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Reign of Blood:
Review
By Gordon O’Keeffe
With
the much vaunted Hidden City
previews started, Reign of Blood will probably be forgotten very quickly.
Even though we’ve had several expansions to work with going into Diamond,
Reign of Blood was anticipated as an expansion that would inject fresh life
into the fledgling Diamond environment that had struggled to really find
its feet. Lion was dominating, and a lot of players just couldn’t see past
that and the other issues (mostly false) such as Water Monk that plagued
message boards and mailing lists up to that point. Largely, it failed to
deliver.
Reign
of Blood was never touted as a solution to Diamond’s problems the way
Hidden City has been, but instead of a Broken Blades or Heaven and Earth
quality set, we ended up with a set similar to A Perfect Cut in terms of
suffering from the curse of the base set - Diamond and the expansions
already included in the tournament legal set vastly outshone the overall
contribution of Reign of Blood.
That’s
not to say there isn’t something in it for everyone. I believe that the
biggest factor in players’ perception of a set is how good the
personalities are and I think it’s fair to say the every clan (or should I
call them factions nowadays) got something that contributed to their
tournament decks in some way of another. The personality set threw up
something useful for nearly all the clans, with the possible exception of
the Dragon whose players would doubtless agree that they were perhaps left
a little short in that area. The Crab gained a decent if slightly
over-costed follower-interacting and card-carrying Yu member in Hida Katai,
while Hida Soh adds more options to a brute force deck. Crane duelling got
a boost with a new 5-Chi unique in Kakita Matabei who also aids in card
draw, though his PH of 2 has been lamented by many a Crane player. Asahina
Nazomi is another personality that would be pretty solid if it weren’t for
the fact that most duellers prefer their challenges served with a side
order of ‘lethal’. The aforementioned Dragon did see a couple of decent
monks in Oki and Shozo, but in a set carrying a new stronghold that
effectively grants the monk trait to their personalities, I’m sure they
would have preferred the non-monk personalities to be something other than
poor to mediocre.
Lion,
unfortunately for the environment, had by far the best personality group -
all 5 are both playable and cost-efficient, though given that their decks
were already dominating the environment, you can understand why some of
these personalities haven’t seen the light of day in tournament. The Mantis
too received a couple of excellent personalities - Kitao exp. 2 is simply
too good for her numbers to leave out and Utemaro is a personality on a par
with the best every other clan has to offer. Kekiesu is average and more
importantly a -HR Naval shugenja while the other two are poor. Without
doubt Lion and Mantis fared the best of all the clans.
Phoenix
are not too far behind, with a couple of great uniques in Ochiai and Chieh
exp. while Genjo has made an appearance in several decks. I think the
Scorpion may argue with me that their personality base didn’t so a whole
lot for them but I believe we’ll see more and more of the Reign of Blood
Scorpions in the future, while Atsuki is another of those ‘too good to
leave out’ personalities. Unicorn’s real boost came in the form of a
Stronghold, of which more later, but Iuchi Katsumi is a solid cavalry
shugenja and Najmudin is hard to turn down at 5/2 attacking for only 7 gold
(cheap). The Ratlings of course were almost left out, but they get their
reward in Hidden City.
The Shadowlands have gained a couple of solid personalities but time and
the Hidden City
boost to their economy will eventually tell the tale on whether they are
worthy inclusions. Shukumei is everybody’s favourite bloodspeaker and
what’s not to like about Yajinden?
I won’t
even waste time with the events in this set - they are all dreadful. I
can’t think of one that sees regular play and if as a group they will be of
this quality in the future, the game would be better served by freeing up
more of the print slots to useful cards. Regions don’t fare much better -
the maho-related ones are for fringe decks and even Shrine of Humility
seems a long way from most honour decks. The holdings contain some real
gems - it seems every clan had a hidden store of Barley Farms they never
thought about using for income before but now they form the cornerstone of
several economies, while Crystal Mine has made it into most decks not
already blessed with powerful finances. The Dragon will be pleased to see
the Shrine of the Eternal arrive as a method of recycling their Palm
Strikes though some pesky (mostly Phoenix)
Bloodspeaker decks have been seen recovering Written in Blood more than
once. Horsemaster as given spell based decks great attacking options, while
Bloodspeaker Sanctum allows the inclusion of more kiho and less Shugenja.
It’s a small standout group though.
Onto the
Fate side, and not surprisingly for a magic based set with a design team
that includes Justin Walsh, there’s maho-a-plenty in here. However most of
the chi-related Maho stuff s just too slow for the fast aced Diamond
environment and there’s a whole slew of cards like Blood Command, Death’s
caress and Poisoned Kiss vying for space that is already limited by the
other chi-reduction you’d need to run. Essence of Gaki-Do is a card that
man, myself included, felt might be a serious problem but again its cost of
8 gold and the numerous shugenja required just push it to the fringes of
good spell-based decks. Inazuma Blade is basically just a good set of
numbers. There are a couple of interesting Kiho too - Jigoku’s Rage is a
constant companion of Wanton Destruction from training Grounds, while
Sezaru’s Gift seems to have a lot of potential though I’ve yet to see a
deck that banks on it. There aren’t too many spectacular followers - the
large reinforced infantry and cavalry will make appearances in some decks
but their costs are just a little too high. Bloodspeaker Students will see
a lot of play at 2F for 2G in decks that can manage a single point of
honour hit for the joy for killing a Kuro’s Fire.
Among
the actions, there really is little to talk about. Political actions of
quality are missing from the set, while only a few actions of real note
stand out outside of the battle phase. Search for Advantage is a nice
addition to decks played by those still clinging to the Temple
of the Ninth Kami but it is only in the heat of battle that Reign of Blood
actions shine. Break the Line is a strong counter for Lion’s nemesis, the
Mantis, while From Every Side allows those armies of smaller personalities
a chance to take provinces. Steel on Steel is the Diamond replacement for
Iaijutsu Duel, but without the additional honour gain. Swift as the Wind
gives the Unicorn an escape route should they ever actually have to stand
and fight early on, which annoys me as it is difficult enough to get in
their way already. I believe Strategic Crossroads may be the single most
used fate card from Reign of Blood, providing versatility to attacking that
may be a little overpowering.
Finally,
we come to the Strongholds. Only Shinden Horiuchi stands out here - it has
pretty much single-handedly made the Unicorn a force to be reckoned with in
the tournament scene. It puts the Dragon’s Temples
of the Hoshi in the shade, even though I think we may see more of this one
in time to come. The Phoenix’ City of Remembrance has largely been toyed
with and then discarded, but then they have always had the problem of
having excellent strongholds to match up to, and while MGC and Kyuden
Agasha are around, its unlikely you will face too many decks based on this
stronghold in tournament.
All in
all, Reign of Blood doesn’t look like much taken as a whole. There are a
couple of great cards, cards that will see play for most of the Diamond
arc, but they are few. It certainly didn’t radically change the environment
bar pushing the already strong Unicorn firmly into the top tier. I think
for most players, once they found the couple of cards they felt were
worthy, they had already begun looking forward to Hidden
City.
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