Pojo's Naruto Card of the Day
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Ratings are
based on a 1 to 5 scale.
1 being the worst.
3 = average.
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Beastly Mage
3. Gaara
of the Desert (immense power)
The Gaara that started a revolution...
This version of Gaara, the centerpiece for the "Over
9000" Deck can speed up your deck, and has access to
some killer Jutsus. Even with the shift from 40 to
50 card decks he can still be good if played right.
Remember, in any format, searching for cards is a
good thing.
Ratings:
Limited: 3/5
Constructed: 5/5
Art: The No-Eyebrows thing always freaked me out!/5
Nick 2008 Stone
Village Kage
#3
Gaara of the Desert
[Immense Power]
You all knew this one was gonna be on the list. A
meta changing card like this has to be. I have to
say, this effect combined with the already amazingly
mean jutsu Gaara has is probably one of the most
broken card effects to date (save APW in its prime).
This card, along with the one previewed yesterday
was one of the ones that helped me win the Kage last
year, so I feel I owe it a great deal. Searching out
a jutsu every turn is insane. Now we have a Kimmi
that does the same thing, but his jutsu are much,
much less threatening, so no one ever complained of
how broken it was. Combine the searching with wind’s
amazing draw power and chakra generation, and you
have yourself one stable deck. Bandai even released
the deck as a starter, making it so anyone could
have a deck that dominated the meta for a mere ten
dollars. For the most part though, this deck is a
dead type, but you still see it every now and then.
Gaara is still a force to be reckoned with, so don’t
take the deck too lightly.
Limited: 5/5
Constructed: 5/5 (At its prime) 4/5 (Now)
Saitsuof
leaves
3. Gaara of the Desert (immense power)
Now a card that inflicted even more rage at the
beginning of the year. The Infamous Gaara IP, also
known as "Oh my god, he's over 9000!!!!!!!!!" Now,
with the help of the starter decks, he was made
insanely good and easy to use. Sand Tomb and Double
Sand Blade sent shivers down opponent's spines...or
just pure anger. His stats are Kakashi like for turn
4 and his effect let him search for any Sand Combat
Attribute required jutsu on the top 5 cards of the
deck. Now, his usability has been cut down since the
new rules, so he's not even close to as effective as
before. But some people are trying to resurrect him
from the grave, so be wary of the 2nd Coming of Over
9000!!!!
Constructed: 3/5 (Not as good as before but can
still cause problems)
Limited: 5/5 (He has half a 9k deck in the starter
with him, good luck opponents)
Ryu Juini
Gaara of the Desert
[Immense Power]
Possibly THE most hated card in the game that hasn't
been errata'd to death, Gaara IP had complete
dominance over the metagame, until it's 'tragic'
loss at the 2008 Sannins.
This ninja had everything. SOLID stats, a SOLID line
up of jutsu, the ability to GET those jutsu at a
whim... he was insane. He is still a good ninja,
mind you, but the 50 card deck limit, and the
abundance of OC Ninjas on the meta floor has put
Gaara in the backburner.
Perhaps one day he will see play again? Pffft.
N. Jolly
3. Gaara of the Desert-Immense Power
Now we get to the other elephant in the room, Gaara
9k, as he's known. He's a T4, 5/2 4/0 Genin with
Sand, and the effect of when he's sent out to
battle, look at the top 5 cards of your deck and
pull one jutsu with Sand combat attribute to your
hand, then put the rest of the cards on the top of
your deck, and
shuffle. This in effect should always give him a
jutsu to use, which as you know, is something that
makes him very dangerous.
This was the dominate deck until the last Sannin
event, when people started to get over it, the new
rule changes went into effect, and 9k was made from
the top tier deck into a 2.5 tier deck or lower.
With awesome stats for a turn four, genin ranking,
and an awesome effect, it's no suprize how this card
managed to hold onto the game for so long. But it
wasn't just him that did it, it was also his awesome
support network.
Gaara is a good character overall, and he deserves
his own deck, as do the other main characters, but
with the 50 card deck, he's lost a lot of steam, as
well as the OCs being invincible to his effects,
which makes him more worthless, and that isn't what
should have happened to this card. It was the game
for awhile, and even though people didn't like it,
it's a big part of the history of
this game, and I'd like to see it come back to
prominence.
Constructed: 4/5 It's still good, but needs changes
to the meta to become great again
Limited: Amount of Gaara jutsu you pull/5
Art: 4/5 Great art, makes him look massive, but
shows the size of his forehead way too much.
Poo
Toucher
First off let me apologize about yesterday....I
forgot :p
Today we are talking about 1 card, 1 card that
changed naruto forever and reigned supreme over 6
months to point even the national even was heavily
dominated by this 1 card, I am talking about Gaara
of the Desert, Immense Power from Battle of Destiny
(set 8)
Let it be known in the beginning, I saw those monkey
shaped ears and passed it off (the day of release),
but after it showed at the New Jersey Jonin to be a
card to bring Wind as an element out of the cellar,
I along with thousands became interested in this
card, March 14th, 2008. That is when Gaara became
the meta.
