This is an article discussing and theorycrafting around my character reveal, Elder Togoru, if you are looking for the reveal article click here!
With my reveal of the one and only Elder Togoru today, I wanted to celebrate in the only way I know how; to go unreasonably in-depth about all of the interactions this character presents. No only will I be covering the most interesting options for him under each symbol, but I will also be discussing non-attack synergies he has as well, so buckle up and get ready to be brain blasted!
Notes on his Unusual Synergies
Before I go in-depth with all of the options for this character, I wanted to take a moment to discuss some of the things that may not be obvious at first glance. While the big focus is on his Form to recur attacks, his enhance also provides unique synergies that aren’t obvious. The biggest one is that he can kind-of convert any stat pumps or penalties into an equal one of the opposite type. I brought this to attention when I mentioned his ability to play defense by zeroing out any attacks if you have ample speed reduction. However, when looking through some of his foundation options I discovered that any stat-modification foundation is highly desirable as he can modulate which stat he wants on any given attack.
One of the best examples for this is In Control, a 2-difficulty foundation found on Death and Evil. It has a simple flip effect to give an attack +2 or –2 speed. But with Elder Togoru’s enhance, it can instead give “+2 or –2 damage” as well when swapping stats, making it ultimately versatile for both offense and defense. This means that even simple effects such as +/- 1 speed or damage will have an impact on how this character will approach offense and defense. It also means that resets of any form apply to whichever stat you want, such as Fashion Icon, Defending Pageant Queen, or City-Wide Crisis can be used to “reset” the speed or damage of an attack, allowing you to mix up your defense in a variety of ways. The only caveat is that sequencing your stat modifiers will be one of the biggest ways for players to express their skill, and the truly good Elder Togoru players will be able to find unique lines within each game and scenario.
Elder Togoru’s form is also notable in that it only specifies that you discard a non-foundation for the cost, which makes him want actions and assets in his deck more than the average character given he can transmute them into an attack once a turn. This gives even more flexibility to his gameplan, as any defensive actions stuck in your hand after a non-offense turn from your rival can be converted into the best attack in your discard pile. The number of times I sadly review a defensive action after my rival builds out is to many, so being able to convert defensive cards info offensive potential will make them a key component in customizing your deck and the actions and assets included within your list! This could theoretically manifest as Elder Togoru running a below-average attack ratio while stocking up on powerful actions as they also double as attacks, though that is to be seen.
One other thing that goes along with Elder Togoru’s form, he is able to play attacks with required synergies, such as hard synergies like Combo, or soft synergies with cards like Prominence Burn wanting Fury cards to maximize its effects. Since he can pick-and-choose his options according to the gamestate, he uniquely can play these cards at the opportune moment and when they would be active and most effective. This now only allows him to build a deck centered around a single attack and replaying it every turn, but also take attacks with specific combo requirements like Fiber Web Combo, Blood Moon Rending, or Lacquered Chain Prison and only play them when you can activate the combo, giving them a viable place within his lineup.
As a final comment on the unexpected synergies this guy allows, he can turn on some unique effects consistently, with the primary culprits being Teamwork and Surviving Beast’s Forest. Both of these have the restriction of needing a variety of symbols in your card pool, and with Elder Togoru’s ability to play any attack within his discard he can reliably enable both effects. Surviving Beast’s Forest specifically is a card I have been trying to find a home for but just couldn’t but now it may finally have a place within this guy as a spam that can commit for +2 speed or damage. Teamwork on the other hand grants a massive +5 damage, and when paired with other offensive tools gives incredibly game-ending power.
Kill them to Death
For exploring Elder Togoru’s options I will be grouping related attacks together, though occasionally an attack will fit into more than one grouping so I will make special mentions of those occurrences. I will be reviewing his options in the order of his symbols, so that means we are leading off with Death! One of the signature themes of this symbol's options is momentum generation followed by powerful momentum effects. It also has a plethora of Fury synergies, and a variety of various high-power options to recur with your form.
In terms of momentum generation there are a gigantic variety of options, each with their unique upsides. One of the staple options Dual Needle Lunge due to its reliability and the fact that it doesn’t impact your card pool, making it one of the most powerful options available for him. Blue Flame Palm Strike and Punisher’s Beam on the other hand stay in your card pool, but grant additional mill sources to fill up your discard. Within these options, Blue Flame Palm Strike guarantees a momentum but is much less threatening, while Punisher’s Beam is more inconsistent and locks you into Ranged and Weapon cards, however it has the upside of being a must-block move or else you snipe the rival’s best foundation while also packing the bonus utility of having Breaker: 1.
