note for some of these cards (mostly rare stuff) i had very little experience with or against them so i'm making some assumption based on experience on the field[card=50]Strike Samurai / Thunderbolt[/card]
lots of HP,average agi and enough attack to one shot most of the tank,he also come with slash which it's an awesome skill as most of the time it will make the entire front row fall,it's average agi can be a problem sometimes as you want him to act first (so he destroy the front row with slash and then your other units pick the back row) but sometimes you probably don't have the SP to spend on slash so you just want him to normaly bash stuff... he's now easier to bring out and while he's not a bad choice,dragons can probably do the job better
SS - you like hitting row for 30? what would you think of instead just hitting 2 random guys for 40? sounds better? is it
3/5 solid but you would expect a lot more for a 5 star rare
[card=51]Bounty Hunter / Elena[/card]
well there are now big creature for her to hunt but unfortunately like assasin before her,you don't wante to waste so much SP just to kill a single dragon... her stat aren't bad but they aren't that great either
SS - same as strike samurai
3/5
[card=52]Roaming Predator / Asuet[/card]
ah now this is more like it,enough HP to take the usual 30 Damage hit,enough AT to one shot tanks,he's slow but if he ranks up he gets an extra point of agi which puts him on par with standard tanks,the AT bonus is there more for his skill which let him do 50% of his AT to a random enemy unit within range,that's 25 (hear refess player screaming in agony) damage without rank up,not good enough but after ranking up he do just enough damage to one shot smaller units,that boost also let him go from "almost every tank" to "every tank" so after ranking up you can expect him to kill 2 guys (or at least 1 guy and enough damage to another tank to let him fall with the next attack) every turn assuming he doesn't get killed,also a warrior so he loves amazon buff
SS - together with steel this is the only card that will let you do both damage and mana generation,personaly i don't think a single SP can do much difference but doing damage only to a single unit does matter so in short meh :/
4/5
[card=53]Wise Swordman / Steel[/card]
ehy it's sea hunter with an extra point of agi and +10 AT and he gives a magic weapon to good little warrior (the white beard and the red frame do give it away his real identity...) the magic weapon effect also helps a lot as it usualy put unit from the standard 30 AT to the oneshot tanks 50 AT
cards who can make a good use of his gift are asuet (which will do 35 damage with his auto skill without the need of ranking up) and blitz soldier... brave soldier it's also a nice target (although chance are you are going overboard with him if he ranked up and if he's not ranked up he's going to cry and die before being able to do anything) he also make a good target for magic weapon as it puts him in the realm of 60 AT and also let him give +40 AT to other units (although maybe that's going a little too far with attack except for asuet skill)
set 2 and set 3 have given us much more but it's probably better if you look at my amazon comment
SS - what i said for asuet applies with the difference that this one target a row making it a lot more valuable
4/5
[card=54]The Red Mantle / DeFau[/card]
it's easier to splash now stuff so a lawtia/gowen deck with defau in it,it's not out of idea's (in fact it's quite easy if you add proxy to the equation) he doubles both as a SP negator and as a SP generator... chance are if you are playing lawtia and it's night you also have lycans and the more SP you have the harder it gets to kill your lycan,his stat could be better but you can't have everything i guess
SS - hard to time (your big chance to use it in the full is when both one of your unit,and the unit of your opponent are biting the dust) and i would rather kill stuff or generate SP on my own
3/5 could get better as we get better big & slow gowen unit
[card=55]Bellydancer / Kurina[/card]
revival,this is the power of this card,this card doesn't weight on your SP when it dies and as such makes for an important first play,otherwise she just end up weakening or finishing weakened enemy and give a boost that sometimes matter
SS - single target buff sucks
4/5
[card=56]Panther Soul[/card]
i gave a pretty high number to panther soul back in the day... while it's true that by using it on a unit such as brave soldier (the card also got tons of other pal but brave soldier is still one of the more popular one) you are getting a very high performance unit for very cheap,it's also true that if that unit bites the dust you wasted a turn where you could have brought another unit and quite a lot of SP... as such this card is more often a make or break card (most of the time it works as a make)
4/5
[card=57]Fire Tornado[/card]
costly but potentialy game winning,sometimes you might want to play this with a rank of 6 (so you end up doing 30 damage per hit) sometimes it **** you up badly by hitting the same weaksauce creature 4 times in a row and sometimes it clear the entire opponent field and win you the game,this also ignore the defense making it one of the few gowen card that can jump the killing machine wall
