Welcome everyone to the Dark Tournament, for the umpteenth time (I wonder how many times I can get away with this intro)! With the set fully revealed including the YYH1 reprints, I wanted to go through the most notable cards from the new set and the impact they will have on the metagame. Of course I won’t be able to go over every card, so I will be discussing the biggest shifts in how the game is approached with the new cards, as well as the most impactful cards of the set. This will be split into several sections, with the first being the big shifts in how the game will look with the new set which will then give context for the honorable mentions followed by the top cards of the set.
As an additional announcement, I have been blessed by UVS Games and will be opening a box of Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament LIVE on stream at 6:30 PM PST, Friday, February 16th, at https://www.twitch.tv/pippasad ! Come watch me get the sickest pulls and even open a CHROME RARE, so I expect to see you there! With the intro out of the way, let’s get right into the big shifts in with the game in the Dark Tournament!
Call me an Artist, cause I am Drawing!
One of the biggest shifts in the Dark Tournament is the increased availability of generic draw power within the game, with 27 non-character cards saying “draw” in the set, and a majority of- them being able to be shoved into a wide range of decks. As a note, while some cards may not directly draw cards, they can still aid in accelerating your card velocity, with Botan’s Coaching being a prime example as an easy-to-include foundation to aids in increasing the number of cards you see throughout a game.
The biggest culprits of the increased card velocity is the slew of powerful 1-diff foundations with varied flip-to-draw effects, with The Final Test, Fearsome Transformations, and Settling Old Debts giving new draw power to a bunch of symbols. More expensive or niche options exist as well, with Uraotogi Expertise being a great option as a way to draw a bonus card during a poke or aggressive turn, while Steel Muscle Explosion lets players recoup any card disadvantage from discard effects. And while not a foundation, The Dark Tournament Looms provides more symbols with a simple cantrip action in a similar vein to Avoiding Conflict, though it has the bonus effect of grabbing a momentum as well, which works wonderfully with the rules update earlier this year to peak at your momentum, with Hungry for Fame being another card advantage tool in this vein.
Foundations are not the only source of increased card advantage with this set though, with Battle Aura Release and Walk the Dog being premium draw options, while more generic options such as 45% Power, Finger Daggers, and Mop Strike are more vanilla ways to adding additional card advantage to your lists. Going past those are more that while requiring a bit of work provide even more advantage, with Beautiful Energy Blast, Rapid Speed Slash, or Spirit Gun Mega giving even more advantage with a little investment. More niche options also exist with Sword of the Darkness Flame, Double Tornado Punch, and Oar Strike are all higher investment card advantage sources but provide other unique benefits as well.
So while I am not including any of the cards mentioned here in the top lists of the set, know that this will create a big shift in the game and the balancing of consistency versus utility within a deck's lineup of attacks or foundations. I have already figured out during brewing that some symbols (primarily All, Chaos and Void) can devote significant space to running an honestly silly amount of card advantage, making these potentially premier symbols for aggressive leaning decks to simply draw all of the cards and find all of the gas. All of this card advantage of having knock-on effects for the format as well, with card that allow you to pass you checks increasing in value to take full advantage of all the cards you can draw, while discard based strategies will be more difficult to pull off with the increased amount of resource advantage available.
I activate my trap card, Cancel!
Increased draw power isn’t the only big shift happening with this set, with another being a widespread availability of powerful cancel effects. Not only do two characters feature cancels, with Jin canceling abilities on attacks while Kurama can cancel actions and attacks, both of whom can do so repeatedly. Not only that, but Masho Concealment, and Team Dr. Ichigaki are some incredibly splashable options to provide powerful sources of interaction with the rival’s shenanigans. More gated options such as Spirit Detective, and The Pilot of the River Styx give additional sources of interaction, while more targeted cancels exist in Icy Blade, Spirit Sword Ultimate, and Koenma’s Task. With all of this increased interaction they even introduced a cancel-cancel, with The Power of Love being a catch-all answer to any cancel effects.
