The War of Nobunaga (Overview)

Welcome to the Sengoku Era!

It's hard to compare the totally differing styles of the two warring factions of Katana World, since it's based on the ancient longest-running clash in all of Japanese history. On one hand, the Ninjas (Shinobi) are focused on setting traps and anticipating your opponent's strategies only to counter it with flair. They aim at perfecting the skills of their arts and outmaneuvering their opponents in every possible way. On the other hand, the Skull Warriors (Samurai) are focused on fighting to the death, ready to charge into the face of battle and die honorably. You think they're gone, but they keep coming back. Truly, they are undefeatable.

While a shogun or a daimyo could only choose to support one side, as a Buddyfighter you can patron both factions into your Katana army. You can find the right balance between the traps of Ninja Arts and the ruthless assaults of Demon Way. Together, they form a powerful combination of strategy and power, force and cunning. Katana World has an answer for everything, and they've got the firepower to back it up.

Katana World revisits the everlasting feud between the Ninja and the Skull Warrior. If you're feeling wishy-washy about which side you favor, you can always go with the flow of Water.

While monsters should generally be kept exclusive to each side, the majority of Ninja Arts and Demon Way cards can be used in both Ninja and Skull Warrior decks. You obviously want to run 4 of the Ninja Arts negate (Solomon Shield clone) and 4 of the PR Demon Way negate (Battle Aura Circle clone). The majority of this generic preview will be spent discussing the multitude of amazing spells that both archetypes can utilize.

Standing in the spotlight

Let's start with the trademark Impact of the clan, Secret Sword, Lethal Formation. Unlike other Impacts, even though you have to Set the card during the Impact phase, the actual activation of the card can be any time the trap is triggered. This Impact works in tandem with other Impact cards in the deck. Lethal Formation is the setter. By casting Lethal Formation during your Impact phase, you can set either Star Crusher, Moon Fang, or Shooting Star into the soul of Lethal Formation. Each of the Impacts are activated as a trap to a certain effect: the activation of a spell, the direct attack of a weapon, or the casting of an Impact. To counter each effect, you can pay 3 gauge and reveal the soul of Lethal Formation to nullify said effect and deal 3 damage to your opponent.

This is a near godly Impact. Let's think about it from a card advantage perspective. You cast the Impact (-1 from hand). It searches out 1 card from your deck for free to put into the soul of the Impact (wash, +compression). Then, when it is activated to counter the effect of something, you pay 3 gauge (-1.5) and discard the soul (wash) to nullify the spell/attack/impact (+1 minimum) and deal 3 direct damage (+2.25). The minimum advantage gained from using this spell correctly? At least +0.75. More often than not, that translates to +1.5 at least. If you aren't running this in your deck, you're not winning.

Meteor Mash

The best out of the 3 counters by far is Star Crusher. Spells are cast almost every single turn, and to nullify a crucial spell is something to be feared. You can nullify a shield like Blue Dragon Shield, further increasing the damage that your opponent would take. You can nullify a counter like Dragoenergy, keeping your monsters safe while dealing damage on top of that. Moon Fang and Shooting Star are still useful nonetheless, and it's wise to tech some in. The normal setup for the Secret Sword Impacts are 4 Lethal Formation and 1 of each activatable Impact for a total of 7 cards in the deck. It's a lot, but since the Impacts self-compress it means that your deck remains relatively streamlined (you could even go over the 50-card standard by 1 or 2 if need be). Since it's almost guaranteed that Star Crusher will go into at least one Lethal Formation soul, if you ever draw Star Crusher you can just gauge it, pay it out, and then use Lethal Formation to revive it from the drop. It does your opponent almost no good in knowing that you have Star Crusher set, since they would've assumed so naturally, and you don't lose extra hand by setting it from the hand (it's still somehow a wash even if you do that, which is so unfair).

I am the wind

There's a reason why Katana World can be competitive solely off of the ability to counter opponents. It's because their counters are pretty ridiculous, like Art of Explosive Hades Fall. The ability to Set 1 card and pay 1 gauge to destroy any Size monster would have been good enough. Hell, the spell even allows you to take a card out of your deck and compress it a bit more (not to mention searching out Size 1's to revive for Skull Warriors). But oh wait, the activation also deals 2 direct damage to the opponent at the same time. What? How is that even fair? Advantage-wise, you're already getting +1 from the card. But the fact that you can destroy any Size card means that this card is in fact something like a Dragonic Destroy, except with 1 gauge less and 2 extra damage tacked on. Of course, you have to predict your opponent's calls but that should be a piece of cake, provided that you actually read up on common builds for each world. For example, if you use Art of Explosive Hades Fall against an Ancient World deck and soulsearch a Size 1, then you seriously deserve to lose.

