United Sanctuary | Dragon Empire | Star Gate | Dark Zone | Magallanica | Zoo | Other
Characters appearing in the Collectible Card Game of Cardfight!! Vanguard, which is set on "an Earth-like planet" known as Cray. This page contains characters who don't belong to any of the game's six nations
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Cray Elementals
The Cray Elementals are primordial spirits that have existed on Planet Cray since the dawn of time, originally manifesting as formless concepts like "Energy" or "Magic". They have recently gained the ability to take on temporary physical forms by tapping into a mysterious power deep within the planet, responding to the wishes of those dwelling upon Planet Cray.
Cray Elementals belong to every Clan and Nation simultaneously, and can thus be included in any Deck without restriction. The majority of them are Grade 4 "G Units" (as opposed to "Normal Units"), which can only be brought to the field by using the "Stride" skill to summon them from the "G Zone" for one turn.
Giant Deity of Distant World, Valkerion
They will know. The absolute power of the great Astral Deity!
- Celestial Body: His body has stars within, which is made more apparent in the anime.
- Not the Intended Use: Valkerion is meant to be used in a Genesis deck as it's the only clan able to turn a rearguard circle into the Astral Plane which is the only way to call Valkerion. However, thanks to being a Cray Elemental, Valkerion can be used with other clans and has seen play in Gear Chronicle where it is used to increase the total grade count among their bound units required to use the ability of their Grade 4 units.
Messiah
A powerful god of creation and positive emotions, Messiah is the Big Good of the Vanguard setting, embodying the antithesis of the Void and its master Gyze. In ancient times, Messiah waged war against Gyze in "The Cataclysm", calling countless warriors of light to its cause to fight against its enemy's Zeroth Dragons and Apostles. After a long and arduous struggle, Messiah was victorious, casting Gyze down and imprisoning it.
Messiah resurfaced in the form of Harmonics Messiah, which embraced the Link Joker soldiers who had been slain in the Great Star-vasion War and cleansed them of the influence of Void, taking them as newborn children of Cray as they reincarnated. As part of doing so, Messiah itself took form as Neon Messiah, who grew to become the leader of this new faction of Link Joker.
- Big Good: Messiah is the representation of all that is good in the world.
- Can't Live Without You: Due to their duality, Messiah and Gyze are linked in such a way that if one ceases to be, as Gyze does by performing its suicide attack, the other will slowly wither away.
- CCG Importance Dissonance: Messiah received perhaps the most lackluster representation of any major lore figure in the setting, particularly given its divine nature: its original card, Harmonics Messiah, was a promo vanilla Stride whose only distinction was being the very first Stride card in the game.
- Light Is Good: It's associated with light and is the purest embodiment of good in the setting.
- Meaningful Name: The ultimate being of good in the setting is called "Messiah", reflecting its divine and benevolent nature.
- Messianic Archetype: In more than name, its Harmonics Messiah incarnation was the first card in the game to belong to all Clans and Nations, and it implicitly forged alliances between many different groups during the Cataclysm.
- Our Dragons Are Different: It possesses a draconic appearance.
Void
A mysterious dark force that acts as the Big Bad to Cray, and by extension, the series itself. Void is described as "the power of nothingness": a nihilistic force that spreads across the universe without cause or consciousness, robbing the planets it conquers of life and light. The "Link Joker" clan and their "Lock" ability are said to be physical manifestations of Void.
A being infected with the power of Void is granted incredible strength: unleashing their repressed desires, granting supernatural powers (such as telekinesis) and enhancing their existing abilities. This property of Void would later be refined into a process known as "Reverse", which does not grant additional powers but completely twists a victim's personality into one that unquestioningly follows the will of Void.
- Adapted Out: Void does not make an appearance and is not mentioned in the reboot anime.
- Big Bad: It acts like this to Planet Cray, and by extension, the entire series.
- The Corruption: "Reverse" changes the affected person's personality into that of a follower of Void.
- Eldritch Abomination: Void is an entity that embodies nothingness and comes from outer space.
- Empty Eyes: In contrast to Psyqualia's Glowing Eyes of Doom, a Reversed fighter displays this.
- Expy: Void is essentially Vanguard's own equivalent to the Light of Destruction. Both are Eldritch Abomination originating from outer space and act as the Greater-Scope Villain for their respective series. They even employ similar methods as both corrupt individuals which they then use to spread their influence to others by defeating them.note
- Greater-Scope Villain: Of season 1; the entire conflict between Royal and Shadow Paladin was brought about because the clans of Cray were arguing over who would lead the fight against Void.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: Initially, nothing was known regarding its goals outside of it showing up one day and being a threat to Planet Cray. This was eventually subverted in later seasons
- Outside-Context Problem: In-Universe and in real life. In-Universe, Void simply appeared one day and began to threaten Planet Cray, inadvertently setting the anime's plot into motion. In real life, everyone expected Phantom Blaster Overlord to be the Big Bad on Cray (like in the card game lore), but instead the mysterious force took that role while Phantom Blaster Overlord didn't even appear.
