Harvest of Death

 
 
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This rare spell from Reign of Blood is mostly ignored. Costing 4 gold, not that expensive at all, it can be very effective in the right deck. As a Maho Battle action, bow the caster to destroy a number of opposing bowed cards equal to the caster's chi. Like the Crane ninja, Hakumei, it seems pointless. Why destroy bowed cards? They are already neutralized.

The answer is, sometimes they are not neutralized. Armed and Ready is seeing more use with the new uses for items and weapons, both in Unicorn and Scorpion. This lets you destroy them before they straighten. Second, unlike other actions which destroy cards, this ignores both followers and items. If the personality is bowed, destroy it, taking any followers along with it. Of some mention is Chuichi, who is better bowed. This will take him out.

This spell is really good with decks which rely on bowing, especially Towers of the Yogo. In fact, it is really good for them, as they can attach this spell to Soshi Angai, and destroy 5 cards, and that's if she has no chi boosts. There is also Soto [less useful], and Yogo Tjeki. Any other deck which can use bowing and uses shugenja can use this spell.

A Unicorn deck which has methods of bowing people will use this to great effect. They can cast this spell once per turn without bowing, out of Shinden Horiuchi. Unicorn have plenty of shugenja to cast this, including Najato, a good boxable for them.

This spell does have the Maho trait, which some regard as a plus and others as a negative. Strangely, unlike other maho spells, this has no honour loss associated with it. Also, like all other spells, this spell does require you to have shugenja.

Just a quick look at this often overlooked spell.

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