If you're going to use Clear Serenity, please do not run more than 1. Katana World decks are not that gauge-heavy, and you should be able to get by fine without it.

Disposable swords!
Buy 1 get 1 free!

I don't approve of Elite Sword, Mikazuki Munechika. The way of the samurai is to ditch your body for honor. You never ditch your sword. Ever. Anyways, suicide sword (new name) is a free-to-equip item that has 5000 power, 2 crit, and Penetrate. It is removed at the end of your turn. This turns the -1 investment into the weapon into a -1 cost without any prospects of a long-term payback. However, it does get a nice +2000 power and free Penetrate, costed at +1. It ends up being a beneficial wash, in a way.

Instead of treating suicide sword as a weapon, it's more appropriate to treat it as a spell. Rephrase the effect like so: "During your battle phase, if your center is open and your opponent has a monster with 5000 or less defense in their center column, destroy that monster. Otherwise, reduce the defense of the monster by 5000. If the monster is destroyed, or if your opponent's center is open, deal 2 damage to your opponent." From this point of view, we see that at worst it's 1 card for 2 damage. That's not half bad (but a 2-crit monster will do the same job and better, acting as a shield for a turn). The one-turn Penetrate bonus is very strong, and can really push for game. Of course, you really need monsters with Move if you're going to go ham with suicide sword.

Shuriken throw

Shooting Cross Knives, Right-hand and Spinning Windmill Knives, Back-hand. These are cards that seem like noobtraps to experienced players, because they telegraph an entire strategy and can be easily predicted. But you know what? That's the whole point. If your opponent knows that you have these cards in your deck, then your opponent has to deal with the possibility of these scary traps activating at any moment's notice. And they are certainly scary. Complete field wipe granted for 1 gauge. And during the attack phase, no less. I recommend running a copy of each in every Katana World deck for the unspoken threat these cards provide.

When your opponent sees one, just a single one of these cards, your opponent must be prepared for the possibility that you may have this in your hand, even if you don't. The main power of these cards is not in actually playing them, but revealing them. Once your opponent sees this card, the game's already been pressured into your favor. Your opponent will willingly ignore "weak" monsters on the side just to avoid setting off the trap. When you refuse to Move a monster from the left or move it to the right, then your opponent is going to read way too much into that and make preemptive and non-optimal choices. Reason being, getting hit by a Right-hand or Back-hand field wipe really hurts. The bluff works only because the threat behind the bluff is real and painful.

Kurae!

That being said, you still need to use these cards wisely. If you want to threaten Right-hand or Back-hand, then don't put a high-threat monster to the side. High-threat units like Wanderer the Gold are going to be taken out regardless because your opponent faces a lose-lose situation: either attack Gold and possibly get wiped, or leave Gold alone and definitely get wiped. Obviously your opponent would rather possibly get wiped rather than assuredly get wiped. But when you leave a monster like Hayate or Linzo to the side, your opponent's choices now look like: A. Attack the not-that-threatening monster and possibly get wiped, or B: Leave the not-so-threatening monster alone and deal with a not-that-threatening +1. Suddenly, giving you +1 doesn't seem as bad as taking a chance of getting nuked. Which is not true, given the probabilities of each happening, but nobody likes gambling on uncertainty. Your opponent has no idea how many copies of each you have in your deck. You can use this to your advantage.

As a player trying to avoid setting off Right-hand and Back-hand, remember to attack with all your units before targeting the left or right columns.

Geppakugiri is a one-for-one counter. I love it. Short, sweet, and beautiful when paired with Tsukikage. Also, thanks to the wording of Skull Warriors, you can use this card at the end of the turn when they kill themselves. Note that if you To Darkness them with Yamigitsune, they no longer seppuku and this card doesn't get its timing. Also, you can cast multiple copies of this card at once, but only if it isn't during combat. In other words, if your opponent kills your Skull Warrior during battle you can only cast 1 in response, but if your Skull Warriors destroys itself with its effect then you can spam as many of these as you want.

Cherry Blossom
Snowstorm

Oh, wow, we get a spell negate too? Demon Way, Sakurafubuki is just too unfair. Since Sakurafubuki is a spell negate, the playing of the spell (-1 from hand) is canceled out by the fact that your opponent also played a spell and -1'd from his hand. In terms of net advantage, it's at equilibrium. So then, Sakurafubuki is essentially paying 2 life to stop the effect of the opponent's spell. This is just downright amazing. Blue Dragon Shield? Nullified. Grandfather Clock? Nullified. 2 life is such a measly cost in comparison, and the only reason this card isn't spammable is the fact that Katana World can't heal consistently.

