The Silver Thorn Beast Tamers and Zelma

Silver Thorn Beast Tamers and Zelma

   I decided to write about these 3 units together because it's weird to write about them separately when them going together is what makes them so formidable. Again, I assume you the reader already know their effects. If not, you can look up Maricica, Ana, and Zelma respectively on the wiki.

   This article will assume you are playing with BT15 support since I'm writing all 3 together; there really isn't much to write about Ana and Maricicia with only BT12 support since the only combo the do is with Irina who gives you additional soul charging, and otherwise all they do is just call a single unit with a very high chance of a -1 because your front field will likely be full. What they do essentially with BT12 support is still there in the BT15 meta if you can't get a Zelma in your soul.

   I'll first do a brief overview on the cards themselves before jumping into the shenanigans they do and the havoc they can wreck.

   On a side note, I used a lot if GIFs in this article, so give them a few seconds to load up. And you can click on the GIFs to expand them.

Edit:
 -I've cut down the GIF size by 50% (length and width) to make it less of a pain to load up. Let me know if there are any other issues or if it's still an issue.

Marica

   Maricica is a pressure VG-only on-hit unit that has the ability to call specifically a Silver Thorn unit from your soul, and doesn't care if your VG is a Silver Thorn or not, meaning even if you're sitting on an Eva, she still does her thing. Unlike the traditional Pale Moon pressure unit Alice, Maricica cannot pressure by attacking rear guards, meaning once your opponent hits limit break or hits their 5th damage, Maricia becomes vanilla because no one will ever let anything hit at that point regardless of what unit it is.

   She is one of the best rides you can get on a G2 ride aside from Lilian, and that is also when she applies the most pressure because your opponent will be reluctant to guard when you have ~1/3 chance of drive checking a trigger (provided they're not sitting on a 10k vanilla), and that in the early stages of the game, any card in hand is very precious.

Ana

   Ana is Maricica in the form of a booster, and she is probably the best VG booster for Silver Thorns right now thanks to Zelma. A VG boosted by Ana essentially becomes similar to DOTE where you punish your opponent greatly if they let your VG hit with an extra attack for a cheap CB1, except without the Twin Drive and without the need to Persona Blast. She is incredibly annoying to deal with if your opponent has no way to lock her or retire her because she essentially leaves your opponent with 2 bad choices: 1.) actually guard a VG attack early on when you still need damage to function and hand is still precious, or 2.) take the hit and have another coming at you or your RG, putting you greatly behind in damage, or putting you behind in direct card advantage.

   Similar to Maricica, she has the issue of becoming vanilla when your opponent gets to 4 or 5 damage for the same reason. Unlike Maricica, sacking and drawing into a lot of Ana doesn't do you much good because Ana need to hit on her boost, meaning she doesn't do jack on her own.

Zelma

  Zelma is the best thing that happened to Silver Thorns in BT15. He (yes, HE) is essentially a Silver Thorn only Purple Trapezist with 7k power, and being a Silver Thorn makes him call-able by Ana and Maricica. He single handedly changed Ana and Maricica from mediocre units into absolute monsters, allowing a full-column extra attack or 2 smaller attacks (I will explain this combo later) for a cheap price of CB1. It's also searchable by Emil and Irina, making it relatively consistent and easy to get one in your soul. Needless to say, it's very important to get at least 1 copy of Zelma in your soul ASAP if possible, and hence he's usually your best G1 ride.

   One does not simply try and list all the things Purple Trapezist can do in a brief intro, and the same goes for Zelma. You guys will see what this guy is capable of later in the combos.

The Trio at Work

    So what exactly is so amazing about these 3 cards working together? If you have been playing Pale Moon for a while, you probably know the classic combo of Midnight Bunny and Purple Trapezist, where Bunny will boost an attack, and if the attack hits, you use Bunny's skill to swap places with a Trapezist in your soul, and then using Trapezist's skill, you send the rested front row unit back into the soul, and call an attacker out, essentially creating a pseudo-stand effect. However, this classic combo grants you 1 additional full column attack, and then Trapezist is stuck on the field, and Bunny is stuck in the soul, essentially making the combo a 1-time thing.

