~Act III: Choices~
These are some of the choices I made between units and I generally think that they don't work as well in the deck.
(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/cardfight/images/e/e5/G-TD07-003.png/revision/latest?cb=20151112121733) (http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Masked_Magician,_Harri)
Now, the time of dreams begins!
- Masked Magician, Harri - Some people think if Alice is such a terrible ride, why not run a tech copy of Harri to be able to search by Masquerade Bunny? My answer to this is because I need Catherine and Alice at 4 each so that would mean running a slightly above average 9 Grade 3s. The deck already floods itself with plenty of Grade 3 since the more Alice, the better and I'm only running 2 Masquerade Bunnies so chances of getting both it and no Catherine is pretty low. Finally my deck has absolutely no synergy with Harri at all, since I don't run any Magia or G-supports. Peek-a-Boo, Nitro Juggler, they all don't do so well with Harri.
(http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/cardfight/images/1/1a/G-BT05-037.png/revision/latest?cb=20151112124538) (http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Flying_Peryton)
Recent complaints. Pegasus treatment is different.
- Flying Peryton - Well this unit does have quite a lot of potential in Magia decks, but in Nightmare Dolls, not so much. With the forcing of calling in the same column, most calls are bound to be Grade 1 or lower. Trapezist does combo with this unit as it can turn Peryton into anything but in the end, the unit goes back into the soul again. This is one reason why even Leslie doesn't even combo with it well. The only use of it I see is to call Workeroid fuel for Beatrix but then it being a Grade 2 non-workeroid means you lose the full potential of Beatrix since you either lose a booster or Peryton stays rested in the front row. Though despite all this negativity, I still think its the best replacement for Spicy Clown and I would need further testing to compare the two.
(http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/cardfight/images/0/07/G-BT05-019.png/revision/latest?cb=20151112113156) (http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Darkside_Princess)
Within the dream, the girl becomes a princess.
- Darkside Princess - Along with Peryton, these two are the well known stars in Harri builds as Magia makes everything go back anyways making Darkside Princess costless. However in this deck you'll rarely need to call it since you're main attacker is Alice anyways and Ginny gives the same power boost to Alice so there is little to no reason for this card besides gimmicky things like early rushing in which you minus yourself with Princess.
(http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/cardfight/images/7/7f/G-BT05-088.png/revision/latest?cb=20151116161918) (http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Dreaming_Bicorn)
Because, reality is a nightmare you can not wake up from.
- Dreaming Bicorn - This little Generation Break starter is very useful in Nightmare Dolls since it does wonders during Beatrix turns where power boosts help finish off. The 3000 on Leslie, pre-Catherine Alice, even Peek-a-Boo, it makes everything wonderful and the best thing is it doesn't even cost a counterblast! But thats only in a hypothetical sense, since the deck dies down pretty rapidly if you don't have rapidly, so does this little horse over here. Overall I think securing your Catherine is more important than supporting a full finishing turn since I think there's already enough though I would say Bicorn is totally viable as well.
~Act IV: How to Juggle~
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Ride!
Early riding is one of the crucial part of Pale Moon since it automatically becomes soul once you ride the next grade so you'd want to make the most out of it rather than fixing the soul later on with Trapezist.
The preferable ride is either
Purple Trapezist or
Nightmare Doll, Leslie since
Trapezist allows some pretty cool combos later on meanwhile
Leslie being in there means you have access to it at anything with
Beatrix.
Masquerade Bunny is the third best with
Darkside Mirror Master being your worst ride. Since
Masquerade Bunny doesn't really do much on-call and
Leslie being so important, its better to not rush at Grade 1 since
Bunny could be used later on for striding meanwhile guarding for
Leslie wouldn't be worth it.
With
Innocent Magician being a 4000 base, this makes your vanguard attack prone to early 10k no passes. However you could still potentially hit just the right number if they ride a 6000 Grade 1 and you ride a 7000 Grade 1 so take note of that and slide
Magician behind your vanguard in that case. Other than that if you start first,
Innocent Magician behind the vanguard is always a good option and finally if you start second and they ride a 7000 G1, you might as well just slide your starter anywhere since it doesn't matter. Sometimes I even send it to the front row incase I get a trigger power to give to it. Though if they ride a 8000,
Magician should be boosting the vanguard since you should aim to hit when possible.
(http://megero.c.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_1e7/megero/1344760889990.gif?c=a3)
Rush rush rush!
Grade 2 is when things start to get better and you can start calling rear guards to support. However riding is still crucial and the main ride should be
Nightmare Doll, Ginny or
Peek-a-Boo.
Peek's 8000 base is quite annoying so if you foresee you're going to ride it, might as well pull down
Magician so you have a booster to at least hit.
