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Let’s get something straight right away – there is no rule in Shadowfist that says you have to attack left, and anyone adamantly insisting you should attack left is either an idiot or playing you for a sucker. There is a well-meant piece of play advice that says: “Everything else being equal, attack to the left.” This article deals with finding out if everything is equal, or “reading the board”, and how to make the most of your attack.

Ideally, you should know at all times who is closest to winning or furthest ahead. If you attack the leader, other players are more likely to assist you or at least will not interfere with your attack. There are several visible indicators that are used to identify who is currently winning: number of Feng Shui sites (FSS), power generated per turn (from sites, edges or characters), power in pool, and fighting on the board. Finally, the card pool of the faction that the opponents are playing has to be considered, specifically how easy it is for the specific faction to generate power from events and how easily the faction can turn power into fighting.

There are a lot of tournament formats that have been invented for Shadowfist, and they all have names that sound cool, but aren't always as helpful as they might be. Here are how the official ones go:

by Matt Woolley

Fear is the mind killer. Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads inevitably to Monkeys. But more important than this, fear leads to dreadful games of Shadowfist.

You can guarantee that many players will assess the board in terms of what they can lose, rather than what they have to gain. This kind of fearful mentality slows the game down and promotes the kind of waxy build up that generally makes for dull, uninspiring games. The players who pretend to have nothing useful in their hand, play with a one-column site structure, burn for power and leech power off the other players need to be shown the error of their ways! We need champions to dispense with this kind of play. We need heroes with a gun in their hand, a foot on the throat of the nearest Guiding Hand player, and maybe a slight facial tic. We need you!

By now, probably everyone who reads articles on this site has heard of the Rule of 5 for deck building: 1/5 Feng Shui Sites ("FSS"), 1/5 foundation, 1/5 characters, 1/5 cheap stuff, and 1/5 everything else. (Check out Dave’s excellent article on the Chimpshack if you’re unfamiliar with this rule before you continue.)

The Rule of 5 is an excellent place to begin deck construction; most decks built strictly adhering to this rule will work well. However, the more decks you build, the more you will find that some decks just don’t work with this kind of resourcing. This article will take a closer look into choosing the right amount of foundation characters and Feng Shui Sites, which I will refer to as "resources" in general, early-game discard strategies, and which properties of your deck change the number of resources you will need.

Fallen Heroes
Event
Cost: Dra Dra 0
Toast a Character in your smoked pile to give target Character +X Fighting until the end of the turn. X= the number of resources required and provided by the toasted Character.

Fallen Heroes is another one of these cards that went straight to the binder when I was opening my Dark Future boxes. But the recent play test showed me how powerful exactly free surprise fighting bonuses, and thus I am writing a Card of the Week article in honor of this underplayed, soon to be available again card.

Fallen Heroes very much like a Open A Can of Whupass, arguably one of the most powerful events in the Dragon repertoire. So why does it get played much less? It has a drawback that hurts twice: you have to toast a character in your smoked pile to play it. A toasted character cannot be returned to play with Golden Comeback, and often it’s the big hitters that have all those crunchy resource symbols all over the bottom of the card. Secondly, every time you play against a Dragon deck, that free fighting bonus of yours, already paid for in blood by a toasted character, can easily turn into a free Hacker for the opponent. But it has a surprise advantage that Open A Can cannot beat: you can play it at any time, especially right before you hit the site after the opponent declined interception. You don’t tip your hand by playing it before the attack. It has a second advantage over Open A Can that is not shabby, either. It only requires two resources as opposed to three, which makes a huge difference in a multi-faction deck. Finally, since the set will be reprinted soon, it is much easier to get your hands on a sufficient number of Fallen Heroes, while Open A Can still is a promo card and costs lots of Power Points.

Flesh Eater
Bloodthirsty Demon
Cost: Lot 3
Generates: Lot
Fighting: 4
Regenerate. When this card reduces a Site's Body to 0, you may return a card from your smoked pile to your hand.

