Deck Profile: Oracle Think Tank – Souless Ginger Edition

by: Santotaku

With the tournament season in mid stride, the release of new sets plays an even bigger role than normal. Sure, before now players wanted new cards to help get an edge over the local competition and beat up on smug friends, but with the qualifiers underway any new cards can catch unwary opponents off guard. The meta favorite Gold Paladins get some new rabbits to play with and clans like Dark Irregulars and Pale Moon get new limit breaks and a huge boon to their playability. Their articles will come in time, but today I want to talk about a strategy I’ve been waiting for since BT02.

Coco the Soulless Ginger.

Scarlet Witch CoCo

Grade 3 / Twin Drive!! / 10000

[CONT] 【V】: During your turn, when you have no cards in your Soul, this Unit gains +3000 Power.

[AUTO]: [Counter Blast (2)] When this Unit is called to the Vanguard Circle, and you have 1 or less cards in your Soul, you may pay the cost. If paid, draw 2 cards.

I started playing around the English release of BT02 and I was determined to play Oracle Think Tank. Misaki was my favorite character in the show and I really enjoyed the play style of the clan. As Wimply and I started purchasing cards, I realized that Oracle Think Tank was an extremely expensive deck to play (at the time I remember seeing Lozenge Magus for $10) and the strategies were rather fractured. There were two grade 3 vanguards that seemed to be what you would build around, CEO Amaterasu (which eventually became the cookie cutter build for early Think Tank) and Scarlet Witch Coco. My first impression of Coco was that she was the more “budget” build of the deck but the raw draw potential was extremely attractive. As a result, I went out and invested in several copies of the Scarlet Witch as well as some Apollons and Luck Birds, excited about the prospect of the enormous hand size I would surely soon be seing.

Needless to say, the deck sucked. There was a definite lack of consistency with the BT01 and BT02 that would not allow the deck to empty out the soul fast enough for Coco to shine. When I did pull off a Coco over Coco I felt exceedingly clever, but it just took too much work compared to more successful decks like Kagero or Royal Paladin, and in the end it had to be scrapped.

But with the release of BT03, the strategy is finally being supported and Oracle Think Tank will see a second powerful deck two expansions in a row.

Coco, the Soulless Ginger Beat Down

Grade 3 [8]

4 Scarlet Witch CoCo

3 Battle Sister, Souffle

1 Sky Witch, NaNa

Grade 2 [11]

4 Oracle Guardian, Wiseman

3 Battle Sister, Glace

4 Silent Tom

Grade 1 [14]

4 Oracle Guardian, Gemini

3 Circle Magus

4 Battle Sister, Chocolat

3 One Who Gazes at Truth

Grade 0 [17]

1 Little Witch, Lulu

4 Lozenge Magus

4 Oracle Guardian Nike

4 Psychic Bird

4 Dream Eater

Let’s break it down grade by grade

Grade 3

Scarlet Witch Coco is clearly the focus of the deck. Her main purpose is to use her counter blast to draw cards and beef up your hand size. The secondary ability to gain 3k power when the soul is empty is useful, but it is more important to draw extra cards. The deck is built to get quick hand advantage and outlast the opponent, and this is the means to do it.

Battle Sister Souffle is Oracle Think Tank’s first real rearguard beat stick. When boosted, she becomes a 12k power rearguard, allowing her to reach the 20k magic number as well as allowing every booster in the deck to be a viable booster against 11k targets. Souffle is a godsend to Oracle Think Tank Beatdown decks.

Finally, Sky Witch NaNa acts as a “backup” vanguard. Like CoCo, she receives a bonus 3k power if she has no cards in the soul while in the vanguard position, if you cannot ride CoCo, Nana is the next best thing to hold the fort until you find her. She’s also useful as a rearguard, as she becomes 11k with no soul in a rearguard position, allowing her to hit troublesome vanguards without needing a booster. This card is a nice utility grade 3 to have on hand, but I wouldn’t use more than one or two.

Grade 2

Since this is an aggressive beat down deck, Oracle Guardian Wiseman is too useful not to run. At 10k, nearly any booster in the deck helps to achieve the 15k/16k magic number allowing Wiseman to be a solid attacker against any vanguard, as well as a decent intercepter.

