Post by thehunter on Jan 19, 2007 12:02:19 GMT -5
Persona Profile: Amanda
by the Hunter
During your May do/Must do Phase, you may discard up to three attacks from your hand to randomly discard the same number of cards from your opponent's hand.
6 9 2 2 6 6
Overview
For the inaugural Persona profile, we come to Amanda, arguably the immortal that caused the most debates in 1st ed over her power, sexism, etc. Much like the character herself, the persona was never pegged down by some people.
Her appearance in 2nd ed. in my opinion gives that game not only a new life but strong outlook in terms of saying "this is not 1st ed part two, get over it".
Now that that is out of the way down to brass taxes, rules first, simply during her may do/must do phase, Amanda can discard three attacks to randomly force the discard of three of your opponents cards from his hand.
The reason for this discard is not necessary, for example if Amanda is forced to discard all her attacks on her must do phase three of those attacks can be used to grind at her opponents hand. Secondly, Amanda can use *up* to three attacks, meaning that Amanda can discard one or two for the same number from her opponent.
In effect, Amanda is all about disrupting her opponents well laid plans. Expect to see your cool ally's, Master Headshot, leg sweep combos, etc all or in part in your discard if Amanda is lucky which is her problem (see how to defeat below).
Amanda's gem count of course supports her agility, and ironically limits her basic attacks options, only one attack is agility based (thrust) and 4 attacks are in her weakest areas, strength and toughness.
Persona Specific Cards
Amanda in terms of Specific cards is supported by many agility-based dodges. Counter Jump and Counter Jump are 6 grid dodges that allow you to have a hidden attack this turn, Interestingly more important since dodges are more rare/ expensive and there are less ways of making hidden attacks visible (Duncan, Connor, Alertness:hidden).
Amanda also has Evade: Escape a 9 grid dodge with the loss of an attack as a drawback.
Extra shot is in my opinion an interesting card in that is supports Amanda's discard theme but gives the choice to her opponent and Amanda may not have the attacks in her hand to make it truly effective until late game.
Pickpocket is a MC special attack that cannot be blocked and does 0 damage. If successful it again allows you to look at your opponents hand and discard one card there. If that card is an object, you may put it into play under your control. again interesting in that it supports Amanda disruption theme and allows her to access cards that she may lack, as many object are so far toughness based.
Trip is a standard standing defense remover, which is in itself more important with the plethora of standing defenses that are not guards in 2nd ed. It gives Amanda the old "flashing blade" quality which may or may not help her depending on that state of her offense.
Amanda's restricted cards give her quite a punch.
Charm, an Empathy based event can cause a great deal of trouble my forcing her opponent prone for one turn if he didn't attack, ( a real possibility if Amanda stole all of his attacks last turn). It is an annoyance on its own but with Amanda's Card grinding ability is it a way of slowing down your opponent if she is not pulling out her opponents critical cards.
Distract an Empathy based 9 grid dodge is essential to any Amanda deck in that free up room from her agility based effects and allows offense at the same time.
Master Thief Amanda's first master card is a devastating counter punch to Personas that may have multiple plots of attacks in a relatively slim deck. It works very well against Xavier since he is somewhat immune to Amanda's disruption by trading one like named plot for one in his discard. Master Thief takes them all away.
Seduce is that same as 1st ed with cleaned up text and a new restriction is always the key to Amanda winning.
Steal again by allowing Amanda to look and discard one card allows Amanda more control in terms of what is being disrupted and is a good insurance card to make sure that Amanda is taking out what needs to be taken out.
Signature Cards:
Lady and the Tiger is critical to Amanda in that it give her the chance to create meaningful offence while grinding away.
Master's Dodge is a bit expensive for my tastes especially since Circus is more efficient but still it finds its way into my deck.
St. Anne's Broadsword is Amanda's favored Weapon hilt for a Single handed broadsword, If you are going the "old school" Amanda route than include it.
Weapons of Choice:
Amanda's choices in WOC's is limited at this point, The Kris is too Strength oriented to be of use to her and katana is too toughness oriented. Gem migration may change this a bit but until then Raiper and the Single handed broad sword are the ones to go with.
Rapier gives more attacks that Amanda can use to her advantage. but again three attacks for grinding and two more (maybe three) to attack may not play to her advantage, though she will have more non standard attacks to mount an offense.
