Hello all! As promised, now that "Naruto Shippuden Live!" is over, I will be unveiling our 3rd as well as our 4th preview cards for "The Perfect Curve" Blog, again courtesy of Tylar aka Hungry Ninja. Thank you Tylar! You're the best!

First, for all of those people who are complaining about Hidan burning 4 cards a deck per turn cycle, we have answer for you:



Giant Eagle is a wonderful client, especially in decks that utilize cards like "Hidan" and "The One Who Lives Within." Make no mistake, it's no Emina, but it is certain a powerful card that will allow you to filter your hand to make sure you get exactly what you need. Coupled with the new Client Rulings in Set 17, running him along side your trusty Prince Clients will be no problem. I expect him to be a 1 or 2 of in almost every deck that plays the Lightning Symbol. Genma making a comeback anyone?

Now class, before we begin discussing the final preview, I think it's time we stretch out those brains and do a little review session. To motivate where this is going, let's take a look back at "Design Space" on the Bandai CG Forums. Over the course of the article, I, with some assistance, fleshed out some ideas which I was hoping would flesh out the game, including things such as Dual Colored Jutsu, which while they're not as great as I would've liked them to be at the moment, we're clearly moving in the right direction.

For the longest time, I recall Tylar was a big advocate of the Reinforcement Deck doing more than just being "The Squad Deck," which was confirmed later on when talking with other play testers too. I know Tylar and I were on the same page here in our love for alternate states for key ninja in the series. As such, the following idea was developed:



...
But what happens if all the State 2 ninja didn’t have to take up deck space? What would happen if I could just play each of the 3 drop Sound 4 Ninja or a 4 drop Kimimaro and call upon the “State 2” ninja whenever it was relevant? Well with the Reinforcement Deck, couldn’t that be made possible? Much like Squads, there could be some sort of “Transformation” card that allows for more decks like the “State 2” deck to thrive by giving them extra leeway in deck construction. However, they need to be handled in such a way that not just every deck can play the card and it needs to have some sort of inherit drawback. The draw back to Squads is you’re essentially turning 2 ninja into 1 ninja, which results in a loss of field presence. If a “One Man Squad” type of card was introduced, there has to be a drawback to just turning your “average” ninja into a super powerful one. The most obvious design choice would be to slap a hand cost on it or perhaps only allow it to come into play under very specific cir****tances (Such as having “Power of State 2” in play perhaps?). Alternatively, the could have a drawback to it, rewarding those players brave enough to try the “Transformed” Ninja that go in the deck rather than the Ninja that come out of the Reinforcement Deck.

Let’s take a closer look at one of these fictional “Transformation” cards:

Edit: The Following Card Is Not Real!!!



A Naruto like this would add more consistency to the “Tailed Beast Form” deck by not handicapping the player who has to sacrifice the deck’s best early game ninja to play a later game version of it. As you can see though, this Naruto has a number of drawbacks that make him worse than his 5 drop “Emerging Alliance” counterpart including lower stats, coming out a turn later, vulnerability to card effects, and an effect that can potentially lose you the game if you aren’t careful. You have effectively gained a much more flexible deck by using a card like this but it doesn’t give you the same benefits as if you had played “The Real Thing” in your actual deck. It is important to note that the design of this card is set up in such a way that the card has plenty of drawbacks but still provides the players with the centerpiece they need as well as providing an alternate win condition in the form of mill. Transformations, or any card for that matter, need not just be tools to assist a win condition but rather can create ones, allowing for diverse decks that have multiple outs and backup plans, thus making it a game more of intelligence and skill than one of luck.

After this article and the follow up "Going In(to) Depth" where posted, Tylar shot me a message telling me "Good Job." I never really knew why he praised me on those two articles in particular until the other day,
when Tylar gave me today's Preview. And contrary to what I posted, it is actually... NOT A SQUAD.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the "Transformation" topic is indeed a reality. It is with great pride that I'm proud to introduce to you all the Game's First "REINFORCEMENT" Type Card (At least going by the card number):



Tylar had been planning this idea all along, and the support from the article I assumed only added fuel to the fire. This is the first Ninja Transformation state that you will be able to play in your Reinforcement Decks (Hence the Squad Type Slow Spoil). Now, let's look a look at what he does shall, we?

With all the same characteristics as the normal Hidan, you're not "sacrificing" anything by putting him into play. In fact, you're getting an upgrade of 7/3, 7/0 stats rather than 6/2, 6/0. However, unlike his regular counter part, Curse Mode does not discard cards off the top of the deck every turn, rather opting to discard when he takes damage. Combo this with the Giant Eagle card above and Hidan is a draw/filter engine almost by himself. Keep in mind the fact that he still can't die. Oh and did I mention it has Name: Hidan? That means you theoretically should be able to "Squad" him into himself again to get back to Healthy stats.
If he ever gets removed from play, since normal Hidan returns to your hand when removed from play, you should easily be able to put him into play again. And again.

But going back to the "Squadding", how do you put him into play? Tylar said already that you can't straight up "Squad" or rather "Reinforce" this guy into play like you would a normal "Squad." You need to meet a special requirement for this card to come into play. So the question now is... how does he come into play? And what is the point of Three Bladed Scythe's second effect?

Perhaps we'll find out later this week?

I want to again thank Tylar immensely for these previews and giving me the wonderful honor of being the first to show you all the "Reinforcement" Card Type. (Designated by it's "Red" Squad border, rather than the Purple I showed you yesterday. It's like a Squad...but it's not :P)

Labels: hidan, previews, tsu, Tylar, Will of Fire