Common Rulings and Misconceptions

So this wasn't meant to be the next post.  I actually wanted to talk about what different effects are worth in the game and then about sideboard but after browsing through the NA Buddyfight group on Facebook, I realize there are somethings in this card game that are still confusing to newer people because I see a lot of questions repeatedly asked in the group.

I wanted to post some common rulings and misconceptions here so if people in the future aren't sure about a situation, maybe my post can help.  I plan to expand upon this post in the future when new cards with weirder effects occur. Veterans may already know all of these but who knows.  Maybe you'll learn something new!

Now get these right or Teachmodai
has a backdrop with your name on it.

Ruling #1: Card Effect Names

This is the question that if I got a nickel every time someone asked, I could buy a play set of every card in Buddyfight.

The situation is the confusion between when card effects have names (such as Cyber Analysis on Electron Ninja Shiden) and when that card says "This card's ability only activates once per turn" or "<Skill Name> only activates once per turn".

This combination of text can be separated into three unique situations

Situation #1: Card has an effect with no name AND at the end, it says "This card's ability can only be used once per turn".  

Example of this card:  Return to the Underworld

Ruling:  When a card like Return to the Underworld is played, the once per turn reference is that *points at the card* physical card on the field.  This doesn't apply to all Return to the Underworld set spells on the field.  This means you can activate multiples of that set spell on the field without an issue.

Situation #2: Card has an effect name AND says "This card's ability can only be used once per turn".

Example of this card: Electron Ninja, Shiden

Ruling: This ruling is the same as above even though it has a name.  It's this physical card's ability that can only be used once per turn.  That means that you can call multiple Shidens and use each of their abilities.

Situation #3: Card has an effect name AND says "<Effect name> can only be used once per turn".

Example of this card: Red-eyed Succubus

Ruling: This ruling is different than the above two.  The once per turn clause is going deeper into the card than just the physical card.  It's pointing to the actual effect name.  So you can't activate multiple cards with this effect because that unique effect with that name has been used.

I chose the Succubus and Shiden for the later examples because both card's effects are the same but because the once per turn clause is different, it means Succubus's effect can only be used once per turn while Shiden can keep drawing you a fat hand if you keep playing him.

Ruling #2: Boy Transformation, Yamigitsune's ability

You're so misunderstood little boy

This card has caused it's fair share of misplays for newer players of Skull Warriors.  Let's copy and paste his ability here for the sake of easier analysis:

"Sense Synchronization" When a 《Skull Warrior》monster on your field deals damage to your opponent, you may put that monster from your field into your drop zone. If you do, deal damage to your opponent equal to that card's size! "Sense Synchronization" only activates once per turn.

People are treating his ability as if it's the exact same as Evil in Heart, Yamigitsune's ability.  While it's similar, it's still different and it's a minor thing that matters a lot.

Boy Yami's ability activates as soon as damage is dealt to your opponent. It doesn't matter whether you want to actually send the Skull Warrior to the drop or not, his ability activates.

"But Billeh" you may say "The same thing happens with normal Yamigitsune and I can choose when I want to use it".  You are correct random stranger in my head.  But there is a major difference.

Since Boy Yami states "Sense Synchronization can only activates once per turn, you can choose not to send a card to the drop and that's fine.  But Sense Synchronize already activated and as such, you can't send another Skull Warrior to the drop later on in the turn.

A common example is this:
>You play Boy Yami

>You play Thunderclap, Goraiko and deal the 1 damage upon entering the field.

>Boy Yami's ability activates now.  You can choose to send Thunderclap to the drop or not.  If you do, you deal 2 damage with Boy Yami's ability.  If you don't, the ability still activated and can't be used again.  Even with another Boy on the field because it's a named ability that's only once per turn.

You cannot deal 1 entrance damage, attack with Thunderclap and then try to Sense Synchronize for 2. Sense Synchronize already activated.

In other words, if you don't his ability, you lose it.

Ruling #3: Counterattack and post-battle effects

Ziun is number one.
Therefore Skull Warriors are number one.

I haven't seen anyone have this question but this happened locally and we were confused as far as what happens until we looked deeper at the rules.  The situation is as follows:

>Boy Yami and normal Ziun are on the field.

>Star Guardian, Jackknife is in the center with a soul in him on your opponent's field.

>Ziun attacks Jackknife and the opponent plays Speculight Ring.

>The attack (along with the penetrate) goes through (8k attack vs 8k defence) and deals damage to your opponent.

