[ECG] Deck Check: Reverse Circus

[ECG] Deck Check: Reverse Circus

  Saturday, March 01, 2014    byak

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It's a surprise to me that we haven't done a Deck Check on Pale Moon yet. It's arguably mine and my co-writer Lequier's favorite decks. Booster Set 12 breathes new life into them, and now that's out in the English game, let's talk about them!

The old Pale Moon strategy was centered around Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier. Luquier had an impressive Limit Break, where, at the cost of three counterblasts, could call out a grade 0, 1, 2, and 3, essentially giving you four units for almost half of your damage. Unfortunately, the deck was evidently very counterblast heavy and fell short at times, especially considering Luquier came with a weak 10000 power base. As with most clans, Pale Moon got a reboot with Break Ride support, along with archetype support as well, featuring Luquier herself!

Reverse Circus
17 / 13 / 11 / 9

1 Silver Thorn Assistant, Ionela
4 Silver Thorn, Barking Dragon [Critical]
4 Poison Juggler [Critical]
4 Silver Thorn Marionette, Natasha [Draw]
4 Silver Thorn Juggler, Nadia [Heal]

4 Silver Thorn Hypnos, Lydia
4 Silver Thorn Assistant, Irina
3 Purple Trapezist
2 Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Ana

4 Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Maricica
4 Silver Thorn, Rising Dragon
3 Silver Thorn Marionette, Lillian

4 Miracle Pop, Eva
3 Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier "Reverse"
2 Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier

The star of our circus here is the new Reversed form of Luquier: Silver Thorn Dragon Queen "Reverse". She's a Reverse Cross Ride of Luquier and has a skill that functions similarly to her. Her Limit Break requires you to counterblast one and lock a Pale Moon to call any Pale Moon from your soul, and give it +5000 power during that turn. You're not limited to using the skill once per turn, so you can use it two, or even three times! Even though you end up cutting off access to boosters, the +5000 power usually compensates fairly well, especially with 11000+ attackers that make 16000 columns on their own. Luquier "Reverse" takes good advantage of the soul charging aspect of Pale Moon and gives you access to cheap and easy advantage as a result.

You also might notice that we play two copies of the original Luquier alongside our three Luquier "Reverse". The cool advantage of playing a Cross Ride in a soul heavy deck like this is that you have the chance of soul charging the original form of your boss, meaning if you get lucky and soul charge Luquier, Luquier "Reverse" enters the field with 13000 power. You don't have to go through the effort to ride both of your bosses and you can reap the advantages of having a heavily defensive vanguard early on, which is always nice. You can also take advantage of the original Luquier's Limit Break easily enough in this deck as well, along with her other skill that gives her +3000 power whenever a unit is called out of the soul. Luquier especially helps when you're playing versus retire heavy decks like Eradicators, letting you easily come back after they commit and overextend.

Miracle Pop Eva is the newest grade 3 to join us, and it's also the Break Ride for Pale Moon. Like all other Break Rides, Eva gains power when she attacks. But in addition to gaining power, she also soul charges one, which can help the deck a lot. Her main attraction though is obviously her Break Ride skill. When you ride a grade 3 Pale Moon over Eva, the new grade 3 gains +10000 and when it attacks, you can send two Pale Moon from your field into the soul. Then, you can call any two Pale Moon from your soul. At the very least, you can swing with both of your rear-guard columns first, then swing with your vanguard. Eva's skill slides both of your front row units in and you call out 11000+ attackers, giving you two new fresh attacks. This obviously creates a lot of burst, but there's other applications as well. If you're stuck with a bunch of weak units on the field, you can exchange them for stronger units from your soul, and you can also call out a fresh column instead of two unboosted units. No matter what situation you're in however, you will most likely be able do something impressive with Miracle Pop, Eva.

The cool synergy between Luquier "Reverse" and Eva is that Eva makes it easier for Luquier "Reverse" to lock units. If you have Luquier "Reverse" by herself, obviously locking out your vanguard booster would be quite detrimental because of how easy it becomes to guard your center column. During the Break Ride turn, however, Luquier "Reverse" gains +10000 power for herself, so you probably don't need that booster for the turn, creating easy fodder.

Speaking of our vanguard booster, our starting vanguard is actually really important to our deck's strategy. Silver Thorn Assistant, Ionela. Ionela's skill activates whenever it boosts your Silver Thorn vanguard and hits their vanguard. When you do, you can look at the top two cards of your deck, choose up to one Silver Thorn, put that card in the soul, then put the other card on the bottom of your deck. Essentially every turn in the early game where you get to attack, you're probably using Ionela's skill. Ionela does a lot of work by herself and starts you off with a decently sized soul. The only problem is that while you're given more of a choice than soul charging the top, you can still hit non Silver Thorns and triggers and not benefit much. Regardless, it's better than most other starters right now, as long as it's not sniped early on.

