Silver Thorn BT15+
Early-Mid Game Focused - Stable 2
For all decks labeled as:
stable - working as intended.
test - still under tuning and some things may or may not work as intended.
For the list of Silver Thorn card effects, click here
FVG:
- Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Emil *1 (set in stone; still the best starter)
Triggers *16: (6 Crit/6 Stand/4 Heal)
- Skyhigh Walker (Stand) *2 (best other stand in stand variant; occationally useful)
- Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Serge (Stand) *4 (ECB, and this is Stand variant)
- Poison Juggler (Critical) *2 (best other crit trigger; occationally useful)
- Silver Thorn Barking Dragon (Critical) *4 (set in stone, unless playing none-crit variant)
- Silver Thorn Juggler, Nadia (Heal) *4 (set in stone)
Grade 1 *14:
- Silver Thorn Breathing Dragon *2 (for early and mid game presence)
- Silver Thorn Assistant, Zelma *4 (set in stone; defines Silver Thorn early and mid game play)
- Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Ana *4 (set in stone; defines Silver Thorn early and mid game play)
- Silver Thorn Hypnos, Lydia *4 (set in stone, because no QW avaliable)
Grade 2 *11:
- Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Maricica *4 (for early game presence)
- Silver Thorn Rising Dragon *4 (set in stone, 12k beater OP)
- Silver Thorn Upright Lion *3 (finisher; can be very strong in early/mid game if pulled off some lucky Ana/Maricica/Zelma play)
Grade 3 *8:
- Silver Thorn Dragon Empress, Venus Luquier *4 (finisher and aggro-maintainer; keeps attacks pumping late game regardless of retires)
- Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier "Яeverse" *1 (unfortunately much less effective against Legion units, but still has her place occasionally; some people would prefer Eva in this case for more aggression)
- Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier *3 (backup Venus and cross ride fodder)
This is my current build that I've been testing with, and is here for my own reference and record keeping because it works. I've gotten too sick of checking draw triggers in the early-game-focused Silver Thorn to the point that I'd rather run stands in their place to maintain the ECB balance and Zelma swappability; Silver Thorn needs to get attacks and pressure as well as damage in throughout the entire game, not gaining more cards when your early game is your strongest point of time and when Venus already can generate a huge advantage. Also running draw triggers makes a deck weaker against things like Sin Buster and CEO Yggdrasill, or any other Glory cones for that matter. The good news is Silver Thorn's natural attack pattern even in its crit variant, due to Zelma being a thing, already supports stand triggers (it's naturally the RG > VG > RG pattern).
Skyhigh Walker is decent in that as long as your not aiming for a "free" Venus skill, he doesn't cripple your columns nearly as much; making Venus's skill equivalent to CB1 is more than enough in most cases. He is also very, very situationally useful during the late game when all 3 of your columns are consisted of something that includes Ana or Maricica and when your CBs are typically all used up; getting 1 CB open at that stage when your opponent is at 4 damage drives them nuts as letting anything through will result in an additional attack, so that letting a column through doesn't actually save them shields. But I still don't find Skyhigh Walker worth using over Silver Thorn triggers for the sake of EBC and Zelma; being swappable by Zelma is a big plus during the early and mid game when you can scale and change your field to a much more threatening one.
I have a replay for this deck to show a glimpse of how it works. I'll upload it and put it here once I find time making it into a video.
How have the stands been working out for you? I run the 10 crit 2 draw lineup. I wanted to try 8 crit 4 stands, but havent had time to practice lately.
ReplyDeleteLove your blog by the way. Helped me a lot. Keep it up. Also thinking about playing witches so, i'll be here often. Haha.
Stands have been working very well. I've not really been missing and wasting my stand triggers since I've been expecting them, and the only times I 'waste' my stand triggers is when: 1.) I happen to have nothing to stand on my G1 ride turn and my VG's the only attacker, and 2.) checks double stands because I usually leave 4 RGs on the field and attack with the lone RG first.
DeleteStands also gives your opponent a lot of pressure and screws up their early and mid game shield calculation, especially when you stand your Maricica, which usually results in a Maricica it that leads to 1~2 more attacks, or further hand depletion after they already dedicated and guarded your Maricica and Anas and when early hand is precious. Later in the game it makes your lines more fluid, like you can stand a 9k attacker and pass the 5k to the other column, so the 9k attacks an interceptor and your other column can swing for 21k when you just ate a 5k shield from your initial 9k attack, enabling the 1 stand trigger to force out 2 cards instead of 1 as opposed to the crit trigger.
And this is kind of a weird side effect stand triggers have on the deck: you save CBs because usually when you check a stand you won't need to pay the CB1 for Ana and Maricica, which in turn makes it more likely for Venus to go off twice. It's an interesting butterfly effect that I didn't think of until I actually tried it our and stumbled upon it.
Personally I've been finding 6 crit/6 stand to work better for me, because I'm expecting both at a higher consistency. When it's 8 crit/4 stand, I really don't like how I still need to play as expecting stands, but really much more likely to see crits (to the point it's as likely as a typical standard 8 crit/4 draw deck).
And thanks for the feedback, glad you like it :)
If you see any misplays or issues also don't hesitate to let me know.
Mkay. Awesome. I'll try out the 6/6 see how that goes.
ReplyDeleteGG. Stands worked great. Haha. If Silver Thorns get anymore quality support (though they have just about evertyhing they already need) they'll probably be the offensive deck in the game. Haha.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it!
DeleteSilver Thorn could use some legion boss actually. Currently the deck is so focused on the G1~G2 that G3 is mostly vanilla beat stick for the purpose of refilling the field and being SC'd just so it can swing for 11k solo. But Bushi don't tend to give side character clans more support that much sadly...
I'll be recording some matches with them soon on my teams youtube channel. Just wanna make sure I have all their combos down and such first. I'll be leaving a link to your blog for those looking to learn Silver Thorns also. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteSure, let me know!
DeleteDoes this build still work well with all the BT16 out and BT17 coming very soon? I've been extremely interested in building Pale Moon.
ReplyDeleteIt still works early on against BT16 in the JPN meta. But the power creep eventually overwhelms it to the point where if you don't win by the latest, something like, 2 turns into your G3 ride, chances are you're not going to win because Silver Thorn G3s just can't hold their weight at all in the Legion meta; Silver Thorn's game post their G3 ride is so weak compared to Legion G3s.
ReplyDeleteYou CAN intentionally stay on G2 for a turn just so the other deck has to vanilla on their G3 for a turn, but realistically, 1 turn, or maybe (you'd be pushing it) 2 turns sitting on G2 could work, but anything beyond that you'd just lose out to Twin Drive even if they just go vanilla beat. Holding onto G2 on purpose for this deck is actually (unfortunately) a very important skill in the post Legion meta, because riding onto G3 and not winning within the next turn at the latest is basically death sentence due to LB4 G3s (that doesn't have a decent secondary skill) without the enabler are just ridiculously weak against Legion bosses.
Thanks for the reply, I will probably build this on the side of Yggdrasil and Vera, as those two will probably be my main decks along with SP Witches.
ReplyDelete