In the world of Cray, clans war against each other for supremacy among each other. Each of these clans seek a commander to lead them to victory. Who do these clans call to for leadership? Who do they call to for guidance? You, of course. Despite this calling, you must choose your allegiance. You must choose your clan.
For every player, this is how the game of Cardfight!! Vanguard begins.
Clan selection is no easy task, especially with the fact that 24 total clans exist in the game of Cardfight!! Vanguard. Each of these clans contain a unique mechanic, a unique aesthetic, and a unique lore behind the units found in the clan. In addition to these characteristics, each clan also comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. With all of these traits in mind, the player can make a more educated decision on what clan he or she will play with.
When starting this game, choosing a clan to start with is the beginning of your adventure in the game of Vanguard. Even for the experienced player, choosing a main clan to focus on can be important, since more time with the clan could result in its mastery.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before you can choose a clan, you must know all the clans available. Here is an overview of the clans:
List of clans (click on clan to jump to section):
- Angel Feather
- Aqua Force
- Bermuda Triangle
- Dark Irregulars
- Dimension Police
- Gear Chronicle
- Genesis
- Granblue
- Great Nature
- Gold Paladin
- Kagero
- Link Joker
- Megacolony
- Murakumo
- Narukami
- Neo Nectar
- Nova Grappler
- Link Joker
- Oracle Think Tank
- Pale Moon
- Royal Paladin
- Shadow Paladin
- Spike Brothers
- Tachikaze
Click here for our acknowledgements and sources for this guide.
Angel Feather
Overview: Based on angels from several world religions, the angels of Angel Feather focus their efforts on manipulating and accessing cards in the damage zone. This includes the processes of calling units from the damage zone to the rearguard, exchanging cards in hand for cards in the damage zone, increasing units’ attacking or defending power based on how many cards are placed in the damage zone at certain times, and healing damage.
Lore: The medical institute of Angel Feather specializes in healing the injured through the means of advanced technologies or magical means. As a third party, this clan sends angels all over the world of Cray in order to heal the wounded and the dying.
Play Style: This clan’s play style is defensive in nature, since it is able to use the damage that the opponent gives it to its advantage. With this in mind, Angel Feather can also be considered as one of the clans in this game that has a defined toolbox (aka the damage zone) for gaining the cards it needs on field or in hand.
Strengths: Angel Feather excels in defense and gaining extensive access to cards through the use of the damage zone, making this clan consistent and reliable. This clan also welcomes early damage, allowing the player using this clan to conserve hand early and punish any early offensive pushes from the opponent.
Weaknesses: This clan is very slow at times when setting up resources and plays, which can be at a disadvantage early in the game.
Aqua Force
Overview: The marine soldiers of Aqua Force endeavor to achieve multiple battles during the player’s turn. With this in mind, this clan also achieves abilities when the player achieves a certain amount of battles during the turn.
Lore: Aqua Force is a marine military force that protects the seas and the coastlines of the planet Cray, whether that be from natural disasters, pirate attacks, or public disturbances on the coastline. Even during peacetime, the soldiers of Aqua Force train and prepare for any threat that may present itself in the future.
Play Style: With its focus on achieving multiple battles, Aqua Force is naturally an aggressive clan that focuses on a large number of attacks in order to wear down the opponent’s defenses.
Strengths: This clan is able to wear down the opponent through the use of multi-attack combinations and skills gained after a certain amount of battles are obtained during the turn. Typically, this clan is able to achieve these multiple attacks against the opponent as early as the second turn, which allows for a great early game.
Weaknesses: Aqua Force as a clan is very rearguard reliant in order to gain a certain amount of battles, which can be difficult when facing clans that focus on field disruption and board control. Such field disruptions mainly consist of retire, lock, and stun mechanics.
Bermuda Triangle
Overview: The musical mermaid stars of Bermuda Triangle focus on returning the player’s rearguards to the player’s hand through the use of abilities either before or during battle. With the mechanic of “bouncing” units to hand, this clan is able to achieve certain combination plays based on the cards that are bounced back to hand.
Lore: Bermuda Triangle is a musical idol group that can be found holding sold out concerts in the deep seas of Cray. Their main talents can be found in magic and vocal music, allowing them to excel in their performances. It is said that the days of the clan’s live broadcasts are the most peaceful days on the planet Cray.
