Mighty Rogue, Nightstorm

Today’s card spotlight goes to Nightstorm! A very solid and used card since G Era days!

Pros

Extends another attack.
It can call any unit, except itself. (Ghost Ship, Skull Dragon, Colombard)
A Hollow unit that works with prior Hollow support. (Negrobone, Dragut, etc)
Due to Hollow, it retires itself for re-usability next turn.
Can hit 11k VGs on its own or make 23k with a Romario booster.
Synergizes on being discarded for the cost of Stride.

Cons

Needs a power up or a booster to hit 12k/13k VGs.
Its attack extending skill is locked behind Generation Break.
Riding it can hinder your game since it’s a G3 unit.

Because of the pros and cons, this card is generally used as a 1-2 copies in a deck. Most decks play only 1 to reduce the possibility of riding it.

Quick G Era History

Nightrose

When Granblue got their 1st wave of G Era support, the G3 lineup consisted of Nightrose, Nightstorm, and sometimes Gast Dragon. The deck also played a good number of Hollow units so even riding Nightstorm was not a bad idea if you had to have the 1st G3 turn. Nightstorm also synergized well with the other Hollow support.

Cards like Negrorook would be a good 16k beater to revive during the battle phase. The 16k could even hit VGs that got a trigger during a damage check. Colombard also served as another attack extender. Which allow the player to ping pong attacks if enough CB was available. Negrobone was able to revive Nightstorm to chain further attacks.

With the 2nd wave of support (Absolute Judgement), the G3 lineup decreased to 5-7 G3s. In fact, many players in Japan went 4 Nightrose and 1 Nightstorm. Thanks to the stride Gouache, we were able to afford to G Assist if needed to and still win most match-ups. I myself have gone this route for a BCS event. It’s nice but it’s really a double edge sword kind of thing. For example, there’s 2 scenarios that hurt you, the first is if you miss the G Assist. The second is G Assisting in the mirror match, and in the mirror match usually the winner is the one that can manage their resources well which includes hand advantage.

Cards like Rough Seas and Cannoneer helped mitigating the G Assist cost. So those were also played at 4 copies.

Then in the Rummy Labyrinth set, we got two great strides such as Negrosonger and Dragut. With Negrosonger we can further extend attacks by reviving a Nightstorm with a massive power up! Dragut was also great on retiring massive fields by reviving Hollow units and Nightstorm was a target to revive to also utilize as an attack extender.

Furthermore, we got access to the Starlight Loop plays. Essentially, Starlight was used to further extend attacks to a high count of 8-10 attacks on average. The Starlights would recall Negrobones to use them to go into a Nightstorm to chain further.

How can you have that many attacks if you can only have so much CB? Glad you asked! That’s where King Serpent came in! When a card like Nightstorm or Negrolazy would revive King Serpent, the CB used was immediately refunded! King Serpent then would attack and be boosted by a Negrobone to chain more attacks.

An easy chain to remember is:
Negrobone -> Nightstorm -> Negrolazy -> Negrorook

Lastly, strides like Obadiah and Twilight Nightrose would give Nightstorm a +5k power up, making it 16k by itself! This allowed to hit V Era VGs by itself and you could have a stronger multi attack turn.

Wrapping up the G Era history, essentially Nightstorm even though played at 1 copy through most of its lifespan, it was a vital piece for multiple plays in terms of attack extending, being a Hollow unit, and further chaining.

V Era Usage

In V Era, Nightstorm’s usage has came to 2 specific purposes. The first one is enabling any Granblue variant being able to do 4 to 5 attacks per turn.

Alongside with Colombard, we can ping pong between the two units and end with a big beater attack. In the 1st wave of V Era support, Skull Dragon serves as that beater and still does today.

Why is multi attack something good to have? Glad you asked! In Vanguard, with each attack the defending player has a decision to make. One outcome is to take the damage or the other is to use their hand/intercepts to block it. The opponent can only have some much hand advantage to be able to guard and also do a strong follow up turn.

