So before we dive into what she does, please first understand and read her skill. Oh, and please ignore the other COtD. It is a literal in-every-way-worse Silver Thorn Upright Lion, so much that even if it didn't have any GB1 attached to its skill, it's still worse than the original Lion (I mean I guess you don't have to call Silver Thorn cards to pump it up?).
Anyways, back to the Clown:
Yes, they're 2 somewhat straightforward skills, and from the surface, her 1st skill looks like some hot garbage, where her 2nd skill is a just-cost-efficient-but-far-from-amazing CB1 for a hard +1.
Now what makes her actually good (based off the very limited amount of sanity testing I did so far, so PLEASEtake this with a grain of salt as I also want more sample size myself) is not what her skill does on face value, but how her skill is implemented (particularly her 2nd skill).
The way her skill is implemented (when she's in the soul, whenever something is called, she can pay CB1 to call herself) allows her to have some interesting interactions with many cards, particularly due to how most of the skills that swap units (including her own!) will shove things into the soul first before proceeding to call something out. Basically, there are many things that can shove her into the soul while simultaneously trigger her 2nd effect at the same time. Here are a few that I found based off my, again, very limited sanity testing and basic brainstorming:
1.) When she calls something out with her skill 1, she'd be in the soul already to trigger skill 2, so she'd go in and come back out. When she came from Milward, you mitigates one of the -1 from the cost of her 1st skill, making her just cost-efficient to be a even trade (-1 for 1 extra attack)
2.) When you shove her into the soul as a cost for Zelma's skill, she'd be in the soul already when Zelma proceeds to call something out, which would again trigger her skill 2 while she's in the soul
3.) If you called her out with Milward/magia stuff, then use her 1st skill to call Zelma to reset the other thing called by Milward (which you'd lose otherwise from Magia at the end of the turn), you actually end up with a net +2 for a discard (you basically discard 1 card from hand to gain 1 extra attack, and swap 2 "magia'd" units for a permanent Zelma and whatever other thing is that you reset)
4.) I can use her skill to call Zelma, and she'd triggers her own skill 2. Then both Zelma's on-call effect and her self-call will go on the pending state. I can resolve her first (she'd comes out), and then I can use Zelma to shove her in again to pull something out, and this would trigger her 2nd skill again and I can call her out again. Refill the board while giving you free power to Lion. EZPZ.
And these are just some interactions I found with my very, very limited sanity check and basic brainstorming. I'm sure we'll find more in the future.
Wow, I have been incredibly busy recently that I don't even know if I'll come up with a recipe I'm happy with before GBT-06 hits, so I'm kinda merging a deck post with card reviews. We'll see.
So a little bit of what's going on here for me...
The most recent event that happened was the CA regionals that attended and scrubbed out with a 0:2 using my gorilla Rrisms, where both games I lost when I was at 2 damage versus my opponent's 5 with basically no cards in hand or field on their end, only for me to never drive check triggers, not draw into PGs, or draw into all my G3s and die to their 6th heals and double/triple crits. Oh well, that's CFV in a nutshell, and considering my deck did perform exceptionally well, I'm ok with it. I mean, consistently taking control of the game tempo and driving my opponent to the corner with a 3 damage lead and a 6~8 card lead while drive checking pure crap is no simple feat, even if I literally died to a combination of 6th heals and double/triple crits or getting 6 of my G3s all happening at the same time. My gorillas did well, and I have no regrets. Ok maybe I do, I wanted the name gorilla to become more public, but yeah.
Other than that, work has been a sh*storm for me recently, and I've been incredibly busy the past couple of weeks; working late, skip entire weekends, etc. Fortunately after working over weekends for 2 weeks back to back, we got most of our stuff done. Busy season for our clients means busy season for us too. Meh.
Anyways, now that the rant is over, let's get to the new toys Silver Thorns got from GBT05. Specifically, we got 2 new Silver Thorn units and some generic support.
Wa... wait! Stop, stop soul charging
that non-Silver Thorn!
The best asset we received by far is Silver Thorn Magician, Colette. Colette is great; being a 10k booster in a deck full of on-hit pressure units that can reuse on-call abilities to re-use that 10k boost is pretty darn good. She significantly reduced our reliance on Upright Lions to do anything in the late game, and removed the complete reliance on superior calling to create big columns. She easily forms 21k columns with Clemens and Lions, and she makes Mystique Luquier able to form 21k columns much more consistently, and removed the reliance of needing Zelmas to make larger columns. To make things even better, even with Colette's slowness of requiring a G3+ vanguard, she can punish those playing G2 games very hard by pushing Maricica or Clemens to a 19~21k column with on-hit effects. Yup, we not only have the luxury of playing the G2 game, but we also have the luxury of choosing not to participate in that G2 game and begin with a punishing G3 turn even without stride. If we ride to G3 with being the first to stride? Ouch.
