What I've been Up to Recently

What I'm Up to Revently

This image kinda sums up what
I have been cooking recently.

   So uh, been pretty damn busy recently due to work as usual (although more so these past few weeks; actually just had a 14 hour day @work as I'm posting this).

   Anyways, been playing and testing and building and tweaking Bermuda Triangles mostly ever since the Clan booster was revealed. I realized I do not like the play style of the new Duos at all, but also found out PRISM's play style is spot on; deck has an legit good early game, deck is very offensive and at the same time making defensive maneuvers and being massively fluid in answering most situations. Deck also has access to insane ability to go ham and smack people like a truck or a crazy gorilla most, if not every turn (and this is known as the Gorilla Deck in my circle). I mean, their initial Stride is like a smaller Conquest Dragon, and Olivia is like a smaller Saint Blow Dragon that enables additional attack and enables a whole chain of combos. Every turn that you stride essentially has the capability to either kill someone on the spot, or put them in that area.

  Deck is also highly combo-based with all kinds of open ended effects all while all cards are able to function incredibly well independently (which is important for consistency, because no one likes dead draws), resulting in the deck to have a very high skill cap.

   I'm still cooking up the deck profile, but due to the hyper intensive nature in terms of how the combos are done, I feel it's impossible to explain the combos clearly and make them easy to read all while being easy to absorb.

  To give you guys an idea what the deck is capable of and what the nature of their combo is like, a typical Olivia-Spica combo turn looks something like this (notice the only combo piece needed is Spica; the other cards can be any attacker/booster really):

Yes, I know this GIF is hard to watch and very fast.
I will work out a better way to show combo sequences.

    The GIF is my attempt to make it easier to absorb, kinda like the Silver Thorn ones... but obviously with a attack combo sequence this long, that GIF is way too fast and very hard to watch with no ability to pause to look at a specific segment.

So to break down what is going on in the image:

1.) Solo with your whatever beater (9~12k, usually at interceptor). Princess Celtic in this case.

2.) Attack with Spica, and use her ability to 'restand' Princess Celtic into a 12k beater

3.) Solo attack with a 12k Princess Celtic; keep her booster standing (very important)

4.) Attack with Olivia boosted by a trigger

     a.) bounce Princess Celtic, Spica, and Spica's booster (can be any booster)

     b.) because 3 cards are bounced, Olivia gains +1 crit and can call 2 units

     c.) call Spica and her booster back

     d.) do your drive checks

5.) because Princess Leyte was bounced, unflip 1 and power boost the other booster

6.) Attack with Spica, bounce the trigger and call Princess Celtic back @12

7.) Attack with a 12k Princess Celtic boosted by a 7+4k booster

Result

6 attacks in the following sequence, assuming 0 triggers were checked:

9 > 16 > 12 > 31(V) > 16 > 23

Well worth her price tag.
/all WORTH

   What is scary with this combo is that while it looks like a long 5 card combo, it's really a 1 card combo from Spica, because Olivia is always available in the G-zone, and you don't really care what the other cards are as long as they can form a column of some sort and you end up with a total of 2 other cards with different names other than Spica. 

   But anyways, a more in-depth article on this deck is work in progress and will be posted... some time in the near future... hopefully.

For those curious, the deck list as of today can be found here

Silver Thorn FC2015

Stable 1

Day 816435872365483798375982345,
still no sign of Pale Moon support.

For the list of Silver Thorn card effects, click here

FVG:

• Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Emil *1

Triggers *16: (5 Crit/5 Stand/2 Draw/4 Heal)

• Skyhigh Walker (Stand) *1
• Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Serge (Stand) *4
• Poison Juggler (Critical) *1
• Silver Thorn Barking Dragon (Critical) *4
• Silver Thorn Marionette, Natasha (Draw) *2
• Silver Thorn Juggler, Nadia (Heal) *4

Grade 1 *14:

• Silver Thorn Assistant, Irina *3
• Silver Thorn Assistant, Zelma *4
• Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Ana *3
• Silver Thorn Hypnos, Lydia *4

Grade 2 *11:

• Silver Thorn Beast Tamer, Maricica *4
• Silver Thorn Rising Dragon *4
• Silver Thorn Upright Lion *3

Grade 3 *8:

• Silver Thorn Dragon Empress, Venus Luquier *4
• Silver Thorn Dragon Queen, Luquier "Яeverse" *1
• Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier *3

G-zone *8:

• Silver Thorn Dragon Master, Mystique Luquier *4
• Miracle of Luna Square,Clifford *2
• Rain Element, Madew *2

   So this is my current build with Silver Thorns with FC2015 support. As you can see, largely due to the lack of support, the core of the deck still looks largely the same; the main difference is the proportions of some cards and having access to an actual legit G-zone.