- Not His Sled: Phantom Blaster Overlord isn't the Cray plot's Big Bad in the anime. The "Mysterious Force" is.
- Power of the Void: Literally.
- The Virus: "Reverse". When a Reverse Fighter defeats a normal Cardfighter, the loser becomes a Reverse Fighter as well who can then spread the corruption further.
Gyze and the Zeroth Dragons
Dragon Deity of Destruction, Gyze
- The world will be silenced.
- Awesome, but Impractical: To even play Gyze, you need to have scored 5 triggers throughout the entire fight, and used his skill as Neon Gyze to bind 5 Zeroth Dragons from the G zone. His base form as Neon Gyze is also lacking Forerunner and does not increase any of your unit's power with triggers while face-up in the G zone, so you'll suffer defensively and offensively until it's time to play Gyze without a deck dedicated entirely to it. But if you get him out, he's a 30k power Vanguard that no normal deck would be able to even SCRATCH, is immune to almost all card effects along with the Zeroth Dragons, protects the rear-guards by making them unable to be attacked, and can give the opponent one turn before they lose.
- Badass Creed: A recurring line spoken by his Apostles and Gyze himself while Diffriding Kazuma is "The world will be silenced!", a perfect description of Gyze's ultimate end.
- Bright Is Not Good: In his true form, Gyze is a pure white mecha-dragon, but it's a god of destruction which seeks to annihilate everything.
- Eldritch Abomination: No one is exactly sure what Gyze is, other than a god. Gyze is said to be neither a human, dragon, demon, or machine, despite possessing traits of both a dragon and a machine.
- Evil Counterpart: To Messiah, being the god of negative emotion and destruction to its positive emotion and creation. It's taken further by their card incarnations, with both possessing a "Neon" starter Vanguard form.
- Foreshadowing: The teaser text given for Gyze's card incarnation was "Overturning the common sense of Vanguard". One of Gyze's defining features is that he's a double-sided card that turns over from Neon Gyze to Dragon Deity of Destruction, Gyze.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Why does Gyze want to destroy the world and return it to nothingness? Just because. overDress-era lore seems to indicate Gyze came into existence purely to counterbalance Messiah, with nothing like personality or desire factoring into the equation.
- God of Evil: He is the god of negative thoughts and destruction who opposes Messiah.
- Greater-Scope Villain: His actions, and by extension, his minions are responsible for all the troubles Cray and Earth are going though.
- Humongous Mecha: Gyze may be a not-a-machine, but he does have traits of one, most notably a giant cockpit on his chest where his current vessel (Kazuma in the anime, Luard in the lore stories) is placed.
- Instant-Win Condition: When your turn starts, he automatically deals one damage to the opponent for every Zeroth Dragon rear-guard you have. Not enough to end the game unconditionally but damn well close enough.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Right there in his name and in the recurring Badass Creed spoken by his Apostles. If released, Gyze would begin to destroy all things in existence, as he did by creating the Zeroth Dragons in ancient times.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: After he was defeated in the Cataclysm, Messiah sealed him away.
- Taking You with Me: Attempts to pull this on the verge of defeat. It doesn't work.
- Unblockable Attack: Gyze's lore says that, as the deity of destruction, all of its attacks are fatal and unblockable. Indeed, gameplay-wise there is practically nothing you can do to stop Gyze from dealing five damage to you at the beginning of their turn. (That said, they can still be dodged, as Chronovisor Heritage does in-lore.)
- World of Silence: If left unchecked, Gyze would eradicate all life to leave only a silent world.
Zeroth Dragons
Zeroth Dragon of Zenith Peak, Ultima
Zeroth Dragon of Inferno, Drachma
Zeroth Dragon of Destroy Star, Stark
Zeroth Dragon of End of the World, Dust
Zeroth Dragon of Distant Sea, Megiddo
Zeroth Dragon of Death Garden, Zoa
- "Devour my future and manifest!"
Each Zeroth Dragon embodies a Nation and can be called upon by any Clan within that Nation, counting as belonging to all such Clans. They are summoned by Ultimate Stride, requiring the player to discard a card with the same name as their vanguard while at Generation Break 3 or greater. They possess incredible power but come with an equally incredible drawback: when they return to the G Zone at the end of the turn, they exclude themselves and every card in the player's G Zone from the game, completely sealing Strides, G-Guardians and Generation Break for the remainder of the fight.
