So I decided to write and compare these two weapons because these two weapons have three things in common:
1. They don't directly coincide with Japanese Blades/Blade Beasts decks since neither of them have that attributes.
2. They both want to be able to attack even if you called a monster to the center during the main phase.
3. The cards are very open to be generally used in any deck.
So, I wanted to compare each one and see if they're currently viable in Ninja, Skull Warrior or Water decks. Let's start with
Fiendish Blade, Urahonekui and what it does.
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Urahonekui translates to backbone eater.
That's pretty dark. |
Fiendish Blade, Urahonekui
Power: 3000
Critical: 2
Equip Cost: Pay 1 gauge & pay 1 life
This card can attack even if there is a monster in your center
Urahonekui has the same base stats as the vanilla Katana World weapon
Ninja Blade, Kurogachi. So then, we can assume the ability to attack through center has a value of 1 (.5 paid through gauge and .5 paid through life). This is understandable since Bushiroad wants the game to have a risk vs. reward aspect. They want players to have the risk of being directly attacked for having a weapon equipped and being more aggressive. Being able to attack while having a monster in the center makes the player too safe and to justify this, they make the player use up resources.
One thing this weapon doesn't help that normal weapons innately deal with is that any deck that runs this card is still susceptible to penetrate. So you could expend resources to use this card and still come behind if your opponent pentrates your center monster.
So let's look at how it can work in the Ninjas/Skull Warriors/Water.
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| Is this what they called shock therapy? |
I find the card slightly inefficient in Ninjas just because Gojinmaru has move and so the "attack through center" ability becomes a useless skill.
Skull Warriors: I think Urahonekui was meant to be used in Skull Warriors. Classic size 1 Skull Warriors always have
Evil in Heart, Yamigitsune in the center so this compliments the line up and lets the deck be a little more aggressive.
I have a couple issues with the weapon in Skull Warriors though. The first issue with the size 1 line up uses gauge and life to recall their monsters and so the resource usage is pretty heavy. Skull Warriors don't have a lot of free resources with the constant recalling of their monsters with the set spells so sometimes I feel like you hurt yourself more with this card than it helps
The second issue is the size 1 Skull Warriors suffer from having average power where the deck requires link attacks to attack big monsters and this weapon doesn't help. I mean sure, it can be used in a link attack for the extra 3000 power but that isn't a lot.
Water: Sadly, there isn't much to say. The weapon could probably do well in this deck since Water is about having good attack and defense on the monsters with the water set spell and having a closed center. Unfortunately though, Water is so under supported, I shouldn't consider it an archetype anymore. Maybe we can get something in Season 4 but it was a cute idea for the Break to the Future set and didn't get much farther than that.
So let's move on to Ninja Blade, Chirizakura
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| Which weapon is the actual ninja blade? |
Ninja Blade, Chirizakura
Power: 2000
Critical: 2
[Counter][Act] During your attack phase, destroy a monster on your field. If you do, for this turn, this card gets power +5000!
There's a lot going on with this card so I'll keep this as clear and understandable as possible.
So let's start with its stats. It has 1000 less than Ninja Blade, Kurogachi. The ability is interesting. Destroying one monster makes this card a wash. Its attack would become 7000. You could argue that then, the base stats could be 3000 and the destruction would be 4000. It's a reduction in initial power but a boost in power with each monster you sacrifice. This is the same concept with
Tempest, Garo-oh that I talked about and why I liked Garo-oh over
Gale Conflagration, Amakujaku
If you're going to sacrifice any monster, it would be the center monster. You can attack with the monster in the center, destroy it and then attack with the weapon. This card is actually amazing. You're losing nothing because you get to attack with the center monster and then you can still attack with the weapon at 7000 power which Skull Warriors have a hard time hitting without using
Strength Summoner Kotenso or link attacking.
Also, this ability isn't once per turn. After one destruction, it hits that quality 7000 power. After two, it hits 12,000 power. You can link attack with two monster to try to kill a 10k defense monster like the Asmodai Omni Lords. If that gets stopped, kill them both and try again with just a single attack.
Also, unlike Urahonekui, this card is free to play. Sure you need to sacrifice a monster in the center to attack with the weapon (which would be -1 in resources) to get this card up to its base potential but the point of the center monster is already done if you destroy the monster after battle. This card is more bang for your buck without essentially losing anything.
Just like every other weapon other than Urahonekui, this weapon does cover the penetrate issue I mentioned above.
