Introduction
Welcome to the Pale Moon circus, one that is full of mystery and wonder. In this deck study, we will be taking an in-depth look into the inner workings of premium Harri. As for a brief introduction to this archetype, Masked Magician, Harri first came out with the G-TD07 Illusionist of the Crescent Moon trial deck back in late 2015. This trial deck would reveal Harri’s core mechanic moving forward and the addition of the Magia keyword. This keyword is based around calling cards from the soul, usually after soul charging, and having said cards return back to the soul at the end of the turn. This keyword would end up becoming what Harri would revolve around for the rest of G era, continuing to introduce impactful Magia cards such as Masked Phantom, Harri and Masquerade Master, Harri.
In November 2020, Masked Magician, Harri (V series) would introduce a brand new focus into the Pale Moon clan known as the Stage mechanic. This new ability would put all existing and future accel markers into a single accel circle for the rest of the game. The stage can give anything on it massive power gain, turning any unit into a powerful threat for the opponent to deal with. With the mechanics and history of Harri covered, let’s begin to get into what decks’ current options are for deckbuilding.
The Stage Mechanic
Masked Magician, Harri (V Series)
[AUTO](VC): When placed, choose one of your additional (RC), and it becomes the stage until the end of that fight. (Until end of this fight, the stage becomes your only additional (RC), and move all Accel markers to the stage)
[ACT](VC)1/Turn:COST [Counter Blast (1) & Discard a card from your hand], call up to two cards with “Magia Doll” in their different card names from your soul to (RC), and they get [Power]+5000 until end of turn. If your opponent’s vanguard is grade 3 or greater, you may call up to four cards instead of two cards.
This version of Harri is the deepest core of the deck, as without it, we do not have access to the stage mechanic. Harri will always be our main ride since having access to the stage is not something worth passing up. Note that when placed, it’ll turn all of your accel markers into a stage. This is important due to Harri being able to not only generate markers itself and create a stage from those, but also turn pre-existing markers into a stage as well.
Harri’s secondary skill is not commonly used past Turn 3 due to it being an ACT skill but can be powerful during the early game. Calling Magia Dolls rearguards from your soul can have a wide range of benefits, such as Magia Doll, Darkside Mirror Master being able to give you counter charge and Magia Doll, Flying Peryton being able to draw you an extra card. While many of the Magia Dolls are not commonly ran, having them as an option is always beneficial.
Starry Pop Dragon
[CONT](RC):This unit gets [Power]+5000 for each of your rear-guards with “Magia Doll” in their different card names.
[AUTO](RC):When placed on the stage, get an Imaginary Gift:Accel.
[AUTO](RC):When it attacks, if this unit’s [Power] is 40000 or greater, until the end of that battle, this unit gets [Critical]+1, and your opponent cannot call sentinels from his or her hand. At the end of that battle, retire this unit.
This unit has many different skills, so let’s break them down a bit. Starry Pop’s first skill let’s it gain extra power for all of your Magia Dolls on the field with different names. This extra power bonus can occasionally help you reach the power threshold needed for its third skill. The third part of Starry Pop’s skill says that whenever it has 40000 power or greater, it gains [Critical]+1 and that no sentinels can be used from your opponent’s hand during the battle it attacks. As a cost for such a powerful ability, it will retire itself at the end of the battle. Having an extra critical on top of a sentinel block can create pressure on the opponent but as you may have noticed, Starry Pop has 0 power printed on the card. This can make it seem incredibly difficult to get Starry Pop up to such high power, only seeming possible with many different Magia Dolls on board and trigger luck. Starry Pop’s second skill is easily its best and most reusable one, making it’s third skill much more easily attainable.
Whenever it is placed on a stage, you gain an accel gift marker. Note that this is not once per turn, making cards such as Purple Trapezist and Masquerade Master, Harri able to abuse this ability and get many markers in just one turn. Starry Pop is easily one of the most vital cards in this deck as it helps create massive amounts of advantage throughout the game. With all ferocious dragons though, there will always be a powerful pigeon along with it!
Lore Pigeon, Pop
[AUTO](RC):When placed, put up to one card with “Magia Doll” in its card name from your drop zone into your soul.
