Standard Budget Deck: Pale Moon (Nightmare Doll)

Special thanks to James/Fenrir for allowing me to contribute to Budgetfight! As for me, I'm Nem. I've been a contributor to the local St Louis Cardfight community ever since the start of 2016, helping with playtesting for locals/regionals (even got a couple Top 8s under my belt!) and providing proxy decks to try out for every clan in the game starting from the beginning of Standard Format. Breaking out into content creation and contributing further to a wider audience are always things I've liked/wanted to do, and I've done a couple clan primers in previous formats for our team on Youtube (Team Hivemind).

I've always been a fan of this blog because it lowers the barrier required to get into this game (money can always be an issue with TCGs) by providing easily accessible deck lists for decks that have the potential to contend with the meta!

Couldn't find the ENG version on Google images :/

Once such deck that can contend post-Phantasmal Steed Restoration meta is none other than Nightmare Dolls from the Pale Moon clan! Slightly overshadowed by the more popular Silver Thorns, a diamond in the rough of Pale Moon's previous Standard Format life cycle has emerged in the form of a new boss: Nightmare Doll, Carroll.


Carroll's main utility is in her ability to put combo pieces into soul, call it out if it was a Grade 3 Workeroid, and get a psuedo-restand VG ability by reriding herself or Alice from the soul. If enough CBs are available, she can do this multiple times in one battle phase!


So how do we enable this? Of course, we need to run as much Workeroids as possible, as well as combo pieces that can extend our main plays. For the Grade 3 lineup, Carroll and Alice are played at 4 for the G3 Workeroid consistency, as well as to enable multi attacks on both VG and RG circles. Comicality Chimera is our CCer of choice, as we can get the extra CC during the battle phase. Dancing Knifedancer only CCs during the end phase. We don't want to wait next turn to kill them, we want to kill them now!)

The Grade 2 and Grade 1 lineups are a mixture of powerful Workeroids (Erin, Rhoda, and Edith all gain power) and combo starters/extenders (include Jumping Jill/Midnight Bunny combo for early game pressure and have Purple Trapezist ready to pull key cards from soul.) As for the triggers: Front triggers are the trigger of choice as defensive triggers can still hurt this deck, just like previous incarnations of this deck. However, we still need a healthy amount of Draw triggers to get our combo started and to shore up cards in our hands. In the below deck list, I have proposed a 6 Front/6 Draw split, but 8 Front/4 Draw could work just as well.

Erin can also be used to enable Carroll!

Let's get to the most important part: the combo! Ideally, the combo would go something like this:

>Ride G3 Carroll, get an Accel II marker and draw a card
>Use Carroll's skill to call a G3 Workeroid from her ability or call one from hand if needed
>Call a strong field based on what you have in hand/soul, but the most important is to have either Alice or Comicality+Carroll on RG
>Attack with VG
>Use Alice or Comicality+Carroll to enable Carroll's effect, pay the cost to ride Alice/Carroll from soul (ideally Carroll)
>Get ANOTHER Accel II marker and draw a card
>If you rode Carroll, activate her effect again
>Attack with VG (Drive -1)
>Rinse and repeat (If Caroll is your VG and you have a Carroll in soul/ready to go into soul)

As long as you have CB available (you can CC once with Comicality), you can keep pulling off the combo to discard to restand since you plus from the Drive checks and Accel II markers you accrue over the course of the battle phase! Not to mention, if you keep units off on the side and attack with them after you run out of CB, you had the potential to stack Front triggers for some strong finishing attacks.

Play aggressively early with Jill and Bunny/Erin and your G2 and G1 Workeroids, and push them to a point that you can finish them on your first G3 ride! Did I mention the combo can work even when your opponent is at Grade 2? That separates it from decks that need the opponent to be at G3 for their abilities such as Mordred Phantom or Gancelot.

                                          

Decklist:
NOTE: As always, this is only an example decklist and we encourage you to experiment to find the ratios that work for you!

Grade 3: 11
4x Nightmare Doll, Carroll
4x Nightmare Doll, Alice
3x Comicality Chimera

Grade 2: 11
4x Nightmare Doll, Erin
3x Jumping Jill
2x Nightmare Doll, Rhoda
2x Nitro Juggler

Grade 1: 11
4x Purple Trapezist
4x Nightmare Doll, Edith
3x Midnight Bunny

Grade 0: 17
6x Front Triggers
2x Draw Triggers
4x Hades Hypnotist
4x Candy Clown
1x Silver Thorn Assistant, Ionela/Starting Presenter (Starter)

Effectiveness: 6.5/10
Approximate Deck Cost: $40-50
Competitive: Solid Tier 2.5

                                          

Final Words: If we're putting wiggle room on the approximate prices of the commons and rares, we're looking at around a $40-50 range! The prices for Carroll and Erin are up on Ideal808 and TCGPlayer right now, and they're under a buck each.

As we can see, the only money cards that are needed for this build are Alice, Purple Trapezist, and the Draw PG. Out of those three, only the Draw PG is used in the more popular Silver Thorn variant, so these legacy cards shouldn't be too hard to get.

Alternative cards that you could consider are:

* Brassie Bunny (filter power and soulcharge)
* Starting Presenter (early game filterer/combo setup)
* Endive Beast Tamer (pull important cards from soul such as Comicality/Alice)
* Amaranth Beast Tamer (can put non-Workeroids into soul during the battle phase such as Comicality/Purple Trapezist so you can enable Carroll in a pinch)

Final Words: If you're bored with the top tier Accel decks such as Beast Deity, Maelstrom, or Gauntlet Buster (or if you don't have the cash to drop for those), give this fun combo deck a try! While it doesn't pack as much of a punch with high initial columns or critical pressure, high rolling with triggers on multiple Vanguard attacks and shoring up your resources can make you pull out an unexpected early victory as your opponent is asking themselves constantly "Does it really work like this?" (Yes, yes it does!)

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed, see 'ya!