Believing in Unlimited Possibilities. Part one of Two

No one ever talks about the Unlimited format, but the fact remains

that it's still a format that people play. Today I'm going to talk about some decks that are competitive and at least Semi-Competitive in Unlimited.

Let's Start with the card on the Left, Five-Pronged Seal:

[NOTE: These Decklists might not be of the best way to run a certain deck, this should merely be used as a guideline instead of a way to play the deck competitively.]

FPS is a Deck that tries to use Five-Pronged as early as turn Zero with the use of Kakashi (Childhood), Draw Jutsus and Burst of Lightning blade:

So the idea is to get yourself to a hand with both Burst of Lightning Blade and Five-Pronged Seal in your hand to return your opponents Lone Ninja and their hand to their deck so that they can't fight back while you just curve in and win.

The Deck has some major quirks and kinks to be aware of though:

-Kakashi (Childhood) Makes Burst of Lightning Blade cost 1 more, so you have to have 2 fire chakra area +1 Random to play it.

-If you don't have a Kakashi in your hand the combo won't go off turn one unless you can charge 5 chakra of every color, and that's easier said than done.

-The combo only works if your opponent has a Ninja to return. so there's no point in over-extending if they do.

Here's a Basic Build of the deck:

Jutsu: 17

3x Big Bang

3x Getting Ready

3x Release of Chakra [Non Limited one, charge 3 draw 3.]

3x Burst of Lightning Blade

3x Five Prong Seal

2x Change of Chakra Form [makes specific symbols cost (2) instead]

Clients: 3

3x Takamaru

Missions: 10

3x Just Like Drifting Clouds

3x Make-Out Tactics [Search for 2 one drops]

3x Inari's Decision

1x Succeeded Will of Fire

Ninjas: 20

3x Kakashi (Childhood)

3x Naruto's Mom

3x Ink Leech

1x Sasuke [Solo Attitude]

3x Ink Fish

1x Temari [wind Scythe]

3x Konohamaru Ninja Squad

2x Sakura [Puts in Play Inner Sakura]

1x Obito [Negate Jutsu]

Reinforcement: 4

3x Inner Sakura

1x Kakashi/Sasuke

Now there's 9 draw jutsus, all draw and search missions, and a curve up to turn 3, but there's a Jutsu that's not either Burst or FPS, what is it?

Change in Chakra form makes it so your jutsus specific symbols become (1) For example: Five Pronged Seal would cost (5) instead of its specific symbols, making it extremely easy to play without the help of Burst of Lightning Blade, which plays it for free.

This is the alternative way of hitting the Win-Con, and it works for Burst of Lightning Blade as well if you can't get 2 Fire Chakra and still want to combo.

The Biggest Restriction of the deck though is that it is the biggest one-Trick Pony in all of Unlimited, if you can't Five-Pronged, if your user gets removed, or if your opponent negates you're pretty much out of steam.

 Over 9000 [O9k, Gaara-Centric, etc. etc.]

There's a familar face if you've been playing the CCG for as long as I have [I started During Revenge and Rebirth] Garra Ip Let's you Look through the top 5 cards of your deck for a Gaara Jutsu and add it to your hand.

So The Up is that he's a Tutor for his own Missions, the downside is he's a turn 4.

However there are always ways around these, and I'll present two options:

You Charge Gaara from your hand and then you can use Leaf Headband to put him into play, you don't get to deploy, but you played your main ninja on Turn 2, 2 turns ahead of when you should.

The Other Option:

Same Turn, pretty much same effect, the advantage of Leaf headband is that you could charge an immense power on turn 0 and already have him ready for turn 2 without worrying if he's in your hand or not, but the benefit of Leaf Academy is that you can still deploy a ninja for that turn, which is what I believe the better of the two.

Now that we've discussed cheating gaara into play, let's discuss the decklist:

0:

3x Rock Lee [Loopy Fist]

3x Sasuke [Solo Attitude]

3x Hanare 

2x Hotaru [Either the Flashpoint one or the Flip a Coin one.]

1:

2x Temari [Wind Scythe]

2x Yakumo Kurama [With a Monster Within]

2x Shikamaru [Flexibility]

2:

2x Sakura [Identity Swap]

2x Konohamaru Ninja Squad

3:

1x Naruto Uzumaki [Reliance]

1x Hinata Hyuuga [Reserved Character]

1x Shikamaru/Temari Platoon

4:

3x Gaara of the Desert [Immense Power]

5: 

1x Baki [Cleaning Up]

1x Assuma [For the Next Gen]

1x Assuma/Shika Platoon

Jutsu:

3x Double Sand Blade

3x Sand Tomb

3x Sand Shield [A New Chronicle]

1x Negation Jutsu [Gigantic Fan, Wind Scythe, Labryth, anything along those lines.]