- All Your Powers Combined: The skills of the Zeroth Dragons combine elements of the playstyles from the clans of the respective nations. Apart from Dust: none of its skills use the soul in any way, a trademark tactic of Dark Zone.
- Megiddo calls units from the hand (Bermuda Triangle) and drop zone (Granblue), and gives them the ability to switch places with another rear-guard after attacking (Aqua Force).
- Drachma retires all of your opponent's units (Kagero and Narukami), binds the retired cards (Narukami and Nubatama) and forces your opponent to discard cards from their hand (Nubatama).
- Zoa's ability to set a unit's Power to 99999 is inspired by the high-power rear-guard tactics of Neo Nectar and Great Nature.
- Stark's ability to attack multiple times without resting combines the restanding style of Nova Grapplers with the high-power Vanguard tactics of Dimension Police.
- Ultima calls cards from the deck (a combination of all three Paladin clans) and stacks cards on top of the deck (Oracle Think Tank and Genesis).
- Death or Glory Attack:
- A Generation Break deck that includes its Nation's Zeroth Dragon has this in mind: either the dragon's power will win them the game that turn, or they will lose their Strides, G-Guardians and Generation Break, condemning them to near-certain defeat.
- In the anime it's even worse, if you actually lose, all of your stride cards burn to ash, literally representing destroying your future.
- Detonation Moon: Zeroth Dragon of Destroy Star, Stark was powerful enough to destroy one of Cray's satellites when it fully unleashed its firepower.
- The Dreaded: As Gyze's greatest servants, the Zeroth Dragons are hated and feared for the terrible devastation they caused. Zoa's lore mentions a custom in Zoo where wooden idols of it are burnt in gratitude towards the ancestors.
- Elemental Embodiment: Each embodies an element befitting the nation they were born of: Distant Sea, Inferno, Death Garden, End of the World, Destroy Star, and Zenith Peak.
- Evil Counterpart: Like Harmonics Messiah and Cray Elementals, they serve as generic support cards available to multiple clans.
- Hero Killer: In their time, the Zeroth Dragons slew many brave warriors who opposed them. Ultima in particular was only defeated by the sacrifice of a brave warrior.
- Light Is Not Good: Zeroth Dragon of Zenith Peak, Ultima embodies the United Sanctuary nation and thus the power of light, but is as much a servant of Gyze as its brethren. Its lore mentions the residents of the Sanctuary mistaking it for a guardian dragon up until it started killing them.
- One-Hit Kill: Zeroth Dragon of Death Garden, Zoa can call a unit from your hand, set it's power to 99999 and you win if they deal even one damage.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Most historical records use the titles of the Zeroth Dragons (Distant Sea, Inferno, etc) rather than their individual names (Megiddo, Drachma, etc), as the former were the names given to them by Messiah's forces who wrote the records.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Each dragon is effectively a superweapon with a tremendous amount of power. Drachma burnt half of Dragon Empire to the ground single-handedly, and it's rumoured that Megiddo flooded Magallanica by destroying mountain ranges with a sweep of its tail.
- Power at a Price: The Zeroth Dragons effectively have the power of a Generation Break 8 card at half the requirement, but in turn have a stricter Stride cost (which also prevents the use of free Stride skills like Dragheart, Luard's Ritual) and the far more crippling drawback of removing their player's ability to use Strides, G-Guardians and Generation Break if they don't win that turn.
- Red Baron: Their individual titles (Inferno, Distant Sea etc) were given to them by Messiah's forces, who didn't know the actual names of the Zeroth Dragons.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The six were sealed away by Messiah when Gyze was defeated, with the lore hinting that they were sealed away on Earth due to Cray being so devastated by Gyze that it could not contain them.
- Shrouded in Myth: Because of the sheer power of the Zeroth Dragons and the ages that passed since the Cataclysm, there are many rumors about them, with Megiddo in particular having no solid record of its defeat and thus theories about what became of it.
- Sigil Spam: Each Zeroth Dragon has Gyze's six-pointed star mark somewhere on their body.
- Walking Wasteland: Zeroth Dragon of Death Garden, Zoa absorbed the most spirits of any Zeroth Dragon and continued to do so even after its birth, to the point that it almost left Zoo as a lifeless wasteland by devouring all of its spirits.
Progenitor Dragons
Six Dragons G-Units who, like the Zeroth Dragons before them, belong to each nations of cray instead of a specific clans. Unlike normal stride units, they require the player to discard a card with the same name as their vanguard as the cost for stride, similarly to Ultimate Stride. Each of them has a continuous abilty which prevents them from being turned face-up by effects but in exchange allow the player to stride without paying the cost once they're face-up in the G Zone.
