Firday Stride: Hotarumaru

Well, it finally happened. Vanguard's first fully non-Cray clan has reached the Anglosphere, and with it a whole bunch of cards who care not a jolt if you try and stick on grade 2. However, they still have some solid G units to call upon the rest of the time, so in the interest of equality let's have a look at one of them - Touken Ranbu's Hotarumaru

Adding a playable crossover will do that.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Stun Beetle was the only example of a clan's initial persona flip unit to be on-hit. Technically that's true (and for the English game I base these reviews on was completely true at the time), though it's not quite that simple. This week's card also has an on-hit persona flip, although the clan did get another persona flip at the same time, so it's only a joint first. With that out of the way, onto the effect. As mentioned, he on-hit he flips a copy of himself in the G zone, and also rests 5 rear-guard to activate a Homare ability.

Homare is one of Touken Ranbu's new keywords, and acts as a hard once per turn skill - only one Homare skill can be paid for in a single turn, regardless of which card tries to use it. This allows them to have some quite powerful skills without the same restrictions as other clans, but forces them to decide which skills are more important when.

For Hotarumaru, his skill is a very powerful one - he gets to re-stand himself, at the cost of two of his three drive checks for the rest of the turn. Though the loss of Triple Drive may seem to be an issue, he has the natural bulk of a stride unit, coupled with any triggers from the first swing, means this isn't something that can be taken lightly, especially if the opponent can't block this attack (not that unlikely, if they let it hit to begin with).

For anyone who's been following the game for any length of time, this guy has obvious parallels to Dimension Police's Commander Laurel, a much older card with a similar effect. When printed, Laurel was fairly well-balanced, however as the vanguard line has gained more power, Laurel has become more of an issue. Hotarumaru, however, provides a nice display of how Laurel would need to change to stay in check.

First up, the cost. We can't expect non-GB rear-guard skills to flip G units, and nor should we, as the early GB1 would be unfair (except on a Cray Elemental), but resting 5 vs resting 4 is a huge shift. Resting 5 means the first attack can't be boosted, which for an on-hit skill helps to keep it in check. Whilst Touken Ranbu do have a unit which can stand itself in the back row when a vanguard attacks, it's a 4k base trigger, meaning it won't make a difference outside specific combinations of your heart and your opponent's vanguard. Said unit is more helpful to the sides, as when Hotarumaru attacks he can stand a column, allowing you some extra attacks that turn.

Second, what has to be hit. Laurel can activate when a rear-guard is hit, meaning a huge vanguard can go after a relatively unimportant rear-guard for an increased chance of a hit, especially against decks who use Perfect Guards which can't protect them, Whilst you lose the guard pressure of swinging against the vanguard, you still get your extra drive checks and can usually save the booster for the second attack. Hotarumaru can't pull off this trick, and thus has to deal with any deck's perfect guards and the late-game need not to let any vanguard hit.

Third, Hotarumaru's loss of drive checks. With this, over two attacks he makes four checks, the same as any other restanding G unit, whereas a G unit stood with Laurel gets to make six. Even Nextage only makes 5, and that comes with an extra discard relative to other restanders as well as an inability for Chronojet to carry trigger bonuses. As standard, resting both rear-guard columns would save the opponent 2 10k shields, hence two extra drive checks from a grade 3 Laurel stands balances out. A G unit, however, starts to ramp up advantage very quickly.

Fourth, Hotarumaru's restand is it's skill, whereas Dimension Police's vanguards have their own skill on top of Laurel, meaning more for the opponent to deal with. Finally, there's reusability. Hotarumaru can only restand twice at best, and can only make the attempt three times before he can no longer pay the cost. Laurel is live as soon as your field is full and is live even to the end of the game.

What you shouldn't take from this is that Hotarumaru is bad. What you should be seeing is that Laurel compounds all the advantages of more powerful cards released since his début, and so he's not really healthy for the game, but that the idea is sound and thus salvageable. In this role, Hotarumaru is a solid card, and Touken Ranbu as a clan are distinct enough from the rest of the game that they're worth at least looking at.