Monster Comparison: Garo-oh vs. Amakujaku

Monster Comparison: Garo-oh vs. Amakujaku

I decided to make this thread because of a thought process I went through. With the current plethora of skull warriors that are available, I was trying to decide if I should run size 2's in the deck and resurrect them with Odd Ritual, Skull Festival. The thought process came about trying to think of a way to spend less life and gauge on calling a full field but still be able to get 3 attacks in one turn as if there were 3 size 1's on the field. The end result actually made me respect Bushiroad's Buddyfight R&D team.

So obviously my first thought was size 2's that had double attack. Currently, the only two double attacking Skull Warriors are Tempest, Garo-oh and Gale Conflagration, Amakujaku. By using Odd Ritual, Skull Festival to resurrect one of these cards, I could have a monster with double attack and not need as many set spells to create a full attack set up.

Depending on how well you know how resources and base stats work in this game, this might get quite deep so I'll do my best to lay it out as simple as possible. Before we get too deep into this, let's lay out each monster's stats and abilities starting with Tempest, Garo-oh and talk about them:

Is it weird that I own more
SP Garo-oh cards than RR cards? :/

Name: Tempest, Garo-oh

Size: 2

Attack: 3000

Critical: 2

Defense: 5000

[Act]"Garo Slash" You may pay 1 gauge. If you do, for this turn, this card gets Double Attack and power +3000. At the end of turn, destroy this card

In total base stats, Garo-oh has 14,000. That's 2,000 below vanilla stats so what gives? Well his ability is very nice. By paying 1 gauge, he gains +3000 attack and double attack but dies at the end of the turn. The nice thing about this ability is it isn't limited to once per turn so while he won't get multiple double attacks, his attack will keep increasing to help deal with big walls.

The self-destruction is balanced out by the double attack so we can consider that a wash and put it to the back burner for now. No matter how much gauge you pay, he will always have static double attack and static self-destruction. What's strange though is 1 gauge doesn't equate to 3,000 stats.  It actually equates to 2,000 so what's the deal with that?

Well let's take this one step at a time by looking at his stats every time Garo-oh is "fed" a gauge for his ability:

Base stats (0 gauge): 14,000. (3,000 attack)

1 gauge: 17,000 (6,000 attack)

2 gauge: 20,000 (9,000 attack)

3 gauge: 23,000 (12,000 attack)

4 gauge: 26,000 (15,000 attack)
5 gauge: 29,000 (18,000 attack)
6 gauge: 32,000 (21,000 attack)

Now, what if Garo-oh started with vanilla base stats (5,000/2/5,000) and had his ability but instead he got the appropriately equated 2,000 stats per gauge when you used his ability?  Well, let's lay it out:

Base stats (0 gauge): 16,000. (5,000 attack)

1 gauge: 18,000 (7,000 attack)

2 gauge: 20,000 (9,000 attack)

3 gauge: 22,000 (11,000 attack)

4 gauge: 24,000 (13,000 attack)
5 gauge: 26,000 (16,000 attack)
6 gauge: 28,000 (19,000 attack)

By comparing how it is to how it could be if everything was accurately paid, you can see why Bushi made Garo-oh the way he is. First, if Garo-oh had vanilla 5000/2/5000 stats, Bushi couldn't make a clean 5000/2/5000 vanilla Skull Warrior because Garo-oh would be straight up better and there would be no deeper strategy.

Bushi could made a 5000/2/5000 vanilla skull warrior now and you could argue that each has its pros and cons now. Do I go with the 3000/2/5000 that by feeding gauge gets better or do I get the 5000/2/5000 monster that can't get bigger but he's better at face value?

There has to be a penalty for having the ability to buff up your stats multiple times. So Bushi starts Garo-oh lower than normal but in exchange, can actually get more bang for your buck the more you feed him gauge. If Garo-oh started at 5000/2/5000, and gained 2,000 attack per gauge, it would just be a linear, static scaling. The more you invest in him, the more he can take bigger monsters down and not have to link attack to achieve it. The rule is for every 2 gauge you pay, you get back 3 gauge worth of power. Paying 4 gauge is the equivalent power of paying 6 gauge.