Obviously, it's not all pure goodness for Colette. She's not online until we sit on a Luquier, she's adding more competition for the already very cramped G1 space, and for whatever reason, Bushiroad decided it was a good idea to give her a chance to fail. However, even with all that in mind, she's still easily the 2nd best G1 we have access to now following Zelma because she boosts our mid/late game power quite significantly, and also greatly improved our finishing capabilities.
If only she's online with any Silver Thorn
VG, like Machining Mosquito...
Another thing we received is Clemens, who while is not bad, isn't nearly as great as Colette. She's not even a direct upgrade to Rising Dragon that we've learned to love. While she largely fulfill the same niche of being a solo beater as Rising Dragon, she's completely vanilla early game, cannot solo swing at a 7k VG body with a trigger, and cannot form 19k columns. However, she does add that delicious redundancy to our already plenty on-hit pressure, and makes it much easier to achieve a field where there's on-hit effects across the board. To make things better, her (to-VG-only) Mirror Demon ability is free, and theoretically she can perform infinite attacks with 2 Zelmas if the opponent somehow cannot guard and doesn't check damage triggers. She is also quite delicious when we toss a Colette behind her, making a quick and dirty 21k column with some on-hit effect that also baits bad plays out of your opponent. Overall, she's not-bad/10 but also not-great/10.
Finally, we also got 2 new Stride units and a stride enabler. These support however, after play testing, perform very awkwardly with Silver Thorns. Masquerade Bunny is very cloggy and is quite a dead card as long as you're not using her to stride due to Silver Thorn's extreme xenophobia; initially
I tested the deck with 4 of her, and then 3, and then 2, and now completely removed her. It's a shame that she's kinda necessary to spam stride consistently without hurting yourself, but her very existence itself is hurting yourself. I'm still trying to find ways to fit her in, but so far it seems unlikely.
Lunatec also plays awkwardly with Silver Thorns. His ability doesn't really mesh with Silver Thorns at all, and he basically just ends up being a very bad version of Saint Blow Dragon in Silver Thorns as we don't actually do superior calls mid-battle unless we land hits... and Lunatec doesn't actually make those attacks harder to hit unless you hit them first (even when you do, 2~4k power doesn't break into a new stage that often). See the problem here? Essentially, he's a card that threatens your opponent that "if I land hits on my attacks, even my 9k beaters will become 11k solo beaters" and potentially carry a crit himself. But that's all he does other than being a CB-free Blizza.
Well Primerva didn't have a GB3 slapped on her.
Why do you do this to us, Bushi!
Harri on the other hand is actually not a bad finisher; you can achieve attacks with similar effects to Primerva with Harri where you attack 5 times (Zelma can stand a column), and at the same time powers up Lions and Colette to achieve even better numbers. However, that GB3 slapped on Harri is a very significant drawback as it makes him incredibly slow. With the only way to speed Harri up being using Blizza or Lunatec Dragon, when Silver Thorns don't actually spam stride that much and when Lunatec is so mediocre for Silver Thorn, that GB3 becomes very hard to achieve, rendering Harri mostly unused or unusable in the vast majority of your games. Also do note that Harri gets completely tyrannosaurus rekt by lock, which is quite unfortunate.
The Deck
Now to the deck... First keep in mind that this is still a prototype and not even a stable build yet, as I still feel there are parts of the deck that runs 'clunky' and not 'smooth' or 'flows properly' yet. In essence, even though I have started testing this deck for a while, it's still far from finished as I just don't feel the deck flows right yet.
Colette is a great asset to Silver Thorns, now the only real issue is that, due to PG and Zelma being absolute staples, Colette needs to compete space with Masquerade Bunny, Breathing Dragon, and Ana (and even LB4 enabler, although I can't see that really trumping over any of the 3). Considering that Colette is vanilla pre-Luquier, replacing Ana with Colette wouldn't really be an upgrade to the deck as it'll just be shifting power from early to mid/late. Keeping both however, we are adding a much stronger late game without giving up what gave Silver Thorns a good early game and earned them the impression of being a weenie deck. As I've explained in my card review, I have decided to drop Masquerade Bunny due to her being a dead card way too often.
The logic of the deck is actually very simple: we keep what made us good at early game, and we add in new assets that gives us a much stronger mid and late game than before. We still have the early rush, but now we have a stronger on-hit pressure across the board, and we get bigger columns and more consistent big columns in our late game.
I'm still tinkering with how the deck is going (this is still a prototype, even if it is revision 3), but I think I'm on the right track. I'll be testing stands as well as we now have 8 on-hit beaters in the deck, although I have a strong feeling that crits will mesh better with this current deck due to Silver Thorns being able to make larger columns more consistently and more easily. I also am thinking of testing a Silver Thorn-Harri hybrid build as it can potentially be the 'mesh' that fixes Harri's early game and Silver Thorn's late game due to Silver Thorns while being quite xenophobic, doesn't care that much about who your vanguard is.