Nitro Juggler is the flexible unit that works on call or on ride so its pretty much your go-to unit if you want to rush since its job is done when its called. Finally
Spicy Clown is your secondary rush option and if you call it, be prepared for people to target it. This is a double-edged sword since it could bluff your opponent and reduce your damage and guarding but it could also decrease your advantage so
Spicy Clown is one unit you should plan out carefully. Also
Peek-a-Boo returns back to the soul regardless of whether it was called via its skill or not so be prepared to take the minus if you happen to call it for rushing.
One thing to be concerned about is if you've hit a few critical triggers and pushed the opponent quite far ahead, it might be a good idea to halt rushing and allow yourself to sponge up as much damage as possible because the deck is geared to one turn kill but without counterblasts, you have less chances of killing them and so having less targets for them to attack could be a good idea and burst out next turn.
Grade 3 is when you start working, unlike many other decks that start once you stride. This means that if you know you can win, even if the opponent is at Grade 2, ride and let
Alice do its work. If you know you're up against G-decks then you might skip riding Grade 3 a few turns to make sure you win from your first stride though if you're up against some heavy rushing like Ripples you should consider riding first to get the advantage from twin drive. The deck really doesn't like staying on Grade 2 vs rush since you have to keep both
Alice and
Catherine in your hand which makes guarding a bit tricky. General consensus is to ride when you think you can win because this deck doesn't stride as often so vs G-decks, if you don't stride often, you're gonna fall short on advantage.
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Stride! Ardor Dragon Master, Amanda!
Overall you shouldn't stride often in this deck, its a one turn kill kind of deck and so once you run out of counterblasts, theres nothing much to do. Though if you lack a few combo pieces, striding can help you get them so it really depends on the situation. Mostly
Amanda or
Clifford is used if you're stalling and
Beatrix is the main game ender. Theres slim chances of needing to use
Lunatec and most of the time you use
Harri, it'll be because you strode a few times already and ran out of
Beatrix.
(https://theotakusblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/ep-33-5.jpg)
Sorry for the bad quality.
So the normal finisher field would be a 2 columns of
Alice and
Leslie, a Workeroid boosting or not boosting
Beatrix, 1
Alice in soul and 2
Ginny in soul. Optional
Bicorn or
Poison Juggler can be used to give
Leslie deadly powers. So you attack with both columns first aiming for the vanguard, at this point if it hits you should call a
Ginny with
Alice, calling back
Alice and standing
Leslie. This gives you another 22k attack. With
Ginny's power boost, it is advisable to use
Alice as much as possible when it hits since it hits harder than a plain
Alice from
Catherine.
So once thats all done, attack with
Beatrix, giving all trigger powers to
Leslie. After that absorb the two
Alices and one Workeroid and call out two
Ginny infront of both
Leslies meanwhile sending
Beatrix back leaving a
Catherine at rest. This procs
Leslie making both of them stand then
Ginny comes into play sending both of them into the soul, calling out 2 buffed
Alice. The rest should be fairly simple so attack until they die.
The risk here is trying to kill an opponent at 3 damage. This is very well possible but be extremely careful of damage triggers and be prepared for them. This means that try to use
Alice's on hit more than
Catherine's and have at least one
Leslie to assure you don't mess up if their vanguard is at 21000. Also aim to attack with the lower-powered
Alice before the higher one in case of triggers. Another problem is simply lacking
Ginny in the soul which happens occasionally. In this case, if you have
Trapezist in the soul, call
Trapezist with
Alice and use its on-call skill to send a unit back, calling back
Alice. This should allow the loop to continue fairly well, especially if the unit sent back is a
Ginny.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-rLEyhgcEh8/maxresdefault.jpg)
Guard!
Guarding isn't quite important in the context that you don't really need the drop zone. However there are still some main ideas to grasp for example not guarding with Workeroids when you're about to stride into
Beatrix and try to keep higher grades like grade 2 since you'll need to stride with two cards occasionally. Also with most Workeroids being Grade 2 or higher, you might sometimes need to drop guard with Grade 1s and call boosting triggers instead so do note that Grade 1s are not necessarily always better than Grade 0s as boosters.
Finally since the deck has no legion, you don't really need to worry about what goes into the drop zone so the normal rules apply here. If you have a PG-G or
Alice in the damage zone, try to counterblast them first before any other cards since they're the two cards in the deck which vaguely connects to the drop zone, otherwise other than that you don't have to worry much.
~Act V: Conclusion~
Overall since
G-BT05: Moonlit Dragonfang,
Pale Moon has began to see much more play due to the simultaneous release of the TD and so now there are several available builds to consider including
Harri, Nightmare Dolls, Beast Tamers and Silver Thorns. Though due to the nature of the game, I think that the best contender for this meta would be
Nightmare Dolls since it simply does not care about Grade 2 Game which is a common issue holding many G-decks back and the fact that
Alice is probably one of the best finisher in-game with access to more attacks than
Aqua Force depending on the counterblasts you have.
Furthermore there will also be more
Pale Moon support in
G-BT06 so we can all look forward to Pale Moon's return to the meta even if it didn't last long during
Silver Thorn's reign.