CB3 G-PR♥ISM Prototype 4

Test Build - 4

PRAISE THE SUN!

For all decks labeled as:
stable - working as intended.
test - still under tuning and some things may or may not work as intended.

*Note: Working as intended != finished build, it just means deck functions as planned and is overall consistent

FVG:
PR♥ISM-Duo, Tisza *1

Trigger: (8 crit/4 draw/4 heal):
PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Clear (Critical) *4
PR♥ISM-Miracle, Canary (Critical) *4
PR♥ISM-Miracle, Adria (Draw) *4
PR♥ISM-Miracle, Timor (Heal) *4

 Grade 1: (*13)
PR♥ISM-Duo, Aria (Perfect Guard)  *4
Persevering Talent, Shandi *3
PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Leyte *4
PR♥ISM-Romance, Mercure *2

Grade 2: (*11)
Admired Sparkle, Spica *4
PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Celtic *4
PR♥ISM-Romance, Lumiere *2
PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Rosa *1

Grade 3: (*9)
PR♥ISM-Image, Vert *4
Brand-New-PR♥ISM, Garnet *3
PR♥ISM-Promise, Labrador *2

G-Zone: (*16)
PR♥ISM-Promise, Princess Labrador *4
School Etoile, Olyvia *4
PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Vert *2
Air Element, Sebreeze *1
Hand in Hand, Leona *1
Sailor's Medley, Nasha *2
Dark Element, Dizmel *1
Metal Element, Scryew *1

    So it's been a while since the last update, and honestly after being bombarded with bad cards after bad cards that were revealed during Clan Booster's reveal month, I wasn't so sure that Prisms would make it back  alive. However, they DID manage to make it back alive and also turns out to be the only surviving deck type out of the disaster that is Clan Booster 3. PRAISE THE SUN is really all I can say as the Prism Sunshine indeed did save Clan Booster from becoming a complete train wreck.

Anyways, before I start I want to show off my swag that I pulled out of my 5 boxes of CB3  ~:3c

Coral bre... bestest!

   Alright, now back to the deck. So I've started testing since the Brand New Prisms reveal (without much success for obvious reasons), and right after Sunshine Prism's reveal, I started vigorously testing to see how the new Prisms cards would play out. The list you see here is my 4th prototype iteration I worked on and so far, and I'll explain some of the thought processes.

Earlier Prototypes

   Typically unless something is dead obvious, I sanity test most new cards before I start diving into cooking up prototypes as doing so gives me a better picture how cards are intended to work and how they actually work in practice. So yes, I have tested with Emeral and Sapphires prior to the prototypes to verify their playability, but they unfortunately don't really make it to the playable cut.

To give a brief preview of the prototypes I messed around with prior to the 4th one:

Prototype 1:
4 Garnet 4 Lab 1 Vert all in gorilla (this variant attempts to abuses the extra attacks from Sunshine Vert into Garnet/Labrador)

   Prototype 1 ends up with a lot of multi-attack, but lacks the consistency abuse Garnet/Lab's LB4 after a Sunshine Vert attack due resource issues and how Sunshine Vert is a more costly restand than your typical restanders (net -2 instead of -1). Overall I didn't like it because it is too much of a glass cannon, and the added reward didn't feel like it justified the amount of risk that's added to this variant.

Prototype 2:
4 Vert 4 Garnet 1 Lab with some Clears and Rosa (this variant attempts to abuse Sunshine Clear)

   Prototype 2 had some serious issues with Sunshine Rosa and OG Clear where both of them ends up just being vanilla and dead draws way too often. This resulted into a build where if you can't afford to abuse Clear either due to CB issues or other reasons (or, simply damage checking/drawing into your Vert/Rosa/Clears), you are stuck with cards that doesn't do much overall. It ends up being a less consistent and less powerful original gorilla.

Prototype 3: 
4 Vert 4 Garnet 1 Lab 4 Emilia and Akari over Tisza for anti-kagero/Chaos semi-advantage bruiser (this variant attempts to ignore Kagero and generate good advantage by giving up speed)

   Prototype 3 was interesting; a LOT of tempo were lost in this build because Mecure and Tisza has to be dropped with that many non-Prism G2s. The trade off while isn't terrible, is not great as it makes the deck very slow (and while being slow, does not hold up the power to other slow decks like Seven Seas or Nociel). At the same time, it reduced Sunshine Vert plays consistency considerably due to the heavy amounts of non-prisms in the deck. However, it does give Kagero some serious headaches with Emilia having Resist because as most people are aware, Kagero today tends to run 2~3 Denial Griffins and 1 Defeat Flare Dragon. What this means is if you use a Princess Labrador to pump up your Emilia lane into 26k, Kagero will have trouble guarding that lane with only 1 card because vanilla Griffins/Defeat Flares only guard for 15k shield value.

