Hallelujah! The veil has parted and we get to take a deep dive into all the new cards in Part the Mistveil. Today we’re checking out the generic and Ninja cards. So all you prospective Crouching Tigers strap in, and let’s take a look!

Mystic Ninja in Part the Mistveil

Part the Mistveil is heavily slanted towards blue cards, with every new hero in the set encouraging a slower, more methodical playstyle. Our new Ninja, Zen, Tamer of Purpose, is no exception.

His hero power is very interesting, if a tad hard to evaluate. While we do know how heroes acquire Chi now (by transcending, which returns a card to its owners hand, flipped as a resource card), it’s still a little difficult to gage how quickly you’ll be able to transcend for Zen’s hero text to do anything.

So far, every card that can transcend does so on the prerequisite that you have played another blue card this turn. So some setup is required. And the overall raw power level of the deck will be lower, given that you want to play a bunch of blue cards over their more aggressively slanted red counterparts.

Once you’ve done the work though, Zen’s hero power is a straight upgrade over Katsu, the Wanderer – no discard required, an extra Crouching Tiger on top, and you get to do it as an instant without having to have gotten a hit in.

All of this – having to jump through some hoops to enable the hero power, the blue-heavy nature of the deck, and the general setup-heavy nature of the Crouching Tiger archetype – makes it seem like we have a return of the turtle Ninja archetype on our hands. A slower, more methodical deck that looks to get big value from Flic Flak and other defensive cards until they have their big pop-off combo turn. It’ll be interesting to see whether the tools for this are all there yet – but we’ll get to that!

Twelve Petal Kasaya is the first in a long list of tools for the slower Crouching Tiger archetype: each time you transcend, you get free value, which lets you fuel your more expensive plays and smooth out the occasional low-resource hand.

On top of that, this new chest piece lets you cash it in for a non-conditional block value of two once per game – or a Zen State token if you pay an additional Chi. It’s situational, but in the mirror match or other outliers, like the Wizard matchup, this might be the lynchpin that the whole game revolves around.

Tooth and Claw is one of the big new power cards for the archetype. A fine card to block with on defense, but so far it looks fairly easy to at least give this go again, turning it into a more versatile Scar for a Scar at least.

The ceiling is enticing, a one-cost, five-power attack with go again that might even draw you a card is obviously nuts. But if this didn’t have the bonus for one or two Crouching Tigers, this wouldn’t be nearly as playable.

A hard card to evaluate. The obvious application for Shifting Winds of the Mystic Beast is to rename your Crouching Tigers to Hundred Winds for a back-up combo route. Obviously, that’s great when the stars align and you have the tools to set it up with Zens hero ability. It might even be an archetype in itself, but if you’re not doing that, it seems a bit hard to pull off for a questionable reward.

Re-naming cards for smooth combos has been generally good since Be Like Water, but this is much harder to enable. If you haven’t transcended for Chi this does nothing by itself, which makes it more expensive than it looks. Running this for anything other than the Hundred Winds play seems strange right now. Going through all that work just to enable a Whelming Gustwave probably isn’t where you’d want to be.

The Ninja entry in the Sacred Art cycle, and Sacred Art: Jade Tiger Domain is just as much of an auto-include as the others. To get the full power out of this, you have to have played another blue and pitch a third one, but you get to create two Crouching Tigers, buff all your Tigers for the entire turn and transcend for a use of Zens hero ability. It doesn’t quite get you the big combo turn, but it gets you most of the way there, and the opportunity cost of including it is low enough that you’re guaranteed to run it.

I’m nominating the blue Wind Chakra as the one draft card that might get there in the Classic Constructed format for its sheer utility. It’s blue, it blocks, and it can be a Head Jab on your combo turn if you happen to draw redundant resources.

Ninja

Notably, Zen‘s presumed signature weapon Tiger Taming Khakkara is not a Mystic Ninja weapon and also the first staff for the Ninja class. It’s a weird riff off of everybody’s favorite dagger, Harmonized Kodachi: it costs two resources, it has go again, and it kind of results in two pokes, since the buff on the next Crouching Tiger notably isn’t an on hit effect but happens no matter what your opponent does.

On the flipside, you have to have a Crouching Tiger handy for this to become the classic Kodachi death-of-a-thousand-cuts pattern. If you don’t have one, you’re overpaying for an underwhelming weapon attack. We’ll have to see how hard it will be to create Crouching Tigers in the late game, but on the face of it, it looks like less of a bind to face for an opponent who is low on life. Though in turn, it doesn’t pigeonhole you into running zero-cost cards like the twin daggers do.

Zen will probably play it, since he wants to run blue cards anyway and probably also wants expensive cards that those blues can pay for, but I could see a Prism, Awakener of Sol situation where we get another weapon somewhere down the line that more aggressively enables his playstyle. This seems like a “safe” design.

A fine Leg Tap variant that, once again, is better on blocking duty. When combo’d, the sheer value in terms of numbers is pretty nuts: a one-cost card with go again that threatens seven damage. But Chase the Tail is a bit difficult to set up, since it has to be preceded and followed by a Crouching Tiger to get the full value.

