D-BT02A: Four Dimensions brought with it two new flags of such sickeningly unparalleled consistency that the game simply was not prepared to manage it. Guardians and Executioners get top notch filtering, drawing, searching, and a cancerous amount of free resources.
For Executioners, which have high gauge costs and low base life, the consistency seems like it should be a fair trade-off. For Guardians, however, they only start with -1 gauge and +2 life. Then, they got a vastly superior, completely free combination of a vanilla weapon and Rune Staff that doesn't have to rest to get gauge. Yeah, about those "gauge problems" they were supposed to be having... RIP.
To make matters worse, the Guardian's gate spell is stupid. It lets you get ANY Guardians monster in your deck for only its [Call Cost] if you have no monsters on the field or cards in your drop zone. Essentially, if they open well, they get to just fish their deck for a free card draw, their busted ass boss card that is Fahne with Soulguard on roids, or their size 1 Double Attacker that gives free life. Or, if they need a counter card from their deck like Angel Frill to wreck your soul, well, they can get that too.
So, what can we do to stop this nonsense? Well, not a whole lot I'm afraid. There are currently 3 types of cards that will stop Gate of Pardon, -Forgiveness-, but first, let's establish how Gate works.
Gate has two effects that its user can choose from. Both are "You may only use this ability once per turn." effects. Upon declaration of the ability, they must select which ability they are using. If they are using the life gaining effect, they must also target which 3 cards they are sending back.
At this point, you get your counter timing. If there was a card with counter (RIP Bucket Arm Dragon) that removed from play or sent cards in the drop zone back to the deck, if you responded by using that effect on one of their targeted cards, they would not gain the life. But, this is a moot point when no cards exist currently that do this.
Okay, so we want to stop the other effect, then. What are our options? We really only have one, and that's to make a card enter their drop zone in response to them activating Gate of Pardon, -Forgiveness-. We can do this in one of three ways.
1. We can mill cards from their deck at counter speed.
Example - Gale Destruction
Gale Destruction will destroy a size 2 or less monster on the opponent's field and mill the top 2 cards of their deck. We don't have a valid target for the monster effect, but we can still cast it to force them to mill 2. When Pardon tries to resolve, it will fizzle because it will fail its check for having no cards in the drop zone.
2. We can destroy Gate of Pardon, -Forgiveness- at counter speed.
Example - Soaring Dragon Spirits
Soaring Dragon Spirits will destroy a size 1 or less and a set spell on the field. If you destroy Gate in response to its effect, when the effect tries to resolve, it will see a card in its drop zone and fizzle. Keep in mind that Soaring Dragon Spirits targets a size 1 or less and it doesn't specify on the opponent's field for the size 1 or less check, so if you have a size 0 or 1 monster, you will have to target it. Choosing no target is only allowed in Buddyfight if no target exists.
3. We can destroy their equipped item if one exists.
Example - Dragons All Staked in
If the Guardians player has an item equipped, you may also destroy that item in response to Pardon's effect to cause Pardon to fizzle. This is the most preferable way to go about it if available, due to Pardon being unable to be removed by the Guardians player. They won't be able to play a second Gate that turn since their current Gate never left. Since Gate's effects are not named once per turn effects, if you blow up Gate and they play a new one, they can just use those. So item destruction is very solid against Guardians for the short-term.
There are plenty of cards that destroy anything at counter speed for higher costs. Caliburn can blow up the Gate as well. There are numerous options to make things work out in your favor. In some cases it might be worth waiting out their Gate for them to call Angelus and using Caliburn in response to Angelus' on-entry effect to negate the card draw, blow up their monster and Pardon, and have them still shuffle a card from hand back into deck. LeHeroes OP.
Obviously, forcing discards at counter speed, effect nullification at counter speed, and numerous other mechanics that simply don't exist yet/are impractical to make work currently will all have more ways to interact with Guardians. By time these are released though, I'm certain the power level of the game will catch up and Guardians won't be as big of a problem.
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