Hello folks and welcome to the first of The Perfect Curve's previews for Naruto Shippuden CCG Set 20: The Tales of the Gallant Sage.

We are lucky enough to bring you a full theme this week, in the form of a group of Ninjas that not only all work very well together, but supplement some other Ninjas that have already been printed in prior sets.

The first of which is everyone's favorite avenger, Sasuke Uchiha. But this time, he is dressed for success.


So the first thing you will notice is most likely the art. The Ninjas in our previews this week come from the Shippuden Anime ending #5, Gentle Rainbow. While we can't be 100% sure how it will actually look on a printed card, I have a feeling that foils of these Ninjas are going to be really nice.

Sasuke Uchiha (Suit) is your standard Turn 4 Sasuke, though he only sports a Fire Symbol in this incarnation, as opposed to a Water or both Fire and Water. This is fine due to the deck type he is designed to work in. And with a quick look at the characteristic line, we can see that the deck of choice is Leaf Academy.

As for the effect itself, he allows you to place a growth coin on any of your in play Leaf Academy Ninjas by discarding any Leaf Academy Ninja in your hand. While the effect isn't downright outstanding on it's own, it supplements the decktype in that it is a constant stream of Growth coins for your Ninjas. What appears to be a downside though, it that his effect is considered Growthing the Ninja, so you cannot use it on a Ninja that already has a Growth coin, and you cannot further Growth a Ninja with this effect if it already has a Growth coin on it. On the other hand, the fact that this effect is considered Growth works very well with the next Ninja in this preview.

From a Limited perspective, he is a solid Turn 4 Ninja with big Combat and the potential to Growth, and being a common, you may be able to pick up a couple of them. Combined with the fact that there are other Leaf Academy Ninjas this set, his effect will let you get that important Team Power up to the level where your opponent will not want to block or have to start taking heavy damage on his side of the field.

Next up is one of my favorite cards in the theme, a transfer student who has befriended those of the Leaf Academy.


Gaara of the Desert (Suit) is your standard Turn 2 Gaara, with the addition of Leaf Academy as well as Growth, a mechanic we never see on Sand Ninja. That is though, of course, because he is also technically a Leaf Ninja this time around, as shown by his second effect.

His first effect is what makes him interesting though. Similar to Advisor of the Sand, who draws you a card whenever you Surge, Gaara (Suit) draws you a card whenever you Growth a Ninja. This includes himself of course, and it also includes Sasuke (Suit)'s effect, meaning that Gaara and Sasuke become a filter engine for the deck with the bonus of getting a Growth coin as well.

As with Sasuke (Suit), Gaara (Suit) is not a card that outright screams "Play Me", but is meant to operate within the decktype that it was designed for. Combined with the rest of the theme, Leaf Academy gets a solid boost in this set. Although it won't be going out to win any large events, it still has a structure to it other than "Rush to 10 coins as fast a possible."

Be sure to check back often for new previews for the Leaf Academy theme as well as the staff's random musing on all things Naruto as well as other random banter.

Afterthought: Maybe since we got these Ninjas, we will get some Bacchikoi! afterall...

Labels: Bacchikoi, bandai, previews, Shino'sDad