Ultimately as I mentioned earlier, the hardest part to decide is still the G1 line up, as after the staple 4 PGs and 4 Zelmas, there's only 6 spots left for all the other G1 goodness, and all of the G1s are very valuable assets that one could potentially run; I feel like whatever happens before GBT06, chances are if this deck recipe is going to change, it'll happen largely on the G1 lineup.
One other thing I did notice through testing PMs in general (not just Silver Thorns, but also the Harri and Catherine variants. Yes, I do like Pale Moon a lot.) is that PM has an incredibly weak overall stride lineup. Most strides PM has access to right now are quite lackluster, and feels that there's something missing. The variant with the strongest initial stride is Harri due to synergy with Lunatec Dragon, but even then it's still rather mediocre. Lunatech Dragon is still essentially a largely worse version of Saint Blow, and Harri being a largely worse version of Primerva due to that awkward slowness and the inability to actually plus from it (yes you do minus your opponent quite a bit, but you can't actually plus off it like Primerva can). Clifford still is just another typical on-hit stride, and Amanda unfortunately is a largely-inferior but occasionally-superior Clifford. Considering GBT06 will further PM's support, I feel that's when Bushiroad will wrap up PMs with their (hopefully) proper support.
As usual, if you have any questions, suggestions, etc, feel free to leave a comment below.
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.
Whelp, it's been a looooooong time since my last update because work is demanding so there's been less time I can juggle around, and then this article got further delayed because I had to test the card due to it being yet another very open-ended card. And it's also been a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time since Silver Thorns got their last support. But at least Silver Thorns has always been a rogue deck for the past 2 seasons, thanks to their great G1~G2 lineup (which allows that cheesy-but-effective sit-on-G2-to-vanilla-your-opponent-strategy that started happening since S4), despite them being like 2 seasons outdated.
So the long-waited technically Luquier Silver Thorn support that we got was Silver Thorn Dragon Master, Mystic Luquier, a Stride unit from FC2015 that gave all clans stride units like candies in a Piñata. Interestingly enough, unlike all the other Luquiers, Mystic Luquier looks very, very 'meh', and does not do any field recovery and does not give you any direct plus. All she does is field re-scaling and/or rearrangement, and the ability is an ACT and not even an AUTO, and therefore does not even enable extra attacks. She is also highly restricted in which decks can run her, requiring both a Silver Thorn deck base and using exclusively Luquier G3s.
Unfortunately, she is not the god-send that Pale Moon support that players have been waiting for, and is not a card that will suddenly turn Silver Thorns from a rogue deck into a meta defining deck. However, she's not quite the 'meh' card she seem to be either; she's deceptively powerful, and similar to cards like Big Bang Knuckle Turbo, is designed to improve what the deck does best and fix certain issues that the deck had. It's a neat little breath of life for Silver Thorns to toy around with until Pale Moon gets their proper support.
So, what exactly does she improve and what exactly does she fix?
Late Game
The last time Silver Thorns received any support was during BT15 at the end of S3, and then soon after that, we got into the Legion era (S4), where the power creep between the seasons is arguably worse than what happened from S2 to S3. The power creep was large enough that while you still could technically plus beyond the standards of S4 with Venus's skill, everything else with Silver Thorn's G3s are so badly out-creeped that it basically renders Silver Thorn without a late game. And Mystic Luquier gives them that late game.
Venus Luquier gives your opponent a chance
to breath because of her LB4 and runs
out of steam once you run out of CBs
Mystic Luquier is Silver Thorn's current answer to post-G3 games; she fills in the gap before you get to LB4, she fills in the gap when you're at LB4 and doesn't need to use Venus's skill to refill a field, and she fills in the gap after your Venus plays if your opponent somehow is not dead yet. In other words, she is one card that fills in all the voids Silver Thorn had after Silver Thorns rides to G3.
You no longer give your opponent one turn of breathing room just because you're not @4 damage yet. You no longer get stuck with nothing if your opponent refuses to give you your damage to do stuff. You no longer force next to nothing out of your center lane. And you no longer run out of steam after you expended all your CBs.
Instead of sitting on a G3 that only asks for 15k shield per turn and provides no pressure other than that 1 turn of Lion play, as long as you are able to stride and have some warm bodies to swap out for cards in your soul, every turn after G3 will be a pushing turn to attempt to finish what you didn't finish in the early and mid game. And as long as you have Lions that you can pump, every push turn you get this way will be of fairly decent quality. On top of the Lion plays, Mystic Luquier also makes it easier to setup an Ana behind a Lion without consuming CBs, which ends up having similar pressure as a big RG column with an additional crit.
Early Game
"Wait, what? What does Mystic Luquier have to do with early game? She's a stride unit and doesn't even go in the soul!"
