Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Most Playable Cards in The Kage Summit!

This list is based entirely off of Play-ability and my personal opinion. These cards I would consider using in my builds because of how much they can help my overall build when constructing a deck. Hope you enjoy the read and please feel free to leave feedback!

10. The Third Hokage- My Favorite Kage, the reason he is so low is because I feel that the Kages may not see much competitive play because of their high drop. Maybe I was just spoiled with Ambush ninjas but I can’t see myself holding onto the Kages for the entire game either.

9. Sakura Haruno- Pay 1 to heal a Ninja, i'm sold on this card from this effect alone. Everyone loves Karin (Rightfully so), and this ninja is better than Karin. This card, as well as the next will be in crazy use. Maybe more-so when KNS rotates.

8. Rock Lee- Such a strong 2 drop. Every turn he makes a ninja bigger, including when he is put into play. So Essentially he is a 4/3 2 drop. Oh and unlike sakura, I consider his second effect extremely useful. Controlling what your opponent draws is so helpful.

7. New Orders- I can already hear Scott in the back of my head "Hina stops this card!!!!". I know, I know. But mission negation is so rare now a-days and especially in fire where you can just warhawk next turn and replenish your entire hand. I have always been a fan of mission negation and this card is solid negation.

6. Shizune/Tonton- Yeah, i'll make an exception here and put 2 cards. Let's drop this mediocre 0 drop, search for my 4 drop, then turn my 4 drop into a powerful 6 drop. All because I drew TonTon. The potential of these cards is hard to deny, I'm still shaky on how well and consistent this combo will run in tournament play. Only time will tell for this one though.

5. Hidan- The Ninja that just keeps coming back. I love pitching ninjas without caring for missions and throwing them in my discard pile for costs and not caring. Oh hey, Turn 4, how are you doing? Let's just put in play this Ninja that keeps coming back and has good stats. On Turn 6... let's turn him into an even stronger ninja with a great effect and put him back in the discard pile. This ninja seems like a staple 1 of in fire (at least fire). Not so bad in void either. The cost is a little steep in some games but he can chump block pretty well for you also.

4. Sabiru- Can see this card as a staple in everyones deck or side board. Not quite comp strength but it does some damage and can shut down that ink leech early or maybe more devastating effects as the game goes on. Ultimate Disruption card in the set.

3. Zhandou- Now I think this card and Sabiru are extremely close. I like a lot about this ninja though, especially in wind. You can even drop him if you want and he can get the full effect of Reanimation jutsu. But  his main use will be his discard effect and wow the amount of uses this card can have in your hand is unreal. You can use him early game when your opponent drops their one drop so you can keep the tempo going and make them have 2 smaller teams for an extra turn. Or late game you can keep their powerhouse by himself. Great card design on this one.

2.  The Sand Council- Not a big fan of the Council cards because none of their effects are really game-changng. Instead they are 3 average effects. This is the only one I feel is the exception to that. Box Lunch was probably the most useful card while it was legal. That effect by itself makes this card playable. Add to it Substitute and a Mental Power across the board and you have a very versatile mission.

1. Shikamaru Nara- I know most people will think I am crazy, but I absolutely love this card. He beats any other zero drop in the game. Also, allows you to dig for any drop you want on turn 2 with shika’s decision. Shikamaru into his mother turn 1 is by far the best early game team in the game, add KNS on turn 2 and your opponent is going to be in a lot of trouble. 2 support also if you chose to drop a ninja with combat on turn 1 he is a very good compliment. This Ninja has it all for a 0 drop. Most overlooked card in the set as far as I’m concerned.


Honorable Mentions:
Stone Council, Leaf Council, Sand Shield, Exaggeration, Sneak Attack, Mabui, Particle Style: Atomic Dismantling Jutsu

-Squee
Posted at 12:02 PM
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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
The Perfect Curve Series 25 Final Preview: Spoils of War

Alright guys, time for the last TPC preview for the 25th set, Kage Summit! Today we look at a common Permanent Earth Mission and try to break down all the uses and advantages of using this card in your deck, so here it is:

This is a card where you need to stop and think before you really analyze its effect. At first glance you might assume this is just another card to compliment the new “Permanent Mission Theme” that Bandai has created for Earth in set 25. However, while that is true, I believe that this card can be seen as much more. I’m sure people remember this card. Let’s look at a couple of scenarios in which this card can be used to your advantage:
Scenario 1: Your opponent plays Ink Leech (Pretty safe play to assume) and resolves an early jutsu against you sending three cards to their discard pile and you have a vanilla ninja on your side of the field. Now what are some ninjas that could be in your opponents discard pile that can give you an early advantage? Aside from the Kages, here are just a FEW examples:

Void: Deva Path, Human Path
Fire: Tsukado, Pakkun
Water: Kisame, Karin
Earth: Hinata, Foo, Shiho
Lightning: Naruto
Wind: Sakura, Tsunade

A few of the above are gamechangers. The most interesting example in my opinion is Naruto[The Emerging Beast], especially for earth who might already have Naruto[Nine-Tail’s Cloak] in their reinforcement deck. Although it’s a little late, something like this could eventually turn your Injured Vanilla ninja into a Sage Mode! Now you could argue that this scenario won’t play out all the time and you don’t like using situational cards, a valid argument. But that’s why I like the versatility of this card it has a second, equally powerful option.
Scenario 2: Since the target is “1 Ninja” it is important to look at how/if you can use this card on your opponent’s ninjas. I’m sure everyone remembers this card:


Now the obvious differences are there, it has a hand cost, it isn’t a counter mission, and it doesn’t prevent the ninja from using jutsu. I get that. However why can’t you utilize it in the same way when it comes to negating ninja effects? You can and should. This card can cripple an overwhelmingly powerful effect such as a Kage or maybe just shut down that annoying Hidan for a few turns before he can wreak havoc on your battle rewards.

Conclusion: This is a card I feel that should not be overlooked if you plan on playing Earth or Earth/X. It can be a powerful card to turn your opponent’s ninjas against them or it can even be used to shut down your opponent’s threats. If it does not make its way into your mainboard it should be used in your side deck. Hope you guys enjoyed the preview and are looking forward to set 25 as much as I am!

-Eric




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Posted at 12:12 PM
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Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Perfect Curve Series 25 Preview #3: For you, Victory is Merely an Illusion!
Hey everybody, welcome to another TPC Kage Summit Preview Tuesday! After the big reactions to last weeks preview I fully expect an explosion on the Bandai boards after you read the card that I have the pleasure of previewing. So here without further adue, here is the elusive 15th Super Rare preview you have all been waiting on:


So yeah. Before you start flipping out and screaming at the top of your lungs that Bandai is crazy and such, I just want to note: You cannot force your opponent to concede, and you can't make him do things the game will not allow, in order to force him to get disqualified. Okay, now you can flip out.
..................
...................
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... Alright, is it out of your system yet? Good. Genjutsu is, as many of you realize, game breaking. Because you control all of your opponent's decisions you basically should opt to do everything to completely ruin their chances of winning.

BUT ZERO, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

Here is what I mean for those of you who aren't sure:
1) Oh, sick full clutch, I think I'll charge your entire hand.
2) Man I think I will seperate all of your teams and attack with your 3 best ninjas by themselves into my full teams.
3) Oh no, it looks like your big Ninja is going to get OV'd by my team! Good thing I kept this Hydro pump in hand, which I will now use to target all of your relevant ninjas that I didn't send out to battle.
4) Look at these cool effects like Hidan (Cursed mode) and Warhawk, I think I will use them to give up as many Battle rewards as I can!

The fun goes on and on. Seriously, unless you have no board presence, resolving this card is
very close to outright winning the game.

BUT ZERO DOES THAT MEAN THIS CARD IS UNFAIR????

When it resolves it sure as heck is, but that can be said with alot of jutsu. the balancing aspect of this card is that it costs 9 chakra minimum to play, and has roughly 4 users in the game, all of which are late game Ninjas. It also can't be used to counter commonly played Jutsu making it super awkward on the chain:
Player A) "Atomic Dismantling on Itachi and his team!"
Player B) "Itachi uses Genjutsu!"
Player A) "Okay... Chain resolves. I wipe your team"
Player B) "I... I... I can't even kill any of your ninjas because my field just got blown up"
Player A) "LOL"

BUT ZERO DOES THIS MEAN THE CARD IS BAD???

No, the cards high cost can be somewhat lowered with good deck building, and the late game requirement isn't too big of a deal if the rest of your deck is set up to get to the point of the game where you are capable of casting this card. There is alot of effort involed in properly utilizing this card, but is as you can see the pay off is huge! I personally think that this card is awesome and is what I like to call "A card that promotes being good at Magic."

BUT ZERO THIS IS NARUTO NOT MAGI...

Shut up, I wasn't finished. I've played alot of Magic over the years and one of the biggest differences I've seen from professional players and scrubba-dub-dubs is telegraphing. Baddies have a habit of giving it all away, and might as well just tell the world they have a wrath effect, so that the other player knows not to over commit to creatures on the board. In Magic, a good pokerface wins games, because litterally anything can happen. Naruto is a bit different. Sure, your opponent needs to keep from telegraphing what his hand situation is looking like, however instead of trying to guess the hundreds of instants and trick plays that can kill you because you swung in or blocked, all you ever have to ask yourself is "DOES HE HAVE REMOVAL AND IF HE DOES HOW SCREWED AM I?" and then either attack/block or don't based on how screwed you would be, and in most cases throw a chump blocker in the way instead.