Missions: 

3x Never Ending Love

2x Protean

2x Ino's Tears

3x Ninja Academy

O9k Has lots of Removal at its disposal, but its all Single-Targeting and Only Gaara can use most of the Jutsu base, which is the major crippling point of the deck, there does however exist another version of this deck, from another Ninja:

Over 2000:

This Naruto Happens to be my favorite card that was ever made in the entire game. Why? Because He's a BETTER Gaara [Immense Power] He comes in a Turn Earlier and He Searches for either a Jutsu with "Rasengan" in its name, or a jutsu with Requirements "Naruto Uzumaki." So His Jutsu Pool is a lot bigger, and since he can search for Rasengans he searches for a jutsu with more than one user, not to mention he has a bunch of ways to cheat himself in early, but the most common one is Leaf Headband.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Deck List:

0:

3x Rock Lee [Loopy Fist]

3x Messenger Ninja

3x Kisuke [Death?]

2x Sasuke [Solo Attitude]

1:

2x Ink Fish

1x Temari [Wind Scythe]

2x Naruto Uzumaki [Clone]

2:

1x Biscuit

1x Iruka [Strategic Placement]

2x Konohamaru Ninja Squad

1x Lee/Tortise Platoon

3:

3x Naruto Uzumaki [MTHT]

2x Jiraiya[Childhood]

4:

3x Might Guy [Passion]

6:

1x Fourth Hokage [Discard 2 Lightning Put him in play to Injure a Ninja]

Jutsu:

2x Naruto 2k Barrage

2x Explosion of the Rasengan

2x Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu [+6/+6 and unaffected by jutsus to Naruto or Jonin^]

2x Rasengan [either FP, WOF, The Block Super Rare or the Block Rare]

1x Giant Rasengan [A New Chronicle]

1x Nine Tails Cloak

Missions:

3x Leaf Headband

1x Sage's Training Ground

2x Four-Times Faster

2x Group Lesson

2x Messenger Ninjas

The Deck has a lot better removal than the 09k build for the most part, and it has a lot more jutsus that have multiple users, so its a lot easier to manage, but it still suffers the same Kinks as 09K.

These are a couple decks that are at least Semi-Competitive in the unlimited format, next time we'll be talking about the real meat of Unlimited, See you then!

-TurboTMoses Aka Kunoalpha

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The Top 10 of Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 [In My Opinion]

While the Set won't be legal for another two weeks, I'll take this time to discuss what I believe are the 10 best cards in the set.

#10

This card is pretty solid, being able to Flashpoint Ninjas Like Ink Fish, Temari [Wind Scythe], anything that activates with a put in play effect really, The only big thing that hurts this cards playability is Shimon, but after Gencon he'll be rotating out, so I'm expecting this card to see a lot of play afterwards.

#9

At First he doesn't look like much, but then you realize he's a turn Zero Ninja with Name: Kakashi Hatake, so he makes a lot of Jutsu playable this format, Kamui, Tp4/RnR Chidori, and Lightning Blade Just to name a few. Not to mention he can replace himself with another Kakashi Later on, so you don't have to worry about having him clog the field while you're waiting to drop the Kakashi with Inherit.










#8

A lot of people don't think this card is good, but anything that deals damage to all the opponents ninjas is really solid in my book, sure his entrance cost hurts his playability, but I think he's easier to win with than The Nine Tailed Fox Spirit. This Naruto can also function as a guaranteed board wipe for everyone but himself if you play Disaster of the Nine Tailed Fox before you Deploy him, and since all of their Ninjas will be Injured you'll be able to win that many battle rewards, Right Now he's decent, but when the format slows down I really expect him to be a big hitter.







 #7

Its been a while since we've gotten a solid earth jutsu that has multiple users, at the very least its a 2 chakra for one damage which already makes it better than Earth's Paper Bomb, and at its very best it can wipe a team, The fact that it has more than 3 users as well could make it a very played jutsu later on.

