Black Knight

With H-BT04, Black Knights become an exclusive archetype apart from Deep and it's time to give them their own page. Similarly to Deep, Black Knights rely on flooding the drop zone with cards to fuel their effects. There's also this weird mechanic with Buddy Monsters...we can get to that in a bit.

There's really not much to say about them just now, other than the fact that it's basically a Deep deck except you replace beefy Size 3 tanks with Black Knights.

I'm pretty sure this is
actually not biblical
(besides the obvious
apocalypse drop)

Let's start with the Knights of the Apocalypse, the first beneficiaries of the Black Knight archetype. First is Gratos, a Size 2 monster with stats and abilities meant to tank. For 3 gauge, you can shove 3 Black Knight from the drop zone into your soul. If Gratos is your buddy, well, you can shove 2 more into there for a total of soul of 5 (-1.5 for +5?). Now, his ability allows him to put any number of soul to the bottom of your deck to destroy a monster of size equal to or less than what you put back. For example, if you put 2 soul back to your deck, you can destroy a Size 2, Size 1, or Size 0 monster (on a Counter timing). This ability is only useful for destroying Size 1 or smaller monsters, but you probably want to keep the soul so you can tank on Gratos. Since Gratos has 7000/3 offense, he's not a bad thing to keep around despite not having Penetrate or Double Attack.

Since you can look at Gratos's soul, you can actually seed the bottom of your deck which is kinda interesting.

Third Knight of the Apocalypse, Aberrucia is one of your Size 1 choices. He basically has Spectral Strike 1 if you have another Black Knight on the field, but if he's your buddy monster he gets Spectral Strike 2. Second Knight of the Apocalypse, Voremos functions as a secondary tank with 9000 defense with another Black Knight. If he's your buddy though, he can't be destroyed by card effects. Fourth Knight of the Apocalypse, Thanatos is a balanced 5000/2/5000 with another Black Knight on the field. But if he's your buddy monster (see the pattern?) he also gets +2 crit to become 4 crit.

More Death than Death Shield

Now, obviously you'd like all their buddy benefits but there's obviously no way to make them all your buddy simultaneously, right? Right? Wrong! Thanks to Apocalypse Death Shield, which primarily functions as a negate. Secondarily ,though, it can make all monsters on your field considered to be your buddy monster for this turn's attack phase. Now that's pretty funky. With two offensive benefits (Aberrucia and Thanatos) and one defensive option (Voremos), there's justification to using Apocalypse Death Shield on either turn. Makes you want to have more than 4 copies, right?

You also have access to multiple Size 0s, one of them being Apparition Demon Knight, Lasty. Lasty can go from field to the soul of a Size 2 or greater monster on the field, making him perfect to fuel Gratos and all the bigger Deep bosses.

Dark Fog allows you to protect monsters on the right and left, giving Black Knight good reason to run with weapons and call Gratos to the side. And here's where I can talk about where the Black Knight playstyle differs from normal Deep decks. You want to buddy Gratos and always call him to the side. He acts as a nigh-permanent 3-crit threat that never leaves the field...and he completely shuts down Size 1 monsters with no issue. Then you call a Size 1 to the other side and equip up a weapon. This fares well against both decks that call Size 1's and decks that call Size 3 (since you have a lot of power reach) and Dark Fog makes sure you won't be punished by counter removal.

- updated to H-BT04, CP01, H-EB04, H-TD02, PP01 -

All images used obtained from the official Bushiroad website and used here solely for reference purposes. Future Card Buddyfight!, logos, and respective content belong to Bushiroad. Large images belong to the Buddyfight! Wikia.