shadowfist - Card of the Week

Card of the Week: Scramble Suit

MikeS — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:20:05 -0700

Scramble Suit
State of the Art Tech
Requires: Tech Tech 1
Subject Character cannot be intercepted by Characters controlled by players with cards in their hands. Any player may discard his or her hand when subject turns to attack.

As was pointed out correctly on the forum, this card will usually give you one uninterceptable attacker, but after that you may even be helping the opponents by letting them flush their hands. We should also remember that a character that is uninterceptable is far from unstoppable; denial events and sites can still ruin your day. So, is this a niche card or a killer card?

Card of the Week: 200 Guys With Hatchets and Ladders

MikeS — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:21:13 -0700

200 Guys With Hatchets and Ladders
Edge
Cost: Asc Asc 2
Limited. Smoke all non-Unique Characters you control when this card leaves play. When an opponent plays a Unique Character, you may return up to X 1-cost Characters from your smoked pile to play. X= the Unique Character's cost.

While not a very powerful card on its own, this card from the Seven Masters set screams to be abused. In this week’s article, I will go into some obvious and non-obvious combos for 200 Guys With Hatchets and Ladders (200G from here on) and show how the card can be used to maximum effect.

The first thought that I had when I saw this card was: how much fighting can I squeeze out of this edge? Getting back 4 fighting when an opponent plays Ting Ting is nice, but doesn’t really help an awful lot, so something has to be done to multiply the effect. The most obvious combo is pump cards: Fanaticism, Stand Together, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting, Armies of the Monarch instantly come to mind as ways of getting more than 1 fighting per power spent by the opponent, and there are some characters that can easily be 2 or more damage for 1 power, such as BuroMil Grunt, Manchu Soldiers, Little Grasshopper, Consumer on the Brink, Simian Liberation Army and Fire Woman. The true potential of 200G becomes obvious once you realize that you can merrily sacrifice any character that 200G returns (unlike Inauspicious Return), and most abusive card to combo it with is Thunder Squire. Together with Thunder Captain, you can return to play up to 7 fighting (with Fanaticism and Stand Together) per power the opponent spends. Who, under these circumstances, would want to play a Unique character anymore? Who indeed… and that is where the weakness of a deck built exclusively around 200G comes in: it is extremely easy to play around. In fact, several tournament caliber decks don’t even need to rely on Unique characters any more, leaving you with wasted card slots. So when you build a deck around 200G, you have to take into account that you will likely have to win without it ever going off. You also have to either protect 200G (say, with Manchu Bureaucrat) or have enough Unique characters of your own that losing the 200G doesn’t take you out of the game.

Card of the Week: Fallen Heroes

MikeS — Thu, 31 May 2007 22:20:13 -0700

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.

Card of the Week: Flesh Eater

MikeS — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:43:44 -0700

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.

Card of the Week: The Willow Bends…

MikeS — Thu, 17 May 2007 20:27:44 -0700

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.

Card of the Week: Moonlight Raid

Matt Dicksion — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 18:50:43 -0700

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.

Card of the Week: Roller Rink

MikeS — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:18:40 -0800

Roller Rink
Feng Shui Site
Body: 6
Generates: 1
Turn to return to your hand a Character in your smoked pile whose cost is less than the amount of damage on this card.

I often see this card tossed into decks that could benefit from returning small characters from the smoked pile, and it appears like the person who built the deck assumes that the damage will just magically appear on the site so that he can use it. Even though Roller Rink only requires minimal deck support to work, it is not suitable for every deck. Much of the following applies likewise to Mountain Fortress, but the Fortress benefits from being useful early in the game, whereas the Rink typically starts being useful in midgame.

Card of the Week: Dog Soldiers

MikeS — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:28:48 -0700

By Michael Stadermann

Dog Soldiers
Thunder Braves
Cost: Mon 3
Provides: Mon
Fighting: 4
When this card turns to attack, you may unturn a Power-generating Site you control. (No card can unturn another card more than once a turn.)

Today, we’ll take a closer look at the Dog Soldiers. This SSG card comes with a combo card in the same set: Mah-Jongg Parlor. But while the Parlor is a good card even without the Dog Soldiers, the Soldiers themselves seem a bit bland. In this article, I will talk about the right type of site for the Dogs, and look into ways of making them better at what they do.

Card of the Week: Fermat's Last Stand

Braz_King — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:51:16 -0700

By Brian Bankler

Fermat’s Last Stand
Event
[Pur] [Pur] 1
All Characters you control gain +1 Fighting until they leave play, then take one damage.

When I opened up my Shurikens & Six Guns cards, I stared at this. Then I banished it to the back of the box. With so many good cards, why bother? Later I recognized the amazing potential.

This gives one fighting per character. But you suffer one damage per character, so it’s a wash. If you can’t avoid the damage, it’s slow. Many characters ignore the damage, though.

• Any character with Toughness is safe, which includes Void, Twisted Horror (if you have an edge) and Morphic Spirit (if you have a second faction).

Card of the Week: Revenge on the Patent Office!

Braz_King — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 21:19:22 -0700

By Michael Stadermann

Revenge on the Patent Office!
Event
Cost: Jam 1
Inflict 2 damage on target Character and 2 damage on the front-row Site at its location.

Revenge on the Patent Office (RotPO) is a card from the new set that has a “done” feel to it, since its effect or method of use is very similar to Disco Inferno and Close Call, two outstanding events. Given that it has to compete with both of these for deck space, what does RotPO bring to the table that the other two don’t?

First off, RotPO is the only direct damage zap event that the Jammers have that has no targeting limitations. Let me repeat that, because it’s so important. You can zap anything, anywhere, anytime. You don’t have to wait for the opponent to zap you first, you don’t have to be attacking or be attacked, and the target doesn’t have to be damaged. As soon as the opponent plays The Emperor, when he drops an Amulet on that annoying Chaos Spirit, when he plays the Tommy Gun on his Hacker and is about to mow down your weenie horde, or when he turns Father of Chaos to heal, you can show him how things are done at the Patent Office! Sure, the damage is only minor, but there is a surprising number of annoying characters with 2 or less fighting that this event smokes outright, and you’ll be surprised how often you will use RotPO in this fashion.