Whao there, don't judge a card's impact on the early game just because she can only be used late! There are cards that have an impact on the game by impacting player behavior simply by existing, such as Gatling Claw and Omega Loop Glendios. Her very existence actually has quite a bit of impact on Silver Thorn's early game in largely 2 ways.
Raise your hand if you've ever used your starter ASAP simply because your
opponent is playing Kagero, even though you don't even know if they're running this card?
The first type of impact is actually not something so unfamiliar to many players, and is something that players that had experience with clans such as Bermuda Triangle or Granblue are more familiar to; and that is the deck's ability to maintain a fluid field and the ability re-scale their field.
Upright Lion just got a lot more valuable
because he now defines our late game
Mystic Luquier herself is essentially a field re-scaling machine. What this means is that a Silver Thorn player now has more freedom and less risk in dropping down boosters/PGs and/or triggers in the same column to push in more attacks in the early game without either having to commit to that field, or requiring a Venus Luquier field reset to re-scale the field.
The other impact on our early game behavior is that now Silver Thorns actually have some means of an end game, the player is allowed to shift some power and reliance away from the early game and move it towards the mid and late game.
While Silver Thorn's early game is still essential, what this means is a Silver Thorn player no longer have to bank completely on pulling off a good early game to win the game, but instead can spread the power out to attain a better balance and have the deck scale better into the late game rather than completely fall flat and lose steam later on. And thanks to Clifford being Pale Moon's on-hit that can still enable Zelma shenanigans, the deck's reliance on Ana also dropped a little because it became easier for your center column to apply on-hit pressure.
Conclusion
All in all, while Mystic Luquier isn't enough to revive Silver Thorn back to its glorious days, it definitely is a valuable and much needed addition and breaths life into the deck. She doesn't change the core idea behind Silver Thorn decks and the deck in today's standards will still be a rogue deck, but she does improve most aspect of the deck and make it playable, and make it less risky to just throw down warm bodies to rush.
The G1 and G2 lineup of Silver Thorn still carry the bulk of the weight of the deck in general and early game is still essential, but now we can actually prolong the attack and momentum into the late game for basically as long as we are alive and force out a considerable amount of shields with a vanguard with Stride power and large RG columns. The deck also gets to keep the rare niche of sitting on G2 to make your opponent vanilla where only less than a handful of decks can afford to do in the current meta.
I'm really looking forward to what Bushiroad has cooking back there for season 5 Pale Moon support, seeing that so far the vast majority of season 5 clans support have been more than satisfactory in season 5.
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)
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.
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)
This is my current build, and is here for my own reference and record keeping. This build is a lot more focused around having a good early and mid game to combat the Legion meta. With Legion punching 25k+ for free every turn, relying on LB4 to win games just isn't nearly as viable anymore because you'd probably have trouble guarding their Legion attacks 2 turns into your LB4 even when Legion decks just play vanilla beat down. So things like Luquier Reverse stalling just isn't viable anymore especially against Legion decks where big punches are practically free without even considering their other effects. Luckily for Silver Thorn, the deck is a lot less reliant on late game plays with BT15 support, as Zelma made Silver Thorn's early and mid game exceptional. So the goal of this build is to adapt to the Legion era and keep the deck viable. This deck actually starts to function earlier than Legion decks. The LB4 is just there to support and continue the early game wrath into late game. If played right, the deck easily makes 3~4 attacker per turn up to 5 attacks per turn (for only CB1), and you can very well put your opponent on 4 or 5 damage or with depleted hand before they're even on their G3 if you're lucky/they're unlucky.
Came across this alternative way the other day of making 2 attacks for CB1 with Zelma, and thought might put it out there since I don't think this was made obvious. I've also updated the Ana/Maricica/Zelma section accordingly.
If you happen to have a open spot in front of a booster,
Zelma can swing for 12~14k in those cases.
On a side note, the situation I came across the other day my Rising Dragon was boosted by an Ana, but 2 swings is still better than 1 as long as both can hit stuff, because you're squeezing out more quantity (requires 2 5k+ shields to guard as opposed 1 10k shield, which is 2 cards instead of 1).
As the title suggests, I had a hard time coming up with what else to write about for Silver Thorn. There's really only so much you can write about a deck when there's only so much support that goes with it. Technically there's still Irina, Upright Lion, Rising/Breathing Dragon, and maybe Trapezist and See-saw Game Winner, but I feel those cards are fairly self explanatory and doesn't have much content for me to write. I mean, if you have been looking at my articles, I've already mentioned those cards all over the places as well (such as Rising Dragon + Ana, or Upright Lion being the deck's core finisher). So unless someone specifically asks me specific questions about those cards, I probably won't be writing about them beyond what's written below here:
I mean, for Irina, she's an additional soul charge every time you call her out with the Beast Tamers, and can be reused by Zelma for more soul charging should you feel the need to. And due to her nature of stuffing stuff at the bottom of the deck, it's usually better to use her first, and then use Emil to get the deck being shuffled. And that's really about it.