Genjutsu changes things up a bit by being a gamebreaking threat off of a chump block made to buy time against assumed removal. But Genjutsu will only work if your opponent doesn't see it coming, so staying calm and keeping from wetting yourself in excitement is kind of integral in using Genjutsu effectively. Additionally, it also helps take power away from "Unaffected by Jutsu cards" and "Cannot be the target of Jutsu cards" effects which have had a nasty habit of being one of the best effects in the game since forever because Bandai has bottlenecked Jutsu effects into mostly "KILLS/Damages/Injures A NINJA OR DOES NOTHING." By making powerful Jutsu cards that aren't removal, I feel like they are adding depth into the game. Suddenly players need to think a little when making blocks/attacks and weigh their options a bit more.

BUT ZERO HOW DOES I GENJUTSU WELL?

I'm glad you asked. Here are some important steps involved in utilizing Genjutsu in a competative setting:
Step 1: Do not build a Genjutsu only theme deck- Seriously, this is the biggest mistake I always see people make when good new cards are shown. Their first instinct is to build a deck consisting only of some kind of theme to try and play these cards in what they believe is their home. For example, Shizune Tonton. Every derp on the planets first instinct was to build a deck of random female ninjas to utilize this card, which is why it didn't do anything too significant until I built a deck that had a ton of synergy with the card but wasn't dragged down by it either, and then I won a Shonen Jump Championship and the card was banned (Inbeforehaters).You obviously need to play Genjutsu ninja to play the card and lower it's cost, but don't just throw Cee in your deck because you play Genjutsu and what to lower it's cost to 5 from 6, cause I'll be the first person to tell you that the difference between 5-6 chakra cost is smaller than the difference between the playability of Cee and just about any other 4 drop in the format, Genjutsu or not
.
Step 2: Build a deck that can reliably play Genjutsu- This means that you want to play a deck that has enough draw power where you can consistently draw the card, have a user for the card in play, and actually get to the point in the game where you can play the card. With the tutoring in the format being pretty good right now, you probably only need 3-4 users at maxium so that isn't a big deal, but what you do need is a tough early game. 0 drops like Sea Monster, Sakura, and the new Shikamaru are good ways to slow down your opponent and keep the game from becoming too one sided early on. You also want to play a mix of good draw cards (that I'm not even going to name because it's pretty obvious what the best draw missions are right now) to insure that you can sift through your deck and grab the copies of Genjutsu for when you need them.

Step 3: Have a game plan that involves not casting Genjutsu, which isn't "Roll over and Die"- This is SUPER important because things don't always work out the way we want, and for all you know you could have easily shuffled all the copies of Genjutsu to the bottom of your deck. Sucks bro, but you still have to win the game somehow, which is hopefully what the other 47 cards in your deck are built to help you do. At the Georgia SJC (I know I know, this is the last time I'm going to mention it) I got my Tonton's hit with Sealing barrier and Shino dropped against me, multiple times. I didn't clean up my cards and go cry in the corner after that because I walked into that even't assuming that stuff would happen to me, which is why my entire deck wasn't dedicated to resolving a single card. They stop your Genjutsus with Temari and such? Beat them down with Dragon flames, Pressures Damages, and good ninja effects. Make it so that a side deck and some lucky draws don't take you out of the equation.

Hopefully you liked my review, and Good luck to those of you who are already building decks for this guy. Check back next week for our last preview from set 25!


-Andrew Photobucket
Posted at 1:00 PM
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Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Perfect Curve Series 25 Preview #2: It's Real Emotion!
Hey guys! Tsu here with another preview from Naruto CCG's Series 25 "Kage Summit"! We here at "The Perfect Curve" typically rotate who gets to write about which previews each set, to give each person a chance to write about a super rare because honestly, those are the most fun cards to write about and talk about. As the corner stones of the set and the "value" you'll be getting out of your boxes, the "Super Rare" card is obviously going to be widely talked about. Sadly the card I'm going to show you is NOT a Super Rare.

"Then why tell us about Super Rares at all Tsu?"

Glad you asked, Jimmy! You see normally I get dumped into one of two camps: Super Rare ... or unplayable card. I'm very pleased to announce though that our 2nd preview is actually a very good and very playable rare... so without further explanation, here is Lightning Style: Emotion Wave!






