Deck Dissection: Gold Paladins of the White Hare

Hello there, this is Homura here to bring to you guys another installment of Deck Dissection. BT-07 is out today, and I have the honor to play against the first post BT-07 deck within my playgroup, Gold Paladins. I am actually expecting to play against Great Nature, but the member from my group that is supposed to play GN is not back yet, so I guess my GN related post have to be delayed until later.

The deck that I've played against is the Gold Paladins from the White Hare division, with White Hare of the Moonlight Shadow, Pelinore and Blonde Ezel and the main Vanguards. Truthfully speaking, I felt that my friend's deck was a little weird (no offense intended) because he was using so many different units which can only perform to their maximum potential when they're in the VG circle. However, there's no doubt from my side that Pelinore's skills were very 'explosive', enough to caught their opponents off-guard if they don't realize what is happening.

Well, without wasting anymore time, I'll show you my take on the Pelinore deck and the justifications on the card choices:

Grade 0
Spring Breeze Messenger x1 (FV)
Flame of Victory x4 (Critical)
Silent Punisher x3 (Critical)
Falcon Knight of the Azure x4 (Draw)
Speeder Hound  x1 (Draw)
Elixir Sommelier x4 (Heal)

Grade 1
Knight of Elegant Skills, Gareth x4
Halo Shield, Mark x3
Player of the Holy Axe, Nimue x1
Hearer of Truth, Dindrane x3
Sleygal Dagger x3

Grade 2
Knight of Superior Skills, Beaumains x4
Calamity Mage, Tripp x3
Lop Ear Shooter x2
Master of Pain x3

Grade 3
White Hare of the Moonlight Shadow, Pelinore x4
Great Silver Wolf, Garmore x3

There, my take on the Pelinore deck. From what I can see, there's nothing much different with my friend's build besides running Garmore instead of Ezel, and the inclusion of Lop Ear Shooter (which my friend didn't use). And now onto the selection of cards:

Grade 0

Spring Breeze Messenger is our desired starter in this build. Like almost all other starters of the game, Messenger has the skill to be Superior Called once ridden by a GP unit. However, the 2nd skill is the one to keep an eye on. GP has always been suffering from being unable to call out units with precision, as most of their calling abilities comes from the top card of the deck. Messenger is able to improve the precision (albeit just slightly) by allowing you check the top 3 cards of your deck and call one out in REST position. This certainly decreases the chance of accidentally calling out a Trigger when now you have 3 cards to choose from.

The Triggers that I opted to use was my favorite lineup, with those that have skills played to the maximum number. So nothing much to describe in this part.

Grade 1
Gareth at 4x is quite standard these days, together with 3x of null guards. Sleygal Dagger is a very good booster because of its 7k power, as well as being able to break magic numbers once you have a full field. Nimue is more of a tech card to allow you to possibly fish out units from your deck earlier, since she's not that necessary for the deck, you can replace her with something else.

Before BT-07, my friend always employ Silver Fang Witch as his draw enabler as GP don't really use their Soul for much reasons. Now, we have a new variant that is slightly better than SFW. Enter the Hearer of Truth, Dindrane. Compared with SFW, Dindrane can only draw when she comes out from the deck. But having sufficient enablers to do so, and topping up with Dindrane's 6k power and cheaper cost to draw, I choose to include her instead of SFW because even though you can't draw, Dindrane is still better than SFW.

Grade 2
No need to say, Beaumains is at maximum for his raw power as a G2. Damage unflippers are now the staples of any deck that uses a lot of Counterblast. Same as GP, once you notice that you need quite some CB to pay for your skills, Tripp becomes very important in the deck.

The new addition from BT-07 is Lop Ear Shooter. Lop Ear shares the same requirement as all the White Hare division members, where his skill can only be used when he's called out from the deck. His cost is a bit cheaper, whereby you only need to discard a card from your hand to Superior Call one GP unit from the top 3 cards of your deck. I'm still trying out this unit to see whether he's worth the slot or not. The other newcomer is Master of Pain. For those that do not understand how Master of Pain works, you can refer to my previous article about the Shamsael based Angel Feather deck, where I talked about how good is Doctoroid Megaross.

Similar to Megaross, MoP is a LB enabler, as well as a card that can help you to reshuffle triggers back to your deck. By using it properly, you can even heal more damage than your opponent if you time it right.

Grade 3

Now on to the bosses of the deck. As the name suggest, Pelinore is our main star of the deck. Playing 4x of him is just to increase the chance for him to come out via your Superior Callers. This build can churn out a very devastating combo if you have the correct cards and the correct timing, especially when you already hit Limit Break threshold. I'll describe the combo here:

1. You attack with your VG, Drive Check, and apply any triggers as you desire.

2. Let's say your VG's attack hits, and was boosted by Spring Breeze Meesenger. SBM's skill activates, found a Pelinore among the 3 cards. Call out Pelinore in REST. If your opponent has a G2 or higher VG, pay the cost, put Pelinore in your VG circle, and stand.

3. Attack with Pelinore, and gain another Drive Check (this time it's Twin Drive). If you hit LB, you just need to plan your attack properly so that your final attack will be one that will be boosted with high numbers thanks to Pelinore's LB.

Verdict? Hand advantage via 2 times of Drive Checks, and big attacks (power is what GP do best, sometimes even better than Narukami or Spike Brothers).

The other card that we're using here as our alternative VG is Great Silver Wolf, Garmore. We all know that Garmore is a crucial card in any GP deck, as he's the only one that can perform a precised tutoring. He's also important because of his tutoring that comes from the deck, he can redistribute the cards you've checked from Lop Ear or Messenger, in case you sent Triggers to the bottom of your deck. Using him to maintain pressure while waiting for the time to finish things off with Pelinore is also decent enough.

Pelinore is definitely an interesting and explosive deck to play with. The only thing that bothers me is just that GP has received 3 consecutive sets of support, and other clans are seem to be ignored. Well, frustrations aside, try this deck out, and let me know how well this deck performs compared with the other GP decks out there now. Until next time, this is Homura signing out, and praying that I can do a writeup on Great Nature soon!