Play Style: As mentioned before, this clan’s main mechanic focuses on returning rearguards to the player’s hand. This mechanic has a variety of uses, allowing the player that uses this clan to have a very flexible play style. Although this is the case, the focus seems to be focused on the player’s hand, which tends to prefer a slightly defensive play style, no matter what variant of the clan is built.
Strengths: The clan is able to return units to hand from field to either increase the size of the player’s hand or the number of the total attacks during the turn.
Weaknesses: In order to effectively use its skills, the clan needs a good number of cards in hand. With this in mind, Bermuda Triangle normally has problems enabling its combination plays without a good number of cards in hand or on field.
Dark Irregulars
Overview: Derived from ancient monsters and demons from myth and lore, the Dark Irregulars focus on amassing a large amount of cards in the soul in order to gain large amount of power or special skills. Such skills can vary in nature, such as retiring opponent’s rearguards, gaining extra criticals on attacks, or additional soul charges.
Lore: Members of this clan consist of beings that have been possessed by supernatural forces or beings that have undergone changes due to forbidden techniques of science or magic. As such, they are scorned by the rest of the world, being viewed as appalling by most of the populous of the Cray. Though these members are diverse, they are governed by the concept that “might is right”, which justifies any form of abandoning convention in order to achieve power.
Play Style: The Dark Irregulars clan is very aggressive in nature, but it takes time to build the appropriate amount of soul that is needed to achieve certain amounts of power or unlocking certain skills. This clan is known for achieving levels of attack power that will leave the opponent unable to guard certain attacks, leading this clan to victory.
Strengths: The ability to gain attack power based on the number of cards in the soul and the large amount of soul charging in this clan allows the player who uses it to attack the opponent with high levels of attack power, even to the degree that the opponent cannot practically guard attacks from this clan.
Weaknesses: Although the Dark Irregulars can force the opponent to lose a large amount of cards in attempting to block its high-powered columns, it does not do a very good job of retaining cards in hand in order to guard itself. In addition to this, the large amount of soul charging can act against the player, especially when soul charging needed triggers or normal units.
Dimension Police
Overview: Wherever there are villains and evildoers dwell among the stars, the superheroes and giant mechs of Dimension Police will be there to stop them. As a clan, Dimension Police focuses on either giving the vanguard large amounts of power or taking power from the opponent’s vanguard.
Lore: In the known universe, the cosmic monsters that seek to invade other worlds constantly tried to escape the heroes of Dimension Police. Although the monsters and the heroes of this clan were at odds with each other, they put their differences aside in order to protect the planet Cray when it was in danger of being destroyed.
Play Style: This clan plays aggressively by focusing most of its attack power on the vanguard (which can either be by giving power to the player’s vanguard or taking power away from the opponent’s vanguard). This form of power manipulation normally forces drop large amounts of shield from hand in order to guard such high-powered attacks.
Strengths: Since most of the clan’s offense is centered around the vanguard, it is not as effected by field disruption compared to other clans that rely on rearguards for offensive pressure (e.g. locks on field).
Weaknesses: Although the power of the vanguard is the main offensive threat, the power of the rearguard columns are normally not as strong as the vanguard offensively. In other words, if a player is able to guard the vanguard when facing this clan, then the rearguard columns of the Dimension Police clan do not pose much of a challenge when defending them.
Gear Chronicle
Overview: Travelers from another time, the units of this clan are themed around the technologies and automatons found within the subgenre of science fiction known as steampunk. The clan’s main power lies mainly in two mechanics: the mechanic of swapping rearguards with units in deck based on their grades and the mechanic of sending of rearguard units to the bottom of the deck.
Lore: Gear Chronicle is an army that can transcend space and time and are ruled by gear dragons. After Link Joker invaded Cray, a warp of space time appeared and allowed Gear Chronicle to enter the world. The clans of Cray are somewhat cautious about Gear Chronicle, as their intentions are still a mystery to the inhabitants of the planet.
Play Style: This clan focuses on excelling in the late game, as most of their mechanics rely on generation break. They have multiple ways to be build decks for this clan, whether the build focuses on time leap to enable multiple attacks, removing threats from the opponent’s rearguard, disallowing opponent’s from using certain cards from hand in order to guard, or a mix of both of of these mechanics. In addition to this, Gear Chronicle typically focuses on big explosive turns one right after another whenever it is able to stride.
