Hello everyone. This is Tarou Kageyama, producer of FFTCG. This is already the third Card of the Week from the "Hidden Legend" booster pack, and this time we’re introducing Lightning [24-070L], included as an Earth Legend. Donning the “Dust and Shadow” garb, let's look at what kind of abilities Lightning has.
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Lightning [24-070L] is a 2CP, 7000 power Earth Forward with one auto-ability and one action ability. Its power may seem high for its cost, but its two abilities are also quite powerful, so let's take a look. First, the auto-ability reads, "when Lightning blocks or is blocked," which means this is an auto-ability activated exclusively during the attack phase. The effect allows you to choose an attacking or blocking Forward that your opponent controls and remove it from the game. Then, Lightning [24-070L] is returned to your hand. Lightning must engage with an opponent's Forward for this to activate, but even so, it’s an excellent effect that can remove an opponent's Forward from the game quite easily. This is because, in essence, you can remove any Forward that blocked Lightning's attack, or was blocked by Lightning, from the game without paying any cost. The only disadvantage is that you must return Lightning [24-070L] to your hand, but the action ability that will be described in a bit counteracts that.
From the opponent’s perspective, they may choose not to block an attack from Lightning [24-070L], but it would be quite difficult for them to attack if there is an active Lightning [24-070L] awaiting them during their own attack phase. Because this ability is resolved before the two cards deal damage to one another, simply having more power than Lightning would mean nothing. You may notice that this ability chooses a card, this means you can try to work around it with a Forward that is more powerful than Lightning and has a "cannot be chosen by your opponent's abilities" effect, but even that seems quite difficult.
Now, I mentioned earlier that the action ability counteracts this card’s disadvantage, but let's see what that actually means. This action ability can only be activated if Lightning [24-070L] is in your hand. By paying 1CP, then revealing this Lightning [24-070L] card from your hand, then removing a Card Name Lightning in the Break Zone from the game, you can play Lightning [24-070L] onto the field from your hand. Because this is an action ability, it can be activated at any time, which means this card can appear during your opponent's attack phase to take out Forwards that have attacked you. This Lightning card that returns to your hand with its auto-ability therefore acts as a major deterrent to subsequent attacks.
By the way, if this card returns to your hand with its auto-ability during attack (when it’s blocked), it can attack again if it returns to the field using its action ability and is granted Haste in some way. The most cost-effective options to do this would be Red Mage [1-121C] and Belias, the Gigas [2-019R], but Gadot [5-005R] within the same [Category (XIII)] might also be an interesting choice, as it would increase Lightning's power too.
So, what did you think of the card we introduced this time? It’s rare to see Lightning in Earth, but I hope you'll try her out! Next week, we’ll introduce a Wind Legend card. This is another character that has mostly been a Water element card until now. I’ll see you soon.