Ride Deck
(G3) Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier
(G2) Silver Thorn Marionette, Lilian
(G1) Silver Thorn Assistant, Irina
(G0) Silver Thorn Assistant, Ionela
Main Deck
(G3) Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier x3
(G3) Casualty Dragon, Crucial Dragon x2
(G3) Circulate Acrobat, Urseltje x2
(G2) Silver Thorn, Rising Dragon x4
(G2) Clean-Sweep x2
Any 3 G1 6k PGs & 1 Elementaria Sanctitude
(G1) Falcate Performer x3
(G1) Jewel Core Dragon x3
(G1) Luxual Songstar x2
(Critical) Stem Deviate Dragon x4
Any 3 5k criticals
(Draw) Rouse Wildmaster, Riley x4
Any 4 5k Heals
(Over) Spiritual King of Ignition, Valnout
(G3, Normal Order) Hurry and Join, Loyal Servants x4
(G3, Blitz Order) Evergreen Transphere
Ride deck
In this deck you are setting up from mulligan. I try to go for a set-up of Silver Thorn Servants, Urseltje and Rising Dragon and will put back anything that is not one of those three with the exception of Flacate or Jewel Core and on turn two when using Irina’s AUTO, I mainly look for any of those pieces I’m missing. If I already have all three then it depends, two Urseltjes may not be necessary but two Rising Dragons can give the opportunity to put on some early game aggression as well as set up in your soul faster. Having two Silver Thorn Servants is always nice and the less flooding the hand the better. If all of those pieces are in soul and I didn’t see an extra one, I cater the target to the moment. When using Lillian’s AUTO eight out of ten times I will just add itself to hand. If I SC a non-draw trigger, A PG or a Persona Ride while I can also afford to not have the extra shield in hand, then I adjust. Most of the time though Lillian is just a 10k shield in hand that you can throw right away. If I’m missing Rising Dragon altogether though I keep Lilian in soul so she can be a re-standable 15k until it shows up.
It’s important to use both Luquier effects every turn. Calling three keeps the Dragon big, retreating two keeps your board safe. In a format where Gandeeva is king this can be the difference between falling behind and staying ahead. As I said above, you always want to keep Urseltje and Rising Dragon in your soul and they are often your draw costs as well.
Urseltje, Rising Dragon and Loyal Servants
Every turn from turn three on you need CB2 to use both Luquier and Silver Thorn Servants, Urseltje turns that into CB1, SB1, much less expensive. On Persona Ride turns she will more or less always SB-the copy of Luquier from the turn before to keep G3s out of the soul thus making Silver Thorn Servants recyclable with Falcate. In other circumstances you SB a G0, another G3 Unit or just something you altogether don’t need like extra G1s. The reason this is at two despite being such a key piece of the deck’s function is that she’s a G3 that doesn’t gain power. With the amount of search and the fact that I’m playing four draws I see this pretty often, it’s the piece I’m missing the most but of the three it’s the least impactful and has no shield and is only a 18k body. Sometimes if I have an extra Rising Dragon, a live Clean-Sweep or a Crucial Dragon I’ll even call Urseltje behind one of them because they’ll be plenty big on their own and she can be used as Luquier or Crucial cost while still getting me a resource back.
Rising Dragon is the R boss of the deck. It’s a 25k attacker when called by Luquier, even on non-persona ride turns and restands at 30k. It is indisputably the best Silver Thorn Servants target. His AUTO is also a key piece in setting up or filtering your hand. If called early, or even just before Luquier’s AUTO, you can put a combo piece or anything else to call from soul later. If you have an excess G3 and have a way to get Silver Thorn Servants off next turn without Falcate then those G3s can easily be replaced for draw power. I’m also a little conservative with Rising Dragons and will only do early game aggression with them if I have access to another. I’ll also only leave it as an Interceptor if I have access to another. Because it gets so big it’s often attacked right away but Luquier can only call one G2 per turn so it’s okay to leave one out and if it survives, it’s a 20k and 25k body on either side next turn.