Strengths: With the consideration that this clan focuses heavily on striding to win and the expansion of the G zone, this clan’s access to strides enables it to find multiple ways to win. In addition to this, the time leap mechanic allows the deck to operate as a toolbox for the player, allowing for flexibility in play.
Weaknesses: This clan’s early game is considered weak compared to a good number of clans due to the fact that the clan mainly focuses on abilities that occur after the player has rode to grade 3, such as legion and generation break. Since this is the case, the clan can be hindered by large amounts of early game pressure.
Genesis
Overview: Genesis as a clan is based on the myths and legends of the legendary ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece, and Scandinavia. This clan revolves around building soul for the sake of soul blasting in order to attain powerful effects, which range from giving power to units on your field, restanding vanguard or rearguard units, and achieving attacks that cannot be guarded with certain cards.
Lore: After the Link Joker invaded the planet Cray, a group of priestesses who predicted that they must repel the invaders in order to survive began to form Genesis. With the help of the United Sanctuary, they became a conglomerate of powerful beings to assist United Sanctuary in fending off the invasion. After the war that was caused by said invasion, Genesis became an independent company, focusing on combat and security as a means of profit.
Play Style: Genesis as a clan has the flexibility to focus on offense, defense, or a mix of these two depending on the deck build. Although the strategy of this clan can vary due to what build one may choose, it uses the soul as a means of making the strategy consistent and reliable. With this in mind, setting up a certain amount of soul is the top priority of this clan in order to use it to pay for abilities.
Strengths: Being versatile is the clan’s greatest strength. There’s something for almost every cardfighter in the Genesis clan as a whole, whether the player wants to play defensively or offensively.
Weaknesses: This clan suffers from having to blindly soul charge in order to set up the soul, which can remove triggers or key cards from your deck that the player may need in hand instead. In addition to this, key cards are needed in order to set up the desired amount of cards in soul, which can also be soul charged due to other effects.
Granblue
Overview: Hailing from the depths of the oceans of Cray, the Granblue pirates consist of the undead (such as zombies, skeletons, and vampires). Granblue focuses on the drop zone by placing cards from the deck into the drop zone and by calling units from the drop zone.
Lore: From the Magallanica nation, the pirate bands of Granblue roam the seas of Cray. At one point, the term “Granblue” referred to one pirate band. As time went on, Granblue transformed into a larger coalition of pirates due to other pirate bands joining their ranks. As they travel from place to place, some of their ships have been known to disappear in a certain region of Magallanica, a place where the clan’s headquarters is rumored to be hidden.
Play Style: Granblue is a versatile clan. With the player having access to almost every card in the deck, it can be considered a toolbox clan. With a wide variety of skills ranging from retiring opponent’s rearguards to drawing cards, this clan has the power to maintain the rearguards on field and general resources effectively.
Strengths: Although the main method of putting cards in the drop zone is through the methods of guarding a losing units, this clan is able to bring back units to the field. This methods of recycling units allows key units to always be accessible to the player. This is also enhanced by the clan’s mill mechanic, which allows the player to place cards from the deck to the drop zone.
Weaknesses: Since it mills cards in order to set up the drop zone, it has a high chance of running out of cards in deck. Therefore, the player always needs to pay attention to the number of cards in his or her deck.
Great Nature
Overview: In the fields and the forests, the clan of Great Nature houses some of the top minds on the planet, researching the mysteries of the world. Although the school is comprised of units that seem silly and innocent, this clan is able to give rearguards additional power in increments of +4000 in exchange for retiring the units that gain such power.
Lore: The anthropomorphic animal students and professors of the Great Nature University research anything that can further their knowledge of the world and take courses that further their respective talents and abilities.
Play Style: This clan focuses on conservation of resources by refunding costs. Such conservation is triggered typically through the retirement of the player’s rearguards. Such refunds could come in many forms, such as drawing cards when a unit is retired or countercharging damage in order to reuse counterblast later on in the game.In addition to this, these refunds can allow the player to profit off of them as well (e.g. drawing more than one card when a unit retires and no cards needed placed in order to achieve such effects).
Strengths: This clan has the capability of creating a large amount of hand advantage when retiring its own units while creating high-powered columns during battle. This clan is also very flexible to build due to lack of archetypes and restrictions between card interactions.