While not strictly cancels, the set has also included several powerful new ways to interact with and “cancel” attacks, with Genkai’s Guidance and Cape of No Return being the most stand-out options, being premium ways to simply say “no” to your rival’s offense. Other options exist as well, and while not as powerful, are still applicable as superb interaction, with Dimensional Sphere being an analog to Faith’s Shield, while Invincible Body and Childlike Appearance can zero-out stats to nullify any bombs the rival might send your way. And in a last ditch effort to survive, True 100% Unleashed can automatically pass as a block if you’re on your last legs.
Lastly, while not cancels in the traditional sense, the Dark Tournament also brings a gigantic array of damage-reduction options, giving certain symbols enough damage reduction to effectively “cancel” attacks. The biggest culprits are from Bui’s kit, with Beneath the Armor and Weapon Clash being the primary candidates for their powerful repeatable damage modulation combined with perfect synergy with each other, while Toughest Punk in Junior High is a reprint that gives further damage reduction. When combined with previous cards like Warm and Bubbly, Heroic Endurance, Dangerous Hybrid, Broken Psyche, and What is a Symbol, both Earth and Water have extensive suites to “cancel” rival attacks simply by reducing their damage to negligible amounts, giving these symbols a form of playing defense a non-traditional way by ignoring blocks and simply surviving purely off of damage reduction.
With this plethora of interaction being brought to the forefront of the game, decks will have to take all of this into account when figuring out how they intend to apply offensive pressure. Decks that rely on a single big dunk are the greatest losers of the set, with regular cancels and attack (cancels) being much more common, leading decks to need to make all of their offensive options potent to prevent being blown out by a powerful interaction piece. This does put higher emphasis on playing a character that can meaningfully buff your attacks to give more freedom in the lineup since the threat of your offense will primarily come from your face. I cannot predict how the metagame will turn out, but all of these defensive options will be sure to provide additional interactivity in the games where they come up, which could lead to a meta where decks aim to either outpace these defensive options or outlast them through consistently high pressure.
Extensive Echos
Another point I wanted to bring up in how the game will be shaken up, the Echo keyword has gotten 7 new additions, and with 6 of them being widely playable (sorry Shishiwakamaru), many decks can now focus on Echo attacks as a central part of their gameplan, with certain symbols (Air, Evil, Good, Life, and Void) having anywhere from 5 to 7 Echo options, giving them the potential to run a “full Echo” gameplan, with Evil looking to be the most powerful option with newly introduced in Shapeshifting Impalement, Mortal Fists of the Darkness Flame, and Trace eyes all being incredibly solid Echo options, two of which can cheat their Echo costs.
I wanted to specifically shout out Double Fists of the Mortal Flame and Trace Eyes, with them giving both Evil and Fire access to Echo attacks that can be woven in ridiculously easy into offensive turns to multiply the amount of pressure decks can output. This is especially noticeable with characters that can consistently give stats to moves, letting them launch a barrage of powered-up moves to wear down the rival with the pure volume of attacks they can vomit out. Characters such as Edgeshot, Dabi II, and Overhaul are the most likely candidates, though I want to give a special shoutout to Endeavor III, as Echo moves let him blast through his deck even faster.
As one last note on the introduction of a variety of Echo moves, this will give more options to the general populous, and I would expect a vast majority of decks to try and slip a few into their lineup due to the incredible value some of them offer, with Double Spirit Blast being one of the best wallbreaking tools in the game while Shapeshifting Impalement is one of the best attacks to carry stats with in the set. Expect to see a lot of Echo shenanigans in the upcoming format, so cards that can disrupt that such as Eri Smiles, Learning the Standards, and even Wild Wild Pussycats to see an uptick in usage!
I need a Ally!