Crucial Dragon
I will be honest in saying that Crucial Dragon is not at all necessary and mostly just here because I haven’t been able to attend many locals due to lack of transport and don’t have Steam Performer, Tougue. When I get Tougues in a month, these are the first to go. Crucial’s CONT is useful in circumstances as it scales up with your opponent’s first trigger. It’s retire skill is also nice if you have a Urseltje in back row or a normal called G1. (18 is the same shield as 21) Retiring something, especially a back row, can always help push and I’ve never seen the remove OT skill come up but who knows maybe it will.
Clean-Sweep
Clean-Sweep was originally a hate card for the Eva matchup because it can bypass Henceforths and remove their Obscudieds while becoming a 35k attacker that you can target away with Silver Thorn Servants. Eva is still relevant, albeit less so, and Clean-Sweep is strong anyway. Three “retires” there isn’t much that would take that three soul over the board presence can really break your opponent as there isn’t much that would take that three soul over the board presence. If you need a space cleared to call three with Luquier without taking a minus, Clean-Sweep is good for that too. I also realized in play-testing that if it targets something but it doesn’t touch the soul (tokens, etc) it still gets +5k off of it.
Falcate
Falcate can be considered the fourth combo piece with the three above if you need to cycle Loyal Servants every turn. You also don’t need to return it, mostly, and it can sit in the back row untouched against certain match ups. The problem arises when you’re playing against a deck that retires one card or more per turn. Eventually if you try to make Falcate the fourth piece in this it will have to be hit. You have to use him sparingly against decks like Gandeeva, at a point where it would matter most. However the way to look at this is that this is every other card in every other deck against Gandeeva so it’s sort of a blessing.
Falcate can also play an important part of the early game. If you see one of the three main combo pieces and Falcate in your opening hand you can very easily ditch it to ride and then use Falcate turn one to recoup it back. This gets a little dicey turn two just because anything you drop is a gamble with Irina’s AUTO but also its more often than not worth the risk. Also early damage is just so important in standard so a 16k VG lane or a 21k RG lane on turn one can be a huge leap.
Jewel Core and Luxual
These two play very similar roles in that they’re both 18k boosters after Luquier’s skill. Luxual is less useful than Jewel Core in that she doesn’t disappear so she can clunk up the board and is vulnerable to retire and also it has to be called from soul. That being said, in the early G3 turn, a turn where you want to swing into an opponent’s R or a turn where you can best predict your opponent’s guard order, the on hit draw one can fire.
Jewel Core is sort of the tech I’m most proud of right now and is huge both for early game and the Gandeeva match ups. In the early game I call a Jewel Core that can hit just about anything and then goes away to be used for Luquier’s build-a-board. It’s easy to get over-zealous with this of course and it can make you fall further behind if you aren’t careful. It also gets that power when it attacks or boosts, meaning that 18k Urseltje is a 36k or your just 13k V becomes a 26k. Since the non-Rising Dragon columns are always weaker Jewel Core really takes them a long way and becomes the third consistent call target for Luquier turn after turn. That and, like I said, Gandeeva can’t touch this which means you stay ahead of them, calling this as your G1 ensures you always have no board on your opponent’s turn but a steady one on your turn.
Triggers
The draws just go really far when you need to see three specific cards for the deck to function at full capacity. I learned this year that the effect Crits can carry a lot of weight especially when you have to run this many G3s. As I said above; Jewel Core makes a lot of attacks 26-36k, a +2k puts those up a shield stage. If you have a lot of shield anyway it’s actually okay to call down and it serves as a bonus Jewel Core in that it vanishes. Its also a 9k booster when called off of Luquier. I decided not to go with any effect Heals this time just because the format is as diverse as it is and it’s a detriment to have a 10k shield over a 15k one.