He still has some downsides. The main one to note is that if you resurrect him with Odd Ritual, Skull Festival, you still have to pay gauge to give him his double attack and power and what is 1 gauge (through his skill) and 1 life (through Odd Ritual)?  Oh yeah, just as if you used 1 Return and 1 Odd Ritual to call 2 Demon Kid, Hiunmaru. But he's a single size 2 monster. So if your opponent has almost any counter destruction spell (Pillar of Fire, Death Grip, etc.) it pretty much ruins your whole turn because you invested (in my opinion) too many eggs in one basket.

Now let's look at Gale Conflagration, Amakujaku:

I still don't know what I'm looking at with this guy

Name: Gale Conflagration, Amakujaku

Size: 2

Attack: 7000

Critical: 2

Defense: 3000

Call Cost [Pay 1 gauge]

At the end of turn, destroy this card

[Double Attack]

Unlike Garo-oh, Amakujaku is more straightforward. His stats are actually vanilla (7000+6000+3000 = 16,000) but he has a -.5 value because of the gauge cost. The self-destruction should pay for his double attack but Bushi probably didn't want him to be free (without having Goshi Goma on the field) which is understandable. Especially since his attack hits a quality 7000 attack number. Something Garo-oh can't achieve without investing 2+ gauge into him.

Why does he have that 1 gauge call cost? Well, if Amakujaku was free to call, you would be basically "discarding" Amakujaku to either deal 4 damage to your opponent, destroying 2 monsters on the field or destroy a monster then deal 2 damage. Any combination of those would make him give you +1 in advantage.

Since Amakujaku costs a gauge, now in a best case scenario, Amakujaku can gain you +.5 advantage. Bushi tends to give +.5 advantage at most through one card. This makes the card actually have solid potential. Clearing 7000 walls can be a chore for Skull Warriors so he helps bust down tanks.

One last benefit to note is that unlike Garo-oh, you can pay 1 life to call him back with Odd Ritual and not have to pay another gauge to give him his double attack and he still starts out with 7000 power.

The downside of this is Amakujaku can die to literally every form of counter removal in the game and unlike Garo-oh, Amakujaku can die to Hidden Crossbow

-End Rant-

*phew* So now that I put that all out (and probably scared half of you away), you're probably all wondering which one is better and which one I personally like more. In terms of which one is better, it actually... depends. It depends on the situation and what's going on in the current game. Neither one is actually straight better than the other.

Garo-oh has more flexibility.  You can leave him in the center turn 1 as a decent wall with 2 crit and not use his ability at all or you can be insane and pump 6 gauge into him (if you have that much) to make him a terrifying 21,000 attack and laugh at your opponent as you do a single attack against Miseria's 20,000 defense. He's a flex option. Something not a lot of cards in Buddyfight are.

Amakujaku is a one trick pony.  He is better than Garo-oh when you only put 1 gauge into Garo-oh's ability but he can't cover your center with decent defense during turn 1 and he can't scale up to take down bigger walls. He's good at what he does and that's it. Period.

In terms of what I personally like, I actually like Garo-oh more. Mainly because his SP artwork is awesome and strategically, he gives you options on what you're trying to do. Sadly, I came to the conclusion that I don't like either in a deck. I'd rather spread my threats out to 3 size 1 (or play Keiganryu and call two other size 1's) than commit my offense to only 1 double attacking size 2 monster.

Size 2 Skull Warriors are actually in a pretty sad place. Some are too situational (such as Flash Strike Yamaihebi and Outlander, Bokunryu) and they can be destroyed by pretty much everything. Because Keiganryu and the Yamigitsune impact exists for Skull Warriors, Size 1's have better quality right now.