Yes. I said it. Females are competitive.

Tier 1? Nope, probably not.

Tier 2? For sure.

And by the end of this short article and the unveiling of our first preview, I intend to try to make you a believer.

For once, it seems like Females is ACTUALLY viable. The Kimono deck, after getting my preview Monday and slowly making adjustments to a proxy deck that I've been playing, has surprisingly come out... good. It can at least go toe to toe with a post-rotation Earth deck with all the trimmings, Deidara, C4, and C0 in tow. And it's all thanks to a couple of key cards that I think a lot of people are overlooking.

The Kimono Deck at a Glance

Pros:
-MASSIVE...team power
I'm not even kidding. It is very possible on turn 6 to swing out with 3 teams whose powers exceed 16+. And I'm not just saying this on a whim...it happens almost every other game.

-The ability to draw about half of your deck by turn 4~5

-Reasonably powerful Jutsu lineup

-Incredibly Strong Late Game (even more so than Earth)

Cons:
-Somewhat Luck based
This isn't as big a con as you might think. It's incredibly easy to get the results you want once you're setup. Things are only rocky turn 0 and turn 1 usually.

-Very susceptible vs. Hina
Most missions in the deck are Permanent. Hina hurts very badly. However, my build plays 12~14 missions so I hope they have a way to recycle it.

-Very susceptible vs. Mill/Deckout
Because of all the mandatory draw power in the deck, you should arrive at turn 5~6 with 15 or so cards left in the deck. If your opponent is playing mill, all it takes is once shot with something like Great Dragon Flame Jutsu (Give 1 Damage/Mill 5) in the early game and you'll need to wrap things up by turn 7 or you're screwed.

-No 2 drops
Hardly a draw back but there's no good post rotation female 2 drop besides KNS and you risk that dying to Shizune. It's at your discretion if you want to play it. Ino Yamanaka [Playful] is not an option as it kills your deck's draw engine.

-Poor Chakra Generation
We counter act that in a few ways (Bonds, Hard Charging) but chakra lock, like Mill, is a bad matchup.

The Cards

Ninja
Hotaru Katsuragi
Boobie Lady is the ideal 0 drop in the deck. Neither of her coin flip effects have a draw back and she's a very good stated Ninja. I play 3.

Temari
Broken. You should know why we're playing this. I play 2.

Hinata Hyuga (Kimono)
Her effect is barely a drawback. On turn 0, you're either going discard 1 of the cards in your opponent's hand or she's a 3/0. You're going to want to try to go for heads obviously as a few good flips and you pretty much lock up the game. I would play 3 in this deck. I'd shoot to drop her on turn 1 though.

Tenten (Kimono)
Neither of her draw backs are bad. She's a 3 combat turn 0. You should be playing 3 of these. Even if you hit tails early with this card, there are other card effects in the deck that benefit greatly from milling cards off the top of your deck.

Ino Yamanaka (Kimono)
Literally unplayable. The worst upside of any Kimono Card. The worst downside as well.
Do me a favor and stick to this broken Ino instead. Her stats will serve you far better than any coin flip effect can. Just so you know, I play 3 of that vanilla Ino.

Sakura Haruno (Kimono)
The second best Kimono Ninja. You should be playing 3 of these as this is what makes the deck run. Almost every card in the deck will generate you card draw off of Sakura. It's very easy to draw 4+ cards a turn with this card and Tenten. My record in I believe 10 in one turn. 3 of. No exceptions.

Rin
Was in some earlier builds of the deck. Decent female. Heals your Hinata. Can be abused with other cards in the deck. You might find it okay to run but I think it's subpar so I've cut it. When I did play it, it was at 1. Just thought it was worth mentioning. The deck has no 2 drops so if you want more 1 drops to fill the void, she's one of the best ones you're going to get.

Shizune (Kimono)
The third best Kimono. She has no real downside and her effect can be stacked multiple times. It's very easy to get +2/+2 every turn with her. Some turns you can go broken and get +5/+5 for every Ninja on your board. You should be playing 3 of this.

Chiyo
A necessary 3 drop. If you mill over Tsunade with Tenten, your late game is screwed. You need this Ninja to pick up Tsunade and for that it's a staple. I would probably play 2.