One activation of Zen gets you two thirds of the way there, since you get the first Tiger and you get to tutor this. It still needs at least one more card to create a Tiger with, but I believe that the payoff is worth the work you have to put in for this.

Speaking of which, Maul is a cornerstone of the Tiger deck. A zero-cost attack reaction that buffs any of your low-power attacks by three is at least okay, better if it pushes through an on-hit (like, say, an opponent blocking something like Vipox with a piece of equipment or something).

Even better though, if the target is a Crouching Tiger, this gets you two more Tigers. Notably, they are not created in your hand, which makes Tooth and Claw sad, but with any overarching buff like Roar of the Tiger or Art of War, this easily represents five damage.

I like that it has the fallback option of blocking or buffing a low power attack for at least three points of value. The real floor of this card is the yellow resource stripe: Tiger Eye Reflex and the aforementioned Roar of the Tiger are both possible includes in the Tiger deck, and you still need to run lots of blues to transcend reliably, but I think this will still get there.

It’s tricky to create a Crouching Tiger on your opponent’s turn. Zen technically does it, but it will cost you a resource and you won’t get to use the card you tutored for. Sacred Art: Jade Tiger Domain technically does it for two cards, but you have to play another blue card before it, and you won’t get the value out of the Tiger buff.

This leaves just Tiger Eye Reflex, which is a nice combo, but probably doesn’t happen often enough. Still, Territorial Domain is a card to watch out for as future Tiger synergies get added: a blue card that blocks five is definitely worth it, if you have the tools to pull it off consistently (just ask Teklovossen, Esteemed Magnate and his Steel Street Enforcement).

An interesting cycle, where each color variant combos with cards of its corresponding color. The red Aspect of Tiger variant seems like the most interesting one for the Katsu Tiger deck, where it’s pretty easily a Head Jab with upside.

For Zen, the blue one seems more interesting as another resource card with added utility. On your Art of War turns, this still reaches three or four points of damage while blocking well, sometimes turning on your transcend cards and just being a baseline blue. Shoutout to Legend Story Studios for the design of this card, very elegant stuff!

I’m including this because it looks like the kind of card you’re supposed to play in the Tiger deck, but I’m actually not sure. The Leg Taps that don’t have built-in go again can be real clunkers in Katsu decks.

Maybe Zen decks will be happy to sit back or block with it, but I can see this blocking for three too often to be worth the include over something more consistent. Once you combo it, Breed Anger is four-power card that gets you another Crouching Tiger, which can be worth anywhere between one and three points of damage generally. I’m just not sure if the ideal use case for this card comes up often enough to be worth the downside, especially because Zen wants to run so many blues.

Generic Cards in Part the Mistveil

Stonewall Gauntlet is this set’s version of the generic piece of equipment that hoses a particular card (or set of cards). We’ve seen it before with Balance of Justice and Vambrace of Determination, and here we are again. I believe this veers closer to Balance of Justice, since Art of War is still as good as ever and Tiger Ninja gets a major shot in the arm with Part the Mistveil.

It’s a fine sideboard card against Ninja that might be a big player, depending on how the post-Mistveil meta shakes out. Of note: The -1 attack debuff only applies on the combat chain it activates on. If the buff that turned it on persists for the entire turn, any opponent can just close the combat chain and then attack you again. In that case it’s still a two-block armpiece, but that can’t hide just how boring the design on this is.

Rowdy Locals is… weird. If your opponent doesn’t block this, it’s a two-for-one in their favor. If they do, they almost always have to two-for-one themselves. The only situation where I can see that happening is when they’re low on life or they fear some kind of attack reaction that gives this another on hit.

Another Command and Conquer pretender in the tradition of Amnesia and Erase Face. The Weakest Link has a really strong on hit, potentially even more devastating than the OG itself. It is, however, very narrow in what it hits. And without disabling defense reactions, it’s fairly easy to comfortably block it out.

Part the Mistveil introduces a good chunk of instants into the meta, and Illusionists are probably becoming even more popular – The Weakest Link even pulls double duty there, doubling as a popper – but I don’t see it as much more than a good sideboard card.

Pour one out for your deck-builder friends, Prismatic Leyline will be their obsession for the coming three months. This is a zero-for-six go again if it hits all three cards, but it’s obviously incredibly unlikely that you get to pull this off. Still, I know of at least one person that’s going to try running this in a dedicated Hundred Winds combo deck. And that person is me.

Conclusion

And that’s all, folks! Part the Mistveil looks very interesting for the Ninja class. LSS really went all-in on creating dedicated Crouching Tiger support, and it will be exciting to see the best deck-builders in the game figuring out the ideal build for Zen. Not too much to write home about on the generic side, but a good set of interesting cards nonetheless.

Stay Tuned for More Part the Mistveil Reviews!

Part the Mistveil Review – Expansion Slot

Part the Mistveil Review – Assassin

Part the Mistveil Review – Illusionist