The  question becomes this: Does counter attack from Jackknife occur before or after Boy Yami's Sense Synchronize activate?

The answer is the counter attack from Jackknife goes off first.

In the rulings, counter attack is still apart of the battle.  There is no play timing yet for Boy Yami's effect to go off.  Your opponent kills Ziun.  Then Boy Yami's effect activates but because Ziun has already left the field due to counterattack, there is no target for Boy Yami's ability and therefore, no additional damage can be dealt AND this also means Boy Yami's effect has activated and can't be used for the rest of the turn.

Ruling #4: Demon Way, Geppakugiri

The rulings behind Demon Way, Geppakugiri even surprised me when I looked it up.  This card has some interesting play timings that not a lot of cards have.

The first ruling with this card is that during your opponents battle, you may cast as many Geppakugiris that you want from your hand.  Reason being is that when your monster is destroyed, a play timing occurs of monster destruction.  At this point, you can counter and use Geppakugiri.  Then it goes back to the play timing of a monster being destroyed and you can cast another.

The second ruling is that if your opponent destroys your monster during their main phase, you cannot cast Geppakugiri immediately. You have to wait until the next counter timing and here's an example:

Situation:

>It's your opponent's turn and they have a Black Death Dragon, Abygale on their field.
>You have Electron Ninja, Shiden on your field and a Geppakugiri in your hand.
>Your opponent uses Abygale's ability and destroys Shiden.

You do not have a play timing for Geppakugiri after a card's effect resolves during the opponent's main phase but Geppakugiri can be cast as a counter to the first instance of an action taken by your opponent that does not refer to the destruction of that monster.

So if your opponent decides to play, let's say, Abyss Symphony, a counter timing occurs which allow Geppakugiri to be cast and you can kill Abygale.  Unlike the first ruling above, you can only cast one Geppakugiri in this counter timing.

Ruling #5: Art of Explosive Hades Fall

... they all fell down

This one is in regards to when a monster enters the field with an on-enter ability and Hades fall activates at the same time.  Generally speaking, the monster called still gets to use its on-enter ability. The card was successfully called so the ability activates.  Then Hades Fall will activate and destroy the monster.

The only way the on-enter ability can be nullified is if the call itself is nullified with Begone!! or one of the other clones of the card in other worlds.

Also do keep in mind that normal [Act] abilities on monsters (like Shiden) do not get a chance to activate when the monster gets destroyed by Hades Fall.

Ruling #6: Gojinmaru's call cost

This section is about a couple things with Gojinmaru but it can also apply to other cards that have a call cost of putting monsters on the field into the soul of a new, summoned card.

The first question is: "During the counter timing of calling Gojinmaru onto the field, can I cast a Death Grip (or equivalent counter destruction card) to destroy Byakuya or Tsukikage to stop Gojinmaru from entering the field?"

The short answer is no. During the call, the counter timing is after the call cost has been paid.  At this point, Tsukikage and Byakuya are already off the field and in the soul of Gojinmaru.  You can't counter destroy Gojinmaru at this moment either because he isn't on the field yet.

The second question is: "If I cast Begone!! on Gojinmaru, does Byakuya and Tsukikage along with the gauge cost go to the drop?"

That answer is yes.  The call cost was paid so the gauge was paid and the ninja brothers are in Gojinmaru but Gojinmaru's call was nullified so everything goes into the drop.

Ruling #7: Destruction of cards

Pray for your life points

Buddyfight cards rely a lot on wording to determine if certain requirements are fulfilled for something to activate.  Destroying a card is not the same as putting a card to the drop zone. So lets run down a list of some common events that occur in this game related to that:

1. Evil in Heart, Yamigitsune's "To Darkness" puts the card to drop.  So cards like Demon Way, Geppakugiri do not proc off of it.

2. Demon Way, Arukuyou procs off of any destruction of Skull Warriors. Even if you do it.  That makes it very easy to proc.  Especially with Yamigitsune, "White Fire, Shigaisoshi" and Skull Warrior Bones of the Four Birds "Akutenhaba".  The latter allows you to destroy as many Skull Warriors as you want. So if you have three size 1's on the field, don't destroy just one and put the rest to drop for size rule, just destroy them all then you can use Arukuyou to draw three.

