The set focuses on giving small (but good) support to various older archetypes to bring them up to snuff in the power creep of the game. A lot of the support is for the decks released during the Buddyfight X season but there is minimal support for many older archetypes. The noticable exception being Hundred Demons which received many useful monsters, spells and items.
Regardless, this article will only be focusing on Katana World cards and dual cards that are part Katana World so lets hop right in!
Oeyama's Monstrous Oni, Kid Ibuki
Lets start off with one of my favorite buddy monsters. Kid Ibuki has a new form. His power is relatively lacking at 8,000 power, 2 critical and 2,000 defense. His call cost is "Put up to one card from your hand into its soul face down and pay 2 gauge". This is relatively expensive but about normal for size 3 Oni Assassin call costs.
His first ability reduces the size of all 2 and lower monsters by 2. This helps him stay on the field while the size 1/2 cards that put cards face down into soul (such as Ayo and Kureha) don't size him off the field. However, if you want to commit to a major "assassination" with a size 3 (such as Akuro-oh) then you're going to have to lose Kid Ibuki on the field. Sometimes that could be wanted. Especially if you want to activate all of the face down souls in Kid Ibuki anyways but sometimes its not. It's this distinction of being efficient on your face down souls that will separate good Oni Assassin players from bad ones.
Kid Ibuki's last unique ability is that when he attacks, the player can put an Oni Assassin from drop zone into an Oni Assassin's soul face down. He has double attack as well so this can potentially activate twice in one turn. Keep in mind it doesn't have to be Kid Ibuki's soul that the cards go into. Sometimes it's not a bad idea to keep a card in reserve in the item's soul.
Lastly, he has the standard Ambush, to bring him back from drop if he was in a face down soul, and soulguard, to help stagger the ambushes from his soul. Instead of all of them going off at once.
Overall, not a terrible card but not something Oni Assassins needed that directly fought problems they face. The play style of the deck is going to sit on this form of Kid Ibuki spewing out size 2 or less monsters or ambush-like spells with varying effects until the time is right to shift to a different size 3 monster. Then, in a perfect world, once that monster is done on the field, you should try to re-ambush Kid Ibuki back to center. This card will help deal with the "pinata effect". Where a non-soulguard Oni Assassin would be destroyed with 2+ souls and not all the face down souls would be applicable for the situation and they could either be useless or not have their full effect be utilized.
I'm hesitant to say if the card will do any significance to Onis being competitive. On paper, it sounds like it has potential but in practice it may not perform as well as intended. We'll find out. After all, that's half the fun of play testing!
Underhanded Means, Shedding Cycle
Now Shedding Cycle, on the other hand, is what makes me get up in the morning. I'm always a sucker for advantage and draw spells fit right into that category. It's a spell with it's cast cost being "Drop a face down soul from an Oni Assassin on your field". Once completed, the player gains 2 life and draws 2 cards and it's a hard once per turn.
This serves a couple purposes well. It gives the deck more life gain to help survive against very aggressive decks and while still giving card advantage. The only other two cards that gave a lot of life gain for Oni Assassins was Watchful Eyes and Dark Arms, Demonic Poison Fumes Cube but neither gave anything more to actually stay in the game. Watchful Eyes doesn't do anything after it give its 2-3 life. A long with the fact that life is used much less than gauge in Oni Assassins, the life gain was practically non-impactful. The cube's 1 life/gauge per turn doesn't help perpetuate plays. It only mitigated the cost of the plays that were currently going on (which had to be paid first before the Cube's refund) and it was once per turn.
Shedding Cycle helps the player survive (with the life) and perpetuate plays by giving two hand cards while also giving you the two life first before the ambush plays happened.
Dark Arms, Fiery Bloom - Violet Blades
Last but not least for the Oni Assassin support is a new item! Its equip cost is pretty standard for Oni Assassin items at 1 life and gauge.
To fit more with the closed center Kid Ibuki play style, the umbrella can attack through center even if an Oni Assassin is in the center.
This is the first Oni Assassin item to have the "can't be destroyed by card effects" effect to help give it some resiliency. It would still probably be wise to put a face down card or two in the soul of the item to either recover from a bad situation or to have there be a consequence for the opponent putting the item to drop or bouncing the item to hand.
Last but certainly not least is that it reduces the gauge call cost of Oni Assassin monsters by 1 so Under the Table and Uji Bridge Princess aren't needed as much for their gauge gain. This should indirectly allow the deck to sustain itself for a longer period of time because not as much gauge is going to be needed from the top of the deck either which means deck outs shouldn't happen as frequently.
Overturn Ghoul Deity, Gojinmaru
Gojinmaru is back with a new form and he has Overturn to boot. He requires 2 monsters on the field go to into his soul and 2 gauge to be paid which is about par for the course for his call cost.
His first ability grants him triple attack and counterattack when a spell is cast. So ideally, triple attack would be during the player's turn and counterattack would be for the non-player's turn.
He comes with a new Overturn that allows all cards to be given Shadow Dive for the turn and an extra critical all for just dropping a hand card which, lets be honest, isn't much of a cost when ninjas regain advantage when they discard.
This card helps the aggressive ninja play style that started back in the X season. It's nothing that will bring ninjas back into relevance but now they're basically a deadlier Death archetype that may catch monster center heavy decks off guard.
I'll be honest, I would've preferred if Bushiroad supported some of the older "counter play" play style that season 1 and 2 ninjas specialized in but that play style is very slow for the current state of the game and this single card would be more impactful.
Weaver of Dream and Fate, Miko
Miko has received her own dual Dungeon/Katana World card! She's a double rare as well which may seem shocking but she's a super generic card that can be a decent defense for almost all Katana World decks.
She's a size 0 that's free to call. Her first ability is if an item would leave the field (through any means and to any location), you may sacrifice her and the item remains on the field.
Her Counter [Act] ability allows the her to nullify an attack that is being directed at the player by putting her from the drop zone to the bottom of the deck and pay 1 gauge. Then, you gain 3 life. This could have use in any open center related deck and it might have potential in drop zone reliant decks such as Skull Warriors/Water since sending cards to the drop is a common occurrence.
This may also replace Cherry Blossom Dance in regards to it's item protection effect but Cherry Blossom Dance may still be used if playing against a deck that likes to call from drop.
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That's about wraps up this set! In case you haven't noticed yet, I did change the background of my blog to make it less bland and more fitting for the blog. It was made by Harry Mansour over at Last Minute Designs. Check out their facebook page here! Hope you all enjoy the background!