The basic Zelma combo with Maricica/Ana

   The Ana/Maricica and Zelma combo is like the Bunny and Trapezist combo on steroids other than that the need to land the attack on the VG. What happens is, you land an attack with Ana/Maricica, call Zelma from soul, send a rested unit into the soul with Zelma, and call it back out in stand position, similar to the Bunny/Trapezist combo (gif on the left).

   However, unlike the classic combo, the Silver Thorn's version of it it's not a one time thing. Whatever Ana and Maricia calls will return to the soul at the end of the turn, and Ana/Maricia themselves do not disappear from their own skill, meaning once you get the combo going, the combo pieces will always be there until you run out of CB or your opponent retires your stuff. Now what does that mean? It means as long as they can't retire your Maricica/Ana, they will be under the wrath and pressure of your combo every single turn at no additional cost on your end; you are putting all this pressure on for free!

This kind of field often spells the end for your opponent

   So if you sack some kind of field like the image on the right on your 2nd turn, you're opponent's pretty screwed if they're sitting on a VG that's anything 9k or below; the game might even end before they ride to Grade 3 because a field like seen on the right will cause a lot of pain; it's almost like you have a Galaxy Blaukluger that works on turn 2 without needing to limit break. Obviously a field as scary as seen on the right isn't common, so don't build your deck assuming you'd be getting that every game. Just keep in mind that if you do have something like that in your hand, make sure to take advantage of it and make quick work of your opponent.

Other Tricks

CB1 for 2 attacks!

   There's also a neat trick that allows you to gain up to 2 bonus attacks for the cost of CB1 with Zelma and Ana/Maricica. As long as your opponent has something that's 7k or under in their front row, you have the option to call Zelma to your front row. Zelma and the unit he stands will both be able to attack, granting you 2 attacks.  Obviously, if your opponent is still sitting on a 7k VG, this trick is very useful in expanding the damage gap or the advantage gap, as could be see in my Luquier Venus and more Zelma video. This is a huge advantage, because you are essentially getting 2 or more cards' worth of advantage through a measly CB1. Why 2 or more? If they guard both attacks, that's obviously getting 2 cards for CB1. But if they take the damage, that means later into the game when you swing at them with a 21k column, they may be forced to guard an attack with 2 cards because they can't afford to take further damage.

If you happen to have a open spot in front if a booster,
Zelma can swing for 12~14k in those cases.

   An alternative way to gain 2 attacks for CB1 with Zelma that does not require your opponent to have exposed 7k front rows is to call Zelma in front of a unused booster, standing the attacker on the other column. This can be valuable at times as well, and usually best used when you have an unoccupied front row to avoid the -1. However, if the situation calls for it, calling over an attacker using this method is also an option.

Don't like the draw trigger? Just swap it out.

    Another thing Ana/Maricica and Zelma can do is they can swap out your useless cards and re-scale your field if you need to. For example, you may have a draw trigger that you don't know what to do with, and you have a booster that can't hit anything by itself, but if you call both to the same column, you're able to hit something. Well, you can easily swap the draw trigger out for something more useful if your Ana/Maricica lands a hit and calls Zelma. The best part? Sometimes you don't even miss an attack because of it.

Now you'll have half a DOTE next turn.

  This also applies to getting Ana behind your VG. Remember I mentioned earlier in this article about the goodness Ana is when behind a VG? And how she essentially makes your VG half a DOTE? Well, you can give up an extra attack (for a boost) and just fetch key cards.



   Zelma can also function similar to a Purple Trapezist in re-standing entire columns if you run Eva on your break ride turn. However, just remember that Zelma cannot do anything to an Eva sitting in a RG column, essentially making the column 'stuck', so just be careful when and where you call an Eva as a RG if you do run Eva.

Video Examples

Here are a couple of actual game examples where Zelma is being used:
1.) Zelma Video Example

2.) Luquier Venus and more Zelma

   This article took me a lot longer to write because of the GIFs. I figured with cases like these 3 cards it's probably more clear and straightforward to just use animated GIFs to show examples of what and how certain stunts can be done.