3. Putting cards to drop because of call over or size rule do not constitute as destruction.

4.  Calling a card on top of another one like Bal Dragon, "Bal Burst Smasher!!" is not considered destruction either.

Ruling #8: Lifelink

This one is pretty straightforward but I wanted to be clear with everyone on Lifelink. Lifelink is damage.  So any abilities that proc off of taking damage do go off with Lifelink.  Lifelink occurs whenever that creature leaves the field.  Literally whenever.  Obviously there can be cards like Dragon Kid, Ricky who nullify lifelink of Raging Spirits but here are some examples just to lay it out in plain English:

• Calling over because of size rule
• Calling over a monster to take its position on the field
• A monster destroyed by an attack and sent to the drop zone.  Lifelink doesn't activate if the monster destroyed has a soul and Soulguard is used to keep it on the field.
• Bounced back to hand (e.g. Magical Goodbye)
• When you put the card with lifelink on the field into the soul of another card, you take the lifelink damage.  The monster is leaving the field to go into the soul of the monster you're calling.  Souls are not on the field. 

An example of this is Billion Knuckle, "Spirit of the Chief!" being called on top of Leadbanger. You will take Leadbanger's lifelink. He left the field to go into Billion Knuckle's soul. Now Ricky can nullify that lifelink damage but if he's not on the field, you're taking it.

Resources

Resources

What constitutes a ritual as being odd?

I remember when I was researching Skull Warriors very early on in playing Buddyfight.  The Skull Warrior deck I borrowed to start playing this game only had Return to the Underworld as it's set spell. So when I came across Odd Ritual, Skull Festival, I was ecstatic to find another set spell that resurrected Skull Warriors. After reading the card though, I grew this odd hatred towards the card. Ever since I played Yu-gi-oh as a wee one, I always had this aversion to pay for effects or monsters in the form of the resource that keeps you in the game.  After all, what happens if they rush you out of nowhere and you need the life points to live.  What then?  I would be dead.

It took me way too long to realize how amazing Odd Ritual, Skull Festival actually is and an even sadder amount of time to realize that I could keep using it to resurrect Cat Shadow, Aoihime and keep getting more set spells.  I'm not kidding.  I was playing this game for probably a solid 6 months before I realized it.  

If anything, paying to use abilities and call monsters through life is actually more preferred in Buddyfight and most card games.  Why is that?  I'll get back to that in a while.  First though, let's establish what our resources are in this game.  

Also before I go into anything, I did summarize a lot of the articles about resources from Blaze's articles into this article.  Then I expounded on it a little.  Again, if you want to read more, go here.

The four general resources in the game are the cards in your hand, your gauge, your life, your drop zone and your deck.  These seem pretty obvious so let's go through them and I'll explain them in further detail.

Cards in Hand

This one is pretty obvious.  I mean it's the basis for not only Buddyfight but for practically every card game.  I like to say as a general rule of thumb that if you have no cards in your hand, then you are practically dead.  Think about it.  If you have nothing in your hand, you have no control over the situation and your opponent knows exactly what you have. This makes it very easy for your opponent to know what the best course of action is both psychologically and strategically. You have told your opponent everything.  It doesn't mean that you will lose the game though.

In this game, cards have a resource value of 1. So for example. Drawing a card is a +1.  Placing a card on the field is a -1 from hand but is a +1 to the field so it balances out where you're not losing anything. When a monster goes from the field to the drop zone through battle, that's a -1.

Gauge

Another obvious resource. It's usually used as a payment cost for items, spells and monsters. Gauge is generally considered a resource value of .5.  So when you charge and draw, you're giving yourself +.5 advantage.  By this logic, 2 gauge is equal to 1 card.  Also by this logic, since 1 card in payment cost is 4000, that means that cards with 1 gauge cost have about 2000 more stats or an ability that cost that much. Paying through gauge subtracts your gauge advantage but it tends to translate into something more useful whether it's extra stats or an ability.

Also, gauge has some pros and cons as a resource:

 Pros:

1. You are able to easily gain one once per turn through charge and draw.
2. Gauge doesn't tend to be destroyed by effects from your opponent.  It's generally speaking a reliable resource.
3. Having no gauge doesn't mean you lose the game.  You might ask what I'm talking about here but just roll with that thought for now.

 Cons:

1. Gauge is usually paid quite a bit between spells, items and monsters and you don't start with a lot.
2. No gauge means that cards in your hand with gauge costs are useless.

Katana World in general has evolved into a gauge heavy world.  It's partially why Clear Serenity breaks the 1 card = 2 gauge rule and Katana World gets some of the best gauge ramp cards in the whole game.  Between Clear Serenity, Raiton and Cloud Billow, you shouldn't have gauge issues.