Here are a few more random notes regarding my testing during the development process for the prototypes.

Current Build

   For prototype 4, after having experimented with the new cards quite a bit and having issues over complexity, I reverted back to the simpler build that goes back in focusing on consistency and treat the new cards as a bonus rather than the main game plan. This ended up being much better than the other prototypes and is basically an extension of the original gorilla.dek.


   The deck largely plays similarly to the original gorilla, but has several new combos and options to jump into, now allowing the deck to adapt to more different hand types and situations. Other than the obvious Sunshine Vert plays, most of these combos involves Sunshine Clear. I'm still exploring new combos, but I already know that you can get some funny interactions on Sunshine Vert turns.

New Toys

PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Clear

You thought Flogal was strong?
Well here's our version.

   While everyone were probably hyped all over Sunshine Vert as a Prism Nextage, and she is indeed a great card, Sunshine Clear is the true MVP in my opinion of the Prism Sunshine trios. For the first obvious bit, she has Prism in her name, and that alone already did a lot. But when she was revealed, what completely blew me away was her skill; I was not expecting Prisms to receive a critical trigger as strong as this.

   Sunshine Clear is one card that fits in multiple roles rolled all into one. For starters, she gave Prisms an additional way to perform multiple attacks during battle phase, and that is huge. What this means is Prisms are now less reliant on Spica to perform multiple attacks, and it gives more ways, and hence consistency, to push in those extra attacks than before.

   She can turn into a 9k beater on a Princess Labrador turn and then turn herself into a 9~11k beater in the same turn. She can also allow Olyvia to make 5 attacks instead of the traditional 4 without a Spica (eg. attack with her boosted/boosting something, attack with the other side front row only, then Olyvia bounces Sunshine Clear column and the solo beater on the other side and calls 2 back, Clear's skill superior call a beater/attacker from deck), or even with Sunshine Vert (eg. Sunshine Vert bounce her and a front row unit, superior call Sunshine Rosa to the front, then Vert break ride to trigger Rosa twice). She also works with Spica, allowing you to call a full column, or turn into a Clear that returns to hand but gives whatever beater Spica called out a total of +7k with Spica's power boost, pushing even your 9k beaters casually to 16k. I'm sure there are more combos, but these are just a few examples (I'm still exploring other ways to abuse this card).

   She also increases your striding consistency, allowing you to almost always have stride fodders in hand once you start striding if you need to (which also conveniently adds to Sunshine Vert consistency). Besides that, due to the fact that she can transform into either an attacker or a booster, she drastically increases the consistency of providing you with a flow of attackers should you need them. Better yet, she does all this while diluting your deck of non-triggers and shuffling her back and increase your deck's trigger concentration. To make things even more favorable, Olyvia and Princess Labrador both have the ability to bounce your rear guards before they perform drive checks, so you don't even need to wait to receive increased change of hitting triggers as a nice little bonus.

   All in all, this card is ridiculously fluid and strong, and I'm sure there are more combos to be explored from this card.

PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Vert

   Then we have our big star of the show, the one card that attracted all the spotlight in Clan Booster 3, a card that some claim to be broken - Sunshine Vert.

A 3rd finisher-tier stride along side with
Olyvia and Labrador is great

   On first sight she seems OP and seems like another Nextage, but that's only on the surface and isn't entirely true. Once you read a little deeper, you'll notice there are several key differences: for starters, Sunshine Vert is more costly to use than your standard restanders.

   Instead of costing a net -1 like everyone else, she costs a net -2 (discard 3 + 1 from reride for a +2 from twin-drive). On top of that, she has a lot more conditions slapped onto her, requiring a Prism G3 to re-ride into, and for you to be in LB4. What this means is she's not only more costly, she's also generally harder to use than Nextage, and therefore having a much higher risk to stride into due to making you prone to take damage (she costs a net -2) when you are already at high damage. To make the matter worse, her skill is a limit break, and she doesn't activate her skill until after performing drive check, giving her a chance to fail if you happen to check a heal trigger. Lastly, unless you are already sitting on a Vert or at least going into a Labrador, the 2nd attack generated from Sunshine Vert isn't as consistently strong as Chronojet.

   However, this doesn't stop her from being a great card. Unlike Nextage, Sunshine Vert has tremendous synergy with other Prism G3s, typically enabling 1~2 extra attacks while being a pseudo-Nextage. This alone already gives Sunshine Vert a good chance to be deadlier than a Nextage. In additional to that, she also works well with cards like Princess Leyte or Yarmouk, making sure the quality if your extra attacks are high. Finally, unlike Nextage, she is not generation break bound, and this means if someone tries to trade damage with you and ends up high in damage, you could now dunk them with a Sunshine Vert play, which works nicely in conjunction with Labrador's LB4 (who could dunk people before if you were to ride to G3 first).