As a last side note on shifts happening due to the set, there is an abundance of the Ally keyword on a vast quantity of powerful foundations, of which a lot exist on symbols with access to Command Pigeon Flock to easily build them in. The biggest one is Demon Plants, allowing players to build it in for free with Pigeon Flock before committing it to make Pigeon Flock not count towards progressive difficulty, making it a new incarnation of Crow and Frog Takedown, giving any deck on the Good and Life symbols access to this new way of stringing out. I would like to note that this interaction is better than Crow and Frog, due to building in a resource that can then be used on following turns as you gained a “free” foundation, even if it is textless.
There are other incredible options as well, with all of the team foundations being ally letting you build Rokuyukai Huddle, Masho Concealment, Uraotogi Expertise, and Urameshi Perserverance all being on various symbols to build with Command Pigeon Flock. Past those you get The Power of Love, and Keiko’s Support as fantastic utility options as well if you run out of other options while also increasing the number of hits to make sure Pigeon Flock is online as early into the game as possible.
These options drastically improve the utility of Command Pigeon Flock and it is easily the card that improved the most with the Dark Tournament, to the point that it is one of the biggest draws to the symbols it is on. Expect to see a ton of this card going into the next format, and it is something you should always keep in mind when building decks on Chaos, Good or Life!
Amazingly Impactful Attacks!
While I will only be going over my top 5 attacks and non-attacks, there are enough awesome cards to warrant being discussed, though I won’t go super in-depth for them. Moving into the honorable mentions for attacks of the set, the big one I wanted to discuss is Rando’s Spirit Gun, which unlocks a slew of silly options for any characters with once-per-turns, from drawing a morbillion cards with Deku V, stringing out longer with Asui III, or as one of the most powerful aggro enablers for Overhaul. Rando’s Spirit Gun is one of the “Brewer’s dream” cards from the set, and I cannot wait to play around with it and pull off some truly silly shenanigans.
As another honorable mention, Wind Barrier joins the suite of “blocking action” attacks, packing not only Breaker: 1, but also giving your rival’s follow up attacks –2 speed for the rest of the turn. This is an incredibly potent defensive piece and while I wouldn’t expect it to be a mainstay it will slot into similar spots as cards such as Red Guard, Berserker Bite, and Thousand Sheet Pierce as a low-difficulty option for slight offensive pressure while being one of the most powerful blocks available on-symbol.
Walk the Dog also barely misses out on my top 5 list, though it is for sure one of the powerhouse cards of the set, being a potentially 6-low-6 on a 4-difficulty attack that also draws a card, the downfall to this card is its inconsistency and how much it warps your deck. If the rival checks well or simply doesn’t aggress it is a card you have to actively work to enable by either warping your attack and foundation lineup to accommodate it or by playing characters to enable it such as Toga III or Mt. Lady II. In the ideal circumstance it is a fantastic card, however I believe that the ideal circumstances will be less frequent than people expect, and it will more likely be a card focused on enabling powerful backswings, with a Sero II and Fourth Kind being other awesome users of this card.
Lastly, True 100% Unleashed was in contention for the top 5 attacks and I would have to rate it at #6 as it barely missed out and I could easily see it making the list, the other options barely beat it out however. It is one of the largest attacks in the game generally, with it being an 8-mid-9 if both players have 6 foundations, with potential to be even bigger as the game scales in length, making it one of the largest bombs in the game. This means it will easily kill unsuspecting players, while also packing incredible defensive utility to guarantee passing a block if you’re at low health giving you surprise defensive power. This may be a hot take, but there are more impactful attacks that barely beat this out, but make no mistake, this card is insane, and I expect to see a bunch of it moving into the new format.
With the honorable mentions out of the way, let me move onto the actual best attacks of the set! As a note, I am rating attacks on their splashability, aka how many decks can run them, their power (obviously), and the effect they will have on the format, such as adjustments in deckbuilding or requiring players to adapt to how to play around them. While the list will not necessarily be ordered as I believe all of the following cards are phenomenal, I will mention any special cases about the placement of various cards. With that out of the way let’s get into the top 5 attacks of the Dark Tournament!