What Can I Do For You?
So at first glance, we can see that this is a late game Jutsu, primarily used by Darui in the anime and manga series. A turn 5 Jutsu with a symbol requirement isn't so bad but whenever we talk about Turn 5+ Jutsu the card has to hold some weight because it's going to be instantly compared to cards like Hydro Pump, Snake Sword, and of course Almighty Push!

So the question is, does Emotion Wave hold up? Well considering that most of the above removal cost at least 3 or more chakra to remove 2 to 3 Ninjas, we'll have to just see if it is a good value in comparison. But before that, we have to actually look at how the card works.

When we play Emotion Wave, we obviously have to pay the cost of X chakra...X can be as little or as much as we want. Note that paying 0 chakra for Emotion Wave does absolutely nothing. For each card you pay with the Lightning Symbol, you'll get a simple damage spell along the lines of an old school Fireball Jutsu. For each Water symbol you pay, you'll net an additional target on the card. So what does this all mean? Here's a quick table for you:

1 Lightning Chakra + 0 Water Chakra = 1 Damage to 1 Opposing Ninja
2 Lightning Chakra + 0 Water Chakra = 2 Damage to 1 Opposing Ninja
1 Lightning Chakra + 1 Water Chakra = 1 Damage to 2 Opposing Ninja
2 Lightning Chakra + 1 Water Chakra = 2 Damage to 2 Opposing Ninja
1 Lightning Chakra + 2 Water Chakra = 1 Damage to 3 Opposing Ninja
2 Lightning Chakra + 2 Water Chakra = 2 Damage to 3 Opposing Ninja
... And so on and so forth.

So 4 Chakra nets you a team wipe, which is actually less valuable than Snake Sword in this case which isn't really good value.

"But Tsu! I thought you said this was a good card!"

Well it is! The secret lies in a theme that's being pushed in Series 25 "Kage Summit" and that's multi-colored decks. By paying the cost of Emotion Wave with a single card like ...oh I dunno...the most played card in the format Monster Research, the Jutsu becomes way more efficient. If you were to pay the cost of emotion wave with only cards with the Water & Lightning Symbol together, the numbers for the card start to look more like this:

1 Water/Lightning Chakra = 1 Damage to 2 Opposing Ninjas
2 Water/Lightning Chakra = 2 Damage to 3 Opposing Ninjas

So for the low cost of that Monster Research in your chakra area, this card can cause some serious damage!




Double Trouble!
Here is a list of every Lightning/Water dual element card in Block format for your reference. This should give you an idea of just how many cards in the format are playable and can easily provide the double cost requirement for Lightning Style: Emotion Wave! Please keep in mind, this list does not include any cards from "Series 25" but you should note that many powerful cards such as Raikage, Darui and even Emotion Wave itself are capable of efficiently activating Emotion Wave.

Ninja
Anko Mitarashi - An already highly played card.
Anko Mitarashi - This 2 drop Common has no real use when you consider the 3 drop counterpart. Even though it can make every card in your chakra area able to be more efficient with Emotion Wave, I still don't see it making a huge splash.
Five Tails  - 7 Combat 4 drop is pretty good. Especially since he gets a draw for every victory he wins.
Gamaken - Thomas Veazie popularized this as a sideboard option against Ink Ninjas in Lightning & Water decks.

Mission
Great Naruto Bridge - Already sees play in 9 Phantom Dragons decks, which are already primarily Water/Lightning to begin with.
Anko's Memories - Restricted to 1 but still played in pretty much every Lightning or Water deck
Monster Research - The BIG ONE! 3 of in almost every single SJC Winning deck, a single Monster Research in your chakra area makes Emotion Wave something to fear.

 Jutsu
Chidori Lance - Decent Jutsu
Blade of the Thunder God - Not too great

So considering that only 2 of the cards on our list are actually unplayable (T2 Anko & Blade of the Thunder God), it's safe to say that this card will have a lot of synergy with a lot of very playable and powerful cards.

The Thunder God Tech
So I feel that this is something that needs to be pointed out and it's probably one of the main reasons I feel that Emotion Wave will make a big "splash" (get it?) in Lightning Decks this season... all thanks to this guy:





On turn 2 you can play Monster Research and board press with your field. If your opponent blocks you can play The 4th Hokage and have him use Emotion Wave for the cost of the 1 Monster Research in your chakra. This + the 4th's Effect all but guarantees you discard any opposing team as early as turn 2. Using the 4th Hokage's Mastery effect, you can keep not only the 4th Hokage but Emotion Wave to set this play up again later in the game. You killed 3 Ninjas for 2 cards in hand and 1 chakra. Talk about value!!!

I hope you enjoyed our second preview for Series 25 "Kage Summit"! Please check back next week for our 3rd preview!

-Tsu

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