This is Bryce Miller from Team Manguard with a Clan Overview. No matter what trading card game you play, card advantage is a huge deal. Although it is never necessarily the win condition, it gives you the resources to dictate the flow of the game. There are two main ways to achieve card advantage: take away your opponent's cards or draw your own. Oracle Think Tank(Oracles or OTT for short), the subject of today, excels at both.
Under Pressure
There are two main components that allow an Oracle player to apply pressure. First off is Silent Tom. Silent Tom's effect is "During a battle that this unit attacks, if you have an "Oracle Think Tank vanguard, your opponent cannot normal call grade 0 units to guardian circle." Basically when Silent Tom attacks, your opponent cannot guard with grade 0 units. This is huge. Normally when a a 16k column attacks your vanguard, generally at 10k or 11k in the current meta, your opponent would simply guard with one trigger and stop the attack in its tracks. This is not the case with Silent Tom. Your opponent is forced to use intercepters, grade 1 units or grade 2 units, normally the driving force of your opponent's offense. This is amplified whenever critical triggers are hit. Now your opponent needs to use up a lot of valuable resources or take considerable damage. This one simple effect makes Silent Tom one of the best rear guards in the game and there is no reason not to play as many as possible in the current meta.
The second pressure tool is their grade 3 vanguards. Oracles have not one, not two, but three powerful vanguards that allow them to easily hit above the 21k (21000) magic number or produce similar effects. CEO Amaterasu is the first, being released in the very first booster set. It is a soul charging unit that allows you to check the top of your deck to look for either a potential trigger or a card you may need later, and if the card is not important to your set up, you can relocate it to the bottom of your deck. But what makes CEO stand out, and allows it to remain the single strongest soul charging unit to date, is the added effect of gaining 4k during your turn by simply having 4 or more cards in hand. This effect is constant, which translates to only 2 cards in hand, because it still gains this effect after the cards are added in twin drive. Still, as the archetype evolves, CEO generally takes the place of "backup vanguard" to the other two Oracle Vanguards: Scarlet Witch Coco for the soulless deck and Goddess of the Full Moon, Tsukuyomi. Each are the stars of their deck and provide different ways to pressure their opponents. Coco gets a 3k offensive power boost for having no cards in the soul. Tsukuyomi, while not always hitting 21k, pressures with a late game explosion referred to as "the stack" which i will discuss later. Now, I am going to talk about the other key advantage OTT decks have.
Drawing ALL the Cards: The Strength of the OTT Vanguard
Originally, Oracles main source of draw power was having more draw triggers than anyone else. Now there triggers are much more Crit oriented because the vanguards allow you to draw cards with there individual abilities. The ability to draw so many cards allows an Oracle player to play the maximum amount of perfect shields without many issues to it clogging in hand. Each of the two vanguards I will discuss has specific benefits and specific weaknesses.
Scarlet Witch Coco and the two card swing
Originally, when Coco was first released, emptying the soul was rather inconsistent, relying on drawing certain rearguards to empty certain amounts of cards in soul. Although Coco's ability to counter blast 2 to draw 2 cards when you ride her, it was not always easy to set up a situation where she was effective. With the release of set 7 however, a new starting rear guard shifted the entire way the deck was built. Little Witch, Lulu allows the Oracle deck to rely less on inconsistent rear guards that bring cards out of the soul, and have the entire soul empty with just one card. When your grade 3 Oracle rides, Lulu moves to the rear guard, takes two cards out of the soul into the drop zone, and draws you a card. This completely empties the soul leaving only a grade 3 in the vanguard circle. This in combination with Scarlett Witch Coco's ability allows you to add 4 cards to your card presence with just 1 ride, 2 cards drawn from Coco, 1 card drawn from Lulu, and a new rear guard in the form of Lulu. This is a very dramatic change in pace that happens all in one play.