Weaknesses: Although the clan is capable of large amounts of hand advantage, builds from the clan also need rearguards in order to achieve win conditions and allow skills, falling victim to field control in the form of retire or lock mechanics.
Gold Paladin
Overview: From the fall of the Shadow and Royal Paladins, Gold Paladin shines as a beacon of hope and defense in the history of the United Sanctuary’s history. In line with such history, Gold Paladin focuses mostly on calling units from the top of the deck to generate power and preserve their hand.
Lore: Gold Paladin started as a make-shift army of the leftovers of Royal Paladin and Gold Paladin. Although disorganized at first, they have become a disciplined army for the sake of the defense of the United Sanctuary during the kingdom’s darkest times.
Play Style: Gold Paladin focuses on calling units from the deck to power up the rear-guard that will keep the player from calling cards from hand. While similarly Gold Paladin decks also have the vanguard gain power from the amount of rear-guards controlled on the field.
Strengths: This clan has the capability to create a full attack formation with the use of the clans abilities with little to no help from the player’s hand, combining a strong balance between offense and defense.
Weaknesses: Typically, units called from the deck to the field are called at random. This leads to calling units that the player would rather have in deck (e.g. triggers) or in hand (e.g. perfect guards).
Kagero
Overview: The Kagero clan consists of the elite military force consisting of flame dragons. Units in this clan focus on taking advantage away from the opponent through different tactics, such as discarding units from the opponent’s field or forcing more guard from a re-standing vanguard.
Lore: Comprised of dragon knights and dragonmen, this military force has become the most dominant army on Cray. This army credits its strength to the flame dragons that lead it, the dragons that comprise it, and the human technology that enhances it.
Play Style: The main goal of this clan is to gain card advantage by taking resources away from the opponent. This is mainly seen through the ability to retire rearguard units from the field. At times, this mechanic either forces the opponent to play without any rearguards or play cards from hand in order to fill the rearguard. In addition to retiring rearguards, this clan has a variety of builds that enhance this mechanic and allow the player with this clan to slowly get ahead of his or her opponent.
Strengths: Consistency and removal of opposing key units are this clan’s main weapons when competing against other clans. The retire mechanic in this clan is completely in the player’s control, allowing the player to remove specific offensive threats. In addition to this, this clan remains consistent with the use of skills that search specific cards and/or allow the player to cycle for needed cards.
Weaknesses: This clan can be played against if the opponent does not rely on specific rearguards in order to win. This is especially dangerous when dealing with certain decks that mainly rely on the vanguard unit to win games.
Link Joker
Overview: Descending on Cray from the abyss of the cosmos, Link Joker is a defensive clan in terms of being able to lock rearguards or to delete vanguards. These skills are mostly unique to Link Joker as a whole (aside from the lock which also shows up on Reverse units).
Lore: After a failed attempt to conquer the planet Cray, this clan split up into three different factions. Two of these factions, the Star-vaders and Deletors, still wander the stars in their desire to quell life wherever it exists. The units of the final faction were left behind on the planet Cray to be reborn as a new type of Link Joker never seen in the universe: the Messiahs.
Play Style: Although the play style of the clan can vary due to build, this clan focuses on two mechanics: locks and deletes. A lock turns an opponent’s unit face down, forcing it to remain in that location on the field until the end of the opponent’s next turn. A delete forces the vanguard face down and has zero attack or defense until the end of the opponent’s next turn. Although these mechanics are disruptive in nature, the clan can build into many different variations and play styles.
Strengths: The clan excels in its ability to lower down the attacks through the use of locks. This strength is further emphasized in the delete mechanic, which decreases the quality of attacks from the deleted unit. In addition to this, certain skills that rely on the placement of a card on the deleted unit will not be able to activate its skill.
Weaknesses: Decks that do not rely on rearguards in order to achieve victory will be a problem for this clan (e.g. Dimension Police). In addition to this possible counter to the clan, deleted units can be restored either through the use of riding another vanguard or striding on top of the deleted unit. Along with these characteristics, the majority of skills in the clan do not activate until the late game, forcing the player play defensively until then.