Curse of the Ice Mirror

While Right-hand and Back-hand counters attacks to the side, Demon Way, Noroihikagami counters attacks to the center (due to this, it's more suited for Skull Warrior decks, hence a Demon Way). You can pay 1 gauge and nullify any attack to a monster in the center, provided it isn't a link attack. That's pretty good already (-0.5 opportunity cost), but then if the attacking monster is a Size 2 or lower, it dies. Pretty awesome. Combining this card with Kashinkoji will force your opponent to attack Kashinkoji with 1 monster alone that you can subsequently destroy. Even if you can't destroy the monster (it's a Size 3), remember, sometimes it's in your benefit to block the attack anyways. Like blocking a Penetrate attack. Noroihikagami works well as a bait and functions adequately as a shield. What's not to love?

Don't worry, you're only
going to half-die

Both Sword Skill Bare Hand Intercept and Ninja Arts, Half-kill grant a situational +1, depending on what kind of attack the spell is countering. Bare Hand Intercept blocks the attack of a weapon to a monster and draws a card (+1 to hand), while Half-kill blocks the attack of a Soulguard monster and removes the soul of that monster (+1 to field). The former is pretty bad since not all decks run weapons and getting a random +1 to the hand isn't all that great. Half-kill, on the other hand, is pretty legit. Soulguard is an extraordinarily common and popular ability, so Half-kill will likely see usage in most games. It severely damages the likes of Geronimo and utterly neuters Astaroth, Duel Sieger, and Meteor Rain. It also counters Ultimate Buddy! as well.

Set 3 brings in several new techniques for Katana World Ninjas. In particular, Snake Gaze is quite impressive but since that spell works well in tandem with a few other cards, I'll talk about it in the Ninja article. Rest assured, the ability is useful in all Katana World decks. Remember to counter before the attack is declared, otherwise the attack still goes through.

Onimaru, Saika,
Muramasa

Katana World gets a new badass weapon. Five Heavenly Swords, Onimaru is a 6000/3 for 1 gauge. When Sunshine Impact is 6000/2 for 1 gauge, you know that Onimaru must have some kind of catch. Onimaru's catch (if you could really call it that) is that on-equip it top-soulcharges 2 as its life meter. Every time it attacks or ends up being at rest somehow, it must discard a soul. If it can't discard any more souls, then it goes to the drop zone. That means that Onimaru has 3 attacks before it's gone. That's plenty.

Before, when we calculated weapon investment, we said the equip cost is a down payment of sorts for an indefinite investment. However, with Onimaru, we have a set time limit and thus we can fully calculate how much Onimaru is worth. Equip cost is -1.5. Every turn, in exchange for an attack from a center-column monster (-1 per turn), you can instead attack with Onimaru (+1.5 as a weighted attack). That means that in 3 turns, Onimaru comes out as a perfect wash. That's what Bushiroad thinks is balanced, anyways. Onimaru certainly comes out on top in the quality department. 6000 power 3 crit is like a Size 2 monster, and Onimaru threatens both field control and damage simultaneously without giving up on either. And the fact that it mills through your deck faster is really a good thing, especially for Skull Warrior decks who want to be able to mill their attackers ASAP.

Dark Ninja Technique, Poison Mist Formation. -2 gauge, -1 card (set), +1 direct damage every subsequent turn. It pays off after 3 turns. Just a math dump here.

Guderian? Eh, close...

We've been getting a lot of field wipes lately. Secret Arts, Dance of the Guardian Swords is just another one of them. Since the name is long, I'll just call it "Gurdian" in honor of the previous typesetting mistake in the first-edition print (I actually have a copy of the mistake card). Gurdian, mathematically speaking, is sound. -4 gauge, -1 card (-3 total advantage) to destroy potentially 3 cards on your opponent's field. Gurdian, practically speaking, isn't very good. You need to have a weapon (-1 conditional), you need to be targetted by an attack, and the attack needs to be from a monster. And the cost is ridiculously high. When you've got Right-hand and Back-hand, the chance of trapping your opponent with those super obvious cards is probably more likely than the chance of having enough gauge to actually use Gurdian effectively.

Set 5: Katana World gets Oops!

Strike with the Back of My Sword! I thought archaic names were supposed to be a Purgatory Knights thing. Anyways, this spell is actually really good. It trades 1 card for 2 direct damage whenever you hit with a weapon. That's a +0.5 transaction and you can drop as many of these as you want simultaneously during that Play Timing. If you have enough cards in hand, you can basically spam these until your opponent is practically dead and threaten KO with either Secret Sword or Explosive Hades Fall. It doesn't even cost gauge so the card is very potent.

Halley's strike!