Full Moon Goddess Tsukuyomi - Drawing to "the stack"
Tsukuyomi's effect allows her to counter blast 2 to draw two and put one card from hand into soul. This comes with a condition that she needs six cards or more in the soul to activate this effect, which might seem weird when you consider that fulfilling the whole ride series only puts five cards in soul. So you keep overall less cards than you draw with coco, and its harder to achieve, so why is it worth it? Two reasons. First hitting all the superior ride effects, from Godhawk to Full Moon Goddess creates an inherent plus 3 in advantage by allowing you to ride from the deck instead of riding from your hand. 2nd, the ascending ride creates "the stack" and the draws bring you closer to it. So what is this "stack" I keep referring to? When you use Godhawk or any of the Moon Goddess' abilities to superior ride you look at the top five cards of the deck and then, after riding or not, put them back on the bottom of the deck in ANY order. This lets you stack two triggers together on your first ride. Hitting double triggers at any point in a game is game changing and potentially can end any game on the turn you see them. Tsukuyomi allows you to take probability out of the equation by setting a definitive point in the game where you will hit two triggers in one late game ending swing.
Weaknesses
By far the biggest weakness of OTT is that while they are powerful at pressuring your opponent and drawing, they have little to no function in control and tool boxing. Decks like Gold Paladins and Spike Brothers can toolbox cards from the deck to adapt to different situations, decks like Narukami can break apart an opponents set up with control cards and their boss monster Vermillion, and some decks like Royal Paladin and Kagero can do a little of both. Oracles need to get lucky and draw the cards they need, and hope your opponent misplays and guards with cards you would like to get rid of (or attack a rearguard which is a minor form of control every deck has). Also each of the two types have their own specific flaws as well.
The soulless deck has three main flaws in it. First there are currently no good alternative vanguards specifically tailored to help the deck. If you don't ride Coco, you don't gain nearly enough advantage to compete with a lot of other decks. Secondly, the deck lacks a strong grade two ride. Aside from the 10k Oracle vanilla, your other options for the soulless vanguard are 8k Silent Tom, or the 8k Battle Sister Mocha. This gives you a much weaker grade 2 ride, letting even 8k boosters put pressure on your vanguard and, later in the game, rear guards due to the fact that there is no 9k grade 2 tailored to work in the soulless strategy. The final weakness happens in a lot less situations but is very severe when it does occur. You need to have two damage to use Coco's counterblast. Because you have to use her ability when she rides, you only get one opportunity to gain her draw 2 effect, which is basically the purpose of using this particular build. Because you need to take this damage, you can't place effective rear guard columns until you reach your grade 3, because your opponent could just avoid attacking your vanguard and focus on rearguards instead. This prevents you from establishing early game pressure that you could normally achieve in other decks that do not require counter blasts right away.
For the Tsukuyomi deck, the biggest flaw is the ride series itself. "But wait, I thought you said that the ride series was good?" This is true, but it works as a double-edged sword. If you hit all the right cards in the ride series, it is extremely good. But if you miss any at all, your strategy is crippled severely. Not only is it harder to hit "the stack" you were setting up, the grade 3 Tsukuyomi also loses a permanent 2k on offense and defense, turning it from a good rearguard and awesome vanguard, to a bad rearguard and even more terrible vanguard. The only way to mitigate that loss at all is to ride the alternative vanguard CEO Amaterasu, but this still leaves your Tsukuyomi grade 3s in bad shape and better left to being perfect shield fodder.
Why are these decks not more predominant in the tournament scene?
Aside from the listed weakness, there is one solid reason behind this. $$$ Money $$$. The deck itself costs equal to, or even greater than, the current leading deck right now, Gold Paladins. Ever since its release, it has remained the most expensive deck in Vanguard, due to so many good and necessary cards being RR or RRR. There are alternatives you can play but the difference in power is so great, its hardly even worth it. Silent Tom $18, Battle Sister Chocolat $15, Scarlett Witch Coco $18, Battle Sister Mocha $4. Each of these cards is almost required at 4 per deck in the Soulless build, and this is the cheaper version. Unlike a Gold Paladin player who can play a Garmore build and still have the only cards to break the 15 dollar mark be the perfect shield and 1-2 ezel; everything else can be rares and commons.