- Foil: To the Zeroth Dragons. The latter are meant to be played as finishers and will lock you out of using your G-Zone for the rest of the game after the turn in which whereas the Progenitors are utility cards which allow the player to stride without paying the cost while they're face-up in the G Zone, encouraging them the player to use them as soon as possible.
- Megaloma, the Progenitor Dragon of Zoo, has the ability to prevent the player from losing which is the opposite of Zoa's own ability to grant a rearguard the ability to instantly win the game if its attack hits.
- Loophole Abuse: Averted in that the Progenitor Dragons cannot be turned face-up in the G Zone through effects, so the player has to stride them them first in order to benefit from their skills which makes all further use of Stride free. However, said skill can be applied to other copies of themselves since, in spite of the cost, they have Stride rather than Ultimate Stride.
- No-Sell: Megaloma is the first unit in Vanguard with the ability to prevent a player from losing the game.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Each of the Progenitor Dragon is of a different type of dragon and as such have varied appearances, from the whale-like Balanerena to the alien-looking Origorem.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Gilgal's skill gives it the ability to battle all of the opponent's units at once, allowing him to potentially wipe the opponent's entire field.
- Status Effects: Origorem's skill makes the power of all of the opponent's units become zero until the end of the turn.
Crossovers
Touken Ranbu
A special crossover clan featuring characters from Touken Ranbu, a game where you raise and train the handsome Anthropomorphic Personifications of historical Japanese swords.
They have two unique abilities: Shinken Hissatsu ("True Sword Finisher") gives their Vanguards and Rearguards additional skills when the player has three or more damage. Homare ("Glory") skills are incredibly powerful, but you can only activate one Homare skill per turn. They later gained a third ability called Nitou Kaigan ("Two-Sword Enlightenment"), which activates when a Touken Danshi - Uchigatana unit is or was boosted by a Touken Danshi - Wakizashi unit.
BanG Dream!
A second crossover set based on the popular BanG Dream! franchise introduced in their own booster set, BanG Dream! Film Live Their first set is based on BanG Dream! Season 2 which includes all five bands from the mobile game as well as the new band in Season 2 RAISE A SUILEN.
Their primary gimmick is based around special Order Cards known as Music which then is placed in the back middle position behind the vanguard and applies effects to a specified band for the turn. In turn, the band that is used determines the playstyle of the deck. Their Imaginary Gift is Force.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!/Zerg Rush: This is Hello, Happy World!'s main strategy: Returning their rearguards to their to hand and re-calling them mid-Battle Phase in order to perform additional attacks.
- Girl Group: They are an archetype entirely filled with these, with six different bands in counting.
- The Power of Friendship: A recurring theme in their skills is that they require the presence/involvement of one of their/all of their fellow bandmates in order to maximize their output.
- In Poppin'Party: The main Grade 3 unit Glittering Stage, Kasumi Toyama and the Grade 3 Music Card "Returns" requires the presence of each Poppin' Party member (Kasumi Toyama, Tae Hanazono, Rimi Ushigome, Saya Yamabuki and Arisa Ichigaya to be present on the field. The Grade 3 Kasumi allows you to give your entire front-row the Trigger effects of Triggers you drive check, while "Returns" at the start of your Battle Phase, searches the top five cards of your Deck for a Critical Trigger to place on top of your deck, and then if your opponent's Vanguard is Grade 3 and above - gives all of your units 5000 power for each Critical Trigger that was revealed.
- In Afterglow: The Grade 3 Music Card "On Your Mark" requires you to stand up to one of each Afterglow member (Moca Aoba, Himari Uehara, Tomoe Udagawa and Tsugumi Hazawa) when your "Ran Mitake" Vanguard attacks in order to obtain two Force Imaginary Gifts.
- In Pastel Palettes: The Grade 2 Music Card "Yura-Yura Ring-Dong Dance" allows you to call a unit with "Chisato Shirasagi" from Deck or drop zone while you have a unit with "Aya Maruyama" in its name on your field. And if Aya is your Vanguard, the rearguard circle Chisato is in becomes a Vanguard circle for the turn.
- In Roselia: "Little Demonic Lord, Ako Udagawa" can search "Refreshing Research, Rinko Shirokane" from among the top 5 cards of your deck. Meanwhile Rinko herself gains an extra 5000 power if Ako is on your field.
- Secret Character: The RAISE A SUILEN archetype is only obtainable via Secret Packs as opposed to being part of the regular booster set.
- Theme Naming: The names of their Music Cards are based on the songs each respective bands sang during the Film Live.
