Earlier today I posted up the surname of my preview card; [Akatsuki's Left Hand]. I'm actually pretty surprised that no one guessed that it would be a Deidara, the Character who's Ninjutsu involves the molding of chakra with the mouth on his hands. Anyway, here's our preview from Tournament Pack 2:

So, I probably don't need to point out that this card is incredibly underwhelming. I really did want to write a positive report on the card, but after much deliberation, I've decided to instead talk about why this card isn't good, and what I believe should have been done with the card.

So the first problem with the card is that it sets a condition for finding an "Akatsuki" Ninja on the bottom of your deck to trigger. The problem with this is obviously that there just isn't support for an akatsuki based deck right now, further more, there are very few cards in the format that even allow you to manipulate the bottom of your deck. The second problem is the reward. To put it bluntly, it just sucks. Other cards loop jutsus and missions repeatedly, while Deidara can at BEST pick up a jutsu once (That is if you manage to reveal an "Akatsuki" Ninja).

For a Turn five ninja, I just feel like his effect is far too restrictive. I think the best way to have designed this card would have been to make him say "During the mission phase, if you have 3 or more in play "Akatsuki" Ninja in play, you may move a jutsu card from your discard pile to you hand." This slight change not only promotes the akatsuki deck that Bandai clearly tried to pish with this card original effect, but it also has enough power for people to WANT to play him. Hopefully Bandai will learn from this for future design. Anyway, thanks for reading, and check back on friday for our Thanksgiving Podcast!

-Andrew

Labels: previews, Tournament Pack 2, Zero