Silver Thorn Assistant Irina is more or less your backup soul charger for when Ionela doesn't do enough. When Irina is placed on the field and you have a Silver Thorn vanguard, you get the same soul charging effect as Ionela's. This can help you dig for your necessary components for your soul, and it also has a 7000 base, which isn't shabby at all. Considering there's not that many other options, this card fits in nicely with the deck. However, it's important to remember that Irina and Ionela won't function while you have Eva as your vanguard, because she's not a Silver Thorn. If anything, it's not that bad because Eva soul charges by herself anyway.

Next up we have our Silver Thorn Beast Tamers, Ana and Maricica. Whenever Ana boosts or Maricica attacks, and the attack hits a vanguard, you can counterblast one to pull out a Silver Thorn, which goes back into your soul at the end of the turn. Now, I had originally underrated these cards a lot. In my eyes they just looked like pressure units that don't actually generate advantage and only work when you have open slots, but then I got to actually testing them out and they turned out a lot better than I first interpreted them.

There are a few things to consider when looking at the Silver Thorn Beast Tamers. First, Silver Thorn isn't a very counterblast heavy deck to begin with. You're not always going to use up your counterblast from your Luquiers alone, so the rest you can devote to the Tamers. Second, these cards actually generate a form of invisible advantage. You won't get to keep the unit you call out, which is true, but, the unit you call out is most likely either going to attack their vanguard or a rear-guard, which will either always gain advantage or just deal damage. The fact that these enable you to score multiple attacks is huge, even if they end up poking other rear-guards. Riding Maricica as my grade 2 in this deck has been one of my favorite plays, considering it's an almost guaranteed hit, and you get a good pool of cards to grab because of Ionela's skill. Maricica then becomes the terror of the early game, but she's also terrifying in the late game as well.

When I get around to Break Riding Luquier "Reverse" over Eva, if I have an open column, I usually lock my vanguard booster and to call out a +5000 Maricica, and then lock up a unit on the other side of my field to call a +5000 Ana. Now, if you view this from your opponent's perspective, they have to deal with a 21000-23000 power vanguard, a 11000-12000 rear-guard, and then a 26000 column that creates two more potential attacks if it hits, along with the one or two new attacks following Eva's skill. In addition to using your Beast Tamer's skills, you can also slide the units you end up calling with them for Eva so they don't go back in the soul in the end phase. What would normally be five attacks becomes five or more attacks if they can't deal with a 26000 column, so it's really important to use this to your advantage.

Despite this deck revolving around Silver Thorns, I also made the choice to include Purple Trapezist as well. Purple Trapezist has always been a solid card in Pale Moon, and it has its applications in here as well. For those unfamiliar with Purple Trapezist, when it's called as a rear-guard, you can swap a Pale Moon on the field except itself for another Pale Moon from your soul that isn't another Purple Trapezist. It basically trades what might be a useless or invaluable unit for a useful one, which it always good. Its 6000 power is problematic, but with three Lillian and four Rising Dragon, you can still make decent columns with it.

Trapezist also comes with synergies with Eva as well. When you Break Ride over Eva, instead of sending your front row into the soul, you can send your back row into the soul and call out two Trapezists, which then swap your front row for standing rear-guards. You don't get any additional attacks from it, your new columns now cost an extra +5000 shield to guard with, adding up to the burst that Eva creates.

Those are the important card choices, anyway. Lillian and Rising Dragon are really important for their name, and Rising Dragon is especially important for dealing without boosters, which is something you need to remember. The play style that I use when playing the deck is to over-commit with my hand into the front row. Luquier "Reverse" and Luquier create efficient advantage, so you can afford wasting attacking units from your hand because you're going to refill your field later in the game anyway. I also recommend trying to keep your Sentinels in your hand whenever possible. It's usually the right play to ride Sentinels over other units so you can create a strong turn two board, but in the case of Silver Thorn, holding your Sentinels is important because you create your board from your soul, and not your hand. It's odd to think about, but when you consider some of the newer powerhouses, Sentinels have just gotten more and more important.

That's the gist of the deck. If your area is filled with retire heavy decks, I heavily recommend giving this deck a shot. Decks like Eradicators and Seal Dragons can commit all of their resources to keeping your field empty, but you can just keep replacing your units thanks to your heavy soul. I honestly think the deck does take a good amount of practice to get good at, though, so don't just grab the deck and run into a tournament with it. As always, if you have questions, go ahead and leave them down below and we'll get to them. And as always, thanks for reading.