Life

Your blood in Buddyfight.  The thing that everyone wants and no one wants to give up. Once you hit 0, you lose the game.  A simple enough concept.    Life is also considered .5 advantage.  This also obviously means that payment through life tends to give you about 2000 more stats or an ability that is valued at 2000 stats.

Just like gauge, life as a resource has its pros and cons too.

 Pros:

1. Life isn't used as cost as frequently in any world other than Ancient World and even then, it's after the monster dies as Lifelink and not an initial pay cost so a lot of times, you don't actually pay the Lifelink cost.
2. Most of the time, you can pay the life cost of a card.  Obviously the exception is if you're at 1 life (or two for Sakurafubuki) but more times than not, you have enough life to pay for a card.

 

Cons:

1. You are not able to easily gain one life per turn.  In fact, most decks are only able to easily gain 1 life and that's through buddy gift but this isn't a consistent way to gain life per game.
2. Life is very easily lost because your opponent.  It's the whole point of the game.  As such, life is valued more than gauge.
3. No life means you lose the game.

If you compare the pros and cons, the gauge cons are the life's pros and the life's cons are the gauge's pros.  This is why both resources can be valued at the same amount.  Bushi does tend to value life "slightly" more than gauge though because they have to make it enticing for players to use it as a resource.  

To finish off what I was saying earlier, this is why Odd Ritual, Skull Festival is a better card than Return to the Underworld.  It has the same mathematical payment but you can choose from size 2 or lower instead or size 1 or lower. Obviously the downside of the card is that if you have one life, the Odd Rituals are dead on the field but they help mitigate gauge cost.

I would honestly only grab 1 maybe 2 Odd Rituals at the most with Cat Shadow though especially since Skull Warriors have very little life gain. You want to mainly use Return to the Underworld with Cat Shadow.

Also, there is a weighted difference with effect damage.  Effect damage is weighted as .75 and not .5. It's usually not noticeable but Bushi wanted to weigh effect damage a little "heavier" than the critical of monsters.  They wanted there to be more resources needed to be used to deal effect damage. Bushi wants this game to be about battling your opponent.  Not who can whittle down their life down to zero first.  Especially since you can burn a lot turn 0.

If effect damage was weighted the same as life (.5), it would be too easy to burn someone down. Especially since people don't use the White Dragon Shield clone or Chillax clone cards that much. That's what the above cards are used for.  They're normally used to mitigate effect damage.  The White Dragon Shield clone isn't used much because attack nullifies are better. The chillax clone is pretty useful though. It works on both effect and monster damage.  Plus in a game where cards that say "this cards attack can't be nullified" is starting to become a little more prevalent, Chillax is becoming more useful.

Drop Zone

This isn't used by every world and this is starting to be expanded upon by several worlds. In Katana World, Skull Warriors tend to use this resource the most to call back monsters.  Some use it as a measure to give your monsters more abilities. Some noticeable archetypes that do this are Blade Beasts, the new Black Dragons and the not yet released Executioners. Most worlds and archetypes consider cards in here "dead".  Meaning there's no way to grab them back to use them again.

I currently don't know if mill effects (when cards are put directly from the deck to the drop zone) are weighted any certain way.  I have to do some testing to figure that out. Unfortunately, my life is all forms of chaos right now so I can't really do it right now.

Deck

Last but not least, the deck you draw cards from.  Once you don't have no more cards in your deck, you lose the game immediately.  I've always found that rule strange but it's usually not a big deal for virtually any game.

Opposite to the milling of cards to the drop zone, I'm not sure if excavating (putting cards from drop back to the deck) has any advantageous value.  Bushi is just starting to do these effects so we'll have to wait and see.

4th Place Toronto Deck

4th Place Toronto Deck

I did the thing!

So now that I've caught up on things in my life, here is my deck (and side board) list from coming in 4th at Toronto:

Main Deck

Side Board

In case you guys have a hard time seeing the cards, here's the list written out:

Main Deck:

Buddy: Byakuya "Shiroyasha Mode"

Size 1:

4x Byakuya "Shiroyasha Mode"

4x Tsukikage "Kuroyasha Mode"

4x Tsukikage "SD"

3x Low-Rank Ninja, Mikazukimaru

3x Electron Ninja, Shiden

Size 2:

3x Yumi Ninja, Suiha

4x Ghoul Deity, Gojinmaru

2x Gojinmaru "Ghoul Deity Arts, Dance of Yashagami!"