3/5 too random for a 4/5
[card=58]Magic Sword Dual-Wielder[/card]
while gowen got tons of other good level 3 unit and as such she's not a pre-requisite anymore,she's fast,tough,and swing the game on your favor by giving hefty debuff
4/5
[card=59]Brave Soldier[/card]
without rank up this card is junk,when ranked up he can be quite valuable but to rank up you need to be LV 9 in gowen which is a pretty hard task... there are 2 ways to use this guy 1) you pack some panther soul/the gowen angel in your deck (which you should if you can) and force his rank up 2) you play this in a deck with dragons and appetizer for the big event together with knight apprentice and unwilling hero
with the extra +10 AT and +1 Agi given by panther soul he's completly awesome,when normaly ranked up he puts up quite a fight but just doesn't have the same spark,he can also use slash which is an awesome skill
5/5 when combined with panther soul 3/5 without
[card=60]Archer Scout[/card]
well the day of big creature have come but archer scout has missed the bus thanks to high growth... by all mean if you need even more SP play her but what you get with high growth is usualy good enough,heck she's not even that bad as a fighter compared to the other SP generator
SS - this will usualy do enough damage to even blow up a LeBeau'd unit,i love these kind of skill
3/5
[card=61]Revolver Knight[/card]
not as big & dumb as the giant but still around the same realm,you play him he gets attacked 2 times and die before being able to go *BANG BANG* i guess you could play around the fact that you only pay 20 HP when using the skill before he ranks up and when he ranks up he gets back to 40 which is enough to survive an attack but generaly not worth enough the spot in your card file,the fact that he also got a range of 3 in his case hurts as it means you aren't going to target the big guy you want to charge
on the other side this lets you throw some fodder unit in front of him and not worry about the fact that he won't be able to do his job
2/5
[card=62]Efreet[/card]
would you rather have this guy with his expansive skill or play earth and fire dragon which not only have better stat but also comes with skills for free? on set 1 i tought this card would make a splash when more SP generator would come around so it's kinda sad to see like archer scout this guy also missed the bus
SS - same as the archer scout
2/5
[card=63]Fire Storm Wyvern[/card]
well as far as stats go this has the same stat of the revolver knight so his open skill is what seal the deal and make it worth the extra level,you play him and *BAM* one of the guy on the other side explode,sadly the target is random so the chance of hitting the tough tank instead of the small fast hard hitting unit are the same,the damage ignores the defense and when he hits the right target it helps a lot and even when you don't get the right target it's still a unit less/a tank softened on the other side,oh also being lv 4 means he won't be able to get bounced by a return which makes him even better against falkow
SS - it's rare to see this kill something but you can combine with counter card to trigger a counter at the start of the turn
3/5
[card=64]Charge[/card]
this one is bad
1) it relies on what your opponent does? he's playing big? dead card! 2) sure it can give you a bigger boost than magic weapon if the opponent has at least 3 monster but do you really need an AT number that goes between 50 and 80? to get at least a 50 AT boost yoo would need an opposition of 5 and if you are facing 5 unit,you don't need a big attacker! you need splash damage! 3) ignition does it better because of reason 1 and because having a big creature on your side of the field is not an hard task at all
1/5
[card=65]Blitz Soldier[/card]
while not as popular as he was in set 1 this guy is still a force to be reckoned... his stats are basicaly the one of a lv 3 unit but being a lv 2 you can play him on the first (or second turn when opening with someone like kurina) this guy can give you the upper hand in a small vs small fight but don't expect too much from him when fighting bigger deck
4/5
[card=66]Bear-Killing Axeman[/card]
bad bad bad bad this guy is so bad no amount of smile could indicate how bad is it,what really brings him down it's his agi of 1,that's right 1 do you know how many other frontline fighter have an agi of 1? zugateroza (who can consistely reviving) animated dead (which is also another meh card but at least he's a lv 1) and sea hunter (who can takes a lot more hits and comes in the falkow slyphy/undine sets) that's it... every other AGI 1 card does either have some range,enough HP to takes more than 2 hits or some amazing skill
1/5
[card=67]Combat Monk[/card]
ah this is more like it,right now together with haste soldier this is the only card who can reach 5 agi without the help of any other cards,unlike haste soldier this guy can packs quite a punch you see he has 20 AT when ranked up but actualy his skill will randomly add up to 30 AT for no cost which means this guy can do 20-50 randomly,yup that's good enough to kill a tank! nothing feels better than watching this guy tearing apart a crest regenerator or a eagle soldier in a single hit! even without the rank up he's still a respectable unit,not being able to reach the 50 wall (and you are risking more since you need at least a +20 compared to a +10 for jumping the 30 one) hurts him a little but he still puts up a nice fight even without it in fact with a agi of 4 he will still act before a lot of enemy units and there is even a chance that he might gets a boost from kurina
