Beastly Mage

N-835 Ino Yamanaka [AWARENESS]
 
Still no new sideboard...sad face...and it seems preview season is getting all up in full swing; we're getting into it here.  And on that note, the PA chunin that I'll be judging draws closer...like a snake!
 
First preview card of WOF and it's...yeah, it's kind of sad.  I was hoping we'd start big, memories of Bashfulness, the 1st and 2nd, and other dance through my head.  And I check my inbox today and I see a new Ino and...yeah...let's check out her stats, shall we:
 
T0 HC0 Earth
Leaf l Genin l Female l Mental Power: 1 l Medical l GROWTH
0/2 0/2 CA:Mind/Medicine
Set 17: Common
 
It's stat'd for a T1, but that doesn't really mean anything, as this Ino has a worse stat pool than she's used to.  All the normal bells and whistles for Ino are here; Female, Mental Power, Medical are all nice, but on this ninja it doesn't mean a lot, and there's better Inos in block.  Mind doesn't really do a lot on this ninja, since she's not a chunin, but Medicine is pretty useful in med decks.  But this is an effect ninja, so let's check that out, shall we:
 
[AWARENESS]
During the Mission Phase, you can reveal 1 Jutsu card from your hand and move it to the bottom of your Deck.  In that case, draw 1 card.
 
If it was discard, I would really like this card...discarding would be awesome.  It'd be kind of a combo piece, but it wouldn't be horrible.  I'd like to think that they were tired of allowing us to cycle ninjas an instead decided to do it with the second most played type of card in most decks.  But putting it to the bottom of the deck is just...it kills this card to me.  It really has no synergy except with Ninja Info Cards, so maybe Water might like it.  Beyond that, I doubt it'll see play.
 
Limited: 2.5/5 Very average here, the effect might actually be useful here
Constructed: 1.25/5 No use here at all
Block: 1.5/5 Just slightly better here
Art: That's such a J idol pose that it hurts!/5

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4/23/10 Ino Yamanaka
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Today's card is our first exclusive Pojo preview for set 17!!!!! It's another Ino, who is quite good in some cases. For starters, she has a stat boost of being 0/2 instead of 1/1 or 0/1. Her effect is like a dumbed-down version of Shino/Kiba's but with Jutsu instead of Ninjas and you only draw one card. A pretty solid effect, but I personally like to keep as much jutsus in my hand as I can, but if you are in desperate need of a draw, you can toss out your useless jutsu to get a new card.

Another interesting thing about her effect is that it can be activated during either player's turn. This can be used to possibly quickly cycle your deck out. Additionally, she has Medical at turn zero, so she is a great curve in Medical decks (although she'll probably be used as a T1 drop).

The only problem with her is whether to run her over Enticement, Get Well Soon Gift, and Pressing... it all depends on your deck type, but no matter what you choose, you cannot go wrong.

Limited: 4/5 Zero drop and good effect, plus it's common.
Constructed: 3.75/5 Great card for cycling through your decks
Block: 3.75/5 After rotation, this card will be see more play since there are less Ino's to choose from.

Random Banter: How come Bandai makes so many good Ino cards? Back in the day, we had Formation which was killer (and it's still great today). Now we have Pressing, GWSG, Enticement, and now Awareness. How come they don't give great effects to other useless ninjas in the show?  Also, is it just me, or is the [AWARENESS] is printed seem a little off?