Monthly Bushiroad Issue 5, Part 2 - The Circus is in Town Once Again!

Monthly Bushiroad Issue 5, Part 2 - The Circus is in Town Once Again!

  Friday, January 10, 2014    byak

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As we continue on with our overview of the recent Monthly Bushiroad issue, we're going to go over the new Pale Moon units next. The Silver Thorn archetype made its debut back in Booster Set 12 (aside from the fact that Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier originated in Booster Set 7) and became its own playable deck, featuring a Cross Ride for Luquier along with a decent amount of support units. The units overall were fairly lacking, so Bushiroad decided to give them a bit more support. Keep reading to see what they got, and our analysis!

Originally, the Silver Thorn units revolved around Pale Moon's newest boss unit: Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier "Reverse". Her Limit Break came with a locking cost and a counterblast, but you got to bring out any Pale Moon from your soul and give it an additional +5000 for the turn. The +5000 power mitigated the locking cost, so it was a fair Limit Break for its cost and power. The deck was very consistent at creating columns, seeing as you essentially turned every counterblast into a free unit once you hit four damage. Silver Thorns also had pressure units and power attackers, so there was always something good to bring out.

The original Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier wasn't a bad unit at all either. Despite having a 10000 base, it enabled Luquier "Reverse"'s Cross Ride defense, and its Limit Break wasn't that bad either. If you had an open field, three counterblasts could easily fill it up. It also became easier to achieve the right soul for Luquier as well, since Pale Moon decks gained Silver Thorn Assistant, Ionela and Silver Thorn Assistant, Irina. These two cards made it very easy to get the full value from Luquier's Limit Break, which became relevant at times.

Another strength of the deck was Pale Moon's newest Break Ride: Miracle Pop, Eva. When you Break Ride over Eva, when your vanguard attacks you get to swap two units on your field with two units in your soul. What this basically meant was that you could swap two rested units for two standing units in your battle phase, giving you more attacks. In addition to that, you could call out Purple Trapezist, which would then swap another unit for a new one. In the end you could basically swap four of your units on the field for two fresh columns that usually hit for decent numbers. This is what gave the new Pale Moon deck the burst to combo with its consistency.

Despite all of this, the problem that Silver Thorns had is that they did not have enough units to choose from. At the bare minimum, your grade 2 lineup would either have to include non-Silver Thorn units or have to play all three of the grade 2's that they had. The archetype felt very unfinished, and Bushiroad was aware of this. So, what exactly have they gotten so far?

Let's start with their newest boss: Silver Thorn Dragon Empress, Venus Luquier. Despite her name being a mouthful, she actually came with an even more consistent Limit Break than her previous forms. Once per turn, at the cost of counterblasting two Silver Thorns, you got to soulcharge 2 and then call any amount of Pale Moon units from your soul, given the total grades among them were six or less. For example, you could call a grade 3, a grade 2, and two grade 1's if you wanted. A grade 0 wouldn't contribute to the total either, so you could bring out any amount of those. This skill comes with a lot of flexibility, despite it being the most effective in a Silver Thorn deck. There are a lot of combinations of grades to bring out, especially considering the fact that you could theoretically always bring out any amount of grade 0's. The extra soulcharge you got is also quite significant, even though there are a lot more easy methods of soulcharging.

But what are these new forms of soulcharging? It turns out that all of the soulcharging you need comes from Silver Thorn's newest starting vanguard: Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Emil. Emil comes with a fairly simple but very effective skill. You can slide her into the soul to check the top five cards of your deck, then choose up to one grade 1, grade 2, and grade 3 Silver Thorn from those cards and add them to your soul. This essentially means that at the most, you can grab a total of three units and add them to the soul, or none at all. However, it is very unlikely that you won't put any in the soul, because as long as you don't reveal five grade 0's, you'll have at least one card you can add. This also doesn't come with a counterblast cost, so you can use it multiple times if you pull it out through the means of Venus Luquier or other units. It's also useful because of its interactions with Venus Luquier. There's no real loss to using it up, because with Venus Luquier you can call any amount of grade 0's, including Emil.