With the first card coming up being a reprint, Mop Strike is an incredibly basic 4-difficulty 4-high-4 with two enhances, the first one making both players discard a card and draw a card, with the rival discarding a random card, while the second lets you draw a card if the rival has discarded something this combat phase which will always be active with the top enhance. It also features an incredible 1-mid block and Desperation: 3, meaning that if your are below half your maximum health it is only 3 difficulty.
None of this sounds like top 5 attack worthy by itself, but when put into an entire package it is one of the best card advantage options being added to the game this set. Not only does it let you filter a card, but it also disrupts rival blocking plans, on top of drawing you a bonus card, completely replacing itself. The stats, while not outstanding, are also solid with none of them being actively poor with it even getting a difficulty-decrease while later into the game. Due to how generic it is, any deck on symbol can easily include this as an incredible “smoothing” tool for your gameplan by fixing your hand at a ridiculously low cost.
While Mop Strike will rarely be the reason a player loses a game, it will be fundamental in getting players to an advantageous position to start winning the game. It is never something you don’t like to see throughout a game, with the biggest issue with it is being crowded out of high-synergy lineups, though this is primarily under Death due to the Fury lineups available, whereas Order and Void have a much less of archetypal package available which makes this an easy include for those symbols.
Onto one of my more controversial takes, but Absorbed Energy Spirit Strike is poised to be one of the most impactful cards of the set. As a basic 4-difficulty 4-mid-3 with a 2-high block it sports below average stats but comes with two incredibly powerful abilities, with a powerful on-block response and a solid offensive enhance. The response not only flips the blocked attack on resolution but also snags a momentum, while the enhance rips a rival momentum to get bonus damage.
Something I mentioned about how I evaluate cards is the amount of adjustment to playing around them, and Absorbed Energy Spirit Strike gains the benefit of being incredibly difficult to work around in most gamestates, with the offensive answer of “don’t play high/mid attacks” and the defensive answer of “don’t take momentum, both of which are fundamental parts of the game. Players will rarely be afforded the chance to “play around” Absorbed Energy Spirit Strike while also punishing the rival for participating in the core gameplay loop of UVS.
An under-discussed part of this card is that even if you half block, it denies the rival a momentum due to flipping the attack, giving further utility to this card, not even mentioning accelerating your own momentum-based gameplans, especially with certain symbols lacking momentum hate almost entirely. While on offense this is one of the best forms of momentum hate, with it often getting +4 damage at a baseline, catapulting it to a massive 7-damage on a 4-difficulty move, with the only reason it would be lower being if the rival has specific momentum shenanigans to put non-attacks in there. As mentioned, momentum hate is getting more sparce with rotation as well as it being on the declaine in the early format due to “new toy syndrome”, this card will be an incredible option to stifle rival momentum-based plans.
Due to all of the powerful utility this card presents it had to be included within my top cards of the set, though it does come with the caveat that while this card may be in my top 5 attacks of the set, I don’t actually expect it to see as much play as it should. Lack of keywords locks it off from many keyword-reliant characters or archetypes, while also being less flashy than other options means that this card may not find as many inclusions as it should. Don’t sleep on this card however, it is one of the more underrated cards of the set that will always be a wonderful option to consider in any deck on-symbol moving forward.
Onto the next card of the list, Ice Sword Execution is a simple 5-difficulty 5-high-5 with an enhance to name a foundation to commit all copies of it, with a second enhance to spend a momentum to get a massive +5 damage bonus while also freezing a rival foundation. Not every card has to do a ton of things to be powerful, and Ice Sword Execution is a perfect example of being incredibly honed in on its strengths. At a baseline, this card is a great leading move to target-remove the rival’s best piece on their board, and expanding on that it is also a massive potentially 10-damage attack that weakens the rival’s board for the next turn cycle as well.