[AUTO](RC):At the end of the battle it attacked, if this unit is on stage, [Counter Blast (1) & return this unit to your hand], search your deck, soul, or drop zone for up to one “Starry Pop Dragon”, call it to stage, and if you searched your deck, shuffle your deck.
Pop offers much value to the deck and serves as an easy access way to find Starry Pop Dragon. It’s first skill can be helpful in grabbing any Magia Dolls that end up in the drop and putting them back into our soul. Important cards such as Magia Doll, Darkside Mirror Master can be key in extending attacks with it’s countercharge and having the ability to recur it from the drop zone is great. It’s secondary skill though is the one we want to primarily focus on, as this is how we will mainly retrieve Starry Pop from our drop zone or deck. One part of the cost I specifically want to point out is that along with counter blasting, Pop also returns itself back to hand. This can be incredibly useful in match-ups that have access to retiring or binding, making your Pop able to be re-used for multiple turns ahead with just one copy. Pop is also one of our easiest ways to achieve multiple attacks on our stage for a low cost. This also lets Starry Pop’s drawback of retiring itself at the end of the battle not matter given that Pop can now retrieve it from the drop zone.
Core Pieces
Cards such as Flying Peryton and Purple Trapezist offer incredible amounts of flexibility within the decks through their ability to utilize your soul and field. Perytons strengths come from having the ability to increase the size of your soul as well as being able to call anything you may need out from the soul to the field. Peryton’s Magia keyword does return the called card to your soul at the end of the turn as well, which lets you return pieces to the soul that you may not want to have stay on the field for the opponent’s turn. Trapezist lets you shove in cards you want into the soul and get pieces you want out of the soul and onto the board. As mentioned previously, Trapezist does have the ability to re-use Starry Pop Dragon and its on-place ability, letting you target it to go into soul and then calling it right back out. Having multiple trapezists along with a Starry Pop can create plentiful amounts of advantage, either through building your defenses with Accel 2 or creating even more powerful attacks with Accel 1.
Cards such as Prankster Girl of Mirrorland and Dancing Princess of the Night Sky offer massive consistency buffs to the deck, letting you grab whatever missing pieces you may need. Do note that Prankster can search any grade while Dancing Princess can only search Grade 2 or less. While this limitation on Dancing Princess can hurt during the early game, this problem remedies itself once you have Generation Break active. Dancing Princess can search out Prankster, therefore activating Prankster’s skill and letting you search out any card versus being limited to Grade 2 or less. Both of these options further whatever winning image you decide on and are most definitely needed in any Harri list.
Strides
Masquerade Master, Harri
[Stride]-Stride Step-[Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them] Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
Magia-[AUTO](VC):[Counter Blast (1) & Choose a face down card from your G zone with the same card name as this unit, and turn it face up, choose two cards in your other circles, and put them into your soul] When this unit attacks, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose up to three cards from your soul, call them to separate (RC), and at the end of that turn, put them into your soul.
[CONT](VC): All of your rear-guards with the magia ability get [Power]+3000 for each face-up card with “Harri” in its card name in your G zone.
Masquerade Master, Harri is a great card that can help build offense and defense at the same time. It’s on attack lets you put cards you may want in the soul, such as Prankster Girl of Mirrorland, and then call cards back out to help extend your attacks. As mentioned previously, Purple Trapezist and Starry Pop make a great combo together to help accelerate your markers. Masquerade Master can continue this combo even further by putting in either Trapezists and/or Starry Pop if you didn’t attack with it and calling them back out letting you get even more markers for your stage.
Its secondary skill can also be useful when attacking with cards such as Flying Peryton or any other Magia units you may run, turning awkward numbers into magic ones. Flying Peryton boosted by a 6000 power unit will only let you hit 15000, but Masquerade Master can help fix this with a single copy face up and push you to that 18000 thresholds to get another 5000 guards out of your opponent. The ability to put combo pieces you may need into your soul and calling out others is quite a powerful ability, but it is not free from cost. As good as Masquerade Master is, he does cost a counterblast to use his skill. It is often quite common in Premium to damage deny your opponent, something you will not be immune to. Luckily, this deck also has options for when you have no face-up damage or damage at all as well!