Megacolony
Overview: Megacolony is a clan made entirely of insects, and is the crime syndicate of Planet Cray. They specialize in using stun to keep your opponents down and crippling their turn by lowering the number of attacks the opponent has. To clarify, the stun mechanic referred to prevents a targeted unit from standing in the stand phase, leaving it at rest when the opponent starts his or her turn
Lore: Being the crime syndicate of Cray, Megacolony has gained an infamous reputation. Invading other nations simply for personal gain, this clan pillages and steals anything they can get their hands on. For this band of thieves and crooks, no crime is too big for the crime ring of Megacolony.
Play Style: This clan has a controlling play style, limiting what your opponent can do by stunning their rearguards and/or vanguard. Megacolony also has a habit of gaining advantage for stunned or rested units your opponent controls either through the use of effects or by weakening attacks coming from the opponent.
Strengths: Megacolony excels in defense due to the fact that the player wielding this clan can save guard by weakening the offensive capability of the opponent’s field. Although the mechanics of the clan is to be able to save more guard by stunning their units, Megacolony’s units are able to gain additional skills and power for stunned units, giving them an offensive side as well.
Weaknesses: Megacolony can be a bit slow at the beginning. As of now, Megacolony has no practical boss cards that can initiate a finishing offensive push, and can only hold out for the long game. In addition to this, opponent’s that gain heavy card advantage can naturally counter the clan due to the fact that stunned rearguards can be replaced with cards from hand.
Murakumo
Overview: Based on Japanese folklore and ninja legends, Murakumo focuses on copying supporting units similar to shadow cloning. In other words, the copied units appear during the turn and vanish back into the deck at the end of turn, which is similar to how ninjas disappear into the shadows.
Lore: Serving as a ninja division in the Empire Black Ops Agency, Murakumo serves the Dragon Empire with the aid of their ninjustu and weapon mastery. In contrast to the Nubatama, this clan focuses on the defense and protection of the Dragon Empire, keeping the kingdom secure from the shadows.
Play Style: This clan focuses on calling copies of rearguard units to the field, which later disappear at the end of the turn. This copying mechanic resembles shadow cloning that ninjas are famous for. With this in mind, these clones can be used to attack the opponent or pay for abilities, allowing the player to call a field of attackers without sacrificing much of his or her hand.
Strengths: The Murakumo clan is able attack the opponent with a full offensive formation while conserving defensive resources in hand due to its cloning mechanic. Since the cloned units return to the deck at the end of turn, they are practically immune to certain types of control tactics (especially those in Megacolony and Link Joker).
Weaknesses: In order to clone units, this clan typically requires units to already exist on the field before the player’s turn begins. With this in mind, these remaining units are able to be retired from the field or locked in order to prevent their cloning, requiring caution and more resources from the player’s hand in order to call a field.
Narukami
Overview: Composed of dragons who wield lightning, Narukami is a clan of destructive power that first originated around retiring/attacking the front row. In addition to this strategic focus, the clan also has the capability to bind what is retired in order to disrupt the drop zone.
Lore: This clan is full of thunder dragons, Narukami is considered as one of the main military forces of the Dragon Empire along with Kagero. During a time in which Kagero, Royal Paladin, and Shadow Paladin were sealed away by invading forces attempting to destroy the planet Cray, Narukami stepped in as the main assault squad until the time that Kagero would be freed from the enemy.
Play Style: The clan is aggressive in its play style by focusing on mass retiring or killing off the opponent’s rearguard formation. In the process of demolishing the opponent’s attack formation, Narukami is known for building attack power as a result of destroying the opponent’s formation.
Strengths: Narukami has the ability to completely destroy an entire field through the use of skills or attacks. The destruction of the opponent’s field also helps the player with this clan defensively giving the player the ability to reduce the quality of the opponent’s front row attackers.
Weaknesses: Players using this clan should be careful with the use of counterblast costs, since some of the skills of this clan are very high cost. Also, this clan needs the opponent to have a field to activate a majority of skills based on retiring the opponent’s field. With this said, opponents that can either rely on his or her vanguard to win or retire their own units can prove to be a problem at times for Narukami.
Neo Nectar
Overview: Neo Nectar, as a clan of growth and prosperity, focuses on calling units to rearguard that are of the same name as that of another unit on their field. This allows the player to generate a field of rearguards very quickly while triggering the effects of many of their units while being placed on rearguard, such as increasing their power or gaining skills.