Anko Mitarashi (Kimono)
Anko is the Kimono I'm most on the fence about. Growth coins are very good, especially since you can have turns where it's possible to put 3 or 4 growth coins down. The reason why I'm weary of playing her is because she can very well eat all your chakra...something the deck already lacks because almost every mission is permanent. Your chakra comes almost exclusively from hard charging and Bonds in this deck... I have recently changed her to this Anko because of how many Ninjas you can put in play with this deck. It's simply a safer option.

Kurenai Yuhi (Kimono)
Ya'll ain't ready for this card. Seriously it's too good. So that's why we're not going to play it and opt for Genjutsu Reversal instead. It protects you from Jutsu on both players turns and has solid stats, without having to worry about decking out or giving your opponent advantage.

Konan
Techy option for a 5 drop. I've been experimenting around with it. Good synergy with max hand size increase cards.

Mission
Dreams of the Past
In many ways, this is the only reason this deck is playable. Being able to get 3 chances to hit the Kimono effects per turn starting on turn 1 is a must. If you stack at least 2 of these, you'll be able to resolve every effect for the rest of the game unless your opponent Hinas you. The D1 on T1 isn't bad either, especially if you curved Tenten/Sakura.

Fond Memories
I've played without it most of the time but I realized that it's definitely a necessary card in the deck. It's not better than Dreams but it allows for you to destroy your opponent mid/late game if you have a way to trigger all your Ninja effects at least 3 times in a turn.

Bonds of Frienship
A necessity. The deck simply has crap chakra generation and this helps smooth it out. The growth coin can be helpful late game too.

Ino's Tears
It's been awful for me. Just don't play it. The deck draws enough cards as it is...this is completely unnecessary. If you're playing the correct number/quantity of cards, you should draw them every game with this deck's amazing draw engine.

Barrier Preperation
I shouldn't have to explain why we're using this one. Blink out an injured Kimono, put it back into play, trigger your whole board.

Daydreaming
Draw 2, Heal a Ninja, trigger all my ninja effects, and my max hand size is increased by 2? Derp good in this deck.

Jutsu
Hydro-pump
BROKEN. BROKEN. BROKEN.

Stunning Strike
Sucks. Don't play it. I'm serious. Only on here cause I know someone is going to see "Expert: Female" and try it. Just...no.

Reanimation Ninjutsu
Fair choice. I don't play it but it's there if you want to draw a card/heal a ninja and pick up a Jutsu from the discard pile. It's main use is to loop Hydro Pump.

Kick of Anger
Injure spell for the whole deck. Built in howl if you tie or better on the EC. A very solid choice overall for this deck post rotation, since Wind has few better options.

Ferocious Punch!
Negation of choice. I shouldn't have to tell you how good this card is in this deck.

Infinite Embrace
The best card in the whole deck. Remove a Ninja and trigger all your effects....which means the card essentially reads: Move the Target to it's opponent's chakra area. Then, you draw 2 cards and discard 1 card from your hand. Then your opponent discard's a card from their hand. Then all your Ninja's get +1/+1 and you get a growth coin on 1 of your ninjas. If you have a second Embrace (which is very likely given what Tsunade does) or draw into a second Embrace...yeah. Good times.

Okay so if you actually read all of that, you have my gratitude. I just wanted to show people that there are a decent number of tools and that you can actually build a viable deck out of this. I'm not saying this is the best way to build it...keep in mind I've only been proxying for a day or two now...but for a Day 1 deck that's still rough around the edges...it has promise.

Oh and here's this TSUNADE (KIMONO)

that I'm sure you've all been waiting to drool over.

What a finisher for the deck right? Every turn you can trigger all the abilities of your Ninjas for 1 chakra. In addition, you get to pick up a Jutsu in your discard pile. Even the Haters can't say a Wind version of Jiraiya [Instruction of the Hidden Technique] is bad. Even if the Female/Kimono deck fails, I expect Tsunade to see play regardless. I feel she's just that good ... any respectable Wind deck should be able to easily muster 3 female Ninjas considering every Ninja in those decks is usually a Puppet, Female, or both if you consider Sasori.

