This Space
For Rent

3D	When Luquier was first revealed, she was hyped all the way to hell and back at the notion of the amount of advantage her Limit Break could potentially create. It's not a bad ability by any means but it forces you to wait to late game where you should already have a field established. If you didn't have a field established beforehand you are already in a losing position or you are playing one of either Kagero or Narukami. The second annoyance is Luquier's clan, Pale Moon, is incredibly heavy on counterblast so you will essentially need to play vanilla if you wish to use it effectively.   Luquier's second ability is what she is most used for. Players would use the likes of “Quantum Magician” into “Jumping Glenn” behind Luquier for a good 26000 power while also keeping the other more stylized plays of Pale Moon in motion.   I don't think there's much to say, she's just a big body with an optional, seemingly amazing Limit Break that is actually just rather okay at best. 3/5 (Good Card)
Elliot "Gale" Gaylord	Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier is one of those cards that looks utterly amazing on paper, but when put into a practical setting doesn't pan out anywhere near as well as the text might suggest.   Her Limit Break grants a free call of up to one unit of each Grade from the Soul. That's great; the clan can set up these options with ease. By the time this ability is going to be used, though, chances are your field is going to be close to full already, so the potential +4 is going to be closer to a +1 or +2 - and on top of that, it's taking 3 counterblasts from a notably counterblast-heavy deck. It's nothing special compared to the likes of what we've reviewed thus far. This being the case, decks that use Luquier tend to err away from the Limit Break in favor of focusing on her other ability.   When a Pale Moon unit enters the battlefield from the Soul, Luquier gains 3000 power until end of turn. There are plenty of ways to go about doing this, too, with my personal favorite being the kooky Magician of Quantum Mechanics. With a single Counterblast, he trades places with a Pale Moon unit in the Soul until the end of the turn. If the chosen unit is something like Jumping Glenn, one can achieve two colossal power lines at a very low price. Aside from Quantum, Girl Who Crossed the Gap and Purple Trapezist make for nice soul-swappers as necessary. In fact, pairing Quantum with Trapezist allows for two swaps each turn, placing Luquier at a respectable 16000 power all by her lonesome. That's pretty awesome! The combo can even be expanded by having Trapezist exchange another rear-guard for Jumping Glenn.   Luquier isn't what Pale Moon needed to be thrown into a more competitive bracket. She's cool, but often upstaged by the much more accessible and straightforward Sarah. Expect her to fall off everyone's radar (if she was even on it in the first place) as future support hits the market. 2/5
David NavyCherub Lynn	Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier   Luquier is a card that made quite a splash when it was first revealed. Her limit break does sound pretty threatening - counterblast 3 to call up to four cards from your soul? Insanity! That's almost a completely full field by itself. Unfortunately, it is not as convenient an advantage engine as it seems. See, there are a couple issues with making the most out of this effect.   The first being a very basic thing: it's a limit break! That means it's late game, and you have probably had a pretty well-established field for a few turns now, or at least you had better hope you have, because otherwise you're probably losing. In other words, unless you are against very specific matchups and your opponent has been picking at your backrow, the only spaces that even might be open at this point of the game are your front two, leaving you with only two places to reasonably expect advantage gaining most games.   On top of that, to even gain that +2, you have to have a completely empty front row, which means you have to plan a reasonable amount of time ahead to make the best of that. This may seem like a bad thing, but it is actually one of the better points of this card. Luquier bounces back from a Vermillion Thunderbolt better than almost anyone else, and well-timed intercepts allow you to defend yourself early and guarantee attacks at the same time. Pretty nice.   But, of course, there is the issue of actually getting the cards into your soul. Simply having a grade 2 and a grade 1 in your soul is pretty much guaranteed, since you have to have rode something to get to your grade 3, but the quality of those cards is not guaranteed since you have very little to choose from when riding early game. A grade 0 is a bit harder to ask for, but there are some nice plays that can be made with Girl Who Crossed the Gap here, so that's not a huge issue either. A grade 3, though, requires set up that is not quite as easy - whether it be riding Luquier over another grade 3 or various Pale Moon soul swapping plays, it is imperative that you get a grade 3 into the soul somehow because otherwise you won't have quite as easy a time getting the most out of your limit break.   The biggest issue with Luquier, though, is that her limit break is expensive. Three counterblasts is quite a bit to ask for in a clan so heavily invested in smaller combo plays relying on various forms of payment, which means she does not synergize with a lot of Pale Moon cards and strategies. That being said, although it is a bit more vanilla than most Pale Moon decks, this means Luquier creates a strategy of her own.   Of course, it is important to keep in mind that Luquier does not require you to call to empty rear guard circles, meaning any and all creative Pale Moon shenanigans you can think of within the limits of what Luquier can call and the resources you will have afterward are possible.   Luquier does have one other ability, which allows her to gain +3000 whenever a unit is called from your soul until the end of the turn. Once again, because her ability is so expensive, you won't have many chances before using her limit break or perhaps turns where Purple Trapezist is called to take advantage of this power gain. As such, Luquier is pretty weak on both offense and defense - she's an abusable 10k on defense, and will rarely if ever get to push for high numbers in the vanguard circle on every turn but the one where you use her limit break. Really a one trick pony, which is not a lot of fun when you're at a circus.   2/5