Gaara reined supreme by playing multiple jutsu cards
in a single turn, he did this by abusing the best
draw engine in the game of naruto, Sakura's Decision
from Coils of the Snake (set 2) to injure Shikamaru
& Temari from Battle of Destiny (set 8) to draw 5
cards along with his effect to search out 1 of the
jutsu in the top 5 of the deck. Add to it that his
primary jutsu Sand Tomb (set 8) was only 2 chakra,
and you have a very dangerous decktype.
The next big Jonin was in Minnisoda, a lot of people
tried to discredit MN for it's size and location,
but it turned out to be a really solid top 8, this
is the last time in his reign that he would fail to
top 8 a jonin or higher event, Gaara was that big of
a deal.
Georgia Jonin was next, this was when an entire deck
was designed to counter the Gaara decks, but he
managed to get 3 of the top 8 decks. In the end it
came down to a Gaara based deck and a deck built to
counter everythin that deck did, you can guess the
results of this one.
Then the Chosen starter decks were released, in one,
a Gaara Theme deck complete with 2 Gaara's and 2 of
his amazing jutsu Sand Tomb, meaning 20 dollars
could buy you the skeleton of the current meta deck.
But that's not all, contained in the starter deck is
2 copies of a new Gaara Jutsu called Double Sand
Blade (set 9) that for 1 wind and 1 generic chakra,
you can flip a coin and give 1 ninja either 1 or 2
damage based on how you flip, giving Gaara not just
1 but 2 versital jutsu. One of the things that made
Gaara decks were that you could remove multiple
ninjas regardless on where they were on the table, a
very powerful thing.
Oregon hosted their Jonin next, 2 of their top 8
were Gaara based. The entire toruny came down to a
Gaara deck (hybrid wind earth) and the deck
specificly designed to beat it. Being as I was one
of those people it burns me to say that the Gaara
deck was not victorious. Naruto players had a
blueprint on how to beat Gaara, but it wasn't over
yet.
The Objective of the Wind Earth Gaara deck was to
abuse Gaara having Genin, using cards like Ninja
Academy from Path to the Hokage (set 1) and Hinata
Hyuga Ointment (set 6) to not only fre play Gaara
two turns earlier, but also have it heal at the end
of each of your turns.
The A-Kon Sand Kage was next, we are entering the
prime of our new format (the Chosen set 9) so
Gaara's time should be about up? wrong! 6 of the top
8 were using and abusing Gaara, and the finals was
indeed a Gaara v. Gaara one. The victor abusing a
very special Jutsu that not a lot of people saw
potential in, Sand Levitation from the Chosen (set
9) The game seemed to take one giant step back.
Origins and the Cloud Kage was set to be "the who's
whose of the Naruto Gaming world" and it did not
disapoint, only 3 of the top 8 were Gaara based
(only 23 days after A-kon) and the Finals were not
Gaara, It ended up Mono-Fire vs. Tempo. The Raikage
started a bit of a trend in Naruto with tempo for a
few months (myslef included) and it seemed like we
had multiple answers to this beast called Gaara.
Florida's Mist Kage was a great example of how
amazing those starter decks were, it was said that
the Mizukage for 08 came down to the event and
bought 2 starter decks, changed in the Shikamaru &
Temari Platoon with 1-2 more cards and won the
entire event! Gaara was only seen in 2 decks but
when one is a starter modifyed and it won. Gaara was
a lot of things, and accessible was definatly one of
them.
Anime Expo Leaf Kage, the last one before the
national event. half of the top 8 was comprised of
Gaara, Lightning vs. Lightning Wind Hybrid was the
Final, and I was never prouder to be a member of the
leaf.
By July we had seen a number of counter messures to
this guy, we had:
Lightning Aggressive, a deck that relied on beating
the opponent before Gaara was played, capitalizing
on Winds lack of early game.
Tempo, it was a deck that would have the game
wrapped up before turn 4, so Gaara wasn't as
effective.
Wind Earth Hybrid, It had every counter for things
Gaara decks liked to do.
along with a few others, now with that in mind, we
have no officall word how many Gaara decks made top
8, but the word was it was everywhere, but the
winner chose another path. 08's Sanin or best player
desided to run a mono-fire dog deck, which sparked
more interest in Fire sterring the spotlight away
from Gaara.
The Chain rules and 50 card decks have also played a
huge part in his death. Without a offical Sanin T8
it's safe to say September 14th, 2008 was the end of
it, that's a full 6 months of 1 card dictating what
this game did, that's what makes this number 3.
Overall, he's really good and was the "it" card of
08, the finalists are cards that turned things away
from Gaara, but even in todays game he is still a
force, I know I have a new build that abuses him
(and with the new previews of the 5th Kazekage, I
expect to see more everyday)
Constructed: 4 out of 5. 1 flaw, and it turned out
to be his undoing.
Limited: 3 out of 5. Everythings rare, means it's
hard to constructed a deck
