Preview – Usui (Aftermath)

So, last week your preview was a bit delayed because I forgot I wouldn’t be able to do all of the post while I was off on work travel. This week I’m off on work travel again (as you may recall from my griping about missing the Atlanta Plugged In Tour event), but this time I thought of that in advance and so, if everything is working right, you’re now looking at a fully formed post that has been correctly time-delayed to the October 30 preview date. If not, then I’m totally blaming the Fudoists because …

Aftermath_Final-69

What? What is this guy doing here? Didn’t we purge all of them last week? Or maybe I killed my opponent’s Fudoist Temple, and he killed his own Fudo’s Fiends, and then Usui here was just left standing? Well, I will just take solace in the fact that the more Fudo cards they print, the more likely I’ll be able to justify running Purge to kill them.

Will he see play? Clearly not in Emperor Edition. In Ivory Edition, we know very little about what Fudo cards will do and have even fewer comparison points than we do for the Clans, so I can’t even begin to comment there. However, we do know that there are already a plethora of 5G clan-aligned Personalities who sport 3F. Now, a lot of them are Fallen, but a 1-2 honor loss for being Fallen isn’t really any different from a 1 honor loss for being a Fudoist. And Usui does outclass some of those Personalities – his province strength boost isn’t much, but if you aren’t concerned about keywords, that plus 4C is more than Daidoji Adachi, Hiruma Ogata, Isawa Ryuzo or Nishiguchi brings to the table. But were we really expecting any of those guys to make it in random clan-aligned decks anyway? Unless there’s a specific need for more Monks for your deck, I’m guessing Usui’s Ivory playability will depend on a Fudo Stronghold.

3 thoughts on “Preview – Usui (Aftermath)

  1. I completely disagree that he will not see play in EE. There are a number of cards in this set that will work to make Fudo decks more viable and getting the Celestial into place faster and he’s one of them.

    He’s EE-boxable out of the Fudo SH, and at 3F/4C for 3g with the Monk keyword he’s a solid personality for the deck.

    His ability can be used unopposed, and out of the Fudo SH immediately gets you to 11PS, which is what you need to drop the False Ring of Water on your next action.

    He has 4C, and has minimal keywords so he’s a great candidate for performing a duel (Either Steel on Steel or Demonstrating Technique) to drop False Ring of Earth.

    Will he see play in other decks? Not likely. Does he instantly make Fudo Monk decks better? Absolutely.

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