The real kicker for why this card is as highly rated as it is, is that the top enhance scales with the boardstate while providing incredible flexibility. You can always turn off the rival’s most powerful defensive piece which also puts you up a resource, and in games where the rival builds many of the same foundations you can easily “Stun” two, three, or even four cards at a time. Combining this with its own momentum outlet lets you target offensive pieces as well, compromising the rival’s board for the next turn cycle to continue further agression on the following turn or to help bolster your defense on your rival’s backswing. Jumping off of the above discussion for how easily you can play around cards, this card’s best counterplay is either “don’t build multiple of the same foundation” or “Don’t let the rival take momentum”, both of which aren’t generally feasible in regular gameplay.
Overall this card is going to be a great general option for decks to include additional disruption and offensive power, not even discussing it having the Weapon keyword on three symbols that have synergies with it. As with Absorbed Energy Spirit Strike, I don’t expect this to find its way into every deck, but it will be one of the staple options for powerful 5-difficulty attacks on all of its symbols until it rotates out.
This spot of top 5 attacks of the new set is actually shared by two cards that are functionally incredibly similar, with both being low-investment Echo attacks that are frequently “free” attacks when woven into turns. Both of these cards will enable extensive Echo package on their symbols, with Evil and Fire getting access to both to string out incredibly effectively while requiring few resources. The downside of these cards is their low base stats, but in any characters that can repeatedly grant stats the value of having “free moves” scales with how big you can make them.
As I have continually reiterated, the ability to play around cards is a big factor in how I view them, and the counterplay to these cards is overall limited due to how “free” they are to activate and the incredible payoff of “duplicating” an attack. These cards will be big draws to the symbols and the decks that can use them, some of which I mentioned in the Echo section earlier in the article. Another neat interaction is that these cards give multiple enhance steps for characters that enjoy them, such as letting Endeavor III mill out sooner, while Shigaraki III gets another chance to draw a card off of his face, giving them additional hidden utility.
I would expect these cards to be big players going into the next format and they will likely continue to be relevant as the year progresses and more cards are released. While these cards would be fantastic by themselves, them sharing two symbols means that decks can realistically dedicate two-fifths of a standard attack lineup to these “free” Echo attacks to significantly bolster their offensive gameplan. I would not be surprised if an archetype springs up around the interactions with these two cards, and I for one will be one of the players trying to break these cards.
Onto the last and arguably best card in the set, Spirit Sword Ultimate is one of the premium secret rares included within the Dark Tournament, and it has a power level befitting its rarity, it with being the ultimate resource dump. You can commit foundations for damage as much as you want, you can pitch cards to stop rival character interaction, and you can spend momentum to increase the speed via its EX-rating, this attack lets you convert your resources in all sorts of advantage.
I would like to mention that the response looks insane, however it is less useful than you’d expect. It is incredibly matchup dependent with how much value it will accumulate, however that is fine with the other powerful abilities on the card. The simple effect of turning your entire board into “Commit: +2 damage” gives this incredibly game-ending power, especially on a backswing turn where the rival cannot easily defend against your offense. When combined with any other amount of speed pump it can also serve as a deck’s primary win-condition and game-ender, especially if combined with any number of cards that allow you to re-ready things in your stage.
Spirit Sword Ultimate(ly) represents one of the biggest new dunks in the format while being resilient to rival interaction and not necessarily losing to specific interaction as you can pump as many or as few resources into this as you wish, giving it great flexibility in its applications. As a caveat to this, while it will be a great piece in a variety of decks, it will likely be priced out of lists due to the limited availability of it, so while I am rating it very highly it can always be replaced with a similar dunk-type move, though this will likely always be a top contender for that spot.
As I mentioned previously, the top 5 cards are roughly unordered and I believe you could make a solid case for any of these (or the honorable mentions) being the best attack of the set, and there were plenty of other options that barely didn’t make the cut. Overall the power level of the attacks this set is very polarizing, with the commons being “draft chaff” and the ultra rares being incredibly strong across the board, with the in-between rarities housing a wide range of power levels. The Dark Tournament is introducing a ton of powerful tools, which makes sense given the only set rotating this year is MHA 1 which was foundational in how the modern game of UVS is played and designed, especially in terms of the power level.