Finally, there are three Secret Swords to address in this set. The first is Comet. Comet sucks. The trap conditions are A. You must be attacked by a single monster, B. The monster must have 5000 power or more. Once this is fulfilled, you can kill the monster and deal 3 damage. Wait. Something's missing. Where does it say the attack is nullified? Guess what, it doesn't. That means if the monster somehow doesn't die (Soulguard, other effects) and your opponent doesn't lose from 3 damage, then you still take the attack. How sad. The conditions are already really hard to achieve and once they are achieved, the end effect is pretty weak and not completely foolproof like the previous Secret Swords. 3 gauge is not worth this effect.

Rise and shine to pain

The second is Morning Star. Wow, it's the same freaking effect, except it targets monsters with 3000 power or less instead. Wait wait wait. That means that 4000 power can't ever be targeted by Secret Swords? What kind of weird loophole is this...and why does this seem so familiar? Oh, hey, it's like Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death in Hearthstone. Is Ninja the new Priest deck? And how would Bushiroad in Japan copy Blizzard's values for targeted destruction? Strange coincidence. I'm not sure what to make of either card other than the fact that both are worthless.

*~Kira kirarin~*

Those were both rares. How is it that the uncommon one is the most playable and viable out of them all? Glittering Star activates when you're targeted with a link attack. This time, Bushiroad finally fixed their mistake. You can actually nullify the attack now! You don't get to destroy any monsters, but you do deal 5 damage in return, which is far more than the 3 you normally do. That increase in damage is easily enough to dissuade anybody from attempting to link attack a Katana player directly. You can use this to your advantage and maximize Art of Body Replacement without worrying about the hard-to-find PR nullifiers.

Fire at will!

New Impact! This one's for the giggles. Ninja Arts, Art of Bursting Machine Gun is just the funniest thing. You know what's even more interesting? I'm watching Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha Vivid Episode 10 as I'm writing this, and nothing could be more fitting. Bunshin heaven here we come! Actually, a lot of people might be confused what this card might actually be used for. I mean, yeah, it's a complete +1 but you're just getting max copies of a single Size 1, and there's a good chance there might only be two or fewer left in deck. So why would you use Bursting Machine Gun? What's good about a ton of Size 1's in hand? Well, Katana has some pretty solid choices for Size 1s, like Yukishiro and Nezumijiro. Remember that Gokuen likes to have lots of things to ditch from hand to keep him strong. For play-making ability, using this to get your entire playset of Agent Ninja, Mamiya can allow you to set 4 different Secret Swords under a Lethal Formation, all without losing hand. And if you're running some Skulls in your deck, grabbing a whole ton of Hiunmarus and Makaizou is pretty great as well.

Murasame isn't on the site yet, but know that it's basically a pay 1 life draw a card in Katana World, and in Ninjas converts further into a soul for Tsukikage, an extra attack for Byakuya, or even more Draw with Shiden. So good card? Yeah. But 4-of? No. Actually, you probably don't even want to rely on Murasame as a primary weapon since it's so ethereal, and you probably don't want to be paying life every turn for a dead card. The best use for it is to run it at 1-2 copies and treat it like a weapon version of Count Dawn - grab it when you need it, and equip it if you must.

I won't die so easily

New Impact...not Secret Sword! Or rather, it's a Secret Sword that doesn't need Lethal Formation to be cast (but still can be cast from Lethal Formation). You can cast it on your turn to surprise deal 2 extra damage to your opponent. Otherwise, you can wait until you die, then surprise! drop your entire hand and live once again (while dealing 2 damage). Pretty funny, if you ask me. You can definitely fit this into any deck that has Secret Swords to add an extra element of surprise to your game.

There was an issue before where link attacks against a big center would potentially be unblockable, preventing Katana World from utilizing their strong tanking cards and Gojo Bridge to force attrition. Now, Sword Skill, Sen no Sen fills in that void by being a fabulous link negate that also counter destroys an attacker. This really makes Gojo-style play with tanky centers a very real and scary thing.

Baka baka!

Demon Way, Fool's Festival is pretty funny, especially if you have a tank on the left or right that you can absorb attacks with. It's not a good card yet, but there's definitely potential. For now, it works alright with 6000 defense Size 1's that you can call and it helps redirect Penetrate.

Run Elite Sword Dojigiri with Five Heavenly Swords Onimaru. Choose between 5000/2 with Penetrate or 6000/3 with 3 uses. Win-win.

I would be more hype about Tempest Sword, Makiarashi, but the Hundred Demon TD came with a better one. It's honestly more worthwhile to pay that extra gauge and get an extra permacrit on a weapon that can attack through a center.

- updated to H-BT02, CP01, H-EB01, H-TD02, PP01 -

All images used obtained from the official Bushiroad website and used here solely for reference purposes. Future Card Buddyfight!, logos, and respective content belong to Bushiroad. Large images belong to the Buddyfight! Wikia.