Battle Spirits - Yellow Gains a New Trick: The Blessed Sanctuary
Cameron McKayForum Administrator
The spoilers have shown Yellow in many forms thus far. Yellow has showcased aspects of control, spell abuse, and exhaust abilities, and now we can now add core acceleration to that list. Core acceleration refers to cards that are able to add cores to your reserve and play field. A couple examples of these types of cards are Stagrove, Killikabut, and Gather Forces. Green currently holds the vast majority of core acceleration cards from our current card pool. With the addition of this spoiler, we may see a glimpse of that spotlight shared with Yellow. The Blessed Sanctuary offers Yellow a draw and core acceleration engine. However, its playability depends a lot on whether mono Yellow is a viable deck or not. The prospect of running this type of deck is very tempting after viewing The BlossomChild Lip. We haven't seen a lot of Yellow spirits, but I can only assume that we will see more effects that specifically target Yellow cards. If that is the case, this card definitely has a future in a mono Yellow deck in Set 2. Now that we've established that this card has a plausible future, lets dig right into why the future of this card is as good as it seems.
With the addition of The Blessed Sanctuary, it is quite clear that there is enough draw and core support for a mono Yellow deck. In fact, this card was created to be played in a deck that contains a majority of Yellow spirits. It's unfortunate that we haven't seen a lot of Yellow spirits up to this point, but I can safely confirm that most of the spirits in that color are not very strong. With that in mind, it becomes painfully obvious that a lot of our Yellow spirits are going to succumb to the strength of other colors in battle. However, we do not need to fret as we will be rewarded with a free core every time one of our spirits are destroyed. I sure wouldn't mind having my Yellow spirits take some hits if it means I will be getting free cores. If you are savvy, I'm sure you realized that after you've gained an extra 3 cores, you will be able to level up The Blessed Sanctuary; gaining its level 2 ability. This is no laughing matter (at least not for your opponent) as you now gain the possibility of drawing 1 card and gaining 1 core every time a Yellow spirit is destroyed. That's essentially what The Fruit of Life does for a Green deck except that The Blessed Sanctuary's effect is much easier to pull off, doesn't solely depend on your opponent, and its use isn't limited. With The Fruit of Life, you are constantly relying on your opponent to hit your life in order to draw more cards and you are only able to use the effect as many times as you have life. Ultimately, your use of The Fruit of Life is very limited while The Blessed Sanctuary is not. The only limitation on The Blessed Sanctuary is that a Yellow spirit you control must be destroyed to gain its effect. This really isn't a big deal if you are running a deck with a majority of Yellow spirits. Which you will undoubtedly be doing if you are planning on playing this card.
The potential for combos with this card are numerous. Any card that destroys spirits can be put to good use. If you combine Yellow with Red, you can make use of Flame Tempest and Flame Dance. It is advantageous for you to use Flame Tempest to destroy all the weenies on both fields while The Blessed Sanctuary is in play. This will basically act as a souped up Leon Dragon Howl. For every Yellow spirit that you destroyed through Flame Tempest, you will gain 1 core and you will draw 1 card (assuming your nexus is at level 2). After that, it should be fairly easy to play down several spirits to either attack for the win or place a lot of pressure on your opponent. If you decided to combine Yellow with Purple, then you would have access to Deadly Balance. Under normal conditions, Deadly Balance will net you a -1 since you are forced to play a card and sacrifice one of your spirits. However, if you combo the use of Deadly Balance with The Blessed Sanctuary, you can net yourself a 0 or even a +1 (depending on how many times you perform the combo). You play down Deadly Balance, destroy a Yellow spirit, The Blessed Sanctuary activates allowing you to draw 1 card and gain 1 core, and your opponent will be forced to destroy 1 spirit. Through this exchange, you are losing two cards (Deadly Balance and 1 Yellow spirit) but you are gaining an advantage of 2 (drawing 1 card and destroying 1 spirit). Through simple math, we can see that losing 2 cards and gaining an advantage of 2, nets an overall advantage of 0 (2 - 2 = 0). You can apply advantage to any exchange of cards. Give it a shot and see if you can come up with some more combos with The Blessed Sanctuary that net an advantage of 0 or higher. On the other end of the spectrum, your opponent will think twice about destroying your Yellow spirits when you are netting an advantage through The Blessed Sanctuary. Red decks love to play The Fire LithoGraphica Phoenixious and Leon Dragon Howl to annihilate your weak attackers. However, they will find themselves in a deep hole if they destroy your Yellow spirits while The Blessed Sanctuary is up on the field. In fact, if you perform the advantage calculation on a couple situations, you'll find that your opponent will actually be at a loss by playing their own mass destruction cards against you.
The cost of the Blessed Sanctuary is very low. I'm actually surprised by how cheap the cost is when I look at how amazing the effect is. Usually, expensive cards get the good effects and cheap cards get mediocre abilities. Most nexus have a cost of 4 or more (The Timeless Ice Field is an exception). When compared to other nexus, this card is much cheaper. The Blessed Sanctuary may cost only 1 core less than many other nexus but that is a huge difference. One core can make the difference and it has the potential to sway the advantage of a game. It's one thing for a card to have lower cost than most nexus, but this card also sports a cost reduction of 2. That means that you can put this card out on the field for the cost of 1 core. That shouldn't be too difficult to achieve when you take into account that this card will undoubtedly be run in a deck dominated by Yellow spirits. Therefore, you really shouldn't have a problem creating a situation where at least two Yellow spirits are on your side of the field., making this card very easy to play onto the field. You can easily create a favorable situation to take advantage of the full cost reduction and it is one of the cheapest nexus available right now. Once The Blessed Sanctuary is on the field, you have the option of placing it at level 2. I highly recommend doing this since drawing and gaining cores is never a bad thing. It will cost you 3 cores to place this card at level 2. However, that is fairly standard among nexus cards. Once again, The Timeless Ice Field is the only exception where it costs 2 core to put it at level 2.
The Blessed Sanctuary is undoubtedly a card that will be used in mono Yellow decks. I really wish we had a better grasp of the Yellow spirits that will be available after November 14, 2009. However, I guess you can't have everything. Even though we don't know whether Yellow will be all that useful as a mono deck yet. I think its safe to assume that regardless of whether or not mono Yellow is playable in Set 2, we will see this card be played in future sets. The card has a high cost reduction, low cost, an amazing effect, and it has a reasonable cost to level it up. If you are ambitious, then combining Yellow with other colors to create some favorable situations is very possible. Flame Tempest, Leon Dragon Howl, Phoenixious, and any other destruction card will net you an advantage with this card. I'm sure you can also find some other combos that net you an advantage. No reason for me to spoil them all for you. Overall, this card has a lot of potential in a deck that contains Yellow cards and I can see it becoming a staple for mono Yellow players.• Don't forget to check out the spoiler article for: Blossomchild Lip
• Don't forget to check out the spoiler article for: The DragonBuster Archeorni
Cameron McKay
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About: Cameron's main focus at EoV is writing Battle Spirits TCG articles and managing the EoV forums. He is currently studying Computer Science at the University of Manitoba to attain a Bachelors of Science. He aspires to one day take what he has learned at EoV and create a daily blog that will be read by many internet goers. His interests include Comic Books, Anime, Manga, Battle Spirits Trading Card Game, Sports (specifically Baseball & Curling), Video Games, and Music.
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