   Do keep in mind that typically Sunshine Vert forces out pretty much the same amount of cards in terms of minimum amount of cards required to guard all the attacks as a traditional Olyvia-Spica turn (although she does require higher quality otherwise), and the classic Olyvia-Spica turn is of much lower risk to perform. So make sure you stride accordingly depending on what is the best in terms of risk-reward factor based on your situation.

    In essence, she's a high risk, very high reward card. But due to her high-risk nature, it is very unlikely that you'd ever want to stride into her more than once, and that's the primary reason why you see me only running 2 at the moment.

Brand-New-PR♥ISM, Garnet

Just as we rejoice getting another G3 in Prisms,
Vert is mandatory at 4 again.

   Garnet is a new Prism G3 that Prisms received in CB3, and functions similarly to Labrador in that her LB4 allows her to call up to 3 Prisms. Unlike Labrador, she trades the +10k power and +1 critical for a LB5 triple-drive, and cannot bounce on her own. 

   The greatest difference between her and Labrador is that Garnet's LB4 can call over occupied circles. While this may not seem like much, it's actually not a small deal, because that means unlike Labrador, she can enable up to 5 attacks on her own, and on a Sunshine Vert turn, it means she can call over an existing Spica to allow you to weave in some Spica madness with Sunshine Vert that Labrador cannot do. However, unlike Labrador, she attacks for weak numbers after a Sunshine Vert if you managed to miss Vert as your initial ride, and on top of that, the bonus skill she gains through LB4 is prone to failure if you check heal triggers. And these factors together makes her not really a direct upgrade to Labrador, but rather a G3 that does similar things with different niches, and hence she's not going to be replacing Labrador directly.

   Another niche she has over Labrador is her 2nd skill can be triggered off by Leona. Honestly, this isn't something you can count on as Leona is usually rather underwhelming most of the time (card Leona calls cannot bypass guard restrictions that prevents calling from hand, and the call to guardian circle is mandatory if she chose to bounce a unit), and that the ability is very weak to controls and opens you up against control decks if you chose to try to do it. However it's still a neat little bonus if it happens.

   I'm still currenly unsure of which is the G3 of choice between Garnet and Labrador, but as of now I'm leaning towards Garnet.

PR♥ISM-Image, Sunshine Rosa

Vanilla

   The last of the Sunshine Prisms, that unlike the rest of her sisters, is unfortunately a vanilla the bulk of the time. What killed this card's utility is that requirement of having a vanguard with LB4, meaning she does not function when you are on Olyvia or on Princess Labrador. The reason she's ran is for a increased consistency for Sunshine Clear, and how she still has the niche of making some funny plays on a Sunshine Vert turn (and you can directly search her out with Sunshine Clear). Another small little niche that has yet to occur for me is that she is also triggered by Leona for more defense boost.

   Keep in mind that even if she is bounced herself, her skill can still be triggered. What this means is that for example, if you have her on the field and used Shine Vert's skill and then proceed to break ride, she can easily be triggered 3~4 times and give you a nice little power-up (just make sure that if she is bounced herself, she's bounced by the break ride and not the stride so she dips in from the bounce from the break ride).

   Overall, I can see 1~2 of her being ran in the deck, but being a vanilla really hurts her, and I'm honestly not sure if she's really worth the spot.


Emeral and Sapphire:

   Unfortunately for Emeral and Sapphine, they're not going to be used in the new Prisms for several reasons. Mostly because they are way too limited and narrow in their timing, have way too limited targets, and way too limited uses to justify running them. Emeral for example doesn't even function properly on Olyvia turns (she'd be practically vanilla), and Sapphine basically provides nothing to the deck as she bounces before main phase (meaning you not only need to have units on the field, it also doesn't synergize with Princess Leyte) and is limited to bouncing Prisms only (meaning she really isn't doing much).

Closing

   I believe this prototype variant will be the core where my stable builds will stem from as it's got the best all-rounded performance overall. However I do feel there is still room for some tweaking, namely the deck could use a bit more finishing power (I'd probably run a bit more crits), and I'm kinda iffy with running Princess Celtic now that she's lost the bulk of her power with Sebreeze being a thing. I'm also still juggling between Mecure and the original Clear, although so far Mecure seems to have been better. G-zone might see some tweaking too, such as Sebreeze may not be necessary (need to test it out really), and due to how Sunshine Vert can whiff, I've been considering running 3 or 4 Verts. But that boils down to if a more diverse G-zone benefits me more often, or if adding in more Verts benefits me more often.

   This time I also chose to list out the other routes and prototypes I've gone through to hopefully give you guys a better understanding of my thought process, which I hope helps make that more transparent.

   As usual, if you have any questions, comments, wants to let me know if I'm missing something, etc, let me know in the comment section below.