For Upright Lion, the goal is really just to call at least 2 other units from the soul when he's around to give him a +6k, allowing you to form a 9+6+7 = 22k+ column. How this is done by Venus is obvious, and this could be done by Reverse as well (lock VG booster when you have Poison Juggler, call Zelma to one side and use Zelma to swap another unit, boosts your Lion by +6k. You'd end up with 21/16/21). And then there's the aspect that if you have a Lion boosted by a 7k booster early/mid game, if you first land a hit via Ana/Maricica and called something, you'd be pumping that Lion column as well into a 19k+ column, which spells pain for your opponent.
People usually see this guy as a back up attacker. While he is, that's not where his true value lies. His true value lies in being an early and mid game attacker that further adds to your already strong early game aggression even if you miss Zelma in your soul. Unlike other decks, riding Breathing Dragon first still makes use of his +3k ability, as what you'll be doing is pulling him out for an extra attack with Ana/Maricica. This guy is your 2nd best G1 ride, ranked just below Zelma. He also increases your likely hood to make 3 attacks during early and mid game.
Just like any other 9+3 attackers. He works well throughout the entire game life, is an excellent target to be called via Ana/Maricica, is disgustingly strong when boosted by Ana, and is great in shutting down opposing 12k attackers or G2 units by forming 19k columns. There really isn't much to say about this guy besides 12k attackers are OP in general.
A valuable asset before Zelma became a thing. She essentially does half of what Zelma does, including swapping out useless cards, cross riding, standing full columns with Eva, and reusing Irina.
A valuable asset before Silver Thorn got Emil. He enables early limit break (counters 2-crit VGs that can keep people at 3 damage when it is a meta), shuffles the deck for Ionela and Irina, recycles triggers in damage zone, and he blocks and secures heal triggers (increase your damage to more than your opponent's blocks his heal trigger, and increasing your damage to equal to your opponent's secures your own heal triggers during drive check). He's fairly good for aggressive decks due to the trigger recycling and heal trigger blocking aspect.
So I think that's it for Silver Thorn for now guys, unless I happen to run into another good video I can make, come across something in an actual game to update current content, or if someone asks specific questions or requests something potentially lol. There's also stuff going on IRL atm that's making it tougher to write stuff, but I know I'd continue playing the game because playing card games is a habit I've had ever since the late 1990s. I might begin writing what other decks I've been playing or working on as well, although there's no guarantee they'd be of any real quality. It'd probably be more like what my thought process is in putting something together. We'll see.
This time the review is on our last boss card, and the latest of the Luquier lines! I've finally played enough of Venus to feel more comfortable writing about her and giving tips (this article has been sitting as a draft for the past month or so.. lol). If you are not familiar with her effect, you can look her up here.
Long story short, Luquier Venus gives you a potential +5 for a cost of ECB2. She's basically the original Luquier with 33.3% off the cost that can call potentially 25% more than Luquier, and with higher quality. She also lost the +3k power gain per superior call, which had to be made up using Upright Lion. Unlike Luquier Reverse, she gains the advantage in an instant, but is unable to reallocate power to her columns, and cannot prolong her effect over the course of the a game; her effect happens at most twice a game without heals, but usually once because she's not the only CB user of the deck (the first 2 CBs usually end up going to Ana/Maricica).
How to Gain the Most Out of Venus
Venus is a little tricky to play. While her skill is fairly straightforward and you can really only fill your field with it and pump up a few Lions, she's often seen as a +5 for 2 CBs, and situations where we would naturally gain +5 off of her is actually very rare. In order to get a +5 off 1 usage of her skill, you literally need to eat a full field wipe, or not call any boosters at all and intercept with your entire front row, both are either rare or unpractical. But what you can do is to artificially prepare for Venus beforehand and make a +4 or at least a +3 off her skill very reasonable and reachable.
A field like this picture keeps your early game
presence, and sets up for a +4 for Venus
How do you do this? Here's the trick: call as little boosters as humanly possible without hurting yourself or giving up bigger advantage (eg. not calling Ana to boost a RG Rising Dragon when your opponent is sitting on anything 9k or less for the sake of an additional +1 off Venus is just plain dumb), and delay your Emil usage for as long as humanly possible without hurting yourself (eg. seeing a Linchu as FVG and not using Emil right away is just stupid) before you use Venus's limit break. This way, when you intercept with your entire front row the turn before you're going to use Venus's ability, you just opened up 3~4 spaces for Venus to +3~4 (see picture). You can also take a look at my video here to see how it works in practice.
