Black Witches Stable 1

Stable Build 1

Everyone's favorite loli witch, Lir
and witch hats are still awesome

(White Witches would be Genesis Witches)
If you want to see the previous version, click here

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:
Witch of Banquets, Lir *1

 Trigger: (6 stand/6 crit/4 heal)
 Black Cat Witch, Milkre (Heal) *4
Black Crow Witch, Eine (Critical) *4
Witch of Goats, Medb (Stand) *4
Revenger, Air Raid Dragon (Critical) *2
Revenger, Waking Angel (Stand) *2

 Grade 1: (*14)
Barrier Witch, Grainne (QW) *2
Revenger of Darkness, Mac Lir (PG) *2
Ruin Witch, Scathach *2
Witch of Precious Stones, Dana *4
Witch of Pursuit, Sekuana *4

 Grade 2: (*11)
Witch of Attraction, Adora *3 (juggling between proportion of this and Skull Witch, Nemain)
Inspection Witch, Deirdre *4
Witch of Reality, Femme *4

 Grade 3: (*8)
Cultus Witch, Rias *4
Witch of Enchantment, Fianna *4

I was wrong about her :(
she's MVP.

   So this build ended up working significantly better than the previous ones; Sekuana literally makes all the difference. My initial thought was focusing on control, which proved itself to be extremely inconsistent and prone to your opponent's maneuvers. Now that I realized the control aspect is just a method for the power reduction so you can attack aggressively; the control part is a bonus, but the main focus should be on the power reduction, which is significantly more consistent and reliable (as long as you're not shooting for -25k or -30k, -5k~15k is fairly consistent)

Adora, our only pressure unit

   Adora is the G0 generator for the drop zone. When boosted by a 7k booster, she requires 10k shield to be guarded (unless against cross ride bodies, but those are rare today). So there can be 3 scenarios: 1.) your opponent guards with a single G0 and now has a G0 in their drop zone for Deirdre and Dana to use, 2.) they guard with 2 5k shields or a PG (which is not worth it btw, since even if you take the hit and then simply call over the G0 that's still only a -1 and not a -2), or 3.) they take the hit and have 1 - (2/3)^5 = ~86.83% chance having one of their RGs transformed into a G0.

   Even when they only have a FVG on the field as target, I'd usually still use the effect to call over the FVG even if the total G0 count doesn't go up. The reason behind that is 1.) you kill their FVG, who is usually important for most decks and 2.) you popped a G0 in the drop zone for your Deirdre and Dana to use. 

   As why certain cards are ran at their amount, here's a break down:

• 4 Fianna because she's your best first ride, and her 2nd effect is good
• 4 Rias because she's an awesome finisher or a boss to put your opponent straight to 5 damage, and she's our only other boss
• 4 Femme because she's the best G2 the deck has, and the more you have the more you can plus off Fianna's 2nd effect
• 4 Deirdre because she's the 2nd best G2, offering control and soul blast that aids Legion
• 3 Adora because she's a great G0 generator, but her window of relevance is small (she's irrelevant as soon as your opponent hits 4 damage)
• 4 Sekuana because she's Fianna's only win condition, and is a pseudo +5k to all columns. She's very important
• Total of 4 Sentinels because they're mandatory at this era
• 4 Dana because she's the other best G1, and helps out the deck's gimmick
• 2 Scathach because this deck runs off stands, and she forms 16k columns with Sekuana. She's also this deck's other best G1

   So overall, the main focus is pretty much to mildly control your opponent and setting up for your win condition (the power reduction) while swapping out priority targets and messing up power columns. There are two approaches to the power reduction. If you have enough resources (since all power drop takes a -1 in cost), you can drop a power-drop earlier and directly put your opponent straight into their late game, forcing them to guard everything that comes afterwards. The other is obvious, where you try to wrap a game up and seal the deal with a power-reduction when they're at high damage.

See something like this? Yeah... no
Kill it before it lays eggs.