Size 3:

1x INV Second Omni Demon Lord, Death Asmodai

1x Fourth Omni Fire Lord, Burn Nova

Spells:

4x Art of Body Replacement

4x Ninja Arts, Snake Gaze

4x Clear Serenity

3x Raiton, Art of Stored Electricity

3x Shinobi Scrolls

3x Katon, Blazing Armors 

Side Board:

3x Ceremony of Excorcism

3x Demon Way, Kasumienran

4x Ninja Arts, Half Kill

So as many of you can probably tell, this deck is all about drawing and searching for everything and anything.  Suiha, Shiden, Mikazukimaru and Shinobi Scrolls helps you draw a decent amount of cards per turn. In the mean time, you can regain all the gauge you burned to draw with a Clear Serenity or Raiton.

The deck still mainly focuses on the original Gojinmaru but I put in 2 of the impact monster because I would rather have a Gojinmaru on the field than none at all.  He's more of a plan B card.  Ninjas still gel the best with the original Gojinmaru.

Once you have Gojinmaru on the field (prefereably with Tsukikage "SD" in the soul), the point is to keep him on the field with Tsukikage "Kuroyasha Mode" (which is a stupid card in every way, shape and form) and stop people from doing massive attacks with Snake Gaze and Katon, Blazing Armor.

Death Asmodai is awesome for ninjas because you can respam the field with size 1's or call a Gojinmaru onto the field.  Granted, he won't have soul but it really stops people in their tracks when he just comes out of nowhere.  Asmodai also helps get your life to 5 or less for Raiton's full effect. 

Burn Nova saved my bacon a couple times during the tournament and he's not hard to call. Especially if you call Clear Serenity or Raiton in your hand (or in Shinobi Scrolls) when your opponent is declaring the attack to kill you. 

Side board thoughts:

Ceremony of Excorcism: Literally not used.  I will probably remove it in future tournaments.  I only run it for fear of someone cheesing the tournament with a Stars deck.  Stars screw over Ninjas hard.

Ninja Arts, Half-kill:  Massive help against my Shadow Shades and Fifth Omnis match up. I originally side boarded it for Raging Spirits since I can't shadow dive them.  Definitely a possible main board card but Gojinmaru does have shadow dive and all the other ninjas (except Shiden) have decent attack power to pop souls.  I only put Half-kill in against Shadow Shades because it's "technically" better than Katon, Blazing Armor in that match up.

Demon Way, Kasumienran: Originally meant as side board against Darkness Dragon World shadow dive decks.  I never played against them but I did play against a Wydar Sarkal rush deck and my opponent was smart. He link attacked me directly to beat me game 1 because he knew there was no Ninja Art card that can nullify link attacks with an open center.  I sided in the Kasumienrans to bait out his link attacks.  This card was worth its weight in gold in game 2 and 3.  Baited out 2-3 link attacks total between game 2 and 3.

Some cons of the deck:

- If the game goes on for too long, you can possibly deck yourself out.  Deck management is a little bit of an issue but it's not major.

- I wanted to fit a weapon in the deck but couldn't find space.  Water Calling Sword, Suiryu was definitely something I was thinking about but didn't have time to think about adding it.

- I like Sword Skill, Sen no Sen in the deck more than Katon, Blazing Armors (especially to bait out two monsters with penetrate link attacking your center monster) but gauge management was already intense and I couldn't afford that one extra gauge.

- This isn't as much of a con but I need to find a way to get my life to 5 or less more easily to get the full effect of Raiton.  Once Gojinmaru got on the field, I rarely go to 5 life or less.

I'm still working on another article about resources in the game.  It's in the editing phase but the tournament pulled me from that so it's delayed for about a week or two.

An Introduction to Katana World

An Introduction to Katana World

He's studying for a Katana World test

I am going to start my posts very similarly to how colleges and universities tend to teach new students.  Freshman and sophomores take courses that explain a more general idea of concepts in subjects.  As they progress through their years, their studies become more and more in depth and specific to their major.

I will start with general posts talking about the concept and purpose of Katana World and get more in depth as I go along.  Because of this, many people who read these posts might not find a lot of my information new or surprising.  That is fine though.  I want this blog to be easily accessible for people of every skill level for this game even for the veterans of this game.  I hope these more general posts might open your eyes to something new.

Currently, there are 10 Worlds and 12 Flags.  With Four Dimensions coming out around the corner which will release 2 new flags, Buddyfight is a game with a lot of diversity and play styles.

Katana World has 4 archetypes.  In order of most supported to least supported are: Ninjas, Skull Warriors, Japanese Blades and Water.