So what's the catch? The catch is, you still need to maintain your early game advantage and play properly with your early game combos while still planning ahead for your Venus play. If you lose the game momentum only because you're trying to get an additional +1 off several turns later from Venus, it's not worth it. Cards are generally worth much more earlier on in the game because your opponent will still only have access to a single drive check (so less cards generated naturally), and they need to keep enough cards to ride successfully to G3. Cards several turns later that really only translates to an additional 5k shield in hand is also not worth losing your entire early game momentum to. This is also why you can reasonably gain a +3~4 off Venus fairly easily, but gaining a +5 without hurting yourself is extremely difficult.
Venus's Role
There really isn't much to it. I mean, she's essentially Luquier without the +3k per call and a cheaper cost to Luquier's skill. So she's really just 1.) a field re-generator, 2.) massive advantage engine, and 3.) a finisher.
Technically he's not strong for the field
wipe. But it happens from time to time
Her field re-generator aspect is fairly obvious. When you eat a fieldwipe, she literally makes up the entire field back for CB2. Obviously this field-wipe thing occurs fairly rarely. The more common scenario is when you committed a field early and mid game and your opponent kills your RGs to try to slow down your damage, you regenerate and keep the pressure pumping for CB2. This aspect makes her very suited for rushing and committing to a field early because she can just keep the flow going even if your opponent tries to stall by bullying and taking out your RGs. This aspect also makes sure that if you have Eva to break ride onto, that you'll always have a full field for your Eva.
Her massive advantage engine aspect is what was descried on top under how to gain the most out of Venus. By calling something like 4 units, you are extending the advantage gap by 4 in a single use. Honestly, it's still not nearly as impressive as CBD + IZD combo since each lock is worth 1~2 cards (you spend at least 1 less card to guard per column locked, and an additional card for each trigger checked), and CBD further gets +2 off each locked card, meaning triangle locks are worth 3~6 cards saved in guarding, and CBD gets +2 *3 off that triangle lock, which totals to a 9~12 card gap per combo. It's literally less than half of what the CBD + IZD combo generates in terms of raw advantage, but hey they don't have the early game we have, and that's why they attracted all the hate because CBD is just way undercosted.
This is what a finishing field looks like, if you
have 2 Lions just replace the dragon with a lion
Lastly, Venus acts as a finisher for Silver Thorn. This is a more common use of Venus, and she's really the only reliable finisher Silver Thorn has if you didn't break ride. However, Venus cannot finish a game by herself because she lacks any power boost. Instead, she relies on Upright Lion to do the power up. By calling a fill field with her skill, each Lion will gain at least +12000 power because you call 4 other Silver Thorn units (3000 *4). This number goes up by +3000 for each Zelma you called along with Luquier Venus's ability, usually up to +6000 power (2 Zelma). So she essentially creates 1~2 28000 (up to 34000 if you have Zelma) columns with Upright Lion (9000 + 7000 + 3000 *4), resulting into a very Great-Nature like field for your push. Keep in mind, since usually 2 CBs will go to Ana and Maricica during your early and mid game, this means Venus will probably only go off once per game. So don't waste this big push as it's very valuable to Silver Thorn. If you have seen my video on Venus and Zelma, you'll see how this works in practice.
Skyhigh Walker
Alright, I'm sure some of you probably have the question "is it worth it to run Skyhigh Walker to unflip damage for Venus?" in mind. The thought process behind it will probably be something along the lines of "if Venus's ability costs 2 CBs, then having 2 Skyhigh Walkers makes her skill free constantly! +5 for free! OP!" Here's how I'm going to answer: go try it out yourself, but I can share you my experience with it.
Skyhigh Walker is a stand trigger, and stand triggers actually works fine with Silver Thorn if you know what you're doing. So the concern with Sky High Walker isn't here. The concern with Skyhigh Walker is essentially how consistent and reliable he is, how gimmicky he is, and how well he actually works with Venus.
Lets first look at the real side of Skyhigh Walker. Yes he can be called out by Venus for free (grade 0), but if you want to keep the 'loop' going for discounts on CB, you either have to 1.) keep him around for boosting and then use his effect next turn right before you use Venus, or 2.) call him out, use him right away, and then call boosters from hand or don't call any boosters. Either way, you're going to have to save spots open for him and give up a legit unit out of Venus's potential 5 units she'd be calling.
For scenario 1, he's a horrid 4k booster. The only 16k+ column that will happen with him around are 1.) Rising Dragon, and 2.) VG booster when your VG is cross ridden, and 13k bodies will be a nightmare for any column he's boosting because nothing in the deck hits for 14k+ solo besides Lion. The fact that he's not a Silver Thorn and therefore won't be pumping up the Lions didn't help here either. This means chances are you'd have a bad column with him around trying to boost. For scenario 2, it just defeats the purpose of Venus in the first place, because you're trying to avoid calling from hand and widen the advantage gap. By needing to call from hand you're reducing the effectiveness of Venus.
