So I've been somewhat lax as of late in posting previews, especially since it was supposed to be my turn about a week and a half ago. Going to NJ and then coming down with some cold like illness put a lot of things on the back burner for the moment though.

Plans for Florida SJC fell through, but rest assured, I will be attending the PA SJC along with my full CT Crew. Since this is the exact format now that will be for the SJC, a lot of testing has begun.

On top of that Resident Evil Alliance launched this weekend, and I was quick to pick up my reserved copy as well as the playmat and foil Infected Wesker from the demo kit. I introduced three people to the game using a mixture of cards from both sets, and we played Story Mode, taking out the characters that only really work in Partner Mode (Josh, Jill (BA), Hunk, etc). Needless to say, as has been the result of every time Patrick or I have introduced someone to this game, they loved it. The first few turns were a bit rough with people learning the basic mechanics, but by the end of the game, they were rolling through the combined Masion and slapping down action chains like the best of us. A word or warning though, if the Los Illuminatos Monks (Or whatever they're called), don't show up in the first half of the game, expect a scenario that the three remaining of us (one person died enough to be out of the game) ran into. We all had a stack of about 17 infected, giving the Monk +85 Health and +85 Damage, making him a 100 Health 105 Damage brute. And with everyone packing at least two Uroboros Infections in their deck (I personally had 3, yay Steve Burnside!), exploring with less than 130 damage at the minimum became a game or Die or Don't Die.

So I noticed I went off on a huge Resident Evil tangent. Pat, we should make this a Resident Evil blog. =\

I'm pretty sure that most of you didn't come here for my ramblings though, and moreso for the preview. So, here we go.

First, a bit of back story on this card.

1) There is an ERRATA for the card, which I will include under the card.

2) This card is rumored to support a future theme (as in Set 22).

3) I actually like this card.

Anyways...

ERRATA: When this Ninja is put in play, you can draw 1 card for each "Brush" and Ink Summon Ninja you have.

So yeah, Sai. He's a super rare, he's Turn 4. Unfortunately, he has a handcost, and his injured stats are Bad. He does have Growth, for what that is worth.

As of right now, Sai has the potential to Draw 4 when he is put in play. He counts himself with his effect, and there are the non-unique Ink Summon Ninjas from Tournament Pack 2, who pull each other into play from the discard. If you so happen to have another of this Sai next turn, you can Growth him and Draw another 4.

From what I can tell, the bad injured stats and the handcost all stem from the whole Potential Draw 4 aspect of the card, which unless supported or made more consistent, is tough to swallow still.

As I said though, I Do like this card, mostly for it's artwork, but also for the that possible draw engine come rotation. I think that is when this card will be able to be heavily considered. For the time being, Lightning is very much focused on Naruto/Jiraiya/4th Rasengan spam, or the leftover True Allies variants (which support Naruto Rasengan spam).

I'm willing to pull these in my boxes and play around with them a bit, but I'm also interested to see what else can come out of it in future sets. (Remember when in Set 18, No Hand Water was almost there, and then got broken in Set 19? Same deal.)

Tomorrow is one of my favorite characters. Until then...

-Nick (Shino'sDad)