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He's been around since the very beginning, but only now have players recognized the good man behind that unsavory reputation. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, the mini-Mantis dynamo...
Yoritomo Masasue - Personality - Common - Crimson and Jade/Jade/Pearl Edition
Force: 3 Chi: 3
Honor Requirement: - Gold Cost: 2
Personal Honor: 1
GAME TEXT: Mantis Clan Mercenary. Samurai. To bring Yoritomo Masasue into play, you must discard three Fate cards.
Back in the days of Crimson and Jade, nobody had the cajones to use Masasue. Oh, the temptation was there. At three Force and three Chi for only two Gold, Masasue could either give an Alliance player one honor for bowing an Island Wharf, or just pop out for free. He looked like the ultimate speed Personality, presenting the Alliance with a first-turn Personality that didn't even bow the Stronghold...that is, until people got to his text box.
Discarding three Fate cards is nobody's idea of a picnic. Oh, sure, it helps if you've got a Ring of the Void, but most of the time you'll be needing every one of those precious Fate cards. Every Fate card is an important resource, and, with rare exceptions, a player will never even get halfway through a forty-card Fate deck before a game is over. And Masasue, although he needs precious little gold, forces you to discard three of those cards. If you wish to bring him into play on the first turn, that's over half your starting Fate hand! His prospects continue to dim if you take into account actions like Take The Initiative or One Koku, which are often used on the first turn, anyway. In a deck-building contest between a single Personality and a powerful action, the Personality tends to lose.
And lose Masasue did when he was first released. Although starving for powerful samurai, early Alliance players were a bit wary of using this baggy-eyed mercenary, because his cost, despite the protestations of his flavor text, was higher than an Oni's.
So Masasue languished in binders and boxes for over a year. But he wasn't idle. As expansion after expansion was released, Masasue's value began to rise. Various supplementary variations on common action types--Force boosters, battle enders, duels--made it possible to discard actions with a better hope of drawing a card that did the same thing in the next few turns. An increasing number of cards, such as the Grove of the Five Masters, could retrieve lost Fate cards or use them over and over. And a handful of Fate cards, spearheaded by The Path of Wisdom, were designed for the sole purpose of being discarded, recycling themselves back into the Fate hand as if they had never left.
But the most important thing to happen to Masasue was, as fortune would have it, another Personality. The standout Alliance asset of the first half of The Hidden Emperor, Bayushi Aramasu made Alliance players reconsider how they'd been using their Fate hands. With a renewed interest in discarding cards, it was only a matter of time before they rediscovered Masasue. In a heartbeat, he was out of the binders and boxes and back into play.
At first glance, the two would seem to contradict each other. Aramasu likes it when you have plenty of Fate cards in your hand, while Masasue specializes in leeching them out. But the quirky pair presents the easiest way for any Clan to bring out the Ring of the Void. If a player were, perchance, to draw the Ring in his or her opening hand, he or she could pay for Aramasu and conjur up Masasue for free, instantly going down to a two-card hand. A few Aramasu discards later, and not only was the Alliance ready to attack, with a minimum of seven Force total, but the Ring of the Void was on the table, giving Aramasu and Masasue an extra five cards at the end of the turn. And so was the METH born, a pact between two speed Personalities that became the first threatening Alliance deck type.
But even outside of METHs, Masasue received his long-overdue recognition. Armed with a Stronghold that could now produce five gold every turn, players began to appreciate a free Personality who could defend their new eight-strength Provinces while they spent their gold on their new Silk Works and Hiruma Dojos. Masasue started serving as an all-purpose stopgap Personality, who was solid and lower-than-dirt-cheap. All players had to do was discard three Fate cards, after all, and, having reconsidered their priorities, the cost wasn't looking quite as steep.
And that brings us to the present day. Although the Mantis has since received a number of other low-cost cannon fodder or high-Force bruisers, it has yet to reach the supreme economy offered by Masasue. If anything, the stalwart Mercenary's potential has risen: the miracle of Yoritomo Denkyu lets you bring Masasue into play for free and for honor. New improvements to the METH, such as Kaede Sensei, make it better than ever. And, as only the sixth Alliance Personality to receive an Experienced version, an overlaid, first-turn Masasue is a real nightmare...but we'll save that for later.
Rating (from 1 to 10): 7.0
Nick Zube
"Colonel Mustachio"