Cards Of The Week #4

Boa Hancock (OP14-112)

Simple and lovely is the best way to describe this Boa Hancock card and that's just how I like all my lovely lady cards to be. And really all cards period. Gain a life when you summon her and your opponent has to take a life and add it in hand. Two simple effects but of them extremely good. There's really nothing to criticize or be mad about. Her stats are standard for a cost 9 card, her main effects are great and she even has a trigger effect that could be handy given the right game state. If you know you would go for game next turn for example.

The only minor "downsides" if you could even call them that is that first, she is Warlord of the Sea leader specific, meaning you couldn't splash her in any yellow deck like OP13 Whitebeard for example in blue decks. The other minor problem is if your opponent is at 0 life then you lose out on her second effect which indeed drastically weakens her overall package. Nevertheless these are very minor issues and she stands as one of the strongest high cost yellow cards of the format.

SaberWolf's Rating: 4.7/5

Ryuma (OP06-036)

The designers seem to be pretty aware of this card given it's actually seen a fair few reprints and a number of them full art prints too. I bring this up because it appears to me it's not a very popular card in green decks even though it's not theme or leader specific and it's pretty solid, even now. You forsake it being a +1000 counter in hand but you get 6000 power for cost 4 so it holds up in that regard. When you play this card you can KO an opponent's cost 4 or lower character provided they're rested.

The Perona leader from the same set and the Carrot leader can make you meet this condition very easily, but even without those leaders your opponent is more than likely going to have some of these mid range characters rested anyway. If they're attacking, or resting to activate effects. So, to me this make this a very soild mid range green card. You can also gain this effetc on KO which could be a bit annoying for your opponent if they can't play around it.

However you do have some legitimate drawbacks. In the late game if your opponent doesn't have or play these weaker characters then Ryuma is just a swordsman with no effect. He will also be dead in hand making it even more annoying for you whether you summon him or don't. While it's excellent that you can potentially gain the effect twice when KOed I can say from experience that it's very easy for your opponent to play around the On KO effect. But all in all, I'd still say there is more good to this card than bad, especially when you can rest cards on demand with Perona or Carrot.

SaberWolf's Rating: 4.1/5