#6 

This card is good, really good, a search card that can be played by every deck. It reminds me of Signal the Clans from Magic the Gathering or Painful Choice From Yu-gi-oh, Now you could search 3 Power Ninjas or you could search 3 of the same Ninja so that you're guaranteed to get what you want. I'm pretty sure that when UNS3 becomes legal this will be seen in almost every deck.

#5

Nick Botchis' Son is probably my favorite card from this set, being able to generate Insect coins has always been good, ever since Shino from Approaching Wind. He also works in conjunction with the card above, Gathering the beasts, where if you search 3 shinos, you can get 2 0/0 Insect Coins and get one of them to hand.

#4 

Mmm Permanent Earth. Zetsu Army is a Mission form of Hinata and There's really not much else to say, although Zero handcost is also nice.

#3

Free BackStab that does 2 damage, 2 Chakra Tp4 Chidori that does 2 Damage, 2 Chakra Amatarasu that does 2 Damage, Damage seems to be the name of the game here with this Sasuke, and look at his second Symbol. Both Lightning and Fire have some of the best Damaging Jutsu in the Game so expect this sasuke to see play at least as a one of if people only maindeck 2 Solo Attitude.

#2

Tailed Beast Bomb is a solid jutsu, you either get rid of a card on the board or stop a jutsu, simple. There's been a lot of speculation that it will be a "Tailed Beast or Don't Play" format though because of this card, and I don't believe that's the case, just because you give a theme a snipe card doesn't mean its the only deck played, Revitalize Earth has Tree Summoning and Other Decks are still Played, its a solid card, but its not going to force everyone to play the same deck.

You've Probably already guessed what my Number One is.

#1

One of the best cards in the set if not THE best. Mifune Blankets the Opposing team and stops them from using Jutsu, and look at his symbol, meaning every deck can play him. I really think he does a little too much even for being a turn 6, but I can guarantee that this card will see the most play out of anything else, anything that says your opponent cannot is usually played in spades in this game.

Well that's my top 10 for UNS3, I know there were a lot of cards people would of probably Put on this List 

(Hiradora, Etc.) But I don't feel those will impact the meta as much.

See you Next time

-TurboTmoses/kunoalpha

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Jonin's Intervention, the mission that ruined a format.

   




     Most of us are familiar with this card, because it is pretty much the bane of block format right now, J.I. has shifted the tempo of the early game back to a card that's already banned in block, The 4th Hokage. The Early game is already strong with things like Sasuke [Solo Attitude], Ino [Childhood], Ink Fish, Kisuke [Death?], Messenger Ninja, Rock Lee [Loopy Fist] etc., but jumping 4 turns ahead isn't an advantage that should be given to anyone early. JI reminds me of a card that is in unlimited 4 Times Faster, where you get to put a ninja into play early and give yourself a slight advantage, however let's compare the two:

4 Times Faster	Jonin's Intervention
Is a Minus 1, Still Have to Pay Ninja's Hand cost, effectively a Minus 2	Is a Minus 1, Do not Have to Pay Hand Cost, Virtually Stays a Minus 1
Opponent Can Also Play a Ninja Early	Opponent Gets No Advantage

While you can argue that 4 Times Faster Gives you the Ninja Permanently, you still let your opponent have an advantage, JI is completely one sided, and it forces us into a game state where if You Open your 3 card combo of JI, A Power Jonin like Kakashi and A Jutsu like Tetragram you've pretty much won the game unless your opponent can respond with something like Temari [Furious Gust] and even then, you've already done enough to swing advantage your way so much that your opponent will be playing catch-up for the rest of the game.

I think my problem with JI is that there is basically no repercussion to playing it, Its predecessors J.I. 1.0, and A Gift From a Friend both required you to lose a ninja and minus 1 yourself, and if you couldn't hit a ninja that could kill himself [Nawaki for example.] then you could possibly be left with a dead mission, when in this day and age of the game missions make or break a deck. No this Jonin's Intervention just gives to much advantage to whoever can go second and get the combo off, and its why its played so heavily right now, I really want the game to have a fleshed out meta, and I don't want a deck to be a spiritual successor to an other early game rush deck we had back in the day which won on turn 2 [Fangs of the Snake Toads.] 

I really think when the rogue list rolls around the card should go to either 1 or 0, forcing a game state in which you can end the game before it has truly started isn't something that should be in block, its just stales the game when we're trying to fight for a more diverse meta.

Anyways let me know what you guys think about it in the comments.

-KunoAlpha aka TurboTMoses

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