Notable Non-attacks
Of course, attacks are only a minority portion of your deck, so I also wanted to cover the best actions, assets, and foundations of the set under the umbrella of “non-attacks”. As with the attacks I will be going over my honorable mentions before delving into my top 5, and there were a ton of incredible options presented within the set. I would argue that the Dark Tournament sets the new standard for foundations in terms of how many incredibly playable and powerful foundations are included, so it was difficult narrowing them down, especially when lumping in actions and assets.
Speaking of actions and assets, the Dark Tournament introduces a ton of incredibly powerful assets, with me covering both Cape of No Return and Team Dr. Ichigaki earlier, but I didn’t mention Idun Box, the most powerful reset available in the format. It not only resets speed and damage, but it also resets the attack zone and cancels unlockablility, an effect that isn’t very relevant but is a nice bonus, and notably it can be used on your own attacks to un-debuff them, though be careful about messing with any bonuses you apply. It is also a commit cost, giving you consistent access to this potent reset turn-after-turn, with the main downside is the fact that it is an asset and can stunt your early build turns, though if you have enough early stabilization it will be a fantastic include and I wouldn’t be surprised if most decks on symbol were to run a single copy as a neat piece if they find it.
Another honorable mention I wanted to discuss is Urameshi Perserverance, a seemingly character-locked card that actually is one of the most powerful momentum outlets in the set, allowing you to tutor anything from your discard to your hand at form speed, reminiscent of Elder Toguro’s signature ability. This provides awesome utility and flexibility, letting you get the perfect piece for the situation at all times, whether it be finding the best offensive piece to end the game or to get the perfect tech from your discard for the matchup, the power in this card is the sheer flexibility. Of course I am biased given my affinity for tutor-effects, but this card will consistently be fighting for inclusions as a likely-singleton for its game-winning potential.
Lastly I wanted to mention two successors to cards from Todoroki’s original MHA kit, with Frightening Calm and The Power of Love, with the former being the premium way to destroy foundations for advantage on its symbols while the latter is an incredible replacement for a card that has seen a lot of play in Irrefutable Force of Nature. Frightening Calm is a lateral version of Frozen, with an almost-identical effect just on a foundation with one less difficulty but worse stats otherwise, and it will see play as the premier way to clear your stage and increase your offensive threat level. The Power of Love is another card that is coming in with a similar effect as Irrefutable Force of Nature, just targeting different symbols. While its play will be determined by what symbols and decks are strong, it will hit enough generally that it will easily take up the mantle as a great way to neutralize rival foundations, offensively or defensively.
As with the attacks, I will be discussing the top non-attacks of the set through the lens of how splashable they are and the amount of impact they will have on the metagame. Again these will be roughly ordered (except for my #1 pick), so any of the honorable mentions or other cards I discuss will all be top contenders for the best cards of the set. Without further delay let me move onto my top 5 non-attacks of the Dark Tournament!
Paying the Cost
The first of my top picks, Paying the Cost is one of the simplest yet strongest cards of the set, being a 1-difficulty 4-check that lets you pay a health to bump the damage of your attack by +1. The immediate comparison is with a card that has seen play for its entire lifespan in Brute Strength, which due to rotation will no longer be available for inclusion within the Standard format. While Brute Strength had an additional powerful ability as an outlet to both destroy foundations and buff your attacks, its real strength (pun unintended) was that it could blanket give all of your moves +1 damage with the top enhance to pay a life, the same enhance on Paying the (health) Cost. Due to how damage and health works in this game, it is rare that an activation or few would meaningfully cut into your effective health over the course of the game, making it often be a “free” +1 damage which was a major boon to decks that lacked natural damage.
