Introduction
Hello, I'm Luminèbre , a big fan of Pendulums and animes decks. Vaalmonica was shunned because its box was considered too weak and skippable. As one of the few players who actually bought that box (and skipped the next one), let me give you a guide to the deck.
Core Cards
Main Deck Monsters
The normal summon of the deck. Normal summon or Pendulum summon (doesn't work if it's Special Summon) allows you to search for a Vaalmonica card. You can had it to your Hand when it is sent to the GY, if you have 2 Scales on your Field. She can protect herself from attacks, but this effect is never used.
Most decks run three copies of it, but I personally prefer to have only one. Having it less often allows you to search for the Field using the Skill, then search for it. And it recycles itself all the time.
Your two Scales share many effects, protected by the Target thanks to the Skill. By discarding a card, you put your Pendulum Monster, as well as its other version from the deck, into your Scales. The turn they are summoned, you can banish one of your Vaalmonica S/T from the GY to activate its effect. Dimonno for effects that cause LP loss, Angello for those that cause LP gain. When you lose or gain LP, counters are added to your scales. In Scale, Dimonno causes a 100 ATK loss per Counter, and Angello allows you to Link Summon a Vaalmonica monster during an attack.
Playing them at x2 is the minimum requirement, but having them at x3 will avoid unpleasant surprises.
Spells and Traps
All normal Spells in the Deck either gain or lose LP. Only one of the two effects can be activated. And if you don't control any Scale, your opponent chooses your Effects. Card effects can activate even if something prevents you from resolving them. It can be useful to activate cards simply to add counters to your scales.
Allows you to search for a Vaalmonica monster. And if a third Counter has just been placed on one of your Scales, you can take control of an opponent's monster until the end of the turn, but it cannot attack.
If you want to play more starter monsters in your deck, I would recommend playing this card x3, rather than Selectrice. It also serves as an interrupt, and the monsters you take control of can be used for your Vaalmonica Links.
You can Special Summon 1 Vaalmonica monster from your Deck, but you cannot activate any effects other than Vaalmonica's until the end of this turn.