Silver Thorn Assistant, Zelma is the next notable card on our list because it allows Silver Thorn players to remove Purple Trapezist from their lists for something that's more suited for them. Zelma does the same thing that Trapezist does except 1) It's a Silver Thorn, 2) It has 1000 more power, 3) It has to slide in a Silver Thorn and you can only call Silver Thorns from it. While it does have more advantages to it, it hardly works in other Pale Moon brews due to its allegiance to Silver Thorns. Though, in a Silver Thorn deck, the advantages are extremely important. Trapezist was significant in just about any Pale Moon deck, and now Silver Thorns have a better Trapezist that works only for them. The 7000 power is really big for this card, since it now makes the 16000 columns with your 9000 rear-guards and other relevant numbers. You can also bring it out with Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Maricica and Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Ana to give your deck more battle phase tricks.

One problem with Pale Moons that has always been present is the lack of power coming from your rear-guard columns. Fortunately, to solve this problem, we now have Silver Thorn Upright Lion, a grade 2 with 9000 power. It hardly stays at 9000 power, however. Whenever a Silver Thorn is called from your soul, Upright Lion gains +3000 power. The effect bares resemblance to Cloudy Sky Liberator, Geraint, except it is much easier to activate Upright Lion. Zelma alone gives Lion +3000 power, plus Venus and Eva both give Upright Lion very high amounts of power in a turn. Maricica and Ana also help, but they're not as guaranteed. Regardless, this card is really good in the deck and it's very difficult to not get a power boost from it.

These four new cards give Silver Thorns a lot of power to match up with opposing decks. Pale Moon's strongest match-ups are versus retire heavy decks. Since Venus Luquier lets you theoretically fill your field at the cost of two counterblast, you no longer have to worry about Star-Vader, Chaos Breaker Dragon, Transcendence Dragon, Dragonic Nouvelle Vague, or any of the Eradicators ruining your day. Of course, the deck plays like average when against other decks, but the thing to remember about Luquier Venus is that she does not have to call to open rear-guard circles. If you want to proc Upright Lion or just fix up your columns, you can use Venus to call units over the existing units that have lost their value as the game has progressed. Overall, Venus gives your field a heck of a lot of consistency, which is what Pale Moon has always been about.

As we close this article, I want to go over two other recent Pale Moon units: Egg Juggler and Miss Direction. In my article where I went over the recent Cardfight Pack, I talked about Egg Juggler. I had hoped that it would get a new home in Booster Set 15, and I think it might just get that. The cool part about Venus Luquier is that its Limit Break not only gives Egg Juggler fuel, but it lets you call out any Pale Moons, not just Silver Thorns. The part that sort of binds it to Silver Thorns is its especial counterblast, but that's not too much of a problem. I can see a hybrid between Silver Thorns and generic Pale Moon as a possibility, where you'd use cards like Purple Trapezist and such to give your generic Pale Moons value. However, I'd only go to deck building once we've seen the rest of the new Pale Moons.

Another unit that was revealed recently was Miss Direction. It's a grade 2 that comes with an 8000 base, but if you call a Pale Moon from your soul during your turn, you get to call Miss Direction out from your soul, but it returns in the end phase. It's a rather unique card with a lot of potential. It works especially well with cards like The Girl Who Crossed the Gap and Purple Trapezist and it can even extend your battle phase tricks. I'm not entirely sold on it yet, but like Egg Juggler, we'll see when we get the rest of the new Pale Moons.

That's about it for now! Pale Moons are certainly going in the right direction at the moment, and all we can do right now is hope Bushiroad keeps this up. As always, leave your comments and questions in the comment section below and stay tuned for our next article, where we go over the new Megacolony and Aqua Force units!