*ba dum tiss*

*crickets*

*ahem*

I hope you've enjoyed our first preview card for Set 22. Check back for our other previews soon!

Labels: Chief Tsuzumiya Haruhi, Deck Building, previews, reviews, Set 22, tsu

I was initially surprised when I looked at the list and saw that pretty much every highly played deck of the past got slammed, save for Puppets, which went completely untouched. Regardless, puppets is back and better than ever due so cool new inclusions:

-Hiruko: Now you don't need to flash a puppet onto your team before using an offensive Concealed Weapon! He also forces your opponent to make bad blocks to prevent getting out tempo'd, something puppets already tries to do. and lastly: So yeah, probably poor foresight on Bandai's part, but Kankuro [Trick] can grab Hiruko, making Trick even deadlier than he was before. He also works great with Kankuro & Black ant, letting them lock down a ninja, while Hiruko picks off their teammates.

-Gaara & Temari: One of the problems with Puppets was its lack of high powered ninjas without the assistance of puppets. The new squad not only gives you a powerful effect at the cost of 2 commonly played low drops, but a 7/5 body as well!

-Entrustment: The draw power puppets wished they had before they were rotated is finally in their hands!

-Kankuro's puppet show: I initially thought this card was strictly worse than arbitration, but after Pat kept talking about how good it was I tried it out. I still dislike it in block, but in Unlimited it gives you a lot of sick interactions, such as picking up an Ebizo, then replaying him to pick up a puppet (Also giving you a draw since he is Sand), targeting Temari for draw and other chance at picking off a Jutsu, and picking up a Salamander while having tactician in play, thus giving the card NO draw back. I really like this card in this list, and may even bump it to three if I see fit.

Miroku does a number on this deck, so I would probably side a few Kigiri's, since he is probably the best way of dealing with her, not to mention fits right into the curve of the deck. The Shika/Asuma Package isn't necessary, and it makes the deck a little clunky (seven 1 drops) but I feel like he's too good not to play, especially since it prevents your opponent from just chumping your huge puppet teams until they find an answer.

Check back each week in October as I discuss decks and strategies for the New Unlimited format, and check back tomorrow when I post up the first of our Preview cards for Naruto CCG's set 19 "Paths of Pain"!

-Andrew

Labels: Deck Building, decklists, Path of Pain, Shaping the Format, Unlimited, Zero

Like many of you out there I build decks on a whim. Whenever I see a new interesting preview or when a friend talks about a card that has worked well for him, you can bet I'll be at my computer typing card names and number on a new word pad ASAP. Unfortunately around 75-80% of these decks never see the light of day for one reason or another, usually because they aren't up to snuff, or because I've found a new interesting card I want to build with more. Now that I have this new shiny blog, I plan to chronicle some of my deck building endeavors for you guys to read.

Today I've been working on a deck for an upcoming EDH game with Tsu and Shino's Dad. For those of you who don't know what EDH is, you can find out by going to Bandai and checking out the Casual Format section of the site. For those of you who know what it is and haven't tried it, you don't know what you're missing. Anyway, I'm going to be building a deck around a platoon I really like, Sasori & 3rd Kazekage. As a General/Village Leader Sasori/Kazekage has a lot of appeal in the form of good stats and characteristics, relevant names and combat attributes, and a powerful effect. Despite the appealing aspects to the platoon, it has one huge drawback: it only has one element symbol. Having only one symbol effectively cut's my card pool in half, but despite this I still plan to go ahead and build this deck (hopefully with a bit of help from you guys). So lets get started!

