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...wait, this is our #5? This? Ummm...alright
then.
Well, Puzzle of Time is a very
unique card, to say the least. When you use one of these
cards, you're actually allowed to play 2 of them
simultaneously. Kinda reminds me of the LEGEND cards,
but at least with Puzzle here, you don't need 2 halves
to play it. That's kinda neat, I suppose.
So what do we get for playing
Puzzle of Time? Well its first effect triggers when you
play 1 Puzzle of Time, and that lets you look at the top
3 cards of your deck and rearrange them as need be.
Which, you know, that's not bad, it gives you more
information and can set you up over the course of the
next couple of turns, I'll give it that. Neat trick for
just one.
Now for 2 Puzzle of Times, you get
its second effect, which adds back 2 cards from your
discard pile into your hand. I'm just gonna start by
stating the obvious: DON'T USE THIS TO BRING BACK 2
OTHER PUZZLES OF TIME!! Seriously, it's not gonna do
anything anyway, so please don't be that guy who runs 4
copies of this just to mercilessly loop and waste time
for other people. That'd be stupid. Anywho, this is the
part of the card that does raise eyebrows and
expectations, I wouldn't doubt it. It is an amazing
ability to gain back 2 cards that you've used up during
the battle already or sent there due to Battle
Compressor - a much needed Supporter or just abuse of
Items like VS Seeker perhaps?
Here's my own thing about the card:
to get the arguably better effect, you need to be
running 2 copies already, and to really effectively run
Puzzle consistently, you should be running 3-4 copies.
Ideally, you're running the full 4 to profit off of
Puzzle's second effect twice, which means:
1) you're taking up 4 slots to
devote resources to gaining back stuff you've lost
2) there's a higher chance at least
1 of those copies will end up in the Prizes; naturally
there's always a chance of this happening, even if it's
only starting out as a 1/60th chance and increasing that
it'll end up in the Prizes, but that's the way it works
On top of that, you'll need the 2
copies of the card in your hand already, which while
there's so many ways to go about it (mostly drawing and
stuff like Skyla), it means you need ways to retrieve
those cards and get them in your hand - anyone else
seeing my minor inconvenience with this? I may just be
making a bigger deal about this than need be, but I'd
like to think the most practical way of running a deck
is using cards that get you the cards you need, not
using cards to get you the cards that get you the cards
you need.
But what do I know? I ain't that
competitive.
Rating
Standard: 3.5/5 (it's got 2 good
effects, sure, and there's no doubt it may see play even
if just the first one)
Expanded: 3/5 (but the space it
takes up to run well, in my opinion, along with the
cyclical way it may operate on - where you get the cards
first then use them to get more cards - makes me believe
that it may only work in very specific decks)
Limited: 4/5 (still, it's nice for
what it does, so expect to see a copy or two floating
around)
Arora Notealus: Puzzle of Time is a
bit like Parallel City from the last set - an
interesting concept implemented into a card to see how
it'd play. I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun to pull off,
but only time will tell if it's going to be a
competitive hit or blunder.
Next Time: An old favorite
returns!...in a new way!
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