Lore: The clan of Neo Nectar, chock full of bioroids and various sentient plants, focuses on the production and transportation of crops throughout Cray. This leads them to having everything from beautiful dryads to hilarious dancing pieces of broccoli. They seek to defend the natural world around them while attempting to grow all plants prosperously.
Play Style: This clan is generally aggressive, as it has the potential to build an entire field off of a single card. Depending on the card which is being propagated, an extreme amount of power can be generated, extra attacks could be created, or card-advantage could be amounted. Neo Nectar seeks to to make the most with what it’s given.
Strengths: Neo Nectat has the ability to create very high-power columns while also having the ability to build its field rather quickly. This allows the clan to make explosive plays while also having the ability to play the long game when played correctly.
Weaknesses: As a rearguard-centric clan, Neo Nectar generally struggles with clans which interfere with Neo Nectar’s board, such as Link Joker, Kagero, and Narukami. The clan also must manage its resources very carefully, as you can only run four copies of each card in your deck, limiting the number of times that a certain rearguard can be generated.
Nova Grappler
Overview: Nova Grappler are a clan of Robotic wrestlers who enjoy nothing more than the thrill of battle. They specialize in restanding units and battering their opponent with a flurry of relentless attacks.
Lore: The pro fighters of Nova Grappler are the main income for the Star Gate region on the planet Cray, being the clan that holds the shows for the people of Cray to see. Although most of the participants are robotic, there are many types of participants far and wide who join in the festivities, using any technological or magical weapon at their disposal.
Play Style: Nova Grapplers focus on dealing as much damage as possible through the use of their multi-attacking style. As a side effect, this clan uses its multiple attacks to wear down the opponent’s defenses. This is enhanced through abilities or additional power that Nova Grappler grants to rearguards that stand again after their initial attacks.
Strengths: Nova Grappler is an extremely offensive deck by nature. Nova Grappler as a clan uses its abilities to stand and gain additional attacks in one turn, ranging up to six attacks on a good turn. These large amount of attacks can happen early in the game as well, forcing the opponent to guard earlier than he or she would want.
Weaknesses: Nova Grappler, while being a very offensive deck, has little defense as the deck uses all its resources to attack the opponent. In addition to this, rearguards in this clan are essential and fragile to mechanics such as retire and lock, which requires careful management of such rearguards.
Nubatama
Overview: As assassins that work from the shadows of Cray, the Nubatama clan focuses on binding cards from the opponent’s hand and/or field. In addition to this, this clan is able to force its opponent to discard cards from hand or discard cards from the bind zone.
Lore: Serving as a ninja division in the Empire Black Ops Agency, Nubatama serves the Dragon Empire with the aid of their martial arts and dark arts passed down to them from the eastern part of the Empire. In contrast to the Murakumo, this clan focuses on gathering information through espionage for the Dragon Empire, a mission they are willing to sacrifice themselves for if necessary.
Play Style: Nubatama focuses on playing defensively until it can set up one turn that kills the opponent, much in the way that an assassin would. To describe this further, this clan focuses on taking resources from the players hand at crucial times and removing essential rearguards from the field in order to ensure that the clan’s final big play will not fail.
Strengths: This clan can adapt to situations that the opponent can throw at it. This is mainly found in the fact that this clan excels in creating lose-lose situations for any player facing it. With this in mind, Nubatama uses lose-lose situations to set up for burst turns that can kill even the most defensive clans in the game.
Weaknesses: Despite the deadly turns that this clan can create, win conditions seem to be inconsistent. Resource management is also difficult in this clan due to several attributes that the clan embodies, including attributes such as large amount of counterblast, reliance on rearguards, and small hand size.
Oracle Think Tank
Overview: Predicting the future, Oracle Think Tank is a clan that focuses on having advantage by drawing extra cards and predicting the top card(s) of the deck. Prediction helps the player in varying ways, from predicting trigger checks or cards upcoming in draws.
Lore: The clan has mostly consisted of fortune tellers and spell-casters, which are able to tell the future. These abilities are used in order to aide the customers of the conglomerate Oracle Think Tank, which uses prophecy and fortune telling in order to give economic forecasts and life counseling.
Play Style: The play style for this clan revolves mostly around being able to generate advantage by the cards that allow you to add more cards to your hand, whether by predicting the next card of the deck or by straight up skills that let you draw. The use of prediction in these decks relies on the player’s memory, which is required for some builds for the sake of mastery.