Paying the Cost takes this effect and slaps it onto a foundation with 1 less difficulty, making it much easier to include within decks due to not fighting for the 2-difficulty slot against other powerful foundations. It does have worse stats otherwise, but the ability to give a “free” +1 damage on all of your moves cannot be underestimated and will be one of the go-to options on its symbols to help alleviate any issues with damage that decks may face. There isn’t much else to say for such a simple card, it’s good and will see consistent play, though I could envision this being passed over due to the poor stats though I believe that will be likely be a poor reason for excluding it.
Moving onto the other half of Brute Strength, Immortal Shapeshifter is another analog to the now-rotated Brute Strength, however it replaces the health-cost effect with an effect that instead gains you a health on foundation destruction, making it often read “Enhance Destroy 1 foundation: This attack gets +1 damage and gain 1 health”. While this is a minor improvement and a card analogous to both Nejire-Chan of the Big 3 and All-Out Attack Mode in usage, the real strength is the repeatability of the response as it triggers on whenever you destroy a foundation, which can quickly add up in a destruction-focused gameplan or on a board that has managed to build multiple of them.
While it may seem contradictory to praise an effect that gains a health when I just lauded the fact that a –1 health cost is effectively “free”, the consistency and repeatability of Immortal Shapeshifter means it can often trigger repeatedly over the course of even just a turn cycle. This can add up to give you an additional attacks’ worth of health over the course of a game, multiplied if you manage to find more than a single copy giving you superb regeneration capabilities. This allows good players to play much more loosely with their health totals, stretching them to potentially absurd lengths, especially in characters that love destroying their own stage such as Inasa or Recovery Girl.
This is also discounting the fact that this is a foundation destruction outlet that gives damage, which is vital not only for curating your stage but also for any offensive pushes you make over the course of the game. Everyone who has been played competitively can attest to the strength cards such as Self Sacrifice and Brute Strength can have when assembling lethal lines, and Immortal Shapeshifter is coming in to fill that niche, which incidentally also shares symbols with both of those cards. With Younger Toguro also being introduced to the game, having a way to destroy your foundations to manage your stage is going to be a highly important thing to keep in mind moving into the next format.
Overall Immortal Shapeshifter is going to be a wonderful inclusion to a variety of decks from anywhere from a singleton copy to maxing it out to take full advantage of the additive nature of its response. It will likely become a near-staple on its symbols and could even form its own “archetype” in characters such as Inasa who can repeatedly trigger the response multiple times a turn, but even in decks less all-in on that interaction will gladly include it to an all-around great card.
Finally moving onto the first non-foundation of the notable non-attack cards, Team Dr. Ichigaki is another simple-yet strong card, being a 2-difficulty unique asset that has a response to remove itself and cancel any non-keyword, non-character ability. This is the most powerful interaction piece they have introduced within the modern game (MHA1 onwards), allowing you to interact with almost anything your heart desires. The flexibility to use this both offensively, defensively, and for utility is the power of this card, giving you near-complete control over how you want to proceed and interact with your rival.
The downside of this is that it is a 2-difficulty asset that is single-use, which comes at a big loss of early-game tempo, however this card truly shines when built in the mid-late game to interact with rival the rival when both players are trying to push for game-ending turns. This however is counteracted with a solid block and the fact that even early-game you can usually find solid spots to use it, making it impactful at every stage in the game, though again it will cause some awkwardness in terms of building early, coupled with unique means that seeing multiple of these early drastically lowers your chance at winning.
As mentioned the biggest hurdle is that it is a 2-difficulty card that is poor to build early, but otherwise this is arguably one of the strongest effects printed in this set and will likely find its way into a variety of decks, again being a near-staple of the symbols it has. As a final note, this card is very matchup dependent, as some decks will lack solid targets for it, and while you will almost always find something worth canceling, it does have the potential to be dead, or on the flipside it could entirely game-winning against decks reliant on a single powerful ability resolving.
