The long wait for TCG fans has finally come to a halt as Bushiroad International recently released the highly popular TCG Cardfight!! Vanguard to Android and iOS platforms as card battle RPG, Vanguard Zero. As the franchise continues to grow in popularity across its long-running anime TV series, manga series, and the official trading card game, Vanguard Zero stays as true to the core elements of the game and the series made faster and a little simpler to pick up and play. Vanguard Zero, as a digital incarnation of the actual TCG, guarantees to reel in more TCG enthusiasts in addition to the fans and followers of franchise in its other forms.
Vanguard Zero retells the story of Aichi Sendou, the protagonist of the series who received a powerful “Blaster Blader” card as a child and whose life became an adventure following his interest in the Vanguard TCG. With companions as well as rivals in the world of Vanguard Fights, every match is guaranteed to be a unique experience given the plethora of cards available and the numerous decks that can be built around them. While some cards are deemed more powerful than others, the fight’s outcome depends on the performance of the whole deck. Along with the luck of draw, what matters more is the strategy that comes right from deck-building down to using each card on that deck effectively.
The actual Cardfight!! Vanguard TCG actually contains a lot of unique mechanics and while most of these are present in Vanguard Zero, rules are very much trimmed down to make the duels flow a little faster and set the learning phase even easier for players new to the franchise. While the quick 3-part tutorial ahead of the adventure may be too quick to cover everything, Vanguard Zero actually provides more training sessions and materials to help newer players get accustomed to the game’s rules and basic mechanics effectively.
In truth, learning to play Vanguard Zero is still essentially easy compared to the actual TCG as well as other popular TCGs in the market. The more challenging part comes with the actual deck-building, especially with initially limited cards in your possession. If you are looking to gain more cards and securing more wins in matches, then check out our Vanguard Zero beginner’s guide for some useful tips, cheats and strategies! So stay with us and read on as we will share with you loads of tips to jumpstart your card-collecting, deck-building, and Vanguard fighting adventure!
1. Reroll For The Best Cards
For any game that utilizes the gacha approach towards securing additional units, characters, or in the case of Vanguard Zero, cards, every new player is confronted with a very important dichotomous decision at the early part of the game. For one, some players believe there is much more fun and excitement to be gained from going with whichever cards you have on your initial draw. For others, having the best cards is a must to ensure a faster progression in the early chapters of the game and sort of get a head start as far as collecting rare cards is concerned.
For the most part, It only takes a few minutes to do a reroll and restart your game to get to the first free draw opportunity. Clearing your profile is quick and can be done in-game as well, leaving a faster cycle in case you need to do several rerolls until you are satisfied with your draw. If you decide to go for a reroll, you might as well be ready to dedicate some time until you get the cards that you want and while you may still be unfamiliar with the best cards in the game right now, we will be mentioning some of the top-tier cards that we know of.
As part of the core concepts in Vanguard Zero, cards are categorized into clans and can only be used on specific decks save for Cray Elementals, which can be used on any clan deck. More clans may come to Vanguard Zero in future updates but for now, there are only 4 clans: Royal Paladin, Oracle Think Tank, Kagero, and Nova Grappler. While there are a number of cards available for each clan, some simply stand out and getting full sets as soon as possible will make it a lot easier for you to compete against the game’s PvE and PvP content.
For Royal Paladin, the essential cards are Blaster Blade, Solitary Knight Gancelot, Flash Shield, Iseult, Knight of Silence, Gallatin, and Little Sage, Marron. For Oracle Think Tank, it’s Silent Tom, Battle Sister, Chocolat, CEO Amaterasu, Oracle Guardian, Wiseman, and Oracle Guardian, Gemini. Draconic Overlord, Wyvern Guard, Barri, Dragon Knight, Nehalem, Embodiment of Armor, Bahr, and Seal Dragon, Blockade are just some of the best cards for Kagero.
Among Nova Grappler’s top tier cards are Twin Blader, Asura Kaizer, Transraizer, and Burstraizer. Do note that it is highly improbable for you to secure cards that dominantly go into the same clan or deck but at the very least, be sure to try your luck to grab these cards as you will be using various decks through your adventure in Vanguard Zero.
Now that you know which cards to keep an eye on for gacha pulls, it’s time to know the procedure to do a reroll. As soon as you jump into Vanguard Zero, you will be taken to the first chapter of the main story, which is Chapter 0. Its entirety is just 1 battle divided into 3 progressive parts for easier understanding. Once you clear all 3 stages or rides within Chapter 0, you will be prompted to download about 700 mb of additional data to continue with the game.
Once the download completes, you should tap on the gift box icon at the right side of screen. With Vanguard Zero’s launch, you can claim more than enough gacha tickets to do a 10x roll twice. Head on to the shop via the “Shop” icon at the bottom of the screen, select the Gacha banner, and go for a 10x draw twice. If you do not like the cards that you get, then feel free to go for a reroll. On the other hand, if you do get some of the best cards we mentioned above, then you can continue on with progressing through your adventure.