Strengths: Oracle Think Tank has a great defensive capacity against decks due to its built-in mechanics emphasizing drawing cards. Due to this, this clan can also last for a long time defensively in games. In addition to this, predicting triggers correctly in certain builds will win games for the player.
Weaknesses: Despite its strong defense, this clan lacks a lot of strong offense with the exception of a few key cards (e.g. Silent Tom) which provide such offense. In addition to this, this clan is typically slower in the early stages of the game.
Pale Moon
Overview: Based off of a circus theme, the Pale Moon focuses on manipulating the soul. This clan splits its focus by placing units into the soul and calling units from the soul. Cards can be put into soul either by soul charge or by selective placement. Units can be called from the soul for the benefits of gaining extra attacks, gaining increased power, and maintaining card advantage.
Lore: From their headquarters in Dark Zone, the Pale Moon circus performs all over the world. The members of the Pale Moon circus are assassins who will turn their powers and beasts on those who attampt to obtain the secrets of Dark Zone.
Play Style: Pale Moon is a mainly aggressive clan due to the fact that the units that are called from soul gain advantages that aid in creating high-pressure attacks. Although this is the case, this clan defensive properties as well, since it can protect it units by placing them back into the soul and it allows the player to conserve hand instead of calling rearguards from hand.
Strengths: Allowing the player to manipulate the soul, Pale Moon can adapt to many situations and play styles. For example, the magia keyword ability allows the clan can avoid the retire and lock mechanics.
Weaknesses: Pale Moon has an increased risk of deck out due to its soul charging reliance. The clan also burns through counterblast quickly, so it needs to be carefully managed.
Royal Paladin
Overview: Royal Paladins are knights at heart, a band of brothers and sisters that prefer to stick together. In line with there bonds of friendship, their over-all abilities focus on calling specific units from deck and/or giving specific units power based on rearguards in the attack formation.
Lore: The clan represent the main army of the kingdom of the United Sanctuary, an order that stands against invading forces to the holy nation, which span from the Dragon Empire to the invaders of Link Joker. This army is made up of many creatures, such as sprites, humans, dragons.
Play Style: Royal Paladin focuses on calling units from the deck by the ability of other cards to preserve the resources of the hand. In addition to this, this clan also has the ability to give its attack formation power based on card abilities. Overall, these characteristics benefit the clan both aggressively and defensively.
Strengths: By allowing the player to save cards in their hand to play units to the field, players who use this clan enjoy a slight buff to their defenses. This clan can also guarantee a optimal field formation by having the ability to call specific units from the deck to the rearguard.
Weaknesses: Although Royal Paladin has the potential to end games, this clan has the potential to lose due to poor plays, specifically in calling the wrong units from the deck to the field. In addition to this, certain builds can run out of units to call from the deck to the field, leaving the abilities of cards unfulfillable in the late game.
Shadow Paladin
Overview: As the name implies, this clan is comprised of warriors and dragons that fight in the shadows created by the light and virtue of the United Sanctuary. Shadow Paladin’s basic mechanic boils down to sacrificing your own units to gain powerful vanguard abilities, which can range from retiring opponent’s units to restanding your vanguard. In addition to this, certain units in this clan activate abilities when they themselves are retired.
Lore: In the United Sanctuary, it is rumored that there exists an order of knights that operates in mystery and slays its enemies in the shadows of history. This order, the Shadow Paladins, has been blamed for unfortunate incidents that happen within the holy nation’s borders, even though there is a considerable amount of doubt on whether the dark order of knights are of fact or of fable.
Play Style: As stated in the overview Shadow Paladin primarily focus on retiring your own units in order to allow the vanguard to gain a range of different effects (which include gaining additional attack power, gaining additional criticals, forcing your opponent to take a damage, etc.). In order to enable this, the clan has the capability of superior calling units from the deck in order to use the newly called units to pay for skills that require rearguards to be retired. The use of superior calling and retiring the units called in this way from deck allow the player to pressure the opponent with a full field while conserving hand in respect to calling units.
Strengths: Besides the wide range of abilities Shadow Paladin can do, arguably the biggest strength they have is their ability to sacrifice their own units. The great thing about this is Shadow Paladin units usually retire during your battle phase. This generally means that by the end of your turn you will have less units than what you started out with, which can prevent the opponent disrupting your board through the use of stuns, retires, or locks.