Other more situational options exist as well. Detonation Launcher has a flip cost and locks you into a high attack as your next move, but it also pairs perfectly with Howitzer Impact Cyclone to snag more momentum and then draw off of all of the stocked momentum. This combo notably becomes infinitely more consistent with Elder Togoru’s form, making it so you only have to find one of the combo pieces and have the other in the discard to enable this synergy. Howitzer Impact Cyclone also gets a special shoutout as a massive Powerful: 3 move, meaning you can swap the stats and have a 6-high-3 move with Powerful: 3, making it much easier to connect to over the top the rival. You could also simply Powerful it a bunch and then swap it to make an incredibly fast move in order to close out games.
One of the last options is High Key Mirage and it offers another interesting option. While it can cantrip and snag a fast momentum, both are gated behind having the attack connect, which can be made infinitely less enticing if you swap the stats as no one wants to block a 3-mid-1. It does provide utility later in the turn however with the offensive check hack to allow you to push damage through. The last option for momentum generation is Blood Transfer, giving either a slow momentum if it hits or a fast one if it is blocked. This normally wouldn’t be much of a consideration, however it provides chip damage and healing if it does end up going to momentum, and combined with it being a 4-difficulty move means it can find slots as a low-difficulty option within your deck.
Naturally with so many ways of getting momentum you will need outlets in order to spend it, and boy howdy does Death offer a gigantic array of options. It would be remiss for me to not mention the one and only Heroic Clash, with it working surprisingly well with Elder Togoru as he can always pick the perfect opportunity to play this powerful possibility. Unfortunately, Death has limited Echo options, with Winged Nomu and Shapeshifting Impalement being the only options (ignoring any un-or-recently revealed cards), so instead of stringing with the momentum we will need other utility-focused options, of which there are plenty.
One thing that could make this character obnoxious to play against is that he can recur foundation-destruction attacks, applying constant pressure to the rival’s stage. The biggest example would be Gigantic Explosion allowing you to destroy 2 rival foundations every turn, assuming you can keep the momentum flowing, allowing you to completely control the pace of the game. It does have the downside of ripping apart your own board, so a tamer version would be Red Riot Unbreakable which instead lets your rival destroy their weakest foundation but it gains you one as a tradeoff. This applies significantly less pressure on your rival, but also comes with another enhance to provide situational chip damage while also having a stat profile that Elder Togoru appreciates.
You are also provided a number of powerful interaction options on Death as well, with Decaying Palm Slam letting you target down the rival’s board to inhibit their defensive ability to pass checks while also sometimes clearing itself and having excellent stats. Charring Flurry on the other hand doesn’t stop your rival from checking well, but it does let you seal 2 pesky foundations or assets to shut down any defensive effects the rival may have. Fiber Capture on the other hand has a more situational ability in being both a momentum-hate option which also clogs the rival’s card for further aggression. I would also like to note, Elder Togoru appreciates having a wide variety of options, so certain attacks that wouldn’t normally see play could find slots within him as he can pick and choose when to find the perfect attack for the situation.
Of course, you could always spend your momentum for stats and there are plenty of viable options, with notable ones being Cheerful Uppercut, High Roundhouse Kick, Tummy Ache Laser, Inevitable Clash, Piercing Needle, and any other high-value EX or Powerful attacks. I especially want to point out that Inevitable Clash “draws a card”, as well as being a great target to swap the stats and then using its Powerful ability, making it a 7-high-5 with Powerful: 3. Piercing Needle is another incredible momentum dump, allowing you to EX: 3, shift the stats so it has huge damage, and then follow it up with its own enhance to give it most speed at the cost of a bit of damage.
But what if you don’t want to do all sorts of momentum shenanigans and you just want to slam huge moves? Well Death has plenty of awesome options available, with the prior-mentioned Decaying Palm Slam and Inevitable clash, but there are some other very fun and unique attacks to fill the “huge move” slot as well. Starting with the biggest move of them all, Hulking Grimace is a 5-mid-10, or a 10-mid-5, with the latter being a perfect move to carry all of the damage pump in the world with an outrageous 10 speed that can function perfectly well as a simple poke as well. Another cool synergy that Elder Togoru gets is Deadly Fire, as not only can he draw off of playing it with his form, but he can then swap the damage in order to trigger the burn effect without any other cards necessary! Finally, Duplicate Deception Stab is a huge throw that can modulate between forcing the rival to block it and take half damage, or swapping the stats to make it incredibly fast to make it difficult to block to come in for guaranteed damage. As another note, Elder Togoru can constantly recur Throws to become one of the most effective “clock” characters by eventually killing the rival over a long game, which may be a valid archetype based on how the meta shapes out. Last on the menu for huge moves is the 5-sometimes-4-difficulty attack Gusty Buffet! This attack, as with the others, can become exceedingly large and put varied pressure on the rival as with the other huge moves.