The second issue is that there's no reliable way to get your Skyhigh Walkers because he's not a Silver Thorn. This makes relying on him not so reliable. He's also a 10k shield. For each Skyhigh you are using, you're reducing your defense by reducing the available 10k shields at your disposal.
His final issue is, you simply don't have that much deck or soul to abuse him. Lets say you actually can call out 3~4 quality units with Venus (3~4 because the last 1~2 spots you need to save for Skyhigh). You'd eventually run out of viable units in your soul to call after 1~2 uses. This means you need to refill your soul with Emil. Add to that Venus soul charges 2 every time she uses her effect, you end up with something unsustainable.
So my personal thoughts on Skyhigh? I wouldn't focus on it because it's too gimmicky. I'd just rather pump up my Lions and slap people with it than making weaker Lions but try to prolong the use of Venus.
However, Skyhigh Walker is decent in that as long as your not aiming for a "free" Venus skill, as 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.
Lastly, some of you may already have seen this, but here's a video that shows a good example of how to prepare for and use Venus:
This is the 'perfect game' and the idea winning image for Silver Thorns if you're main is Luquier Venus, and also why the Ana/Maricica/Zelma trio is incredibly scary, especially if you go first. In fact, this game's Zelma use is so perfect, if there's ever going to be a textbook on Silver Thorns, this will be a very good textbook example.
Too busy to spend 3 minutes?
CB1 for 2 attacks at 0:28
Cross riding by Ana/Maricica + Zelma at 0:58
Do keep in mind what happened in the video is almost like Exodia happening, and players that knows how Silver Thorn functions can reduce the amount of damage done to them (see bottom of this article), so do not expect this to happening every game. Most of your real games will be more similar to the Zelma example video, and not as fast and smooth as this one. But just always remember how you can dance with Zelma if you are given the opportunity.
A few things to take away from this for Silver Thorn players: 1.) Going first is very advantageous for Silver Thorns due to your insane on-hit pressure and exploit. 2.) It's beneficial to keep Emil around for boosting for as long as possible if you have Venus, because the spot Emil takes is the same as an open spot for Venus. This means once you clear your front row by intercepting, counting the Emil spot, you're guaranteeing at least +3 off Venus's skill, more if you leave more booster spots open. 3.) Always remember when there's a 7k exposed on your opponent's side, CB1 can result in 2 attacks. Abuse it and exploit it when you can. 4.) Maricica and Ana can help you cross ride if you have Zelma properly setup. Take advantage of it.
A few things to take home from this for players playing AGAINST Silver Thorns: 1.) Avoid exposing a 7k if you can (in this video's case he can't) 2.) Guarding Maricica and Ana is a very smart move. VERY. An opponent that knows what he's doing will rain pain on you if you let one of those hit unless you sack triggers. 3.) DO NOT give your opponent his damage for his Ana/Maricica/Zelma shenanigans unless you are ready for it, just like LB4 and break rides. If his Damed Leo didn't give me that 1 damage (at 0:50), I could not have rained pain upon him nor could I make such quick work out of him.
I had a game with a really good Zelma usage recently on CFA, and I thought this would be a good example of how devastating the Ana/Maricica/Zelma combo is if your opponent is to ever let it hit, especially with a booster exposed. Unfortunately I did not cross ride using Ana/Zelma combo in this video, but if I was sitting on Venus or Reverse, and one of the RG was a Luquier, I would have cross ridden as a bonus to the combo.
If you're in a hurry, you can skip to 1:14 and 2:53 watch Zelma being MVP.
If the video to too fast/slow for you, feel free to pause or click the 'cogwheel' and adjust the playing speed.
Also, if you see any misplays, or have any suggestions or things you're unclear about with the video, please leave a comment either here on this blog or on the YouTube so I can improve on quality in the future. This is also my first YouTube video ever lol.
Next up is the review of starters! Silver Thorn starters are super adorable, and because they are both loli's because picking a good starter and the right one at that is super important to a deck, they deserve to be up next for the review! I mean, after all, they are the only loli cards the deck has your starter is the only card that you are guaranteed to have at the start of each game, right?
If you are not familiar with Ionela or Emil, you can look them up by clicking on them respectively. This article will not cover Innocent Magicianbecause he is not a loli, who will only be considered in a break ride build, and who is also a generic G3 searcher clone that have existed beyond the scope of Silver Thorns.
Starting off, we have the loyal and original Silver Thorn starter that had been waiting for her mistress's return ever since BT12! In a nutshell, she's Irina that requires an on-hit on the VG, meaning just like Irina, she stacks triggers at the bottom of your deck, forcing you to play OTT or suffer if you can't afford to stall for that long or have no means to shuffle your deck. Similar to any FVG that stays on the field and needs to remain on the field to for an extended amount of time to function, she's extremely vulnerable to retiring by cards like Gattling Claw Dragon, and you're pretty screwed if you need to rely on her to do the bulk of the soul charging if she gets retired.