Battle Sister Glace serves much the same purpose as Wiseman, but at a cost. She requires the vanguard have no soul to achieve an 11k power, otherwise she is only an 8k. If you are concerned about finding enough ways to keep the soul empty, a good alternative is Battle Sister Mocha, who only requires four cards in hand to achieve the 11k power when attacking, but the choice is ultimately up to play style. Both of them (without their ability active) can still achieve the 15k/16k mark with a boost from Circle Magus or Oracle Guardian Gemini, but with an active effect, any card in the deck becomes a worthwhile booster making it easier to set up a solid field earlier in the game.

Silent Tom is an absolute staple in nearly any Oracle Think Tank deck. Currently (before the release of BT07) he’s the only card the Think Tank has that can apply any real pressure to an opponent in the English metagame. He is the slayer of Palomedes, a dealer of final damage, he’s one of the decks major win conditions, but he requires either Circle Magus or Gemini to make him a real threat. Fortunately, with the draw potential this deck has early in the game, you shouldn’t have problems pairing Tom up with a nice booster.

Grade 1

Oracle Guardian Gemini has always been important as an 8k booster, but now his role is even more significant with Souffle joining the lineup. CoCo, Souffle, and Silent Tom are all fighting for Gemini’s attention as all of them achieve one level of power or another with his boost, so placing Gemini wisely is going to be a key to playing successfully.

Circle Magus is a simple 7k booster in a clan who has a real lack of those at the moment. Due to the Sakuya trial deck being delayed in release, Dark Cat is not available to fill this slot like it normally would. None the less, Circle Magus is a solid choice which allows you to gain a little insight on your next drive.

Battle Sister Chocolat is a perfect guard, a must have at four in the current meta in my opinion with power house units running around.

Rounding up the grade 1 units is One who Gazes at Truth. This guy is one of the keys to the deck later in the game. At 6k he’s not the preferred booster, but if you pivot him to the front row, he may soul blast to become a 9k attacker. The soul blast cost allows you to get rid of unwanted cards from the soul (usually extra copies of Coco from cross riding for draw potential) and allows you to maintain the decks strategy.

Grade 0

The trigger lineup is mostly a player preference thing, but the big card here is Little Witch LuLu. Unlike most starting vanguards, she does not move out of the soul when you ride at grade 1. Instead, when you ride to grade 3 she finally makes her appearance in the rearguard circle. Additionally, when she move to the rearguard circle, she empties your soul in order to draw you a card, and allows CoCo to use her counterblast to draw two additional cards. Successfully pulling off this combo nets you three cards to hand and an empty soul allowing the deck to begin doing its thing, it is clearly the most valuable new addition in BT07 to this strategy.

Wish you were here…

Goddess of Fortune Flowers Sakuya

In my opinion the best backup to CoCo is Sakuya, as a backup vanguard she reaches the 21k magic number even more easily than CoCo and with her effect you can reorganize your field and re-use cards such as Luck Bird to empty the soul and draw additional cards. I wait impatiently for Bushiroad to finally release the trial deck.

Battle Sister Omelette

This is one of the great pivots the game has to offer. Like her older sister, Battle Sister Glace, Omelette gains a power bonus when she attacks when the soul is empty. She becomes a 10k attacker at grade 1, giving the deck flexibility in hitting magic numbers and putting her power on par with that of many grade 3 vanguards without a boost. What is also pretty nice, is using Omelette and One Who Gazes At Truth in one column, you can swap their positions to keep a 16k column. If there happens to be a card in the soul, One Who Gazes moves up and soul blasts to become a 9k, Omelette boosts to 16k. If the soul is empty, Omelette takes the lead and One Who Gazes boosts for 6k, making it 16k. It’s a pretty reliable strategy to have in the back pocket and it is ultimately more useful that Circle Magus.

Dark Cat

Held back just like Sakuya, Dark Cat offers great combos and the ability to just draw like there’s no tomorrow when appropriately combed. A few of these would be nice to have in the deck as well as Luck Bird to make use of Sakuya’s return ability, but for now, we wait.

Thank you all for reading, please feel free to leave a comment below. We will continue to post more deck profiles for BT07 as the days go on.