Example Builds, keeping it Basic
To end things, I am going to give some basic builds of each version and quickly discuss card choices i did not discuss previously
Soulless Coco Deck
G0: 17
Starter: Little Witch Lulu
8 Critical Triggers - Standard in most decks
4 Draw Triggers - Pretty standard, we don't have more crits so these will do
4 Heal Triggers -Standard, with a few exceptions (check out the grade 1 rush deck)
G1: 14
4 Oracle Guardian Gemini - 8k booster
4 Battle Sister, Chocolat -Perfect Guard
3 Emerald Witch Lala - Allows for hand recycling on call, as well as being 7k
2 Weather Girl, Milk - Lets coco hit for 20k with another G3 in soul
1 Luck Bird - Back up plan to clear the soul, a +1 on call
G2: 12
4 Battle Sister, Mocha - Allows us to hit 16k in front of Lulu/Luck Bird
4 Oracle Guardian Wiseman - 10k attacker
4 Silent Tom - The secondary win condition
G3: 7
4 Scarlet Witch Coco - Win condition of the deck, best chances of drawing into it
3 Battle Sister Souffle - Hits 20k columns with a Gemini
Starting with the triggers, like i said you want them very Critical heavy. With this deck you want to beat your opponent fast before they can take away the advantage you amassed with your Coco ride (if I could I would run 10-12 criticals. in the grade 1s I have Weather girl, Milk who can boost your Coco to 23k (not too significant yet in the current meta, consider it just hitting 21k) and, in the situation where you have to re-ride Coco for more advantage, milk allows her to still hit for 20k which is really good against all the 10k vanguards out there. Emerald Witch Lala allows you to fix hands when you call her, as long as your soul is empty. It can be petal fairy, because she is better early game, but Lala allows you to hit magic numbers like 15k and 20k easier. Luck bird allows you to gain some emergency advantage but could easily be swapped for another Lala or Milk. In the grade 2s, battle sister Mocha is important because she allows you to use the Lulu that you gained as a rear guard to help her hit the magic number 16k. Wiseman is the best grade two ride for this deck, applying the most defense so that is why it is included. Finally there is the Grade 3 Souffle, which, although not an ideal vanguard, helps create 20k rear guard columns that can pressure your opponent when you do not have Silent Tom.
Soulful Tsukuyomi Deck
G0: 17
Starter: Godhawk Ichibyoshi (Don't worry, I can't pronounce it either)
8 Critical Triggers - Standard
4 Draw Triggers - Standard
4 Heal Triggers - Once again, standard
G1: 15
4 Goddess of the Crescent Moon, Tsukuyomi - Required for maximum chances of ride chain plusses
4 Oracle Guardian, Gemini - 8k booster
4 Battle Sister, Chocolat - Perfect Guard
2 Petal Fairy - Recycles cards in hand to search for missing ride chain pieces
1 Weather Girl, Milk - allows Full Moon Tsukuyomi to hit for 21k
G2: 12
4 Goddess of the Half Moon, Tsukuyomi - Required for maximum chances of ride chain plusses
4 Silent Tom - Secondary win condition
4 Oracle Guardian, Red Eye - Hit's the last card Tsukuyomi needs in the soul
G3: 6
4 Goddess of the Full Moon, Tsukuyomi - Required for maximum chances of ride chain plusses
2 CEO Amaterasu - Alternate vanguard if the ride chain doesn't go smoothly, can soulcharge missing pieces
The triggers are very similar to the soulless deck, and just like that deck, i would up the crits if i could. The grade 1s run less Milk because its less important to hit 21k since you have a larger defense (Tsukuyomi is the only 11k vanguard in OTTs disposal right now) and the 2 petal fairy help thin your deck, fix hands, and accelerate towards your end game stacked triggers. Grade 2s I use Red Eye because it allows you to get that 6th card in soul with its effect. Grade 3s I use CEO because, like i mentioned before, its a great alternative vanguard, especially for this deck.
Well that was my overview of the Oracle Think Tank clan. I hope you enjoyed it and learned a bit about how the deck is played, its strengths and weaknesses, how to better pilot your own OTT deck, and how to play better against your friends. On one final note...
nice and sexy writer
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