   The trigger lineup is there to attempt to maximize archetype for ECB without compromising into running a full-fledged rainbow trigger lineup. In all honesty, I still prefer not running draws here because Silver Thorns are... well, Silver Thorns, so feel free to go for a fill 6/6 Stand/Crit split or a more crit-focused build because momentum is very important.

I wish you were Silver Thorn, I really do.
Hey, why don't you change jobs...

   Just keep in mind that for every card that's not of the Silver Thorn sub clan, you are risking Luquier Venus not being able to pull off her skill because as I've mentioned before, due to early CB usage in the deck, in most cases we are looking at needing 2/2 damage to be Silver Thorn rather than the typical 2/4 or 2/5. To just give you an idea what the difference is between running 8-non-Silver-Thorn card and only running 2-non-Silver-Thorn card using this handy tool here, at 8 non-Silver-Thorn cards, the probability of getting 2 out of 2 ECB-able damage is about 69.7% (meaning almost 1/3 fail rate), while getting 2 out of 2 damage to be ECB-able with only running 2-non-Silver-Thorn cards is about 91.9% (meaning less than 1/10 fail rate). If you feel you can live with slightly less consistency and go for 6 crit/6 stand, 8 crit/4 stand, or even 8 stand/4 crit, the chance of getting 2/2 damage to be ECB-able with running 4-non-Silver-Thorn cards is about 84.2%. And due to Silver Thorns still needing that momentum to win games, when you need to vomit a field with Luquier Venus but cannot due to whatever reason, it can easily cost you the game.


   Some people will immediately notice that I not only dropped all Breathing Dragons, but also 1 copy of Ana compared to the Legion era build, as well as dropping 1 Rising Dragon for 1 Upright Lion. This is due to the fact that we now actually have late game plays, we can shift some power and pressure off the early game and put it into the mid/late game. I will explain my choice in detail below:

I wonder why Bushit decided
to give PM a bishi.

   The drop of 1 Ana, one of our most important staples since the introduction of Zelma in BT15, is largely due to 2 reasons. The first reason is that we now have access to Clifford as a on-hit stride unit that can also trigger a Zelma full column re-stand, meaning we no longer need to rely completely on Ana to apply on-hit pressure for our vanguard column as the G-zone is basically 100% guaranteed to be there unless you G-assist. The other reason is that Silver Thorn is not only one of the few decks
that can take advantage of the sit-on-G2 game, but also that their late game compared to most decks in the S5 standards is still incredibly weak; while Mystique Luquier is an incredible card, Pale Moon currently not having access to their stride enabler hurts the consistency in which the deck can stride,
or otherwise it may take a minus to stride. If the game drags on too much after you are sitting on G3, chances are Silver Thorn decks will lose control of the momentum, and eventually the game in the long run fairly quickly as trading direct advantage for momentum is not sustainable. So ideally when we are sitting on G2, we could be sitting on a Maricica who applies the same pressure, or when we get into the late game, ideally we want our opponents to be at a spot where it's just not safe to let any vanguard attacks through, with or without Ana.


   Then there is also how there is now 3 Irinas with a maxed-out Upright Lions. This is due to the fact that she has fox ears our late game is now officially defined largely on 2 cards: Upright Lion and Mystique Luquier. Mystique Luquier works the best with Upright Lions as it doesn't just keep quality columns going, but also larger columns with the lions. Lions coming directly out of the soul with Mystique Luquier will need the aid of a Zelma to reach the next stage since he does not power up when the card itself is called from the soul.

Yay! She's back!

   This is where Irina comes in: to increase the consistency of getting Lions and Zelmas by the mid-late game. The slightly increased consistency in getting Zelmas by turn 2 is just a small bonus, but there is also the slight reduction in the reliance on our only loli Emil; Mystique Luquier herself, unlike Luquier Venus, is a flat break-even and does not plus. This means that if we rely completely on Emil to gather the soul we need, we are always suffering that -1 which we may or may not be able to recover through Luquier Venus due to Luquier Venus not being our only late game play now. If the usage of Emil can be avoided, then she will act as a warm body for you to trade for quality columns. There is also the fact that you can easily combo Irina with Zelma and Mystique Luquier to get another shot at getting an attacker when you need it - you simply superior call both animal ears Irina and Zelma with Mystique Luquier, resolve Irina first, and then resolve Zelma to swap Irina for whatever you may find.


   I've gone ahead and uploaded a video of a game I had with this build. I kinda sacked a 2-Zelma play on my 2nd turn, but it still captures the core and heart of what Mystique Luquier brings to the table (I literally gave no breathing room for my opponent with my endless flurry of quality attacks each turn, and I couldn't have done it without Mystique Luquier). You will also notice that when I mulligan, I am actively mulliganing for an early game play.