But what if you want to put pressure on your opponent that isn’t just slamming stats? Well as I alluded to earlier, Villainous Waylay is a premier option for this character, giving him the option to attack the rival’s hand every single turn. Explosive Rebuke functions in a very similar way though it also aids in stringing together multiple attacks but is more conditional. Going along with the discard theme is Chainsaw Nomu, a disruptive Flash attack that forces the rival to block it making it a great opener assuming you can follow up on the opportunity.
But what if your rival is holding onto a hoard of cards to prevent any discard shenanigans? Then slam Full Cowling Impact to punish them for holding a ton of cards, while also forcing them to compromise their stage should they completely block it. Going more along with the foundation-destruction gameplan, both Hardened Fist and Red Gauntlet both can apply varying degrees of pressure onto the rival’s board. Throwing Knife Lunge on the other hand is a perfect set-up move into a flurry of Weapon attacks which can then be followed by destroying a rival foundation of you connect during your offensive turn. Flamethrower on the other hand is a less consistent option though it makes up for it with a huge Powerful: 3 rating and an enhance that can give anywhere from +0 speed to +6, meaning this will create unusual Elder Togoru enhance ordering based on what you value more during the attack.
What about utility effects? Well there is an extensive card advantage suite with Stun Grenade, Vile Seizing, Provisional Pursuit, Ambush Thrust, and Foresight Fusillade, all of which provide card advantage and various situational upsides. Elder Togoru can also recur Falling Heel Strike every turn giving him an incredible outlet to abuse any strong flip effects over and over to create a cycle of endless value. Rabbit Kick on the other hand can become a unique centerpiece of a deck themed around enabling it with cards such as #5 Pro Hero and Forcing Surrender. This character is the perfect enabler for the customization of attack-specific strategies as he can play the key attack every single turn, allowing you to build for example a “Rabbit Kick” Elder Togoru deck, but you can replace “Rabbit Kick” which whichever attack your heart desires.
Whew, with all of the Attack interactions out of the way, Death also features some powerful foundation interactions. The biggest one for this character is coincidentally on Death, with Sports Festival Champ, which while at a hefty cost of committing and discarding a card makes a non-throw attacks damage unable to be reduced. This has an interaction with any stat flip effects, where if the damage is higher and gets flipped, it sets the speed of the attack equal to the damage as the damage cannot be reduced, letting this character print stats while using this effect. This interaction will likely be one of the big draws towards the Death symbol, as being able to sling 10-mid-10 Hulking Grimaces is a highly effective way for this character to “slam stats” onto his attack lineup.
Another neat interaction is with #3 Pro Hero, which lets Elder Togoru pick up a ranged card from his card pool, which incidentally is enabled by him being able to play any attack from his discard. This will allow him to play a Ranged attack with his form, pick it up at the end of his turn with #3 Pro Hero, and then reuse that attack on the following turn without needing his form to use it. Death also has access to Desperate Struggle, a speed or damage reset which then applies to either stat with Elder Togoru’s swap making this one of his best defensive pieces. Last up is Learning the Standards, one of the most powerful defensive tricks in the format which can truly shine in a character that can turn speed reduction into damage reduction to enable this with any attack while taking minimal damage to activate the effect.
Overall, Death gives the best access of all of his symbols to both momentum shenanigans and foundation destruction, giving him incredibly solid directions to go into. Sport Festival Champ is another one of the biggest draws to this symbol, with a simple line of going Detonation Launcher into Howitzer Impact Cyclone netting you two drawn cards off of Cyclone, one of which can be pitched for Sports Festival Champ followed by the Powerful: 3 rating and the state flip leading to a 12-high-12 with incredible repeatability. Death is looking to be the more aggressive symbol for him, so if you’re looking to end games fast this will likely be your best bet!
Excitingly Effective Innovations Under Evil!