Katana World has monsters with lower base stats than almost any other worlds.  The base stats (BST) for each size is the following:

Size 0:  8,000

Size 1: 11,000

Size 2: 16,000

Size 3: 21,000

(Found this information here.  Thanks for the info Blaise <3)

I'll explain these numbers in a future post and how they're figured out.  If you want to read up more on it in the mean time though, click on that link above.  The world closest to Katana World in base stats is Magic World but they're not exactly the same base stats. Magic World's stats are justified because they have powerful spells.

Katana World also has powerful spells but they're a little different.  Katana World has some of the most unique spells out of any world (love you Half-kill <3).  The spells cover virtually any situation when your opponent casts crucial spells, declare attacks and use effects that would give you a disadvantage but instead, they stop your opponent in their tracks.

The spells are generally split into four subgroups.  All archetype can easily (and tend to) use other archetypes spells.  The spells are:  Ninja Arts, Demon Way, Japanese Blades and Water.  Ninjas tend to use Ninja Art spells and Skull Warriors tend to use Demon Ways.  Blade Beasts currently don't have a lot of Japanese Blade spells so they tend to borrow spells from the other subgroups. Water uses Water spells (duh) but they also borrow from other subgroups because of how under supported they are.

Katana World is more of a control world.  There are different ways to control your opponent.  Each archetype in Katana World likes to control the opponent in different ways with their spells differently.

Ninjas

Nin!

First up are the main guys of Katana World. Ninjas!  They do exactly what I was mentioning earlier.  Ninjas work by having good draw power and creating counter plays to stop your opponent which, in turn, creates advantage for yourself.

The main guy that is used to do this is Electron Ninja Shiden.  He is essentially a Nice One! as a monster which if kept on the field can let you draw more.

Another unsung hero of Katana World is Shinobi Scrolls.  This card might seem a little confusing to new people.  Especially since there is no card like it in any other world.  It acts as a secondary hand.  If the card you put under Shinobi Scrolls is a Ninja Arts, you can cast it from Shinobi Scrolls as if it's in your hand.  It's nice to put a gauge ramp card (like Clear Serenity) underneath Shinobi Scrolls and draw a "real" card but still keep the gauge ramp card.

Even if you draw into a spell that doesn't fit the situation, there are cards like Nanomachine Ninja, Tsukikage and Nanomachine Ninja, Byakuya which allows you to use the useless spells for something else instead of them being dead cards in hand.

Since season 2, many Ninjas have been blessed with Shadow Dive.  This ability allows them to attack the opponent even if there is a monster in the opponent's center.  They also have been giving a fusion card of sorts (look at me using Yu-Gi-Oh terms).  Ghoul Deity, Gojinmaru has both of the above mentioned benefits.  He is a giant wall that can attack your opponent directly while defending yourself.

There is a plethora of other concepts and strategies with Ninjas (like burn Ninjas) but listed above are the "main" archetype.

Skull Warriors

So cute yet so creepy

Next up is Skull Warriors.  They're my personal favorite archetype of not only Katana World, but the whole game.  I don't know why they are.  They're definitely not top tier.  They were the first deck I ever played of this game. Not only did I get addicted to them from game one, but I instantly knew how they worked just by reading the cards.

Skull Warriors tend to have stronger stats but in exchange, a lot of them die at the end of the turn.  The death at the end of turn is mitigated in two ways.  Cards that give you resources when they deal damage to the opponent and Demon Way Set spells that allow the Skull Warriors to be ressurected.

Evil in Heart, Yamigitsune and Boy Transformation, Yamigitsune allows you to regain resources.  The former allows you to draw off of their deaths.  The later allows you to get some extra damage on your opponent.  There is another card called Undefeatable, Setsujishi which also mitigates loss but he isn't as popular (although I do have a fun deck that revolves around his ability).

The Demon Way set spells I am referring to are Return to the Underworld and Odd Ritual, Skull Festival.  These spells stay on the field (which is what the "Set" means.) and once per turn, you can call back monsters without paying their call cost.  The once per turn is per set spell on your field.  So if you have 2 Odd Rituals on the field and 1 Return, you can use each once to call back monsters from the drop. This makes it totally fine to throw your monsters into the drop zone because they will always be accessible.  Just resurrect them and you don't have to pay their call cost. Technically, Odd Ritual, Skull Festival is better than Return to the Underworld but that's a whole other post I'll get to.

