Mull to Four Gaming

Set 27 Hero's Ascension hits stores in about nine days or so, and the last few previews are finally being revealed by Bandai over Facebook. But as you may have noticed, we're still revealing some exclusive previews as well here on Mull to Four. You've seen a Jutsu and a Ninja so far, so we might as well finish this round of previews with a Mission.




Once upon a time in Set 3 Curse of Sand, there was a mission that did something that has since then never been replicated by any other card. This card was Power of the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit.

Charging chakra during the Exchange of Jutsu had its foreseeable advantages, but the game itself was also a lot slower and allowed for cards like this to possibly exist in a deck. Looking at it now, the only real advantage this would offer would be if you happened to have more than six cards in your hand during the Exchange of Jutsu. This was absolutely unheard of at that time, as there were no cards that allowed such a huge upswing of adding cards to your hand.

Fast forward to the present day format, and both players are very often always playing with a full grip of six cards, even after playing a Mission and deploying a Ninja for the turn. More often, due to cards such as The Warhawk or Reminisce,  a player will find themselves with too many cards in hand, "I have nine cards? I guess I charge three of them.". A card like Power of the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit wouldn't be absolutely terrible and pointless then, at this time. I suppose Tylar Allinder felt the same way, and thus we have our final preview for Set 27, Unlocking the Power.




There are two main differences between this card and it's earlier incarnation. One being that this card has an Entrance Cost of 3, rather than 2; the second being that in exchange for that Entrance cost bump, it draws a card upon being successfully played.

Do these changes make this card better or worse than it's predecessor? I would say a little of both. Drawing cards is always an important aspect of any card game. Afterall, you cannot progress further if you are not playing more cards each turn, and thus requiring you to be able to see those new cards in the first place. The bump in Turn Marker though places it in the precarious "Turn 3 Mission" zone, which shares its own special niche of pros and cons.

Hands down, The Warhawk is one of the most powerful Missions in rotation right now, and was one of the most powerful Missions in rotation last block as well (sharing its lofty position with Monster Research of course). The Warhawk is of course an Entrance Cost 3 Mission, and more often than not, if you are playing the card, you will always want to be able to play that Mission as soon as possible, in order to gain the most advantage out of it. Sure, a Warhawk on Turn 4 or 5 is by no means a bad play (And is usually seen quite often anyways, especially on the heels of a a Warhawk from the turn before), but if the card is available to you on Turn 3, you have no reason not to play it.

Had Unlocking the Power been a Turn 2 Mission, it would be the perfect prelude to playing The Warhawk the following turn. No longer restricted to keeping a hold of those nine or more cards only until the end of the Mission phase (unless you can manage to whittle your own hand down to six before the end of the turn), it would open up a new venue of strategy against your opponent. Not only are they sure if you have a jutsu or not in hand, they don't even know just how much chakra you can actually field or not.

"But Shino'sDad, wasting your priority on charging chakra is dumb. They'll just chain a jutsu and blow you out."

Ah, but that's the beauty of "Charging Chakra"...

Mini Article- "Research Tour: The Art of Molding Chakra"

Research Tour will be my segments about the inner workings of  the rules of the Naruto Shippuden CCG, in which I offer my knowledge of the rules to you, the readers, as well as explore deeper nooks and crannies of the game that are usually quickly glossed over. When available, I will provide insight from Tylar Allinder, Lead Designer of the Naruto Shippuden CCG, himself on the subject as well.

While there is presently no completely written out post or entry in the Advanced Q&A on the exact process and steps that are taken when Charging Chakra, I was able to piece together what amounts to how that entry should read. Furthermore, I was able to get in contact with Tylar Allinder himself and verify with him whether my research was correct or not. We came to an equal view on the subject with the following as the official ruling:

Charging Chakra

Charge Chakra is the exclusive action of a player moving one or more cards from their hand to their Chakra area during their Mission Phase.

- Paying the Handcost of a card is Not considered to be Charging Chakra.
- An effect that tells you to 'charge' one or more cards is synonymous with 'move from your hand to your Chakra area', but does not fall under the special rules for Charging Chakra. ex. N-828 Kabuto Yakushi's effect states "[Attacker | Mission] Charge 1 card with a "Water" Symbol: You can deploy a Ninja from your Discard Pile during your turn." 

Mission Phase [Attacker Only]

• In order to Charge Chakra, the Chain must currently be empty.
• The Attacker declares the number of cards that they are charging from their hand, and moves them to their Chakra area.
• This action does Not use the Chain, nor does it start a Chain for effects to be added to.
• This action does Not pass priority to the other player.
• This action may be preformed any number of times during the turn.

A such, Unlocking the Power allows the player controlling the Mission to perform this action during the Exchange of Jutsu (Of either player's turn).

Please leave comments, questions, and concerns below.