Moving on from the dastardly Death symbol, things are only getting more sinister moving onto Elder Togoru’s next symbol, Evil! As a quick note, any cards that I covered in the previous symbol I will not be covering again as they will fill most of the same purpose. Vile Seizing doesn’t drastically change between symbols, and many cards are similarly like that, though any outliers I will mention again. While Death was the symbol for momentum shenanigans, under Evil Elder Togoru gets to use and abuse the signature mechanic of the Shie Hassaikai from Undaunted Raid, which is playing cards from zones other than the hand. With this niche, Elder Togoru gets access to all of the wonderful tools implemented within Undaunted Raid and can abuse these effects to the fullest extent. As a last beginning comment on the Evil symbol, Elder Togoru loves Relaxed Demeanor as a way to bin any attack, which can not only set up your options but also get rid of low-check cards in your deck to add safety to your turns, making it a must-include within him.
The most notable cards to feature this would be Bullet Punches, which could become the cornerstone of an Evil-Punch focused lineup due to the sheer power it provides. When played from anywhere other than the hand it can zoop a Punch from your card pool to your momentum, and since Elder Togoru can play it every single turn he could singlehandedly create a pure “Bullet Punches” archetype to abuse the power of it every single turn to not only clear progressive but also sling two attacks for the price of one. The other big synergy would be with Monstrous Fusion, with Elder Togoru appreciating huge EX and Powerful ratings, being able to pull an 8-mid-5 with Powerful: 5 means that he will have no trouble closing out games if he can stockpile a few momentum, though that is more of a challenge as Evil lacks consistent ways to snag momentum.
Another neat interaction is with Villainous Teamwork, letting it ignore progressive when played from outside of the hand, meaning that Elder Togoru can weave this anywhere in a turn, aggressive or defense, to apply constant pressure especially when finishing off a big offensive swing turn. In a similar vein, Feather Rush can fill a very similar role while having a more strict requirement at the cost of 1 less difficulty. Tetra Terror Onslaught is another Echo option that gets bonus speed and reduced difficulty while allowing you to situationally pick up another attack from your discard, making it a most-block attack. Chronostasis Trigger gains bonus utility being a target commit and freeze, while also applying constant pressure of requiring the rival to block else their character becomes sealed, making this a potent part of this character's ability to open up control decks in the mid and late game.
A few other mentions from this mechanic are Tremor Eruption being a targeted Flip while also packing EX: 2 and a large base damage of 6. Monster Dash on the other hand comes with a damage of 4-plus-3, which swapped it becomes a solid 7-mid-4 that then builds down at the end phase to plus you a resource on stage. Deadly Fire was covered in the Death section but is another potent option on this symbol as both a cantrip and game-ending threat with the burn and high base damage. Slap Mr. Compress provides some powerful targeted momentum hate while also letting you thin the rival’s stage by sniping a face down foundation. There are plenty of other attacks that follow this theme and while I won’t mention all of them there are tons of neat synergies on this symbol to explore and take advantage of!
You don’t have be take advantage of these specific synergies however, and there are tons of unique options. One of the most unique is Cat Pounce, which simply allows you to remove an attack from your hand to pick one up from your discard. While this may seem redundant with our character, this comes with a unique upside of getting the card in your hand rather than playing it, letting you fetch any attack for either follow up on a future turn or to snag one with powerful defensive utility for defense, such as Chronostasis Trigger or Low Blow. And while on unique options, Final Exam Gut Punch can represent a valid win-condition in this character with the pressure of playing it turn-after-turn putting solid pressure on the rival to close out the game before they end up cycling too many times. Lastly, Dark Shadow Emergence is always available to be played as your first move to pick up an action from your discard, giving this deck even more recursion when paired with Fierce Wings, giving you access to nearly all of your discard at any time.
One other thing this character is excellent at is to recur powerful low-check cards turn after-turn, with Warp Gate Portal being an excellent option that lets you fish out any attack from your deck as a follow up, again duplicating your discarded card into two attacks one of which is whatever is left in your deck. This can be used not only to apply offensive pressure but can also enable shenanigans on following turns by fishing out the exact card you want for future pressure. And of course it wouldn’t be a Pippa article without mentioning Dropkick Slicer, another incredible option to generate value and chip down the rival. Lastly, Heroic Clash is another possible direction with the ability to play it exactly when needed to give some explosiveness to Elder Togoru’s offensive potential.