SS - one of your unit dies then *BAM* one row receives 30 damage,this is the reason you should try to not put all your guys on the same row
4/5
[card=68]Lightning Archer[/card]
most of the gowen unit are lacking in any sort of range and if you swarm the front row with 30 HP unit you are asking to get killed by SS,that's where this guy comes in... as the ranged fighter of gowen,that's about it
his skill let him pick a target and clears a column but you don't want to attack entire column too often (mostly when the opposite side gets swarmed)
if you can get your hands on blitz soldier there is not a reason to play this guy instead
2/5
[card=69]Exploding Spores[/card]
like salamander these guys are made for picking the small guys on the other side or giving the final blow to the bigger ones who survived,unlike salamander this thing is slow (you get salamander effect when you play it but you have to wait for the spores to hit the table) and to get it's effect it has to dies (in fact one of his skill let it suicide) meaning that when you play this you can already expect one of your LP going down the drain,though since you want them dead they make for an awesome meat shield... their skill is also dependant on their max HP meaning that using will'o wisp or black cat fellana SS (yes i know it was another guy idea but i don't remember his name
) will boost their power,you could also go with "hit all" SS like the wyvern and the salamander to increase their effect but personaly i never see someone try going to this route,being lv 1 they are also easy to splash (refess deck also tend to leave a lot of unit with less than 10 HP remaining)BONUS - together with mad priest the only card with the "unknown" subtype
SS - you blow up a random enemy and all your units get a little better,refess deck will probably love this SS
2/5 they aren't bad but they aren't exactly what i would call a good card
[card=70]Dryad[/card]
you play this to get the boost and then you have a body to dispose (hint assasin SS) because man if she isn't bad in combat,that 10 in DF only serves so that she doesn't get picked by equaly bad unit like shade or other dryad and with 10 AT she's almost never going to kill anything,the open skill is really usefull tough as it will let you make a unit survives at lan extra round or better yet it can be used to boost the DF of already tough unit (sadly for gowen only deck that means steel only :/) as i said she makes a good pair with kurina since she can make kurina survives the round and then kurina boost her attack to a still low but not laughable 20 but she can also being splashed in other deck who features tough creature (like falkow and sea hunter)
SS - it's a decent boost but personaly i don't like it
4/5 i was tempted to go for 3/5 but it can be very effective when used rightly
[card=71]Salamander[/card]
the offensive counter part to dryad,you can expect to see this when there is a unit on the opposite side who has 10 HP remaining this makes a fun little game on mirror match because the same salamander has 10 HP so usualy the opponent will play a salamander to kill your salamander and then you will play another salamander to kill the opponent salamander (etc... i call this the salamander dance) unlike other great spirits he features the standard 30 AT so he actualy quite decent in combat (although his 1 AGI brings him down) he's also one of the few gowen unit with range,refess deck can also splash this and get their own unit hit so they can trigger their counter skill
SS - like the wyvern but only applies to lv 3 and down unit... meh
3/5
[card=72]Berserker[/card]
high agi,low hp and low at... the skill should help you against tougher enemies but by the time he hits the field he either gets burned/bounced/flesh recycled making him a waste :/
SS - i have tried using these instead but the delay and the fact that a random row most of the time means "the wrong one with the crappy great spirit" don't make it a big deal
[card=73]Magic Weapon[/card]
this will let you make the jump from 30 to 50 which will let you kill the usual slew of tanks,it's a nice card to play when you only find yourself with 1 SP only but it's not really necessary,most gowen player slap it on the monk since he's so fast but i disagree since the monk is frail the boost goes away quickly... i would play this on something more durable... as usual refess card needs all the AT+ they can get so this could make the splash
[card=74]Fire Arrow[/card]
the last card phew... well you play this and one of their bigger guys is out for the turn,or it let you kill the last copy of a card they have on the field when they have 1 LP before the combat phase start,or it shuts down the nasty character who keep kicking your **** like vordore or eskatia,in short you should always have 2 copy of these in any gowen deck you make
4/5