What is even better is there is a tutor for the Set spells.  Cat Shadow, Aoihime lets you grab a Demon Way spell with Set from your deck as long as you discard a card from your hand and pay her 1 life call cost.  Just discard a monster when you play her and call it back with the set spell.  You should always grab an Odd Ritual, Skull Festival first because you can keep resurrecting her to grab more set spells and you don't even have to pay her call cost to revive her!  It helps set you up and help filter out your deck.

Because of these cards, Skull Warriors usually outlast a lot of decks that don't have a lot of draw power because they can control the board pretty easily.  Wipe out your opponent's monsters and they will have to recall more cards.  In the mean time, your cards will die but they can be resurrected next turn.  Only to wipe your opponent's board again.  Your opponent will lose steam while you can keep going.  Demon Ways help with survival with cards such as Geppakugiri, Oborogenbu and Kasumienran.  They even get Demon Way, Sakurafubuki. One of the best spell nullifiers in the game. The only down side to it is that Skull Warriors don't have a lot of life and it's already decently used with Odd Ritual.

Japanese Blades

I WANT TO HUG HIM

Next up are ever adorable Japanese Blades. God I could just hug them all day.  Anyways, these guys are Bushi's answer for the infamous question "Why does no one run weapons in Katana World?".  They do a great job at answering that question.

Japanese Blades (along with the Blade Beast attribute) revolves around getting cards with the Japanese Blade attribute into your drop zone.  Then, depending on how many there are in the drop, the monsters get bonus stats and abilities.

The Japanese Blade monsters frequently have Move as one of their skills so you can play both offensively and defensively.  This also helps your cause by forcing your opponent to attack your Japaneses Blade monsters to boost up new monster you play on your next turn.

The maximum requirement for any Japanese Blade monster to get all its abilities is 5 Japanese Blades.  With most Japanese Blade cards costing 1 or 2 gauge and the Onimaru sword and monster, it's not unreasonable to get 5 cards by the middle of your second turn.  From what I can tell, Japanese Blades have a fairly average early game, explode out mid game and can pitter out by the end of the game because you will just lose hand advantage.  They don't have a lot of support at the moment but they have enough cards to be a solid deck.

As a side note, Elite Sword, Dojigiri finally got its errata of being a Japanese Blade.  I wish it didn't need a card with Elite Sword or Five Heavenly Sword in its card name to get its ability and instead just need a Japanese Blade but beggars can't be choosers.

Their impact is quite insane too.  With cards like Clear Serenity and Raiton, Art of Stored Electricity existing in Katana World, it's not hard to get the impact off.  Currently, they don't have an impact monster but their impact is already insane and I wouldn't doubt that they will get one in the future.

Water

This cat knows how to kill two birds
with one stone

So last up is the Water archetype.  It's now one of the most under supported archetypes in the game. Wild Dragons were more under supported than Water but Wild Dragons actually got some decent support in Roar! Invincible Dragons.  R.I.P Water.

Anyways, Water can have pretty high stats because of one set spell: Water Technique, Shinotsukuame. This card reaches out into a lot of spell types.  It's a Ninja Arts/Demon Way/Water. It gives all Water monsters on your field +2000 attack and defense.  This lets Water have some nice sized walls and can make it hard for your opponent to hit you.  

Wait, this card is a Demon Way with Set.  Isn't there a card that searches out Demon Way Set spells?  Oh yeah. Cat Shadow, Aoihime can search out this card. To put the icing on the cake, Cat Shadow, Aoihime is also a Water attribute monster so she can get the benefits from this set spell! A 7/2/6 size 2 is not bad.

I have only dabbled with Water decks. The Water deck I made had a mixture of Skull Warriors and Water. Cat Shadow can always search out Odd Ritual as a turn 1 move.  Then, on your next turn, call her back with Odd Ritual and grab Water Technique, Shinotsukuame.

Another good Water card is White Dragon Hermit, Nanase.  For only a gauge, he can have up to two souls as long as the cards have the Water attribute.  His second ability is ok.  I wouldn't freely use his second ability. Unless you know they can stop your plans somehow with the 1 or 2 gauge they have remaining (i.e. remove the only gauge a Dungeon World player has so they can't Shalsana your attack). The ability can be a double edge sword and can badly exacerbate your situation. Your opponent can use a counter (like Death Grip) and use the gauge you chose to destroy to make Nanase lose his other soul.  Effectively making Nanase lose two souls for nothing. 

Two cards that might go over people's heads building a Water deck are Miseria and Inverse Miseria. They are both Water and already have great attack and defense alone. The Water set spell can make them even tankier.  I would run both.  There isn't enough support to make it a tough decision.  They're perfect for the deck.