Of all the new Demon cards in Shurikens and Six-Guns, this one is probably the most versatile. If you have an open card slot in your Lotus deck, consider adding a Flesh Eater, or just go straight to building an entire deck around it.

The first thing that makes Flesh Eater stand out from other Demons is that it is a true ramp character. It only requires a single Lotus resource. SSG came with a second Demon ramp character, Agathon’s Deputies, but the Deputies are a highly specialized card that only goes into decks built around them. At a standard fighting of 4 at 3 cost, and two abilities that don’t suck, Flesh Eater can find a home in many decks.

The Willow Bends…
Event
Cost: Hand 0
Provides: Hand
Play when a card is damaged, but not removed from play :: Heal that card.

This little card may not look like a valuable addition to your deck at first. Free healing, but it’s not reusable, and I have to do it right away instead of being able to wait for the best moment? How is this good in a faction with Healing Earth and literally dozens of cards that prevent or heal damage to themselves or others?

Well, let’s look at the most important part of the card first: the lower right hand corner. Yep, it provides a Hand resource. For free. There are other events in different factions that do this (the Gambits), but of all of these cards, Willow Bends is probably easiest to trigger. This is great for any kind of deck that needs fast resource ramp, and considering that most Hand characters with a decent fighting require two or more resources, Willow Bends will quickly find a home in all fast Hand decks. It may even pay to attack a site in your first turn and heal the target of your attack, just to get the resource, if you have a big character that you can drop in your next turn. As a nice side effect, Inauspicious Reburial bothers you less, since it can’t touch events. In fact, any kind of deck that wants to have Hand resources but not Hand character will find Willow Bends useful. Mostly, these are Netherworld Return or “There Is Always One More..” decks that toast characters out of the smoked pile with Plains of Ash to leave only the strongest characters for the “random” return. Willow Bends can provide the Hand resource for Into the Light, Confucian Stability, or Rigorous Discipline in such decks.

The season of World- and National Championships is almost upon us, and many of us are honing their decks and playing skills to have a shot at The Title. I won’t be participating in either Championship (both Cons are just an itty bit too far from the West Coast), but that won’t stop me from dispensing advice.
Today, we’ll look into building that winning deck. Before you get your hopes up too high, let me say first of all that, unless you’re dueling, the deck alone won’t win you the game. It’s a multiplayer game: good players who read the board right and have good timing will beat a new player with a killer deck in most cases, regardless which deck they play. But that said, building a strong deck at least shifts the odds in your favor, just like a weak deck can hamstring you.

By Matt Dicksion

Moonlight Raid
Event
Cost: Asc Asc 0
Until end of turn, target Character you control gains Stealth and you gain 1 Power when that Character inflicts combat damage on the target of its attack.

Moonlight Raid presents a perfect example of a card that's easy to underestimate. The reason is simple: it looks just like Dirk Wisely's Gambit, only less powerful. When SSG was released, I saw Moonlight Raid and thought, that's nice--a half-Wisely Gambit that gives Stealth. And then I moved on. After all, it's not as though it provides anything completely new to the Ascended, who already have Stealth and alternate power in spades. It was only on closer inspection, and in actual play, that the real potential of Moonlight Raid became apparent. Yes, it's less powerful than Dirk's Gambit in some ways, but in other more subtle ways, it's much, much stronger.

By James Przytulski

Maximizing Card Synergy in Deck Design

When I build decks I attempt to fit the cards together in such a way
that I get maximum use out of every single card. This is not just pinpointed
for specific opponents in a metagame, but it is how synergistically the
cards fit together themselves.

For example, in the Colonel Wilhelm Reigner deck, I play battlegrounds
to pump soldiers. Battlegrounds make extremely long rows of Sites which
are difficult to defend. However, a couple soldier foundations can pop out
to defend during attacks. Assault Squad soldiers even pop into play for