So let's look at Ninjas/Skull Warriors/Water
Ninjas: I've never seen Ninjas run this weapon and to be fair, they don't really need to. Gojinmaru is about shadow diving so excessive power doesn't accomplish this goal. Currently, it's about keeping Gojinmaru on the field for as long as possible to shadow dive your opponent as much as possible.
Skull Warriors: This weapon is amazing. Absolutely amazing for Skull Warriors. It's a hidden gem that I feel like no one has really looked into. I'm not saying that no one has tried it with Skull Warriors but I find this weapon 100% needed for Skull Warriors to get that extra bit of damage to end the game or get a big weapon to bring down a 10k+ defense monster.
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| He's got your back. Or is it your front? |
If you're worried about your center being open, don't worry. First of all, your defense spells work fine with open center. You have
Demon Way, Oborogenbu and
Demon Way, Kasumienran which fits perfectly with the play style. If you're still worried about leaving your center open though, run a mover. Either
Diversion Troublemaker, Bakemujina or
Treachery, Jakikarsu will do the job. Call them off to the side during your turn. I like Jakikarasu more since you get better stats and essentially a vanilla stat monster with free move if you use one of the Demon Way set spells to call him back.
It has so many synergies with Skull Warrior spells as well. Kill your own monster and proc any spell that can be played after a monster is destroyed.
Demon Way, Geppakugiri,
Double Loss and
Water Ploy, Kyokusuinoen all work. The one that works the best though is
Demon Way, Arakyou. Draw 3 after the monsters have attacked and you blow atleast 2 of them up. Your opponent doesn't have to destroy your own monsters to proc these and that's what makes these cards so good with this weapon. It's controlled destruction to get even more bang for your buck from your Skull Warriors.
There is literally no reason to not run this deck in Skull Warriors. Lets count all the things we get for calling self-destructing monsters and killing them ourselves. For 1 gauge/life per monster (we're assuming your using the Demon Way set spells) and calling a full size 1 field, you get:
1. The monster's attack.
2. Any call from drop effects (e.g.
Godly-Speed, Natsubame/
Demon Kid, Hiunmaru on enter abilities).
3. +5000 power onto the Weapon for their destruction which in turn means...
4. High quality 7k/12k/17k attack weapon.
5. Bait counter destruction during battle. Kill your own monster when your opponent uses a counter spell to destroy your Skull Warriors. You get the last say in their deaths and they essentially waste a spell.
6. Proc on-destruction spells. My personal favorite is Demon Way, Arakyou. It's for pretty much free and you start the cycle all over again.
7. You don't get penetrated. You have an open center or if you have a mover on the field and they call a monster with penetrate, don't move the monster to center. Force your opponent to choose to attack your monster or you.
When you're killing monsters that are already doomed to die at the end of the turn, it makes it a trivial downside that you have to destroy your own monsters with the weapon. This play style is aggressive. It can essentially get 4 consistent attacks a turn every time. 3 monsters on the field and the weapon attacks for high numbers. That's a lot of attacks your opponent has to deal with and I doubt they can keep up with their defenses and it gets resurrected with the set spells.
The new discard Yamigitsune will make this deck even better once it comes out. Think about it. Your opponent will use his nullify/counter destruction cards on your attacks. Once you break through his defenses, attack him directly and make him/her start throwing his hand away.
What's even better is your overall level of defense isn't much less than before. With the movers I mentioned earlier, you still get that closed 1000 defense center. Just like before.
Sorry for the wall of text on this part but there was a lot to talk about with this weapon. I seriously hope Skull Warrior players have a new view on this card start trying out in their decks. I'm going to post a deck profile of my current Skull Warrior deck soon with this weapon next to give everyone an idea of how to build the deck.
Water: The weapon is not even useful for Water. There's no water monster with move that syngergizes well. Again just too under supported to be super useful. It has some synergy with Water Ploy, Kyokusuinoen like I mentioned before but the point of Water is to have a high defense monster in the center and to destroy the monster just to put it back to your hand doesn't keep your defense up. Of course Water has always had close relations with Skull Warriors so who knows? I honestly might be missing something but until Water gets more support, I've put them on the back burner for now.
As you can probably tell, the main pointers I wanted to cover with the two weapons were for Skull Warriors. Katana World has had their weapons freely usable for any archetype but the Japanese Blade weapons have pretty much made their home with Blade Beasts so I wanted to look at these non-Japenese Blade weapons and analyse their uses for the rest of the Archetypes.
I hope this article was a little eye opening and have people try different play styles with the above mentioned weapons. Especially Ninja Blade, Chirizakura. I'll be posting my Skull Warrior deck with the weapon next to help give you guys an idea of what their play style is better.
