ShelterDrake

Although the name comes from the lesser dragons known as “Drakes,” in the anime it’s represented as a Dragon Turtle, also called “Lónggui,” which combines two celestial beasts (Seiryu and Genbu). It’s commonly used in Feng Shui as an ornament symbolizing good luck and longevity.

ShelterDrake is, in theory, a tribute to a Bey from the original series, widely assumed to reference Daichi’s Strata Dragoon, a more grounded dragon compared to Tyson’s.

It’s a light Blade, extremely thin, with an oval and concave shape. It’s split into two main divisions that form a very pronounced hook between them, and on the top it features subtle ridges that create the stylized head of the dragon.

ShelterDrake serves a very specific role: acting as a destabilizing ramp. Its wide, oval, and ultra-thin shape lets it easily slip underneath the opponent’s Blade.

Against aggressive Beys, this causes them to deflect using their own power, altering their trajectory, going wild, and frequently self-KO’ing. Basically, it turns them erratic, letting ShelterDrake defend surprisingly well against them.

Against more stationary opponents, it can lift and destabilize them. Combined with the constant wear from its ridges during sustained contact, it can drain a huge amount of energy. On top of that, its hooks have a solid chance of reaching Ratchets, making explosive finishes fairly common. Because of this, it can give even top-tier stamina Beys serious trouble.

To maximize this effect, it’s essential to use it in low or mid-low combos and launch it very tilted, so it stays at the perfect angle to function literally like a ramp.

The issue is that ShelterDrake tends to recover its upright posture pretty quickly, making it hard to keep that ideal angle throughout the battle. This makes the opening hits crucial, when it still has higher spin speed and retains the optimal tilt. Once it fully stands up, its destabilizing power drops sharply.

Its biggest weakness appears when the hooks make direct contact with the opponent’s metal. This creates massive recoil that it simply can’t handle due to its low weight. That’s why being upright or running higher heights doesn’t help it at all.

On top of that, it loses movement speed quickly and has slightly below-average stamina. Every second that passes without landing an impact reduces its effectiveness fast, since it not only slows down but also becomes more vulnerable as it loses tilt.

Interestingly, it’s not an easy Blade to fully knock out of the stadium. While its light weight makes it prone to lateral pushes, its oval shape causes it to rebound often in the stadium pockets. These rebounds cost a lot of energy, but it usually re-enters the fight, often only losing one point by stamina instead of two or three. This gives it more chances to look for decisive finishes.

Because of this, despite being light, it can become a surprisingly tough opponent even for highly competitive Beys, both heavy stamina types and aggressive ones. This gives it an uncommon level of versatility for its weight class.

In general, it’s recommended to improve its stability to slightly reduce recoil. Launch it at max speed and heavily tilted in low combos to directly receive the opponent’s impact, or use mobile tips to hunt opponents near the edges and force early knockouts.