I tried, quite literally, every OT that this deck can run and Valnout was by far the best when it goes off offensively. Turning a four attack turn into a five attack one, especially if it's early enough, can break the opponent much more than an extra crit. The Dark States OT can be good just because Luquier doesn’t gain any power but I built the deck to compensate for that anyway.
Transphere
More often than not, the fourth soul is just for Urseltje and I always have way extra. In a deck where you run nine cards with no shield value and go down to around three cards in hand in the pre G3 rounds it’s nice to have something extra. The red text skill isn’t the important part so much as the 25k shield is and could mean absolutely nothing against certain OTs like Eldobreath. Of course this can clash with Sanctitude but you make your calls when you need to.
Why don’t I run…
Silver Thorn, Breathing Dragon
Of all the G1s I tried, Breathing Dragon was always the first to be slowly phased out because it has the drawback Luxual has in that it stays on board but gives power to both lanes in exchange for having a cost. That cost proved expensive with both this and Urseltje in deck. The other G1s were picked to give extra power to all lanes anyway.
Steam Scara, Zargon
I know why a lot of players prefer Zargon over Falcate, which is that he doesn’t have Falcate’s same-grade lock and can put twice as many cards. However it also has to hit and sometimes having that Silver Thorn Servants in soul is what makes your next turn the final one. If your opponent reads that all they have to do is guard it. They can’t stop a Falcate.
Gratis Gradale
It just gets in the way of Loyal Servants. I had it in here for about one best of three and the one time I played it I regretted it because the draw led me to get the Loyal Servants and not be able to use it that turn which was already too late.
Match report
In terms of a win-loss ratio I didn’t do well on paper. However, I can safely say I played my best and at the very least made all my opponents work for their wins. I realize I could have played something safer but I think had I gotten Tougues I would have been able to push that much harder and learned many important lessons to take with me further into the season.
R1: Vs Thegrea W
From the get-go I recognized that my opponent was getting a lot of cards with no shield to hand, G3s, orders, etc. While they were able to refill the board with both Maples I was able to stay ahead of them and push for the game.
R2: Vs Gandeeva L
This hurt because I felt this was the match-up I was most prepared for. As I said I often mulligan for my combo pieces and post-mulligan I drew all triggers. I really fell behind and wasn’t able to put any pressure on and my opponent capitalized on that and I lost.
R3: Vs Eva L
I was prepared for Eva even though the deck has fallen off a bit and honestly all I can say here is I was outplayed. I kept heavy aggression from turn one and didn’t account for my hand as I was trying to win fast but failed to remember that Eva can prolong games for a very long time. By the end my opponent had thinned all but triggers from the deck and I was just done for.
R4: Vs Avantgarda W
This was against a friend of mine who had helped me play test for the event. We had a really great game with a lot of back and forth and I honestly thought it was over for me on his Persona Ride turn but I clinched it with just two cards in hand. On my next turn I realized I did a pretty huge misplay and forgot to use Falcate’s AUTO the turn before, so I had no Silver Thorn Servants, but thankful he did not even have enough shield for the three attacks I did have.
R5: Vs Gandeeva L
This time I tried to be as prepared as possible. I had all combo pieces, was a little short on soul but everything was going okay. The problem here is I think I went a little too hard. I called two Rs on turn one and while one of them was Jewel Core, who clearly stressed my opponent out, I did fall behind eventually. On my last turn I got a Crit, used it to damage lock my opponent and leave them with only three cards in hand. Something I forgot though was that Gandeeva’s CONT makes even small Rs into undeniable attackers. I lost being 5k short against a 29k Heal trigger.
I’d like to thank Bruce Antone for helping me theory craft and build the deck. Dylan Noyes and the CFA community for play testing. Madeline Blondeau for doing all of the above and so much more as well as letting me guide them through their first TCG tournament ever. And as always William Steele for being my general TCG mentor.
And! The girl reading this! See you at BCS NY!
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