Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier Reverse

    I'll start off my review with this card since this has been and still is my favorite Ace in the game, and even then I have found myself sometimes blinded by new ideas and forgetting how I utilized her strengths in the past because she is just so flexible. Also, I am assuming that the reader of my reviews already know the effect of the cards I am reviewing. I've added a link to the cardfight wikia page in case you want to look up the effects. Also keep in mind this will probably be the longest card review for the Silver Thorns, as Luquier Reverse is the center and focus of the deck.

   So some brief introduction about the card, she can basically CB-1, and lock anything, call anything from the soul, and call it anywhere on your field. Basically, as long as your opponent doesn't have a Chaos Breaker Dragon and at limit break 4, you are essentially gaining a flat +1 direct advantage with decent quality (because you can pick what you call), and also potentially make your opponent suffer a indirect -1 from the +5000 power.

Her Strengths

   Luquier Reverse is a powerful advantage engine. Over the course of a game, she can easily generate up to +5 direct, quality advantages, as well as potentially up to -5 out of your opponent through soft minus with the +5k power if you shift it to the right column. Being arguably the easiest to achieve 13k body thanks to the nature of Pale Moon as a clan, plus the fact that she's an advantage engine with a very low cost for her skill, makes her very hard to counter through playing around her, because she has no clear weaknesses that one can exploit easily.

   What do I mean by that? With a very easy to achieve 13k body, it means if your opponent can't consistently form 18k columns, you can easily guard attacks with 5k shields, or 10k shields if they check a trigger. With a skill that can replenish any rear guards you wish from the soul easily, means you are resistant to retires and great at reforming columns. With a skill cost that costs only CB1, it means her skill can go off and sustain herself for a long time. These three properties combined means it's very hard for your opponent to rush the VG because if they do, you can easily bully their power columns with 19k ~21k columns, making it much harder to maintain 18k+ columns. Couple that with free shields you generate for CB1, it makes it even harder to break through her bulky defense. It also means if your opponent decides to stall and do RG trades, they will have a hard time winning because you can replenish very high quality RGs with a very low cost. Finally, if your opponent chooses to try and stall you out to wait for you to run out of CBs, it's difficult because the cost of the skill is so cheap, that you can and will easily form 21k columns for as long as 5 turns.

   Luquier Reverse can also stall exceptionally well. She can literally grind her opponent to death, and a rear guard killing-focused strategy is actually very viable. Her cheap skill, tanky body and the +5k she gets makes bullying and trading RGs very favorable and a very viable strategy. In fact, she is so good at this that in the BT12 meta, it wasn't uncommon for me to play like the infamous Tsukuyomi deck and reach your stack of triggers at the bottom of your deck (that resulted as a side effect of BT12 Silver Thorn soul charging). Not saying that you should aim to reach your stack of triggers, but just pointing out that she can stall for a loooooong time.

   Her 13k body also means cards like Raging Form Dragon and Dragonic Descendant will be much less effective when they re-stand, because these units need to pay extra CBs or do extra work, or meet extra conditions to force out as much shield out of a Luquier Reverse player as those with a standard 11k body. A re-standing Raging Form Dragon can only force out an additional 15k shield, and an unboosted Dragonic Decendant that didn't drive check a trigger won't even be able to hit her.

Her Weaknesses

   Aside from being hard countered by Chaos Breaker Dragon, Luquier Reverse's greatest weakness is that everything she excels at will pay great dividends over the course of the game. If you need something now and you need to turn the tables now, she can't do it effectively because using her ability in successions quickly results in bigger and bigger diminishing returns if used in the same turn. Upon first use of her skill, you gain decent advantage. Upon 2nd use, you're starting to remove the advantage you gained from your first use in the form of starting to save shields for your opponent, because you are actually starting to cripple your columns.

   Another weakness she has is that she has no real finishing power on her own. The +5k power is very useful in burning more cards, again, over time, but due to the cost of locking units, it makes Luquier Reverse unable to really burst for game without the help of combo-ing with other cards like Eva or Poison Juggler.

Fielding with Luquier Reverse 101

The Common Pattern

  First of all, the most important basic to know about her is that since you can lock anything, call anything from the soul, and call it anywhere on your field, don't fool yourself into thinking her ability can only be used once, can only lock the VG booster, or that you must call in the same column as the card you locked. This is the first and most common mistake people make when they approach Luquier Reverse. Always remember that you can lock and call your units on different columns, and that it doesn't matter if your locked unit is actually a booster or not just because it's sitting in your back row. As long as you can still scale it later somehow rather than being stuck with 2 attackers in the same column, you're fine.

This field requires 1 additional card to guard

The most common example, and also a most common pattern of having the locked and called unit on different columns, is to lock a RG back row and call on the other column.Compared to a standard field setup of 16|16|16, the setup in the image on the left creates a 12|16|21 field (9k is fine as well for the left most column, as long as it can still hit something). One may ask, doesn't this require as much total shielding as the standard column? (standard requires 10 + 15 + 10 = 35k shield for 2-pass, where the locked setup requires a 5 + 15 + 15 = 35k shield for 2-pass)

   Yes, the total shielding is still the same. But the minimum amount of cards required to guard is not, because there are no 15k shields in this game. The standard fielding takes a minimum of 4 cards to guard (10|10 + 5|10) for a 2-pass, whereas the locked fielding takes a minimum of 5 cards to guard, provided as long as the solo RG column is still able to hit something (5 |10 + 5| 10 + 5 for 2-pass). The introduction of Quintet Walls have somewhat broken this pattern, but they are almost never ran at more than 2 copies a deck and are often just skipped over as a whole due to their CB cost or deck-thinning side effect, so we can safely say they are a rare case.

Uncommon But Possible Patterns

That Ana is now a solo 12k attacker

  Another thing to note is, don't be afraid to call boosters in the front row by locking an attacker. If that's what you have to do to scale your field later so you're not stuck with 2 attackers in the same column and you know you can't go for game this turn, go ahead and do it. A booster that's called to the front row will likely still be able to hit something, and as long as you are forcing a card out of your opponent, you're still good. Remember, every player by default draws 3 cards per turn, so as long as you are forcing out 4 or more, you are making progress.

Not optimal, but possible if you need the +2

   It is even possible to lock two cards if you need to replenish two units onto the field. While it is sub-
optimal and is just asking to be PG'd or NG'd (if you don't drive check a crit), sometimes it might be beneficial to lock 2 cards of the same column if one of the things you will be calling has a power of 10k or under, because 9k and 14k are really the same; chances are you're just getting a 5k shield regardless. Generally, unless you have to or knows your opponent has no PG, try to avoid doing this.

Push for Game

VG is still 16k without booster

   Honestly, Luquier Reverse doesn't have that many ways to push for game herself, and you need to have Upright Lion and Zelma at the same time, have a Poison Juggler when you are successfully cross ridden, or just happen to be broke ridden. Just remember that when you use Poison Juggler on a cross ridden Luquier Reverse, she becomes a solo 16k attacker, making it safe to lock the VG booster, as shown in the image.

You have 2 21k lanes and Maricica can attack an interceptor

   Another possibility is to lock an RG and call a booster behind the VG, essentially making your VG 21k+, and then apply the +3k from the Poison Juggler to a 18k or above RG column, making it 21k+.