Ghost Spy CotD

In Kaijudo, Darkness is lining up to be the civilization with a focus upon taking cards away from the opponent. In many cases this involves outright creature destruction such as Bone Blades, Terror Pit and Razorkinder. However, an additional strategy of discard was also introduced to us in the Battle Decks in the form of Fumes – a level 4, 2000 powered creature that forces your opponent to discard a card from their hand when entering play. For the card of the day Wizards of the Coast has presented Pojo.com with a whole new Darkness card revolving around the same discard principle…with a twist.

So, Ghost Spy is the same level as Fumes (level 4) only to be reduced to 1000 power. Rather than forcing the opponent to discard a card when he comes into play, Ghost Spy forces the discard only when he is banished. Now, understanding your Kaijudo terminology is important here. Banished includes putting a creature into the discard pile from the battle zone. So, this partially limits this function. For instance, if you are forced to discard Ghost Spy he does not trigger. If he is removed from the battle zone into the mana zone once again no trigger.  However, the most common means of a creature being placed into the discard pile IS directly from the battle zone into the discard pile. Because of this, Ghost Spy is more likely to trigger if he is gotten rid of then not.

If Ghost Spy stopped in his ability there then Fumes would be considerably better and we’d have to ignore Ghost Spy for the superiority of Fumes. Ghost Spy doesn’t stop there, though. Additionally, when banished the controlling player also draws a card.

 Net card advantage wise Fumes and Ghost Spy are equal. For instance Fumes is -1 card for the opponent therefore +1 card advantage for you. Meanwhile Ghost Spy is -1 card for the opponent, -1 card for you (banishment of Ghost Spy) and +1 card to draw for you which comes out to +1 card advantage for you also.

The greatest difference between the two cards is how the opponent reacts to them. With Fumes once he is in play the damage of the discard is done and banishing Fumes only produces favorable results for the opponent. For Ghost Spy the damage to the players hand is looming in the future and they have to choose if it is better to tie the tourniquet now and prevent the loss of shields or save it for later. This psychological advantage may force the opponent to second guess themselves causing them to make incorrect choices thus granting you the advantage.

Overall, I believe we are going to have to see a WHOLE lot more cards before we can completely assess the value to Ghost Spy in constructed play. Still, I’d like to tank Wizards of the Ghost for granting Pojo.com the opportunity to preview this card for the Dojo Edition – with boosters releasing this week!