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Using Your Spectergrams Effectively

Hello. I’m known as vegeta000110 on the Shaman King forums. The purpose of today’s article is to analyze the spectergrams from the Reincarnation set.
As many of you know, all of the spectergrams from Reincarnation are only playable by certain shaman, and are either very cheap or very expensive to play. But are they actually worth it and are there strategies to make some more likely to be played? Let’s find out!

Viaticum (Jeanne)
Jeanne’s spectergram can be very VERY hard to play in some cases. 8/8 for 3 red just in itself is fairly expensive and if you just ‘splash’ this one in without support, it is a dead weight. Luckilly, there are ways to get this thing into the fairly reasonable range. While Feral Instict may come into mind for some, it really doesn’t do the job well. That’s where Jeanne herself comes into the picture. Her Mash’s Splendor and Angry Chair signature moves are quite ideal for gaining the red furyoku needed. And with her Soul trait, it’s even easier to charge up fast enough. Just fire one off when you face a very weak attack. Just be careful that you keep enough red in play for when a Viaticum does show up, which can be difficult with Soul and Guardian cards.

Baby Steps (Matti)
This is one of the most awkward of the spectergrams. 6/6 for 4 yellow, which is expensive, or pitch for +1/+1. Granted, you should never try to use it for the strike part, but there is some hope when you need to strike with it to save yourself from going down 1 point. While she can’t exactly pull the furyoku off of a signature move trick like Jeanne, she can benefit from Ten More Sit-Ups. And as a Body/Strike shaman, she benefits from fairly cheap costs, so 4 yellow shouldn’t be hard to keep reserved.

Negral’s Roar (Duncan)
1/1 for a green that gets +1/0 or 0/+1 bigger for each green you spend.
There really is not a whole lot of strategy behind this one. Just find a way to stockpile lots of furyoku, and spend just enough to intercept your opponent’s attack and then on force until you think you can snag a likely victory.

Amidamaru (Yoh)
This is probably one of the best teamworks in the game. Unfortunately, you need to strategize with him in order to be good. Taking advantage of cards such as Director’s Cut will assist you with this. The general rule of thumb is to keep him away from the Red zone. While it would help get you charged faster and give you a red when celebrating, he would be more of a deadweight because you want to try and strike in yellow at the latest.

Hijinks (Lola)
For 2 green, basically force your opponent to play cards if possible. This is such a great advantage, but unfortunately one of the more costly characters is only able to use this. Your best bet is to get this card, so take advantage of Lola’s Mind trait and Point Blank to assure your odds of drawing one.

Lee Pai-Long (Jun)
Pai-Long is a force to be reckoned with. While he isn’t quite Amidamaru (which would make Jun unreasonably good), he has a semi-decent effect. If you are able to pull off a green zone Big Sister and then a yellow Pai-Long, you’re set. Otherwise, just hope they don’t focus all 3 zones when you have no one in the Green zone.

Icicle Assault (Trey)
Like Baby Steps, you really shouldn’t use it outside of its pitch effect, but 4 green is easy to come by with Ten More Sit-Ups and Jun, Big Sister.
Only use it as a strike in the red zone and nothing else.

Captivate (Lyserg)
Wow. For 1 green and 1 red, steal an opposing teamwork AND charge a zone!
It goes without saying that you should aim for the best teamwork they have out on the table. That would in general mean that almost every Yoh teamwork and like Matti and Kanna from Zeke are extremely viable targets. If you ever have the unfortunate experience to go up against another X-laws character, this loses a bit of it’s effectiveness, but you know what you should yank from them at least.

Spirit of Fire (Zeke)
Anything that forces you to lose intercept permanently like this is a very bad idea, but at least SoF is no Tao En. And since Zeke doesn’t have the benefits of Body or Melee cards that boost intercept, you’ll just need to do your meta for getting around the -1 by running more strikes with slightly higher intercepts.

Ultra Cavalry Charge (Len)
Yikes. This thing has a cost of 4 red and has a very weak pitch effect! And only 4 intercept to boot. Luckilly Len has access to the Yoh and Melee types. Generally, what you would do to use Eon Crush you apply here. Make good use of the pitch effects of some of the melee cards, Ward Off, and Spirit Aim to boost UCC’s intercept or just hope for a normally punishable attack.

In closing, it is safe to say that most, if not all, of these spectergrams can be used. It is just in the eyes of the beholder whether or not it is worth running. As for whether or not you should run 4 copies of your respective spectergram is up to you, just keep in mind what else you would need to add in to make it useful. This does it for this article. Thank you for reading!