Power. What is power? Is “power” an abstract idea created by humans to define and balance hierarchies? Kingdoms of the past and individuals vie for the right to hold land, stand their ground, and retain all that they hold dear to them. Without power, we are easily swept away by whatever wave comes in our direction.
And then there is Power.
As the embodiment of intelligence itself, Power points to her forehead, signalling that she knows exactly where the muscle of genius lies, the brain. As a superb master of thinking, Power has the most methodical and calculated plan to create a swift end for your opponent. As long as you are at five cards in clock or lower, you may pay her costs, place three cards from your opponent’s waiting room to the top of their deck and deal four to your opponent. As long as you can ensure that your opponent’s top deck is clean, this should be a guaranteed four damage.
CSM/S96-020C ニャーコ (center)
CSM/S96-026CC 魔人の日常 (right)
Power debuts again as our early advantage combo. She’s a large beater during our turn, and when she attacks with her climax, she lets you check the top four cards of your deck and add either a Devil Hunter (デビルハンター), Devil (悪魔), or Animal (度物) character to hand. Furthermore, she gains an additional 6000 power against level twos that she faces for the turn. Her cat, Nyaako, sacrifices itself to swap into the level one Power combo from the waiting room while granting them a single stock double trigger ability, helping you with paying out choice triggers on subsequent combos.
Calculated, proactive, ingenious. Those are three words to describe Power’s approach. Just like Power, I also believe toilets are confounded demonic machines, overly complicated, and designed to create suffering.
Given that our combo is a one-time use effect, we’ll need secondary ways to finish our opponent off as a contingency plan. Good thing Power already had this consideration devised from the start. Power on the left is an extreme filter that discards three cards on play to search for four characters, adding three to hand and placing one into stock. On the off-chance she triggers a climax, she deals a single point of damage to your opponent. The other Power to the right is a healer that can sacrifice a character when she swings to shuffle two cards back into your opponent’s deck from their waiting room, helping to thicken their deck in hopes of helping your combo land its damage.
Another integral piece to our deck is the Power above. She pumps 2000 power to one of your characters at the start of your climax phase, but more importantly, her secondary effect lets you tap to place a character from your waiting room underneath her as a marker and scry your opponent’s deck (up to three times due to losing the ability after three markers). This is very important since you can use her to ensure the top card of your opponent’s deck is clean to guarantee that the ping four ability on the level three Power will go through.
In terms of backups, Power only has this smiling portrait above. Slot one in if you’d like to give your opponent an unexpected scare. Otherwise, backups aren’t too needed since most of Power’s abilities are during your turn anyway. Even if your early combo were to be reversed, Power can easily recycle herself through Nyaako.
Power is self-sufficient, smart, and reliable. If there’s one friend that Denji can consistently rely upon, it is this adorable and kind blood fiend. In a world that truly reflects the hardships of reality, it is sometimes important to remind ourselves that friends may come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, even if they are a blood-dependent murdering creatures from the deep dark abyss. At the very least, devils can occasionally be trusted, unlike humanity.