Onto another seemingly unimpressive card, Unsettling Aura is positioned to be one of the best defensive pieces in the upcoming format as a 2-difficulty card that commits for –2 speed and situationally –3 speed. While this is an effect normally associated with foundations with half the difficulty, Unsettling Aura’s condition for –3 speed is to have 6-or-fewer foundations in your stage, which happens to be active during the first few turns of the game, giving this card incredible early-game defensive power, which can then be extended into the mid-game in characters aiming to keep their stage sparce such as Karasu and Kirishima III.
An additional thing in this card's favor is its superb block modifier with the coveted 1-mid block letting it block any zone of attack with ease, giving it even more defensive utility if you are unable to build it or happen into it on a defensive turn. This also covers Unsettling Aura’s primary weakness of being less-impactful in the mid-to-late game where it is overcosted, giving you the option of either building it to fill out your stage or to hold onto it for the wonderful block.
Just as with Paying the Cost, Unsettling Aura is a simple-yet-effective card that will be one of the premier defensive options on its symbols, especially for decks looking for additional early-game stabilization. This card does depend on the matchup to get maximum value, so this is one of the rare examples of a card that can see both consistent main and side-deck play, the former for general power level while the latter for extra insurance against aggressively oriented decks. This will again be a big draw to its symbols, though not warpingly so like some of the other cards discussed in this article.
Rounding out the final of my top cards of the set is another secret rare in Genkai’s Guidance. I mentioned this earlier when discussing the new cancel options introduced into the game, and Genkai’s Guidance is arguably the most powerful attack-hate interaction piece in the set, and that is only half of the card! It also features a First Form ability that lets you trade it and another card for a card in the rival’s hand, giving them –1 hand size for your offensive turn, which is notable as it is not telegraphed, meaning that the rival will have to keep it in mind during every point of the game forcing more conservative play simply by existing.
I have already gone on-and-on about the power of the response, and having a generic response-speed attack cancel in the format will cause a huge shift in how players approach offense and defense at the top level. Having the threat of always getting a key move canceled or having to stock an extra card for defense can put a ton of pressure on the rival to correctly predict and play around a card you may or may not have. This card may have such an effect on the format that more action-canceling effects may find their way into decks to deal with it, though I cannot predict if this will end up happening.
I would go as far as to say that Genkai’s Guidance is arguably the best card in the set given its excellent versatility and ridiculously potent effects for both offense and defense. I could be overreacting, as the destroy 3 foundation cost on the response is a gigantic cost, while the form may tax your hand too much in characters/decks lacking draw power, but I am willing to be wrong if these downsides end up significantly outweighing the positives resulting in this card to only be “mid”. Either way however, I expect this to be a divisive card moving into the next format as people inevitably lose to it, though its place in the metagame long-term is uncertain.
From Top to Bottom
With the Dark Tournament introducing as many powerhouse cards into the game and MHA1 rotating out, the Standard format will be shaken up a significant amount with the upcoming release of the new set, and I for one am embracing change. I have many thoughts on MHA1, which I may discuss in a future article, but for now I am glad to see some of the powerful “old guard” cards to leave and make room for exciting new inclusions and strategies. I cannot wait to continue exploring the new format, so look forward to deep dives into the decks I will be playing and brewing in the near future!
For those who have read to the end I wanted to remind you all that I will be streaming a box opening of Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament on Friday, February 16th, so tune into my stream at https://www.twitch.tv/pippasad and watch me open a Chrome Rare live! This statement is not legally binding if in some unfortunate circumstances I do NOT pull a chrome rare, though that wouldn't happen right?
With that my thoughts have come to a close, and I want to hear your thoughts! What do you think are the best cards in the set, is there anything you think I over or underrated? Let me know down below or by chatting with me over discord, thank you again for your continuous support, and until next time!
Do you have any articles you’d like to see? Any topics you wish were discussed more? Any questions, comments, or feedback on this article? Well let me know down below, or shoot me a message on discord! And if you enjoyed the article, feel free to follow me on twitter or leave a tip at my Ko-fi.
Be sure to preorder any UVS related needs at UnFunStuff to stock up on any TCG supplies or cards, such as Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament, releasing February 23rd!
Comments