Shattered Alliances comes out this Friday and I have not been more excited for a set in a long time. The whole set was revealed on Kaijudo.com last week so everyone has had to time to look through and plan what decks they want to build for the next KMC season as well as the beginning of the ARG Circuit Series. There are 90 cards in the set which will all add a huge shift in the metagame right now. I looked through the whole set and took 5 of my favorite cards from the set. None of them are Super Rare because those are meant to be good and we all know that. I went through and looked at the commons and rares and very rares and found cards that really stood out to me and I expect to see a lot of competitive play.
Blade Barrier
I could not believe what I read when I saw this card. They turned Lyra, the Blazing Sun, into a 3 cost spell, just like they did with Mesmerize and Razorkinder Puppet. Some people are saying Lyra is still better but what makes Lyra good? 
Is it the 6 for 6000 double breaking body or the Solar Flare ability? I think most people will agree with me when I say it’s the ability. The fact that you can just freeze a creature in its tracks on turn 3 or even in late game will make a huge difference for aggro and control decks. The deck I see this being used in the most is a mono-light or light/another civilization rush deck. The only defense some decks have against rush is throwing down weenie blockers and this card makes those irrelevant. It gives rush decks two turns to not worry about a blocker which is huge for those decks.
A good control card this works with is Twilight Archon. You can cast it tap a creature, banish another tapped creature and save the one you targeted for next turn. You can do crazy combos with King Tritonus as well. Tap a creature, and constrict another with his ability. Bold Barrier is very versatile and a fun card.
Curse-Eye Black Feather
I was so happy the first time I read this card. When using control it is so 
hard not to use water because maintaining hand advantage is very important in a control deck. Using this card will finally let people build control decks without water and still keep up with those that do. Curse-Eye lets you reap the benefits of your opponents down falls. It turns every discard card into a plus 1, or even more depending on what card you use. The best card from Shattered Alliances to use with this is Maddening Whispers. If you play that while having Curse-Eye out, your opponent discards 2 cards and you draw 2 cards, netting you a +3 in total. There was also a lot of new discard cards in the set you can use that would work well. Squillace Scourge is probably the most devastating card to use with Curse-Eye. Your opponent discards all cards in their hand and then you draw however many cards they discarded. If you play Tritonus and your opponent has Curse-Eye out, you might want to watch out on how many cards you draw.
Serpens, the Spirit Shifter
This is the Very Rare from the Solar Eclipse starter deck which also comes out on Friday. Normally cards from starter decks are not that great but lately they have been pretty playable. When I first read this card, I thought it was alright and might be too slow to actually see play at all. Then I saw it was a dragon and that changed everything. The fact that it’s a dragon makes it to where you can use this with all the fire birds like Nix and Lux. If you have this out with Lux, whenever they 
try to banish one of your dragons you can just banish Lux instead and gain a shield. Serpens will be really good against aggro decks. If they are trying to just break all your shields you can play this then crash whatever creatures you have in the battle zone into theirs and gain shields that way.
Another way this will see play is against Kalima decks. This is a direct counter to cards like Queen Kalima, Gergoria’s Fortess, and Ripper Reaper. If they play any of those cards, you get to choose the creature, so just choose another creature and you get to gain a shield while doing so. This card has a lot of potential and look forward to see how it will be used.
Oktuska the Infused
Out of all the battle mages in Shattered Alliances, this is by far my favorite. Right now we do not have many ramp cards for turn 6 other than Tatsurion the Champion, which can only really be used in aggro decks. This is probably the best mana ramp card next to Reap and Sow, in some cases this is better than Reap and Sow. The issue with mana ramp is that normally you are losing field and hand advantage by doing it but this guy keeps your count on both. It not only replaces himself, but gives you extra mana while doing so. It is like a Bronze-Arm Tribe on steroids. The best way to get the most bang for your buck is using him with Kurragar of the Hordes. This is the exact card Nature needed in order to stay viable. Before Shattered the Nature 
civilization was pushed off to the side but with the help of new Nature/Water and Nature/Darkness cards it will play a very important role in future decks.
Sunstrike
In my opinion, Sunstrike is the best shield blast in all of Shattered Alliances. It is an upgraded version of Tornado Flame and well worth is 1 cost more to play. In Clash they made shield blasts like Grip of Despair which was an upgraded version of Veil Vortex that also cost 1 more mana to play. This card gives you the option to banish a smaller creature if you need to or stop a big creature in its tracks for the next turn. I think Blade Barrier on its own is good but this is a fusion of Tornado Flame and Blade Barrier turned into a shield blast. The fact that it is a shield blast is what makes it so playable. If it was just a regular spell it probably would not see that much play. 
This will be a huge factor to worry about before swinging at shields, just like Piercing Judgment became after the release of Clash.
This is just a look at 5 cards from this amazing set. Shattered Alliance is defiantly going to shatter everything we have known about Kaijudo and the way we play. The release of this set pretty much hit a reset button on the game and opens everything up again to new possibilities. Be sure to attend your local Set Premiere’s this weekend and if you want to order a box of Shattered Alliances from Alterealitygames.com you can use the code “kaijudo” and get $5 off a box and that is good from now until 9/20/13.
See you on the other side of the veil!
Bobby Brake
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