On the bright side, she can be used over and over again, and doesn't result in a -1 to use like many other Pale Moon FVGs. However, even though she can be used multiple times, keep in mind that because she requires an on-hit on the vanguard, she gets triggered 3~4 times at best (usually 3) on your average games, essentially allowing you look up to 6~8 cards and soul change 3~4 out of those 6~8 cards over the course of 4~5 turns. Also, due to how she doesn't leave the field, she makes it very hard to call an Ana behind your VG without minusing yourself.
What does this mean? This means that unfortunately for her, a new loli competitor appeared that does her job better in almost every single aspect just as her beloved mistress came back to her senses after being corrupted by the void, leaving her sitting in a binder after all that wait.
And that competitor is called Emil, whom Bushi is too lazy to even give a CotD lore. Unlike Ionela, Emil requires a cost of putting herself into the soul to soul charge, resulting in a net -1 to use in exchange for higher efficiency and speed. However, due to the prevalence of retire-based decks out there, this very negative aspect of Emil is actually a very positive strength for her, further favoring Silver Thorns in using her as a starter over Ionela. The reason behind that is Emil can hide immediately into the soul as soon as the game starts if necessary because she is completely independent of counter blasts or any other factors, meaning you can use her skill as soon as possible without her ever being sniped, making her vastly more reliable than Ionela because you are not at your opponent's mercy.
Emil is also so much faster and more efficient than Ionela in soul charging, that she essentially does what Ionela does over 3 turns in one, without even needing to land a hit on the VG for 3 times. It takes Ionela 3 hits to to view 6 cards and soul charge 3, and yet it takes Emil less than 1 turn to look at 5 and soul charge 3. On top of that, Emil doesn't care for the order of the Silver Thorn cards hidden off the top of your deck. Say you have 2 Silver Thorn units sitting back to back on the top of your deck, Ionela will only be able to soul charge one of them. Emil, however, doesn't care for the order as long as the Silver Thorn cards you reveal off the top 5 are of different grades, meaning even if the 2 cards are sitting back to back, she's able to soul charge both of them if they are of different grades. So with only 1 use, Emil already rivals what Ionela is capable of doing over the entire game. Add the fact that you can easily use Emil multiple times per game, she just blows Ionela out of the water. Remember when people said cross riding was easy for Silver Thorns back in BT12? Well, Emil made it even easier.
Another aspect going for Emil's favor over Ionela is that she shuffles the deck after soul charging. Back when Silver Thorns relied on Ionela and Irina for soul charging, the deck has a side-effect of stacking a considerable amount of triggers at the bottom of your deck if you are unlucky. And if you didn't have a See-saw Game Winner or something similar that has a side effect of shuffling your deck for you, you're forced to play OTT if you ever want to see those triggers.
Imagine this being what's left in your deck.
And this actually happens quite a bit.
This shuffling aspect of Emil also means that she condenses your deck with triggers every time you use her
ability, increasing your chance of drive checking a trigger. After several uses of Emil's ability, your deck can easily be left with a lot of triggers, and having your deck reach the point where there are more triggers than normal units in it isn't something uncommon in actual practice.
On top of condensing triggers and allowing you to sack more often, she also thins your deck with stuff you don't want to draw into with each use. While that seems obvious, what does it really mean? It means if you are in late game, when you use Emil's ability and see multiple cards of the same grade, you can soul charge the one you don't want to draw into and leave the ones you would prefer to draw into in the deck. For example, at late game, Ana becomes vanilla when Zelma's uses skyrockets as you accumulate more and more soul. So if you see Ana and Zelma together in the same group of 5 cards that Emil revealed, you would soul charge the Ana and leave Zelma in the deck, essentially making your drive checks and draws end up being of higher quality. Another good example of this is you can and will be thinning your deck of grade 3s, increasing the chance of you drawing and drive checking into cards that have a shield value.
The final nail in the coffin for Ionela is how much synergy Emil has with Luquier and Luquier Venus or the deck in general (unfortunately, Luquier Reverse doesn't have much synergy with Emil). Previously, in order for Luqier's LB4 to even be able to call a grade 0, you need to soul charge a trigger with Irina or Ionela beforehand, or use a Poison Juggler. Now the grade 0 is just there automatically without any set up, and a very good one that can further enlarge your tool box and hyper compress your deck. She also has high synergy with Luquier Venus, and makes the Ana/Maricica/Zelma combo significantly easier to achieve.
Conclusion?
Emil wins!
Look at how proud she is!
Emil is a vastly superior starting vanguard in pretty much every aspect there is when compared to Ionela. Even her only drawback (the -1) ends up being a pro rather than a con for her.
