Preview – The Receding Tide

Another preview from an upcoming pack, this time from As Honor Demands. This Phoenix card doesn’t look all too exciting, but could have a place in a future combo deck and might already trigger a ban!

Obviously this isn’t a meta shaking card on the level of Lost Papers or Contested Countryside, indeed we’re going to have to work to get any tangible benefit out of this Water role only card!

So what can The Receding Tide do? You take one of your characters and remove them from play and place them into one of your provinces. So they’ll trigger any leaving play effect and they’ll also be around to be bought the next turn, potentially triggering an entering play effect. You could use this just to keep your good character around a little longer, but to really get use out of this card you’ll be looking for the leaving and entering play effects.

As you’re having a character leave play, you really want them to be on 0 fate and bowed so their loss isn’t a big deal for you. Of course when you’re doing that they would be leaving play at the end of turn so you’re only speeding up any leave play effect slightly and getting the benefit of having them in your province.

Leaving play effects of note:

• Callow Delegate – Honor a character.
• Chancellors Aid – Discard opponent’s card.
• Disciple of Shinsei – Destroy an attachment.
• Seppun Truthseeker – Everyone draws 2 cards.
• Fawning Diplomat – Take the Imperial Favor.
• Travelling Philosopher – Turn a province face down.
• Yasuke Fuzake – Discard status tokens.
• Agasha Sumiko – Variable opponent resource loss.
• Any character with Sincerity or Courtesy.
• Gaining honor from an honored character.

Unfortunately nothing for the Phoenix. The Crane do have cheaper options which are preferable. The Seppun Truthseeker already has great potential in a combo deck and the fawning diplomat’s ability do just take the favor may have some use. Notably, the Travelling Philosopher can use this to trigger a mid-combat province flip which will let the province act a second time.

Entering play effects of note:

• Ashigaru Levy – Lets you bring Levy from discard or provinces into play
• Ikoma Prodigy – Gain 1 honor if fate added.
• Agasha Taiko – Choose a province that cannot be attacked.
• Akodo Gunso – Refill the province.
• Shinjo Gunso – Look for a 2 cost cavalry character and play them.
• Iuchi Farseer – Reveal an opponent’s province.
• Matsu Beiona – She gets 2 fate if you have 2 other Bushi.
• Benevolent Host – Make a courtier in your province.
• Favorable Dealbroker – Search deck for 1 cost character and put into play.
• Honored General – Honor the general.
• Kitsuki Yaruma – Flip a province face down.
• Ignoble Enforcers – Lose some honor to give them some fate.
• Kaiu Shihobu – Search for holdings, but this is a little redundant as you could already search for as many as you wanted and need her in play to use her action to activate them.

Obviously having to play characters again is a real pain as it means you’re paying all the fate cost again. With that in mind, none of the above are particularly exciting options. In Skirmish, you can combo this with Agasha Taiko to keep one of your provinces safe from attack over multiple turns. That’s probably too good, especially for something that should be a more casual experience, and in my personal opinion warrants a ban in skirmish for Agasha Taiko. (Edit – As others have pointed out, role locked cards like this one aren’t allowed in Skirmish, so nothing to see here!)

Getting cards into your province

One last consideration is the way this adds characters to your province. This means can be used to place Keeper Initiates into your province when you’re just about to win a ring or to place a Disguised character into a position where they can be played again changing from bowed to ready. A bowed character could be placed into a province for an Ikoma Ujiaki trigger. Scorpion could play a Shinobi with From the Shadows or Ambush.

Summary

Surprisingly, there’s not much for the Phoenix to do with this card. Unlikely to see competitive play currently, it is something worth keeping an eye on for future interactions.

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