One of Evil’s signature themes with its options is the number of powerful Deadlock threats available on symbol. Options such as Vile Seizing, Surging Crystal Darts, and Gargantuan Bellow provide excellent ways to end games if the rival steps into deadlock, while Quirk Combination provides a ridiculous surge of card advantage. Options like Knife Slice and Brandish Steel also function as ways to chip down the rival or end the game if they are low after building out and establishing their massive board.
Evil can also simply slam huge moves as well, with it having access to Hulking Grimace as with Death, but Ultimate Combination is another gigantic move that can easily come in with a silly amount of stats. More generic offensive tools also exist with Feather Storm shoring up your speed while Blueflame Torment helps you string out while also being a huge damaging threat. Maximum Overhaul also comes in as a potentially massive move while also letting you pick up a large portion of your stage to rebuild flipped cards or simply gain additional cards in hand for any other outlets you may have. And while this is more in meme-territory, you can play Looming Terror as the biggest move available to apply constant threat of death by big number.
In terms of pure utility Evil has plenty of options, with Arctic Conflagration, Crystal Sword Cutter, and Kinetic Booster Orb providing cheap sources of powerful Stun abilities. For card advantage, Vile Seizing, Ignited Arrow, Overhaul Assault, Sticky Ball Wail, and Combination Charge are all options with varying degrees of up-and-down-sides, with a special shoutout to Canine Tracer for not being good but incredibly funny if you want to add a suboptimal but very fun card to your list. Queen Beam is another strange option as a piece of card advantage, but it lets you pick up a 1-mid block with your form which can come in handy during early-to-mid game to have solid blocks to defend with.
Just like Death, Evil has several options to rip apart the rival’s hand, with Villainous Waylay making another appearance, with the secondary option being Blood Moon Rending. While the latter is more gated, Elder Togoru has the option of only grabbing it when he is able to activate the combo, making this more situational but also more consistent at the same time. Point-Blank Shot is another option that while it doesn’t discard your rival’s hand, does limit their blocking options. It also comes with a very cool upside in this character by modifying the speed of attacks while it is in the card pool, which can become “+1 or –2 damage” when taking into account Elder Togoru’s stat flip, letting him zero-out rival attacks much more consistently while on defense.
Moving onto the miscellaneous category, Elder Togoru could run an Ally-based package, using Dark Shadow Berserk to fill up the discard while also being a very well-suited move to him stat-wise. Dark Shadow Behemoth can then come in as a late-game threat that requires the rival to block it lest they perish to any follow up, though this is incredibly resource intensive, so you won’t get many chances to use this specific interaction. Quick Burn, Borrowed Goods, Kinetic Air Cannon, Needle Stab, Sticky Ball Pitch, and Wire Arrow constitute the ways of gaining momentum, and from a glance these options are all significantly worse than under Death, which they are, but they exist for any momentum shenanigans you may want to do under this symbol.
Speaking of shenanigans, Slashing Whirlwind is likely the funniest thing you can do on this character with an excess of momentum. If you have the momentum to spend, it can come in for a massive 14 damage OR speed, making it one of the most sure-fire ways to close out games with a likely-unblockable attack. Sudden Death Assault is another way to get guaranteed damage in at the cost of two momentum while also being awkward to block, while also featuring a high Powerful: 3 rating to fall back on.
Last on the list notable attack cards on the Evil symbol, there are solid low-difficulty options, with Summon Nomus being a great string-enabler or “Stun: 2” 3-difficulty attack, while Tongue Tank is the perfect string-ender that is applicable after a long attack turn. Crystal Chokeslam and Invincible Clasp could form the backbone of a Throw-based list, with the goal to play excellent defense and chip down the rival over the course of a longer game. Hardened Claw Crusher fits in a different style of game plan with it allowing you to snipe rival threats and lower the overall power of your rival’s board, which would be great within a control matchup to neutralize powerful rival foundations.
In terms of foundations, Hot-Blooded is a poor man’s Sports Festival Champ, but is gated by being a unique, a flip effect, conditional on your rival interaction, and only works for printed stats. Due to this is far from a replacement, though I could see it as a small inclusion to do similar shenanigans as Sports Festival Champ. Evil (and Life) both get access to a new piece of tech though in Showing Off, which combined with Elder Togoru’s stat-flip will often be online to help you string out doing aggressive turns. Arrogant Smirk is another cool piece in this character to duplicate your flipped stats as well as serving as incidental damage-debuff hate. Lastly, Catching a Ride can also functionally duplicate stats, though it would require more finagling with the attack lineup for it to get the most amount of value.
