Purification

 
 
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This article will cover a rare from Heaven & Earth, Purification. This kiho was released in the same set as the Morning Glory Castle stronghold for Phoenix. The kiho is a reaction requiring a shugenja or monk to bow to cast it [quel surprise!]. This kiho acts as essentially a short-circuit of the MGC ability. When one of your personalities is destroyed in a battle or duel, cast the kiho to put the personality in the leftmost province face-up, discarding whatever card was already there.

So, what is this for? Well, a lot of people on this list have been noting that using Danjuro outside of MGC is less useful, as he is only a one-shot. With this you can get multiple uses out of him. The one problem to note with this is that Purification is a kiho, so it can not be cast by a shugenja out of the City of Remembrance. Thus, this can be used out of KA, but not out of the one where it would be most useful. Ugh!

Still, this is a useful spell. Even out of MGC, this can be used to good effect. If one of your shugenja's is dying, you can bow the stronghold at the next oppurtunity [probably the next turn], or you can cast this right away. This gives you the same usefulness with other personalities as the MRP does with Samurai. It also allows you to use out of clan personalities, and use a similiar ability as the stronghold. I discovered this at the H & E Release tourney, when I got this and Tsuruchi Ichiro. Came in handy. Maybe not something to count on, but a useful thing for sealed.

This does have several drawbacks, however. First, this only works if the personality died due to a duel or during a battle. If he was killed by most Limited type of PKill, you are out of luck. Second, and this is like the MGC's ability, it does discard the card in the province you put the card in. Third, you do not have any choice about where you want to put the card. This usually makes no difference, but it may. Fourth, and the one most obvious, you do need an available caster to cast it.

For those on this list that are not Phoenix, the usefulness of this kiho should be obvious. For a few times, you get to treat your personalities as though they will not be gone as soon as they are destroyed. Say you have 2 personalities out, one of which is able to cast this. Your opponent attacks a province. You can stop him with the non-caster, but not without losing your personality, which you will need later on. This kiho lets you do both, plus you get to re-purchase the personality, possibly gaining their honor again. Heh, for that matter, you could recklessly attack with one low cost, high personal honour personality, with the intent of losing him, so you can gain more honour at the end of that turn. Just a thought. Or maybe you want to duel with Isawa Ochiai, the new Master of Fire, use Kharmic Strike, then use this to regain her.

As an associated bonus, this kiho does have a focus of 4, making it useful in a couple of ways.

Hope this makes you rethink card uses, and maybe include this in a deck with a couple of empty spots. Good Luck!

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