Blocked Ground

 
 
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Blocked Ground is an immediate terrain from the latest set, Hidden City. After you play it, you gain the ability "REACTION: Before a unit moves into or from this battle, destroy Blocked Ground to negate the movement." What makes this such a great card is that you can play Blocked Ground even if you do not have presence, if you are the deffender.

This is an interesting card, but seems pretty useless. You can destroy it to prevent one unit from moving in? That's all? Seems kind of limited. I agree, it is. But within those limitations, it is fairly decent.

First, it can be used to protect one province early game. If your opponent is attacking, but did not assign anyone, or did not assign everyone, and perhaps has the Ring of Water in play, this allows you to at least protect one province. He chooses the province you wish to protect, you play this as your first action [remember, even if you do not have presence], then, if he trys to send someone in you stop it. Most likely he will not even try to bypass your protection, but try to take a different province. While this means he more than likely will take a different province, it allows you to protect the one you want. Not a huge thing, but it can be pretty important. It may seem useless to discard a card this way, but it can be a good thing.

And of course there is the fact you can use this when defending when you do have an army. You play this to prevent units from moving into the battle, or alternately using it to keep a unit from fleeing your defending army. Why would you prevent an opponents from leaving? It allows you to kill that unit [if you win], and to gain honour!

Okay, what else could you use this terrain for? As an offensive measure for one thing. I don't know about other areas, but Carrier Pigeon is definitely the preferred defensive card to Spearhead locally. It allows you to not only straighten the unit involved, but actually move it into the battle involved. This terrain can be used to stop that from happening. Of course you will need to be able to play it first. That, of course, is what Sneak Attack is for. This will make them have t choose between using the Carrier Pigeon and having it canceled or letting you take the province. This is a good Rock and Hard Place choice to leave them.

Just a few thoughts on this seemingly useless card.

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