Midair Megatrick, Yvette
[Stride]-Stride Step-COST [Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them], Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
Magia–[AUTO](VC): When it attacks, COST [put a card from your hand into your soul & turn a card from your G zone face up], and get an Imaginary Gift: Accel. Call a card from your soul to an additional (RC), that unit gets [Power]+15000 until the end of turn, and at the end of that turn, put that called unit into your soul.
Midair Megatrick, Yvette is a simple yet powerful card, offering multiple benefits in its skill. The first thing to point out as one of this card’s biggest advantages is that it costs zero counterblasts. This can be beneficial in the match-ups when your opponent decides to give you no damage until they stabilize or you end up with no face-up cards in your damage zone. This card can also save counterblast that you have the option to put towards Lore Pigeon, Pop for extra attacks, and accel marker generation. The cost to put a card from hand to soul is also something rare for this deck to be able to do. Being able to send cards such as Prankster Girl of Mirrorland or other pieces you may want to call out from soul later to the soul is something that can help you plan for future attacks. Yvette can also let you choose a card from hand and call it out through her skill. The ability to call a card from the soul and give it 15000 power during the battle phase is quite strong on its own, but she also gives us another marker for our stage. Riding Harri, using a singular Grade 2 Pop, and Yvette will let you produce 3 accel markers for your stage off of only one counterblast.
While both Masquerade Master, Harri, and Midair Megatrick, Yvette are both powerful for a wide range of situations, we also have one last card to mention that pulls the G-Zone all together!
Fancy Megatrick, Darklord Princess
[Stride]-Stride Step-COST [Choose one or more cards with the sum of their grades being 3 or greater from your hand, and discard them], Stride this card on your (VC) from face down.
[AUTO](VC): At the end of the battle that it attacked a vanguard, COST [turn a card from your G zone face up], Stride a face-up G unit with [Power] and the magia ability from your G zone on your (VC) as [Stand], and that unit gets drive -2 until end of turn. If you Stride, call this card to (RC).
This is easily one of my most favorite strides to ever come out of Pale Moon. Fancy Megatrick, Darklord Princess has such a simple but powerful ability, similar to Yvette. Darklord can let you stride a face-up G unit with the Magia keyword at the end of the battle it attacks. This can be incredibly useful because you can swing with your lower column attacks and vanguard, get your drive checks, and then go into either Yvette or Harri after assessing the situation. The ability to not have to commit to either stride until after Darklord attacks give another level of flexibility that most other decks do not have access to. Did your opponent hit one to zero defensive triggers? Masquerade Master, Harri can let you get smaller attacks and possibly more markers for your stage. Did they hit multiple defensive triggers? Midair Megatrick, Yvette can sit up another attack that can most likely hit with the boost from your stage and the inherent 15000 power Yvette gives. Darklord also calls itself to any circle, letting you get even more attacks off. This is overall a very strong G-Zone to behave at our disposal, letting us adapt to a wide variety of situations. Other options such as Dreamiy Axel, Milward and Zeroth Dragon of End of the World, Dust can be great additions to your G-Zone as well.
Defensive Options
With how fast the current premium meta can be, with decks such as Fenrir Gleipnir and Blademaster Stand Loop running around untouched, it can sometimes feel next to impossible to survive against some of these decks. Luckily for us, Harri continues to adapt to the meta and has a play that can help deal with most of these decks that rely heavily on a singular rear-guard. With a combination of cards such as Tricky Assistant, Flying Peryton, Lovely Companion, and sometimes Jester Demonic Dragon, Wandering Dragon, you can shut these combos down during your opponent’s turn. When guarding with Lovely Companion, either calling it from your hand or your soul using Wandering Dragon, it can let you call out a Grade 2 from your soul when it retires from GC. This ability lets you call out Flying Peryton during your opponent’s turn, letting you use its ability to call out the Grade 3 Tricky Assistant. Tricky can shove one of your and your opponents’ rear-guards into their prospective owners’ soul. This can let you target any problematic rear-guards in the battle phase and remove them from the field entirely. This combo can also be extended with Purple Trapezist, as you can choose Flying Peryton as cost for Tricky Assistant to therefore use another Lovely Companion to call it back out. This time around, you’ll call Trapezist off of Peryton to shove Tricky into your soul and call it back out. This will activate Tricky Assistant yet again and will let you put another one of your opponent’s rear-guards into their soul during their battle phase. While this combo may seem hard to pull off, cards like Dancing Princess of Night Sky and Prankster Girl of Mirrorland can help you find your missing pieces for the play. Pale Moon also has access to other powerful G-Guardians, such as Chainsaw Megatrick, Furnival to help further boost your soul, and Kinesis Megatrick, Coulthard to gain an extra shield.