The biggest synergy for Elder Togoru under Evil however is with Relaxed Demeanor. A simple 1-difficulty foundation that lets you discard any attack from your deck seems useless, however when your entire discard is your playground, binning any attack in your deck suddenly enables this character to find exactly whatever he needs, whenever he needs it. As a knock-on effect however, it does reduce the number of attacks in your deck (obviously) which means in fringe cases it does improve your checks at the cost of reducing your aggressive potential on later turns with the decreased attack density. These are very minor effects however, and Relaxed Demeanor is one of if not the biggest draw to the Evil symbol for this character. As a final note, this does allow Elder Togoru to play 1-of low-check cards such as Dropkick Slicer and Heroic Clash so he can fetch them with Relaxed Demeanor, giving access to these powerful options without hardly risking checking poorly.
Evil also has incredible speed-hate, which in this character also serves as powerful damage-reduction. The premier option is Defending Pageant Queen, which for the low cost of 2 foundations lets you set an attacks damage to 1, giving this character a surprising amount of durability if he can keep his board established. Along with it come other powerful options like Cooperation Offer, Incompatible Quirks, and Surviving the Final also exist on symbol, as well as a reset in the form of City-Wide Crisis. Another interesting speed-hate option is Intimidating Presence, which normally “doesn’t count towards progressive” with its speed penalty, though in a character such as Elder Togoru who has synergy with stat-modification it can truly shine.
With Evil being the symbol of shenanigans, it also has foundations that go along with the theme of playing cards from elsewhere, with Cooperation Offer granting speed while Larceny gives a small damage bonus. The big synergy however is from Trusted Assistant, providing targeted committal paired with a solid deadlock effect means it will easily slot into Elder Togoru lists looking for board interaction. While not “play from outside of hand” shenanigans, More... Power... is a very fun option that is always online right as you need it with Elder Togoru’s form fishing out the perfect attack to go along with it.
Wrapping up with miscellaneous foundation synergies, one notable option is No Remorse, which while behind a huge gate, can become very reliable when Elder Togoru gets to recur a Blueflame Torment to fulfill two-thirds of its condition. And as with any symbol, Mr. Togoru can pick and choose the perfect attack for any foundation synergies, which Evil sports several powerful ones. Asui’s Friendship can be a pivotal part of neutralizing the rival’s board via Ranged attacks, Soul-Piercing Glare can remove Fury attacks to string out further, and a Tech package could find a home with Successful Sales Pitch to dig through your deck and fill up your discard.
Evil as a symbol presents some unique synergies that can go in a more combo-oriented direction through using cards such as Bullet Punches or Tetra Terror Onslaught to fling a flurry of moves, or in a slower more value-oriented gameplan through cards such as Dropkick Slicer and the Dark Shadow Emergence and Fierce Wings interaction. This gives this symbol a neat duality in terms of directions, and the plentiful support of the play-from-elsewhere archetype is a gigantic boon for this character.
Dance You Back to Life!
Last but certainly not least is the Life symbol! While Death primarily focused on momentum synergies and foundation destruction, Evil has the playing cards from outside of hand synergies and big stats, Life is best summarized as the symbol with huge synergy enablers and payoffs. There aren’t any unifying themes or synergies across the symbol as a whole, though Life has the largest number of “pure value” attacks, making it a symbol reliant on playing the long game to accumulate advantage to slowly overwhelm your rival.
As mentioned, Life has a huge number of gigantic payoffs for varying game plans, with a perfect example being Repeated 100% Smash allowing you to ready your board after a long string of Punch attacks. With the rotation of MHA set 1 and the banning of Back Alley Haymaker, Life punches will see a large drop in power that is enabled by a few powerful cards such as Rejuvenating Smash (another excellent target for your form!) and Repeated 100% Smash. If more solid punches are printed under Life then this is one of the more obvious and powerful directions to take this character in!
Speaking of punches, Focused Attack is another powerful payoff for a specific strategy, and with Elder Togoru being able to recur it every turn your rival has to be prepared for a constant barrage of gigantic mid attacks. This could theoretically fit with the Punch package above with options like Rejuvenating Smash and Wind-Up Punch being complementary mid attacks, however from there the quality declines dramatically, so it could fit as a singular inclusion to give the deck the option without fully committing your attack lineup to it. As with other cards, Elder Togoru can make a dedicated Focused Attack deck that can reliably play the decks win-condition repeatably, and while likely not the most competitive direction, it will certainly be one of the most fun.