Weakness: One clear weakness of this clan is a lengthy game. The longer the game lasts, the more the likely it is for the player to run out of quality units to retire for their effects. This in turn forces the player to place units better suited in hand, such as triggers and perfect guards. Another weakness is that some variants of Shadow Paladin want to keep certain units on field, which can make such units targets for opponent retires, stuns, or locks. In certain situations, opponent effects targeting remaining units can leave the player unable to pay for effects.
Spike Brothers
Overview: Passionate for the extremely violent game called Gallows Ball, the Spike Brothers are a sports team that rushes for a one-hit wonder play. This clan seeks to win the game in one-to-two turns by using all their resources at once to create extra attacks, pressure, and power. Spike Brothers are never out of the fight, no matter how the game had been going.
Lore: Being extremely zealous for their sport, the Spike Brothers will do anything to win. Gallows Ball has no rules in the game other than attempting to get Metamorball, a special type of sport ball which changes its nature and shape depending on the holder, to the opponent’s goal line in order to score. This leads to the development of deadly weapons, implementation of many enhancement surgeries and medicine, and the game ending more often-than-not with the opposing team in comas or dead.
Play Style: Spike Brothers always play with the winning image in their head, spending the entire game setting-up for the opponent’s final turn. Spike Brothers want to have a turn so powerful and threatening that if the opponent survives, then they won’t be able to mount much of an offensive in response.
Strengths: Spike Brothers have the ability to produce many high-power attacks that could create even more problems for the opponent should they hit, leading them to have one of the most dangerous offensive capabilities in the game.
Weaknesses: Spike Brothers have below-average resources in terms of defending themselves, making them find a way to hit the opponent very hard in order to slow them down. Any sort of out-of-turn interaction by the opponent, whether it be damage triggers, G-Guardians, or power-buffs, can turn the supposed “final turn” into a pitiful excuse for an offensive push.
Tachikaze
Overview: Resurrected from the ancient past, the dinodragons of Tachikaze retires its own rearguards in order to achieve more power and criticals to attacks. In addition to this, the retired units often contribute to the resources of the player, either through the form of shield, additional power to remaining units, or the ability to return to field when retired.
Lore: Before the time that flame dragons and thunder dragons ruled the Dragon Empire, the dinodragons reigned supreme. Then, after the destruction of a large portion of their population due to the power of the flame dragons, the flame dragons reorganized the dinodragons into the infantry known as Tachikaze, where their destructive tendencies are kept under control by the might of Kagero.
Play Style: The main style of this clan is maintaining a high level of aggressive attacks throughout the game while maintaining resources. Aggression from this clan is found through its mechanic, which is the retiring of units for power or the achievement of multiple attacks. The maintenance of resources is found in the ability to bring back units retired for the payment of skills and the skills that the retired units achieve when they are retired.
Strengths: This clan is able to mount a aggressive attack almost every turn if it is able to use retire effects in order to gain power or more attacks. Aggressive turns from this clan will force the opponent to lose a large amount of cards for the sake of defense. Although this clan’s draw engine is average, the loss of the opponent’s cards due to defensive measures will make it seem like the player is winning on card advantage.
Weaknesses: The major weakness to Tachikaze is that they require rearguards in order for their vanguards to function. This can be counteracted by continually retiring or locking the field of units, forcing them to drop cards from their hand in order to fill the rearguard. In addition to this, poor management of counterblast can cost the player who plays this clan victories in the long run.
Acknowledgements
All of our writers contributed to this post, and we would like to thank each and every one of them. You can find more about our writers here.
Lore on each clan has been provided from the Cardfight Wiki, who is able to obtain lore on each clan through Bushiroad Monthly. Images of clan symbols came from the Cardfight Wiki, which is found at http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Cardfight!!_Vanguard_Wiki. These images may have been re-sized.
Cardfight Lab Tech 
This is a perfect list but in my opinion you can update this list with the new keywords, striders and even a little pic about some units in each clan. Can i used this information too, if you don’t care?
LikeLike
You can link this page on your site. Thoughts?
LikeLike
Wonderful post. You clearly went through the details. This is a must see for beginners of the game
LikeLike