Beastly Mage

Jiraiya

The young version of Jiraiya packs a few things, some of them quite nice. First, the effect. Victory or Outstanding Victory equals hand control (which in this game is quite good). Second, he has growth, which means that if you play him right you don't have to deal with the bad part of this card... the 2 hand cost! In limited this card is good, but drafting enough lightning cards is the downside.

Ratings:

Limited: 2/5

Constructed: 4/5

Art: Not so pervy.../5

Jiraiya [Eccentric Man of the Village]

Wow. This card is such a beast. Once this card gets going, itʼs almost impossible to stop. I mean looking at your opponents hand and choosing a card to discard is massive and almost impossible to recover from. He gets it whether he wins an Outstanding BR or an Outstanding Victory, so you canʼt chump block or let it through without getting screwed.

But letʼs talk about downsides. The hand cost of 2 will make you cringe. This limits what decks can use this card. Also lightning lacks removal and negation jutsu. But this card can combo very well with a Shonen Jump promo card known as In Awe of the Legends. When you play this mission, if you have a Sannin, your opponent cannot use missions or jutsus for 2 turns. Combo this with Jiraiya and Shadow Clone Jutsu and thatʼs pretty much game.

This card has massive potential. Itʼs tricky to make a deck that can use him effectively since lightning has more early game aggression but this card has massive potential.

Jiraiya [Eccentric Man of the Village]

      This entire week we will be continuing to look at Lineage of the Legends, the newest set of Naruto that released August 29th. Today, we will be looking at Jiraiya [Eccentric Man of the Village], which is unlike any of the other Sannin that are out there.

      Jiraiya is a Leaf Ninja with Sannin, Male, and Growth characteristics. He is also a turn 5 Ninja of the Lightning element, which opens a lot of doors.

Lightning does not have a solid 5 slot Ninja, and with Jiraiya, I believe he could be that missing threat Lightning now has. The only downside of Jiraiya being a turn 5 is the 2 Lightning hand cost in order for him to come into play. Continuing forward, his effect states:  When this Ninjas team wins an Outstand Victory or Outstanding Battle Reward, look at all the cards in your opponent’s hand and discard 1. Jiraiya is a 7/2 power in himself, so your team by turn 5 should be able to easily get an outstanding victory or battle reward assuming your opponent does not block them. The effect is really solid as it allows you to see what your opponent is up to, and it allows you to discard a card that you would not want them to have, a very solid and deadly effect. His effect is not valid, which is ok, I suppose. His injured stats are respectable as well with 5/2. Something interesting is that he has Growth as he was still young Ninja much like a lot of the youngsters in Naruto that have Growth. It’s definitely an interesting thing, but I wouldn’t recommend tossing a lot of Jiraiya’s in the deck, just so you can Growth them, it would end up hurting your curve more than likely.

      As far as the Lightning element is concerned, Jiraiya does help them a lot as it solidifies a 5 slot for them. However, they are by no means able to compete at a Mono level yet. You will probably have to playing Lightning/X in order to be successful. The only real support Lightning got from this set is the new Fourth Hokage and Jiraiya. The new tin Naruto as helps them out to a degree as well.

      Overall, Jiraiya is a really solid card if you’re seriously dedicated to playing Lightning as with his 2 hand cost, it could be quite painful for your hand advantage, which is key against decks like Over 9000. In limited, he is a powerhouse assuming you have enough Lightning cards in your deck in order to deploy him.

Constructed: 4/5

Limited: 3.5/5 [Hand Cost hurts him here]

Art: 4.5/5