Another ridiculously fun option is to simply recur Tasty Riff every single turn, which not only pressures the rival to block it lest you get an incredible sculpt or refill your hand, but it can also build a foundation every time you play it to keep your stage health for using Elder Togoru’s enhance on the rival’s turn. Going along with this Jiro’s Bass is a deceptively good card in this character, as he can always flip the stats of an attack so that the speed is higher, letting Jiro’s Bass give stats to every attack in your lineup.
The last notable payoff for specific gameplans is Shoot Style St. Louis Smash, which focuses on the Charge keyword. It can situationally grab a momentum, but the big effect is being able to remove Charge attacks from your card pool to pump itself with its Powerful: 3, allowing you to “take an extra turn” in the right situations. Elder Togoru having access to this effect turn-after-turn could form the basis of a more aggressive strategy where the goal is to “take 2 turns” every single turn and throwing enough attacks at the rival until they perish from pure quantity. One issue with this concept is that it does require your rival to have a majority-ready board to enable the bottom enhance of St. Louis Smash, though as always if they game state isn’t conducive to one option, Elder Togoru can easily pick an alternative option during his offense turns.
In terms of huge attacks, the most unique one to Life is Split-Second Standoff, one of the attacks from the Cowboy Bebop starter deck. With a huge base damage and an effective base speed of 7, this is the largest pure stat-stick on the symbol. Other options that have been covered previously include Monstrous Fusion, Inevitable Clash, and Duplicate Deception Stab, though a card unique to this symbol is Hula Hoop, an impressive 4-mid-7 on a 4-difficulty attack, though it has the requirement to be the second attack you’ve played in a turn else it becomes a paltry 3-mid-4. This character however answers the condition on this card perfectly, whether he plays an attack first to follow up with a Hula Hoop from hand or playing a Hula Hoop from the discard as his second move, making it a huge powerhouse attack for him on this symbol.
While I mentioned that Life doesn’t have a general unifying theme, it does have many a card that works with a fundamental aspect of offense; committing rival foundations. With options such as Net Gun Surprise, Low Blow, Nejire Wave, Wind-Up Punch, and Deception Dagger, Elder Togoru will have plenty of options to commit down the rival’s board very efficiently. If you need pinpoint remove however, Life also grants access to Rewind Throttle, and Wave Motion Manipulation to commit pesky foundations, or even a cheeky Dragon Strike to answer it permanently. Following up on all this committal, Ambush Thrust can come in at the end of a string as a rather large 4-mid-7 that can recur a momentum as well for an additional follow-up attack.
One of the coolest draws to the Evil symbol was the synergy with Dark Shadow Emergence to grab a Fierce Wings to then fetch nearly anything in your discard, and while Life does get the first part of the combo, it lacks the second. A replacement does exist though, with Quick Thinking which lets you tag out a foundation into almost any non-unique card from your discard, giving about the same amount of versatility and resource access. With this a slower Elder Togoru deck can sculpt their stage to a tremendous degree, picking and choosing the perfect card for the matchup. This compounds with any potential sideboard options, as Quick Thinking effectively guarantees you see any sided foundations, assuming they aren’t a 4-check.
One of the other big draws to Life is being able to run a robust Echo package just as with Death, though with varied options. You still get access to Dual Needle Lunge to enable this strategy consistently, but you have new Echo options compared to Death with the biggest one being Spiral Blasts. It not only recoups the health loss from Dual Needle Lunge, but it also pairs nicely with Shapeshifting Impalement to form a solid core around the theme of health gain. Both of these life gain Echo attacks also pair perfectly with Tetra-Terror Terror Onslaught to recoup the health cost of its enhance and put additional “must block” pressure on your rival. This will be one of the earlier directions I explore, with the health gain combining with Elder Togoru’s natural “damage reduction” to make a surprisingly durable 7-hand size character that can string out effectively with the attack lineup that cheats or ignores progressive difficulty.
There are plenty of other options to string long though, with one of the premier non-Echo ways being Piercing Thorn Lances which zoops a previous attack to your momentum, enabling both a low-attack centric deck as well as any momentum synergies you have. Spiral Wave Surge is a more conditional string enabler with it relying on your rival interacting with your offense, but it being a 4-difficulty attack and usually coming in for 6 damage or speed gives it enough of a separate identity to be another consideration. While not an explicit way to assist in stringing, Questioning Threat is a solid 3-difficulty attack that has a sizable speed bonus letting it come in as a 5-mid-3, or flipped if you need some additional pressure. While this won’t be a mainstay option in lists, I could see it finding a place as an easy to slot in move within offensive pressure sequences.