Related: Vanguard Zero Tier List: The Best Cards across Presently Available Clans in the Game
Do note that each draw earns you 6 cards with at least 1 out of the 6 cards being R or higher rarity. With this, you should at least get 10 R, RR, and RRR cards on a 10x draw. Our best one was 3 RRRs and 2 RR cards so expect to get multiple top-tier cards on some draws.
In any case, if you choose to try your luck again and go for a reroll, tap on the menu icon at the right side of the main screen and click on the “Back to Title” button. Click on the menu at the top right corner of the title screen and tap on the “Delete User” button. You will have to restart your game and go through the 3 stages of Chapter 0 again. Fortunately enough, the game will no longer need to re-download the 700 mb worth of additional data so you can proceed a lot quicker to the shop and go for another set of 10x pulls.
2. Engage In Training Fights To Understand Rules Better
It can be understood that you will be raring to engage in more card battles after the tutorial especially after acquiring more cards from the initial gacha draws. While you may already have a good enough idea of Vanguard Zero’s basic rules and mechanics, and since there is auto battle to rely on that can pull you through the initial challenges, it is still better to take on the training fight challenges available to learn or review the game’s rules.
Additionally, each quick session earns you 20 gems, and gems are a currency you can use to purchase more cards so having more of them early on should further boost you starting deck’s power and help you fair much better against the next challenges.
You can view the training fights via the menu icon at the right side of the screen. The Training Fight can be seen at the upper left side of the window and clicking on it will reveal sets of quick training sessions for you to accomplish. You should consider going through each item under the basic tab first and head on to the advanced set once you accomplish every item on the list.
Take note that you can repeat each task as often as you want without any penalty to in-game energy. Rewards are naturally available only on your first clear.
3. Get To Know Each Card In The Library
With a good number of extra cards to power up your starter deck and improved understanding of the games basic rules and mechanics, you are now ready to take on a series of card battles in Vanguard Zero’s story. Before you dive further into card battles, however, it is best to get to know each card in the library. Note that you can view all cards available in the game, even those you have not acquired yet. With this, take time to read through each card’s abilities so you will know how to use them as well as have open strategies in mind on how to prepare and deal with them in battle.
On the main screen, you can tap on the “Cards” icon at the bottom area to open up card-related options. Click on the “Card Overview / Crafting” banner at the bottom left side to open up the card library. Once there you can toggle between seeing the list of cards you own and all cards in the game. You can also delimit the card list based on their respective clans and costs.
In truth, it may still take a while to fully understand what each card is capable of and how each one works in combination with other cards. This can hold true even after the initial tutorial match and the training battles but just the same, feel free to read through each card’s information anytime you can. Do note as well that cards in battle can be tapped in the same way to read through their abilities. Later on, you will be spending a lot of time on this page as you create or modify your battle deck or decks.
4. Follow And Complete The Recommended Quests
One of the delimiting factors that hinder you from playing without end in Vanguard Zero is the in-game stamina. As most card battles consume energy, you will have to make the most out of every bit that you have later on.
For starters, though you will have more than enough of it but to ensure that you will have more in stock from mid to end game, you should work on increasing its max capacity, among other things. Your max stamina increases with each new rank you reach so the best way to have a higher max stamina value is to push for higher ranks as much as possible.
Every battle you engage in contributes to earning experience points that rank up your account but accomplishing quest objectives give it a tremendous boost. It may be hard to notice early on but you will find recommended quest objectives by clicking on it at the upper left side of the main screen.
Initially, these quest objectives take you through the natural sequence of progressing through the game, whether it be through completing stages or rides within the game’s story mode, engaging in battles via the character fights at the lower right side of the screen, or even some of the small stuff like changing sleeves or customizing your room.
In addition to outright rewards you earn for the battles you engage in, completing each objective earns you valuable rewards mostly contributing to having additional means of securing more cards from the shop. On top of that, each new rank you reach earns you extra rewards as well. At some point, it may happen that the task at hand will become a little bit challenging for you to accomplish. Do note that several different outcomes can happen between duels with the same opponent and, as such, you always have a chance to win even after facing defeat a couple of times.
On the other hand, you can always tweak your deck again or choose to wait for new cards to be obtained. You can very much engage in other activities once you find it too difficult to accomplish a feat within the recommended quests.
5. Engage In Challenge Fights For Extra Gems
In order for you to have a better understanding of how to strategize from deck-building down to effectively using cards in card battles, you should check out the Challenge Fight game mode that you can access through the menu, right beside the training fights. The Challenge Fight stages are full card battles where you get to take some powerful decks for a spin. It will be more challenging than any training stage and auto mode will not be available for you to use.
Each battle can earn you 20 gems on your first win and you can repeat any challenge as many times as you wish at no cost to stamina. This game mode is a great training ground before you hit the PvP content of the game so if you want to jumpstart your experience as a card battler, spend some time to take on all available challenges here.
6. Expend Extra Stamina On Character Fights
Given the relatively faster rate at which you will rank up your account within your initial game sessions, chances are that you will amass more than enough stamina than what you can normally consume. As each rank up increases your max stamina as well as gives you extra ones for free, you will soon have hundreds beyond your maximum capacity. For starters, the top options to spend all your stamina on are the story battles and the character battles.