However, in V Era the shield value of G1s and G0s has increased and as well as the power gain from triggers during damage checks. We can still do a high number of attacks, but they’re only so strong. They can be stopped with triggers on damage checks or always be a 1 card guard. So for now, we’ve gone to just using 1 copy of both Nightstorm and Colombard to be able to do 4 to 5 attacks reliably with better numbers.

With Megiddo, we have access to what’s called the Megiddo Skull Dragon play. This play is very powerful and is a win con to any Granblue variant that plays Skull Dragons. Essentially with Megiddo’s skill, we revive 4 Skull Dragons and 1 Nightstorm. The Skull Dragons are typically over 50k easily by this point and we can use Nightstorm to extend another Skull Dragon attack. This turn consists of 5 Skull Dragon attacks, 1 Megiddo attack, and 1 Nightstorm 16k attack for a total of 7 attacks.

Other Tips

You can revive Cannoneer if your next attack can’t hit due to a trigger being damage checked. This allows you to retire a unit and, if Hollowed, you can draw. Or in Nightrose, don’t Hollow it and have it stay to setup the Pseudo Denial Griffin play.
You can also revive Grenache to CC2. (Typically, you want to revive Grenache with a main phase field call though)
Revive Negrolazy to further extend attacks. In the Negrosonger/Starlight 10 attack play, it’s vital to chain Negrolazy into King Serpent to reach that high number of attacks.
Revive Mick to power up another unit or itself to hit certain thresholds.
Revive King Serpent to further extend attacks in general.
Vital for high number of attack plays with strides like Megiddo, Negrosonger, Twilight Nightrose, Obadiah, etc.
With Obadiah’s skill, revive Ghost Ship alongside with Nightstorm to draw 2 cards. After Ghost Ship attacks, it’ll retire itself and you draw a card. Use Nightstorm to revive the same Ghost Ship to get another attack and draw.
Revive Greed Shade to fix/improve hand quality during battle phase with cards like heal triggers, PGs, ultimate stride fodder, etc. You can potentially setup your drop zone better with discarding a card obtained from the VG’s drive check. (An example is discarding a Cannoneer and having a Fatal Shade revive it during the end phase)

V Era Combo

With Obadiah, we can do a solid 5 attack turn. Let’s go over a simple play.

Main Phase:

Assuming that you can revive 5 RGs, CB1 and revive the following: 1 Skull Dragon, 1 Colombard, 1 Grenache, and 2 Romarios. Each unit also gets +5k. See below for field setup.

Battle Phase:

Skull Dragon unboosted (40k+ easily) (retires at end of battle)
Colombard boosted by Romario (14k + 17k = 31k) (CB1 to revive Nightstorm)
Nightsorm boosted by Romario (11k + 17k = 28k) (CB1 to revive same Skull Dragon)
VG attacks (26k+) (high chance of triggers due to deck thinning)
Skull Dragon (40k+ easily)

End Phase:

Units die to Hollow and CC2 with Grenache.

You can also attack with VG first if the opponent is at 5 damage to split triggers onto Colombard and Skull Dragon. You may also do this if they’re at 4 damage since you’ve deck thinned and play a lot of critical triggers.

Nightrose Combo Videos

Thanks to David Adipratma from WCC, he told me of utilizing Starlights to loop them a few times to extend more attacks. Thus the Starlight Loop was born and was made known by this video years ago. This is from G Era, so VGs were 11k base, so it only applies if your opponent’s VG is 11k.

With V Era introducing 12k/13k VGs, I go over a Twilight Nightrose play that can still hit those numbers and do nine attacks. Check it out!

Lastly, with Megiddo, we can do eleven attacks that can hit 13k and up! Check it out.

Final Thoughts

Nightstorm has been a valuable card since the day it came out! The fact that is still used today is saying something! I’m looking forward to see if it’ll still see usage with the new Nightrose retrain support. Til next time amigos see ya!