   The tricky part is knowing what to target and swap out. Key units with annoying abilities are obvious. The
harder part comes in the rest, and really comes down to the situation. One way is to swap out boosters so your opponent will be less likely to call over them and thus keeping a higher G0 concentration for your Rias play that'd hurt them greatly later. another approach is to swap out an entire column, forcing them to swing for 10k max with that column, or call over it to suffer actual minuses all while putting G0s in the drop zone for you to use Deirdre and Dana. Swapping out the interceptor is another obvious one when you are ready to pop a power drop and push for game, but it's not always the right choice. There will be times where if you swap out their interceptor, your unboosted attacker (often 9 or 10k) will be unable to hit anything other than the G0 you gave them, which is counter-intuitive (and this happens quite often due to the nature of the deck if you are not careful). You will want to avoid creating that scenario yourself at all costs.


   So that concludes the first stable build. Again, don't be afraid to disagree with me and do your own thing and discover your own stuff. If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say 'hai' just let me know lol

Been Busy

My expression and (almost) reaction towards the
amount of stuff I'm dealing with IRL atm

   I've been pretty busy with stuff IRL, so wasn't able to play much and test decks as much, and hence no updates. Silver Thorn is fairly consistent, and that recipe I have now is pretty much as good as Silver Thorns will be right now until further support. 

   Witch testing has been tough because they just rely too much on your opponent and overall just sucks pretty hard due to that. Arianrhod basically feels like a trap since Witches lacks power so much that the little bit of consistency Arianrhod adds doesn't really help a whole lot; the only 2 win conditions Black Witches really have, is finishing the game with Rias or Sekuana. So I've dropped Arianrhod completely in favor for much more Sekuana for the kill potential since the deck lacks heavily in that department. I've also been suspecting that the witch starter Lir is also a trap since the deck works horribly with Stand triggers outside of the turns you reduce your opponent's power; you don't really benefit from swinging at RGs because more often than not there's nothing good to swing at. Swinging at G0s is counter-intuitive to the deck's gimmick, and killing RGs does the same since no target to transform = gimmick can't work = gg. Lir is also extremely slow, as having to wait until your VG is in Legion and having to land a hit on the VG to work gives her an extremely small window of opportunity to work and makes her ridiculously easy to take out/retire before she can be used. Overall though, adding more Sekuana helps quite a bit, and I think it's the right direction the testing is heading towards. 

   Other than that, I'm really interested and looking forward to in Ancient Dragons since they got a brutal Legion and legion mate. Along with Dinocrowd, Nightarmor, this gives them additional attacks and 21k columns similar to a Luquier Reverse onto Eva break ride turn every turn for as cheap as CB1, or even potentially free if Nightarmor lands his hit. There's also the card interactions and fiend dancing through all the eating and even calling units over other units when reviving to achieve very aggressive multiple attacks. Magmaarmor also provides as a good finisher if you can get a total of 2 copies of any combination of Dinocrowd or Nightarmor, as these can achieve as much 14k attacks as you have soul and CBs by eating each other, making this a extremely devastating finishing play for when your opponent is at 5 damage since they need to guard every single attack to stay alive. The best part? This deck will be dirt cheap, and by dirt cheap I actually do mean dirt cheap because one of the Legion bosses is of R rarity, and for that reason there's no way I'm not building this deck. I also love to explore wombo combos like those seen in Silver Thorn, and this deck definitely have that potential to provide as much combos to the level of Silver Thorns, if not more. 

   So that's all for now. I don't know when the next update will be (really depends on my real life), or what it'd be about. I do know though that I'd look into and dig into Ancient Dragons in search for wombo combos and Falcos. Or about the new Pale Moon Legion if it turns out to be a Silver Thorn (which I'm very doubtful based off the image. No sign of and loops or strands of silver thorn anywhere on her, especially her head, and she just looks like a Beast Tamer to me. Probably to extend what Bunny Queen started and reviving the old beast tamer twins). It'll be revealed on July 31, 2014 though, so we'd find out by next week.