It's safe to assume that since i'm playing a manipulation combat attribute general I'm going to use the puppet strategy in this deck, so right off the bat we can throw in these cards:

Sasori (Childhood)- Remarkable Talent

Kankuro- Trick

Kankuro- Tactician

Ebizo- Fishing

Chiyo- Retired Master

Black Ant- Lifeless Warrior

Crow- Lifeless Warrior

Salamander- Lifeless Warrior

Father and Mother- Lifeless warrior

Concealed Weapon

Substitute

Sasori of the Red Sand

Arbitration

Seeing as these cards are the foundation of the Puppet theme, not including them would probably be a crime. Also, while Sasori (Childhood) does have our General's Name, he is on such an early turn, and has such a powerful effect that including him will help more than it would hurt. Now that we put these cards in we can also add in some of the other commonly played cards in wind decks that aren't puppet devoted, like these cards:

Shino- Insect Warriors

Sakura- A Double Personality

Matsuri- Follower

Mikoshi- Follower

Temari- Wind Scythe

Temari- Violent Temper

Toki- Frozen Time

Gaara- Tragic Name

Baki- Able Brain

Shizune- Medical Kunoichi

The 4th Kazekage- Dignity

The Fifth Hokage- Establishment of Medicine

Gigantic Fan

Knockout Blow

Windstyle: Great Breakthrough

Sakura's Decision

Information Gathering

One morning

Village Hidden in the Wind

Luckily the Sand Village theme happens to tie into the Puppets theme, allowing me to make full use out of cards like Village hidden in the wind, Matsuri, and Mikoshi. With that we already have about 30 cards for the deck, and that was only the easy part. The next part is reanalyzing the current card pool. It's a long and tedious task where I re-look at every card from the beginning of the game to find cards that aren't completely terrible. Luckily, with the new card search engine this process is much easier, as I can search for cards only in my colors (Or in this case, color) and I can also search for specific keywords to find cards the support themes in my deck. Another thing I can do is search out cards that specifically refer to the Ninjas on my General/Village leader. This lets us find those random Nome cards that have really strong effects, but are too situational for competitive play.

So after searching Wind + Puppet/Manipulation/Sasori/3rd Kazekage/Iron and re-evaluating the search results, I've come up with these cards to add to the deck:

Kankuro- Skillful Manipulation of Puppets

Ebizo- Return

Chiyo- Rich Experience

Chiyo- Showdown

Secret White Move: Chikamatsu's Ten Puppets

Perfect Defense

Capture

Chakra Thread

Flame Thrower

Continuous Firing Poison Needles

Thousand Arm Manipulation

Secret Red move: Performance of a Hundred Puppets

Sealing Jutsu: Breaking the Lion's Roar

Sasori and 3rd Kazekage had some pretty sick user specific cards like Flame thrower, Continuous poison Needles, and Thousand Arm Manipulation which give my deck the explosive field warping power it needs to overcome its lack of a second element. After grabbing the theme specific stuff, I went more broad and looked for specific entrance costs for Ninjas, specific keywords like "Draw" and "Search" for missions, and words like "Negate", "Return", "Discard", and "Damage" on jutsus. After a few searches I was able to come up with these:

Tonton- Adorable Pet

Mizura- Affected Body

Sakura- Toughness

Sakura- I Can Do It

Moegi- Rookie of the Leaf

Temari- Analytical Mind

Shino- Silence

Yashamaru- Sister's Memento

Ebisu- Repeated Defeat

Kusuna- The Quartet

Kurenai- (Vanilla)

Gaara (Possessed Mode)- Insanity

Baki- Clean up

5th Kazekage- Reliance

Tsunade- Expert of Medical Ninjutsu

Tsunade- Handicap

Shukaku- Formidable Monster

Unguarded Moment

Paper Bomb

Wind Scythe (Coils)

Wind Scythe (ANC)

Wind Blade

Protean

Control by Fear

Delivery

Successive Kazekage

Search Party

Inauguration

Selecting the Strongest

Notice some of the synergy these cards have with my deck's General/Village Leader, like Inauguration, Successive Kazekage, and Selecting the strongest. I'm finally Left with exactly 75 cards. This is where I pretty much just grab five filler ninja to throw in the deck. So I can play with Tsu and Shino's Dad.

I hoped you enjoyed reading about my EDH deck building process. For those of you who aren't interested in EDH, or weren't feeling this blog post because it lacked that competitive feel, I plan to do both Block and Unlimited decks in future posts, so keep your eyes posted. As always, comments on todays content is appreciated, as it lets us know what YOU like so we can give YOU more of it. Until next time.

-Andrew

Labels: Deck Building, EDH, Zero