Pale Moon come Set 7 English release

A little early on it, but I've been wracking my brain some over what to build with Pale Moons once they're out. I don't consider myself the best deck builder at this game (yet) so I'd like some advice if any to give.

Triggers: 16
Candy Pierrot x4 (heal)
Dynamite Juggler x4 (Crit)
Poison Juggler x4 (crit)
Rainbow Magician x4 (Draw)

Grade 0: 1
Girl Who Crossed the Gap x1

Grade 1: 14
Midnight Bunny x4
Purple Trapezist x3
Skull Juggler x3
Underworld Hypnotist x4

Grade 2: 10
Barking Cerberus x4
Elephant Juggler x4
Hungry Pierrot x2

Grade 3: 9
Midnight Invader x3
Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier x2
Sword Magician, Sara x4

Might look odd to some, but I've been thinking and testing plenty on it and have had some success so far. I feel it can still improve and greatly so with your guy's input.

Still think my major headache with this deck is simply what to run in the G2 slots. I don't feel PM has much to offer there beyond some decent power and soul charging.

Makes sense to me. You're running a Seifried-like and putting a Limit Break for late game. Might be a bit of a problem if your Sara goes through your Luquiers and you can't ride them, but I suppose it's optional anyway. I haven't had much luck combining the two and usually do better running Alice. But I don't test Pale Moon that often.

There's been a couple times hitting a Luquier wasn't what I wanted, but most of the time I'm just cycling through Invaders.

Wish Sara would affect G2s, lol.

After quite a bit more play testing I feel my only issues are CBs (as per any PM deck) and getting a G3 that's not Luquier to be my swapper. It's not bad to soul charge a Midnight Invader or two but it's also what I like to keep out, so going to test again by switching Luquier to Alice. Especially since I only managed to use Luquier's LB once out of 20+ games.

I understand what you are trying to do with Jugglers but PM do prefer Quality over Quantity soul-charging. I'd personally edge the focus more over to Tamers with less Bunnies/Skull Jugglers for more Turquoise Beast Tamers. I'd replace Elephant Juggler with a Night Sky Dancer. Hungry Pierrot could possibly also come out for Crimson Beast Tamers.

Also you have a Midnight Invader in your Grade 3 line-up, who gets +2K however none of your current boosters have it hit for any significant number over 16K. However with Turquoise active you could be hitting with it for 20/21K which are impressive and rather devastating numbers toward your Opponent.

So in short: less Midnight Bunnies/Jugglers, more Tamers/Night Sky Dancer (This should also solve your issue regarding too little counterblast).

However you could also go in the opposite direction focusing on Sara instead of Lequier, decking Nightmare Doll Alice over your midnight Invaders (since both will usually be hitting the same significant numbers) and once again Elephant Juggler out for Night Sky Dancer. (Card is too damn amazing).

I like using however...

I can see that, I was mostly trying to build without using the Tamers just to see what I could do.

But the main reason for Midnight Invader (aside from liking him), is in plenty of play testing I often found myself short on boosts and he made a nice target to the Sara switch and still manage to hit 11k VGs.

But so far this build is rather unsuccessful unless I luck out on soul charges, so I'll probably finagle it even more.

I have to agree with 3XD - You're not hitting good numbers with either your Invaders (maximum 19k) or your Sara (Maximum 20k, which is good for 10k defensives, but not the good use of 11k.)

Lequier can almost always be made to hit good numbers after LB, so she's a non-issue

My opinion? Strip the Hungry Pierrot and Barking Cerberus for 4x Crimson and 2x Night Sky Dancer, and drop the Skull Juggler for Turquoise.

The only issue that leaves is that to EVER get Lequier's effect to work well, you would HAVE to ride Elephant Juggler, have 3+ other calls MINIMUM, and then still hope to call the RIGHT things charged with his effect. The only other way would cost you far too many resources, and that would be soul-filling by means of Purple Trapezist and Night Sky Dancer, and even then you would, at best, get 1 decent use of Lequier. Good for a Final Turn moment, but not much else, and even then it's only if you had really pushed them to take out their perfect guards.

End Result -

-3 Skull Juggler
-4 Barking Cerberus
-2 Hungry Pierrot

+3 Turquoise Beast Tamer (Yes, only 3 - Being dependent on Crimson makes her SLIGHTLY less useful)
+4 Crimson Beast Tamer
+2 Night Sky Dancer

Then comes the optional area...

Do you really have solid, beefy targets to pull out with Sara or Midnight Bunny? At best, you'd be grabbing out an invader, which about 1/3 of the time will be useless with Bunny (When they hit a damage check from TAKING Bunny's boosted attacker) and even then, you'd need 2 of your 3 out of the deck to make it loop~able with Sara's effect. This is all conditional, but it would work if it was set up.