However, if you hit a dead end and cannot win over a particular challenge in the game’s story, then be sure to expend your remaining stamina within Character Fight.
As you follow and complete the recommended quests in Vanguard Zero, you will be spending some time progressing through the Character Fight mode where you will engage in a card battle with NPC characters and unlock the other decks. Take note that winning against them with a 3-star rating will require using the same clan as they have in their decks, which means you will be spending some time in the deck builder menu to create new decks every now and then. If you notice, the rewards for each victory against any other fighter here are materials that you can use to craft new cards.
In addition to earning crafting materials from Character Fight, each battle will increase your friendship level with each character as well. As new friendship level arises, so too can harder difficulty levels be unlocked. Although it will certainly take longer the higher the difficulty goes, the rewards grow better as well.
To start off, you will only earn materials to craft Cray Elemental Cards on the “very easy” difficulty level and begin to earn higher rarity crafting materials as you progress from one difficulty level to the next. In this sense, you can freely farm for materials needed to craft cards for a specific plan so before you begin to empty your remaining stamina, you should decide on the main deck you want to prioritize building.
7. Update Each Deck As New Cards Arrive
Building your deck in Vanguard Zero will become a huge part of activities you engage in outside of card battles. This is most especially true considering that there will be scenarios when you have to use specific decks for a battle. For now, though, there are only 4 clans in Vanguard Zero but it is evident that more will be added in future updates. There is an auto-build feature in the deck menu that can quickly pick cards for you if you are still totally clueless as to how to build your deck but, of course, manually choosing which cards to include works best.
To start building or editing your deck, tap on the card button at the bottom of the screen and choose the Deck Building banner on the right side. You can choose to create a new deck or tap on any of the decks you previously built to edit it. On a previously created deck, you should see a “Build Deck” button. Tapping on it will take you to the cards page where your deck’s cards can be seen at the top of the screen and the other cards you can use below it.
Do note that as part of the basic rules, each card can only have a maximum of four copies and for cards that have trigger effects, heal can be added only 4 times while the rest can be used 9 times each.
Similar to the card library, you can easily see what each card can do by tapping on them. Holding a card from the deck and swiping downwards takes them off of it while swiping any card in your library upwards adds them to your deck. 13 cards for each grade can be added with a maximum of 4 sentinel cards as well.
The maximum number of cards per deck is therefore 40 with 13 for levels 1-3 cards and a grade 0 card. In any case, exceeding the number of cards will trigger a red mark on the respective grade so you will know when you have gone beyond the limit and added a card or 2 too many. Just a reminder, you can only build a deck using cards within the same clan and Cray Elementals serve as generic fillers that can be used across all clans.
Beyond the initial free gacha, you can quickly earn enough gems and gacha tickets to purchase more cards from the shop. Additionally, if you battle through the Character Fight mode frequently, you will soon be able to have sufficient materials to craft some cards you need, starting with R-grade cards for starters.
Be sure to make it a habit to revisit the deck building menu whenever you secure new cards as some of your new cards will certainly add more strength to at least one of the decks that you have created previously. Remember to save changes as well once you are done tinkering with your deck.
8. Accomplish Missions For Extra Rewards
On top of the instant rewards you obtain from each battle, as well as the additional bonuses you can obtain via accomplishing recommended quests and reaching new ranks, there are even more rewards you can earn in Vanguard Zero based on how actively you play. For the most part, you can accomplish numerous missions without even being aware of it but just the same, taking a quick look at each feat ought to be part of your routine to have it serve as a guidance on what activities you may be lagging behind in.
On the home screen, you can tap on the “Mission” button to see the list of missions you may have accomplished already along with others you should complete. Missions are divided into Daily Missions, Achievements, and Time-Limited Missions. For starters, daily missions pertain to the quickest and easiest feats that relate to the usual activities you should engage in on a daily basis. There are more than 7 missions available each day and accomplishing 7 of them earns you 30 gems. These feats are mostly easy so going for a full clear ought to be among your top objectives each day.
Achievements, on the other hand grant you rewards for reaching certain milestones across various aspects of Vanguard Zero. These are one-time targets that often progress to higher level objectives once you accomplish some feats. Gems and gacha tickets abound across the numerous rewards you can earn from breaking achievements so be sure to check the list out so you can focus on nabbing some of them sooner.
Always be on the lookout for time-limited missions as these will only be around for a while. At the time of this writing, reaching grade 11 in your account can easily earn you 3 copies of the “Blaster Blade” card, which is an essential component of Royal Paladin-themed decks. In any case, Vanguard Zero will surely showcase more time-limited events and missions later on so always check the missions menu when you are playing.
Vanguard Zero certainly holds a lot more content and features that cannot be covered in a single guide. With everything we have discussed in our beginner’s guide, however, we are certain that you will be much better prepared for more challenging card battles ahead, especially the PvP part. Feel free to add friends and invite them to the room for a friendly much and when you confident to duke it out with the rest of the virtual community, jump on in on ranked matches.
We certainly hope you learned a lot from our compilation of tips, cheats and strategies that we shared for Vanguard Zero. If you have played the game enough and discovered your very own tricks and strategies, we welcome you to share them with us via the comment section!