Singe Handed Broad Sword gives Amanda her old weakness back but plays to an attack in spurts situation that Amanda seems to shine in. Just Include one or more Master of the Broadsword to help out and tailor your deck accordingly (less dodges more blocks etc).
Generic Cards
Amanda's Generics that this point are pretty standard, She should mostly concentrate on Alertness: Dodge, the generic Master's Dodge,( again its expensive), a shove or two if she is not using trip and so on. Be sure to inculde both Police and Investigation because if an opponent gets his cards down Amanda has no other way of dealing with it.
Other than that, Amanda mostly is about her own specials rather than the standard generics.
Location
Amanda shines in the Circus, it allows her to recycle her dodges and plays to her strength for a soft exertion. It also allows her to play her hidden attacks via jump and duck. Irish Pub is another one in that if forced to make an exertion for a weak gem she could always play to her strength.
How to Win
Amanda must Disrupt her opponent's plans to win. Decks that use long involved combinations will have huge problems getting them off if Amanda is on her game. This should be supplemented by master's Thief and Steal, possibly Pummel Blow. All of this disruption of course means Amanda will suffer on offense, meaning when you attack make it count.
Amanda is at her worst when hacking away like a crazy banshee, she doesn't have the cards to support her in a knockout dragout with the heavy swordsman in 2nd ed. Every attack that Amanda makes should be supplemented with Jump, Duck, Seduce, or charm. make their lives difficult in the meantime with her ability, pickpocket, steal, Master thief et al.
How to defeat
Simply put get it down quick! Amanda relys on luck of the draw mostly to destroy your combos but if you give her the chance eventually the odds are in her favor. Don't wait until you have all three plots in your hand to get them down, throw them down quick, Amanda has only limited options when the cards are in play so keep them there, another option is to limit your combos to only a few key ones and hope for the best. If Amanda is grinding out filler because thet is the majority of your deck then you should be ok. Include Alertness block and dodge for her Seduce and take the fight to her. Dojo is another option in that it will give some limited protection to your important cards she can still police it but the its out of the way at least. Also focus of relatively easy cards that are not specific to any one combo, Extra shots, Combinations, Trips all work well.
Overall
Amanda is the Queen of disruption but her overall reliance on the luck of the draw and her inability to generate offense limit her a bit. Still she is very hard to combat overall i give her a 7.
Decks
Hand Killer
by the Hunter
During your May do/Must do Phase, you may discard up to three attacks from your hand to randomly discard the same number of cards from your opponent's hand.
6 9 2 2 6 6
Overview
For the inaugural Persona profile, we come to Amanda, arguably the immortal that caused the most debates in 1st ed over her power, sexism, etc. Much like the character herself, the persona was never pegged down by some people.
Her appearance in 2nd ed. in my opinion gives that game not only a new life but strong outlook in terms of saying "this is not 1st ed part two, get over it".
Now that that is out of the way down to brass taxes, rules first, simply during her may do/must do phase, Amanda can discard three attacks to randomly force the discard of three of your opponents cards from his hand.
The reason for this discard is not necessary, for example if Amanda is forced to discard all her attacks on her must do phase three of those attacks can be used to grind at her opponents hand. Secondly, Amanda can use *up* to three attacks, meaning that Amanda can discard one or two for the same number from her opponent.
In effect, Amanda is all about disrupting her opponents well laid plans. Expect to see your cool ally's, Master Headshot, leg sweep combos, etc all or in part in your discard if Amanda is lucky which is her problem (see how to defeat below).
Amanda's gem count of course supports her agility, and ironically limits her basic attacks options, only one attack is agility based (thrust) and 4 attacks are in her weakest areas, strength and toughness.
Persona Specific Cards
Amanda in terms of Specific cards is supported by many agility-based dodges. Counter Jump and Counter Jump are 6 grid dodges that allow you to have a hidden attack this turn, Interestingly more important since dodges are more rare/ expensive and there are less ways of making hidden attacks visible (Duncan, Connor, Alertness:hidden).
Amanda also has Evade: Escape a 9 grid dodge with the loss of an attack as a drawback.
Extra shot is in my opinion an interesting card in that is supports Amanda's discard theme but gives the choice to her opponent and Amanda may not have the attacks in her hand to make it truly effective until late game.
Pickpocket is a MC special attack that cannot be blocked and does 0 damage. If successful it again allows you to look at your opponents hand and discard one card there. If that card is an object, you may put it into play under your control. again interesting in that it supports Amanda disruption theme and allows her to access cards that she may lack, as many object are so far toughness based.
