Card of the Week 9/08

[Logress]

Rapidly Flying Apprentice

As I was sitting around thinking about which Dragon to do a Card of the Week on first, I realized that my favorite File of the moment was my only Falkow Card File that doesn’t have Dragons in it. I’m talking about my Azure Beastmaster File, but of course the man himself is not exactly exciting enough for an entire article. The one card in that File that does deserve some space is one of the most unique cards in the game: [card=275]Rapidly Flying Apprentice[/card].

Level 1 means SP isn’t an issue when bringing her out, although being a late game card it’s more a matter of having a turn free where you don’t need to bring out a monster or use an Open Skill. Her 10 hit points hurts, especially with the popularity of Exploding Spores. Protecting her is a big pain, and if you’re spending one SP on her Action Skill and one SP Reviving her every turn, she can get expensive fast. AGI 3 is fair, and once you use her Action Skill once her exact place in the turn order becomes less important. You use your skill, he moves, repeat. As long as your alternating, it’s fine. The only issue might be using her power on another AGI 3 unit, because a tie could result in him getting two moves in a row.

Let’s talk about her Action Skill in detail. For 1 SP Confusion Spell switches the enemy’s front and rear rows. His archers and support characters are now up against your front row, and his RNG 1 front line fighters are now in back, where they can’t do anything. It sounds like all fun and games for you, but actually it requires quite a bit of finesse to pull off correctly. For example, clobbering his archers sounds fun, but if you kill them all before his heavy hitters in the back get to go, then you might accidentally clear the way for them to pound on you. Also, he might be able to move one of his guys in the front out of the way, allowing his former front line to attack. When using Rapidly Flying Apprentice you have to take a very careful stock of the field, who could move where and when.

If the enemy plays lean, with three or less units on the field, then he can just move them all into one row to gain immunity to your ability. You should be ready with a row-clearing effect, maybe hidden in your Soul Cards. Also, speaking of combos, the Apprentice is an awesome combo with Falkow Favorite Vordore.

Very few people know this, but Vordore has TWO Skills. No really, Azure Dragon’s Tactic isn’t the only thing he can do. Read the card again, trust me. Strategist’ Plan sets RNG=0 for a target unit in the back row, and it’s an Auto Skill. Normally, cards in the back row are just there making SP or staying alive until they need to be sacrificed, but with the Apprentice you can actually move a useful enemy into the back row and then debuff their range! This is great, because a lot of front line cards can still be used from the back row, like Gowen favorite Blitz Soldier, or Magic Scythe Soldier, or Deep Squid. Also, this makes the Apprentice useful even if the enemy only has one row, just so long as it’s the front row.

Rapidly Flying Apprentice’s Soul Skill is another unique one, and another winner. Returning disengaged units means it works well for a send to cemetery trigger, or if you’re lucky and the opponent’s big gun hasn’t gone yet when he Iczer attacks you. Of course, it only works on level 5 and over, but if you find yourself facing a lot of Dragon Card Files or Rougeerst Soul Skills, it might be worth it. Losing 7 SP worth of dragon can be especially crippling to any Sphere.

So don’t let the Moe get to you and give her a test flight. She’ll definitely give you some flexibility, and that’s something that can help any Falkow file. Also, let’s not forget that at 1 SP she’s well within the reach of any Sphere.

[jasta85]

yea i noticed this a while back, very fun card to use, and if you can actually get it to work it's very effective, was able to delay a person long enough once to get my army back in order after taking a pounding from him. however other people seem to already know about the power of this little card so it usually gets hit by a salamander, spore cloud, flesh recycler or something that does damage the moment it shows itself.

[DanTheTimid]

This uuber cute little witch is truly amazing. Ignoring all else consider this, for 1 sp she performs the same effect as a 1LP soul card (Griffin). Previously if units had soul card type action abilities, the units themselves were relatively high level, had special activation requirements, and even then often the ability cost atleast 2sp. At level 1 and 1sp, she's doing something extremely powerful for almost no cost, thats hard to argue with. And she's even decently fast at 3AGI as well!

The only real negative I can say about her is that she's begging to be Salamander'd, but not every deck has those and even then, you've distracted their flaming lizards from your high level targets so fro 1sp she was still pretty dang useful.

[jasta85]

my biggest advice with this card is to only play it when you have 3 of them, i tried using it when i only had 2 and they tended to die before they could do anything (made my opponent waste a bunch of spells which is nice but not being able to use a really cool card is a little frustrating). but now i got 3 and i'll definitly be using them in upcoming games.

i suggest bringing her out in the middle of the game as in the beginning she may not be as useful if you opponent (such as gowen) is bringing out his starting creatures in the first row because even if you switch them they will still be able to attack. however once he starts filling up other rows feel free to go wild.

[Essence]

Turned the tide against my Gowen deck. Then when I played a Lawtia all night it turned it around for me. I like it great choice.

[slashzero]

I've used her myself quite a bit, and I've noticed a few things about Rapidly Flying Apprentice.

One: She is a highly situation card. Generally, as Logress outlined, you opponent has to have more than just a couple units on the field, enough of them have to have the right range values so flipping the field is effective, and then what order the units go in makes a difference as well.

Two: She's also, as others mentioned, easy to kill off. So easy, in fact, that if your opponent feels threatened enough by her they can use just about anything to off her quickly.

Three: She's more or less useless when you don't need her ability unless you have Azure on the field. The most she could do is absorb a ranged attack that you don't want hitting some other unit.

Four: For only 1 more sp I could have Wizard Archer of Regus out on the field, and believe me your opponent almost ALWAYS feels threatened by her unless your front line somehow vanished. She's a better choice in most cases to draw fire from Salamanders/etc since the consequences of leaving Wizard Archer alive are usually graver than having fields flipped over.

Five: Or, on the other hand, there's Enchanter, who not only has double the HP but also 1 more agi, plus her support skills don't cost sp. Enchanter makes a much more versatile and durable support unit for a level 1 card.

Once I took into consideration all of these observations about this card I couldn't really justify keeping 3 of her in my card file any longer. She's definitely useful, just not useful enough for my purposes.

[Csquared]

I think some very valid points were made. However, one thing to also consider is that while as Slashzero says, some can't justify having three of the RFW in their card files, having just one might be a devastating option. If your opponent sees the threat right away and goes gunning for her, she's a perfect candidate to set off a soul skill. And if you can get a confusion spell off before it happens, so much the better. I have used to her to good effect this way, and in most cases, it doesn't even matter if I use her action skill or not!


CSquared