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Konichiwa, and welcome, to the first offshoot of Colonel Mustachio's Card Reviews strategy series: the Mantis Reviews! And it's rather fitting that we begin with...
Ascension of the Mantis - Event - Double-Rare - The Hidden Emperor (Episode 3)
GAME TEXT: Choose a province in play. If you bow more Personalities and Followers than that player has total Force in play (or the Province strength if it's higher) then you take control of that province, adding it to the right of your rightmost province and lose 7 honor. The card in that province is discarded. Cards attached to the Province remain attatched.
This is one of those cards that should go in every deck.
Not because it's especially easy to pull off. In fact, there are very few Clans which can pull it off. But Ascension of the Mantis is worthy of inclusion simply due to the fact that you never want to lose one of your Provinces without a fight. And this is one of the all-time nastiest ways to lose a Province: watch as your opponent annexes it!
Granted, on the surface, it looks pretty easy to pull off. Just bow a bunch of Personalities and Followers, lose seven honor, and swipe your opponent's rightmost Province. You even get to keep attatched cards, like your Crab opponent's Fortifications, or your Naga nemesis' River Deltas. The advantages inherent in actually gaining control of one of the opposing player's Provinces should be fairly easy to see, but, just in case there are any nearsighted folks out there, it's worth explaining. Gaining an extra Province gives you a speed advantage, since you're refilling more cards each turn. If your opponent's a Crab or another high-Province strength player, you also have an extremely durable Province. Also, since this is the other guy's Province, you've just narrowed the military victory gap--if he had four Provinces before, he only has three. It also makes it harder to take you down by force of arms, since you now have five areas of attack, where you previously had four.
Of course, with a card this good, there are disadvantages. And Ascension of the Mantis has so many that it remains in the realm of "nifty cool-type cards" than anything else. Most obvious is that huge 7-honor hit. Unless you're playing the Shadowlands Horde of Junzo-Scented Freshness, this will sting. It's enough to set a tight honor-runner back several turns from the win, and, depending on the Clan you're playing, you can't afford to lose seven whole points of honor, since it takes you below the point where you can get Personalities out. But this can be taken care of with the Imperial Favor, or Empty Words, or any number of honor loss-reduction cards. Far more prohibitive is the concealed cost of Ascension of the Mantis: the provision that you must bow a number of Personalities and Followers equal to your opponent's total Force. Or his Province strength, whichever's higher at the time. This means, at a minimum, you must ordinarily bow five separate cards to take Ascend successfully. Is this such a big deal?
Not early in the game, when both players are building up. But, when Ascension of the Mantis arrives later on, you may find yourself unable to take advantage of it. Let's say your opponent's playing military. He's bound to have at least eight or nine Force out by turn five or six. Or Shadowlands. Shadowlands builds up extremely quickly. What if the other player's got Oni no Akuma out? That's six cards bowed alone. It's easy to see how fulfilling this Event's conditions can easily leave you bowed out. Bowed out...and ripe for an all-out attack by your angered opponent. In fact, a mid- or late-game Ascension of the Mantis robs you of the card's prime advantage, namely, that extra Province, by leaving you vulnerable to losing far more than a single Province. Unless you've got cards like Courier Pigeon in hand, Ascending will hurt you more than it hurts your opponent...unless, of course, he only has one Province left, in which case, you might as well go for it. And if it comes up early, in the first two or three turns? Unless you've gotten three Tokus and three Swamp Spirits in your opening draws, you can kiss it goodbye.
Nevertheless, Ascension of the Mantis can indeed be played. Only by certain Clans, but it can be played. Looking at the various factions in Rokugan, let's see who can really use this well:
--Brotherhood of Shinsei: While the House of Tao Stronghold now allows truly viable military or honor-running Monk decks, their pool is still a bit shallow when it comes to gold production. This puts a limit on the number of Followers they can conceivably attatch per turn, although a massive amount of early Personalities could enable the House to use an Ascension. Then again, many new Monk decks tend to be quite swift, indeed, making it rare to even see most of the Events in there. And the Monks don't have verey many "-" honor requirement Personalities to make up for the -7 hit.
--Crab: Well, Crab's definitely got the Province Strength to be able to snag a Province later on in the game. However, I've not seen a Crab deck yet which relies on getting a bazillion Personalities out early on. Not even a CCD. Besides, with the spate of Crabs which actually have honor requirements, that 7 honor can hurt.
--Crane: Are you kidding? Even if you're monopolizing the Favor, too many things can go wrong when a card makes you lose 7 honor. And, unless the deck in question is Iron Crane, there usually isn't a huge number of the Men(?) In Blue out. Besides, you don't want to ruin your pianist's hands. :)
--Dragon: An I'll Swallow Your Soul deck could conceivably pull off an Ascension, and this could really help a Mountain Keep deck which has lost several Provinces already. The problem is that the solitary Dragon rarely have enough Personalities or Followers out to really make this work very often. And a Dragon honor-runner is often even tighter than a Crane.
--Lion: If you're playing an LSD, the game should be over by the time the Ascension arises. And the Lion have notoriously high honor requirements: even the Akodo Stronghold will go down to zero after Ascension.
--Naga: Now, here's a Clan which can play the Ascension effectively! Even Shinomen Forest Naga gets out tons of Personalities and Followers early, thanks to the 4-per-deck Stronghold and River Deltas. And, as we all know, the Snakes really do not care very much about honor--losing 7 just means they have to be a little more careful when selling stuff on the Black Market.
--Phoenix: Once again, a Clan which will either have a few beefy Personalities out, or just can't take losing the 7 honor.
--Scorpion: The Scorpion, as everyone knows, actually smiles when losing honor. That's just another chance for Goshiu to capitalize on the faults of others. Unfortunately, it also necessitates having a huge military force out...something that the Scorps aren't exactly notorious for.
--Shadowlands Horde: The Shadowlands could make use of this...if they weren't relying on big Ogres and Oni all the time. A Goblin Deck, on the other hand...well, let's just say that Ascension of the Goblins sounds very funny.
--Toturi's Army: Toku! Toooookuuuuuu!!
Well, aside from Toku, Toturi just isn't fast enough to take full advantage of the Ascension. However, losing the honor, like the Naga, means next to nothing for them. If TA ever starts to really speed up, look out!
--Unicorn: Another toy for the Purple Pony People! The Emperor's magistrates can bring out even more Follower tokens than the Naga, with Otaku Baiken and the Otaku Meadows, and, if they're of the Otaku Palaces persuasion (like there's any other kind), they have no fear of bowing everybody. The only big problem is losing the 7 honor. But that can be taken care of relatively easily.
--Yoritomo's Alliance: Sad as it is to say, we of the Mantis just can't take full advantage of this card. We usually aren't fast enough out of the starting gate to pull the Ascension off early, we never really get high enough to avoid the 7 honor loss, and--time to face the music--bowing everyone leaves us dead. True, there is some potential in using Farmlands and Levy Troops for enough token dudes to Ascend, but is it really worth it? Unless you're building your deck around this Event (and previous examples, like the Four Walls deck, have never fared very well), not really.
So, why would you want to put this nifty, but ultimately difficult to play, Event in your deck? Simple: to keep the other guy from using it. You don't want the Snakes or the Ponies to get one of your Provinces without a fight. Let the Ascension come up, fizzle without making you lose honor, and lean smugly back in the knowledge that the Mantis can Ascend much more gracefully and easily.
Rating (from 1 to 10): 5.0 (+5 points for coolness...or if you're playing Naga)
Nick Zube
"Colonel Mustachio"