Trip is a standard standing defense remover, which is in itself more important with the plethora of standing defenses that are not guards in 2nd ed. It gives Amanda the old "flashing blade" quality which may or may not help her depending on that state of her offense.
Amanda's restricted cards give her quite a punch.
Charm, an Empathy based event can cause a great deal of trouble my forcing her opponent prone for one turn if he didn't attack, ( a real possibility if Amanda stole all of his attacks last turn). It is an annoyance on its own but with Amanda's Card grinding ability is it a way of slowing down your opponent if she is not pulling out her opponents critical cards.
Distract an Empathy based 9 grid dodge is essential to any Amanda deck in that free up room from her agility based effects and allows offense at the same time.
Master Thief Amanda's first master card is a devastating counter punch to Personas that may have multiple plots of attacks in a relatively slim deck. It works very well against Xavier since he is somewhat immune to Amanda's disruption by trading one like named plot for one in his discard. Master Thief takes them all away.
Seduce is that same as 1st ed with cleaned up text and a new restriction is always the key to Amanda winning.
Steal again by allowing Amanda to look and discard one card allows Amanda more control in terms of what is being disrupted and is a good insurance card to make sure that Amanda is taking out what needs to be taken out.
Signature Cards:
Lady and the Tiger is critical to Amanda in that it give her the chance to create meaningful offence while grinding away.
Master's Dodge is a bit expensive for my tastes especially since Circus is more efficient but still it finds its way into my deck.
St. Anne's Broadsword is Amanda's favored Weapon hilt for a Single handed broadsword, If you are going the "old school" Amanda route than include it.
Weapons of Choice:
Amanda's choices in WOC's is limited at this point, The Kris is too Strength oriented to be of use to her and katana is too toughness oriented. Gem migration may change this a bit but until then Raiper and the Single handed broad sword are the ones to go with.
Rapier gives more attacks that Amanda can use to her advantage. but again three attacks for grinding and two more (maybe three) to attack may not play to her advantage, though she will have more non standard attacks to mount an offense.
Singe Handed Broad Sword gives Amanda her old weakness back but plays to an attack in spurts situation that Amanda seems to shine in. Just Include one or more Master of the Broadsword to help out and tailor your deck accordingly (less dodges more blocks etc).
Generic Cards
Amanda's Generics that this point are pretty standard, She should mostly concentrate on Alertness: Dodge, the generic Master's Dodge,( again its expensive), a shove or two if she is not using trip and so on. Be sure to inculde both Police and Investigation because if an opponent gets his cards down Amanda has no other way of dealing with it.
Other than that, Amanda mostly is about her own specials rather than the standard generics.
Location
Amanda shines in the Circus, it allows her to recycle her dodges and plays to her strength for a soft exertion. It also allows her to play her hidden attacks via jump and duck. Irish Pub is another one in that if forced to make an exertion for a weak gem she could always play to her strength.
How to Win
Amanda must Disrupt her opponent's plans to win. Decks that use long involved combinations will have huge problems getting them off if Amanda is on her game. This should be supplemented by master's Thief and Steal, possibly Pummel Blow. All of this disruption of course means Amanda will suffer on offense, meaning when you attack make it count.
Amanda is at her worst when hacking away like a crazy banshee, she doesn't have the cards to support her in a knockout dragout with the heavy swordsman in 2nd ed. Every attack that Amanda makes should be supplemented with Jump, Duck, Seduce, or charm. make their lives difficult in the meantime with her ability, pickpocket, steal, Master thief et al.
How to defeat
Simply put get it down quick! Amanda relys on luck of the draw mostly to destroy your combos but if you give her the chance eventually the odds are in her favor. Don't wait until you have all three plots in your hand to get them down, throw them down quick, Amanda has only limited options when the cards are in play so keep them there, another option is to limit your combos to only a few key ones and hope for the best. If Amanda is grinding out filler because thet is the majority of your deck then you should be ok. Include Alertness block and dodge for her Seduce and take the fight to her. Dojo is another option in that it will give some limited protection to your important cards she can still police it but the its out of the way at least. Also focus of relatively easy cards that are not specific to any one combo, Extra shots, Combinations, Trips all work well.
Overall
Amanda is the Queen of disruption but her overall reliance on the luck of the draw and her inability to generate offense limit her a bit. Still she is very hard to combat overall i give her a 7.
Decks
Hand Killer