deck. The main focus in set 9 is Kahedin. This one unit has greatly increased Gold Paladin's ability to build pressure fields. This is especially powerful when you have Kahedin boosting the vanguard and Viviane on a second column. Boosting Gerard also greatly increases the chance to bring out Pellinore that leads to you being able to attack again. If you manage to call one of the rabbit units you're also getting another card to your field or hand with a small cost.

Next of course is Chromejailer. With Golds' consistency on being able to pressure rush on grade 2, Chromejailer is amazing that he is able to gain 10k and +1 critical just for 2 rear-guards. The early rush would have either gave you a higher advantage on field/hand or your opponent would have been struggling to guard the attacks, leading to less field presence. If you play your cards right, it's pretty easy to finish off your opponent with Chromejailer's Limit Break. Chromejailer also has a very powerful persona blast that it can bring out more units for you to sacrifice.

Last but not least, Platina Ezel. This unit works quite differently from other main Gold Paladin vanguards is that it does not focus on giving itself high amount of power (although you can choose your targets for Pellinore), Platina Ezel focuses on giving you a high amount of power to all your unit and powering your way to victory. Getting a heal trigger after you used the ability pretty much secures you a win. The ability is very powerful with a high restriction and cost.

All in all, Gold Paladins are as strong as they seem to be. They can easily apply early pressure and has great late game power pressure. Even then, I do not like their play style. When playing against them, I would highly recommend taking out their pressuring rears like Viviane before they can gain more advantage than you can handle. Knowing when you can handle their Limit Break is also very important.

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CoCo 4 Lyf
Peace Out