Water Ploy, Kyokusuinoen is an interesting card.  From what I've tested, it's sort of just ok.  It's best for Water decks since you can re-grab Nanase or one of the Water Omni Lords.

Water did at least get an impact monster. Skull Warrior Bones of the Four Birds, "Akuten Haba" is better suited in a normal Skull Warrior build but it is Water and can become a scary 11000/2/6000. The burn effect doesn't hurt either. It can help you clutch a game.  Don't forget it has move. Bushi crammed it in the corner of that card.  This impact is another reason why I think Water tends to air on the side of Skull Warriors more than Ninjas.

Other honorable mentions are Moss Wall, Fudogame, Fang Style Ninja, Kabishachi, Sea-Splitting, Irukamaru, Perfect Beauty, Hyoshi Shirasagi and Runaway Female Ninja, Yukishiro.  All of these are solid cards with good effects and can be decent walls against your opponent.

Also, I will be at the Toronto Regionals on September 11th.  If you play someone that's using Katana World and has a secret flag during the tournament, more than likely, it's me.  Hope to say hi to a couple readers ^_^

Introductions

Introductions

So this is what a new blog looks like.  It sure has a lot of room and it's quite comfy.  I think I can get used to this.  Especially with the mint scented air fresheners blogspot gives new blogs.

Hello!  My name is Billy (but I always spell it as Billeh.  It's an inside joke.) and welcome to my blog.  As the name suggests, this blog will be based around the card game Future Card Buddyfight and its world Katana World.  I do enjoy animes, cartoons, video games and computers.  My next favorite card game is Dominion but that's a living card game and not a trading card game.  I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh when I was much younger but I have no idea about anything in that game anymore.

"But Billeh", you may ask, "why Katana World?".  That's a good question random stranger I made up in my head and there's several reasons.  First (and probably most important) it's my most favorite world.  No point in making a blog about a world if it isn't your favorite right?

Second, it's the least popular world (from what I've seen and heard).  So I figured the people who want to get into playing this world don't have a lot of options for researching different play styles and cards in Katana World.  Also, I like to help people and theory crafting is with people about Katana World is fun.  It's not a world where everything is pretty obvious.  Somethings have to be thought through and even then, I only noticed how good some cards are once I play tested them.

Third, I will use this blog for my own "database" of thoughts on cards.  I think about cards from the different archetypes of Katana World all the time and putting my thoughts all in one place for me (and others) to digest and think about would be awesome.

My goal is to eventually get everything organized in this blog to the point where I have a list of all the Katana World cards that are out and give thoughts/opinions/rulings on the cards.  I'll start with general posts about the world and it's different archetypes.  Then go deeper into talking about specific cards of each archetype.

Keep in mind, this will not happen over night.  The cards I'll start with are the more core and obviously "good" cards of the archetypes but I'll branch out to the less popular cards.  I am one man so these things do take time.  I also do the editing for my own post so you might find typos.  I'll try to fix them as soon as possible.  I do have a 40 hour a week job so I do have some obligations and I don't have all the free time in the world.

So now we have that behind us, I want to post mention a few things about the blog.

First, what I post is my personal thoughts/opinions.  They may not be perfect but that's why I get the thoughts out there for people to think about it and I always enjoy critiques and edit posts.  No point in learning if you can't change your viewpoint.  I feel like I'm a pretty open individual to thinking about this game and I'll never bash any thoughts/ideas.

Second,  you have to start somewhere when theorycrafting and I do take come basic core concepts of the game from another personal favorite blog of mine, Buddyfight Theory by Bliase.  You can look at their blog over here!  Of course keep in mind, Blaise isn't writing on the blog anymore (come back baby <3) and this game does keep evolving so some information may be outdated.  I will try to give credit where credit is due by posting where on his blog I found information.

Third, I always try to make sure what I post are legitimate to the rules of the game but I am not perfect (shocking I know) and some rulings and errata my skip my mind.  So I'm always open to people telling me if I messed up on a ruling somewhere.

Fourth, I am still trying to find the right design and figure out how all the controls in blogspot work so the design may radically change quickly and without notice.  I will always try to make the website simple and intuitive.  Afterall, no point in having a tool that isn't easy to use and understandable!

I will be working on the next post being a general overview of Katana World so we're all on the same page.  I'm not sure how long it will take but it will come out when it comes out.  I hope to shoot for a 1 to 2 week time frame.  Have a great day Buddyfighters! ^_^

NUMBAH ONE!  NUMBAH ONE!