Pokefan362	Thursday 2/14: Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier “Oh my goodness, this girl is amazing!  Look at the Limit Break!  Instant +4!  And she can gain 12K right off of that to boot, even more if you have OTHER swapping shenanigans that turn.  Soooo broken.” …Is what you may or may not be thinking.  I’m here to tell you that it’s not quite the case.  While Luquier looks great on paper, she seldom performs at anywhere near her full capacity due to how situational everything about the Limit Break is.  Although it may seem like the skills go well together at first glance, her skills actually only complement each other for a single big turn if you get to use the Limit Break and instead interfere with each other outside of that.  To understand why Luquier isn’t what she’s cracked up to be on paper, we must first understand how Soul is realistically amassed, how Pale Moon functions as a clan, and how a game typically develops.  This will probably be a bit confusing, so bear with me here.  Let’s start with how the Limit Break is supposed to work.  Through normal riding (in which you ride Luquier over a Grade 2), you will have only 2 cards in your Soul and 2 potential call targets that may or may not be any good.  But not to worry, Pale Moon has a lot of Soulcharging capabilities.  There’s Poison Juggler and the upcoming Sky-High Walker who can, if you’re willing to sacrifice the shield, put themselves into the Soul for good use as a future Luquier call target.  Purple Trapezist can put any other callable unit into the Soul at the cost of taking another out, Dancing Princess of the Night Sky can put in any Grade 2 or lower at a small cost, and random Soulcharging by your Juggler units is also liable to yield both good units and bad units.  Although it’s troublesome to get exactly what you want, filling up the Soul doesn’t seem to be a big problem since 2 or 3 units will go in there with almost no extra assistance.  The Counterblast 3 is a rather heavy cost, but in a deck whose only Counterblasts are your Grade 0 starter, Dancing Princess and/or your “hit and swaps” (Midnight Bunny, Mirror Demon, Nightmare Doll, Alice) it’s probably realistically payable in some games, if not all.   The biggest point against it, however, is the field limit.  At the stage in the game where Luquier’s Limit Break is available, if you’re not doing poorly, there should realistically only be 2 or 3 open slots at most, which means you’re only getting +1, +2 or +3.  That alone wouldn’t be so bad, if you could choose what you call or at least consistently ensure that the targets were competent.  Luquier requires you to sacrifice a bunch of little things (cards to help quality control, lack of other Counterblasts, lack of field presence) in order to be able to consistently and effectively abuse her Limit Break, and that makes it a very subpar gameplan to base a deck on since your deck will be subpar in literally every other aspect.  The best way to abuse the Limit Break aspect of Luquier is usually to tech her in as a 1-3 of and use her as a finisher or backup plan rather than going too far out of your way to focus on that.  It’s a flashy, effective way of ending a game. If you still wish to play a Luquier-centric deck, however, it’s actually a MUCH better idea to focus on the SECOND skill, since you can realistically make Luquier a 13 or 16K menance every turn while still having a safety net in the Limit Break.  Such decks will almost invariably max out on Purple Trapezist and play some amount (usually 2-3) Magician of Quantum Mechanics.  The latter card is where the conflict between the two skills come in.  Magician of Quantum Mechanics is by far the most constant, consistent way to procure 13K or 16K on Luquier every turn, but you need to use a Counterblast every turn, which results in a deck that, when operating correctly, has a hard time paying for Luquier’s own Limit Break.  Other, less consistent Soul-calling cards ALSO use Counterblasts as well.  Purple Trapezist is the exception and she does do work, but each one only works once on her own, so that alone isn’t good enough.   Rating: 3/5 (Playable, can be good, but not quite staple to Pale Moon) Art: 5/5 (She looks both scary and beautiful, especially with the red eye and dragon head in the back)
TehNACHO	Silver Thorn Dragon Tamer, Luquier, who according to her lore is one of a dozen people on Cray with the title ‘Dragon Tamer’, can easily be classified as Pale Moon’s “Grand Finale” unit. Much like circus acts leading up to a spectacular finish, a well-dedicated Luquier deck can keep the opponent on the edge with pressure, leading up to an explosive final turn.   Luquier’s Limit Break, in tandem with its secondary skill, allows for big and near instantaneous fields to form and take place when comboed off cards like Purple Trapezist or set up through Dancing Princess of the Night Sky. And when done so, Luquier’s secondary skill can punch up its power up to as high as 22K unboosted, which further tampering with Trapezist or Girl Who Crossed the Gap can quickly lead to Luquier soaring quickly over +30K after boosts. Throw in units like Jumping Glen and Jumping Jill; a well-timed Limit Break is more than capable of gigantic power bumps and sometimes even the opponent outright losing then and there.   Sadly, it isn’t all milk and cookies and +30K attacks with Luquier. A big problem with huge finishers is that often, you need to actually push the opponent into a good position in order to get the maximum effectiveness out of a finisher’s skill. Which, despite the amazing amount of pressure that Pale Moon decks tend offer, isn’t exactly the easiest job for the deck, or at least without effective planning ahead of time. Which leads to a second problem for the card, its Limit Break’s cost of Counter-Blast 3. While one can probably find a way to play around, it is an expensive cost that can end up even getting in the way for the rest of the deck to very much do anything to forward one’s progress through the match. Or, in another scenario, one can even end up overshooting their Counter-Blasts when good opportunities like when Nightmare Doll, Alice is able to use its skill or other similar situations arise, inevitably locking away the powerful skill.   Overall, a powerful card but however is rather gimmicky and needs quite a bit of effort in order to get the best out of. And even then, is somewhat constrained and/or can just end up running into a Perfect Guard. Overall, I’d give it a 3/5, a decent and more than usable card but not exactly the best.