Nightmare Doll Alice would - for my money's worth - make the better option. You don't hit the awesome numbers, but it discourages "I'll take the first attack and hope for a check" defenses. Take the first one, and you get another booster or another Invader from your soul - even if you swing unboosted, banking on drive checking a G3, it would force more guards. If they do end up hitting a damage check or are 11k defensive and you have no booster, her effect can still go off from hitting rear-guards, drawing out more shields, either through killing interceptors or guarding to keep her effect from going off - swinging at a 9k defender with Alice boosted by Turquoise makes for deliciously bad decisions all around, either they massively overguard to stop it, or lose a 5k shield and let you soul swap her for an Invader or Bunny.

Honestly, I love Lequier, but unless you build a soul-spam deck around her effect... WITH Sky-High Walker from set 5... she's not good. She's not something you can push into any deck just because her effect is stupidly powerful IF you have the right components. You just can't do it.

MY opinion for optional changes that I would greatly recommend -

-2 Lequier
-1 Invader
+3 Alice


EDIT - Completely forgot about your checks... with the optional changes to your G3 lineup (if you used them) You should DROP either your draw trigger or a crit trigger for a stand trigger - Alice loves stands. She loves them a lot.

Thanks for the big suggestion there Wolf. (also do want your Alice still, lol)

Well, guess this weekend I'll do more play testing and such.

Klaus wrote:

Thanks for the big suggestion there Wolf. (also do want your Alice still, lol)

Well, guess this weekend I'll do more play testing and such.

Made a quick edit to the very end

And I thought I got back to you... o.o I ended up not needing the Full Moon, friend pulled a few for me.

Sorrow, ah well I bet I can find someone else hankering for some Full Moon.

But thanks again for the suggestions.

Managed to get some play testing in while at work (hooray for really slow days) and yes the new build is pretty consistent. Though only managed to play against Bermuda Tri which I generally beat just because the friend who plays them is pretty cautious when it comes to games.

But the new list based on the suggestions.

Triggers: 16
Candy Pierrot x4 (Heal)
Crackler Musician x 4 (Stand
Dynamite Juggler x4 (Crit)
Poison Juggler x4 (Crit)

Grade 0: 1
Girl Who Crossed the Gap x1

Grade 1: 14
Midnight Bunny x4
Purple Trapezist x3
Turquoise Beast Tamer x3
Underworld Hypnotist x4

Grade 2: 10
Crimson Beast Tamer x4
Dancing Queen of the Night Sky x2
Elephant Juggler x4

Grade 3: 9
Midnight Invader x2
Nightmare Doll, Alice x3
Sword Magician, Sara x4

I kept the eight crits mostly because I just like them over the draw trigger, but if more testing shows I need some hand size I'll make the switch.

How is Elephant Juggler working out for you?

It's pretty nice for when I miss a Crimson/Dance Queen and try to just cram her in. But I feel I could run less if not at all since out of the handful of games I played I managed to either ride or stick Crimson in with a Dancing Queen or Trapezist.

Edit: Oh also it was a nice way to get early Invaders or Alice with my starter if my field was rather lacking.

You do know it is a Vanguard only ability right?

I'm quite aware of that, though friends would often say I could soul charge with one in RG since they didn't know, lol.

Just wondering, seems to be working out well for you. Personally, I just dislike it quite a bit in Pale Moon (I do love the DI one though with Doreen).

Like I said I'm considering taking them out, I'm just not sure what I'd put in place other than Cerberus, lol.

I don't like Elephant myself, but unless you want to run Drawing Dread (Since Turquoise does boost for good numbers with him) or Fire Breathing Carrie (In such a soul-hungry deck.... nu-uh... not worth the CB)

There aren't a whole lot of good G2's for the deck. It's the one card that, if you MISS Crimson / Princess (Which I argue I would still ride Elephant before Princess since her effect will go off anyway in RG and it would set up a better toolbox than... nothing at all) - This is at least not until set 5, with Big League Bear (Not a great unit either in Pale Moon, but better than Elephant...)

I haven't had time to test out any other G2s yet, but its hard to think on for sure.

Can at least run Drawing Dread for the wicked mustache.

I mean, his effect is solid if you have 9k boosters to actually USE his guttural 7k attack. It depends on a lot of things which is... less than ideal, but you'd have to test to see if he's worth running.

In a lot of games I find my crits to be more worthwhile than any stands I run.

Probably because the people I play always guard for the minimum amount for my VG attack regardless of how many triggers were seen in the game, lol.

Running no crits is sometimes risky because you're taking the one thing that hits high stages in most decks (the vanguard) and making it much less of a threat by not having the possibility of dealing more than 1 damage on hit. If I know your whole deck is stands, I'm not going to guard big/perfect on the van. I'll let big attacks hit and guard all the smaller/weaker ones and come out on top.

Aside from when Set 7 is out PM will still only have one stand trigger available to them in English, I focus on Sara for this particular build. So my extra G3s are essentially stand triggers.