Optional Engines
Pale Moon has a diverse pool of cards to work from, so I wanted to take a moment to list some other engines that you may find useful adding to your deck. I first would like to start by mentioning the Nightmare Doll engine.
Before Harri (V series) arrived, Nightmare Dolls was mostly the preferred variant of premium Pale Moon. Cards such as Nightmare Doll, Alice and Nightmare Doll, Ginny can essentially create a mini-loop of attacks as long as you have counterblast. Combining these two cards with Midair Megatrick, Yvette, who can call out a Nightmare Doll, Leslie from the soul, can make for a nasty combination. Assuming you have 5 face-up counterblasts and go into Darklord first, you can easily pull off 12 or more attacks in just one turn. This engine can also be paired with Parallel Megatrick, Fairfield to give your Leslie resist, extra power, and an extra critical for the entire turn. Some Harri decks do like to include these pieces to serve as a powerful side win condition at the decks’ disposal.
One of the more popular cards to arrive from G-era Harri is Happiness Collector. This card can help draw you cards and build your soul and is also quite easily re-usable. From cards such as Masquerade Master, Harri to Flying Peryton, there are multiple different ways to call Happiness Collector from your soul throughout your turn. Cards such as Miss Direction and Brassie Bunny can call themselves out along with Happiness Collector to get an immediate activation off for it. Players enjoy running this package to help farm for more cards to add to their hands and soul. Miss Direction and Brassie Bunny can also serve as extra attacks or columns during the battle phase if both are present in the soul.
Example Decklists
Description: This small engine can provide an alternative win condition that can sometimes just win you the game if in the right situation. As mentioned in the previous section, using Alice/Ginny with Leslie can make for an immense push turn. Strides such as Yvette or Fairfield can boost Leslie’s power to make pushing over defensive triggers easier.
Strengths: This engine can take advantage of being rushed early, as you can extend based on how much counterblast you’re given. You also have a set win button given the situation, making sure you can always have a backup plan if necessary.
Weaknesses: Since you run a lower count of the NmD engine, damaging even one of your pieces can ruin the entire combo. Increasing ratios of Alice/Leslie/Ginny is possible but risks taking away the consistency of other core mechanics of the deck.
Description: This is the simplest and most consistent version of the deck. Cards such as Masquerade Bunny (V series) can aid with finding your Masked Magician, Harri (V series) much easier. This is currently my list as I felt keeping it simple worked best for me personally.
Strengths: The lack of other engines makes the consistency of the deck higher and keeps the winning image simpler.
Weaknesses: Not having access to some of the other engines mentioned above will prohibit you from getting the benefits of them, such as other pressure engines or being able to farm for hands easier.
Description: This deck aims to use a combination of Miss Direction, Brassie Bunny, and Happiness Collector to constantly re-use Collector once you have Generation Break active to fill up your soul and hand. Cards such as Masquerade Master, Harri can also contribute to resetting your board and letting you use all of these cards over again while getting more attacks.
Strengths: This build can further farm for hand to make sure you can survive even the strongest of turns from the opponent.
Weaknesses: The addition of even more 5000 shield cards to your deck can make surviving decks that can rush hard during the early game more difficult.
Final Thoughts
Premium Harri has easily been one of the most enjoyable and complex decks I have ever picked up. The amount of micro decisions that you make throughout the game can be sometimes overwhelming but can also reward your consistently good plays. I highly suggest this deck for anyone who loves combo decks and is looking for something you most definitely won’t be getting bored of. Do note that learning your matchups is incredibly important. This deck functions off of expecting how the opponent is going to play and having your MU knowledge will absolutely help. I’d also like to give a shoutout to Commander Jaime and Derick Dao for inspiring me to once again pick up this deck with their Interview w/ Derick Dao article. Ciao for now and I wish you all the best in learning this immensely fun deck!