Finally moving onto the last batch of miscellaneous options, Series of Stabs is a small attack that becomes threatening in higher quantities, and with Elder Togoru’s ability to fetch one at the right time it could easily become a part of his ability to apply easy early and midgame pressure without risking significant destabilization of your board state. Multi-Needle Puncture on the other hand is a simple stat-stick attack that has several notable things going for it, with it often starting with a high damage of 7 assuming you have found another, and then also featuring EX: 3 as an excellent momentum outlet.
Overhead Reversal on the other hand is way to find your 0-difficulty foundations with reliability while also getting in some chip damage and stocking a momentum for future turns, and is overall a safe early-to-mid-game option to weave into build turns while finding any 0-difficulties that may be key to your gameplan. Fallen Angel’s Revenge and Copy: Harden on the other hand help you reuse flipped resources, with the former being instant at the cost of a momentum, while the latter is easier to slot into turns but requires you to rebuild whatever you pick up. And lastly, Life also gets access to several of the play-from-elsewhere cards, with the big ones being Monstrous Fusion (literally big), Tetra-Terror Onslaught, and Villainous Teamwork being figuratively big in how they enable this character to continuously string together moves.
Moving on from attacks, The Future is Now! Gets a special mention as an action that can be used to string out further or as a way to build out followed by whatever attack you wish at the end of the turn through Elder Togoru’s form. Meanwhile focusing on his other ability, Arbor is a flexible stat-modifier that can also be pitched for the form and has additional synergy through any review cards which could find homes within a deck. Ruthless Mockery on the other hand gives a turn-wide damage penalty, which is great for baseline survivability, but it could also be a source of consistent turn-wide speed reduction. This will adjust how you will have to play around your swap on defense however, so be warned!
As for foundations, the most notable ones on the stat-modification side are Carbo Loading and Constantly Improving, the first works wonderfully with the life-gain package I was mentioning and as a way to reliably boost big stats onto your moves for any flip-flop shenanigans you may have. Constantly Improving on the other side is a huge single-use per-turn steroid that can slam an incredible number of stats onto something, and when flipped can make some outrageous stat profiles. For example, if you were to use Constantly Improving on Shapeshifting Impalement you would end up with a 14-mid-3, or flipped for a 3-mid-14, giving you a guaranteed-hit attack or a must-block move, and while not the most optimal use for it, I would expect this to happily find a home within Elder Togoru lists.
A powerful string enabling foundation also exists with Without Limits, giving your next Fury or Punch –3 difficulty at the cost of a momentum, which will always be live either through easy momentum from Elder Togoru’s form, or through using the form to grab a valid attack once activated. And for the very last interaction, Fateful Meeting is an intriguing card that is an offensive effect triggering during your defensive turn, and while I wouldn’t expect this to become a mainstay, Elder Togoru’s ability to manipulate damage lets you reliably activate this to chip the rival without putting yourself in significant danger, giving this character a unique niche as potentially the best user of this effect, especially over the course of a long game which suites Elder Togoru’s skillset.
With the final symbol coming to a close, Life presents a compelling direction of an Echo and life gain focused strategy while also giving solid access to a wide variety of options. There aren’t many concrete high-synergy based directions compared to the other symbols, but Life makes up for it with a general quality of the options, with Rejuvenating Smash and Tasty Riff being fantastic card advantage and pressure options.
Shapeshifting into an Outro
Elder Togoru is one of the most fascinating characters printed in the recent history of the game, with virtually endless possibilities to explore under each of his symbols. This character will not only be fun as a pet deck as you get to focus your entire strategy whichever single card finds your fancy, but also a potential competitive contender through forcing your rival to play around your entire discard pile of options to stress even the most seasoned players. Not only does he provide a compelling gameplay loop, but he makes players assess cards differently based on how they effect the stats of attacks, giving him subtle sneakiness in how he approaches each offense and defensive turn.
Personally, I am beyond excited for this character, not only because I have been able to reveal him, but also because he is a style of character I find great enjoyment from, being a toolbox style character. I will be one of the biggest supporters and explorers of this character and am already ready to begin theorycrafting and will likely focus much of my competitive energy towards working on this character. So in the future if you’re looking for the sauce, hit me up and I would gladly share it with you! And as always, continue to take it easy!
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