Budget Deck: Shadow Paladins (Ildona)

...ahem...

Well, G NEXT era has been here for about a month or two and it's about time I start writing for the new era!

We now have a new squadmate for Chrono in the name of Kazuma Shouji.

He uses the new Luard unit and Ritual deck, which makes a pretty great budget deck if I do say so myself, but that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're talking about probably the best rare retrain of an old unit that Bushi's ever printed. I'm talking about Enticing Mage, Ildona.

Ildona's a fan favorite Shadow Paladin unit from back when and it's great to see him back in the limelight.

First off, he's the Ritual Liddy clone, searching out Ritual units from the top 5 cards of the deck. Pretty standard, but what makes him amazing is his Ritual skill. On-attack sack 2 units to draw a card? That's some really easy hand-to-field advantage right there. Really easy. And with the likes of David and Arsur? Oh he's just great. He also gets +3000, which makes 21k columns with 7k boosters easy. Easy advantage. Easy powerboosts. All in a Rare. Just a perfect budget unit. Add in some of that good generic Shadow Paladin support and bam! You got yourself a pretty great deck.

If you can, picking up a G-Legend Deck and/or a Ritual of Dragon Sorcery Trial Deck will serve you well. A lot of the staples are included in these

Grade 3

Luard's got some

sick pants

Four Ildona. He should be as common as grass, so getting your hands on him should be easy peasy in
the Sneak Preview. You can also try out Luard and the other Grade 3s that the Trial Deck gives you.

Now for the huge heap of good generic Grade 3s. It can be pretty much anything.

First, Badhabh Caar 2.0 is great as usual, as are the "Diablo" boys. OG Badhabh Caar is really solid in this deck as well, since you can get another unit to sack for Ildona, resulting in more hand plus.

Shadow Blaze Dragon's a much more offensive variation of Ildona, retiring opponent units rather than drawing, possibly as an extra option against Gradelock Rush decks. Deathspray serves the same purpose, albeit weaker, but does work on the Rearguard while Ildona's grinding away and giving you a bunch of free draws.

Fodla is my choice of backup G3, personally, since she toolboxes your lovely Grade 0s.

Cormack and Perdeur for Crit Pressure.

Try out "Abyss" or Raging Form with a Revenger G2 and G1 lineup if you wanna try it out for some finishing power.

Claret Sword backup is seems pretty interesting.

Grade 2

I never thought I would see

more Demon World Castles

Honestly not too important, so you don't really need to invest too much in here. The only really important card you want to run is Nemain, since she draws you two cards on-call and can be used as an interceptor or sacked for cost. Outside of that, I'll just put a few suggestions.

Dark Night Maiden, Macha is really nice for calling out Grade 1s that you need, like Swordbreaker or Decipherer of Prohibited Books.

Demon World Castle, Irongang is a plain 10k Vanilla that comes with the Luard TD, so use as space filler if needed.

Dragwizard, Liafall makes any dead rearguards into draws. Using this and Nemain together results in a really easy 3 draws. Also hits 11k Vanguards solo.

Dragwizard, Morfessa proxies as a G1 while in the drop zone, hits 11k Vanguards solo and 21k with a booster, and calls out G1s on hit. Very, very useful unit. Not sure what the price on him will be, though. He's gonna be hella expensive. Run only if you can spare the money.

Hoel + Kahedin for while you're on a Diablo vanguard and if you can afford it. Dorint + Claudas serves a similar function if you cant afford Hoel.

Grade 1

4 Perfect Guards, as usual. You could try a tech-in Quintet Wall to get your Ritual faster. Stride Fodders for Shadows are getting more and more expensive, so try to get your hands on them cheap if you can.

Prohibited Books is seriously good, especially in this deck since you can call out Arsur or David and use it for Ildona's cost, resulting in a net +2. Might be a bit hard to get, being a promo.

Knies is a solid card that comes at 4 in the Trial Deck.

Night Sky Eagle is great and offers more offensive options in Grade 1.

Darkheart Trumpeter's good if you think you're gonna be on PB "Diablo" often.

This might seem weird but... I highly recommend Twitterun in this deck if you expect to go up against gradestall decks. Unlike standard Generation Break decks, Ildona only needs to reach GB1 to access his entire skillset and when he does his advantage engine is very oppressive against gradestall decks that have very few ways of plussing.

Grade 0

You have three viable starters: Creeping Dark Goat, Rute, and David. Goat's the standard Top-5 Checker forerunner, which I don't really recommend(Some people like this, though). Between Rute and David, I feel like David has much more synergy with Ildona because of how much he allows you to plus with Ildona. Rute's +5000 isn't really much(he shines much more in Luard decks), so I just recommend David.

Trigger time. I recommend anywhere from 6-12 Crits and 4 Heals. Outside of that, there are three effect triggers that Shadow Paladins have: Craftine, Arsur, and Raven. I highly recommend Arsur at 3-4 because of how well he works with Ildona. Craftine is good for more draws and Raven serves similar purpose as Arsur.

No Draws. Just don't. You have enough draws with Ildona. And you really don't want to deck out.

Grade 4

What plot are you

making today?

First off, Aurageyser. If you can get two of these, you're pretty much set. Field-to-hand conversion is really, really good and with David and Arsur that becomes actual, solid plus rather than just conversion. A very good card that's worth the money if you can get him.

Phantom Blaster "Diablo" is the best budget finisher and best budget stride for Shadows. Next to him as another great finisher is Spectral Blaster "Diablo". Run however many of each you can afford.

The TD Stride, Carnivore Dragon, is pretty solid and our main grind engine in our G-Zone. He's really strong and helps get rid of pesky units for your finish with Phantom Blaster "Diablo".

Grim Recruiter's good pressure.

Dragdriver Luard's a good card, but not really necessary or needed in this deck.

Blizza's pretty funny, since you can grind like crazy until late game where Blizza hits like a truck.

Plotmaker Dragon is literally a better Dark Knight Ludvik. Please use Plotmakers if you can buy them.
                                                                                                        

Decklist: 

NOTE: This is only an example decklist and should only be used as a base. I recommended that you create your own decklist through your own testing. I found this decklist to fit me, but it is up to you to find a decklist that fits you.

Grade 0:

1x Promising Knight, David

16x Triggers of Choice (4x Mage of the Rogue Eye, Arsur)

Grade 1:

4x Perfect Guard of Choice

4x Cherishing Knight, Branwen

4x Air Elemental, Twitterun/Dragwizard, Knies

2x Decipherer of Prohibited Books

Grade 2:

3x Skull Witch, Nemain

3x Demon World Castle, Irongang

3x Dark Knight Maiden, Macha

2x Dragwizard, Liafall

Grade 3:

4x Enticing Mage, Ildona

4x Dark Mage, Badhabh Caar

Grade 4:

2x Dark Dragon, Carnivore Dragon

4x Dark Dragon, Phantom Blaster "Diablo"

2x Dark Knight, Grim Recruiter

4x Snow Element, Blizza

4x Dark Dragon, Plotmaker Dragon

                                                                                                        

Effectiveness:

Price:$50-55

Competitive: Yes

Final Words: One of the few actually really good grind decks that wins not by aggression, but through straight advantage alone. Really interesting, really fun deck that is really great once you get the hang of it. Not too complicated and not too autopilot. Really glad Ildona got a retrain and I hope we get more retrains like this in the future.

Anyhow, see you in the next one!

-Robot